Bit of Ivory

• I woke up far too early (8:30) despite my best intentions of being lazy today. It seems I am now incapable of sleeping in. Oh, well. More time to get stuff done.
• I applied for unemployment
• I updated my resume
• I found a few more connections on LinkedIn (thanks for the tip, B.K.) and even sent a message to my former manager at Deseret Book
• Asked one person to be a reference
• Applied by e-mail for 4 jobs and by fax for 3 more

Stuff I still need to do:

• Laundry
• Break down boxes from the new bookshelves I’ve put together, so there’s room for one more
• Move computer desk, computer, and as many of my books as possible back into my room
• Figure out something fun to do tonight, because it’s my parent’s 30th anniversary (congrats, folks. :P) and my sister is working so otherwise I’ll be all alone
• Look for more places to apply
• Contact 2 more people for references

Keeping busy is at least keeping me from getting too depressed. So, I’ll stay busy.

Today at work has been– interesting. We’ve all moved past the shock of coming in and hearing “We’re closing. As of now. As soon as we can get the patients moved out. Friday, hopefully. Monday at the latest.” We’ve done the depression and the anger and the sadness, and now we’re all just kind of– making the best of the situation in which we find ourselves. Most people wore jeans today (strictly against the dress code). They’re cleaning out their offices. They’re joking and laughing and talking about where they might go next. I brought Pride and Prejudice with me and am sitting with my feet on my desk when I’m not answering calls. And we are still getting calls– we’ve got at least 3 patients that we’re trying to transfer to another facility here in the state, plus all the vendors and insurance companies and other folks who we work with and who are trying to figure out the situation. One guy who works with one of the local insurance companies chatted with me a while, saying how sorry he was about this all (because we really are a very valuable resource here in Salt Lake, and, indeed, for the country as a whole– it’s not like we’re not needed, or couldn’t turn a profit if we tried hard. Our owners just gave up, is what it amounts to), and saying that I’ve always been friendly and competent and his company has lots of openings.

The company is really doing precious little for us. No severance packages. It’s even kind of up in the air as to whether our accrued vacation/sick leave will be paid out (it’d better. I’ve got at least a week’s worth of paid leave sitting there). The best they’re doing is allowing the 16 employees who are on the company benefit plan to work one full-time shift in the month of March, thereby extending our coverage until the end of March instead of having it end today. So I’ll be working on Monday, probably, as my very last day here. Unfortunately COBRA isn’t an option, since our company will no longer exist as an entity. So people are kind of taking their severance as they can find it. I think the plan right now is to raid the marketing closet for New Life-branded stuff (which won’t be of any use to anyone. They’ll just have to throw it out). I think I might snag one of the little keychain flashlight thingies. I’ve already got a water bottle, and I don’t particularly want an apron. I feel worst for our head dietitian, whose husband is still in school and who just found out she’s pregnant.

I was too depressed last night to actually update my resume, but I have done a bit of job searching. Luckily I now have a year of experience under my belt (I just got a $.40 an hour raise with my annual review) and therefore qualify for some of the better receptionist jobs. Many of them pay anywhere from slightly more to significantly more than I’m currently making. So this may end up being a positive move. It sure doesn’t feel like it at the moment, though. I liked my job. I liked the people I worked with. I especially liked that we were actually helping people, rather than just selling things to people that they don’t really need. And I really hate searching for jobs. I wish I had my brother’s luck. Great jobs just tend to fall in his lap. I do have the advantage of being in Utah, at least, where the economy is still pretty strong and unemployment still pretty low. There’s lots of jobs out there. I just need to land one.

Because the company is closing, we’re all eligible for unemployment. I haven’t quite decided if I want to file yet. According to the calculator, I’d only get about $175 a week, which is better than nothing, I suppose. But doing all the paperwork and such seems like such a hassle. More trouble than it’s worth, almost. I can’t see that I have a time limit as to when I have to file after losing my job, so I might just start the job search. If nothing turns up after a couple of weeks, I’ll file.

I’m planning on doing my taxes tomorrow and e-filing, so I can get my refund quickly. It should be a goodly amount, which will at least help me pay my minimum payments on my credit card (luckily I only have one with a balance at this point) and my student loan, until I can get a job. And I do have a bit of money in my savings account, so I’m not left completely high and dry financially, at least.

