Haymarket

I don't know why it was so unusually hot today. Lately it has been turning cool but today was definitely a throwback to high summer. So this morning I decided to wander down to Haymarket, boston's biggest and possibly cheapest one.

Haymarket definitely reminded me of the dayak sunday market in Kuching, where all the wares were laid out in the open...with some differences. For one thing rich americans can afford to have a wooden stall complete with shade rather than simply putting everything on blankets. For another the vegetables were beautifully displayed in boxes.. and beautiful vegetables they were too. Granted you weren't for the most part allowed to pick your own (they get it for you), or test the veges (no poking... they bruise the veges) but for the most part they were beautiful. Large red tomatoes of all kinds selling at 3 lbs for a dollar. Fruits, vegetables and spices. Another of a differences between this and the Asian style wet markets was the lack of meats or fish. In a great concession to hygeine the only meats there were were in the stalls that were around the Haymarket area. Actual butchers, grocers and such. There was even a cheese stall that I walked by.

The haul from Haymarket today would have been more except my fridge is already overflowing with food. But what I did come back with was - a lb of portabellas for 2.50, a lb of large white mushrooms for 2.00, a lb of jalapenos for 1.00 and 4 clumps of garlic for 1.00. As you can tell, they sell by the pound, ah well America is not kind to singles - not the way Japan is at any rate :-p

The perils of living alone...

Is occasionally having to put up with the weirdest incidents. Last Sunday, after a long hard week at work, I decided to go downtown - a trip that landed me in Chinatown on my way back shopping the Asian supermarkets.

Now Chinatown in Boston is not exactly the safest place in the world, but being of a decidedly Asian look, I've never really considered myself in much of any danger there. Of course I'm also not willingly going to go there after dark. So therefore this incident took me a little by surprise.

Five minutes in to Grocery Shopping I realized I had a shadow. A middle-aged mild quiet looking sort of guy was following me wherever I went. As I moved between the aisles the guy would follow somewhat behind. The thing is that I was more amused by this than afraid. It took him half an hour to finally get up the courage to talk to me which I naturally ended the conversation as soon as I could. After about ten more minutes of pointless shadowing me across the supermarket, I began to get a little creeped out. It was at that point that I paid, got out and brisked walked my way out of Chinatown and into the T station as fast as I could. (I lost him at the cashier since he had to pay after me)

These things never happen to me in Providence!

It is 10.30pm and I just got home from work.

Today I worked from 9am straight. 13 hours, ate lunch in five minutes staring at my computer screen working, skipped dinner and just got home. I'm so tired I really don't want to make dinner. As a result, I guess I'm skipping dinner.

I think I'm setting some kind of record. If you exclude training week. This week I've worked an average of 12 hours a day. I think I've made my billable quota by lunch today. Who needs to work on friday?

I don't think this pace is sustainable. Whatever happened to the 40 hour work week? It's only Thursday... there's still tomorrow to go.

Second 12 hour work day in a row

I have too much work. I wonder if this is the normal level of work in the office... and WHY does everything have such a short deadline?

Case work...

I'm so tired. Busy but it is a good sort of busy, the kind where you don't really want to tear yourself away from work. The hours are definitely stretching though. It's also nice that I have a pretty straight forward case to start with.

Training's over

for now.. and my CSI days are done. Got home today at 8pm. Already been staffed on a case and have a ton of work. ah well at least I don't take work home with me.

second day

End of the second day of work. Today we learnt how to check. Which is annoying but apparently has to be done and done well. For the most part, we're all really excited to be finally able to fiddle and get stuff done rather than just sit and listen to lectures. Training actually ends tomorrow and then we're done with it until next month when the next batch of new analysts come in.

In other news, I STILL haven't received the cheque or my new debit card. When will i get those? *sigh*

First day of work

I'm under training till Wednesday. So far I've learnt that everything I do needs to be logged. I'm not sure how many hours a day I'm supposed to be working yet though. For training, it is 9am to 6pm but most people seem to come in later closer to 10am and get out later too. I guess it depends on what kind of a person you are, whether you work better in the morning or late.

Other than that I've learnt so far about policies more policies and research resources.

More training tomorrow.

The night before...

First day of work tomorrow and I don't know where to begin to be nervous.

1. my cheque is still not here yet, def. time to be worried
2. my debit card has been discontinued since they sent the replacement to my old address and so had to discontinue that number and send me a new one, but in the meantime i'm a little short on cash
3. What the hell do I wear tomorrow. I suspect I'll be deciding tomorrow morning.

CSI addiction

If one can call it that after just two days of it. There's a channel here that's showing CSI reruns two a night and three on friday nights. Added to the other channels that show CSI reruns occasionally that means that over two days i watched six CSI episodes on tv.

Being Saturday today, I only managed to catch half an episode. (The other channels don't run CSI reruns on weekends) and I miss my CSI. CSI withdrawal :-p That's the first sign of addiction.

16 days

That's how many days it has been since my cheque has been posted. *sigh* I begin to fear it really has been stolen. Alas at the moment I've decided there's nothing to it but sitting it out. If it is still not here by mid week I shall ask my company if anyone has cashed it and if not could they possibly void it and issue me another one. Hopefully that would work.

I now officially have cable, and internet. Well, I had internet before but that was stolen internet and entirely not the same :-p. In any case, my computer (and not my laptop) now has internet and I spent the morning downloading and installing patches and such for it. Netflix has not yet sent me my first dvds (even though I ordered them yesterday and on their site they say they'll send them on Monday. Darned. In the meantime I shall create an extensive Netflix list. If they aren't efficient about it I might jump ship to Blockbuster and get the added benefit of two instore rentals a month.

Incidentally, the neighbourhood I live in is nice. It's just behind the main road so it looks like a pretty quiet residential kind of neighbourhood. For those of you that know Boston, the mainroad I am talking about is Mass Ave, just at the junction where Boylston and Newbury are. This means MAJORLY busy. So all the main stores and busyness are less than ten minutes away from me, while I get the benefit of having a nice residential sort of area which is quiet and has a large CVS, TrueValue, and a Wholefoods. Shaws is a bit of a walk so I suspect that I won't shop there as often. I'll be sorry if I have to move out of this place next year.

14 days counting...

And the cheque is still not here. I'm beginning to get very worried that it IS lost in the mail. Or stolen, I mean mail theft still exists and all.

In other news, My apartment while now in some semblance of order is still not entirely clear. I've noticed that at least where unpacking is concerned the last few boxes always take the longest. Partly, I'm sure is the lack of incentive, by the time I'm done with most of the stuff I'm too bored and tired of unpacking to want to do the last few tasks and partly too, I always leave the difficult stuff that I can't decide where to put for last. But mostly it is a matter of incentive. The first few boxes hold essentials but by the time you've gotten to the last few boxes they mostly hold things that you were sitting on the fence about discarding in the first place - the things that you don't throw out because it would be a waste and you'd probably have need of SOME day.. the only problem is the Some day isn't today.

I start work on Monday and am now starting to worry about little things - Like what the hell am I going to wear to work on Monday.