Module 1 week 1

This Monday we started classes. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned, so for this module we’re doing a total of 4 classes plus regular forums. Of the four classes, three meet regularly and one will meet in a workshop format over 2 weeks later in the module. The forums are required and options workshops usually coordinated by the career center and cover a wide range of topics. We’re required to attend a certain percent (I want to say 80%) and get Pass / Fail credit for them, I think 1 credit per module.

getting ready for the real day 1

Ugh. I've been reading for the majority of the last 8 hours. Well. Okay, figure the time I took to take a bike ride, make and eat dinner, watch an episode of Burn Notice and some intermittent web-surfing, more like 6 of the last 8 hours. Still, that's a lot.

We have 3 classes this session, over 8 classes per week: 2 meet 3 times, 1 meets twice, 3 credit & 2 credit, respectively. Of course it's the 2 credit class that has all the reading. The other two are math (accounting for managers and statistics). Okay, technically the accounting class is how to interpret the statements, not how to generate them, but still it's mainly reminders at this point, not new info. Reminders of 3-years-old info. Which is definitely needed.

But here's the thing: I'm prepping for tomorrow, which will consist of 2 90 minute classes. At this point, I'm spending more time than I did for any of my Saturday 3-hour marathon classes. Which is crazy? Or grad school? I'd say the latter except I also used to prepare this way for the Valencia classes. Well. Some of them. The ones I cared about (aka Economics).

Regardless, my goal is to start with good habits and try to carry them through. It'll be a struggle, but I sortof feel like having classes more often may be helpful, for me, in that I can't leave it all till Friday night to try to push through. You know, just until Sunday ...

Anyway. It feels good to finally be starting. Even more than starting orientation. This is the real deal!

A couple of the guys stopped by earlier, wanting to know what they need to prepare for tomorrow. It's all online in the Syllabus, but apparently they were ... I don't know, actually. Going to do it after? At any rate, they seemed a little surprised all this has to be done in advance, and more than a little freaked they haven't started yet.

For my part, I'm almost done with Accounting, for the moment. So the question is: go ahead and start on Stats? ... I like stats, but I think that may be a good idea.

One thing that amuses me? I kept wondering whether my book would be the one co-authored by my Stetson stats professor. Nope. No Thorne on there. I'm actually a little sad. She was enthusiastic, knowledgeable and clear. On the other hand, the two professors who spoke on Friday also seemed good, and it's the philosophy of GISMA to schedule classes around when the best professors will be available. So ... this should be fun, for certain specific values of fun.

Break over!

2 weeks in!

So today is the 14th day since I arrived in Hannover! Crazy how quickly this has gone by. Not much going on this weekend - getting ready for Monday means doing readings and more readings. I did finally find my class schedule. We're in the annex on Mon & Thurs and in the rotunda on Tue & Wed. That should break up the week pretty nicely.

I don't think I mentioned getting my bike, previously. At the party on Wed, a girl who was in last year's class approached me - apparently she's the one who I'd responded to on the Forum. I met her Wed night to see the bike and bought it. It's a totally old-school 3-speed women's bike, but already has a blinky light on the back and a seat cover and comes with a basket. All for 60 euros. Not great but not terrible! Turns out using my newly purchased bike pump was a bit of a challenge, but I figured it out ... at least for the bike. I cannot, for the life of me, pump up my pilates ball. Probably going to need to buy a floor pump. Awesome.

Yesterday in the late morning my team met and we hashed out the details of the charter. I'm writing it up today an we'll all sign it.

Some random things I've noted:
The default skirt fashion here is skirt over leggings, ending either in flats or in socks and clogs. For dressier occasions, nylons are required - no bare legs. Not a shocker, but very different from Florida.

We're finally having some nicer weather, with sunshine and a bit of heat. It's supposed to be 70 today. I'm not convinced.

