The Election is Ruining My Life

So, I am so freakin' stressed about this election. But it's not the impending results that are ruining my life - it's the debates. All day monday, tuesday AND wednesday I was looking forward to a new episode of Bones. But ya know what?? It wasn't on! The freakin' debate was on instead! Ugh. So, I absolutely refused to watch the debate out of protest. Except that there was NOTHING else on!! So, I was forced to watch the damn thing. But, it ended up being beneficial, because I learned from John McCain that Colombia is our best ally in the western hemisphere. I had no idea!! I also got to see John McCain put air quotes around "health of the mother", which was awesome. Oh, and of course I got to learn about "Joe the Plumber", perhaps the most important man in the country. So watching the debate actually vastly improved my knowledge base. Unfortunately, it also gave me wrinkles. Yep, that's right. I woke up the next day and discovered wrinkles under my eyes. So, as you can see, the election is clearly ruining my life.

My "New Crowd"

So I went to lunch on tuesday with all the female attorneys in my office. We went to a sushi place, and I am not a sushi person but luckily they had "regular" asian food, so I was good. AND I actually did try a piece of a Florida Roll which was good. Anyway, let's get to the important part: the people. There were 8 of us:

Me, clearly the awesomest of all.

Laura, Christina and Angela, decently cool, funny and nice ladies.

Cheryl, who is nerdy & awkward but VERY nice. Like fall over yourself nice.

Then, there were "the blondes", who don't need individual names (particularly since 2 out of 3 of them are named stephanie). So, these girls are incredible snobs. I mean, I was just shocked. I rode with them to the lunch (not knowing that they were snobs) and the whole car ride was about their extravagant lives and how they were too good for things like Walmart or Home Depot. It was just absurd. One of them made a comment about how Walmart makes her sick because of all the white trash and I wanted to say "are you sick right now? because I'm in the car." But, because this is a new job and a new crowd, I just shut up. 

So, anyway, the verdict is that this crowd is not nearly as fun as my old crowd. But, there are a few nice girls that I can see myself going to lunch or dinner with. I'm just going to have to make a REAL effort to meet people outside of my office. I must devise a plan for this. Maybe I should try to meet people at Walmart.

You Don't Know Me

This has been a rough month for friends of mine. One found out she has MS, another one's father was killed in an accident and another one...well, had a terrible thing happen in his family. Intellectually, I know it's not about me. But just to be safe, if you happen to be communicating with any gods or other-worldly sources and they ask you if you are friends with me, you may want to say "no." At least for this month. Okay? Thanks.

Note To Self:

Your iPod is not psychic. When you buy an album on iTunes, the new music does not magically travel through the air and land in your iPod. You must plug the iPod IN and update it. Dumbass.

Go Me!!!

Move over "insensitive and cruel"! Here comes "clever and impressive"!!!! Yep, that is what my boss called me today! Clever and impressive! Woot!! I think my sigh of relief may have caused a tsunami somewhere! Not only did I get mad props for my analysis of the discovery issues in my 1st case, I also dazzled him with my writing! Yay me!!! Seriously, I am flying right now. 

Oh! And I am also awesome in a different arena. I got my Blackberry to sync up with my work email! The IT guy couldn't do it, but I did!! So-long 2nd Blackberry! I am, finally, a woman with only 1 cell phone. Yet another tremendous sigh of relief. 

The First Week

Well, I survived! It was actually a pretty good few days, with one major exception: my IT guy. Okay, so here's the story: on my first day they tell me that I need a blackberry. I already have one. They say the office can give me one, but it's an older model and I can only have 450 minutes per month for "personal use", plus I won't have internet or navigation or any of the other perks that I get with my sprint plan. So I said, no, I will just keep my own BB and pay for my own plan and use it for work and personal. She says that is fine, she will send the IT guy over to set up my BB with their system. So, he comes over, plugs my device into the computer, does some stuff and says "all set." Great. I go to lunch. At around 3 I try to call K. My BB won't let me make calls. It says "emergency calls only." I can, however, send texts. So I text K and ask him to call me. He does and it goes right to voicemail. So I can't receive calls either. Great. 

So, I call the IT guy. After several emails back & forth he decides that the only way to fix it is to completely reprogram my BB, which he can't do until the next morning. So I will have no cell phone that night. Yeah, I'm pissed. He says "well, if you enter your password incorrectly 10 times, the BB will wipe itself out and you can make phone calls, but you will lose any emails or pix you have saved. I say, fine, I don't care as long as I can call people! So, I do as instructed. Not only does it not fix the phone call problem, now I can't send texts either! GRRRRRR! So, I call my mom from my work phone and tell her I have no cell and I will call her when I get home, and I head home. Admittedly, seriously pissed off.

So, the next day the IT guy comes to my office and makes several attempts to get my phone to work. Apparently he can get it to receive emails from my work address but he can't get it to send emails. He won't let me try anything, and decides it is sprint's fault. He says there is no way to get around whatever sprint did to the phone, and so I can't use my BB for work. To be honest, I don't believe him, so I am gonna go to the sprint store today. In the meantime I have 2 BBs. The work one is AWFUL. It is really old and I have no idea how to use it. The other day I got an email on it and when I tried to read it, it called the person who sent it. Then it said "press esc to end call", only there is no "esc" button!!! Grr. So I am just really annoyed with all of that.

In addition to that, we have a REALLY old version of internet explorer. So I ask IT guy if I can upgrade and he says "No, because of our intranet. But I can give you mozilla." Whatevs. Fine, I'll take Mozilla. So he downloads that and says to me "you need to remember that we are the biggest firm in the world, so upgrades take time." WHAT???? Shouldn't it take LESS time since we are the biggest firm in the world? How hard is it to keep up with new browsers? The explorer is so old, it doesn't even have tabs! Ugh. I really can't stand this guy. 

But other than him, everyone is very nice and it was a good week. I have 2 cases that I am working on. Neither of them are too exciting, but I'm glad to have cases that feel manageable. My office is nice, and there are lots of perks to the job. So, I think it will be okay. The indefiniteness of my stay here still makes me nervous. But who knows, maybe in two years it will feel like home to me. 

Wow.

I found out today that a friend of mine has MS. I can't even begin to tell you how sad I am for her. I just can't imagine.