Office Verbatim

Officemate M: How was your Christmas break?
Me: It was awesome, saw the family, etc. But you know, it wasn't really Christmas at home...
M: What?
Me: You know how Canadian Thanksgiving is a month before American Thanksgiving? Same deal with Canadian Christmas.
M: Ooohhh...
Me [thinking she got that it was a joke]: Hahaha...right...yeah, I told my teammate that and convinced her that it was because Canadian Jesus was born in November. It was pretty funny, I think she even believed me for a minute.
M: Wait....but Jesus was born in December, so why is Canadian Christmas in November?!? That doesn't make any sense!!!

I fell off my chair laughing. So did she when she realized. Good thing this carpet is soft...

Post-holiday musings

Being random & list-ish today...

• Christmas at home was wonderful & I wish I didn't have to leave. I'm back in NY now (at work, on a very grey day), and I love the city, but for some reason I had the strongest feelings of homesickness yesterday...even before I left! And when I called my parents to say I got back here safely, I almost teared up. So strange, haven't felt like that since freshman year...it's probably partly because of the short break (only home for 4 days!), but all day yesterday I couldn't get Led Zep out of my head. There's a feeling I get, when I look to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving...
• On the upside, I flew Cathay Pacific for the first time and DAMN I love them. Free (and delicious!) food, free (and stiff!) drinks, plus personal TVs with great movie selections--watched Superbad, Mulan, Pretty Woman, Transformers (yeah, I admit it), and A Mighty Heart. New favourite airline....too bad they don't fly domestically!
• 2 day workweeks should be the norm.
• Boxing Day should really be a holiday in the US. Seriously. "Day after Christmas Sale" just sounds stupid. Also, an extra day off would be cool :)
• Apparently Nalgenes might leach chemicals...there have been mentions of this for a while now, but Health Canada just got involved and I think recent studies have shown that it might be serious. Mountain Equipment Co-op (basically a Canadian REI, aka, a playground for me!) won't sell them anymore, which is a pretty big step for them to take seeing as they're incredibly big sellers. I need to look into this more, but for now, my nalgenes are on the shelf...
• I guess it's time to think about goals for the new year...slash, plans for NYE :) And maybe do some work?

Happy belated Boxing Day! Hope everyone is having great times :)

Homeward Bound...

On Monday I was informed that while there would be no more layoffs in the immediate future, I (along with 6 others) would be transferred from my department to Real Estate. Um, ok, not exactly anything I have ever expressed interest in...but so far it hasn't been too bad, mainly like school. Lectures & sitting in on conference calls CONSTANTLY. The only real drawback so far is that my email/gchat/blogging/etc time has been seriously cut down :) I don't know how I will like it once I actually start doing stuff, but for now it's just kind of like college again. We shall see how things go...


But now it's time to go sit in on another call to a developer...we have to be very quiet so they don't realize we're all listening, which is tough when some of them start talking about the most random stuff...I'll post about the pigeon whisperer soon!


I can't wait for this afternoon, when I can escape and fly HOME!! and see my family & friends, most of whom I haven't seen since June. Mom & Dad emailed me last night (subject line: "ONE MORE SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"--and I'm not kidding about the number of exclamation points). I love getting those emails :) Can't wait to walk off the plane and wake up to this:


<3 home!


Safe travels to everyone and good luck to anyone else navigating planes, trains and automobiles tonight!

Holy Crap

It's the week before the week before Christmas. All was normal at work today, till I noticed a girl crying in the bathroom around 4. And it was all downhill from there.

This afternoon they laid off 25% of our company. I wasn't one of the ones called, but I waited by my desk for 1.5 hours after I should have left because I was worried and they were still calling people in...I was shaking and nervous and stress-eating. I mean, I'm going to leave eventually, but I wanted to have something lined up first! They laid off my entire kids' design team, minus one person, plus all our graphics people and the other kids' buyer. So the kids' team went from 13 to 3 in two hours, and I don't even know what to say. Friends in other departments were cut too. My part of the office will be desolate on Monday. I can't imagine coming in and not seeing these people.

Ridiculous, I don't know what else to say. This weekend's new job: brushing up the resume, just in case they're not done yet...

Marathon Week continues...

If Saturday was Marathon Day (complete with night-before hydration and resting up), then this is Marathon Week! I love the holiday season and all its parties and dinners...

