Return to work

So gee, uh, my blog has been pretty sparse hasn't it? Since returning to work I really don't have time. I'm sure this will settle. If you look at my blog when I went to work after Neil, I had a similar drop. I am hoping to pick back up soon though. I have a couple of problems. One is that I never have any time to myself. I am writing this on a Saturday as both kids are sleeping (I just jinxed that one) on a laptop I don't normally use. Speaking of that, the other problem is that our desktop is in Nathan's room. So I would have time at night but if the kids are asleep then I can't get on the computer. This laptop is Dave's work laptop. I try to avoid using it.

Here is my previous return to work post. I read it before returning to work but haven't since and am writing this blog post without re-reading it so this can be somewhat independent.

I think this time the return was easier. Neil was already in the daycare Nathan was going to so I was comfortable with the daycare itself. They also did "training" so I dropped Nathan off 2 separate times the week before I returned to work to test things out. The first time was just for an hour and the second was a trial run with a bottle. They both worked really well and I think the training is more for the parents than the kids, at this age. Nathan transitioned seamlessly and seems to be an easy baby for them just like Neil was for the daycare in Pittsburgh when he started.

I also somewhat knew what to expect returning to work- the big hardship is the pumping part. I at least checked out the rooms BEFORE I had Nathan, where with Neil I didn't even think I'd be nursing so I didn't bother. (STUPID on my part but whatever). I still have/had issues with the areas but I am starting to think that goes with the territory. There are 3 buildings where I work and they have a room in each building. The building I work with, that room is always busy. Most of the times if I try to go there it's occupied, and on the rare time it isn't, when I'm done another mom is standing outside the door waiting to use it. So I went to the next building over- I'm the one adding on so I figured oh well. Plus I was walking there anyways and taking longer because I was trying the room in my building first (it's two floors above my floor- the one in the next building over is 1 row below my floor). That worked well for a bit but then it turns out there were men using the room. Two were using it for praying, one was using it for insulin shots, and there may have been someone additional I ran into who really creeped me out. (He might have been the insulin guy, I'm not sure, but he made me really uncomfortable.) One of the other moms told me she has caught another woman sleeping in the room in my building. These people clearly don't understand how it can feel physically when you really just need to get in there and pump. But I digress.

So the rooms used to lock from the inside and were left open. Now they are locked 24/7 and the mom's have been given keys. I am still running into a conflict- another mom started a few weeks after I did and she and I are trying to use the room at the same time during my 3rd pump. There's another person who comes in one day a week at the same time so 3 of us are trying to get into the room and we need to work that out.

The rooms themselves are pretty good. They have a comfortable chair, a refrigerator and a sink in the room, except the room in the 3rd building (which is also why I haven't talked about it, plus it's quite a walk for me from where I work). I'm going pretty much every 3 hours, which is working.

Milk quantity wise. It's always touch and go at first, going back to work. The baby would rather nurse with mom than drink from  bottle so from a lot of women I've talked to, in the transition, the baby starts nursing more overnight. It seems to adjust though. I started out with 4 oz in each bottle and sent 3 bottles. Nathan only drank 2 at first, the time he was there. Now I send 5 oz in each bottle, send three bottles, and he does usually drink all 3 there. I also pump when I wake up before I get in the shower and Dave feeds Nathan about 5 oz before he takes him to daycare. Nights and mornings are very sporadic- Nathan gets up at least once but sometimes as much as 3 times a night. And Dave doesn't have a routine in the morning mostly because of Nathan .Poor Dave is scrambling to shower at times from what he's told me.

I am wearing my bigger work clothes from after returning to work with Neil. At least this time I'm not surprised I can't fit back into pre-pregnancy clothes. I am down to pre-pregnancy weight BEFORE Neil which is awesome but I guess even if you lose the weight it takes awhile for your body to actually get back into shape. Sometimes the pants feel a bit big but the next size down (which are my "normal" clothes) are still slightly too small. I'd rather wear something slightly too big than something slightly too small.

That's about it. I will try to figure out how to keep up with this blog but honestly right now my biggest struggle is trying to find "me" time. At least at work I get adult time but it's pretty rare for me to go just do something all by myself, especially now that we have two kids. Even if I go and leave one I'm usually taking the other with me.

