land of connections

So I keep meeting people and these people know each other or know other people that I know. It is truly a small world. Like I moved to Madison after meeting people who live here in England and Spain. Then I met people here who know people that I know that live in Kansas City and Mexico that I met in England. Then I met a guy at the interview at Apple and it turns out that he knows one of the guys that I live with and has done some work on the remodeling of my house. Yesterday I went to a meeting about Young Life at the high school that is two blocks from my house. And it just so happens that it took place at the house that my housemate's girlfriend lives in. And by chance they know the before mentioned guy and his wife too. And on Sunday I had meet this guy's wife and family and his wife had seen my housemate and his girlfriend in Target earlier that day. And as a sidenote, my other housemate happens to work at that Target.

So Young Life, hooray! They may have club (the meeting for kids, crazy games and songs, etc.) in the bottom floor of our house. How great is that! People were talking about how great it would be to have someone who had a heart for young people at the high school to use the space in the bottom of our house. (Dunno if I've explained the space before. The top three floors will each be a three bedroom flat and the bottom floor will be a space with kitchen, bathroom, and lounge type rooms. Then it can be a great spot for people in the community to come and hang out, do work or homework, host parties, and whatever else happens. We live about two blocks from the high school too.) We shall see what happens with all that, but it has very exciting potential.

So yep, things are moving forward, I am meeting people, am getting trained for my job at Apple, working at my internship, and living here in Madison.

Yesterday I stopped at Trader Joe's on my way home from Apple. Oh man was I indecisive. I was trying to get a few things that I needed in order to be able to pack lunches or dinners for training and work this week. And so I wandered the store and ended up asking this poor lady what kind of cheese I wanted cause I couldn't be bothered to make the choice. I also was talking to this guy who worked there about pretzels, crackers and tortilla chips. He said that I would know that I made it in life when I could buy all three. Oh yes, land of opportunity and tortilla chips.

life in a snowglobe

So today it has been snowy and I've actually quite enjoyed it. This morning I went for a run, not knowing that it was snowing until I walked out the door. (running in the cold is great cause I can be outside and not be cold and I run without sweating cause it's too cold. I did have to stop once cause the snow stuck in the bottom of my shoe was picking up more snow and forming a ball of snow on the bottom of my foot, not conducive to running on.) It was really fun, like being in a snowglobe and things have a different perspective when you can't see that far ahead, makes you concentrate on what's around. Like life eh, you don't know what the future brings so you might as well be in the here and now. Focus on what you can see and the rest will take care of itself later. Like I moved to Madison and a house sorted itself out, I got a job and internship, met great people, and we will have to see what happens.

This afternoon I went out for coffee and wore my big chunky snow boots. How funny and entertaining to clomp around. And wow, how nice to have warm feet. Wow, who would have thought? And fun to be able to walk in the snow. When I got home I had to scrape my car off in order to move it to the other side of the street. You have to park on a certain side because of the snow plowing. I do live in a snow globe.

Yesterday I had my first dinner party at my new house. Hard to believe that I have been here for two weeks already, crazy! And yet I feel like I've been here for a while already. So the transit (training program) people came over. I asked a lot of nosy questions and I believe that people enjoyed themselves. It is so interesting to meet new people and so neat that each person is so different. What they like, who they are, how they present themselves, what they are learning, great. And how wonderful to meet people over food. There is something about sitting around and sharing a meal, people taking the time to stop, chat, enjoy, relax. Let your guard down a bit. Good stuff. So often people rush through life and meals, why? What's all the rush for? Sit down, talk, breath a bit. Glorious!

