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My skin is still crawling. Just thought you should know.

Where's a little brother when you need one?

I'll Never Sleep Again

There's this random pipe running from the ceiling in my bedroom down to the floor, and it's right next to my bed. So I was just sitting here, calmly reading a magazine, when I glanced to my right and saw the BIGGEST most DISGUSTING at least 2-inch long centipede thing run down the pipe. I don't know where it came from, and I have no idea where it went.

I think I may sleep on the futon in the living room tonight.

The Weekend has Arrived...

...and I'm still as boring as ever. :-b

I didn't really accomplish much of anything today. Read for a while, walked around for a while, visited ground zero (looks almost exactly the same as it did a year ago when I was here), got blisters from wearing stupid shoes, came home, and read again.

I was in bed reading by 10 last night, and it's not even 8:30 and I'm kind of thinking of doing the same thing tonight. I definitely need to start going out and actually doing stuff, or this isn't going to be much different from Grand Rapids. I need to make some friends here who I can tag along with. :o)

Day 4

I didn't exactly meet my deadline for unpacking, but I'm satisfied with how much I finished. Just a few bags left, which I hope I'll be motivated enough to finish tomorrow. I think the worst part about this move is that I know that I'll be moving all this stuff again in less than a year. I hope the memory of this move will be fresh enough in my mind by then that I'll be a little more organized with the packing. Somehow, though, I doubt it.

Today, I ventured out to Brooklyn for the first time. Somewhat. I went straight from the subway into Target (the subway station is in the same building) and back into the subway. I did, however, find cheap groceries in Target. So maybe I'll have to explore elsewhere in Brooklyn.

Words cannot express my love for The Container Store. Seriously. It's as if it was designed with every one of my OCD tendencies in mind. I'm one of those annoying people who finds organizing things fun. So I forsee the location of this store (just a few blocks down the street) as a potential financial problem. I think I'll just avoid that area altogether, at least until I have a job. :o)

The internet guy finally called back today, and he can't be out here to set up our connection until next Thursday. The unsecured connections I've been getting lately have become even more intermittent. I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time in the next few days in the tea shop with free wireless.

I'm So Consistent...

See how well I do when I resolve to blog daily? Lasted 2 days. I should be so proud. Anyway, I accomplished nothing, really, yesterday. Got a little banking done, but stayed in the apartment reading for most of the day. I think I just needed a break, because today I am motivated again to finish the unpacking. The intermittent rain outside is probably a big part of that motivation, too. :-b

Still stealing one of our neighbors' internet. Actually, rotating between 3 or 4 unsecured signals that my laptop can detect. Does no one know how to set up a password? It's kinda spotty, but I guess it'll do until the internet guy calls me back. I haven't had enough consistent access yet, though, to check the weather. I think that'll be my priority for the next time I get online.

Little side-note: I cut my hair off a week or so before I came here. I just got sick of having long hair, and I figured since I was changing homes and (hopefully) changing jobs I'd change my look at the same time. Having had long hair all my life, I had never experienced bedhead. I'm sure my hair got messed up or whatever when I slept, but it was long enough that it just kind of settled down anyway. Today, I woke up with a mohawk. And since I'm unpacking, I haven't yet showered and fixed it (no point in getting all nice and clean and then getting all sweaty and gross again hauling boxes and stuff around). So I currently have this lovely flat-on-one-side-kinda-crazy-on-the-other mohawk thing going on. I need a digital camera. Although, maybe it's a good thing I don't have one...don't know if I really want photographic evidence of this.

I Feel Evil...

I'm stealing someone's internet. I turned my laptop on in my apartment last night to check up on some information I had stored, and I didn't have any wireless signal. I moved my bed this afternoon, because I figured out a way to better utilize the space in my bedroom, and now I have wireless! I guess this is what they get for leaving their network name as "linksys" and having it unsecured. :-b

I feel quite prolific--3 posts in one day. I wonder how long I'll keep it up?

Day 2

I'm feeling a little more settled today. Much less emotional chaos, which is a very good thing.

I haven't really accomplished much today in the way of unpacking. I did get 3-4 more boxes unpacked, and I bought bed risers so now I can store more under my bed. I think I've gotten to the point where I'll be able to fit everything I brought.