Oh and one last thing I did want to say- I am so glad from a work perspective that I started a new job before having a baby. From a personal perspective it made things much harder but from a work perspective it made the transition a lot better for me. I already knew people; some actually stopped by my desk to say welcome back (I was very surprised about this honestly, because I was only there 6 weeks before having Nathan). I am very nervous about making a good first impression. I am definitely feeling the fact that I don't get a full night's sleep EVER. It's broken up and not enough hours. I am definitely not at 100% but people at work probably don't realize this. I try though to not worry, do the best I can, and hope it doesn't hurt me in the long run. This all is hard, people! I also really need to find some good friends but I know that will take time as well. I'm just not a very patient person.

New job

So I've been trying to decide whether or not it's worth posting my thoughts about my new job. I don't really want to get into specifics about my work itself; that would be boring. But it might be nice 6 months from now when I feel more like a seasoned pro there to go back and re-read initial impressions.

This is definitely a very good match for me. It deals a bit more with networking, and I have a Computer Engineering degree, so maybe I'll actually use my degree?! Maybe? Although being out of college for 14 years now I have a lot of catching up to do. My job basically is working on testing of a system that is a bunch of smaller systems networked together. So we test the interfaces, that the systems are functioning correctly, etc.

I was always an earlier person. I am not a morning person but I gravitated towards that to try to avoid traffic in Pittsburgh. At my last job I would start at 6am and I would work 9ish hour days and leave around 4pm or so. At my previous job though I was one of the first people there. I would often leave the lights off and that was when I got a lot of things done. This job is the opposite. Because of the parking situation, at least partly, which I'll discuss later, most people seem to be in before I am. I'm getting in right now around 6:00am.

The commute is awesome! Except for the parking, which again, I'll get into separately. But we live a few miles away. There are two different potential locations to drive to and they're both less than 10 minutes from where we live. In addition, I'm not driving a toll road so we aren't paying those tolls anymore.

One of the hardest things is starting over though. I miss my coworkers/friends. A lot. I did when I switched jobs before as well. But at least then I could still hang out with them where now they are an 8 hour drive away, without traffic. Also, a new job starts out with a LOT of reading and learning. New processes. New ways a company does things. Some of that is really tedious but necessary to learn. And combine that with late pregnancy, oy! I am getting so tired it's hard to read and absorb new things all day. By the end of the week I really need a break. Thank goodness for weekends. :)

I do seem to fit in with my new coworkers though. The 3rd day I was there one of the guys said it didn't seem like that was only my first week because I was fitting in really well. That's a relief! Although "fitting in" and developing friendships are two different things. The friendship part will come with time and I'm not trying to force it at all.

I also think this is a great opportunity and one that could be a career move. Part of the reason I don't want to get into specifics, honestly, is because I don't want to brag, and I'm not sure the hierarchy of things so I don't know what my job REALLY is going to be. But I think it's somewhat of a lead position- it's at least managing things but from a more technical perspective. There are other people who are experts on each system and I will rely on them to help me with the details but still need to know enough to make some informed decisions.

Ok finally, parking. Parking. Wow. It's terrible. At the main location I'm at, there is a garage. There are two types of spaces- general parking and then reserved type spots. My job function actual qualifies for a reserved type spot but the spaces are limited so I'm on a very very long waiting list for one of those spots. Basically I think someone has to quit/retire to open up a spot for the next person to fill in. For the general parking spots you have to get there basically before 6:30am or the garage is full. Then you have to park on the street somewhere and hoof it. So going out for lunch, forget it! They do have a shuttle that goes between the two work locations so at least I don't have to worry about that. If I got the reserved pass, that still fills up but buys a little more time. The feel I get is that then you can get there more around 7:30 and still be guaranteed a spot. One more side note there- it takes me longer to get from the street through the gate into the garage and into a parking spot than it does to drive from where we live to the street outside of work. That in itself is crazy. (It takes me a little less than 10 minutes of drive time but I sit in garage parking traffic for more than 10 minutes.)

The other facility has similar issues but it's a pretty far walk from even the "close" parking lots. The one I try to get into fills up by 6:30am. Then I was curious how far the walk is so I brought my Garmin is and from the "close" lot to my building it's slightly over half a mile. Normally that wouldn't be so bad but wow the weather is so yucky. Snowing, freezing rain, and very very cold wind. So it hasn't been a fun walk. And if you don't get there by 6;30 it's another lot further away. They do have reserved spots you can pay for (privately owned, not by the company). But as of right now I'll be at the first location I discussed most of the time so I'm not going to pay for one of those yet. (The first location is the office complex and the other is the test facility.)