I have been astonished at what a huge difference the curtain over the window makes in heat retention! I have my window angled open at the top. If I close the curtain all the way at night it is too hot and I wake up several times. However, if I pull back the curtain a foot or so, the temperature gets quite cool an good for sleeping. It's really a remarkable difference.

I think I've settled on a room arrangement. The main advantage right now is I have room to do pilates. That's a bit of a challenge in a small room, so I'm actually rather proud! I'm also somewhat proud of the fact my room isn't trashed yet. In fact, other than the desk it's actually remarkably tidy! And even the desk just needs 5 minutes of effort to be fine again. I don't think it'll last, but you never know.

I cannot state enough how great it is to have a laundry basket / a place to put my dirty laundry. It was driving me nuts.

Oh! And! My box came on Thursday!

Before I left Orlando I'd mailed myself a box containing, among other things, my winter coat, my sneakers, my work-shoes and my towel. Three of those things it would have been REALLY nice to have with me.

Anyway. It came!! As I'd planned, I went back to the dorm and got my suitcase, brought that back to school and transferred everything to the suitcase to bring back. The box was big (unwieldy) and heavy. And, as it turned out, apparently disintegrating, as the German postal service had to basically wrap it in tape to hold it together. Whoops.

And in addition to the above, I'd sent myself lotion and about 3 more pairs of shoes and mittens and SOCKS! SO many socks. That was kindof great, actually, as I'd been bitching earlier in the day about where were the 'good' socks. There were also a couple of skirts and a pair of dress pants and such. In general, good stuff to have.

So now it's Sunday. Plan for the day includes a shower, homework, a bike ride and then more homework. Woo. Party on. 

More Orientation

Days 3 and 4 of orientation were (waaaaay) less intense than days 1 and 2, thankfully. On the other hand, by the end of day 4 I was really, really glad to know we would be changing seats on Monday!

Thursday started with IT. We got our logins, and an overview of the systems to use, and our free Office 2010 discs. Then we learned about the library and how to take out books, etc. Next up was an overview of the Career Center and how we'll work with them (which seems pretty thorough, actually), what's involved in fundraising for the school and also PR.

The Career Center: I don't remember all the details off-hand, but essentially they have a series of workshops and one-on-one counselling sessions on everything from CVs to business dinners to networking. For that last, one of the examples she gave is: walking into a room full of people where everyone is standing in small (2 - 3 ppl) groups, how to know which group is the right group to join for the purposes of networking. Looking forward to that.

After we had a general information session. That was largely on things to do in Hannover and how to get around here and in Europe in general. Then we had an "Introductory German Class", to get a sense of what the class during break will be like. I am  now officially sad I won't be attending it ... but not sad enough to cancel my trip. Looks like I'll be spending some money with a language school.

And finally the most stressful / irritating part of the day: filling out the Residence Permit application and registering our place of residence with the relevant city. Everyone was talking and cross-talking to each other through-out and it was stressful and annoying.

It appears we have to have biometric passport pictures for the Residency Permit. Which means I (and a number of other people) have to find photobooths. These are downtown.

One thing that amazed me on Thursday was how many people were LATE! It seemed like fully a quarter of the class was 5 - 10 minutes late and 4 people (that's 10% of the class) were 15 or so minutes late. And then loud coming in! That is already old and will only get more annoying over time.


Friday was a nice day. It was basically a wrap up. Since I didn't have any IT issues or Residency Permit questions, and since I didn't get a Student Assistantship, I didn't have to be at school until 11! I did have to pay my rent / security deposit / admin fee / for my bedding at 8:55, but that's doable. Actually I slept until 8:30 and only really woke up when a door slammed. Whoops. Regardless, I paid everything and did some laundry before heading out.

One small wrinkle: When I did my laundry, I washed all my pants ... so I didn't have any that were left out! I ended up going down a size for the day. Apparently I've lost some weight in the not-quite 2 weeks I've been here, as that wasn't an option before I left Orlando.

Anyway. School at 11 for a session of "Meet the Faculty". We met two of the 4 professors for this module and one we won't see again until module 3. It was a nice way to cover much of the syllabi, I think, so we don't waste time on that on Monday.