On Monday we celebrated my coworker Kevin's birthday by taking him to a very classy dinner at--where else?--Hooters :) He was just a little red when the waitresses circled him to sing their birthday song. Side note: if you are ever at Hooters and don't feel like wings, the grilled cheese is amazing! After dinner I went over to the east side to see my friends from college, Tara & Lauren, at their Hannukah latke party--mmmmmm....latkes hold a special place in my heart ever since I first had them at age 8 or so and decided to convert to Judaism. No joke, I went home from school and told my parents I didn't need Christmas presents that year as I would be giving up Santa and all that and becoming Jewish so I could have latkes! My parents eventually convinced me that we could just cook latkes instead of pancakes on Christmas morning, and that seemed like an ok compromise to me...ok, I was a weird kid :) but Tara & Lauren are awesome and I haven't been able to see them much since we've been in the city, so it was great to hang out.

Last night was the NYRC holiday party and despite being over an hour late (the LIRR and I are not friends), I had a blast. I mean, I learned from Cap that me + open bar is generally a good equation, but adding in the team ups the awesome factor considerably! We hung out at the bar for a good long time and then all of a sudden there were only a few of us left, so we moved the party to the bar where Sabrina hosts karaoke. Truehart and I had fun picking songs for each other and for the rest of the guys to sing--his rendition of the Divinyls' I Touch Myself was excellent, and Murphy did a hilarious performance of The Gambler despite claiming he'd never heard it before. I may or may not have decided it would be a good idea to sing the Bad Touch. Yes, the discovery channel song...so it's a guilty pleasure :) And all of a sudden it was 2:30am! Needless to say I slept the whole train ride in the morning and have not accomplished much in the way of work...

Next on the list:
Wednesday: dinner with Casey & the NYC hot hot seniors before Case moves to Hong Kong (!!!), Liz gets swallowed back up by med school, and Tree & Haemi disappear back into their i-banking caves
Thursday: dinner with Rodney, who I love and don't see enough
Friday: housewarming party at Andy's, birthday night out for Kevin
Saturday: SLEEP!!! with breaks for shopping with Mira and the gym.

Let the marathon continue--I love it!

Also, I'm very excited because I just committed to giving blood on Sunday! I've never done it before because I don't particularly like needles (it was hard enough for me to have blood drawn for a mono test!), but I am finally going to man up and do it. Even if I have to get Mira to hold my hand...

800 Santas can't be wrong!

SantaCon 2007 was this past Saturday, and I'd been looking forward to it ever since I read about it on Rachel's blog. It did not disappoint! From the first mob at 10am, to the crazy costume interpretations (Ninja Santa, Pirate Santa, and Alf the Elf were all in attendance), to fun tasks on a photo scavenger hunt*, all the way to the firedancing on the beach on DUMBO, it was a day to remember...I even found a Wonder Woman Santa to match my Super Santa!

It was an awesome time and totally reminded me of C&G pickups--running around in costumes, talking to random people, doing silly things, dancing on a bar, meeting new friends, and keeping the marathon going till 4:30am. I love my life :)

Rachel took tons of awesome pictures and has a great slideshow of the day here.

*buildering in NYC, hanging upside down on the subway car, and clubbing in a costume when it wasn't Halloween can now be crossed off my life list :)

Dirty Laundry!

This morning as I was easing into the workday (read: checking email and playing scrabulous), I heard a loud gasp come from the neighbouring cube. "You HAVE to see this!" my coworker squeaked. I wasn't sure what to expect--would it be some particularly heinous outfit being fugged? Some new celebritart being ripped to shreds by perez?--so I looked over the wall...to see her reading Home Furnishings Now magazine.

Now even though she's a buyer for the Home division, no one should get excited over coasters and flower vases. But she was red in the face, waving the magazine around, and kept saying "oh my god! oh my god!!" What could possibly have gotten her this agitated?

The Orgasmatron 3000, a "Leather clad washing machine and saddle [that] aims bring the fun back to housework". Yes, that is a saddle on top. And these are the settings:Um, wow. Profiled on the inside cover of an industry magazine. Priceless :)

Score!

I was reading Saturday's a Rugby Day this morning when I got to work (gotta catch up on the important stuff after being away!) and found out I've been added to her "Ruggers Who Blog" sidebar!!! I think it's pretty sweet that something I started because I was bored at work and needed to write out my thoughts is now (somewhat) public...maybe more than 3 people will read my randomness now? ;) Either way, thanks for the link love, Blondie!

In other news, last night I talked to my dad, and after talking aboutTrinidad, he brought up the scary future question ("what are you planning to do after your visa runs out?"). When I told him my tentative plans--work in NY over the summer and through the fall in a position that will get me a TN visa (potentially at a camp or doing research), then go home for most of December/Christmas, then fly to New Zealand for 6 months or so to backpack around and do random jobs and be a vagabond--Dad was surprisingly excited! He said he and Mom wished they had done that kind of thing before they had kids, and then it just got too difficult as we were in school etc. He said that I should definitely go do it while I'm young and not tied down to anything, especially since "NYC and NZ are pretty much the same to us when you're on the other end of a phone call". SCORE! I wasn't looking for permission or anything, but it's nice to have my family be supportive of my random crazy dreams and wanderlust. I love them :)

All in all, it's been a good day so far!

