I Got the Job!

I got a call a few minutes ago from the HR person at the company where I interviewed this past Monday--I got the job!

I start Monday at 8:30 to fill out paperwork and stuff, but my regular hours will be Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Only one thing though: in my excitement to write my new schedule on the white-board calendar we have in our kitchen (and to cancel the interview I had at another company this coming Monday) I forgot to ask the HR lady what the dress code was for my new job! Oops.

Final Reading List for 2009

Here are all the books I read in 2009. I actually read 16 more than my 50-book goal last year! That's the first time I've made the goal since I started participating in this challenge in 2006.

1. Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the D&D Game by Shelly Mezzanoble
2. The Colour of Magic
3. The Light Fantastic
4. Equal Rites
5. Mort
6. Sourcery
7. Wyrd Sisters
8. Pyramids
9. Guards! Guards!
10. Eric
11. Moving Pictures
12. Reaper Man
13. Witches Abroad
14. Small Gods
15. Lords and Ladies
16. Men at Arms
17. Soul Music
18. Interesting Times
19. Maskerade
20. Feet of Clay
21. Hogfather
22. Jingo
23. The Last Continent
24. Carpe Jugulum
25. The Fifth Elephant
26. The Truth
27. Thief of Time
28. The Last Hero
29. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
30. Night Watch
31. The Wee Free Men
32. Monstrous Regiment
33. A Hat Full of Sky
34. Going Postal
35. Thud!
36. Wintersmith
37. Strata
38. Making Money
39. Mind Meld (Star Trek: The Original Series #82) by John Vornholt
40. GURPS Discworld (RPG manual) by Phil Masters
41. The Ashes of Eden (another Star Trek novel) by William Shatner
42. Pawn of Prophecy
43. Queen of Sorcery
44. Magician's Gambit
45. Castle of Wizardry
46. Enchanter's Endgame
47. Dead Until Dark
48. Living Dead in Dallas
49. Club Dead
50. Dead to the World
51. Dead as a Doornail
52. Definitely Dead
53. All Together Dead
54. From Dead to Worse
55. Dead and Gone
56. Freedom's Landing
57. Freedom's Choice
58. Freedom's Challenge
59. Freedom's Ransom
60. Powers That Be
61. Power Lines
62. Power Play
63. Changelings
64. Maelstrom
65. Deluge
66. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
    

• Numbers 2-38 are Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
• 42-46 are David Eddings's The Belgariad.
• 47-55 are Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries series. This is the series that the HBO T.V. show True Blood is based off of. After I finished reading the books, I got caught up on the show.
• 56-59 are Anne McCaffrey's Catteni cycle.
• 60-65 are Anne McCaffrey's Petaybee series.
• All others are authored as attributed.

I started The Bourne Supremacy before the year ended, but only got 112 pages in before that point. That book will be #1 on my list for 2010.

What an Awful Time to Be Sick

Yup, I'm sick. Which sucks, because that means I can't even go to the temporary manual labor agency right now. It started Monday night, when I kept sneezing and had a really stuffy nose that wouldn't go away. I also had trouble practicing my trumpet without getting dizzy (though I made it the full 30 minutes), so I've decided to amend my first New Year's resolution to include the words "health permitting."

Tuesday morning, I got a phone call from the temp place (I hadn't even gone in to say that I was available) asking if I wanted to drive for the company I drove for the first day I worked for the temp place. My head was so fuzzy, what with the stuffy nose, clogged and ringing ears, and overall blah-ness that I doubted I would be alert enough to drive my own car, much less someone else's expensive company car. So, I had to turn the job down.

Before I went to sleep the night before last, I took some NyQuil, because I wasn't getting any better--in fact, it seemed worse than the day before. I briefly woke up around 1:30 or 2:30 (can't remember which), took another dose, and then went back to sleep until 4:00.

I could've slept longer, but I wanted to actually do something besides sleeping that day, so I went downstairs and got some beef stew before coming back up here to read. Then a little later, when Anna came back from Mom and Dad's house, we watched the first episode of Birds of Prey (I'd NetFlixed the entire series, and the first disc came in the mail a few days ago). By that time, Tim was home, so we watched Good Eats and Unwrapped before they went to bed.

I was still pretty awake at the time, so I watched the rest of the disc, plus the little Gotham Girls cartoon that was on the disc as well. Then I came upstairs, read a little bit more, and went to sleep.

I woke up a little after 1:00 this afternoon, called Bryan to let him know I wasn't going to be playing in the regular Thursday-night Serenity game at the Haven, then called a different temp agency to find out what I'd have to do to be considered for a position they'd contacted me about a week or two ago. I took their online assessments, then called the lady back, and I've got an interview on Monday now.

Now, I just have to find some work tomorrow and Saturday--probably at the manual labor temp agency--to get some money in order to pay the bills that are due before next Monday. I'll take some more NyQuil before I go to sleep tonight, and hopefully that will help me to feel well enough to work.

The Patheticness of Me, and New Year's Resolutions

Man, you know what sucks? During the second semester of my senior year of high school, I was in both Jazz and Concert Band. Those classes were back-to-back, five days a week, from right after lunch until the end of the school day. That's a total of about fifteen hours a week, playing my trumpet.

This afternoon, after taking a shower, I decided to practice a bit on my trumpet. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere near three hours, since I hadn't done any serious playing for almost ten years now, but I thought I'd at least crack half an hour, y'know?

I couldn't even make it fifteen minutes before my lips gave out.

Of course, it probably doesn't help that I was trying to play songs from my Disney Star Trek and theme books, which have a lot of notes on the top half of the staff. If I'd gone through and practiced some of the stuff in the books I used in middle school concert band, I'd probably have made it to half an hour, if not forty-five minutes or so.

But that stuff is boring, and I wanted to at least get half of the Star Trek: Voyager theme song played before my lip gave out. Only problem is, I'd played too many other Star Trek theme songs before I went for Voyager, so I only got a few bars in.

I think I want to start practicing every day again. Until I get a job, I'll probably go for early to mid-afternoon, for half an hour (using the boring books only), and then when I get a job, I'll re-evaluate my schedule and see what time is good for practicing then.

I've got an interview on Monday morning at an electronics manufacturing company for a stockroom associate position. The application, and the two little tests they had me take at the time, went pretty well, so I'm hoping the interview goes well too.

But enough of the depressing stuff--it's a new year! I've never really made--and kept--New Year's Resolutions before, but I think I might want to start. Here are three:

1. Practice trumpet for at least thirty minutes every day.
2. Practice guitar and/or piano at least twice a week, for at least thirty minutes each time.
   
3. Call at least two of my really good old friends (the ones I don't see all that often) at least once a month, just to catch up. Text messages, Facebook messages, and e-mails don't count--must be telephone calls.

I went to the Haven New Year's Eve party on Thursday night. It was fun. I talked to a few people I hadn't seen in a while, since the only time I'm really at the Haven nowadays is when I'm playing in Bryan's Serenity RPG, and we're sitting in the tiny gaming room where we can't see anyone else at the time.

I also creamed Steve at Warhammer--his ogres versus my Bretonnians. He literally had only three models (not units, just models) left on the table by the time we called the game at the top of turn five. He'd managed to take out my general and one entire unit though, so I only won by a little over 400 points--still a decided victory though.

I decided not to stay there for the night, since at home I had flannel sheets, but I was walking around the Haven for a while with my favorite blanket wrapped around my shoulders. It's the blanket that I got from the airport in Phoenix, on my way home from visiting Heather and Stephen back in October 2008.