Somewhere in there, perhaps after the meet the profs, we went through how seating will work. When we get to school on Monday, our name tags will be in a big jumble. We get our tag and pick our seat ... and that's our seat for the Module. They'll do seating charts after day 3, so we have to stay put. Still. Tired of my current seat so that'll be nice. It'll be interesting to see the competition for the 'good' seats!

Still haven't figured out where classes are  on Monday for my section, but I have all weekend. Also this weekend: meeting with my team to do our Charter. We would have preferred to do it on Fri, but Vlad (who, it turns out, is from Moldavia)'s daughter's first day of school was Friday so he needed to be there.

And, finally: at 12:30 we went on a City Tour, mostly by bus but partially on foot, and ending around 3.

A bunch of us went to lunch (linner) and then separated. I picked up a pump for my bike and a pilates mat and ball. Then I went hunting for a photobooth. I eventually had to ask at a helpdesk, but found it in the luggage storage in the hauptbahnhof and got my pictures. Interesting to see the difference between my passport and these - I've lost a fair amount of weight since a year ago May, and it's visible in my face.

And that was orientation!

Orientation - days 1 and 2

So, orientation finally started yesterday! Yaaay! It's been a long couple of days, with today being day 2 of 4 days of orientation. One interesting thing I've observed: the noise level during breaks is steadily increasing as people get to know each other and find things to talk about.

Yesterday we started at 8:30 am. A number of us headed over early, leaving the dorm around 8:05, which means we arrived at school at 8:15. Nice that there were 6 or 8 of us there that early, though the rest of the class came on pretty quickly.

We started with introductions, to the Dean, to the staff and then around the room as each of us did a quick intro of ourselves. I remember next to nothing, of course. 

There are 42 people in my class, though we were still missing 5 yesterday due to visa issues, and 1 had a stomach virus and was in the hospital. Of those 6, 3 (including the one who was in the hospital) came today, and all are expected by Monday at the latest. 

Within that 42: we have people from 17 countries. The largest group is from India, with 11. There are 7 from Germany, 3 from China, 5 from the US. By continent, 11 are from Europe, 21 from Asia, 6 from North America and 4 from South America.  We are 48% women, average age is 30, average work experience is 5 years. 

We had a full day, yesterday, going over the norms and expectations for the program (in summary: be on time, be professional, no cheating and, seriously BE ON TIME AND NO CHEATING. Apparently this cannot be emphasized enough, due to some cultural issues), touring the 2 buildings, going over the program structure, the professional development series, the Purdue systems, getting our group picture, our individual pictures, our GISMA IDs, our Purdue IDs, our textbooks and our locker keys. In between, we had multiple opportunities to chat.

Also nice: in the lecture hall, we have, for now, assigned seating with large name plates for each of us.

The class, for the 1st two modules at least, is broken into 2 sections (A and B), and everyone is assigned into study groups / teams. They actively worked to make the teams as diverse as possible, avoiding more than 2 ppl from any one country (and, where possible, region or continent!), mixing gender. My team (team 10) is 2 guys (Qasim and Vlad) and 2 women (me and Deborah). Deborah is from Brazil, Qasim from India and Vlad from ... huh. I don't know, actually. I assume Russia / Russia-ish, from the accent. 

We also covered grading. We're graded on a curve, and the professors are held to it. There is a different curve for Core classes vs. Electives but .... at least for the core classes there will ALWAYS be at least 2 people with a B-, which is a 2.7. Everyone has to maintain at absolute lowest a 2.95 (just under a B average) or they get kicked from the program. 

