weekend=sleep

First weekend alone…by myself…without anyone here…isolated from anyone I know…I think you get the point. While I enjoy my alone time, I tend to get sick of myself after awhile. I figure this experience will be a good one where I can get to know myself a little better…or go crazy in this internal prison. Who wants to place bets on which one wins?!

My first full week of work and it is finally over. Friday couldn’t come soon enough. While I enjoy what I do, I’ve realized that I really don’t like working all that much. It’s not that I’m lazy, I do enjoy my job to an extent, but really…who loves working?! I know if we all had our chance to not work while still having enough money to live we would take that chance. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t sit on the couch all day and do nothing…I would go crazy. But I sure wouldn’t be working 40 hours a week at a job that is just “ok” so that I could make enough money to buy all the ingredients to make a crappy meatloaf! A job is just a job and this experience is just that. So far I’m not regretting it, I’m enjoying the freedom and time I have here until I have to actually work hard enough to pay my own rent…or hopefully mortgage.

Well it was a long week, I’m hoping only because it was my first week here and the remainder of the time goes by somewhat quicker. To celebrate the fact that the first week was over I hit the gym after work. I know…I need to figure out a new meaning to the word celebrate…because who actually works out for fun?! I’m sure there are people who love working out and consider it fun, but those people are people I choose not to associate with. I can think of a lot of other things that are considered fun besides running on a treadmill for an hour. Yes I know…I’m a person who works out and runs…but you will be happy to know that I swear the whole time I’m doing it and despise every second of it. I’m not one of those who are cheery with a smile on my face saying “I love to sweat” as I run. NO SIR! Who the hell loves to sweat? I hate it! You feel all gritty and nasty and you have to take a shower and change your clothes…and did I mention you STANK?! Yeah…while I do it, I’m not a fan of sweating or working out. But there are positives about working out I know. But I will ignore those for now.

So there I am, working out and working up a sweat (did I mention I hate that?) hoping the clock will somehow speed up. Not really sure how this is possible. I’m wishing that Superman will fly around the world at the speed of light to make the earth rotate faster as opposed to backwards like he did in the movie which reversed time (Yes, I referenced the Superman movie…I’m turning into a geek). Finally the clock strikes and it’s time to go! Thank God! I can’t get to my car fast enough. Finally I am driving home when I suddenly feel my neck itch. Not really sure what that’s about, but it should go away if I scratch it right? Yeah, you would think so unless you break out in hives…then it the itching tends to stick around. I don’t know what breaking out in hives is all about. Maybe I’m allergic to working out! YES… my prayers have been answered as to why I cannot work out any longer (however they haven’t invented a fat burning pill yet so this really doesn’t help me). While I contemplate if being allergic to working out is a good or bad thing, they soon go away. So evidently I can still go to the gym, damn!

So while I spend my Friday night lying on the couch scratching my neck and wishing my hives away, I make dinner (not meatloaf) and watch TV. Exciting evening for me…I sometimes wonder how much more fun this place can get. I am exhausted from the previous week so finally I go to bed. Thank God for the weekends! I finally got to sleep in! I LOVE sleep! It’s one of my hobbies…among other things. I wake up Saturday to the sound of rain. At this point I’m not sure if I’m glad it’s raining because it reminds me of home or if I’m mad because it’s supposed to be sunny! But I get dressed and decide to brave the weather and explore this town. I find out that there is a Saturday market that is close by. Great! I will go check it out and spend an hour or so walking around looking at all the art and hand made crap and maybe get some fresh fruit. As I drive up and park I notice only a few booths…hmm, maybe there are more around the corner. Now I may not be great at math, but I do know that as I walked closer the booths weren’t multiplying, they are actually subtracting. I really don’t know if 5 booths qualify as a “market”. Maybe since I got back from Australia I’m used to seeing markets that are blocks long with 100’s of tables, or maybe I’m used to the Pike Place Market where you can walk around for a few hours. But this…I walked around in 8.2 seconds. You can’t really spend a lot of time going back and forth between the table that sells bread, the table that sells kettle corn, the booth that is making some type of food, and the booth that is selling orchids. It may surprise you but really it doesn’t take a lot of time at all…really, you should try it. See if you could beat my record for the fastest time at a market. The funniest thing there was the tent set up for the live music. A man with a giant keyboard was playing while a woman was singing her heart out into the “crowd”. There were 7 people there…including me. I didn’t get to hear a whole song, I would if it was only 4 seconds long though.

So back in my car I go and start driving. I find my way around the city, figure out where certain things are and what roads connect to what other roads. I’ve pretty much got it down on how to get where. I finally land in the parking lot of an outdoor shopping area. So I decided to get out and stretch my legs. It was still raining…which I’m used to. It’s an interesting site when you walk around California when it’s raining. EVERYONE has umbrellas. They have huge ones, and are wearing their hoods up, with gloves and rain coats. I know that is what rain gear is for, but I’m so used to walking around in the Northwest where people just go out in the rain without all the gear…because you’re going to get wet no matter what.

So walking and getting wet…that is what this trip consisted of. There were the typical stores you would find at any shopping area plus a lot of expensive ones that I didn’t even walk into because it would be like that moment in Pretty Woman where she walks in and is told that she basically could not afford to buy anything at the store because she’s a hooker. Only I could afford to buy something there if I wanted and I’m not a hooker…at least to my knowledge. Maybe I could get some extra cash on the weekends though…something to think about. So as I pass by the glow of the stores that are selling t-shirts for $300.00 I see it…my favorite store…Anthropology. It was like the mother ship calling me home. I walked in and felt instantly happy. I looked around at all of my favorite clothes and then wincing at the price tag. I managed to walk out of there without spending any money. It was hard, I wanted to try on about 25 things, but I withheld. I will be back though! Wait until I get my first paycheck and it will be a different story!

At this point I needed coffee. I went into Barnes and Noble and found Starbucks…ah, sweet relief! I meandered around the reading material and ended up buying a CD. Thank goodness for gift cards! I was done “shopping” and went back to my car to continue driving with my new music cranked up. I continued my way around Santa Clara and San Jose until I finally got sick of driving. So home I go.

I got back in time to watch the second half of the Seahawks game. I’m not ashamed to say I did a little victory dance in my living room as they won over the Redskins…it wasn’t pretty, but it was necessary.

So there was my day. I was super tired for some reason and while I would like to say I spent my Saturday night going out on the town having a good time, I won’t lie. I watched the other playoff game and then sat and watched movies as I laid there like a slug. Sometimes you just need to not do anything…but not all the time because that would be just lazy.

My weekend is almost over and while I don’t really feel like going to work tomorrow I don’t think I can stand another day driving around aimlessly and sitting in my apartment watching football. So off to make money I go.

A side note here to some of my friends that keep telling me I need to update my blog everyday….I’m trying. Granted I don’t have the exciting life of going out every night with new friends and men I meet (I’m working on it)…but there are times when really I don’t have anything new to write about. Unless you want me to write about the patients I saw and the treatment plans I implemented detail by detail…but I think I did enough of that in school and as I remember correctly that was BORING and no one really wants to hear about it…especially the gross and gruesome details (unlike you’re like me and think that stuff is cool!).

And to my OT friends...I'm sitting here in Starbucks as all the tables are filled with people doing homework or reading when I hear the table next to me talking about the APA format. I swear to you I got chills and started panicking. Years of hell writing a paper in the APA format and ALWAYS getting it wrong because each professor never had the same format. If it's called the APA format...wouldn't the word format mean that it is all the same?! I need a drink!

Love you all!