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THE DRIVING TEST "I know you were very nervous, but you really need to watch the right turns," she says, looking at me. At least, I think she is looking at me; I can't see her eyes behind the mirrored sunglasses. I never learned to drive until two weeks ago. In my native country, you need to be eighteen to take the driving test and since I was already in the US for college, I never took the test at eighteen. The summer of my twentieth birthday, my mom asked the driver to give me some lessons and made me work for the written test. The written exam is very complicated in Turkey; you have to answer questions about traffic, engine and first aid. The driving exam, on the other had, is a joke. You get in their car, go straight, make a U-turn, pull over and you've passed. It's not a huge surprise that Istanbul is full of bad drivers. Before the exam, the driver and I practiced a bit and I drove on my own around the block one time. So, at twenty, I had a license. I went back to college in Pittsburgh and did not drive. I graduated and moved to New York City and continued not to drive. When we decided to move out of the state, seven years later, we bought a car and I promised Jake I'd drive as part of our all-summer cross-country trip. And I did. I drove for twelve hours on my first day. The car was swerving a lot, but mostly under control. At the end of the day, my muscles were tight from stressing and my hands hurt from gripping the steering wheel. I drove several more times during the trip, in the farm roads of Texas and highways of Montana. All in all, I drove maybe for ten days. California State allows a foreign licensed person to get a temporary license until she passes the driving test. I took the written exam with Jake and scheduled my test for two and a half weeks later. I told him that I would do the driving since I needed the exercise and I almost killed us on the ramp to the highway. read more  50 STATES I asked for pictures of the states a few days ago. It was for this. If you have pictures, please email me, I would love to post them. LIVING VICARIOUSLY I have longed to visit Antarctica for quite some time, so Antarctic Diaries - Life Behind the Science is my chance of getting a feel for it until I get to visit and make my own diaries. By the way, Suzanne Vega's story on how she learned to drive, made me feel a little about my current struggles and driving-school adventures. FLEETING MOMENTS Lately, I seem to be suffering from a problem that only occurs when I have too much free time on my hands. I get fleeting moments of inspiration where I want to work very hard and finish a task I've been putting off. I'll be sitting in a movie theater and think that as soon as I get home, I'll write that code I promised Jake, or that I'll update parts of my site that are outdated. Or that I'll finish the presents I wanted to send to people who hosted us throughout the cross country trip. Or that I want to sit and write. I make mental lists. For that fleeting moment, I feel that I can do all those things. I feel energetic and enthused about my projects. I feel driven. And then the moment passes. I come home and read my mail and don't really feel like doing much else. I take a break and read for a while, hoping the moment will come back, but it doesn't. Not until a day later, when least expected. When I'm working I don't seem to have time for these fleeting moments. I am generally too busy for them. I run from one place to another getting things done instead of thinking about getting things done. CALL FOR PICTURES OF THE US If you have any pictures of any of the 50 United States, please email me a link to your picture, the location (within the state), a link to your site, and the state. It's for a project I'm trying to do. Only one picture per state, but you can mail several pictures. Fair warning: If you don't want this picture online, don't email it to me. I don't plan to touch the pictures in any way and full credit will be given to you. The pictures have to be taken by you or someone who gives permission to have them posted, in which case, I'd like their name as well. NORMALCY After a week of non-stop unpacking, our apartment is beginning to look almost normal. We still haven't hung any of our pictures but all the computers are installed, so are the TVs and stereo, every box is unpacked except for two. You can even walk around without tripping over stuff. Part of me is happy to finally get to slow down and take some down time during the day, the other part of me knows this means having to finally get a job. That part wishes the unpacking could go on forever. Driving isn't going so well. I know millions of people do it and I know that technically I am capable of doing it, but it's really stressful and quite painful. I hate feeling as incompetent as the car makes me feel. Only two weeks to the exam and I am sure to fail it. Looking for a job is yet another nightmare. I haven't truly interviewed since college. Transfering within Goldman didn't really count as I didn't have to sell myself so much. TFA didn't count because it was a completely different ballgame. I'm really not looking forward to the hours of interviews and the thousands of resume renditions. Fun, fun. It's amazing how little we tend to enjoy downtime. We're either busy with the job or desperately looking for one. Seems like a sad existence. No wonder I prefer to work for myself. NICE AND NOT SO EASY I seem to remember Heather having a post about dying her hair black that I should have paid much more attention to before I used the Nice'N'Easy bottle I bought yesterday. My brand new tub is now covered with black stains that threaten to stay permanently. I knew there was a reason to let the gray grow. After a morning at the DMV, I am now the proud owner of a temporary California license, my very first in the United States. My driving test is scheduled for the end of the month and I am scared shitless. I started unpacking my books yesterday and it's amazing how happy the act made me. I love my books, just looking at the titles and the authors filled me with joy. It made the everlasting unpacking considerably more fun. ANXIOUS After five full days of trucking down all the major highways between Boston and San Diego, we made it back to our new home. One night at Audrey and Tom's and another at Ashlie and Travis' meant that we only paid two nights of hotel fees. Even including the gas and paying people to unload the truck, we still saved around 3000 over the price the moving companies quoted us. On the fourth day, we even managed to take a side trip and see the Painted Desert and the Meteor Crater in Arizona, two sites we had missed in July. Besides the severe allergies to the truck, my body handled the trip quite well. The birdie played, ate, or slept the whole way. He did get quite a bit more anxious when the sun set and started climbing to the top of his cage. After four months of separation, he's now with his family, in his new home. He should enjoy the attention and freedom until a dog is added to our family. The last three days have been a frenzy of unpacking. Now that we're finally here, I seem to have gone back to my usual rushing self and am quickly getting worried about settling down, finding a job, and such. We've already got our phone, cable and electricity connected. I've unpacked the kitchen, clothes, and bathroom. The TiVo is connected and merrily recording. Since my computer broke during the move, I even bought a new one last night. On the surface, our lives seem to have started. Now, if only I could shake this anxious feeling in my stomach. Mobile Right now, Jake's driving down a highway and I'm reading my mail, finding the nearest grocery store and updating the site using my laptop and Ricochet. San Diego is one of the two cities where Ricochet is available in the country and the flexibility it allows is awesome. It doesn't seem to work in our apartment all that well but it works pretty much all over San Diego and it's really fast. It's quite affordable and means I can work at the beach, by the poolside or any other attractive location. When we drove across the country, I was telling Jake that such a service should be available across the country. It would have let us lookup hotels or campsites along our route and made life considerably easier. We're off to Boston tomorrow to arrage our moving. We're still waiting for info from one mover and otherwise we're going to use Budget trucks. We figure we might as well get there and get started. I'm also planning to update my resume and order our utilities here in the meantime. In a week or two, we might actually look like we live here. |
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