We are required to have 48 credits to graduate, of which 28 are core classes. Electives are: 1 in the 3rd module, everything you take in the 4th and all but 1 in the 5th. Among the classes there are also opportunities to do a formal Project for a corporation, either in modules 3 and 4 or in 4 and 5. These are 4 credits, with 2 (1st module) being pass / fail and 2 being graded (2nd module). You're expected to dedicate a full day of work every week to the project. Right now it looks like there will be 5 or 6 projects this year. Project teams are a max of 5 people, so 25 - 30 people have a chance to participate, though 2 or 3 will be from the Purdue campus for one of them (it's a joint project). I'm not really sure how I feel about the projects. It seems like a lot of work, but also like a good networking opportunity, but also really hard, but also a good chance to apply new knowledge ...

Anyway, for the project you have to take the Project Management elective this module. I'm going to take that, as 1. I may be interested in a project down the line; and 2. it's 2 credits. 

We broke yesterday right around 5.

Today started at 9am for foreign nationals, and we spent 90 minutes  on banking (setting up accounts for those that hadn't yet, getting online access and bank cards for everyone) and health insurance (filling forms for those that hadn't dealt with it yet, change of address for many of us). I went in early to print out my bank and insurance info. Yaay internet.

After a break, we started the bulk of the day, which was spent on Organizational Behavior / Group Dynamics and Team Building. Basically we spent the day getting ready to work in our teams, and getting familiar with the challenges we may encounter. We had a couple of break-out sessions, with some problems to solve, of different types, and then talked about how the 2nd challenge was much harder and why, and how to go about solving these kinds of problems in teams both in school and in life. 

After that we got to the good stuff: Exchanges and study abroad!!

Blah, blah, module at Purdue, really not that interested unless there's some amazing elective I just can't resist.

The study abroad, first the key stuff: Yes, we can have someone come along! The cost for an extra person will probably be $1600, not including transportation. The cost includes half the double occupancy room for 6 nights (Sun - Sat), transit pass for the city, risk insurance, included guided tours, orientation in the city, breakfast daily, some lunches, welcome reception and closing dinner. 

March 4-10 Paris or Budapest

March 11 - 17 Rome or Madrid

I'm interested in the latter for each, but won't know for sure what courses are being done until late October. That's also when the sign-up is. Oh! AND! No maximum for the # of people attending, so if I want to go, or if anyone wants to join me, no problem!!

Participants coordinate their own transportation and personal expenses and must be signed up prior to the Christmas school holiday (prior to TG, preferably).

And India: it's a 3 week internship outside Bangalore, it occurs in the 2 weeks between modules 4 and 5, and participants will miss the 1st week of module 5. It costs just $300. Not sure how many people will be permitted / accepted. This one has to be applied for, as they'll be working for TVS.  I'd really like to do this one, for the experience.

Also today we finally had the bazaar. I got an air mattress, a tool kit (hammer, etc), 4 schnapps glasses (pretty!), a laundry basket and, at the end, 2 plates that I convinced them to break a set for since no one bought the set and since they'll likely get it back at the end anyway. 

After all that, we had presentations by a representative from the part time MBA class, from last year's class, from someone who graduated 10 years ago, and finally a hosted dinner.

It was a looong day. 

testing 1-2-3

So, I have a blog, to document this strangeness. This is a test of posts turning up on FB.

Settling In

Tuesday morning I was woken by my alarm, having slept nearly 12 hours. I got up, took my time figuring out the clothing situation, headed down to breakfast a little before 9.  I’d been told to come to school any time after 9:30 am to get my keys, so I ate a leisurely breakfast, mapped out where I was going online (ha. SO easy!) and headed out. My keys were quickly in-hand, as was info on how to access the building and use the network until the program starts. Sadly, my suitcase was not yet there. I told them to just email me when it came and set-back out for the hotel.

After gathering up my luggage and checking out, I walked to the dorm, headed in and up to the 2^nd floor (which is, in the tradition of most of the world, actually the 3^rd story), found my room and used my keys. Yay! I have a home!

I met Marita (super nice, from Canada, has been living in Germany for 6 years and lived in Japan for a year before that), made my bed and proceeded to unpack. Honestly, though, one of the best decisions I’ve made: to agree to buy my bedding from the dorm. Sheet, blanket, blanket cover, pillow and pillow case were all waiting for me. SO awesome.

