Okay, so it's been a while. Here's what's going on with me...

- I've been going through a few doctor's appointments, first for some concerns with my heart. Now, I find that I have a lesion on my liver. It could be something, it might be nothing, I'll be going through some other tests with a gastroentorologist. Yet, I still had fast food the past few days.

- I had a date on Tuesday night. That's right, the same night history was made by electing Barack Obama, I went out with a girl. I had tickets to the Spurs/Mavs game that night, and asked out R. I met her at Theology on Tap. (Sound familiar?) Turns out she's an avid McCain supporter. (It's always fun and games until the word "baby-killer" is used.) But the non-political discussion was cool enough, thinking I'm gonna ask her to the game next week to see how she is when her candidate isn't giving a concession speech.

- By the way, not that it's any of your business, but I voted for Mr. Obama. Now I'm just hoping he doesn't screw it up.

- Heading to Cleveland next week as part of another meetup for the Pop Candy blog. If you're counting at home, that makes four such meetups this year, all out of town. Maybe I do need to start finding new friends in this town.

- Had a second interview last week for a new division at my current company. I've interviewed with them before, but this is the furthest I've gone in the process. Since I was off work this week, I haven't heard anything yet. Hopefully I will soon.

Been sick the last few days with a really bad cough. Boss sent me home early on Friday. Gave me time to head to a clinic and get FOUR prescriptions. I think I've been taking more pills than my grandmother...

But now, I get to go to work tomorrow.

from the Wall Street Journal...
"Lehman faces the possibility of liquidation and Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America on a day in which the U.S. financial system was shaken to its core. The federal government's refusal to provide support to potential Lehman buyers prompted Barclays and Bank of America to walk away from talks. AIG sought to raise cash and craft a survival plan amid investor pressure."

Yeah, work is gonna be REAL fun tomorrow.

So if you're a friend of mine on Myspace or Facebook, you've seen me countdown the days till my birthday. I'm surprised no one has told me how annoying it was.

I honestly thought I'd handle it better than I have been. To be honest, on the outside, I've shown the world that I'm ready to turn 30 (and for the party to come along with it). Inside, I've been a nervous wreck. It's not so much about the number, more of a flare-up in the anxiety that I've been dealing with for some time. I've been seeing a counselor for the last few weeks. To be honest, I'm not sure it's really helped out a great deal. He's given me some things to think about, but it's mostly been me telling him about stuff that's happened to me. (Maybe that's why I've not been blogging much lately...)

Now I find myself less than 51 hours away from the big day. Tomorrow, I concern myself with waiting to hear back from a job that I interviewed for last week. I actually applied with this same firm last year, but got turned down due to a personality assessment I took prior to the interview. This time around, I passed the assessment with flying colors. The interview I had Thursday morning seemed to go okay. There were a couple of answers that I flubbed, but overall I was okay. I can never seem to judge how well interviews go. I interviewed for a supervisor position at my work some time ago, and thought I did great. Turns out I was in the bottom half of those that they talked to, and didn't make the first cut.

After that comes doing laundry for the trip, packing, and then celebrating in Las Vegas. (We're staying at the Luxor, if anyone out there still would like to come party.) I figure a little reflection will come during the next few days as well. But, until then, off to turn on my TV and try to drown out the anxiety...

Sunday night, I was worried about not being able to iron a shirt. Turns out I was worried about the wrong thing.

Okay, so I had an interview yesterday. Same company, but this was for a manager position. About ten people were interviewing for two spots, giving me at worst 5:1 odds. (A co-worker said that there was rumored to be six manager spots opening up, giving me 3:2.) I found out about the interview last week, but only did some formal prepping on Sunday night with some coaching from my godfather, a career counselor. (My college habits come back to bite me in the ass...)

I thought the interview itself went okay. My three biggest shortcomings, in my mind:

• Too much verbal filler.
• Not having any experiences applicable to the questions being asked, causing me to do the whole "if it were to happen, this is what I would do" routine.
• Saying "when do I start?" towards the end. (In my defense, this was a tactic recommended to me by my godfather.)

In asking my boss today if he'd heard anything, he told me that I didn't make the cut for 2nd interviews, and immediately gave me pointers for how I should prepare for any future interviews. Honestly, I wasn't prepared for feedback right then, so right after he finished, I went to the place where I usually do most of my thinking during the weekdays, the middle stall in the men's room.

As I started my car to head home, the local rock DJ implored me to turn it up, as he was starting a block of Pantera. I immediately flipped the volume knob to the right and sped out of the parking lot for a few seconds of anger-letting. After turning the sound back down, my mind began to wander a bit. I actually thought back to a line from the football movie I saw a couple of weeks ago. "We're gonna praise God when we win, and we'll praise Him when we lose," the coach in the film told his team.

"Dear God," I started sarcastically, "thanks for not letting me advance in my career. I understand it is Your will for me to deal with angry clients all day. Praise be to your infinite Wisdom that would see me fail at something. Amen."

Further down the road, I thought back to words spoken by a great American, "There is no failure, only feedback."

"Yeah," my inner monologue said, "but feedback only requires ONE Tums tablet, no?"

Okay, so the fact that I could even be considered for a managerial position 25 months after my hire date should speak well of my record there so far. The bad thing is that turnover rate for the Pope seems to be higher than that of team lead spots at my company, and that competition for them (as I've found out now) is fierce. If nothing else, this may give me a chance to take stock of where I am now and where I want to go.

Or just give me another chance to bitch...

So I risked life and limb to go into work today...

...and was greeted with a madhouse. With a severly short-staffed department, everyone was trying to manage all of the incoming calls. Of course, people in other parts of the country really don't care that all of S.A. is closed due to ice, they just care about their money. Those that did brave the conditions were rewarded with $6 in free food from the cafeteria, while those that stayed home were rewarded with not getting an occurence. ("Occurence"=strike in our workplace, three or more in a certain period of time, and there are consequences.) You tell me who got the better of that deal.

Of course, according to my dad (who watched the weather reports all day), things are supposed to be even worse tomorrow. So, do I...

A) go in tomorrow on time?
B) go in late tomorrow?
C) call in tomorrow?

(first off, I'll appreciate the stifling of any snickers from my more Northern readers...)

Times like this make me wish I was back in college.

The city is under attack from an Arctic blast. Not only that, it's raining as well. Makes for a combination of closed roads and cancelled classes. One bad thing about working at a 24-hour call center is that it usually takes a natural event of some magnitude to force any closures or cancellations. For the record, the company has sites in other parts of the country, so it's not like we'll be TOTALLY crippled if our site shuts down tomorrow. The odds of that happening aren't too high at the moment, hopefully something will happen within the next few hours to change all that.

That's one thing I like about living below the Mason-Dixon line: any sort of freezing precipitation shuts down the entire city. I could usually count on the spring semester at UT being delayed at least one more day after MLK day due to weather. (Once, during my first couple of years, things got so bad that "non-essential" staff had the day off, forcing the RA's in my dorm to be behind the cafeteria counter serving my food.)

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to bed to dream what a day off feels like...

CAREER

I drew a co-worker's name yesterday for Secret Santa. On her wish list, she wrote that she wanted Starbucks coffee or a gift card.

Other than Starbucks coffee or a gift card, any ideas on what the perfect idea would be?