Time off

Well, my first two weeks of real vacation have passed by almost effortlessly! I'm here in the cool sunshine of late summer/early autumn in Washington State, and loving it.

Actually, it's weird to have cool weather and see leaves turning, etc., at this point in the year. In Baghdad, cooler weather didn't really happen until November (though nights started to become tolerable in October), and indeed, even in Alabama, fall doesn't really arrive until close to Halloween. This business of September meaning cooler weather is slightly foreign to me, at this point. (In a good way… I really missed fresh, cool air, this past year.)

I have an apartment in Seattle that I'll be moving into over the weekend. Well, "moving into" is a bit of a misnomer… I'll be getting the keys to it, and I'll probably move some of the stuff that I took with me across country (as well as the trunks that I shipped to my parents), but until I can arrange to have my stored personal belongings shipped up here, it's not likely to be home for a bit. Thankfully now that I have an address to ship to, this will be a huge step forward.

The other huge step forward that could come in handy would be, say, actually going to the office to arrange to have my stuff shipped. I've been putting that off, and I suppose if I don't get down to the local Air Force base by Friday, it'll have to wait until after Labor Day. Thankfully, my parents' house is large and I'm not in anyone's way here for the moment. (And I have two weeks before my orientation begins at the university).

Other than that, I've been busy playing with my iPhone for the past week and a half, and talking people's ears off about its wondrousness (they're not usually that interested–I try to restrain myself but it's hard to do, because I'm so enthralled with my new mini-computer!)

I will say that I'm sort of looking forward to having a schedule again… I keep losing track of what day it is, without any solid "landmarks" to judge the week from–in the unending sameness of my Baghdad year, I could chart days by how close I was to my next "half" day (8 hours at work instead of 14+). Now I keep arguing that, no, it's Tuesday, when actually it's Wednesday (and so on). Time off is a good thing, but I can see that there's definitely a chance of getting too much of it!

And that's my life at this juncture. I'll have more interesting things to say once I start school, I think. For now I'll continue to check in sporadically (and probably post pictures from my new phone).