And if my job search extends for some time, or if I have to wait for 90 days or something before the benefits kick in, I can at least go back on BYU insurance. No prescription benefit, but it’s better than nothing. BYU requires that all students have health insurance, anyway. And I’m still technically a student.

Anyway. Happy birthday to my uncle Kevin, who I believe is turning 13 this leap year. He’s the only person I know who is younger than all of his kids. Also happy half-birthday to Jen, ’cause I know she looks forward to those.

My employer is closing. I’m losing my job. Maybe by the end of the week, definitely by the end of next.

This royally sucks.

I’m so sorry for all of you who don’t live where I do. If I had a TARDIS or a transporter or if we could actually Apparate, I’d make sure you all got to enjoy this day. Seriously, guys, it’s gorgeous out there. And it may be gorgeous where you are, too, but you don’t have Mount Olympus still covered in snow against a sky so blue it almost hurts providing the backdrop for the lovely weather.

Today I left my coat hanging on the coat rack when I left for lunch (I did need it this morning. Still frost on the windows of my car and all). Then I pulled out my iPod and found “Spring is Coming” by the Real Group and turned up the volume. Then I rolled down the windows on my car while I drove to the Mexican place I decided on for lunch (I love me some shredded beef tacos). Then I kept those windows down and that Real Group playing and drove to a park, where I sat in my car with the windows still down and ate my lunch.

Then I went for a walk in the park. Nice and slowly, taking deep breaths as I meandered along the asphalt path. Then I walked off the path for a while, and savored the feeling of walking on ground that gives under your feet. Then I sat down on a swing and just looked around. Then I swung, which I haven’t done for ages, and enjoyed the feeling of the crisp wind on my face and in my hair. Then I walked back to my car and drove (with the windows down and the Real Group still playing) back to work. And even that wasn’t so bad, because I have fresh-cut tulips on my desk and the weatherman says the 40-and-50-degree weather is going to be here for a while.

1) I got my hair cut. Really cut. As in, it hasn’t been this short since I was in 2nd grade. I also put in highlights and lowlights. I’ll take a decent picture of it soon. I’m getting no end of compliments on it.

2) The new carpet is going in my bedroom tomorrow. Yayness! This means I have to move the remainder of my stuff (my bed, computer desk, bedside bookshelf, and deskside bookshelf) out of my room tonight, and will be sleeping on the futon. Boo. And then I get to put my room back together. More boo. It’ll be nice to have all my books available and on my bookshelves again, though. I’ve been living off only those I could fit on my bedside shelf, which is only about 25/30 books. Eek! At least this included all my Austens.

3) My dad has gout. Seriously. It seems to be somewhat of a side effect of his kidney disease (as it’s caused by uric acid, which is of course found in higher levels when the kidney isn’t functioning properly) rather than because he drinks a lot of wine and eats a lot of red meat (because he doesn’t :P), and it hurts. A lot. But we’ve all been joking about going to Bath to take the waters and having great big white bandages and needing crutches from the missionary barrels but getting a doll instead (who recognizes THAT convoluted movie reference, huh?). My niece also had a very mild case of the croup over the weekend, so my family’s all up with Victorian diseases recently. What’s next, I wonder? Cholera? Ague? Consumption? Or maybe we can get away with just an attack of the vapours.

4) Due to the painting and general room renovation, work on the thesis has slowed rather. I expect it to pick up shortly.

From Leaky:

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger Named Among EW’s Favorite Fictional Lovers

I’m grinning like a loon.

Also making the list are some of my favorites, like Lois/Clark, Aragorn/Arwen, Leia/Han, and of course, Lizzy/Darcy.

(Oh, and remember how I was rejoicing in the sweater weather? Yeah. Yesterday’s storm, which was supposed to be nice and short and relatively uneventful turned into a gigantic storm resulting in closed roads and kids getting stuck at school all night and school closures and a commute that usually takes about 25 minutes taking an hour and 25. Oh, Dreaded Lake Effect, how we love thee. In any case, I’ll believe the weatherman’s “this is the last storm for a while!” when I SEE it, thanks. :P)

It’s sweater weather. As in, I left my coat in the car when I went to lunch. And we haven’t had any snow for four days. It’s crazy, people! For the first time this winter (I think), we’re actually above average instead of waaay below it. It makes me want spring, even though I know it’s much too early to get my hopes up yet. But at least I can wash my car.

