Been keeping really busy, hanging with people every night to avoid thinking about my recent breakup. So far, it’s been good and lots of fun. I’m more concerned about my ex that seemed to be lying on his phone in the dark with a gout flare up with none of his burning man laundry done when I passed by to drop off car keys 2 days ago. I also hope he gets his shit together and I don’t have to be the bad guy kicking him out on the street come end of October. Toronto this weekend for my sisters tea party baby shower. Training my replacement at work - it’s tedious AF because it’s lots of different platforms, exceptions and particularities of people, admin work bs. She’s not the quickest and need to be repeated things a few times, but is also personable and has a good attitude. She’ll figure it out in time. I’m just not sure I can hang everything over in the 12 more days I have left.
My PI asked me to fill out everyone's financial conflict of interest forms today. I said no. She respected that. Everything still not submitted to IRB since those need to be done as well as some other paperwork. I may never start on my thesis at this point.
It asks questions about investments and things like that. I don't know what the investment patterns or ownership stakes in non-public companies of the 8 other people on my team are. She wanted me to fill them out and just unilaterally say no. I don't know/can't be sure that no is the answer for everyone else. So I said no. She is sure everyone's answer is no. But I won't fill that out for other people. Not ethical and probably not legal, won't do it.
I've realized if I had to relocate to the USA and got to pick where to live, I think I'd go with PNW. It's so moody, I love it. It looks very in line with where I live in New Zealand, and I'm a sucker for a familiar landscape. I'm grumpy, I've hit my gym goals and I'm a little lost, I'm otherwise not hugely stressed et I'm grumpy all the time at the moment. Be kind to yourselves!
I'll actually show up this time! (Unless I'm climbing something)
I reckon you could take images from the area and mix them up with Otago and ask people to identify which area the photo is from, it'd be hard. Trees are different obviously but the amount of times I thought "oh that's Lake Wakatipu and nobody has informed them".. It's on the list for sure. Actually top of the list.
What's got you thinking about relocating to the USA? Seems like there's some crossover in people coming and going from NZ to the PNW already. Have a friend who's been in NZ for like two months now.
I visited Melbourne earlier this year and it was eye opening just seeing what else is out there (I'm very poorly traveled). They crammed my country's population into a city. The people, nightlife, things to do and the food oh man.. The food. I got lost down a side street and had never been more excited to not know where I was. I was excited to use their public transport because it.. Well. It exists! After that I kinda wanna visit other places. Just looking around PNW feels very 'me'. Like sure New York would be intense, LA would be surreal, but that whole area just screams "me".
When I first started in Hollywood I had a surreal moment where I realized that more people had listened to my mix the night before than lived in New Zealand. And then I realized that about as many people live in the suburbs of LA than live in New Zealand. And that's just like, San Fernando, San Gabriel and Ventura.
It's so easy to forget it here. The school I attended was an area school, under 500 students total, on a good year. The town I lived in that fed into that area school, has a population of 282 as of the most recent census. Flying into Sydney and Melbourne alone have been wild experiences, so many people. Tokyo might just melt me.
My first Moment of Unclean with LA was being on top of Mount Wilson and realizing that Los Angeles was to the horizon in all directions. My next Moment of Unclean with LA was driving in from the East and hitting the smog in Arizona. My third Moment of Unclean was recognizing that the freeway system through downtown is best understood as the blood supply that develops around a tumor. Albuquerque was the Big City when I grew up. We'd drive two hours just to hit a music store that had The Cure in stock. It feels like a truck stop once you've acclimated to the 10-110-101-5 nightmare.
Man, I have found myself super irritated of late. Last 6 months or so? A snarky email can set me off into an internal rage. I have to exercise huuuuuge willpower these days to follow my 24 hour rule for responding to things that make me angry. Also working on it..
Went to Squamish for rock climbing for the first time ever and am immediately in love. Unfortunately, one of my other learned loves from this year, Index WA, has nearly burnt to the ground with 5% containment of a very large fire that has totally shutdown one of the E-W highways. I am absolutely loving rock climbing and the people I've ran into at those two places in particular. Got lunch with kleinbl00 recently, finally, three years too late! I think I'm going down to Portland to see Pavement on Friday?