Performance Review

The company has what I imagine to be a fairly normal compensation philosophy, but one which is counter-productive for both the company and the employees.

Every year each employee fills out a long (and rather tedious) form regarding their goals for the upcoming year. This can include things like decreasing line shrinkage, completing a funding proposal, completing documentation, doing audits, or managing a project. Everyone’s job descriptions are different and thus their goals are unique. Then, for each of these, the employee sets benchmarks for what is below average performance, vs average vs above average vs superior. Managers vaguely look over the goals and sign off on it. Once the year is completed, each employee does a self-evaluation and then meets with their boss for a performance evaluation, where ideally the boss and the employee will reach an agreement on how the employee performed. Once the entire department has been evaluated, the boss divides up the possible salary increase. The company will set a certain percentage, say 3%, as the average compensation increase. A department manager then has to make sure their department increases average 3%.

The problems with this system are numerous and probably detrimental to the company. The first problem is obviously that the employees are in competition with each other. Within a company that relies upon collaboration and team work, having employees compete for a raise cannot be good for working relations or morale. The second problem with this system is that it encourages safe goals. If an employee wants a good performance review at the end of the year, they are likely to make their normal behavior an above average benchmark. Safe goals are bad for the company, as no one is encouraged to take risks and stretch themselves, resulting in a middle-of-the-road, unexciting company. Lastly, this system penalizes the honest. If an employee goes into a performance review with an honest evaluation of themselves they should not only argue in places where it is to their benefit, but also places where it is in their detriment. It makes a mockery of the whole system for an employee to receive a high evaluation where they don’t deserve it, while not helping the company identify opportunities for improvement.

I had my performance review this week and couldn’t stand for inflated marks where I didn’t deserve them. There were times when I argued my boss up some points, but there were also times when I argued for a lower score. This obviously took him by surprise, but it doesn’t help the company and it doesn’t help me to have inflated scores. On the other hand, it likely hurt me in the long run, with my compensation increase being lower than it should be. I’m torn by my actions, because although I know they were right, I also know that they were stupid from a business perspective. If being business savvy and being honest conflict, is being business savvy worthwhile?

butter

I bought butter at the grocery store today, wondering where the last butter I had bought went. Then I came home and started to roast a squash. Note to self: the oven is not a good place to soften your butter. Especially if you are going to forget about it for 2 weeks.

Oops.

Loyalty

My Boss came into my office at 12:45 to tell me to meet him in his office at 1. When I asked him what it was about, his response was a mumbled "nothing you need to prepare for." The next 15 minutes were useless as my mind swam with the horrible possibilities.

When I trudged into his office 15 minutes later, another of the engineers was already there. As I sat down, more people came in, but small talk quickly fell dead. There was an obvious pall in the room. Once everyone had arrived, my boss asked someone to shut the door, then began, "I wanted you to hear this from me first..."

That's how the announcement from my last boss started when he quit with 24 hours notice. Unfortunately this one ended with the elimination of 40% of my department. The people being laid off each had more than 3o years with the company. They were loyal to the company, then eliminated not based on performance, but for headcount reduction. The room was silent and awkward.

Somehow I made it back to my office and sat staring at the wall for several minutes. I had already offered to leave the plant when they did the first round of layoffs in June, but I'm not part of headcount. Today's announcement has made me question the company and where it's going. It's eliminating perfectly good workers. Other good workers are leaving because they don't think it will be around in 10 years. They cut the pension plan and outsource more and more manufacturing on a daily basis. Things don't look good and I can't wait to leave.

Finance

I’m in love with finance.

It gives me the intoxicating feeling of having an epiphany that can only come from discovering a new subject that opens new realms of knowledge.

I think I could be really good at it.

Flashback

Today I needed to find some old test scores, so i started going through my paper files. I've been pretty good about not hording lots of things, since I move a lot, but somehow a lot of things managed to slip past the last 2 moves. There were pay stubs from Boeing, uncashed checks from Olin, PDEs problem sets and drawings from Sustainable Designs. A lot of things are now sitting in my trashcan, not making it through my upcoming 3rd move in 2 years, but one things won't.