Speaking of Lizzy, wanna see a pic of her newly-repaired trunk?

There’s a couple more in the set if you click on the photo. Doesn’t she look gorgeous? We’re still on the lookout for a new trunk panel (you can see that it’s a bit broken if you look at a larger size) and she smells like paint on the inside still, but other than that, I have no complaints. At all. I love my car.

Except that somewhere during the whole ordeal, her license plate frame/cover thingy got broken (I suspect it was the tow truck to blame, because it shouldn’t have been damaged by the actual crash). Said frame used to read “You think that, Jane, if it gives you comfort.” Which is a great line and an even greater inside joke, but it has two problems: 1) it’s from the 1995 mini-series version of Pride and Prejudice, and therefore was not actually written by Jane Austen, and 2) it was spoken by Mr. Bennet to Jane, which means that it doesn’t match with the whole “Lizzy” thing. So I need to come up with an appropriate line from the P&P book that (preferably) was either spoken by or refers to Elizabeth Bennet, and that will fit on a license plate cover. Because, while “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” is awesome, it would be impossible to decipher if we managed to get it on a frame.

So. Want to help me brainstorm? (I have already considered, and rejected, “What are men to rocks and mountains?” because I’m not really that much of an outdoorsy girl.) Come on, you know you want to comb through the pages of P&P.

I’ve been having a weird vertigo thing the last couple of weeks. I’m not dizzy, per se, at least not in the just-got-off-the-Mad-Tea-Party way. I just can’t seem to keep my balance, and the room likes to spin when I move my head too quickly. I eventually went to the doctor last Saturday, who said it was probably related to some congestion in my head (not in my sinuses or nasal passages, though, as they were both perfectly clear) and prescribed meclizine and Nasonex, and told me I could also take Zyrtec if it didn’t get better. I did end up taking the Zyrtec, too, which made me incredibly drowsy for the last week. And the vertigo still hasn’t completely cleared up. Gah.

This has rather slowed down my promising progress on my thesis, as reading a traditional book is difficult due to the angles involved. And there are a couple of other issues as well, which I’m not quite prepared to talk about in public yet. Still, I do seem to be getting a bit better, and am hopeful that the worst of my writer’s block is behind me.

I spent Saturday shopping for room-painting supplies. I think I blogged about this (but I’m waaay too lazy today to go looking), but just as a review, this spring my window well leaked (unbeknownst to me) and caused a big section of my carpet to go all moldy and mildewy and caused water damage to 5 of my 7 bookshelves (I know, that’s a ton– but in my defense, two of them are just teeny 1-foot-wide shelves, which I use as a stereo stand and a bedside table). And it ruined a library book, too, which was intensely distressing to me. Well, the carpet has dried but needed to be replaced, and we finally went and found a remnant that was cheap and a good color. Which means that I get to repaint my room–it’s currently pink, and I’m not really a pink person. It’s going to be a lovely sage green, and I’m going to go home tonight and remove the rest of my wallpaper border and get stuff prepped. Yay! I shall have to take pictures when it’s all done.

I’m also going to get a new bed. This one, to be precise. I’ve always wanted a bed like that. Too bad my room is too small (once you cram my 7 bookshelves in– and I need all of them!) to have more than a twin-sized bed. I’d like to upgrade to a full. Being 27 years old and all.

I woke up this morning to at least 6″ of snow. Driving to work was a nightmare, as none of the roads I usually take had been plowed. At all. Now, I’m pretty good at driving in the snow, but the Prius was sliding around at 12 miles an hour. It was kinda freaky. Got to work okay, though. It did make me miss Lizzy that much more. Lizzy is better in the snow than the Prius.

It’s okay, though, ’cause Lizzy is coming home tomorrow! They painted her yesterday, and were re-assembling her today. Apparently her new trunk lid was originally champagne-colored, and her new bumper was dark blue. And they couldn’t find a DX model trunk for her, so the back insert was going to be the standard gray kind instead of the spiffy-used-for-that-model-year-only red one. Buying a brand-new one was going to cost $400. But then dad talked to the body shop guy today, and he said that the original one wasn’t really that damaged. So he’s putting Lizzy’s back on, until we can find a completely undamaged one. It also means that Lizzy will be missing the “DX” sticker-thingy on the trunk, but dad found one on eBay for $6.

Can you tell I’m excited about getting my car back?