The office complex I usually am at has a pretty nice cafeteria but it's expensive. Since we have rent and are paying a mortgage, I did decide myself to start trying to pack a lunch most days. That also helps me be able to munch throughout the day- it's better right now for me to have more smaller meals than a few big meals. My stomach is getting squished by some baby I'm carrying haha.

Ok another thing, the time keeping is weird. I'm used to charging different contracts and stuff but here you actually have to clock in and out. I've never had to do that before. So you also clock out for lunch and they don't want you to work through. The clock runs on 6 minutes increments so I usually clock out for 6 or 12 minutes for lunch, long enough to run to the cafeteria if I do that. I tend to eat at my desk. Every week I get a certain number of hours for each code and they don't want us to overcharge. The weird thing is that my job function isn't changing but I have to keep an eye on the clock to make sure I switch charge codes before I overcharge something. If I didn't have to physically clock in I could just split out the hours on a time card later. So it has advantages and disadvantages. I just really mentioned the disadvantages but one huge advantage is I don't have to think later about what I was working on to figure out how to charge my time- it's all been done for me throughout the week with the clock.

Speaking of eating at my desk though, there are mice! Nice office building but I was already warned not to leave food out. That's interesting, right?! I used to keep peanut butter and wheat thins at my desk. I guess I still can but I need them to be tightly sealed in tupperware containers or something along that line.

Hopefully this post doesn't come across as too negative. All in all this was definitely a good move for me and like I said, could be something that turns into a career. I know that at this point corporate America seems to not be about retaining employees anymore, but this is one company that does differ from that and is in it for the long run. Changing jobs itself is not necessarily fun and I've never gone into a job figuring I'll be leaving it X years later. It's just kind of happened so far. It also seems like I have a really good, reasonable manager and good coworkers as well, especially the person who is mentoring me at this point.

Ok so those are my initial impressions in a general context. This is where if people are curious, ask away. It might jog things I missed talking about that I wanted to anyways.

My day in photos

I tried to take a picture of something every hour one day (Thursday, July 31). This is an idea I came across online and wanted to try and see what happened. It's a variation on a day in the life of me. I also saw this idea on a friend's blog, where she posted daily in the month of July and it reminded me that I wanted to do this myself.

I had a hard time remembering to take a picture every hour but that might actually be a blessing for you because my life is boring.

Here ya go:

4:45am Pumping

5:30am (times are approximate but you can see if you look closely that it's 5:26)
Headed to work, pulling out of the driveway

6:30am here come the boring pictures of my desk when I remembered to take them

7:30 am with breakfast

8:30am still at my desk

9:30am in a meeting and didn't take a picture

Either 10:30am or 11:30am but this picture pretty much works for every hour I'm at work unless I'm in a meeting.
As you can see from all the pictures.

12:30pm the lobby in my building. Went for a walk with two coworkers and this is when I walked back inside then went to the cafeteria to get lunch

1:30, 2:30. and 3:30 were more of the same. I forgot to take pictures but I was either at my desk or talking to people in the halls (and didn't want to take pictures of other people or explain what I was doing).

4:30 I was at daycare to pick Neil up and forgot a picture.

5:30pm eating with Neil (graham crackers and blueberries for him)

6:30pm walking with Neil on our street

7:30pm bedtime routine

I also forgot to take a picture at 8:30pm but I'm usually just sitting downstairs in our basement catching up on Facebook on my phone or reading. And by 9:30pm I was in bed because I get up early and need my beauty sleep.

So there you have it! My day in pictures.

Heinz Taste Testing

I found out yesterday that there is a nice advantage of working in the same complex of buildings as Heinz. They do free taste testing and we get to be guinea pigs.

Yesterday they had quesadillas and my coworker asked if I wanted to go try them. I said sure and signed up to be on the list for notifications. They only have enough for a certain number of people so they allow the taste test until they hit that limit, then send an other email saying it's done. Apparently quesadillas were a big hit- they stopped within 5 minutes of the official start time (although people were there earlier than the official start time).

We'll see how long they let me sample. I already have a weird sense of taste because I don't smell very well. I can smell some things, but not everything, and I can't tell you what I'm smelling most of the time- just if I think it smells good or bad. This does seem to affect my taste. I base things a lot more on texture than most people would.