I found a letter I wrote myself November of Senior Year. It's on Olin letterhead, making me think that maybe we all wrote them, but I don't remember doing it. Mine is basically an outline of what I was contemplating at the time and proves amusing in what I'm still thinking about and what I've resolved.

I apparently spent a lot of time thinking about the future. Should I do robotics or business? Is going to grad school just putting off the real world? If I wasn't enjoying classes at the time, would I even be happy in more classes? Would grad schools even consider me? If I didn't do grad school, would I find a job that I enjoyed? Did I want a job that would be close to my family or friends? How would I find a job where I could change the world? Did I even want to change the world?

Now, it looks like a lot of those questions have been resolved, at least temporarily. I made decisions, applied to grad schools, accepted jobs and worked on planning my adult life. I realize how important it is to live near people you care about and how much I needed a year or two to appreciate education. I love my family and still consider living near them. In retrospect, I wonder how much of the fretting and contemplation helped me make these decision and how much it froze me in inaction. It's somewhat enlightening to see how things change.

I think I'll write myself another one of these letters, attach it to this one, and lose them both for another 2 years.

No Mexico

It looks like Mexico is out. Unfortunately, it comes about 2 weeks too late, as I think they already promised the Manchester fire-breathing-robots assignment to the guy who replaced me in Kentucky. Well, hell.

As I see it, there are two factors upon which my happiness in a future assignment depends: location and function. For location, my current ideal (with Mexico and all other international locations eliminated) would be Manchester, as it has a nice balance of cheapness and not-in-the-middle-of-nowhereness. I would refuse an assignment in Towanda and I’m not staying here, which leaves Manchester, Hillsboro, and Exeter in NH, Danvers and Beverly in MA, Central Falls in RI (I don’t think they assign people here), Winchester and Versailles in KY (I doubt they would send me back here), Wellsboro, Warren (both smaller than my current town) and York in PA. Things are not looking good on location. As far as function, there are a few types of generally approved engineering assignments: Production, R&D, Equipment Design, Commercial Engineering, and Business. I’ve done production and am tired of coming back in at 11PM to talk with third shift, tired of crud under my nails, and tired ruining my work clothes. Commercial Engineering and Business both involve living in the Boston area, which I’m not up for financially, even though I would really enjoy the work. R&D and Equipment Design could be basically anywhere and involve great things or very boring things.

I guess I’m willing to take my chances.

Dilemma

So, having survived a whole year in the workforce and more than 4 months in my tiny, little town in rural PA, I’ve started to think about where my last assignment will be. From when I accepted the job, I have always been vocal about wanting to spend time abroad. Yes, I spent a semester in Mexico, but studying isn’t the same as working. Yes, I spent time working in Spain, but the vocabulary for being an au pair and being an engineer are completely different (floaties anyone?). So, I’ve been thinking about spending my last 8 month assignment at the plant in Mexico, to work on my Spanish and continue work on my current project. I’ve told both my supervisors this, as well as my actual boss at HQ, the Mexican engineers on the project, and the project leader for my current project. Everyone knows I want to go to Mexico.

Unfortunately, after saying it for so long, I’m not really certain if that’s what I want. There are several reasons for this uncertainty, the foremost being that I’m bored. I don’t want to dwell too much on this point, but I wonder if I’m bored now, will the project become any less boring in another country, or will I still be spending my days surfing the internet? Second, I’m wondering how being an expat might affect my grad school savings. I’m working hard to save money and honestly don’t even have an idea how much an apartment might cost in Mexico, or how much it could cost to get myself (and my things) back to the states afterwards. Further, if I stay in the states, I would be eligible for a second job, while I’m not quite confident enough to pull that in Mexico. Third, the adventure of new experiences is starting to wear me down; sometimes I really do need to recharge with something familiar. I could request a placement in Manchester near Simon and share an apartment with him and Eric. The comforting idea of familiarity somehow elicits thoughts of curling up with a book on a rainy day. It’s so tempting I occasionally crave it. I really don’t know what to do, or what I want to do.

