And… We’re Off!

I have been in vacation mode for 5 days now… and I’m about to kick it up to warp speed. That’s right. Tomorrow starts leg one of the Great American Road Trip Felish Style. I’m hoping my internet and phone access will be brief and limited. See you on the other side.

Well that was interesting

I have spent the past two days in a total blur.

As of 12 PM yesterday, I was informed that my position was being eliminated and that my entire office was being let go except for one person. Definitely NOT how I had anticipated spending one of my last days at the office before vacation.

I came back to the office and stayed there, packing up my papers and shoes, my sweaters and artwork, until 6 PM. Everyone was dazed and utterly confused. As the word started to spread, calls and emails began pouring in. I thought that perhaps I should reach out to some faculty and staff that I worked with, so I started my own round of emails. Although the news was slightly less catastrophic for me, seeing that I am headed off to school in a month and a half, it was no less bittersweet. I was pleasantly surprised by the fervor, genuine gratitude and praise that started piling up in my inbox. Sad to think that it took this course of events to provoke such a demonstration of support for our office… now that it counts for nothing.

My co-workers had planned a potluck lunch today to celebrate my time at NEU, and to wish me luck in business school. After talking it over, we decided to go ahead with the lunch anyway. Instead of being MY farewell lunch, it turned into a farewell for everyone.

I showed up to work today late, in jeans and a T-shirt, with a tub full of chicken masala I’d made over the weekend. It was just the start of a very long, very odd, day. There was music. Friends stopped by. We laughed. We joked. We took pictures with over-exaggerated poses and facial gestures. We took a certain perverse pleasure in informing callers that our office didn’t exist anymore. We had a fantastic lunch, with lasagna, barbeque chicken, salad, naan, my afore-mentioned chicken masala, brownies, cake, iced tea, and lemonade. We signed off on all the HR paperwork. We turned in our keys. We traded final gossip back and forth. We said goodbye, one by one, and finally…. we left.

Not the Way to Start Your Morning

I just spent 30 min tearing my room apart looking for my hearing aid, which had gone missing in the 8 hours between taking it off to go to sleep, and waking up. Guess where I found it? In the bottom of a plastic bag filled with items I need to return to Marshalls. Lovely. I’m sweaty, have red eyes, and a headache that stemmed from my imagining the bill I’d need to sign off on to replace this little f-ing piece of machinery. I’m going to go have some coffee now and pretend this never happened.

Bad Day Blues

We all have bad days sometimes.

Rocky sulking

Bad Poetry Alert

Our special name
Only you call me by
Our special name
I pretended I did not like it
I protested and pleaded
Offensive!
But it was MINE, my name given by you
Naming grants ownership
Labels one with more than what is spoken
There are subtitles and undercurrents
Hidden meaning, or so I thought.
I was wrong to assume. Presume.
-2004

The good news: I am running out of bad poems to post… thank god!

The bad news: I actually wrote this piece of cr*p. Sigh.

Countdown

Number of work days left: 11

Number of days left until vacation: 12

Number of days until I move: 42

Number of days until school starts: 59

Friday Fact

I sometimes add slightly unnecessary items to lists just so I can have the pleasure of crossing them off.

…In Which I Ponder… A Lot

I need more sleep. The last two mornings have been brutal. Countdown til this weekend: T – 2.5 days.

The bachelorette/bridal shower weekend went really well. Friday morning I had a leisurely breakfast at my favorite diner joint with A (is it weird that we still do couply things together even though we’re no longer a couple? Is it weird that I’m going on a completely platonic getaway with him to CANADA in one week?) and then hopped in the car and drove down to Queens. The girls all met up in NYC Friday evening and we had a great night filled with hilarity, toilet paper veils, multiple ‘hey sexy’s’ whispered to passing inappropriate strangers, old men trying to follow us home, and failed ‘go go power rangers’ moments at stop lights. It was good.

