Now What?

What have I been doing for the last month? A variety of things, but I'll only mention the most interesting stuff to spare you the mundane details of my life. Well, it took a few days to get my sleep schedule back on track (I was six hours ahead of schedule so my body was happy about "sleeping in", my internal clock was not pleased about having to get up early to try to turn it around. It also didn't help that the glorious city of Philadelphia is doing construction on my block at night (see picture from outside my bedroom window). Jackhammering, cutting concrete, generators, you get the picture. Looks like they are replacing the water main pipes and creating a lot of noise in the process. I didn't shower the first night I was home (I hit up the Dark horse for some drinks with Chey instead) and slept in for a long time the next day. I got up and started doing laundry, cleaning up, watching TV, etc and before long it was 11pm at night. Whew! I went into the bathroom to prepare for the best hot shower in the universe and the water didn't turn on, the faucet just made this banging noise. Hmmmmmm. I go outside to talk to the construction dudes. Turns out that the water gets shut off randomly after 11pm so they can do their work so I ask them when it will be back on. He has no idea, could be 4 hours, the whole night, no idea. Great. He tells me I should've been notified (haven't been home!) and I tell him that i just got home from being halfway around the world and i want a SHOWER and he just looks at me and says there isn't anything he could do. Now, I wasn't really expecting him to stop the work and let me shower, I was just annoyed at the situation. Fortunately, I was able to use some water in the Brita to brush my teeth, but I went to bed a freakin' mess. It took forever to fall asleep, but eventually I was lulled by the soothing sounds of a backhoe digging into a brick paved street. This has gone on for 4 or 5 days out of every week.

I inadvertently started a project when I came home, at the exact time I should've been relaxing before returning to work. I started going through everything I own and decided that I don't need all the crap I have. After living out of one bag for 14 weeks, I decided to clean house and do away with many items in my apartment that I simply never used, intended to use but never got around to it, didn't fit, old, broken, etc. I generated quite a pile and it was very cleansing. I mean, how much stuff does any one person need? Why do we hold onto stuff? I swear there were some clothes that I kept mainly because you never know when you'll be invited to a themed party and have to dress up as a cowgirl/pirate/vixen, etc. I think half my wardrobe was dedicated to costumes! As I put everything in a pile to donate to my club's annual yard sale, I started to feel liberated. Feels so good to restart my life without all the clutter.

All good things must end and I returned to work on Monday, a scant four days after I returned. Some say it was too soon, but my bank account told me to get my ass back into work and make some cash. I just walked into work on Monday like any normal day and that was it - I was officially back. I went thru my email (Ctrl + A, delete) and chatted with some people in my department, my boss fills me in on what I missed (nothing) and starts forwarding me work. Word gets around that I'm back and the work comes flooding in. Within an hour I'm on gChat and it's like I never left. The funniest thing happened towards the end of my first week back on the job. I develop a severe case of strep throat and I have to call out of work not once, but twice! They must hate me, seriously. I also had to cancel happy hour an other festivities with friends due to my sudden illness. I couldn't believe I was in remote parts of the world and was fine and I get home and I get sick. Unbelievable.

After I got better I did something that I haven't done since December - I worked a full 5 day work week. It was weird. Luckily I'm really busy at work so the time goes by fairly quickly, but since my coworker is out due to shoulder surgery, I'm picking up more to do and it involves a lot of overtime. The good part is I get paid for OT, the sucky part is I'm working and not at home with a glass of wine with my friends. I also started my second job again as a catering server and that is taking up a substantial portion of my time, but again, I need to get my bank accounts back to their former glory. I'm not going on any super happy fun 7s trips this summer so I should be able to pay off my Visa and then attack my student loan. I am so sick of my student loan still hanging around so I am going to aggressively try to pay it off in one year so I can be free of it. I now wish I wouldn've graduated in four years instead of five, dammit! I used to have a 2nd loan and I used my tax refund check one year to pay it off. I called up to my loan people so they would put all the money on the one loan instead of dividing it between the two. So I'm talking to the loan rep and I explain that "I want to apply the total amount to loan #2, thus paying it off in total." Sounds reasonable, right? She then asks me, "Why do are you paying off your loan?" I'm kinda stunned at this point. " Um, cuz isn't that what you're supposed to do?!?" She hemmed and hawed a bit, but then I insisted that my money is applied the way I wanted. Sheesh, perplexing to say the least.

So May was a blur of "Welcome backs!", adjustments, and work. People keep asking me if it is hard readjusting to life again. Quite simply, not really. I thought it would feel different, but it is still the same ole', same ole'. I've noticed a few changes in Philly, but nothing too severe. I kinda expected to have that feeling you get when you move to a differnt apartment or change jobs, but nope, nothing. Just looking forward to my 2nd round of summer for 2008!