No skiing at Twilight

in

Actual conversation:

Paolo: "So what are the ski plans for the weekend?"

Scott: "Well, I think we're going up early on Saturday and then getting back on Sunday."

Paolo: "Why not head up Friday night?"

Scott: "That stupid Twilight movie goes on sale that night and Courtney has to stand in line so that she can get it at 12:01 a.m."

Paolo: "Is that really necessary?"

Scott: "She has to have that damn Twilight movie and she made it clear that no one's skiing until she gets it."

Paolo: "But would she even have time to watch it?"

Scott: "That's what I said, but her point is that she has to have it that night."

Paolo: "I'm confused."

Scott: "Same here. I got nothing. We're just picking up that damn movie so that we can ski this weekend."

Another class in the books

in

I finished my term project, finally. No more waking up at 5 a.m. for homework. Yay!

This has been one tough quarter of grad school. I've had more external stresses than in the past (Read: purchasing a home), and the workload this quarter was particularly demanding. Buh-bye, 4.0 GPA.

You can see my final project here. Don't actually read it because it's a 35+ page research paper plugged into a Web site, and research papers are boring by nature. Just appreciate its mammoth size and pity me. Thanks.

Things I'm looking forward to with my free time:

  • Grocery shopping
  • Eating
  • Sleeping
  • Skiing
  • Working on the house
  • Being social

The world has opened up to me! (Until I start class again in two weeks.)

The elevator class system

in

My building at work has two elevators sets: One that goes from the parking garage to the first floor and another that goes from the first floor up.

I work on the top floor, the 9th floor. Most days I don't think much of this, but other days I think about the commanding presence I must have hitting "9" on the elevator in front of the lowly people who stop at any of the preceding floors. After all, only the top floor has the balcony overlooking West Seattle and the Olympics. Everyone in the building knows this.

And, of course, there's a natural feeling of elegance being on higher floors, which has been subconsciously established by artificial hotel prices.

Sometimes my building minions ask on the ride up, "What do you do up there?" I politely reply, "Don't look at me in the eye. Who said you could talk to my greatness?"

It's a class system of sorts, and it feels good being at the top.

However, this feeling of superiority usually only hits me in the morning, on the way up. At the end of the day, being on the top floor is more of a drag. I'm already worn from the work day, and I have little patience to stop at every floor on the way down to pick up the minions. It's kind of like being in the back of the plane and waiting another flight duration just to get out to the terminal.

Also, there's the parking garage elevator.

The parking garage elevator has two stops on the way down. The first stop is reserved for senior executives at the companies who occupy the building (though some argue it should be reserved for the top floor royalty) and anyone else willing to pay more than their car payment for a parking spot. The second stop is reserved for the rest of us.

It's that stop that reminds me that I'm not even halfway up on the executive totem pole, not yet worthy of the preferred parking area. Occasionally, in my post-work daze, I'll accidentally step out on the first level and immediately have to hop back on the elevator with my tail between my legs. The executives who stepped out with me look back with the same grin reserved for a dog trying to follow its owner outside but running into the sliding glass door.

At the end of everyday, I hop out of the parking garage elevator at the second stop -- the bottom floor with the bottom feeders. I'm reminded of where I'm at in the world, at the bottom of the elevator class system -- for now.

Sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down. It all depends on where the elevator stops.