Saturday we woke up much too early and drove down to NJ. The bridal shower was beautiful and there was much unwrapping of presents. Saturday evening things calmed down quite a bit, and after a yummy dinner of homemade saag and parathas, Huma, Ali and I headed out to the movies and then crashed hard. Sunday was spent dealing with bridal shower aftermath, and after an early dinner with Huma I headed back home to Boston. Not bad, all in all. I laughed so much my stomach hurt, took many many pictures, played with the cutest babies imaginable, and am still sleep deprived.

Sunday night I got a call from an old college friend (side note– does he still count as a ‘college friend’ if we only spent one year actually in college together? Discuss). I hadn’t talked to him in a very long time, and we caught up in a massive 2 hr long conversation that was SO needed. We ended up talking about GMATs and business school, since he is applying this fall for next year. I can’t believe that I was going through this same process a year ago. It seems like it was so long ago, and I have forgotten so much from that time period of my life– I think I’ve blocked it out because it was so traumatic. Talk about being sleep deprived and stressed to the max. Talk about signing myself up for two years of this madness. I think I convinced him to go for round 1 applications instead of round 2. Everyone says there is no difference, but it’s simple math people!!! There are just more spots open in round 1 than there are in round 2. Plus you can find out earlier whether or not you got in to a program. Don’t drag out the torture any longer than you need to.

We also talked a lot about relationships, since we are both dealing with how to pick up after the end of a relationship. His lasted 5 years and was ended in a fairly harsh manner, whereas mine only lasted a year and a half, and was not so much a ‘break up’ but a ‘redefinition’, and was initiated by me. It was nice to talk about my feelings to someone who is in sort of the same position. It seems like all around me, everyone I know is pairing up, getting married, getting engaged. In the past year I have had three of my good friends get married; one is getting married next month, one is engaged, two more have babies on the way, and I haven’t even started to include the friends in long-term relationships. I’m kind of feeling like the odd (wo)man out these days.

Anyway, R said something that really made me think. He said, “maybe the reason your relationship didn’t last is because you were too rational. You made the decision to develop feelings for A, and that’s why it was so easy for you to ultimately make the decision to stop having those feelings.” I don’t necessary agree entirely with this statement, or with the rest of what we talked about, but it definitely struck a chord with me. I never fell into a crazy head over heels type thing with A. Our entire relationship was very rational and considered. Granted, I think I am a very rational person, but perhaps you need to jettison some of that careful, measured consideration if you are going to have something special with another person. Maybe it’s not always good to approach a relationship with the same kind of thought processes and actions that are useful or practical for work or business school. Hmmmm. It’s good to come at an issue from a different point of view, it reminds me that I only know so much and I still have a lot to learn about myself and life in general.

Friday Fact

Today I am driving down to Jersey for one of my best friend’s bachelorette party/bridal shower weekend! Woo no work!!!

Hand It Over

My second deposit for my BU MBA is due next week. I have been getting nice little reminder emails from the admissions people asking if I have had any issues sending in my money, since they haven’t received anything yet…. I still have seven days people!!! Let me hang on to my $500 a little bit longer, please. I’m going to be giving you enough $$ soon enough anyways. OK thanks. BIG SIGH. (Can you tell I’m not looking forward to my impending lack of money in the bank?)

I had a minor panic attack yesterday. I had to pull some paperwork from my financial aid folder to complete my Grad PLUS loan info, and realized that the sheet of paper I had to send in to secure my Stafford loan was due by April 23rd and here it was June 9th and I hadn’t sent it in!!!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS LET ME JUST HAVE A HEART ATTACK NOW AND GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY. I raced to work and called the grad program office as soon as humanly possible, heart racing and palms sweating. Someone up there is looking after me because everything was fine and they let me fax over the necessary information with no penalties or problems. This is SO unlike me. Usually I’m really on top of that kind of thing. Hopefully this isn’t an indication of what the next two years are going to be like. Brain, don’t fail me now!