I had an awful awful encounter the other day with the Golden Gate Bridge. I was just driving along, minding my own business, when I was faced with the toll gate. I knew that I had to pay a toll, but for some odd reason thought that it would be perfectly fine to pay with a debit card. One glare, a 'toll evasion' ticket, and $30 later, I just have a good story of when I was fined because I didn't have any cash on me. Stupid big city sucking money out of tourists.
Well, that's the only thing that has really gone wrong in the past few days.
I'm now officially in my new house and will be spending my first night here tonight. There are so many pluses and minuses that I can't begin to list them all. The two biggest downsides:
- Shared bathroom
- The walls are thin, so I can hear conversations downstairs
Biggest pluses:
- huge room
- a real place to live
Every new place that you call home takes some adjusting and I think the biggest obstacle right now is moving in and unpacking everything to the point where each item has a place to go. Also, since the other 2 girls have been here for a while, I sometimes feel like their stuff is strewn about and I have to squeeze my way in, as if there's not really room for me and Erica and we're guests in our own home with a little corner of cabinet space.
It's weird to be living with people again and having to make compromises. In Santa Barbara, our only shared area was the kitchen. But here, we have the living room, the garden, the kitchen, and only one shower for four girls. Thank goodness our schedules right now are completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
The highlights of today were going grocery shopping and cooking for the first time in my own house, and my new set of bed linens. They're cranberry with a few gold and olive throws and one pillow that ties them all together. Having a bed with shams and a color-coordinated theme has been my dream for a long time. Now all I need is a four poster or really any bed frame and I will be completely happy with my bed set-up.
Where's your dad when you need him? I bought a bunch of furniture from Ikea that is really pretty, but I need a drill to be able to put my desk together. Of course, my dad probably could have made my desk, but that's a whole other issue.
Back to work tomorrow, but it was sooooo awesome to have a whole day off to get moved out and moved in and have some me time.
I'm slowly becoming more and more busy and getting out of the transition stage of moving.
All I have left on my list now before school starts is:
- move into house
- buy furniture
- study for placement exams
- figure out work/school schedule
- sell car
Currently I'm either working 9 hour days and trying to figure out how to practice as well or I have day trips planned on my days off. Erica just got here yesterday and we stood in line for a total of 2 hours to ride the cable cars. I'm not sure how many more times I'm willing to do that for visitors. It's sorta a pain in the rear. But then we had some amazing Italian food and cheesecake from none other than the Cheesecake Factory for dessert which made it all worth it.
I get to see my high school flute teacher in a few days! She moved to Texas a few years ago, so I haven't seen her since she moved and she hasn't heard me play since my sophomore recital. So I'm really looking forward to playing for her and just hanging out.
I should post some pics of my work here. It's pretty frickin amazing.
So scratch that whole 'housing sucks here' thing.
I have a place to live as of 9 pm last night!!!
So, basically everyone has to come visit me because my house (that's right. house.) is amazing, beautiful, and exactly what I want to come home to. We have 4 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, dining area, garden, and basement/garage. What a find in the heart of San Francisco. Here's the kicker though:
I can see the Golden Gate Bridge from my window! :0)
Given, it's about 4 inches in length and I saw it when it was a completely clear day, but it's still just plain cool.
My roommate gets here on Wednesday and I have entrance exams and auditions in exactly a month. So now that I have the two main worry things checked off, I can move on to the smaller (and yet somehow more important) worry points.
Well, I caved. I'm working for Williams-Sonoma again, even though I tried my best to not get sucked in. I guess that was my will getting in the way, because I'm actually really thrilled now to have the job that I do.
Basically, I was hired and given a high starting pay simply because I have so much experience and I would never have been given that privilege had I tried at some other retail place. Not to mention the fact that the store I'm working in is 4 stories tall, has a full time maid, chef, and shipping/running staff so that the sales people are really only just sales people. It's so nice to make other people do all the work. :) Because this particular store is in the heart of the San Francisco downtown shopping area (known as Union Square), they are the representative for all Williams-Sonomas in the country. So everything is done really right and there is a high standard of knowledge to be on the team. I feel like I'm back at school with all the studying I've been doing already.