to the tundra

So I've moved to the tundra, who's idea was that? I just left my internship to go get some coffee to warm up and cause what fun to be playing on the computer and to have that time accompanied by a warm lovely coffee (almost ended up going down the wrong street on the way back cause my head was down to get away from the wind and snow). My internship is working in a ad shop where we are all volunteers. (design people who want and need experience) It functions like an ad shop, great fun! Funny though that they just assumed that I could do things, I guess you would think that if someone had a graphic design degree, they would be competent. I never showed any work to them, just came and had a chat friday, and started this morning. And it is downtown, right by the capitol which is fun. Also means that parking is stupid and expensive so I took the bus. (Which turned out to be a good thing, since I got my car stuck in the driveway. I couldn't find parking on the road last night, had a thought that I was going to get stuck, but did it anyway. And lo and behold, the car wouldn't back up the driveway this morning. Hmmmmm. Hopefully the situation will be remedied by the time that I get back. (Perks of having really nice people working on the remodeling of the house.) And I got shelves put in my closet this morning too, good day. Now my stuff can finally be put away.

I hung up my pictures the other day. Yeah! I got to hang pictures on the wall, how great is that? Pound nails into the wall and everything. There was a little bit of a mishap in my room, the nail bent and the hole that it formed in the wall is a little bigger than ideal, but it's covered the the ribbon that this pretty mirror hangs on. I have more frames that I have to put new pictures in. Yeah! (If you've got any really good pictures that can go on my wall, send them over.)

This weekend was great. Start with Friday. I go to the place that I now have my internship, meet with people and decide that I will start on Monday (today!). Then I was driving home and had a message from Apple to call them back and bam, I got a job! Good day. Then there was a weekend intensive with a bunch of people around my age from church so I got to meet some more amazing people, catch up with some others and have a great time. Life is good. Things are coming together.

the cold

The cold and I do not get along very well. By that I mean that I don't like it. And you would think that by now (living so many years with cold winters) I would be used to it, but that is not the case. But I think that my attitude towards cold is improving mostly. I do enjoy warm drinks and snuggling up on the couch. But it is scary when I meet someone at the coffee shop who tells me that this is a bad time to move to Madison, that January and February are cold. Not helpful. But the upside is that when I make it to the spring, oh how glorious that will be. And if I am used to Madison in the cold and settled in, then how much better will it be when it is warm? Sounds good.

Today I took a driving tour around the city, which led me in circles. Ooops. My sense of direction is not wonderful and there are a lot of one way streets which was not helpful either. I got directions back from town for when I go there tomorrow. I might become an art director in an unpaid intership, but great experience and sounds exciting. I guess we'll see tomorrow.

I've been here a whole week already. How crazy is that?

here I am

First of all, check out this website and go and sign the declaration. It only takes a second, and they are trying to gather a million signatures to present to the UN to persuade them to look into human trafficking as a serious issue.
http://www.stopthetraffik.org/help/declaration.aspx

Secondly, I now live in Madison WI. Crazy thought. I've been thinking and praying for so long to finally get somewhere and just get to be. Now I am here, and now what does that look like? I thought so much about getting there and forget the reality to being here, so it is like a dream in a lot of ways. Yes I am actually here. And there what so much time spent thinking about getting here, not I need to see what being here looks like. But that will take time, which is just fine cause time I have now. I am here. I had an interview at the Apple store yesterday and that was great fun. Answering questions and role playing and I got so giddy it was hard to pay attention sometimes. How wonderful to be employed again! Getting a paycheck, wow. (and being able to pay my rent, landlords would like that one)

I really enjoy meeting people and have gotten to do that a lot since being here. New faces, new personalities and new passions, exciting. Can be draining too, so much effort to get to know people and yet it is not at the same time. You know how there are times when you just click with people and there is an instant friendship in a way. What a beautiful thing. I really like thinking about friendships and relationships and watching the different interactions between people. Last night at my interview, it was very interesting to watch people as they interacted with each other and answered questions, how the managers wandered around, asked questions and watched. Fascinating.

How much do you think you can tell about a person from meeting them once? How accurate are your first impressions? And what are first impressions of you like? How true and authentic are you at first meeting people? Are there parts of you that you hide for later? Will be fun to see what my thoughts of people now look like when I know them better.