Training, Day 1

Well I guess this is technically "orientation," but sitting in a room for hours at a time listening and talking about what we expect and things like that certainly merits the title.

I barely slept last night: at 1am I finished packing and then measured my suitcases, finding that they exceeded length+width+height limits, so I had to unpack and repack one suitcase to another. I got most of my stuff, including the Jäger that Berney gave me for 6th month anniversary, but not including my computer speakers and subwoofer. :( Oh well, I have my iPod and the dinky laptop speakers.

Around 2am I got in bed, but I can't sleep much before something exciting or stressful, so at most I got 1 hour of sleep in at that point before I had to get up at 4:30 to go to the airport. I couldn't sleep on the first plane, then passed out for half an hour on the second plane, but not any more than that. And other than feeling a little tired just before dinner, I haven't felt as exhausted as I should. Hopefully I can fall asleep tonight though. :-/

Training so far has been kinda cool. It's not very boring, at least. There are around 35 of us, with a good range of ages. Many are recent college or masters grads, some are older, a few are somewhere in the middle. Lots of interesting people, in general.

I went with a group to dinner across the street from the hotel at a place called (I think) "Sabor Latino Cafe." I had yellow rice with pork. It was alright--the pork was mostly dry, but the rice was pretty good. My plate also came with fried plantains, which was a very tasty surprise! The sangría was alright, but the fruit in it was just the syrupy diced pear/peach/cherry you expect in school lunches. I wouldn't be surprised if the syrup from that was the sweetener used in the drink. The sangría was cheap, the food wasn't expensive, but I sort of expected a little more. I had good conversation with my dinner buddies though, so it was cool.

My roommate in the hotel is actually from Austin, too; she just got her MSW from UT.

Alright, time to watch Michelle Obama's speech and go to bed.