Househunting

I don't know if I have mentioned this as of yet, but D happened to move into a pretty yucky place in San Diego. Their kitchen has to be a health hazard, and the people there are not so nice, so he is looking for another one...

After he thought he had found a place earlier this week, and it fell through, I decided that we were going to search high and low and find a place by the end of the weekend. We saw a total of 10 places in two days, and between seeing these places and just corresponding with people via email (through craigslist) we got some real entertainment for free...

Some of the highlights of the house hunting included

• the girl who had a bong in the middle of the living room when we got there (and this actually one of the places that looked really good, and made it onto D's list of acceptable places)
• the lady (who had a three year old) and followed us out to the car saying that she just wanted to make sure she knew that room came with a key, so that D could lock the door to his room and be the only one who had access to it
• the man who told us that I could come over as long as I didn't spend the night because 'they were not set-up for that'
• the lady who emailed us and said that he'd be sharing the place with her and her 16 year old daughter, and they were both 420 friendly
• when David mentioned that one reason he was moving was because he roommates left out dishes of rotting food for weeks at a time, one guy told him that that kind of happens sometimes are the place he was seeing
• the trailer for rent in someones backyard for only $600 a month-this was advertised as a studio

I know that there were other funny things, but these are the few that I can remember after all of this. It was actually kind of successful though, and I think there are many good options on the table, which is a great thing. I hope to be moving stuff next weekend, and not meeting a million people again, but I guess we shall see...

I just wonder about ALL the people who specifically state that they are 420 friendly. I mean is it a craiglist or a San Diego thing?

When life gets exciting...

Most of you know I am a major stress case. I have spent the last several weeks stressing about various things, and one of those things is going from a decent income to a zero income and a negative income that involves paying expenses with student loans.

So I have been spending time looking at tutoring, admin, and random part time positions, and that's not really the most fun thing I have ever done, but tonight I looked at the UCI Planning, Policy, and Design website, and was taking a look at all the great places their students have interned at, and that made me feel really excited.

Because there are so many cool planning organizations right in my back yard, and this really is the perfect place to work on a career in Urban Planning with a focus on environmental sustainability. I guess maybe I just get scared that I am waiting for this program to have everything fall in my lap, but I don't think that's really what I am doing.

I am going to be getting a really good starting point, and foundation on something I really want to do and something I am passionate about, and while there are common day stresses to think about I really should be sitting on my couch thinking about how excited and how fortunate I am to have an opportunity to pursue the education that it going to give me so much opportunity in a field I think I might just love.

It's also exciting that my love is doing something very similar.

And I guess in that way I am way less stressed and way more excited than I have realized in a few weeks.

Odd Jobs, and Some Really Odd Jobs

I have been working since I turned 14 (which was totally legal in Maryland). As I have been spending the past few days looking at different part time employment opportunities, I have been thinking about some of the funnier and weirder positions I have had over the years. Most of them were during college...

• I worked a temp position as a temp worker (really kind of a paper-folder) for a big convention for People Soft at the Anaheim convention center, and on the night they had their big gala type thing with lots of free delicious food, I stopped working for a bit to enjoy the festivities.


• I was hired as a house cleaner, but wound up being more of a post-divorce friend a counselor for a lady who had divorced her husband about a year before she hired me and had not cleaned her house since. This was sad, and also very disgusting. It was just gross things like not cleaning your bathroom sink or changing the sheets on your kids bed for a year that kind of got to me. But most of the weeks she would send me home having worked less than she hired me to work and paying me our agreed price. So that was nice.


• I was a care-taker for an elderly woman who needed someone to stay with her while her live-in friend and caretaker had some time out on the town. One activity that she liked was reading the paper, but a few weeks into it I realized it was usually the Sunday paper and she wanted to look at every single section including the ads, and she couldn't really hear me when I read them to her so I had to repeat myself a lot. I started disassembling the paper before we read it to avoid the business section. I tried to take her to get milkshakes at Ruby's once, but she got very scared on the car ride there, so we had to go home.


• I was a nanny for one of the member's of Dave Matthew's Band and they put me up at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco for a week. That was a totally random/fun/awful/experience.


• I nannied for a lady who let her three year-old hit me in front of her without saying anything. Needless to say this was pretty awful and I had no control or respect in the relationship with the little girl. I dreaded going to this job.


• I worked for the Gallup Organization taking telephone polls, and while this was supposed to be a really great job and opportunity, I had a hard time trying to keep people on the phones for twenty minute surveys when their child was crying in the background. I only lasted about 3 days, and when I quit the lady basically told me that I would be a failure in life if I gave up so easily, and she made me cry and to this day I am still trying to prove her wrong.


• I had a guy on craigslist allow me to come to his house babysit and drive his daughter around without event speaking to me on the phone. We had only emailed, and while I am really trustworthy person I thought it was really scary that someone would trust their child's life in the hands of a stranger.

At least I have a lot of good stories to tell. Some possible jobs that I might take in the next few months are working in flue clinics at different retail stores or participating in a phone fund raiser. It will be weird working for ten bucks and hour again, but hopefully my next job will be something fun rather than data entry tedium.

Love

So if you haven't heard me whine about it yet D has moved to San Diego.

I am feeling more adjusted than I first was, but perhaps this is because I got to spend 5 nights and days with him for the long weekend.

And this morning I got a really sweet email from him, and it reminded me of when we used to send each other pages upon pages of emails when we were first meeting each other and first dating.

We have both grown and progressed so much as people since two years ago.

I love him a lot and I don't think I ever realized how a loving relationship and partnership really works and how caught up in someone elses existence you can be.

I like being caught up in it, and while change sucks, I feel like we have a good year in front of us, and hopefully many good years after that,