Small problem: no internet. You have to fill in a paper, wait for a guy to come the next day to verify your MAC address and then wait until the following day for your connection to work. Oh. And: no wifi. No WIFI!! Somehow everyone in my group that I’ve met had the very, very clear expectation there would be wifi. No idea where we got that idea, but we have each been shocked in turn to discover it is not available.

More relevantly: no computer (wifi or otherwise) means no email, which means no idea when my suitcase arrives. Awwweeessssommme. So after I’d unpacked what I had, Marita and I went to the small shopping area and did groceries, then came back, then we went to the school to see if my suitcase was in (no) and to do some internet.  Then she stayed and I came back, specifically to get to the dorm administration office during the 90 minute period.  Although I managed to get lost on the way, taking the paths, I did make it back in the relevant period and got the form for the internet.

Wednesday I stayed home most of the day, waiting for the computer guy to come. The one exception was when Marita came back around noon and said my suitcase had arrived! Yay! I tell you, it was getting dire and I was freaking out about not having any clothes! She agreed to stay close in case the guy came, and I went to school and grabbed my case. SUCH a relief. Brought it back, unpacked it, I have more clothes than I feared, which is nice. One thing missing, and hopefully in the box I mailed myself? My work-appropriate shoes. Which I need on Tuesday. So I guess I’m going shoe shopping this weekend.

Computer guy showed around 3, did his thing in under 10 minutes, including chit chat, and I was finally free to leave … so I went to school and used the computers. Exciting, right? I actually stayed up late Tuesday, to see if the internet came on right at midnight. It hasn’t, sadly, so this will be posted tomorrow when I get up and have access. Which will hopefully be at the same time.  And then I will figure out how to get downtown Hanover and where to go shopping. Yay, plans! I also need to make some progress on a self-assessment for the career center, so that’ll basically be my day.

All and all, it’s been a stressful few days, but everything is smoothing out now and, hopefully, will stay that way. It is starting to sink in that I’m here for a long haul, I think. I’m having less and less trouble thinking of work as my former-work, and the people there as former co-workers. It still makes me a little teary, as it was a good time in my life, but … here’s to the future. Prost!

The Journey

By Sunday the 7^th, I had gotten down to the two big suitcases, one box to me (and one to RI), and a carry-on messenger bag. Great! So I repacked it all, and weighed. Interesting fact: up to 50 lbs of bags on the plane, it’s a bag, or an extra bag, depending. 51 – 70, it’s overweight and there’s a charge. 71? Not going. My first bag was 69.4. Woo! My second … errored out the digital luggage scale. At 9 am. With the airport run scheduled for 11. After an hour of weeding, I got it down to 76 lbs. God knows what it was before. Another hour … and I was under 70 lbs, barely, but then had to package up all the crap I’d just jettisoned to get it out of Deb’s house.

Oh. And during all this? Delta was contacting me, telling me, sequentially, my 1^st (of 3) flights was scheduled to be 90-ish minutes delayed in departing. So my JFK connection wouldn’t work. Fortunately for me, they re-booked me before they even told me, but the new layovers (5 hours in JFK, 4.5 in Amsterdam) pushed my arrival from Monday morning to Monday after business hours. This is an issue because I’m supposed to go to the school to pick up my keys to my dorm room.  Okay, no worries, this will be worked out, 1^st priority is the airport. And getting gone in enough time that Deb can get to the store and home again to prep for her lunch guests!

We got me to the airport by about 11:40, at a guess, plenty of time for a 1:29 flight and TONS of time for a 3:00 schedule delayed departure time! Went to check in, paid for and checked my bags just fine, but the system, which gave me no grief online the night before, balked at checking someone in for an international trip with a one way ticket and no visa. I don’t need a visa. I’m from the US. I can stay 2 months (or 6? Something like that) as a tourist with no need for additional documentation! Anyway. They did check me in, but only as far as Amsterdam. The last flight, from Amsterdam to Hanover, was on KLM … which was fine for JFK to Amsterdam, but apparently no farther? Okay. Fine. Whatever.