Anyway, I already screwed up answering the questions. They give a control and two samples. You go to a computer and they have questions you fill out (and they put your name with it so it's not anonymous either). The samples themselves had numbers but the question didn't say which number to try. So, of course, I picked the wrong one and started answering questions. I was about halfway through and realized that the number was on the bottom, below the question/answer. Oops. Sorry, Heinz.

Then you can take whatever is leftover (which was quite a bit) to eat, and on the way out they have some chips and things so I grabbed Teddy Grahams and a small pack of M&Ms.

I will definitely be participating in that again! And pay more attention to the bottom of the screen next time. ;)

Frustrations

Although this is a public posting on the internet that anyone could read if they found it, sometimes it's really hard to refrain from talking about things that upset me. (And that I probably shouldn't be talking about in a public forum.) For the first time ever, yesterday, someone outright told me that I don't work very hard.

I was brought up with a very good work ethic. I remember when I worked at Lowe's over the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college, at times they would call me up literally at the last minute because someone called off and ask me to come in. My dad would always say you take any opportunity to show them that you will do the work, to the point that one time we were supposed to go to an amusement park and I went to work at the last minute instead of going to the park.

As a result, I have always done the best job I could do, even if the job I have to do is crappy. My sister Megan is also the same way from what I've seen and heard.

With the mandatory overtime this past year (for months with no end in sight it was 72 hour work weeks), I know that I have insisted on keeping some of my out of work activities and that I'm pretty busy outside of work. Some of that helps you be able to deal with the excessive working hours. With that said, though, I did take a hiatus from one of our bands which actually ended up with the band taking a hiatus. And I put in a LOT of hours for the job. The worst part is that the person who accused me of not working hard has no idea what I've been doing for the past year. And I'm pretty livid about it.

But I'm in a better situation, so I'm going to allow myself to vent a little bit, and move on. Where I'm at right now isn't the ideal position for me, but I'm going to make the best of it and do a good job. And NOT because of the person I'm venting about. I'm doing it for myself because I feel that's what my job is and I'm going to do the best I can. I always have. I always will.

Ice Skating - Schenley Park

We went to another NA-YGN/work event.  This time it was ice skating at Schenley Park.  I'm not a good skater by any means but I do like to ice skate.  My parents got me ice skates for my birthday awhile ago (years now, I don't even know how many) and it's nice to use them instead of renting skates.  I don't get blisters on my feet.

One of my friends is the president of NA-YGN and she takes pictures at most of the events.  I never realized until I saw these how much I put my hands out to balance myself.  I feel pretty comfortable skating but I wish I was one of those people who can skate and make it look like you're just walking.  Maybe someday...  (And I think this is more proof that I do NOT have any athletic abilities.)

And here's the group that was out for the first skating session.

The skating rink at Schenley Park is outside and it was snowing, so it was really pretty.  All of these pictures were taken by Colleen, and she was trying to figure out how to get the best settings for the pictures.  I wonder if snow might have been part of the problem getting it to focus (focusing on the snow instead of the person?)

Dave and me, after skating

Colleen and me.  This is the only picture up from the event that she didn't take.

I wish we could have skated the 2nd session.  It was later so there weren't as many kids and from the pictures it looks like more coworkers were out there.  (We left soon after the first session ended so I didn't see who stuck around.)

Even if we had stayed, though, I wouldn't have been able to get my skates on.  Stupid me, I was trying really hard to tighten the shoelaces on my skates and I got really bad blisters on my fingers.  Bad enough that the skin is now rubbed off several of my fingers.  Ouch!  I didn't even notice until I was done and looked down and one of my fingers was bleeding.  I tried to tell Dave that it's a sign I can handle pain (or work through it) but he rolled his eyes.  I'm sure he was probably thinking it's more like I'm stupid and if something hurts I should stop.  I've never done that before, though, and I've worn these skates a lot of times!  I wish that instead of laces I had a pair that you can click shut like my rollerblades.  Even with what I did to my hands, I wish the skates had been tied a little more tightly.

Dave and Buster's

Friday night, even though there was forecast for freezing rain, we went to Dave and Buster's.  I know, I know, especially after hitting a guard rail the night before trying to get home, maybe that wasn't the best idea.  But we didn't even know about the forecast early in the day, Dave's car was at the auto shop for inspection, and he didn't have a car at work so I was going to pick him up anyways.  And the roads were fine so we went to Dave and Buster's "on the way home."  And kept an eye on the weather- watching our phones and Dave walked outside a few times to see how it was.

