Coyotes

I haven't talked much about my new lodgings - mainly because I'm reluctant to say, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, that I'm not particularly happy here.  Regardless, it is still a significant step up from where I was before so I can't complain too much!  It is a balance of the pros (like I currently have an adorable baby rabbit living under my porch) to the cons (I don't know if this is because I have a septic tank, but the house has some very strange and not particularly pleasant smells).  I was also speaking to my landlord the other day, and I was somewhat shocked to find out that he got woken up last week by the sound of coyotes outside my house.  Considering how poorly I'm sleeping at the moment, I'm surprised (and disappointed) that I didn't hear them myself.  So apparently there are coyotes in the vicinity - though I won't worry about it as much as the neighborhood cats and rabbits!  I guess they sound like dogs, so I don't know if I would even have paid it any attention if I had heard them, but good to know and hopefully I will get a chance to hear (and see) them myself.

Only 17 Days To Go!

Hell yes!

Currently on my IM profile at work: "Chaos isn't a pit.  Chaos is a ladder.  Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again.  The fall breaks them.  And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse.  They cling to the realm or the gods or love... illusions.  Only the ladder is real.  The climb is all there is."

First Game of Thrones prediction: The Great War will not be between the living and the dead, it will be between Littlefinger and the Spider.

The White Princess

I just finished binge watching The White Princess - about the aftermath of the Battle of Bosworth Field and the start of the reign of Henry VII.  It's not exactly a period of history that I'm overly familiar with, but perhaps one of the biggest understatements in television history is the text at the end of each episode before the credits roll: "Some historical events and characters have been altered in the film for dramatic purposes".  No sh*t Sherlock!  A quick check of Wikipedia reveals that almost nothing in the series happened in reality (although Wikipedia is not exactly the most reliable source of historical facts either).  I guess this was why it was a drama on Starz (a premium cable channel) rather than The History Channel.

Risk vs Reward

I dabbled on ebay today - there was a box of James Bond trading cards that I was interested in.  Normally these boxes are sealed, but this one was not - very suspicious, although the seller claimed that all the packets inside the box were present.  In this particular box, you are supposed to get one autograph card and one relic card.  But what guarantee was there of getting these when the box was unsealed?  So I still put in a bid, but nowhere near as high as what I paid to get a similar sealed box in a previous auction.  And I consequently lost.  But I don't feel too bad about it.  How exciting is my life?!

Just Resting My Eyelids

I reached a new low at work today.  I think this might be the first time I’ve ever done this, but I fell asleep at my desk this morning.  I had my headset on and was listening to a presentation being given during a teleconference – it was so boring and spoken with a monotone delivery that I could feel myself nodding off a few times, and I think I must have fallen asleep briefly because I woke up with a start when I heard myself snore, or at least breathe very heavily.  I hope I didn’t make too much of a sound, that is awfully embarrassing and I dread to think what the people in adjacent cubes must think of me.  Yikes.  In the past I’ve driven away from the office to somewhere quieter to take a nap in my car, but this is a whole new level of shame and embarrassment and lack of professionalism.  A sad reflection of how I feel about work at the moment….  

Hot

Really unpleasantly hot day here today - maybe got in the 90's and definitely hottest day of the year so far.  Reminds me so much of summer days in Austin, Texas where it just gets too hot to do anything after about mid-morning.  So naturally, I did nothing much today - probably for the best as I haven't been feeling great recently.  I even took a sick day last week, so appreciate the rest (even though it is far too hot to be able to get a decent night's sleep).  Staying up well into the early hours to watch the start of the Lions vs All Blacks game probably wasn't the best idea either - and that was a waste of time with a very non-competitive game.  To be honest, just pleasantly surprised to find out that it was even aired here.

Lack of Recognition

It’s been nearly 2 years since I returned to my company and my job, and in that time I have earned just one certificate of thanks.  Over the same duration, it seems like everyone around me has earned multiple certificates of thanks and value at work awards.  These all come with financial rewards (not insignificant – a value at work award can be worth $1000), so it is extremely disconcerting that I don’t seem to have been recognized and rewarded as much as a lot of my colleagues.  And it says a lot about either how inconsistently these awards are dished out by different managers, or how poorly I have been utilized since coming back (or how poor my performance has been?!  I think not.)  I do think it is suspicious that a lot of my Chinese colleagues – with Chinese managers – appear to have accumulated a lot of these rewards, whereas people like me have not.  And it says a lot about my poor relationship with my manager.  I had  a meeting with my manager’s manager last week, and did express a lot of my concerns (most of which he was aware of, because I had expressed those same concerns in performance review feedback at the end of last year).  And encouragingly, he raised the prospect of my changing groups and manager if things don’t get better rather than me.  I don’t think things will get better, so I hope my situation will finally change for the better later this year.  Though I fear too little and too late to make me want to stay in Seattle.