So I flew. The flights were largely unremarkable, other than my being so stressed that I had a tendency to start crying with little or no visible provocation. A nice text. A random thought … and the more tired I got, the more difficult it was to fight. So … it’s possible my seat-mates and other people in the gate waiting areas thought I was nuts. Which, okay, maybe I was nuts.

I arrived at JFK, found out the difference between gate 26 and B26 (oh, hell yes, there’s a HUGE difference), found the bus to terminal 4, the international terminal. Man. There are some cool airlines that fly in there, that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Pretty cool.  And I settled in to wait. And wait. And wait.

I did, once my gate opened (about an hour before the flight) see if they could check me into the KLM flight, since the other Delta people told me this was a KLM flight I was boarding. Yup, KLM, but Delta staff & computer, and the two computer systems don’t talk until 3 hours before scheduled departure. Which … is awesome. My bags could go no problem, they were tagged all the way through, just not me!

And I flew again. I’m  reasonably sure I didn’t sleep on either of the 1^st two flights, beyond about an hour on the 2^nd one. I did watch two movies, try not to cry and read. So productive!

Landed in Amsterdam. Following the recorded instructions, I went to a transfer kiosk to check-in … and it couldn’t find me, so I was directed to the transfer desk (which was about a half mile away, but whatever, it’s an airport). Finally, finally, finally they were able to check me in, and off I went to passport control.

As a general rule, I don’t have any problems at passport control. My last time through London I got grilled, but other than that it’s 2 questions and a stamp.  This was exactly the same. Delta had me all worried!

Okay, it was the same until I went through there and had to go back through security with my messenger bag and my 3’ cardboard tube (which I miraculously managed to not lose. I can’t count how many times I left it and had to go back for it, but people literally didn’t see it. Ever. Scary?). My bag was so densely packed it was hand searched (and the guy was super puzzled by my tampons. I have no idea.) and THEN I was screened again, where they wanted to open the metal things with my jewelry in it and make sure I’m not planning to sell it. They also asked “what’s in the cardboard tube” … but I waved it around and said  it’s a poster, and no one even took it to hold! Totally bizarre.

The extra search was actually nice, though, since it gave me an opportunity to re-pack my bag. It was way better organized afterwards.

And then I was through security and wandering toward my gate. Which was another bus-gate, though this time it was a flight specific  bus, so you had to be there when they were ready to drive you to the plane. I’ve actually done that before, in China, but there they drove for, like, 15 minutes, maybe more, all the way to what I suspected was the original Shanghai airport. Or at least the previous, if not ‘original’.

Anyway. I settled in to wait, checked my email and discovered I would not be able to pick-up my keys. So I booked a hotel. About 5 minutes later my suite-mate, Marita, as yet un-met, got back to me saying sure, she’d absolutely pick-up my keys for me, but the reservation was non-refundable, so I called it good and moved on with my life. Looking back, actually, that was a super expensive few days, between the shipping and the over-weight bags and the hotel!

Right. Amsterdam. Took the bus to the plane, boarded, read for about a minute and passed out. Which is good since on the bus ride I’d been feeling woozy and thinking I might just fall over. I didn’t sleep long … but I missed the end of the boarding, the safety instructions and most of the taxi for takeoff.  I only woke-up because my Kindle fell off my knee. Still, that 30 minutes or so was awesome, the flight was less than an hour and Bam! I was in Hanover!!

I love arriving from a Shengen-zone country. There’s nothing. No passport check, no customs, nada. Fun! Went to the luggage place. My first bag came really quickly. Then there was an announcement in German and everyone left, about half the plane, mobbed the desk. Apparently literally half the bags didn’t get loaded? Is that a thing? So we all filled out forms for our bags to be delivered.