Dave and Buster's was a work thing.  NA-YGN (stands for... something like North America Y... G... Nuclear, something like that) had a late Christmas party there.  Although I belong to NA-YGN I have never really participated in activities.  Westinghouse is pretty big and I don't know a lot of the people.  The meetings are in another building across Cranberry and I don't want to drive there and back just for a meeting.  But Colleen is in it and very active so I decided to start participating more.  They had a buffet dinner, which was pretty good, and it came with power cards for games.  NA-YGN also set up two tournaments; one basketball and another with the horse racing where you throw a ball up (amusement park type game) to move the horse 1, 2, or 3 spaces at a time.  Dave and I participated in the basketball one.  He beat me in the first round and almost won! He got to the championship round but the person he played beat him with a pretty high score.

We stuck around for a few hours, used our power cards, and then headed home.  It was just starting to snow but we were fine driving.  So I'm glad we went.

This was our souvenir.  Typical Drylie souvenir. ;)

Tigger loves it, too

China recap

I sent this via email a few weeks after I got back from China. Some more people have been asking about my experience and I figured I would post it here.

The best word I can describe my trip to China is intense. It was a working trip, and it was definitely work. Long days, not much sleep, etc. I made up for the lack of sleep when I got back- I arrived after midnight on Tuesday (two days earlier than we originally planned) and wasn't back on Pittsburgh time and caught up on sleep until Saturday morning. Friday night was the first night I really slept all night, without the use of Tylenol PM (which I took Tuesday night after I got back to make sure I would sleep). The meetings themselves gave me a real perspective on the Chinese. We are selling the design to the Chinese so that they can build more plants themselves. We are contracted to build 4 plants over there- 2 at one site and 2 at another. So the Chinese need to understand the plant design so they can build it. We had the Chinese who will basically have the design on our side of the table, and the regulators on the other. The regulators and customer would talk back and forth in Chinese for a bit and if the customer couldn't answer a question because they didn't know or needed clarification, they would talk to us in english. We would explain back, and they would translate back and a conversation in Chinese would ensue again. It was very interesting. When the meeting was over, we had questions that we had to clarify ourselves, and that was when our real work began. We would contact our coworkers in China and try to answer the issue or find the background. I had some telephone conferences and things like that, and my phone bill is going to be really bad this month. (I was able to use my cell phone, which we also used during the meetings themselves, but it was $2 a minute.)

Although we flew into Shanghai, most of the time we were 3-5 hours outside of Shanghai. We drove to a town outside the first site and stayed there first. The meetings were held at site, which was about a half hour bus ride, one way, each day. This town (I can't remember the name) was being built but wasn't quite there yet. It had a neat little park with a lake and lots of construction. That was my biggest complaint about sleeping- they had construction going 24 hours a day (and not just here- there was construction everywhere we went in China!). I am a light sleeper to begin with, so hearing "wham" every few minutes certainly didn't help. (Neither did the hard beds, haha!) The other thing I found out very quickly is that they smoke like fiends over there! One of my coworkers from Pittsburgh is originally from China, so he and I walked to this drug store and picked up some allergy medicine. He talked to the store owner in Chinese and we weren't completely sure what we were getting, but it worked so that's all I cared about. I still have some of the pills in our medicine cabinet at home. I break out in hives if I'm exposed to too much smoke, so I really needed something! They didn't smoke in the meeting rooms themselves, but the second you stepped outside, there you were. Blech. And the hotel rooms were smoky as well. I'm not used to that at all! It was difficult communicating in general- other than in Shanghai most Chinese didn't know much english, if at all. For example, in our hotel in Ningbo (where the meetings for the 2nd site were held), I couldn't get the internet to work in my hotel room. I waited until the morning because I was waking up really early, and called the front desk. It took me 3-4 people to get someone who semi knew english. I kept repeating one word, such as "internet" or "computer" and nobody understood that. Finally someone did and said they would send someone up. The guy who came up didn't know english either. He was there for an hour and a half and anytime he needed to talk to me, he would call the front desk to someone who spoke english (again, kind of) and she would tell me what he wanted to say. Finally, she got on the phone and told me my computer was the problem. Who knows. I never had internet there. I couldn't get her to understand that my computer had worked in 3 other hotels already, so I finally just said fine, thank you. The best part? One of my coworkers was across the hall, so I went to use his computer. In China (and Europe) you have to put your key card in a slot by the door to get power in the room. So my key was in the door. I pushed the door to prop it open and turned around to go in my coworker's room. As I walked into his room, I heard the door close shut. Of course, I didn't have my key because it was in the slot, in the room. So I called the front desk from his room, saying "locked out of room" and "room key" to try to get them to understand. I finally got the same woman who had been talking to me, and even though I was calling from a different room, she said "Computer problem?" LOL. Guess she knew who I was at that point. So the 2nd set of meetings was in Ningbo, which is about 3 hours out of Shanghai. Ningbo is considered a town I think, with a million people. Wow. It was huge. This set wasn't quite so intense. Since it was the 2nd site, which is about 6 months behind the first in schedule, a lot of their questions were repeats from the 1st site. There were some heated discussions but the days weren't as long, which was nice. We actually got to have some fun while we were there. One of the Chinese Westinghouse employees ended up hanging out with the 3 of us who were in a group and together most of the time. She took us shopping one day, at a market centered around a pagoda. The market was ok, it had mostly clothes and purses (knock offs) and we didn't buy much. I did find a Chinese brand of purse that I thought was really cute and I bought some purses there. It was named "Bani Rabbit" where Bani is "bunny" with the Chinese accent. Really cute. And we were tired of Chinese food, so we went to Papa Johns for pizza after shopping. That really hit the spot.

