if it seems easy you're doing it wrong

this classy image was hanging from a bent paperclip to the side of the bulletin board above my desk at my old job. i never knew where it came from, and never remembered to ask until i was packing up my stuff on my last day. amazingly, no one in the office had ever noticed it before--this thing i'd been wondering about for like two years, assuming there was some funny story behind it. (i don't know who the guy is, but the image appears to be from the meme generator.)

so i claimed it as a going-away gift, and i intend to hang it above my new desk.

my last day was bittersweet--they gave me a wonderful card, a kindle gift certificate, a water bottle that everyone signed, and they laid out a spread of treats clustered around two signs, one labeled "VEGAN" and the other "NON-VEGAN." i made delicious vegan cookies, and no one even touched the non-vegan stuff.

i'm three days in to the new job and things are going well. the very first day was overwhelming, but first days always are. i have so much to learn.

luckily a few months ago i had to learn how to use html. at first i thought it would be like learning a new language, but it was more than that--i had to construct an entirely new schema around this new language. i challenge you to remember the last time you suddenly and consciously needed to build a new schema, and to do so very quickly. it's unusual and exhausting. after a couple days and a lot of online tutorials i had enough of a grasp on it that all webmaster duties were handed off to me. my knowledge is full of holes because most of what i did was just work on an existing website--if someone told me to build a whole new site from scratch i'd be clueless.

but thank goodness for that few months of experience with html. this new job involves using xml, another new thing to learn, but it's a thousand times more user-friendly/intuitive and much easier to grasp because of the html experience.

the assignments aren't what i was expecting, but that's not a bad thing. it sounds like i'll do more editing than writing, and a lot more in-depth tech-y stuff than i anticipated. that's kind of exciting, if you can believe it. i feel genuinely interested in this whole world of things that i never even considered becoming interested in before. it won't be long before i'll know about all the parts of a computer, all the bits and pieces of the peripherals, printers and webcams and blah blah blah...i'll have a nice feather to put in my nerd cap.

the campus is awesome. scattered around the private parks and courtyard there are over a dozen huge cherry trees gifted two decades ago by a company from japan (the same company that makes the cameras i use all the time...and that dream camera of mine. i think it's a sign.) i can't wait to see the cherry trees in bloom this spring.

one of the best things about my job is sadly going away after tomorrow. last weekend i met up for coffee with the person whose job i'm taking over (she was promoted and will now work exclusively from home). we totally hit it off. right now she's training me and it's really fun, but tomorrow's her last day. she said she's going to make vegan cupcakes for a combo going away/welcome to the office party for us! we're still going to hang out after she's gone, but it's a bummer that she won't be around at work anymore. my other coworkers are great too, but not like her.