I've temporarily escaped the pitts

I've been out in California for the last 3 weeks working. This has been planned for a while now, so it's a great coincidence to have Alex living out here. Unfortunately, our apartment is in Mountain View and my work is up in San Francisco, which means a very long and painful commute. It's particularly painful since I have to be at work by 7am. So I get up at 4:50am every morning, leave at 5:30 and take a beautiful 15 minute walk up to the CalTrain station for the 5:56 train. Recently, I've been picking up breakfast of English Breakfast black tea and a blueberry muffin from a little coffee stand at the station to eat on the train (as that's the only way I'm going to get breakfast). I arrive in SF at 6:42 am, and have to take a cab to where I work (since time is of the essence). I usually don't get out of work till 6pm these days (which used to be 7:30, and once, 9:30pm!). Getting out at 6pm, I usually catch the 6:56 train home and get home around 7. That's just enough time to eat and shower and get 5 hours of sleep to do it all over again!

I haven't had much time or energy to do anything else here yet. I went to a friend's Halloween party, out to see Borat, and to the Lines Ballet, and that's about it. The ballet thing was hosted by Technoratti, and was unfortunately on a weekday (this past Weds). By the end of the evening I was so tired, I felt nauseous. I avoided hurling and was able to get 5 hours of sleep. Fortunately, I should be done with my work here on Tuesday. Then I'm staying out here for a week to relax and catch up on sleep. I will be heading back to the Pitts after Thanksgiving.

I actually kind of miss Pittsburgh... particularly my bed. It's nice having a real mattress. An Aerobed is pretty nice for an inflatable mattress, but it's not quite the real thing. I also miss TV. I have lots of shows to catch up on. But that's pretty much all I miss about Pittsburgh.

That brings me to today.... It's Veteran's Day which means I have a day off (who knew?). I woke up at 10, checked my email and did some work-related online errands till about 11:30. Then I went out to drop some clothes off for alterations and picked up lunch (Indian curry soup in a sourdough bread bowl - yum!). I ate my soup at home while watching Baseketball (really lame movie) since my only entertainment is limited to whatever DVDs I brought with me that play on my laptop. Then I read the manual for our fancy Halcyon Inverter cooling/heating unit which was originally written in Japanese and translated (very poorly) into English. After figuring out how to turn off the stupid timer setting someone else had set, I felt tired and in need of a nap.

I crawled under the covers at 1:50 and set my alarm for 3:30. Unfortunately, I didn't change AM to PM, and woke up at 5:30 once it was dark out. It's always depressing waking up when it's already dark. My only consolation is that my day is going to get better since I'm having a girls' night out with all the lovely ladies of Cornell who live out here. We're going to the Korean House for dinner (all the reviews say that the place is run by old Korean moms who yell at you for not eating enough), and possibly a movie after. Speaking of... I should get out of my PJs and brush my teeth and all that.