Speaking of food, I should describe it. We got wined and dined by the customers and regulators. It was really political. They wanted to show that they have money, and are willing to spend it on us. They threw banquets for us, and the tables were basically a huge lazy susan in the middle. They brought a TON of courses and put them in the middle, and you would move the inside of the table around and put what you wanted on your plate. They had wine, a really potent clear liquor, and orange juice at the table. Anytime you finished any of the 3, they were instantly there, pouring you more. And the owners for the plants kept coming up to have a toast, saying "bottoms up!" so they wanted you to finish it. Because they were trying to show they had money, they ordered a lot of seafood. Tons of kinds- jellyfish, crab, shark, fish with bones in it, who knows what else. It was a TON of food. I don't like seafood, so I was kind of stuck there and didn't eat a whole lot. Even the "normal" foods, like chicken, etc, were interesting. The bone was still in there and cut through so you could see the marrow and the beef did not look like normal beef. So I had a hard time stomaching that stuff as well, just based on the looks. I lived on dumplings and fruit. :) They had watermelon at the end of every single meal. I did try shark fin inadvertently in one of the soups. I didn't care for it too much, and that was before I knew what it was. In Ningbo, we also went to a disco bar, which is their club with dancing. It was mostly male dominated. They were playing drinking games with dice and cups like those in yahtzee, slamming the cup down with the dice in it, and hiding what it was from the other person. Sometimes one of them rerolled, and eventually one of them would do a shot of something that was a mixture of whiskey and tea. They also had a video playing that was pretty risqué. Clothed women (well, scantily clothed) who were pole dancing. Definitely interesting, LOL. I impressed the Chinese with my drinking skills. At the banquet, I was doing shots and some of the Chinese were in awe. And at the disco bar, I threw back the rest of the beer in my hand and apparently one of the Chinese, his jaw dropped and he just stared for awhile, unbelieving. My coworker saw and told me about it afterwards.