Let's not forget to add that the chefs always have leftovers from their demonstrations, so I basically get to have professionally prepared food every time I work, which will be 40 hours/week for a while, and there are some very cute boys that work there that may very possibly not be gay. I think I'm going to have fun! If they are gay, I'll have eye candy and a girl friend. Sweet!
Housing is not going quite as well, but I've given up until my roommate gets here. I just don't have the energy between work and practicing and have already put so much time and effort into it without anything really to show for it. I'm content to just sit back for a week and work my butt off to save up some money for that first month's rent. (Ridiculous how expensive it gets here).
Some unforseen recent happy events:
- I got yet another tax return in the mail that I had no idea was coming. I love those.
- One of the ladies at work has just bought HP7 and I get to read it after her.
- A cute ambiguous guy at WS speaks French and we spoke for a little. Hottttt!
- My friend, Amity, might come visit me in a couple of weeks.
- I discovered a really good coffee shop near the conservatory.
You know that your life has become that of a 70-year-old woman when:
- you don't know how to get into the building because you've gotten home after 6:00 in the evening.
That's right, folks. For the first time in 1 1/2 weeks, I got back to where I was staying at 6:45pm and found that the front door wasn't open. Not a big deal, really, since I have a key and it wasn't that hard to figure out. The point was that I had never encountered this because I've always been INSIDE after 6:00 and never knew that after 6, the doors were closed. Man, that was a severe shock and I laughed at myself for a good minute. Or more.
- you wake up at 7 every morning.
My internal clock is set for 7 or 7:30 and I've turned into my mom saying, 'You just get so much more done in the morning!' Sadly for me, I don't have that much to do during the day as a result. Good thing I have a huge city to explore.
On another note, I saw Harry Potter 5 today. 5 movies??!!?? Really? It doesn't seem like that many, but after seeing flashbacks of little Daniel in his first "year" at Hogwarts, it certainly seems like I've watched him grow up. What an amazing phenomenon and a good testament to the consumerism of America. Oh, I completely and totally contribute to the Harry Potter mania, but I still find it a little disgusting every time action figures and video games are made from movies that were made from books.
At this point in the Harry Potter series, with two movies to go and one final book about to be released, there's no question that the rest of the movies will be made. Why stop now? Every other one has been a huge hit and each one contains the who's who of the British acting world. I have to say, they completely deserve all of the hype. They are so well acted and directed. Or maybe I'm just brainwashed like the rest... There's something about seeing a book come to life, or hearing a word pronounced differently than how you always read it. Like Seamus Finnagan. I always pronounced it see-mus, but it's really shay-mus. Go figure.
The question really is, what will happen when everything is done in the Harry Potter series and there are no more movies to be made, everything has resolved itself with Harry and the huge box collections are a few years old. What then? Will life continue as it has? These are life's important queries.
Today was probably the most hectic that I've had to date in San Francisco. I spent the better part of 7 hours travelling by train, foot, or light rail to various destinations.
What was the result of all of this arduous work?
- I discovered that I no longer want to live in Berkeley or Oakland. It's way too far a commute and not worth it at $50 a week just to get into the city. So *pbllttth*
- Consequently, I have to rethink all of my housing plans and areas that I was looking in. Count yourself blessed if you have a permanent place to live, are near the parentals, or have a place waiting for you in your new city (ahem Megan and Christa). Finding housing SUCKS.
- I ate 4 times. I think I'm over-eating simply because when I have time to kill or a $20 bill to break, I think of food.
- Four restaurants now have my resume in their hands and I have an interview tomorrow. Let's hope it goes better than the last one that told me I could be a food runner for 4-6 months before moving up.
- I might have to live with 3 other people instead of 1 and possibly get a more expensive place just so my commute to school isn't one hour one-way every day.