Hardware, baby!

It's December. It's snowing outside in NY. So it seems hard to believe that 24 hours ago, I was in 90 degree sunshine in Trinidad!

What an incredible weekend. Along with 4 of my NYRC teammates, I represented the Atlantis women's side at the Carib Beer International Rugby 7s Tournament. I was a bit nervous about playing with people I had just met, but hey--I did that at Saranac and look where it got me :) But everyone was really cool and we got along well right off the bat--we weren't at the hotel for more than 15 minutes before we were all in the pool playing an intense, full-contact game of water polo (and by full contact, I mean all-out, wrestle-the-ball-away, tickling allowed, dunking encouraged)! Hilarious.

Our hotel--the Royal Palm Suites--was surrounded by all the important amenities: a grocery store, a drug store (which had its grand opening while we were there--free gift bags for all, score!), an ATM, an adult-entertainment store (sadly, no free gift bags ;)) and not one, but TWO dance clubs. Our beds were literally vibrating from the bass every night. We also took over the pool and I think the couple that were looking for a romantic vacation there weren't too happy to see us around...25 rugby people with beer, songs, skits, and ceremonies apparently didn't fit into their plans!

Trinidad itself was gorgeous and we got to see a bit of it, between our walks to & from practice on Thursday & Friday and our drive out to Maracas Beach on Friday afternoon. At the beach we played in the big waves and had a blast playing touch football, and got to try a famous local dish, bake & shark. It's basically fried shark on a bun with whatever toppings you want--I went with tomatoes and cucumbers and it was amazing, the perfect beach food. It was such a good way to relax and enjoy ourselves and get loosened up after two hot days of practice, and get ready for the games!

Our jersey ceremony on Friday night was so cool. I've never been part of anything like it before. The coaches and captains said something about each player before announcing their position and handing out the jerseys--I was wearing #5 as flyhalf (although being Atlantis, we wore Roman numerals, so I was V). I'd played FH for half a game at NY 7s, and was really excited to play some more! Everyone kept talking about Emil and how badly we all wanted to play well because he built Atlantis and we had to represent it well, even though he wasn't there this year. I think it brought us all back to the reason we were really there and got us all focused for the games the next morning.

The games themselves were awesome. I think it took us some time to settle down and get used to each other, because we started out pretty flat and lost our first game. But once we got started...man, was it pretty. Lara was stiff-arming girls all over the field and choo-choo-ing her way into the try zone over and over. Mira, Rosie, Cupcake and Jess were burning everyone on the outside. XL (our scrummy) was dummying and juking all over the place, powering her way through the defensive lines. JD & Emily were poaching machines at every ruck & maul! Sarah (our captain) kept us all focused and encouraged, and set up some amazing plays. After that first game, we shut out every team we played--including the first team when we played them again in the final! It was a great game, with all of us coming through and playing to our strengths. JD had a beautiful try when the other team had the ball in their own try zone--we were in the middle of a maul where I held the girl up so she couldn't touch the ball down for a 22 drop out, and JD drove in, ripped it from her hands, and dived in to score right on the line. Gorgeous! I also had a blast playing sweeper and working on my defense and my tackling (which has never been one of my strongest points...). Right at the end a girl broke our line and I took her down and was so proud of myself. I knew we had collided, but I didn't realize how hard--it wasn't until 2 plays later, when the whistle had blown and I running towards my teammates to celebrate, that I realized blood was running down my face! So in half the post-game photos, I have a tampon up my nose :) But I didn't really care because WE WON!

WE WON. Hardware was our motto for the weekend, it was what we wanted and what we had come for. Atlantis has such a history everywhere and especially at this tournament, and we didn't want to let that history (or Emil) down. We had such a blast celebrating...first at the field, with pictures and pyramids and drinking out of the trophy (which was so heavy, someone had to help you raise it), and then with the rookie skit (which was hilarious, if I may say so myself!) and then at the tournament party. It was at this great outdoor bar with a crazy playlist and so many people...so much fun. We closed down the party and left the dance floor pretty much empty when our team went back to our hotel and a bunch of us spent most of the night chilling in the pool, looking at the stars and talking about random stuff...

So many stories, so much fun, and so many great people--I probably forgot tons of stuff and will add it on as more pictures are sent out! Also, so many new facebook friends (especially since we helped a few teammates join and set up profiles while we were down there)! I love rugby and tours and the amazing people you meet...It's such an amazing sport that way. Gotta love it!