Seattle update
So...It's been about 6 months since I've posted. Let's get the factuals out of the way:
-I graduated!
-I got hired by an online travel company out in Washington State for tons of pay!
-I moved into a ritzy apartment in downtown Seattle & started working for my supper!
-I experienced significant difficulty forming a social life & have begun to work around that using an internet social website for meeting up with people based on common interests & themes.
-I fell in love with the student area in this city & am searching for a student house to rent there.
Here's the longer version: The 3 months I've spent here have been educational. In no particular order, I shall list off the things I've learned about this area:
-This area is gorgeous. Words can't describe it adequately, and neither can my shaky hands & lousy digital camera.
-For a city that has "mostly cloudy with a chance of rain" as its permanent weather forecast, umbrellas sure are useless here. No one uses them, since it's never really raining hard (more like a constant drizzle) and the wind makes them useless.
-Seattle has a large population of homeless, and they're rather aggressive in their panhandling. I lost all sympathy to their "I need to eat!" pleas once I learned of the 18 shelters in the city any person can walk into & receive 3 square meals a day.
-Seattle can be a particularly difficult place to establish a social life in. To boot, its commercial segment holds weird hours. The downtown core's establishments & shops all close by 6pm every day.
-Huge apartments with expensive furniture look awesome but are no more fun than the sketchy student houses of one's college days. That being said, my TV is godlike and has served to distract me from my loneliness many an evening.
-When you have absolutely no life outside the office, the idea of drinking alone in a bar during happy hour on a Monday sounds really good.
-The "university district" next to UW (university of Washington, not Waterloo) is, in layout, demographics, shops, and student housing, very reminiscent of downtown Guelph & uptown Waterloo.
-Seattle is I think the second-most fit (athletic/body-wise) city in America, and I can anecdotally vouch for this.
And finally, I've learned this about myself:
I'm a social animal. Being completely isolated here almost destroyed my spirit. It took me 2 months to start making friends, and even then only because I was desperate & tried an internet social site. Regardless of how I did it, I now have people my age, with similiar interests I can spend time. To give a good idea as to how much isolation was affecting me, for a while I was working 10-12 hour days, not out of any sense of responsibility, but simply because I had nothing better to do & working kept my mind from wandering. Anyone who knows me well should be fairly shocked to read this ;)
I haven't grown up from being a student yet. I only visited the University District this past week and immediately felt immensely at ease wandering through its streets, where as I feel nothing at all walking through the rest of Seattle. Student life, with its free-spirited socializing, pursuit of interests & youthful zeal agrees with me far more than the rather isolated & lonely yuppie lifestyle I've created for myself here. Upon realizing this, I found someone to take my lease over & am now actively searching for a student house to rent in the University District with some friends. I shall enjoy the student lifestyle while I'm still young & reckless ;)
Ok, that's enough of a brain dump for now.
Cheers everyone,
-Lexx
-I graduated!
-I got hired by an online travel company out in Washington State for tons of pay!
-I moved into a ritzy apartment in downtown Seattle & started working for my supper!
-I experienced significant difficulty forming a social life & have begun to work around that using an internet social website for meeting up with people based on common interests & themes.
-I fell in love with the student area in this city & am searching for a student house to rent there.
Here's the longer version: The 3 months I've spent here have been educational. In no particular order, I shall list off the things I've learned about this area:
-This area is gorgeous. Words can't describe it adequately, and neither can my shaky hands & lousy digital camera.
-For a city that has "mostly cloudy with a chance of rain" as its permanent weather forecast, umbrellas sure are useless here. No one uses them, since it's never really raining hard (more like a constant drizzle) and the wind makes them useless.
-Seattle has a large population of homeless, and they're rather aggressive in their panhandling. I lost all sympathy to their "I need to eat!" pleas once I learned of the 18 shelters in the city any person can walk into & receive 3 square meals a day.
-Seattle can be a particularly difficult place to establish a social life in. To boot, its commercial segment holds weird hours. The downtown core's establishments & shops all close by 6pm every day.
-Huge apartments with expensive furniture look awesome but are no more fun than the sketchy student houses of one's college days. That being said, my TV is godlike and has served to distract me from my loneliness many an evening.
-When you have absolutely no life outside the office, the idea of drinking alone in a bar during happy hour on a Monday sounds really good.
-The "university district" next to UW (university of Washington, not Waterloo) is, in layout, demographics, shops, and student housing, very reminiscent of downtown Guelph & uptown Waterloo.
-Seattle is I think the second-most fit (athletic/body-wise) city in America, and I can anecdotally vouch for this.
And finally, I've learned this about myself:
I'm a social animal. Being completely isolated here almost destroyed my spirit. It took me 2 months to start making friends, and even then only because I was desperate & tried an internet social site. Regardless of how I did it, I now have people my age, with similiar interests I can spend time. To give a good idea as to how much isolation was affecting me, for a while I was working 10-12 hour days, not out of any sense of responsibility, but simply because I had nothing better to do & working kept my mind from wandering. Anyone who knows me well should be fairly shocked to read this ;)
I haven't grown up from being a student yet. I only visited the University District this past week and immediately felt immensely at ease wandering through its streets, where as I feel nothing at all walking through the rest of Seattle. Student life, with its free-spirited socializing, pursuit of interests & youthful zeal agrees with me far more than the rather isolated & lonely yuppie lifestyle I've created for myself here. Upon realizing this, I found someone to take my lease over & am now actively searching for a student house to rent in the University District with some friends. I shall enjoy the student lifestyle while I'm still young & reckless ;)
Ok, that's enough of a brain dump for now.
Cheers everyone,
-Lexx