On the one hand, having one of the two bags would make getting a taxi / getting to the hotel, the school and the dorm much easier. On the other … that’s half my stuff for an entire year! Eek! Even more fun: when I got to the hotel, checked-in and looked, it wasn’t the bag with my underwear. AWESOME.

Regardless. I was in Hanover in one piece, with a place to shower, sleep and an included meal in the morning. In other words, I was in heaven and I’d arrived.

Between leaving and leaving

So, I had to be out of my apartment, heretofore known as the apartment, by July 31. And I had a plan! When I got back from Greece, on a Thursday, I would have a full week and planned to move everything I planned to keep to storage the following weekend. Saturday July 16^th, to be precise. Then I was going to have an ‘estate sale’ (aka a garage sale inside your apartment where it’s all fair game) on the 23^rd, and donate what was left on the 31^st.

I’m really, really good at making reasonable plans, I’m just not so great at executing them.  For starters, the space I’d reserved came with a free truck rental, but I hadn’t found out how that worked. Awesome.

So, on Sunday the 9^th I went to the storage place … the office was closed. I’d have to come back during the week (ha) or on the weekend, though at least I was taking a 3 day weekend. I made it there on Friday, signed the papers, requested the truck info … it was a voucher for 1 hour, and it was being mailed to me. Awesome. Except it took 2 days, making it Sunday the 16^th and no moving in sight.

Well. Okay, in the interim I actually sold several pieces of furniture to friends and neighbors, which was nice. Anyway. Moving postponed a week. Then I started getting close and couldn’t help thinking …. I can rent a truck for a LOT less than it would cost to pay for the other 2 hours a typical move takes. So I re-begged a favor from my friend Peter who was going to help me move, then wasn’t because I had movers. Fortunately he’s a good sport.

So, Saturday the 23^rd became moving day. No problem, except what was ready to go was the big stuff and maybe 1/3 of everything else. Maybe. Despite much taunting from my help, I was confident I could get what I needed done over the course of the coming week. Because I plan well!

So, yeah, I packed some that week, and packed like an insane person on Friday (another 3-day weekend) … and begged Peter to help, again, to move the recliner I’d decided to keep at the last minute, since there was so much space in the storage locker. And he obliged, thankfully, and agreed to come that Sunday.

Saturday was packing. I think it may have been a trip to the storage place, too? Possibly. It was also the other packing. The packing for Germany. Because it’s really, really, really hard to pack for storage for a year until you have first packed everything you’re planning to take with you. Or even thinking about taking with you. Saturday evening around 8 I decamped to Club Deb (a friend’s fabulous and welcoming house) with luggage and boxes. OMG luggage and boxes. I had my two giant suitcases, a carry-on bag, a box to ship to RI, TWO boxes to ship to myself in Germany … and assorted other stuff. I was, thankfully, treated to a delicious dinner and good conversation before eventually staggering upstairs to shower and bed.

Sunday morning was my first attempt to live out of what I’d packed. I have no idea who did the packing (yeah, yeah, it was me), but that person should never be allowed to pack anything ever again. No shampoo / conditioner / hair product. No soap. No deodorant. No face stuff. No hairbrush! Just … bad.

So, back to the apartment to finish the packing / moving / cleaning and, now, to figure out what on earth I’d done with all my stuff. I did find it, fairly quickly … and filled 2 messenger bags and a storage cube. Um. Hello, overpacking?

My moving friend came, went with me to get the van, helped, followed me to the storage center, loaded it in and left. I went back to moving.

I don’t move out well. By now, it could reasonably be called a thing. Anyway, at 10:15pm I’d taken everything I was keeping to storage, had a couple more boxes of crap to deal with at Deb’s, the remaining trash was reasonably corralled … and I called it good enough and left. So much for cleaning.