I’m going to Disneyland in April! Whoot! With my sister Lisa and her BFF Sarah, right after Lisa’s finals end. And I mean RIGHT after. ‘Cause Disneyland is doing a deal where, if you go to the park on April 24 or before, you can get a 5-day Park Hopper pass for the price of a 3-day. And Lisa’s last final is April 23rd, at 1:00 pm. So, we’re flying out that night at about 8, and going to Disney the next day. Staying until Monday, and flying home again at 8:00 that night. I’ve never been to Disneyland over multiple days before. I wonder how many times I’ll manage to squeeze in Pirates? *ponders*

Watched Northanger Abbey last night. Really enjoyed it, although, of course, there were a few things that bugged. I was prepared to hate it, because Mags of Austenblog hated it, and my taste tends to be similar to hers. But I liked it. Quite a lot. It was better than Persuasion, anyway. I’m looking forward to Mansfield Park in a this-is-going-to-be-a-trainwreck kind of way. I have no particular attachment to the novel, you see, so I think I’ll be able to enjoy it as Le Bad Cinema (as our local movie guy dubs really really bad flicks), since it’s rather obvious I won’t be able to enjoy it as Good Cinema. Since they cast Billie Piper as Fanny Price and all. I love Billie Piper, but she simply isn’t Fanny Price.

Of course, the small things that they didn’t get right in Northanger Abbey have me reading the novel again, even though I reread it only a month or so ago. Not that there’s anything wrong with rereading Austen, ever. But I just can’t let all of Henry’s snarky lines go unappreciated. I lent one of my copies (yes, I have several) to Lisa, too, so soon she too will be reveling in the sexiness that is Henry Tilney.

Don’t get me wrong. I like my job. I don’t love it, but I like it. Most of the time the people I deal with outside of the company are polite. My coworkers are all nice. And how much, really, can you complain about a job that lets you play around on the internet ALL DAY LONG if you want, or if you don’t, will let you knit or read or do whatever, as long as you can answer the phone? Not much.

But there are a few little irritations, the biggest of which is the lack of communication. Seriously, no one tells each other anything, and if there *is* a need-to-know list, I’m on the bottom of it. Understandable when it comes to stuff like programming and patient info and things like that, but usually? These are things I need to know. Oh, you’re expecting 3 people for a meeting come 3:00? Please tell me in advance instead of when they start arriving, because then I’ll know where to send them. Oh, you’re changing the stuff that gets sent out in our info packets? Well, since I’m the one who MAKES said packets AND sends them out, I should probably be informed that you’re taking out those two pages of staff info, instead of letting me send out the original packets for two weeks (and even then, I only found out about it because I had to print more and asked them if they wanted to update them).

Today was really irritating, though. First our maintenance guy asks if he got any faxes, and I say no, because, well, he hasn’t. So he gets on the phone with the person he expects the fax from, and she says that the fax line is getting intercepted by voicemail. Weird. So I tell the maintenance guy to call the IT guy, ’cause I certainly don’t know anything about any changes to the fax lines, and couldn’t do anything about it if I did. And then, about 5 minutes later, I get a call from someone saying that he’s having a hard time getting through– that it’s either asking for a mailbox extension or just hanging up on him. Okay, something must be up with the phone lines. Of course, the IT guy isn’t even here today. And then another call comes in, and it has caller ID info. I’ve never gotten caller ID before. Just “Caller ID Unknown.”

And then I get a call from a telecomm company, who needs to check the lines because they just switched our telecomm service over 10 minutes ago.

Gee, people. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the RECEPTIONIST, to whom ALL CALLS COME during business hours, should know that we’re switching telecomm companies, and there might be an interruption of service?

NAH.

But hey, I have caller ID now, so maybe I’ll be able to tell if it’s an employee calling and can skip my spiel.

I’ve decided that I need to update more. At first I thought of posting every single day, but then I realized that the main reason I haven’t been posting much lately is that my life has become incredibly boring. I figured you didn’t want to read about how I got up, went to work, went home, and failed to get stuff done on my thesis every day. So I decided that once a week is a much more reasonable goal, and much less annoying for my loyal flist. If I have anyone left.