Mexico – Pros	New Hampshire - Pros
Continue current project (expert!)	Equipment design (robots!)
International Experience	New (engineering) skills
Low Cost-of-Living	Can supplement income
Language proficiency	Familiarity
Possible Expat Stipend	Less moving hassle
Mexico- Cons	New Hampshire – Cons
Language Anxiety	Less useful for future career
Could end up screwed on relocation	Probably need to keep car
Project may be boring	Possible v. awkward breakup
Plant is chaotic (at best)	Not an adventure
Sexism/classism	Cold/Snowy (I am not shoveling)

I’m sure there are more on both sides, but it's basically comfort vs. career. How career driven am I?

…And Suddenly, We’re Old

It’s been a little more than a year since graduation, but it wasn’t until driving home from the airport after Simon’s graduation that I finally felt Old. Not old in the sense of arthritic and in need of 24/7 care, but Old in the sense of Adult. There are college graduates in the workforce more recently minted than myself. There are people newer to being grown up that me. It makes me feel like I should be more responsible.

I’m not sure why it took me so long to mentally promote myself from Student to Adult, but now that I have everything seems different. I feel like I should be working on more adult behaviors and eliminating childlike ones. I feel like I should know more about the way simple every day things work, like finances or gardening or keeping a clean house. I feel like I should be in control of my career and quit passively waiting until I go back to grad school. There’s so much advice out there for new graduates, and suddenly, I’m trying to drink it all in and do all the things required of adults.

Of course, after a year, haven’t I already defined what it means for me to be an adult, or do I still have time?

Eating

I am eating again. It’s not necessarily a good thing.

I’ve been eating real human foods for the past week, but it’s really been more than eating. It’s more like uncontrollable eating. For some reason, after resetting my digestive system, all I want to do is eat. Food tastes so much better than I remembered, so now I want to eat it all. It’s really weird.

New eating habits aside, I think the Master Cleanse went very well. I started sleeping better at some point during the cleanse and generally needed less sleep. I rarely felt tired, even though I was consuming vastly fewer calories than normal. My digestive system actually felt pretty damn good. I’ll probably do it again sometime, but with moderation. I really like flavors besides cayenne, maple, lemon and salt.

With my renewed love of eating, I actually tried century eggs this week. They are interesting. Hailun had her mother mail some from NYC Chinatown, since I had been asking about them. The first thing you notice when these some out of the all-Taiwanese box, is that the shells have a speckled greenish pall. They apparently were not green before being cured. This does not comfort me. Hailun then proceeds to take a sharp knife and crack one open, instantly filling the kitchen with an acrid smell. The first one dribbles green goo all over the counter before Hailun declares that it must be a bad one. How does an already rotten egg go bad?

The second egg is more successful, giving up its shell in solid form. The outer surface is a deep brown color spotted with the most delicate white fractal patterns. It’s like snow on dark wood. Cutting the egg in half reveals the yolk, army green and creamy, hidden inside the shiny and gelatinous coke-colored egg “white”. Once two eggs are cut into sixths, we proceed to the tasting. Hailun has prepared the traditional vinegar-based dipping sauces in accordance with her mother’s directions, but I have to try one plain first. The “white” has the texture of a hard boiled egg white, and actually has a similar flavor, very mild. The yolk on the other hand, is like biting into brie without the goodness of flavor. The sharp smell of the eggs, not just from the “bad” one, is obviously emanating from the yolks. They taste strongly of metal and earthy rot. Adding the dipping sauce just attempts to mask the flavor with the tartness of vinegar. Although Hailun comments how long it’s been since she had these, neither of us finish an entire egg. Traditional or not, even the native Chinese don’t always like the century egg. Now at least I can say that I’ve tried one, even if I prefer my eggs fresh and soft boiled.

So, now that I’m eating solid foods again, I am up for food suggestions and adventures of all types.

The real deal on the Master Cleanse

It's been eight days since I ate anything. I'm not hungry.