We ended up finishing the meetings 2 days early, and the three of us were done earlier than the rest so we kind of snuck back to Shanghai in one of the manager's car (with a driver). The car brought him over for the closeout meeting, and was taking binders back, so we loaded our luggage and went back to Shanghai with him. We did have permission, of one of the managers, although we didn't really ask. We told him we were done, sent our meeting minutes, and said it wasn't worth us sticking around for another day or two. So we changed our flight back from Thursday to Tuesday, which was really exciting. And Monday, we were back in Shanghai for some REAL sight seeing. We went in the Shanghai Financial Center, which is the 2nd highest building in the world. The highest is technically a building in Taipei, but it's only because of an antenna or something. This is the highest observatory in the world. It was amazing. Words and pictures cannot describe it. And Shanghai is usually smoggy, but this was actually a clear day. It was perfect. The city is enormous; you couldn't see where it ended even from up that high. We were also looking for a market that had a good number of seconds (purses). One of my coworkers had been there on a previous trip but all he could remember was that it was near a park. We probably walked, no exaggeration, 3-4 miles, from park to park, looking for it. We never found it. LOL. I know where it is if I go back though- we ended up finding out later from someone else. It was near the airport and we might have seen it but went the wrong direction, headed into the city instead of out, when we started looking. We ended up going to the Pearl Market, which was an experience in of itself. This was where I bought a Burberry purse, which I thought was a second but could be a knock off. They literally had these secret back rooms. You had no clue they were there but when they saw we were American, they opened up this door and you went into this tiny area FILLED with purses. And they closed the door behind you. If you're claustrophobic and ever get a chance to go over to these markets, don't go in these rooms. You can't even turn around in some of them, and have to back out the way you came in, in order to get out.

Oh and before I forget, I need to talk about the bathrooms. Literally, in the floor. First, you had to know to get toilet paper before entering the stall because it wasn't in there. Then, you squatted really low (it did flush but was a hole in the ground) and you couldn't flush toilet paper so you threw it in the wastebasket in the stall. That really disgusted me. Thanks goodness the toilets in the hotel rooms were normal. (But not in the lobbies, those were holes as well!)

Back from China!

Wow, it's been a few weeks since I posted. But I also didn't want to log on while I was in China.

I'll write more about the trip later; right now I'm finally catching up on sleep and back on East Coast time (I think). I can tell you that my trip was an enlightening experience, in many ways. And it ended up being a lot of fun, even though I was really dreading the trip. The plane ride is pretty tedious but once I got there, I got to know some coworkers better and even made a few new friends!

I came back to cold and snow. LOL. In China, most of the days, it was around 60 degrees. And no snow. But snow definitely makes it start to feel like Christmas. I can't believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away! My shopping is mostly done but we have almost no decorations up. While I was gone, Dave put up our Christmas tree but we still need to put ornaments up. And I love to decorate but so far haven't been motivated (or awake) enough to do it. Poor Dave, I have barely been able to keep my eyes open to stay awake.

Anyway, hopefully we'll decorate a bit this weekend! But soon we're heading out to an East Winds concert. I'm not playing because I wasn't supposed to get back until late Thursday night (got home 2 days early because our meeting was 2 days shorter) and I figured I wouldn't be in shape to play a concert at that point. So this will be the first time I sit and listen to the group.

Going to China...

I found out today that I'm probably (99.9% sure) going to China for work. I've wanted to travel and this will be a great experience. I have to admit, I need to get used to the idea though. Not the actual trip, but I'm going to miss some things here that I wanted to do. But I'm definitely going to take advantage of it.

I don't know the exact dates yet, just early December and maybe part of Thanksgiving weekend (for travel). I don't know how long, and I'm not completely sure where. We fly into Shanghai and what they told me for now is that we're going to Ningbo. I'm just glad I'll be there with a group.

So, family members, when you get Christmas presents, they might have been bought in China. We'll see! :)

Rambling on here...

Work is definitely making life more interesting. I got to go to Europe in September (Slovenia for a conference and then Dave and I spent our weekend in Venice while we were out there). That was the first time I traveled out of the United States, other than to Canada. I got a stamp in my passport! And already within a few months I'll be going to China. At least this will definitely make me preferred on my frequent flyer card. I'll definitely take advantage of that next year.

I actually don't have plans this weekend, which is amazing. Don't worry, I'm sure Dave and I will still keep pretty busy. But it's really nice to have the whole weekend wide open at this point.

What type of fruit?

So, I am in training for work and have managers sitting around me. Yesterday, a director was sitting right next to me, and his blackberry was plugged into his computer, charging.

I have never owned a blackberry and didn't know you could charge through the computer. So I said, "Oh, you can charge a cranberry through your computer?"

Wait a minute, a cranberry? What's that? Der...

So I corrected myself with, "Oh I meant blueberry."

Oh my word. Did I really just say that? What a ditz.

I finally just said, "Whatever, some kind of fruit" to which the director laughed and I finally said correctly, "BLACKBERRY!"

In my defense, I do work in Cranberry. But wow was it a Monday morning yesterday.

And hopefully I later redeemed myself with the director when I helped him with his computer. So much for a good impression though! LOL