letter to my cousin (10)
dear Katie,
the Halloween soiree was an interesting affair. these folks are no slouches when it comes to entertainment, that's for certain: opulent deckings, top-notch entertainment, some of the fanciest food I have ever seen, and some of the best actually-from-Champagne-France champagne the region had to offer. I saw a familiar face I hadn't seen in since the start of my tenure here, and I was glad to see she was well. she was at the start of the night, anyway; after a while I noticed particular insides were trying to get rid of something, and once another friend took me outside a fog cleared that I didn't realize had descended. I wanted to skip Dodge, but it was too early to feasibly leave without attracting attention, so I stayed outside as long as I could. got my friend out of that fog-trouble at the end of the night, and saw her off as best as I could.
and then news got out: one of the Family had gone and shot another.
so naturally everything was turned upside down. my boss was distraught, naturally, but she was still expecting. now, we had talked about me stepping up a bit more while she was on maternity leave, but zark's fish, she had a dead sister and a kid on the way; you don't just power through something like that and hope to get good work done.
so I stepped up a bit early.
… alright, let's drop the euphemism: I took logistical charge of an entire corporate department. a corporate department in which I have all of six months' experience.
it's been a little daunting to say the least.
I've been able to keep up, more or less, and the other person in charge of the actual financial stuff has been top-notch. but about two weeks in I was apparently run over enough for the doc I've been shadowing to point it out to me. and if he's pointed it out, it means it's all but obvious, which isn't exactly what I want. so we took a couple weeks' hiatus until the end of the semester--I'm doing an intro uni course, which has since wrapped up and I did pretty alright in--so that I could get my legs back under me.
as I say, I did pretty alright in the intro course. part of the final was a brief literature review of some topic we've done in class. now, you know I'm not one to curry favor, but I may or may not have been conscious in the selection of my topic. I like to show I'm paying attention, savvy? it's why I combed through what papers and articles of the doc's I could find right out of the gate--I'm not a scientific person, and I didn't exactly ask for the whole shadowing thing, but if you're getting into an academic's work, you should be familiar with that academic's work, right? and not only is the doc a pretty clear writer, he's no slouch when it comes to footnotes. granted, I had to do a bit of digging to get more recent stuff, but thank Zarquon for databases that tell you which other articles have cited such-and-such article.
anyhow, I did my review on some of the very, very basic stuff on twin studies. we talked about them quite a bit in class, so between that and the other papers I dug up at the outset of this shadowing gig, it seemed suitable.
now fast-forward about a month, to about now. it's Christmas, and I'm still here and far away from my usual folks. I made flowers for some of the folks here, but otherwise I was thinking I'd be pretty alone for the holiday. I probably would've spent at least some time with one of the friends I made here, but she had a family thing come up in the mother country, so she was out of the question. but, lucky for me the chap running the department with me is a stand-up guy: at some point he off-handedly asked what I was doing for the holiday. I mentioned I wasn't doing anything, though that hadn't been the plan exactly. a little later on he invited me over to supper at his place; his folks were coming over, but it'd be a small affair, the more the merrier.
it was a small, quiet affair, but he and his folks are lovely people, very sweet. I think there was some speculation that he and I were an item--believe it or not our boss did try to set us up or something--but hey, I can live with that. I ended up not being alone for the holiday, so that was good.
I will say it's hard being away from the usual crowd, especially someone in particular. it's amazing how you get used to having certain people around. but I have hope that I'll be home before too long. things will settle out, and I can square away my return in due time. it needs to be done carefully, but again, I have hope.
all best to you and yours, and a wonderful holiday to you, wherever and whenever you are. -- Lucy with all of my strange love