The Master Cleanse is going pretty well. I'm vaguely surprised that I have this much willpower, but part of it could be stubbornness, after all, how else am i going to use the maple syrup and lemons I've already bought. I'm looking forward actually eating things and variety, but there have been some positive benefits. For one, perhaps for the first time since I left Olin, I'm actually sleeping through the night and finding that 6 hours of sleep is plenty. Second, most days I seem to have lots of energy. It's really quite lovely.

If you're considering doing it, I would say read more about it, then make your decision. Some advice:

• It limits your ability to be social. You can't really go to the bar, grab a bite to eat, or travel very far. Keep that in mind when planning.
• I imagine it's hard to do while living with someone. I have very little edible food in the house, but a roommate would be less fond of this arrangement.
• Don't do the cleanse during the winter; the cost of lemons would kill you.
• You should probably come up with a good way to explain what you're doing in advance. My coworkers still don't get my explanations.
• You need to own a juicer.
• Buying maple syrup in bulk is a good idea. I will probably have consumed 9 cups by the time I quit.
• Your ability to chug will be tested with the salt water flush. I hope you were a college champion of beer drinking.
• Be prepared for some or all of the following negative side effects: feeling cold all the time, a perpetual sore throat, feeling like your mouth is fuzzy, craving food, craving smells, itchy skin and/or a desire to read lot of recipes.

It doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but I think it might be good for me in the end.

oh boy

I just submitted my last assignment (group) for accounting class. This makes me very happy, if only because by the time I take my next class, I will have a whole different set of people to scorn and complain about. I did actually learn something about accounting, but I certainly won't trust my accounting knowledge when I get to real grad school. Amusingly, after launching into a diatribe about how UoP students are not up to my standards, my dad replied with, "what if you don't like the Harvard students either?" What, indeed.

Also, I dreamt about food last night. Not just any food, I had a dream involving utterly gorging on ground beef. I haven't eaten ground beef in about 9 years. I think not eating is getting to me a little and it's only been 3 days. Turning on the food channel at the gym today just made me crave coleslaw, which is not something I usually like. I then came home and started poking around the internet for recipes. It's all self torture. It's not that I actually am hungry, but today is definitely the day I'm getting lots of cravings. I've already started to plan what I get to eat when I get solid foods again.

Crackers.

Hard Reset

For some reason I decided that my digestive tract needed a hard reset. This means that I'll be doing the Master Cleanse for next several days, possibly up to two weeks. I'm not so sure about this.

This morning started with trying to chug a liter of salt water. It's hard enough to chug a liter of regular water without adding the taste of the ocean. I promptly went back to sleep only to be woken up two hours later by the angry noises my stomach was making. Salt water flushes definitely work.

After finally dragging myself out of bed, I made breakfast, but it just as easily could have been lunch or dinner. Juice from half a lemon, a cup of water, two tablespoons of maple syrup and a dash of cayenne pepper combined and downed and I was ready to attack the day. I'm hoping that I get used to the weird taste, since it's all I'll be "eating" for the foreseeable future.

I've since had a couple more glasses of this stuff. I already miss chewing things and I'm looking forward to the herbal laxative tea this evening, if only because it won't make my nose run with spiciness.

This could be a very long two weeks.

Real College

The "college experience" at Olin was anything but typical. I can probably count the number of times I went out to a bar. There wasn't really anyone on campus that I didn't "know". Going down to Penn State has made me realize what college could have been, what "real college" is.

By 5PM on a Saturday afternoon, we're already trying on dresses and getting makeup opinions. The six of us swarm in from of the mirror, trying to cover sunburned noses from the football game that afternoon, trading bras, and using double stick tape on skin and fabric. We finally call a taxi at 6:30, hoping that Jaime will stop flipping out and get herself together by the time it gets there. She ends up putting her makeup on in the cab.

Dinner starts with drinks at the bar while waiting, some girly, others just hard. Dinner itself is mediocre, but doesn't really matter to Laura, who may well have an eating disorder. More drinks to go around at dinner, and then we’re off to the Scanty Gaff. We're all dressed in dresses and heels as we show the bouncer out IDs and fight for drinks at this very dive-y college bar. Vodka tonics combine with eighties music creating the need to dance. Once the heels start to wear, we join a group of ex-Army guys at a table. Free beer magically produces itself for the wearers of cute clothing.

