it begins...

well, it went by fast, but i enjoyed my summer. i enjoyed having a flexible schedule and getting home before 6. i especially enjoyed waking up at 8:45 in the morning... i took full advantage of my boss's absence by bringing my bird to visit and meeting friends for lunch. i enjoyed being able to make doctor appointments and have weeknight cocktails without fearing for my job. needless to say, all of those fun and games are now over. classes began last week, and this week i start my internship (or "field" as we social work students like to call it). additionally, i have finally heard from professor #2. apparently, he is ready for me to start working for him this week. i guess this means i'll start looking forward to these days when i'm only working from 9-7 because they will be my short, quiet days. woo-hoo!

i know i don't have it too rough. i think mil has it worse. his classes are definitely more painful, and his schedule requires him to go back and forth between times square and the upper east side multiple times a day (with a backpack full of orgo and physics books, no less). i'm also beginning to see the glimmers of the end in sight. i now have less than a year of this work + school foolishness. (for all those twenty-somethings who are getting to that itchy place where you feel like school is the answer to your 9-5 drudgery, come talk to me, i will knock some sense into ya. school is not the answer, job change, perhaps, but not school.) my professor last week made mention of our impending job search (hallelujah!). i must admit it made me a little giddy. of course given my work situation, i have to wait a little longer than most students for that joy, but at least i've been given permission to think about it. (ah, life with a living wage... imagine that...)

the reason i mention this whole ridiculous schedule of mine is so that my two loyal readers will understand my growing absence from the blog. i will do my best to keep it going, but i make no promises. i'm even planning to hem down my blogroll to the mere necessities. scary, isn't it?
**

anyway, i won't bore you with any more school nonsense. who really cares about that anyway? we were blessed with a gorgeous weekend in the city. it was in the 70s with the sun shining and a pleasant breeze -- a little fall was in the air. while mil grew paler in the library, i joined some friends at the bronx zoo. after ten years in the city, i figured it was about time to see what all the fuss was about. it is actually quite beautiful. the sheer size of the place was astounding, and all of the animals had beautiful natural-looking habitats. the high point of the day was when my cheapness won me a free full-park pass. seeing how small moosk's entertainment budget is, it's easy to understand why i opted for the $12 "limited pass" (which apparently doesn't get you into much) versus the $21 full-park pass. unfortunately, all of my friends had purchased the extended pass, so i was s.o.l. when it came time for the gondola ride across the park. i was actually happy to walk, but my friends figured that they'd find me a way on via one of their tickets. when we got up to the ticket-taker and tried to explain why she should allow me to ride on my friend's full-park pass, she just handed me a full-park pass that had fallen on the ground. from that point on, no clever shenanegins or pitiful stories were needed, and i got to experience the pleasure of the gondola (and gorillas, and butterflies, and tigers) on the back of someone else's misfortune. the moral of this story is not to be cheap like me and hope that a full-park ticket falls into your lap, but to buy the full-park pass in the first place, so you can see more than a couple of monkeys and a camel.