I'm finding the transitions I've gone through lately to be very unsettling. I went from living in a nice apartment with a good friend and being very financially stable, to living at home with my parents and siblings making pizzas for a little over minimum wage, to living in a tiny apartment with a girl I don't know at all in a huge city with no job. I'm a person who very much enjoys stability. I think once I have a job, and get to the point where I have established some habits, I'll feel a lot more settled. Until then, I'm just trying to live day-by-day.

On the job front, I've been mainly looking for jobs online. I signed up on monster.com, hotjobs.yahoo.com, and a few other sites. I started looking a few months ago, and I quickly realized that with my generalized degree and lack of experience, I'm not exactly the most desirable job candidate. I have applied to a few jobs, and when I didn't hear back from most of my applications, I signed up on a few sites for temp office workers. I'm hoping to get a job with one of those firms. If I don't, I have seen quite a few "Now Hiring" signs in stores in my neighborhood, and while I really don't want to waste more time in a job that isn't giving me valid resume experience, I do need to make money. We'll see how everything pans out, but right now I'm trying to stay optimistic. This is a very expensive place to live with no income.

My goal for getting everything unpacked and being settled in is to be done by Friday. I've told myself that if I am done by the weekend, I will completely ignore the job search and just have a fun, relaxing weekend. It's been pretty good motivation so far, although I do have quite a few errands to run in the next few days.

One of the biggest differences I've noticed here is the lack of grocery stores. Do most residents shop in those tiny, expensive shops that have a limited selection of stuff, or are there hidden grocery stores I'm not seeing? I think I'll have to do a little more exploring for stuff like this. Fortunately, I brought a lot of non-perishable food from home, so I think I'll be living on pasta and soup until I can find affordable groceries.

As for the internet situation, I'm sitting right now in a tea shop called the Tea Spot that has free wireless access. I stumbled on it a few blocks away from my apartment. I'm hoping to get internet access set up in my apartment tomorrow. I feel really cut off from the world not having access on a regular basis. Does that make me an addict? Anyway, I should get out of here soon. I have a feeling the one slice of cheesecake I bought probably doesn't entitle me to use the internet for too long. :o)

Oops...

I thought I had posted the item that I just reposted (marked June 3), but I guess I forgot. It contains most of the explanations for my current situation.

Fast Forward...

As I type this, I'm lying in my bed in my tiny bedroom in my apartment in New York. I guess the only word to describe my feelings right now is overwhelmed.

After months of planning and chaos, I've finally moved. Having been a rather intermittent blogger before, I've decided to make an effort to journal my "adventures" as I move from Michigan to NYC. I'm writing this tonight (8/16), and I'll try to post it tomorrow. I'm hoping to get internet access set up tomorrow, but if not I'll try to find a cafe or something with wireless. I have too much to do online to be without internet access for long.

Currently, my stuff is about halfway unpacked. I've realized that I definitely brought too much stuff, and I'm debating the pros and cons of throwing stuff away versus sending it to my parents to store until I live somewhere where I have room for it. Fortunately, there's room enough for all of the essentials, and I think I'll be able to come up with ways to store most of the stuff I have.

After telling people countless times that I would definitely not move until I found a job...I have no job. I'm trying to avoid completely stressing out about this situation, while still maintaining the urgency I need to find a job. I do have enough money to pay next month's rent with no income, and while I would hate to borrow from my parents, I know they'd be willing to help with the next month's if necessary. I also have the advantage of being willing to do almost anything, as long as it'll pay the bills. I'm applying to very entry-level jobs, hoping to find something that'll give me opportunities for advancement.

I have been staying with my family for the last month, and they brought me out here, so when they drove away today I got pretty emotional. My city-hating family actually drove here, in a truck, pulling a U-Haul, with my sister following in her car. It was quite the interesting trip. My apartment is just a few blocks north of the Holland tunnel, so we had planned on taking that. We got to the area where you pay the toll, and they wouldn't let us through with the trailer. They actually stopped traffic through the rest of the toll booths so we could get across and onto a road that would lead us to the Lincoln tunnel. Once we got there, we had to navigate our way through much more of the city than we had planned on driving through. Fortunately, there were no accidents. I have a feeling, though, that my dad will never visit me again.

Overall, I think I'm more exhausted, both physically and emotionally, than anything else right now. I'm going to bed much earlier than usual, and I hope I'll be able to finish unpacking tomorrow. I really think that getting everything put away will help me feel much more at home. Hopefully once things settle down a little I'll get my excitement about living here back. Right now, to be honest, all I want to do is erase the last 48 hours and be back at home.