Saturday, August 26, 2006

People Who Need People

Living far away from almost everyone I care about is pretty much the suckiest thing ever. I don't really have a peer group here. I went to a stake YSA FHE activity a couple weeks ago. Not my thing; nobody there I could relate to. Just a lot of frenetic young people. I felt like 26 was much too old to be included.

I'm very much looking forward to the start of fall institute. Apparently, earlier in the year, YSA reps asked some of the older (over 25) singles why they did not attend FHE or Institute. The main reason given was that those activities are exactly what I experienced--they're full of 18-year-olds. Not that 18YOs are bad, but they're loud, and require extra patience. Thus, the idea of a 25-40 Institute class was born. The summer class ended right before I arrived (actually, the night after; but unsurprisingly, I wasn't there) and the class has not yet restarted. I think it does next week--or maybe the week after that. Anyway, soon. That will be nice. And maybe I'll even have home teachers sometime. That would also be a plus.

Even better, I'll be in Utah next weekend. I'm very pleased about this.

Oh, and "WNBA sucks."

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Meetings, cable TV, and staying up

I attend a lot of meetings. At these meetings, things are discussed. However, the foreign dialect of acronyms is often so thick that I have only the vaguest idea of what's actually going on. When the discussions are less technical, I understand a lot more; Tuesday had two largely comprehensible meetings. The first had scientists discussing the projects they planned to try out if they received discretionary funds, and the second involved someone wanting some of our department's money--which we didn't have much of anyway, so they were out of luck.

My cable tv was connected Wednesday. I've got digital cable, so I feel good about that, but I won't be able to get NFL Sunday Ticket. Quite unfortunate, really. However, I can start watching Smallville and The Office again.

Tuesday, I went to a baseball game. Yes, I have some animosity towards Major League Baseball, but Roger Clemens was pitching, and I got a free ticket. It turned out to be an 18-inning game. Yeah. I was tired.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

I Don't Exist! (Or maybe I do. It's one or the other.)

I lack an email address at NASA, and I don't have access to hotmail here.

I don't have internet access at home, and I don't feel like going to the library.

Actually, I'm quite proud of my lack of an email address or network log-in here. Other people that arrived the same day I did got theirs almost immediately. Not me. Instead, I'm working. Mostly. Usually, I don't quite understand everything about the work I'm doing--or most things about it, come to think of it--but I can do the actual pressing task, once given some substantial directions. And that's pretty good for the fourth day, I think. Thus, I'm well on my way. I still don't understand most of it, but I know that I will get there. My first day, I wasn't quite sure about that.

Sorry about writing about something somewhat important. At least it's just my job, though, so you can't tell me it's really important. Oh, and I do accounting stuff for people that work with moon rocks. We work in the same building as those people, and it's far enough away from everything to feel like we're on the moon ourselves, as we never see anyone else.