Stuff & Things
I haven’t felt well the last few days. My student worker had a cold early in the week and took Wednesday off because of it. (So, she was double surprised to come in Thursday and find out I had handed in my notice.)
While she was out Wednesday I started having the same symptoms she had complained about. Sore throat, very stuffed up, super tired.
It’s hard to tell in the middle of allergy season if you catch a cold. But, when I’m at home with the air filter going full blast and still feel just as bad, it’s probably a cold.
So, it has been more or less, go to work, come home, go to sleep.
Today I was a bit better.
Of course the woman who cuts my hair telling me that Monday she is going to the hospital to get something removed that her doctor calls an "exotic growth" made me not want to complain about the sniffles much.
I hope all goes well with her operation and they get everything "exotic" out.
After getting my hair cut I went off to meet my congressman. He comes around a few times of years and goes to local places where he can sit down and talk with people.
I am a fan of his. He is trying to raise awareness for the homeless, so last week he spent a night in a Worcester homeless shelter to see what it was like. While I know he still had his nice home to go back to, it is still more direct investigation than I usually see out of politicians.
There was quite a line to see him. Several dozen folks at least. And, he was only at this one place for an hour.
The people in front of me were immigrants where the wife is in danger of being deported and the husband who works here and their child born here are trying to stop that from happening. From what they said, they’ve tried everything they can and aren’t having much luck with the bureaucracy.
"Give me the lawyer’s number," the congressman said. "I’ll call him first thing Monday morning and see what can be done."
He took the person’s information and promised to try and help.
I’ve got to admit my thought was "this is exactly what elected people should be doing to help out."
It was only later I realize that if they are immigrants, they can’t even vote for him. And, that made it doubly good.
I just told him I thought he was doing a good job and hoped he’d keep up the good work. Then, got out of the way for the dozen or more in line behind me.
Work has been very strange since I gave my notice.
Lots of people coming up to me saying "we never suspected you would leave!"
I think this is strange because I expected people to say more of "What took you so long!"
It is nice for my ego to hear so many people say "we’re going to miss you", "it won’t be the same without you" or "now the project is fucked if you won’t be working on it". (The last one from the project manager.)
The head of the division did tell me that if I ever want to come back the door is open.
That’s very nice to hear. Especially as I was afraid he’d say "Thank God you’re leaving! Get out now and don’t wait 2 weeks!"
Of course maybe if I had some of that good feedback before this I might have felt differently.
I do think that the things I was working on have progressed enough that I can hand them off without too much difficulty. Even a couple of weeks ago that wouldn’t have been true. Of course, I’ve know I was going to do this, so was positioning things to be in that sort of good space for it.
Anyhow, I hope that this cold is now behind me, the plants will stop breeding in my lungs and I’ll move on to the new job and all will go well.
Oh, and that lottery ticket I bought will come in for the $100,000,000…
And, I can lose weight while still eating everything I like.
And, it rains jelly beans.