FIRST DAY in SC

okay*, so it's my 2nd day here... but yesterday all I did was unpack about a billion boxes and CLEAN. And that is just no fun to blog about... because this place was disgGUSting. my feet were black at the end of the day... ewww... but (Bron), the last tenants did leave TP, which was very useful at one point.

I don't know how this blog is going to turn out, but I don't want to take this time for granted, even if I'm not in some exotic place like Ireland or SASKATCHEWAN! :) I am hoping to play tourist in my backyard and we'll see how this turns out.

So today was my first day of work. I didn't tell you about my job? oh. okay, let's start there: I went to UofSC as soon as I arrived in the Carolinas to talk to financial aid about the fact that the $$ they were allowing me to have was not enough to live on. A couple weeks prior, I had run across a possible work-study (where the govt funds student employment - cheap(ish) labour for the Uni & tax-free paycheques for the students)... anyway! While I was on campus, I decided to stop by & meet the lady (Carla) and see if she could tell me where financial aid was. By the time I left her office, I had a job - and she offered me $2 more an hour than was posted online... Praise the LORD!

SO.

Today was the first day of that job. I am one of 3 admin assistants in the department of languages, literatures & cultures, which happens to be MY department, woot! My schedule has me working Tue/Wed/Thurs for 14.5hrs/week and, in conjunction with my course schedule, I now officially have 4-day weekends, double-woot**! :)

Today, I met about 40 people and started to learn about 80 names. I answered phones and was asked questions that I had no clue how to answer for the 1st half of the day... I learned the copying system... I networked... and I ran up and down stairs for HOURS (delivering mail). And I was happy! I was able to meet the Comp Lit program director face-to-face, have a sit-down meeting with the graduate studies director, be introduced to the dean of the department, and meet a fellow classmate (who got a teaching assistantship, but I won't hold it against her...)!

Things I found out today are:

1) one of the instructors in the German department (to whom I was introduced and ended up talking with for a while) is from Dublin -- and it turns out that one of her good friends is one of my lecturers at UL! WHAT? Pretty cool, eh? And she also sent me to a couple dudes who may be interested in supervising my dissertation (when the time comes) - yay for networking!!! and

2) I cannot take graduate-level spanish lit courses in Latin America like I'd hoped... BUT, UofSC offers 2 graduate-level summer courses and, assuming I do well in them, the director of graduate studies wants to consider me for a teaching assistantship next year in Spanish! (okay... we'll see how that goes, but it is an incentive to get on the ball with the spanish speaking-phobia I've recently developed, right?)

In addition to all of that excitement, I rode my bicycle 1/3 of the way to school (at 7:30am, what?) and all the way back from school - a total of just under 5miles. And got lost without a map on the way to get bloodwork done (I have to prove that I won't catch measles or rubella... sigh) and wandered campus for about 30mins. Can we say "workout"***???

And in addition to all of THAT excitement: I met a cute boy. His name is Rob, he lived in Ireland for 3.5months, he doesn't wear a wedding band, he is new to campus (too), and his mailbox # is 286. That is all I got after running into him at least five times today... NOT BECAUSE I'M A STALKER, either!!!!... because he kept talking to ME! (just so we're clear.) If I had been smart, or at all socially adept, I could have swung a "we'll have to get together for lunch or coffee sometime" during our 10-min conversation that started out with "where's a good place to eat around here?" and quickly (d?)evolved into "Limerick is the murder-capital of the EU (me)" to "the Burren is amazing! (both of us)" to "yeah, I'll probably live at the Colloquium (aka nearby coffee shop) most of the time (me)"... to the elevator doors closing... but we still chatted (about NOTHING) 3 more times after that catastrophe, so I didn't scare him off... yet.

In other news, all I have eaten today is half a bagel & 2stalks of celery. Now I'm off to bed!

* sorry, no cool pics this time to distract you from the lengthy-ness of this email.
**I love that blogging automatically grants me the right to make up words, yay!
***to be honest, I do not recall why I starred this. I think in my head, I wanted everyone to cheer "WORKOUT!" with me... haha :)

PS
There may be more Rob stories to come, mostly because I enjoy telling boy-stories (Ian, close your eyes, haha!)... until I find out he's married or gay. or MY PROF. Optimism: ain't it grand?

take care world ~