I’ve been feeling kinda weird lately. I woke up on Monday morning with my ears plugged– you know, the pressure thing that you get on airplanes and such, or when you have a bad cold. Except neither of those things had occurred, and there was no pain involved, just pressure. So, I took the only decongestant we had on hand that didn’t also include cough suppressant and/or pain relievers, which happened to be Mucinex. Then I went to work. Stopped at my usual 7-11 for my usual hot chocolate, and got a Nature Valley Sweet & Salty bar (almond) to go along with it. Well, I don’t know if it was a reaction to the Mucinex, or a lack of eating enough breakfast to go with said Mucinex, or if it was just the pressure on my inner ear, but right at lunch time I suddenly got horribly dizzy. And weak. And the dizziness made me sick to my stomach. And I thought I’d better eat something, so I drove my dad’s Prius (which he’s been able to loan to me this week while he’s off work and Lizzy’s still in the shop) to the closest place to get food that I could think of, which happened to be a grocery store (that also has a dang good deli– their sub sandwiches are a thing of beauty and a joy forever). But I found that I was too dizzy to stand in line to have a sandwich made, and none of the pre-packaged deli stuff looked at all appealing, due to my nausea. So I did the only thing I could think of– I bought a bottle of Power-ade and sat down in the bistro to drink it, hoping that whatever they put in it to help athletes would help me.

It didn’t, particularly. At least, not at first. So I got back in the car and called my mom. I was feeling really ill by this point– like I’d just touched down after a ride-along in an F-16 during a Thunderbirds performance. I really needed to lay down, but I knew I could drive all the way home. We decided I’d try to make it back to work and see if Kim (who covers me for lunch) would be okay with covering the rest of the day. Then she and dad would come pick me up. Luckily, Kim managed to work it out, and I got home and collapsed on the sofa. A nap helped a little (although I think it was more the fact that I was laying down), and some Sudafed helped a bit more, and food helped, too. But I still wasn’t feeling a hundred percent, and I couldn’t be vertical without being a bit dizzy.

Yesterday I made it through work, but still spent almost the whole evening horizontal. The pressure was gone, but the dizziness was still there, a bit. And today, the pressure is back, and I can feel the dizziness coming on again. I took Sudafed this morning, but haven’t noticed an appreciable difference. I did eat more for breakfast, though (two pieces of multigrain toast and a banana in addition to my hot chocolate), so I hope I don’t have a complete repeat of Monday. If this keeps up, I may end up at Instacare after work.

So there’s a guy standing here at my desk filling out an application. Even if we were hiring right now, which we’re not really except for one particular job for which he’s definitely not qualified, he wouldn’t be getting hired at our place. First off, he just walked in and asked for an application. When I asked what job he was applying for, he said “any job.” Umm, yeah. And then he asked if we and the hospital across the street are the same. No. Way to be informed about the company you’re applying for, dude. And then, when I gave him the application, he stood at my desk instead of grabbing a magazine from the seating area to my left to use as a writing surface. And then he started to sing along to the music. I guess I should be impressed at his knowledge of Oldies, but I wasn’t. And then he talked about how he’s probably going to move away anyway, because there aren’t any jobs here. Except, of course, that Utah has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, to the point where there are many more jobs than available workers. I doubt the same is true in Massachusetts and North Carolina (although I can’t be fussed to look it up. I might be wrong). He just handed me the app. In the “position applied for” space, he put “warehouse.” Yeah. We’re a medical facility. And then he came back and asked for a card, which made it abundantly clear that he’s just walking up and down the street, filing applications in any place that will let him, so that he can qualify for unemployment.

I’m tempted to just throw this away. I don’t even know who to give it to, honestly.

It was snowing this morning, but as I don’t have any windows, I can’t tell if it still is. We’ve been getting a storm pretty much every other day ’round here, although the weather report this morning said that after another storm on Friday we should be getting a high pressure that’ll keep the storms at bay for a bit. It’s been kind of nice– I can’t remember how long it’s been since we’ve consistently had snow on the ground for several weeks at a time. Part of that is because it’s been so dang cold the snow won’t melt, but still– it’s more like the winters I remember from my childhood, rather than the drought-type winters we’ve had recently.

I wonder if I scrimp and save and don’t buy any new yarn this year (I really have quite a few projects waiting, with the yarn already purchased) if I could afford to go to England. I’ve wanted to go for ages, but I have a new inducement– David Tennant will be playing Hamlet this summer and fall with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The fact that Patrick Stewart will be playing Claudius is an additional temptation. I desperately want to compare David Tennant with Brian Vaughn. I wonder how he’ll stack up.