I listen to the guys talk about tricks they played on each other while they were in Iraq. One in particular corners me while I put on my best innocent, conservative Southern girl act. He talks about how he works building houses now, how he hopes we don't get into any new conflicts that would send him back to combat. We talk about motorcycles and mindless things. Beer continues to grease the entire situation.

Feeling nicely buzzed, we decide to go back to the bar from the night before. The bouncer was cute there and Laura's only goal for the night is to make out with someone. The second bar is more upscale, a place where the heels and jewelry are perhaps a little more at home. The bouncer is working as bar back, still dark and handsome. The Army guys have joined our group and help us grab a large table. We order more girly drinks and beers, but move to the bar as it begins to empty around 1. The bar back completely ignores Laura, sending her into a depressive state while the rest of us seductively ask the bartenders what they make best. With Laura sulking and last call approaching, 3 of the Army guys and one of the girls break off to go "home". Michelle declares that she wants pizza and starts encouraging the rest of the group to head that way. Before leaving we ask the bar back to join us after he gets off. He takes Laura's number and promises to meet us.

Pizza after the bars close in a college town is what everyone seems to do. The line is out the door with drunk people in various states of clothing. Once we finally make it to the front, the girls and our one remaining Army guy grab pizzas and a table. A professional football player, back in town for the weekend, sits at the next table over, politely obliging for pictures. His girlfriend must hate us. Halfway through the pizza, the bar back calls, then joins us. Turns out that he's actually a freshman, which is perhaps a little young for Laura, who's been out of college for 2 years. Our Army guy doesn't know what to make of a group of girls fawning over another guy and leaves confused and alone.

We all finally leave around 3, thinking we'll be able to catch a taxi. We call the cab companies and get no answer. We try flagging down any taxi we see, and even try to flag down a pizza guy, just hoping for anything that will keep us from needing to walk the 4 miles home in heels. We talk to other people on the street, thinking maybe one of them is heading in the same direction. One guy is, but he doesn't have a better plan than we do. Michelle finally sits down on the curb, while we try to hail any one down. A nice man in a Lexus stops at the stoplight with his windows open. When a cute girl in a skirt asks if he can possibly take us home, he says yes. We arrive home, the four remaining girls and the guy we had picked up on the street, having hitchhiked. Life is strange and drunk.

I don't have enough stories like that.

Five Reasons University of Phoenix Online Isn't Worth It

I recently had the need to take an accounting class, but living in a small town couldn't find one here. Someone suggested that I take accounting online from University of Phoenix – it offered the right class, a new section starts every Tuesday, classes last only five weeks, and all you need is reliable internet access. It sounded like a perfect class, one that would fit around my sporadic travel schedule, but still leave me with the knowledge I desired. Sadly, after paying nearly $1700 in fees and tuition for a 3 credit class, I’m realizing that University of Phoenix on-line is not an educational experience worth the money.

1. Discussion Based Classrooms only work if the students are intelligent.

I don’t mean to bash the students, as I’m sure there are plenty of intelligent people taking classes through University of Phoenix, but given that the combination of no admissions requirements and a for-profit University, there are also plenty of less intelligent people. Discussion in my accounting class the first week quickly devolved into a discussion about how abortion is wrong, while the second week included gems about how murderers should be put to death. I don’t understand what either of those has to do with accounting, either. To compliment these, in response to a question the instructor asked that actually had to do with accounting and tax law, several students proceeded to make guesses at an answer, instead of using the internet, which they were sitting in front of, to actually find the correct answer. Given that class discussion is intended as a learning tool, I think the only thing I’m learning is that the students are skewed towards conservative and seem to actively avoid spell check.

2. Team Based Assignments do not work when you don’t know your team.

We participate in class discussions together and have all posted little bios, but I definitely would not count my classmates as friends, not even facebook friends. When assigned to a small team together, since we don’t know each other, there seems to be little to make people feel responsible to the team. Some people turn in sections for team papers which just take large chunks of text from various websites, while others don’t submit their sections until half an hour before the deadline for the entire paper to be edited, run through the plagiarism checker, and submitted. Incomplete sentences and poor grammar are more the rule rather than the exception. I realize that my standards are higher than many of my fellow classmates, but turning in original work, on time, that has been run through Word’s spelling and grammar check seems like a bare minimum for participating in this kind of team. Unfortunately, if you don’t know your teammates, you are probably more likely to violate all three of these because you feel no obligation to your team.

