i never forgot my lines, i still hear them all the time

[amatyultare]

Occasionally, when I am procrastinating online, I will reread some of my back entries in LJ. (Especially the tagged ones - I should just suck it up and go through and tag all of my posts.) And I always think that my LJ posts were much better 'back in the day'. Not the first few months I had it, but after that...yeah. My LJ has become extremely lame. Sadness.

Part of the problem is that I hardly ever post, which then makes me feel like I shouldn't post unless I have 'something big to announce'. It's hard to get back into the habit of just talking about what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis.

That being said, I am hardcore procrastinating on Script Frenzy (I should have 16.33 pages by today, and I have...3 *headdesk*) so welcome back to Ama's Excitingly Boring Life. And since I haven't been posting much RL stuff - it's going to be a fairly an extremely long entry.

Part I: Work Stuff

Without going into too much detail, my current position at Northeast Community Care is 'Regional Office Coordinator/Area Sales Coordinator'. The ROC 'part' is basically administrative assistant to the office (making copies, ordering supplies, answering the phones, general helping-out, etc) and the ASC 'part' is processing applications for new members (data entry ahoy!) and supporting our 'brokers', who are the ones who sign people up. I also tabulate sales numbers for our market and so forth.

Everyone in the office has known for months that there was going to be a new position in the NECC office, if and when our budget was approved by Corporate. The position is in 'Provider Relations' which basically means working with and supporting the doctors who see our members - helping with referrals and claims, answering questions, training them on our online systems. And even before the position was posted, people - all four of the women currently in Provider Relations, along with several other people I'm friendly with in the company - were quietly asking me if I was planning on applying for it.

And I dithered and waffled and didn't make a decision, even AFTER the job was posted. I was in the (fairly pleasant) position of needing to choose between two good things; on paper, at least, my options were pretty balanced and both positive. Which meant it needed to come down to which option I wanted. In other words, listening to my instincts. And my intuition? Is crap. Whether from my semi-difficult childhood, or simply my perfectionistic-avoidant nature, any actual gut feelings I have on such matters are drowned out by conflicting waves of 'you just want to do it because you think it'll make you stressed and you can't deal with actually being happy!' and 'you just don't want to do it because you're scared to death of change and doing something new that you might not be perfect at!' and so forth.

So here I was, wavering, for weeks. And HR and my boss, who is the head of the office (the head of the entire east coast of our company now, actually) were setting up interviews for possible candidates, and I was still indecisive. Finally, my boss calls me into his office Thursday before last (March 26), which was the day before the interviews, and basically says, "I know people have been talking to you about this position, and you haven't talked to me about it, and you know we're having these interviews. So, if you're going to apply, now is the time." And I still couldn't give him an answer, and felt like an IDIOT and fretted all afternoon, and came home and called piano1815 for advice. After listening to me, he tentatively posited that I sounded more like I wanted the job. So I forwarded my resume to my work email and updated it during my lunch break on Friday (along with writing what is possibly the worst cover letter ever) and handed them to my boss five minutes before his first interview. Yeah.

Then I went home that night and felt terrible and had a huge crying jag. Not a good sign.

I actually worked a few hours on Saturday because the piles of paper on my desk were getting out of control, and my boss also was in and working (the guy works ALL the time, I honestly do not know when he sleeps). He asked me if I still wanted the position, I said yes, and he said "Okay, I'll talk to HR."

A few days went by quietly; the whole possible-promotion thing didn't come up, mostly because my boss was in our New York office (which is in Syracuse, for the record) Monday through Wednesday. Thursday he was back in the office and he pulled me in for another chat, offer letter in hand. He said he thought I would be very valuable to the PR team, but at the same time I was doing great stuff where I was, so he would be happy with my decision either way. We talked about the position a little more, and he mentioned that he felt that my decision should be based on my long-term goals, because neither position would be my career. To quote, "if you're still in EITHER of these positions five years from now, I'll kick your butt" (did I mention that my boss is awesome? Because he is).

He offered to let me think about it overnight, but I really felt like I had dithered long enough. And I had done a lot of thinking about something piano1815 had said when he was 'counseling' me - that I sounded like I was 'defending' the position. Which was true. But I wasn't defending it against HIM, because he wasn't arguing against anything, just asking clarifying questions. Which meant that...I was defending it against myself. (See, I HAVE gut instincts; I just can't tell what they are saying by myself.)

So, I took a few deep breaths and said that after a lot of consideration, I thought it was better for me to stay where I was, for now at least. Which my boss was fine with.

(A few minutes after we finished our meeting, my boss came up to me at my desk and asked me if I was 'feeling better'. And I was - a little shaky, but happy. In fact, post-decision, I was almost skipping around the office all afternoon. So I think it was the right decision. ^_^)

Part II: Shopping!

My latest paycheck was slightly larger than usual because I had worked some overtime (our last big enrollment season ended on April 1, which meant we had a LOT of last minute applications and a lot of processing was needed on my end). I am saving up for some big things - like, oh, A CAR, as I'm currently using Erica's and she's coming back from AK next month - so I really should have saved it all. And I am saving some of it...but not all of it.

