![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Today was RIDICULOUSLY long. I feel like every spare moment of it has been full, but it's also all been worth it!
I got my bike back, and I am Very Annoyed to discover that it still bumps. Egregiously. WAY TO KEEP MY BIKE OVERNIGHT AND NOT FIX IT GUYS. Ugh. I actually spun the wheel while I was in the shop and I could tell before I even left that they hadn't fixed it, but I had absolutely no time to stay and complain. I'm starting to wonder if I even care enough to deal with the aggravation of pursuing the issue enough to get it ACTUALLY fixed. I kind of don't, at least not at the moment.
Also, today was my first day at work \o/ and it was pretty effing amazing, actually. I think there is a part of me that is very well suited to food service work, even though admitting to that makes me feel sorta lame. But it's the truth--I really truly enjoy interacting with customers, and being able to smile and say "why yes, I can make you the sandwich you want :)" there is something so fun and fulfilling about it, it makes the time go sooo fast.
If it were a café, and not a deli, I think it would be a dream job. One day, I swear, I will work in a coffee shop. Srsly.
My co-workers, at least my Wednesday night ones, are also really cool; they were all extremely nice to me. There was actually this one boy who went out of his way to start a conversation and we chatted until his shift ended, and apparently we have the same shift on Saturday <3 I'm honestly looking forward to it! There was also another startlingly pretty girl who talked to me a bit--she is from Chicago, which is cool because there aren't so many out-of-state people at the U of A. Not that I've encountered, anyway. So basically--it was far more fun than I'd imagined it would be :) I'm incredibly tired now, but it feels really worthwhile.
I feel like today I had a sort of breakthrough, like an epiphany almost. I was having a little down-time from running around, sitting cross-legged on a bench and eating my lunch-salad under the shade of a wrinkled desert-tree. It was around 100 degrees today, and windy...and the breeze kept trying to lift up the lid to my salad and drag it beyond reach. I lifted my face to it and just felt it blowing, the air moving gently around my arms and neck. It was not just a warm breeze--the air was HOT, ferrying the heat until it spilled all over me. It fundamentally does not feel like autumn here. I do not feel the fall descending, and feel the sickening dread that has always accompanied the inevitable approach of the northern winter. The fall, although perhaps the prettiest of seasons, has always been ruined for me because I cannot see beyond the portents of what is to come.
And then I imagined being at home. I remember walking around the curved brick paths of Centennial Commons, and I can picture in my mind's eye the colorful landscape as leaves turn colors and begin to fall. I can see gray clouds floating lazily above Ruggles station, threatening rain. And most of all I can vaguely remember the chill of the autumn air, the warm fleece jacket a permanent fixture that still doesn't seem entirely sufficient to keep the cold away.
The images fill me with a strange sort of nostalgia, since the cold, the wintry dread, that is all part of home. It is everything that I know. But for the first time, huddled in the shade of the tree to avoid the unforgiving September sun, I realized that I am almost certainly happier here than I would be there. I love home, I love it so much, but right now, I like it here more.
And I realized that despite myself, I have started to grow fond of Arizona. That's a strange realization, since in general I have felt like "well it's kind of meh there, and it's kind of meh here as well". So the affirmation that yes, this is actually an improvement, is huge.
I don't know. I'm really confused. But today was definitely a good day.
I got my bike back, and I am Very Annoyed to discover that it still bumps. Egregiously. WAY TO KEEP MY BIKE OVERNIGHT AND NOT FIX IT GUYS. Ugh. I actually spun the wheel while I was in the shop and I could tell before I even left that they hadn't fixed it, but I had absolutely no time to stay and complain. I'm starting to wonder if I even care enough to deal with the aggravation of pursuing the issue enough to get it ACTUALLY fixed. I kind of don't, at least not at the moment.
Also, today was my first day at work \o/ and it was pretty effing amazing, actually. I think there is a part of me that is very well suited to food service work, even though admitting to that makes me feel sorta lame. But it's the truth--I really truly enjoy interacting with customers, and being able to smile and say "why yes, I can make you the sandwich you want :)" there is something so fun and fulfilling about it, it makes the time go sooo fast.
If it were a café, and not a deli, I think it would be a dream job. One day, I swear, I will work in a coffee shop. Srsly.
My co-workers, at least my Wednesday night ones, are also really cool; they were all extremely nice to me. There was actually this one boy who went out of his way to start a conversation and we chatted until his shift ended, and apparently we have the same shift on Saturday <3 I'm honestly looking forward to it! There was also another startlingly pretty girl who talked to me a bit--she is from Chicago, which is cool because there aren't so many out-of-state people at the U of A. Not that I've encountered, anyway. So basically--it was far more fun than I'd imagined it would be :) I'm incredibly tired now, but it feels really worthwhile.
I feel like today I had a sort of breakthrough, like an epiphany almost. I was having a little down-time from running around, sitting cross-legged on a bench and eating my lunch-salad under the shade of a wrinkled desert-tree. It was around 100 degrees today, and windy...and the breeze kept trying to lift up the lid to my salad and drag it beyond reach. I lifted my face to it and just felt it blowing, the air moving gently around my arms and neck. It was not just a warm breeze--the air was HOT, ferrying the heat until it spilled all over me. It fundamentally does not feel like autumn here. I do not feel the fall descending, and feel the sickening dread that has always accompanied the inevitable approach of the northern winter. The fall, although perhaps the prettiest of seasons, has always been ruined for me because I cannot see beyond the portents of what is to come.
And then I imagined being at home. I remember walking around the curved brick paths of Centennial Commons, and I can picture in my mind's eye the colorful landscape as leaves turn colors and begin to fall. I can see gray clouds floating lazily above Ruggles station, threatening rain. And most of all I can vaguely remember the chill of the autumn air, the warm fleece jacket a permanent fixture that still doesn't seem entirely sufficient to keep the cold away.
The images fill me with a strange sort of nostalgia, since the cold, the wintry dread, that is all part of home. It is everything that I know. But for the first time, huddled in the shade of the tree to avoid the unforgiving September sun, I realized that I am almost certainly happier here than I would be there. I love home, I love it so much, but right now, I like it here more.
And I realized that despite myself, I have started to grow fond of Arizona. That's a strange realization, since in general I have felt like "well it's kind of meh there, and it's kind of meh here as well". So the affirmation that yes, this is actually an improvement, is huge.
I don't know. I'm really confused. But today was definitely a good day.
