2018 Begins
It is January 1st, and I am at a coffee shop in Chicago with Mark, waiting to fly back to Boston this evening.
Yesterday we took the train into Chicago from the suburbs, and spent the afternoon at a coffeeshop by Kim's apartment, Stevan's gf of 7 years. Her apartment was nice, around Lincoln Park area. A cute gay couple joined us, and the 6 of us headed to pre-game at a sweet apartment. By the end of the party, there were probably about 25 of us, friends of friends, including a few that went to high school with Mark and Stevan. We walked through Navy Pier before boarding the Spirit of Chicago.
The boat was jam-packed, it was hard to move, but everyone was festive and there were all kinds of hats and noisemakers. They tipped the bartender handsomely to ensure that we got alcohol when we needed it (on top of the ridiculously expensive tickets already). Overall, a good time with a good crowd. Afterward, Mark wanted to go out to Boystown, but the rest of us just went to bed. I was upset and hangry the morning after, because I basically spent 5 hours waiting for them to be ready for breakfast, compounded by the realization that I accomplished nothing that I wanted to this break, and that all of my time was given to Mark to spend with his family. He eventually realized and felt bad that we weren't going to do the one thing I had requested in Chicago - get deep-dish pizza.
EDIT: It is now January 4th and I am in the office during a snowstorm.
After brunch, we walked 0.5 mi to a coffee shop, which was absolutely brutal in the negative degree weather. We worked there until it got dark, then walked to Lou Malnatti's for an...adequate pizza. We flew home and got to bed by 2AM, which I was not pleased about.
The next day Daphne's mother passed away, about 30 minutes after I called her. I never got to visit and see her one last time. We also got an e-mail from Anne asking to meet us, which immediately led both Mark and I to be paranoid all day and come up with various legitimate reasons of things we could've possibly done wrong - when we had gotten home from the airport, we saw that someone had cleaned up all the food we had left in the study lounge from finals week breakfasts, and had also left 3 unopened beers eminently displayed on the table. I honestly thought it was about that, but also thought it might've been connected to me sending a snarky e-mail to a random GRT chastising an MIT administrator. The whole thing got me thinking (combined with all the complaining I've been doing about my new job) that I should be more carefully regulating my behavior and the way people perceive me.
It turns out it was to tell us that she's leaving at the end of the year. That certainly demotivates us from staying a bit. Also, got confirmation that we cannot bring a pet into the office. A quick look at nice nearby apartments suggests ~$2900/mo for 750 sq ft. bleh.
I'm having a hard time being appreciative at my new job right now. I feel like I'm given less exciting tasks and not respected for my level of experience. But I need to remind myself to be grateful for this opportunity.
Today I was aggravated by the thought of how some people have the luxury of dreaming big, and people listening, while others do not. Despite over a decade of training, I neither feel like an expert, nor have people caring to listen to my opinions. Fuck everyone.