Had a pretty tiring week last week. Worked all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Drove to LA the night of Wednesday. Woke up at 8:15 to take my mom to the LAX for her 3-week trip to China. Of course whenever my mom travels, the whole family (maybe with the exception of my brother) is nervous as hell because 1. my mom doesn't speak English 2. she panics in any deviations from norm. I got her through check-in and tried to make her security check as easy as I can so she doesn't lose anything by telling her to put her electronics/metals in a zip-lock bag at the entrance. As soon as I got the call that everything was ok and she's headed to the gate, I went home. Came back to SD late Thursday night after going grocery shopping with my brother and sharing a limon-lime Jaritos from Valu-Mart just like the old times. Worked almost 9 hours on Friday.
Things are going well as a personal assistant. As I learn more and more about his tastes, I am better able to make decisions on his behalf, something I am also getting good feedback on, which makes me extremely happy. I always feel very productive when I'm working with him. It's a good outlet for all my planning and detail obsessions so I don't have to stress so much about it at home. Interesting I even have that. Something new I learned about myself.
Saturday was Butters day since I didn't have time to take care of him all week. Took him to OB for 2 hours then a 5 mile hike around Miramar lake. The little guy is doing better and better on hikes. He wasn't too tired at all.
Sunday, L & I woke up at 7:15 to meet the Perkins in LA for a day trip. We spent most of the day in downtown exploring Chinatown (where I got some pretty good deals on household goods), the flower district (8th & Wall, between Alameda & Main, found cymbidiums for $11), and the fabric district (a totally awesome store that should be a first stop: LA Alex Inc. 416-418 East 9th St. Between Wall and Maple). Had Chinese food, danger dogs, and fruit box. Because of the traffic, decided to forgo other tourist plans and head to John's place in Orange. We had dinner at Zito's and walked home afterwards. It felt so good to take a leisure after-dinner walk while slowly savoring a chocolate truffle. Old town Orange is filled with quite a few quaint little shops that looked promising for future treasure hunts. The building structures are pleasing, as well as the yards. Most of them are landscaped and well maintained. Definitely a change from Mira Mesa yards.
Today was the first day of non-training. By non-training, I meant that we spent 7 hours filling out paperwork. So it was training, but not really. HQ rescheduled training to next week. Unfortunately, six out of 30 people did not get a call letting us know about the change. At least I'm flexible, so it doesn't affect me too much. Still, one imagines that with so many rules and people, information will at least be consistent. But that I guess that's the problem with bureaucracy. Everyone's overpaid for their narrow duties and no one checks on what's really happening. To give them the benefit of the doubt though, I suppose it is hard to hire and train so many temps and have them train more temps. Nobody really knows what's going on or why we have to do something, just that we have to do it this way. Hopefully, it fulfills someone's well-thought out vision somewhere.
Had a pretty good time meeting different people. Everyone was quite friendly and helpful. I actually got a round of applause during introductions because I told everyone that since naturalization as an American citizen, I wanted to be a part of the political process by at least taking my civic duty seriously. The Census is one way of doing that. I don't want Nebraska, Texas or Utah or another backwards red state to take even a seat from California. Ok, I didn't mention the last part. One of the work came by and told me that she was very proud of what I'm doing and that to her I am "the definition of a true American." I felt like I could fly during that moment. Looking forward to meeting the group again during real training next week.
Since training plans fell through, I suppose I will have a few days this week for rest and time with Butters. It's supposed to rain this week, but hopefully it either doesn't rain too much or it pours. I hate the medium type where it traps me at home, unsure of what to do.
What an awesome week. =)
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