First Day of Work
I have resigned myself to the fact that I will unfortunately have to prolong my stay here in Chicago, and just go back to school on the second semester of this year. This arises from the fact that I have only begun working today, severely behind schedule. I've been here for a little more than a month. I hope this month of bumming around was not wasted; However, just imagining how much I could have saved in a month brings me close to tears, so I refuse to think about that.
Anyway, as mentioned, today was my first day at my job at the Home Depot. This is not the one we have over at Ortigas (although they probably ripped their name off of this store). It is a large home improvement warehouse store for homeowners and contractors, and I applied as a Garden Sales Associate, due to the impending spring and summer season, when gardening is at its peak.
They had us attend a general orientation last night at the main Chicago store at "The Brickhouse" in West Chicago. It was led by an overzealous HR Manager. It felt like being back in high school. Most of us were pretty much disinterested teenagers who were probably working at the Home Depot for the summer. I seemed to be the oldest in the bunch. Today was my first day at the branch I'd be working in for the next 3 months. It is conveniently close to Mom's house, over here in North Chicago, and at the midpoint between the house and the Lincolnwood library. They already gave us lockers and I started on the web-based training. They give us the infamous orange aprons once we complete the training and start on the floor.
Something else happened. Almost a month ago, I found a comic strip in this local school newspaper for the Art Institute of Chicago. I liked the comic strip so much that I stalked the writer in Myspace. I sent him a message, and I thought he wouldn't reply. I thought he'd never reply. A few days ago, he did. It turned out he's also a filmmaker. He's 1/4th Filipino and 3/4th latino. He's also queer. All we chatted about last night was who was more pitiful (us being both from the third world, haha). No, I haven't fallen in love with him. No, I have not even met him yet. I'm just quite glad there's somebody in this side of the globe I can rant to.