I’ve written about my new job (seven months now!) a couple of times already…and it’s tricky to write too much without violating my blogging prime directive. (Write about work, but not people at work.) I guess maybe I don’t need to write about it as a year-end thing, since my posts on specializing/generalizing and being on a team are fairly recent and still valid.
But it’s also a change in the flow of my days — I’ve lived in Olympia just over 10 years. The first four, I was in a vanpool to Lakewood; a good chunk of that time, I was biking to Lacey to meet it. The next five, I was also going east to Lacey, some bus, a lot of bike, and until the crash, sometime driving. Now I’m going to the west side of Olympia, and I haven’t been biking hardly at all. (Three times? Four?) Instead, I’m on the insanely crowded bus from downtown to Evergreen. I haven’t been on buses this crowded since I was in high school, only now I’m the grown-up amidst the students. Also, it’s cold instead of hot. But it is that crowded: standing room only, and a few times the bus having to pass people at stops because there just. wasn’t. room. All that said, I like it. Where my office is, I don’t have much contact with students; with the bus, I hear them talking about what they’re doing: social lives, schoolwork, whatever. Some of it is pretty hilarious. (Justin & I both occasionally tweet with the hashtag #evergreenbus for things that are particularly…interesting.) But in a way, it keeps me focused on the point of my job, where I think otherwise it might be too easy to get caught up in the internal dramas. And yes, there are internal dramas, and no, I’m not going to write about them, unless I can find a way to generalize or something.
I do miss biking on the trail terribly. And I’m having a hard time mustering the enthusiasm for the ride to the college: hills both ways, dark stretches, spots w/out bike lane, etc. Maybe come spring I’ll get back into it, because I know how good cycling is for my body, including my brain.
At least I have the gym handy, and I’ve been taking an exercise class off and on since last summer. There’s three of us in College Relations (my larger department) who take it, which is enough that usually at least one of us can coax the other two into going. And it’s good stuff. I keep meaning to start swimming, which is one of the reasons I’m considering cutting my hair short. But so far I’ve neither cut my hair, nor gone swimming.