What a ride.

There’s really too much to really go over, but this week has seen me reach some of my highest highs and lowest lows. Things have been pretty crazy.

I’m on a train right now to spend the weekend at my “old” home after my first week in the real world, at a real job.

I left off at Monday, right? Tuesday was basically more of that, we went out to a Sushi place for lunch that time. I was considering being brave and opening my taste buds to a new world now that I had basically started a new life (sushi was never something I craved, and I hadn’t eaten any in years.) However, I chickened out and went with some beef teriyaki. Right now I think I need some familiarity to ease into this new life a bit. I can go crazy a bit later when I’m more established.

Wednesday was also similar, but I ate alone. There’s a McDonald’s in South Station five minutes away that I know will become one of my most visited places. I got a salad on Thursday and brought it back (was basically just lettuce and dressing… at least give me some tomatoes! There wasn’t enough dressing, either…)

During all this time I’ve been basically doing two things: setting up my computer for development, and doing community/support training. You may think this is odd, as did I, but I agree with them that it’s important to know the website’s users as much as possible, to assess what they want and complain about (or what they will complain about if we change.) Community training is… an experience, but not a bad one. However, setting up my computer was just… crushing. By Thursday I still hadn’t gotten it to work, while my two other new coworkers had. It was very demoralizing.

If you could have heard my thoughts on the walk home that night… oh man. I was questioning everything: why I had come here, why I thought I could do this job, why I thought it would last, why I thought I could make it on my own. And those thoughts still aren’t completely gone but I know they will in time.

So I came in today, Friday, and sat down and tried everything over from scratch. Something clicked, and it worked! The booger in my life’s nose had finally dislodged. This was pretty much the greatest pick-me-up ever. Now I could really start crack-a-lackin’.

In addition to that, and finally being able to engage coworkers on the task I had been assigned, I finished up community training. Today’s “class” was actually pretty great, we had devolved to talking about old movies, politics, ancient history, and a lot more by the end of it.

I think I’m really going to like it here. The first week was as rough as I had imagined, but I’ve survived. And now I can hit the ground running next week.
-Andrew