3. Software must be scaled when dealing with large groups of users.

Wikipedia claims that University of Phoenix has 280,000+ students, making it one of the largest university systems in the world. Even if you only count the on-line students, estimated at 120,000, it’s just a lot of students. All on-line classes run on the same schedule, with assignments due Monday evenings. All on-line classes also require that papers be run through a plagiarism checker, a tool which automatically searches for sections of the text on the internet. Although I’m not the most technologically literate person, I can’t imagine that task having a large amount of computing overhead. Still, when I submitted the last team paper to the plagiarism checker, I gave up after 50 minutes of waiting. If I were to try again today, the same check would take less than 2 minutes. If you’re going to require that 120,000 people use an app on your website at the same time, perhaps there should be some more investment in ensuring that it will work for all your users at the same time.

4. Professionalism is not expected of instructors.

Although my instructor asks good discussion questions, she is not above using LOL or other internet colloquialisms in her posts. It may just be me, but it seems that at least the faculty should be a bit more professional; they are getting paid to be in the class, after all. They should probably also stay clear of those aforementioned discussions about murder and abortion, but mine certainly doesn’t.

5. I could get the same knowledge from reading a textbook alone.

I feel like I’m paying a large amount of money to read an accounting textbook every week. There are no lectures, in video, audio or text format. Every week, there is a reading assignment from a textbook, the class discussion, a homework problem or two from the textbook and a group assignment of either a paper or a discussion problem from the book. I’ve already covered how the discussions, despite good intentions, are not effective as learning tools, and team papers about a given website certainly isn’t any more effective than just exploring the website on my own, which leaves the reading and the homework problems, both out of the text, as my learning tools. Maybe I’m paying for the grading, but buying the solution guide off of Amazon seems like a more cost effective solution.

Although some people may find University of Phoenix online a good experience, my own experience has left me wanting. Wanting for good students and a learning environment lacking LOL.

Toronto

I love Canada.

Yes, it's cold in Canada and it now requires a passport, but it's hard not to love them. They're all such cute little liberals, with their socialized health care and utter hate for our current administration. They also have the ability to sell cheese made with raw milk and pretty much every restaurant is vegetarian friendly. Excellent.

In reality, I'm starting to look at cities differently now. With all the moving around, I'm starting to fantasize about settling down someplace. With living in the middle of nowhere, I'm definitely fantasizing about nice cities, with good public transport, tall buildings, interesting neighborhoods, ethnic diversity and lots of good food. Toronto, despite being quite cold, does manage to fit the requirements quite well.

Simon managed to catch a bus to Toronto, since plane flights were out of the question and the weather let up enough that I managed to drive up. It really was only Pennsylvania that was bad for driving; by the time I crossed into Canada there wasn't even snow on the side of the road. We wandered the city a lot and were food tourists. They have a great market and a fabulous Science Museum. Buildings were tall and the CN tower was taller. There's even a castle in the bustling 5 million person metropolis. Public transport is frequent, pervasive, and runs 24 hours. Overall, I really liked Toronto, even though there were times when I thought my ears would fall off. Sometimes I think my ears are going to fall off here, and it doesn't have all the other cool points.

I could see spending more time in Toronto sometime in my future. I just need to start saying "eh" a little more.

Stupid F-ing Pennsylvania

I have been planning this long weekend with Simon in Toronto for weeks. I get ten vacation days a year and this is how I was going to spend two of them. I was going to drive up to Buffalo (~125 miles) and pick up Simon, who was going to fly in. We were planning on spending the night there, eating eggplant buffalo wings and enjoying seeing each other after two months absence. Saturday we were planning to see Niagara Falls, then continue on to Toronto. We made reservations at a cute little vegetarian B&B near University of Toronto. I have 4 pages of restaurant suggestions for the vegetarian inclined in Toronto. There's a whole page of things to do, ranging from places to shop to museums and science centers and one really tall tower. It was going to be grand.

