The advantage of going for almost two months without posting (besides basking in the joy of being lazy) is that there is so much to talk about.
White water rafting was great. A little over-hyped, like skydiving, but fun nevertheless. The sad part is that the moments that I enjoyed most during rafting had nothing to do with being in the raft. At one point my guide let me jump off an 18 foot high cliff, and sometime later, let me ride a class I rapid on my back. Other than that, hiking along an actual trail, and making several thousand detours which included exploring mines and caves, walking down the sides of waterfalls, climbing walls and abandoned wooden structures was exciting, as was camping outdoors in 30 degree (F) weather.
Rock-climbing got a lot better. I progressed from a 5.6 to a 5.10 difficulty level, and actually completed a bouldering route. Tennis got shoved into the closet (quite literally) with the arrival of the winter season. The gym in our apartment complex was closed because of renovations (aargh), the trees burst into rainbow colors all around the city, Mana and I went disk-golfing (a hippie sport) for the first time in our lives (thank you Bryan), painted an orphanage, and impulsively decided to go skiing this weekend.
After spending all summer in a coffee shop and a library, this change was rather nice.
My cubicle-mate, Brian, is a blast. Although a diligent and intelligent worker, he always has time to share the funniest and most interesting stories, so that when I am not working, I’m laughing. We decided to improvise our cubicle…following the unintentional legacy of the window-guy [see previous post]. We added a mailbox (thanks to Charlotte’s genius art-and-craft skills), a Welcome mat, a Christmas tree (with office supplies as ornaments), and are in the process of adding curtains to the existing window, and installing another window behind Brian’s computer, which will show a winter scene. Our co-workers and Manager were highly amused.
Thanksgiving was glorious. My mom flew in to stay with me for 3 weeks, my dad came down from Syracuse; I got the chance to spend quality time with my parents for the first time in ages. I was relaxed and happy; and at my creative best despite limited sleep (Ammar and I put together the 3rd AO over Thanksgiving). Ammar actually said that he would make an amendment to the AO Constitution – to have a yearly fund to fly my parents in for a ‘super duper AO’. And super-duper it was.
Halloween was another memorable day. Mana and I dressed up as a magical portrait from Harry Potter, using a huge wooden frame, which I actually carried around when I went trick-or-treating. The candy I got made up for my tired arms.
I suppose I should mention work too. I saw the Black Hawk, the Airbus A380 (a large and freakishly quiet airplane with a GE engine – the GP 7200), the GE 90 (a larger-than-an-elephant engine), and gave the worst presentation of my life. However, things got a lot better after that – keeping with the ‘you don’t know how good you’re doing until you know how bad it can get’ philosophy (thanks Ammar).
We finally fulfilled Mana’s dream of going to Chicago – a total of 10 coops landed in the Windy City for the coldest weekend in November. In between crawling under the jelly-bean (‘the Cloud – Gate’), running up and over bridges, climbing everything in sight that was higher than a foot, hanging off tree-branches, holding chicken-fighting tournaments in our hotel room at 3 in the morning, having a chicken-fighting ‘battle-royale’ in the center of Millennium Park (surrounded by the perplexed looks from amused on-lookers), racing inflatable horses, squeezing 8 people in a single hotel room, learning how to whistle through a grass-blade - I barely had time to realize that I might never see these awesome people ever again, or that I was in the middle of having the time of my life.
