Weekend Pictures

The Bean on a cloudy day in Chicago

 Bellatrix recharging her dark arts

Ironic hipster? Or tragically stuck in the 60s?

Taken @ Urban Outfitters... of course

New bathroom rug! + my feet.

(Kk, if you are reading this, I tried sending it to ya on my phone but I had no service ever. Hope you like it!)

I am currently reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children*, an absolutely fantastic novel about magic and India and doctors and all sorts of great things along those lines. Rushdie is a brilliant writer - his sentences are short and understated but each word is carefully plucked, examined, and polished before it is carved into ink such that the scenes and dialogues become so vivid and colorful. This is the first time in a long time (maybe since Harry Potter! Oh man) that I have dreaded finishing a book - I highly recommend it to anybody with an interest/appreciation/penchant for magical realism, Indian culture of the twentieth century, or just general good storytelling.

*Oops. Corrected.

CRAZY

Sometimes there are just days that I know are going to be absolutely insane. Tomorrow is one of them. Check out my schedule:

4:00 AM - Alarm 1 will go off. I will roll over, turn it off, throw my phone across the room, and resume my slumber.
4:30 AM - Alarm 2 will go off. I will roll over, realize my phone is not on the nightstand, mumble many curses, get outta bed, brush my teeth, and frantically throw everything I own into my suitcase.
5:00 AM - Hop into a taxi.
5:30 AM - Arrive at Calgary International Airport (YYC). Stumble my way through customs and security. Seek nearest source of caffeine once I'm at my gate.
7:15 AM - Board plane & takeoff! Pass out immediately on the plane ride, drool on my neighbor.
11:30 AM - Arrive at ORD, hail a taxi.
12:00 PM - Arrive at the Ramada Inn on Lake Shore to pick up a friend from high school, who has her Pritzker SOM interview in the afternoon and is staying the night at our apartment.
12:10 - Drop friend off at the Shire/get her settled/let her do her thing. Run to a CVS and buy a 30-day CTA pass. Get on the 2 bus to go downtown.
12:40 - Arrive at the Aon Center. Drop off everyone else's receipts (apparently I am now the Chicago office receipt mule) and start on my pile of expenses. Realize how much nasty food I eat in a week and become disgusted with myself and my body. Use any leftover time in the office to continue learning Java or help with miscellaneous beach projects.
4:00 - Reluctantly say goodbye to all the pub-night goers, hop on the 2 back to Hyde Park.
5:00 - Arrive at the apartment. Catch my breath & collect some friends. Pet Bellatrix Babystar.
6:00 - Go back downtown with mah peeps for dinner.
8:00 - Go to some other neighborhood for overpriced yuppie dessert.
10:00 - Get back home. Either pass out immediately or drink until I do.


I am tired from just writing about it. Then there's Saturday, which will require more sightseeing around the city, and after that, silly things like a haircut, going to the dry cleaners, booking next week's flights, setting up my scanner, etc, all while I am still home. I'm pretty sure this is interesting to NOBODY EVER but honestly I'm so freaked out about it that it's all I can think about at the moment.

One thing that's pretty awful about traveling is that I do not really get to practice the guitar anymore. Even if I had the patience and was willing to risk bringing my instrument back and forth every week, I don't think I'd have the energy or the level of concentration needed to properly practice it after each day of work...ugh.

One thing that's pretty GREAT about traveling is my new corporate suite. I just got the keys to it today and stopped by to drop some things off and was like, ohmygod, THANK YOU THOUHTWORKS. Pictures coming soon to an adidav9.blogspot.com near you!

Canada, America's Hat

It's been an insane couple of days, but I've finally been able to catch my breath, look back, and form together a few thoughts about working here in Canada. I'll start from the beginning.

LINES.

And more lines.

I really should've known better than to book a flight out of O'Hare on a Sunday afternoon. I set out from my apartment at around 1:15, got to the airport at around 3:00, and got through ticketing & security by... 5. 15 minutes before my flight left...oops.

I flew by ways of Air Canada, which is operated by United Airlines at ORD. It was a tiny plane, but the seats were super comfy and the service was excellent. I spent the better part of the three and a half hour plane ride watching the very entertaining Catch Me If You Can, which I'd halfheartedly watched a long time ago at some high school party or another.

The first thing that hit me when I stepped off the plane was how chilly it was. I'd left a lovely, warm, and sunny Chicago for a gloomy, rainy, foreign Calgary...mmmmmmm. I sped through customs, got my work permit, hopped in a cab, arrived at my hotel room, threw down all my stuff, and plopped facedown on the bed, exhausted.

Above: View of downtown Calgary at night from my hotel room

 The next morning, I got up bright and early for my first day of work! I spent the whole day Monday wandering around, being lost, and trying not to look so confused/dumb. I spent the whole day Tuesday doing the same exact thing. And er, today was not much different. 

Although I am not at liberty to disclose who our client is, what I can say is that I've joined a small team of BAs within a much larger project at a relatively stressful/chaotic time. Instead of traditional story-writing, we spent more of our time performing data analysis and rationalization. There is a lot of information being thrown at me every second and it is awfully hard to absorb - by midday I feel like my brains have turned into giant fluffy marshmallows and my vision is blurring and my reflexes are rusty and basically I become a big confused blob of incompetence and dull-wittedness. But I know that while things are a bit crazy right now, I will get familiar with the domain (and it will be glorious!). And it definitely helps having awesome ThoughtWorkers around who're always willing to answer my questions, invite me to dinner, and basically help bring me up to speed as quickly and with as much support as possible - yay!

I haven't had much time to explore the city, but I did manage to walk around one day after work for about 30 minutes and snap a few pictures:

...yeah, really not too exciting in our neck of the woods (which is allegedly where a lot of retired folks live), but I've heard great things about plenty of other parts of the city, like the trendy 17th commercial street area and the fantastic Calgary zoo and the the hipster-y Kensington neighborhood. Then there are Calgary's many beautiful mountain ranges to explore - I absolutely cannot wait for a weekend trip out to see some breathtaking scenery.

I can tell that traveling back and forth from Chicago is going to be thoroughly exhausting, but at the same time it's really quite nice to get out and go somewhere by myself and experience a city in a completely new way. I cannot imagine how my colleagues who have spouses and children back at home do it, though - I can barely stand to be away from my silly cat for this long ;) Definitely looking forward to coming home on Friday and spending a peaceful Memorial Day in (warm and sunny) Chi-city.

It's 10:10, but if I want to wake up by 6 (which I do) and get eight hours of sleep (which I also do), I am already overdue for bedtime! Stop your snickering. SLEEP IS COOL, MAN.