Instead, I'm sitting on my couch, rather pissed off at the world. Simon's flight was cancelled. There are none tomorrow, either. His flight was not cancelled until I was outside cell phone reception range, because there is nothing between here and Buffalo. By the time I did get his messages, I had spent 2 hours driving 50 miles in driving snow. I had gotten stuck once and slid around more times than I care to think about. I was so angry when I found out, I had the urge to break all the ears off the chocolate bunnies at the grocery store. I wanted to throw a kicking and screaming tantrum on the floor. Instead, I turned around and spent 2 more hours driving back to my godforsaken tiny town in the middle of nowhere in the driving snow. I was so angry I gorged on junk food all the way back. I was still angry after two hours and tried a five mile run to calm myself.

I'm still angry. I need to get out of here.

Goals

I have been told people are more likely to reach their goals if they are both concrete and public.

1. Become more fit. Running one mile without stopping is good, but running five would be better. I must continue gym membership usage.
2. Eat healthier. More veggies and less processed food stuff. Try to cut back the MSG and salt usage, too.
3. Save money. Living in Pennsylvania is cheap, flying to Cheryl's wedding and taking finance/accounting classes are not. Try to do more of the cheap.
4. Budget. Everything must be entered into the budget worksheet, preferably daily.
5. More writing. That book from November is not going to get any better without a complete rewrite. More short stories, too.
6. More reading. Finish The World is Flat. Read Nickel and Dimed. Find out what else the library has that's worthwhile and read it, too.
7. German. Do the German on CD lessons. All 27 discs.
8. No more store-bought, at-home waxing kits. They are just trouble.
   

That's probably a sufficient number of goals for life right now. Perhaps too many.

Any missing?

Since High School

This week I suddenly decided to take interest in facebook, which resulted in several high school friends asking what I have been up to for the last five years. It's kind of strange to look back.

Five years ago I was preparing to go to Spain to be an au pair to an unknown family. I thought I knew a lot more Spanish than I actually did and was quite hung up on asserting my independence by going. Spain turned out to be a pretty good experience after the first month. The first month, on the other hand, included such highlights as the children refusing to learn my name and crying whenever left with me, almost being taken advantage of, but instead getting brought home, drunk, by the police, and truly understanding how little I understood. It got better.

Since that point there was the whole of college, with some nearly failing out and barely graduating moments. There was toying with the thought of transferring, eventually overcome by laziness and fear. There was getting bored and spending a summer in Costa Rica. There was the semester in Mexico and a lot of classes I'll never use again. There were friends and significant others, drinking and drug use, angsts and joys. How does one really summarize the whole of their college experience, the truly formative years, to someone?

Since college, life has continued and taught me how much college worked and how much it still left me to learn. There has been learning to live anywhere and how to basically be a nomad. I work for the man and it's not entirely disagreeable. Working is just what pays the bills, not actually what I do. I read, I cook, I write, I travel, I hike, but work is just what takes up 40 hours a week. This phase of life will end sometime, too.

It's strange to look back five years at all the little things that made me cry or worry and realize they, for the most part, are unimportant now. It's also strange to realize now much the last 5 years have changed things, changed me. Stranger yet is to think about how it must also have changed all those high school friends. I'm not really certain we know each other anymore, but perhaps we should. At least I think I've gotten better.

A Tribute to Kentucky

I went back to Kentucky this past weekend. A mere three weeks had passed, but already a kind of nostalgia has set in. It's not the city I was raised in, but it certainly has its high points.

I'm not a horse person, but there is no denying the peaceful surroundings of horse country. Crossing through the Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati the landscape slowly transforms into open, rolling hills neatly divided into parcels of land by stately uniform fencing. Horses stand in the well kept grasses, heads bent to taste the still green strands, or held tall warily watching the cars go by. Some wear horse blankets against the late winter cold, but most show off their glossy coats and flowing manes in the long winter sun. Everything appears postcard-perfect just feet beyond where the highway ends.