My purse is filled with business cards, maps, a planner that I bought four days ago and have completely gone crazy with, and resumes and I think my brain cannot handle any more. At least I know I'll sleep well.
My (now ex) roommate, Courtney, would be proud. Despite the need for mindless activity, I turned off my TV after only 2 hours of watching. One small truimph for the day!
He came out to play today and I was sooooo happy. It's amazing how much the weather can affect your emotions. I'm finding more and more reasons to live across the bay, and one of them is that it doesn't get the fog like out in west San Fran.
Well I promised some pictures, so here they are.
I went to this estate called Filoli a little south of the city today and it was so beautiful. The gardens were just what I imagine are on the grounds of some ridiculously wealthy king. I was having fun imagining I was walking around in flouncy dresses with my hand lightly touching a gentleman's forearm.
I also stopped to smell the roses. Hardy, harhar.
And the big house is actually where I'm staying, not the estate I saw today.
HAH. That's a good one.
After living in a place for a year that truly exemplified stereotypical California weather, I'm going through withdrawl.
Let's just put it this way: I pulled out my cashmere sweater today and was still cold while walking around my neighborhood.
That's just wrong to wear sweaters in the beginning of July.
My favorite thing about moving to a place where I don't know anyone is that I have a completely fresh slate. I could become goth. I could become a cheerleader. I could be a music nerd that shuts themself up in a practice room all day. Okay, well I'm not moving back to high school, but you get the idea.
My first night here and yesterday were a little rough just because it's weird to just have picked up my life and plopped it down in a new city. All the people that I saw every day, all my routines are just gone and it won't be the same again. But looking back on my life in Santa Barbara, I did basically the same thing this time last year and look how attached I am to it now. I think the biggest changes are going from a small town to a huge city and going from having all the time in the world to being a full-time student with a couple jobs on the side. I'm so glad that I have these couple months to get everything figured out, or else I think I would be going crazy trying to do everything in two weeks.
Two downers:
1. I left my retainer at the house in SB. No problem! you say. Ah, but it's in the locked guest room and my landlady won't be back until the 14th. My poor retainer has had so many grand adventures and they started back in 6th grade when I threw it in the dumpster and had to go digging in the trash to find it. Yes, I've had that little piece of hard plastic for 11 years.
2. I can't get into the conservatory to practice until Tuesday. I really should have checked into the schedule stuff before I moved because it's ridiculous to be here without being able to practice. But, c'est la vie. I can't do anything about it now and I'm glad they're so strict on their rules.
I figure the best way to get to know my neighborhood right now is to go for a run. You get to see much more than if you're just walking everywhere. So I'm on a mission to find a grocery store and a drug store. Can you believe that they don't have a Target or a Wal-Mart in the city of San Fran?? You have to go drive 10 or 15 min. outside of the city. What's with these Californians? In Charlotte we have 4 within 10-minute driving radius of my house. Sheesh.
And happy last day in Santa Barbara to me. I'm trying my best to stay positive, like I'm going to go have a picnic up on the cliffs over the beach with my good friend, Amity, later. Then we're going to watch fireworks. It should be fun.
My room is all packed up but I have all this random crap that I need one more big box for that I don't actually have. I do like being able to just stuff everything in my car and go, it's definitely the best way to move. I'm really stoked about the drive up the coast, it's going to be beautiful.
Maybe my blog sounds static because I'm trying to listen to music and type at the same time. Maybe it's because I'm feeling a little dead inside right now. I need something (like a large, life-changing move?) to get me out of this funk.
As a little girl, I was never popular in school and never had close friends, which made me feel rejected. Now I do have close friends, but I make myself believe that's not enough and I feel awful when I'm rejected in one way or another by a boy. I wish that I could just slap myself up the head and be like, 'Stupid! Look what's around you! Look who does care for you! You have so many amazing people in your life!' I wonder if it would help, because no matter how many times I try to give myself an ego boost, nothing hurts more than silence or lies, which I've gotten a lot of in the past month.
*sigh* okay. I'm going to go make myself busy somehow.