So then I was homeless! I was living in Deb’s upstairs bedroom, crammed full of my crap, stressing over re-packing. Which I did. Repeatedly. In that transitional week, in addition to working until 7 most nights (during my last week! After coming in at 8 every day! SO not right!!), I revisited what I had packed. I emptied the suitcases, stacked, sorted, removed and repacked. Three times.  In between, of course, spending the night at a friend’s house who I wouldn’t otherwise be able to say good-bye to, dropping my car for service and getting it back, having a happy hour AND having a going away / last day of work party!

And that’s what I did between leaving and leaving.

All and all, it’s been a stressful few days, but everything is smoothing out now and, hopefully, will stay that way. It is starting to sink in that I’m here for a long haul, I think. I’m having less and less trouble thinking of work as my former-work, and the people there as former co-workers. It still makes me a little teary, as it was a good time in my life, but … here’s to the future. Prost! 

It's time, it's time!

Today, at long last, is my last day at work! (for a year, anyway). Sunday I leave for Germany. I am, not surprisingly, extra emotional and stressed at this point.

I see I never did an update following my trip to Greece -- that I got back from a month ago. Ah, well, I'll ... get to it eventually?

If you're curious, you can see pictures at: picasaweb.google.com/mary.heins.

In between leaving today (I may make it until 1pm ... maybe) and leaving Sunday I need to wrap my sister's birthday present, re-pack the box I'm shipping to myself in Germany and get to the post office with the box for my parents, the package for Beth, and the two items for myself, re-pack one more time again some more (trying to get down to just 2 big bags), make one less trip to the storage unit ... and that's it. STRESS! But also: the end is so very, very close!

Plop plop fizz fizz, my stomach is twisting, it is it is

In two days I go to Greece!
When I get back, I have 9 days to get everything packed and the it's storage day! Yikes!

That said: I have made some progress. I had my Drink My Wine party on Friday, and a good time was had by all (it ended up being about 11 people). Several people expressed interest in several items, though just one has followed through.

Still, on Sunday I talked to a couple of my neighbors and I will probably be getting rid of my entire entertainment center (bookshelves, mantle thing, actual entertainment center) by way of her, and the sofa table. AND Janaki is probably going to take my dining room table and chairs, and two sofa pieces. That's a good start.

Oh! And, at the conclusion of the party I sent about 3 dozen books home with people and many bottles of wine. I'm down to 4 unopened and 1 open, as well as the hard liquor.

Items that still need to go:

• the chest
• the cabinet things in the dining room
• that damn chair
• the glider-rocker
• the recliner
• possibly the blue sofa, depending on Janaki
• The Books. This'll be the hardest, but I'll make it through.

I also effectively committed to continuing to losing weight: I donated my coat and am keeping the coat I used to wear. Ulp. 

I was going to start packing last night, but I didn't. I'll start tonight, with the goal of having all the knick-knacks packed before I go and the books either boxed for keeping or binned for donating. Speaking of donating, I brought 8 cubes of stuff, mainly clothes, to Goodwill yesterday. It was roughly 100 degrees out, which is a taste of what Greece will be. Thankfully I won't be running stairs and carrying boxes there! Well. Not carrying boxes, anyway, probably there will be stairs. 

Also before Wed evening I'll be baking the turkey and packaging the meat, so I'll have plenty of food in the freezer when I get back. I doubt I'll make soup, but I'll survive. 

Macy's is having a suit sale. I feel like I'd be a fool to not buy it now ... but I don't know for sure what size to buy. It's stressful. 

I'm really going to enjoy not obsessing about this for two weeks.

That said, things I don't need to think about anymore:

The apartment being shown: my landlady showed the apartment twice on Saturday, and one of them took it. Now I just need to worry about putting my check in the mailbox early and it not being cashed early.

Insurance and where I'm going to live: I've confirmed my dorm room (I'll have a roommate! For the first time since 1997!!), and it occurred to me this weekend that probably the insurance confirmation had gone to my spam-box. Checked it this morning and, yes, it did and yes, I'm insured starting Aug 1.

48: departure
46: last day
21: days off
19: days of work
2: days to Greece