I don't really drink coffee either, but the presence of independent coffee houses, liberal social salons where people gather around their sugar concoctions and share in the knowledge provided by free wifi is still appealing. The city, although small by most standards, manages to boast at least three enlightened non-Starbucks options. At least one has a cute barista. These gathering places for the twenty something crowd are missed.

Food, I will admit, is a weakness of mine. I appreciate eating good food and making good food for others. Unfortunately when your options are 6 restaurants serving bar food and Walmart for groceries, both of these are hard to come by. There was German food and Chinese food and Indian food and Thai food. The Co-op made their standard southern biscuits and gravy for brunch and Liquor Barn was happy to be my provider for high-end baking chocolate. There was not enough time to eat all the tastiness that was being offered.

People are perhaps the greatest asset Kentucky has, and sadly is often the thing most made fun of. The people may be conservative, but if I put my car in a ditch, there's no one I'd rather have find me than someone from Kentucky. They may talk slower than the rest of the country, but they will certainly call you dear and make you feel like family. Guys don't let liberalism and gender equality stand in the way of chivalry. There's something familiar in the accents and the friendly driving and way people will just start a conversation with you at the grocery. The people are resolutely Southern in the best of ways.

There are so many other endearing attributes that it's impossible to do them justice. The dive bars and college parties, the hiking and picturesque main streets in small towns, the logically laid out city, the old, beautiful homes, the flaming yellow ginkgo trees in the fall, the farmer's market, the entire pace of life and how everything fits together - it all makes Kentucky a undervalued gem.

Kentucky may not be where I want to live forever, but I'm glad that I had the chance to dispel my preconceived notions and misperceptions. I would have been missing so much.

Welcome to Pennsylvania

I've been here for two weeks now, but yesterday I feel was my true introduction to Pennsylvania. I woke up early to shovel my drive and clear off my car. An hour later I had my 10 feet of driveway clear and was likely going to be later to work than I prefer. I was also alternately cold (toes, ears, fingers) and quite warm (core). I made it the 1.2 miles to work without incident and completed the day without thinking about the weather outside. Upon leaving the building, I noticed a snow mobile parked in the lot. Welcome to Pennsylvania.

It was the first real snow since my arrival in the state. I was probably much better off with the negative 30 wind chill than the snow, but I'm still thinking that the groundhog was right and spring is just around the corner. Soon it will be hiking season and there won't be enough time to do all I want. Until then, I'm working diligently and drinking with the coops on the weekends. Living here is cheap when the only options to spend money are Wal-Mart and Payless. The gym is well enough equipped and practically always empty. The whole situation isn't actually altogether unpleasant.

There are some things I could complain about here, like the girl upstairs who plays the same 4 rap songs very loud all the time, or the fact that I had to shovel out my driveway again after work yesterday before I could park, but I think they are nicely counterbalanced. I have a library card which allows me to check out mindless novels and German-on-CD. The kitchen is small, but I'm having a lot of fun learning how to make delicious things. It may be cold outside, but my heater works well and I don't have to pay the utilities.

Work has actually been much better than expected. I've been given as much time as I would like to wander the production floor and really get to know the processes. The people, both salaried and hourly have been friendly and helpful. My boss generally stops by my office just to chat for about an hour a day, then, since it's 4, tells me to go home. My office is actually mine, with the occasional need to share with the wonderfully German consultant. The department is close to gender balanced, a refreshing change from being one of two technical females in the entire plant. Everyone is laid back, taking a half hour break every morning to gossip about people in town. I probably couldn't ask for a much better working situation.

As far as my project, I am somewhat stressfully still beholden to my old plant, meaning that some weekend in the near future and perhaps more in the distant future I will be making the 500 mile trek back to Kentucky to oversee some testing. My project here, a continuation of the last project, hasn't really picked up yet, but appears to be reasonable within the time frame and involves a lot of hands on work. If nothing else, I get to do something new for awhile. I'm generally pleased with work in this small town.

I may live in the middle of nowhere, but at least it's not a bad middle of nowhere. Just a little snowy.