First, I bought another shelf and another small dresser-drawer thing (the kind you get for $20 at Target). They always take longer to assemble than I anticipate, and my fingertips hurt a bit from so much wrangling with pieces of plywood, but they're together now and it makes me SO happy. Storage space for all of my clothes! And books! And manga! I still have some sorting and rearranging to do, but my room already looks much better. Of course, this only gives me enough room for the books I actually have in P-town; I have a good 200+ books (no wait, with my academic texts make that 300+) in my old room at Mom's house in the DFC. And I want to get them, but...I literally have no place to put them except the floor in the middle of my room. Once I get the whole car situation figured out, I must re-evaluate my finances and see if I can get an apartment of my own. I like the house I'm living in and my housemates, but after four years of dorm living, having only as much stuff as I can fit in a single room? Is starting to pall.

But I digress. The bulk of my spending was not on cheap Target furniture, it was on clothes. I fully embraced the lazy-college-student wardrobe of tee-shirts and jeans during my time at Colgate - I think I owned all of two pairs of non-jean pants during my college years, and I hardly ever wore those anyway. And one of the few nice things about Hell On Earth, aka Microdyne, is that since we were strictly a call center, no one cared what you wore so long as it was decent and didn't have explicit sexual or offensive messages printed on it. Therefore, I entered my first 'real job' outside Microdyne severely lacking in the business wardrobe department. I essentially had one shopping trip's worth of work-appropriate clothing (we're business casual at NECC). And after six months, I was getting sick of everything I owned that I could wear to work.

Then, Friday night, I had a brainstorm. The nearest Torrid is only about an hour away, at a mall in New Hampshire. So I took a little trip on Saturday. And it was the kind of shopping experience that I haven't had in a long time.

I wrote a long rant explaining this, then deleted it because it was boring. Let me sum up: Almost every clothing store that markets towards people of my age range (19-25) simply doesn't carry my size. (The few other plus-sized stores I know of besides Torrid are mostly marketed towards 30-somethings or older.) I'm not saying this for anyone to pity me, or because I necessarily resent it (hey, every business has to choose what customers to focus on), but it's just a fact: if I go into a mall, I can walk past 90% of the clothing stores without pausing because I know that they will not have anything that fits me. And even in the stores that carry some plus sizes, the selection is generally VERY limited.

Hopefully with this background, it makes sense when I say it was absolutely intoxicating to go into a store and be able to try on ANYTHING that caught my eye, because EVERYTHING (excluding a few 'leftovers' on the clearance rack and so forth) came in my size. I think the salespeople found me a little funny because I kept trying on TONS of stuff. Because I could! Because it was all in my size! It reminded me all of a sudden why some people actually enjoy shopping for clothes.

Anyway - I got some cute new work shirts, which was the original goal, and broke down and bought a new 'casual' shirt as well (it's like a sweatshirt? But with short sleeves? And it's fitted? So I'm not sure what to call it, but it's adorable). I also bought a dress which I am going to wear to work tomorrow because people from Corporate are coming up to meet with our top-selling brokers, which makes it a good day to dress up. Plus, it's so cute!

Part III: Progress on my New Year's Resolution

My big New Year's resolution, which I didn't really talk much about at the time, was to "get in better shape". This primarily meant going to the gym regularly, but losing weight was definitely an element (if only as a measuring stick, since it's an easy way to quantify progress). And so far, I've lost about 10 pounds - which is not astounding over a 3 month period, but still makes me pretty happy. Plus it was 'painless'; I'm not crash dieting or seeking a short-term fix. I'm adjusting my permanent lifestyle in a not-unpleasant way. Basically I'm going to the gym four times a week, which (now that I have time, unlike in college) I really enjoy...the post-workout adrenaline/endorphin euphoria is kind of awesome, actually. Who knew?

Weird fact: when I started out, while I resolved to try to cut back on sweets (carbohydrates of all kinds, and particularly cookies and doughnuts and other pastry-like things, are my downfall), I was not planning on dieting. I already have food issues, and I really didn't want to get all obsessive about what I was eating. Which I haven't. But now, I've...start to forget to eat, sometimes. When I'm at work these days, I pretty much am always busy, and the day can sometimes slip past without me remembering to get something for lunch. And on weekends, I tend to sleep in and then go to the gym right after I wake up, and then come back and shower and start reading or cleaning or something...and sometimes I forget to eat. Clearly this is not, in itself, a good thing, but at the same time I am hoping that this indicates that I'm starting to develop a more casual and therefore healthy attitude towards food.

(I think this is the most I've ever talked about my weight on LJ, ever. I generally don't bring it up both because I genuinely am somewhat insecure about it, and because I dislike it when people are always whining about their perceived physical flaws - to me, it often seems like a passive-aggressive plea for attention/reassurance. So, uh, yeah - I hope it doesn't come across like that?)

Ack, it's almost 2 AM. Definitely past my bedtime. Night, all!

EDITED TO ADD: Something, again, stolen from cleolinda. As if the Caius thing wasn't weird enough, now the kid who played Anthony in Sweeney Todd may also be portraying...Grindelwald? Really? I mean, I know we pretty much only 'see' him when he's young and all, but...really? This is the second most...the guy who essentially seduced...I can't think of anything relevant AND non-spoiler-y to say about the character, but...REALLY? I don't see it, guys. (Although Cleo is right - if this is true, the kid has the best agent EVER.)

Comments

[genkioriana.livejournal.com]

I have to buy clothing from time to time too. More than I'd like, but it's expected. When you're out in a certain public t-shirts and jeans don't cut it. QQ!

[amatyultare.livejournal.com]

I actually do like dressing up, but it's more time-consuming (you have to match up your outfit, etc) and more expensive, and I am lazy. ^_^ So until I had to get them, I owned almost no 'nice' clothing.