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This update is long overdue. Life in the Pacific Northwest continues to fire on all cylinders, so I'll do my best to chronicle what's happened in the past month since the last post.
Work is as busy and fun as ever. I feel like a fully integrated member of the team, to the point where I'm able to answer questions and deal with anything that comes my way. I'm still always learning new things, and probably will for a long time. My colleagues have started to feel more like friends in some cases, and that's huge. My goal has always been to find a job that inspires and motivates me because of what I work on and who I work with - something along the lines of "do what you love, love what you do." I found that, have it, and feel incredibly fortunate because of it.
Last weekend we had some friends over for a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving, complete with turkey, corn-on-the-cob, sweet potatoes, and pie. It's a tradition I've been a part of since junior year of college, where there's lots of cooking and friends. I was happy to continue it this year, and see it as affirmation that this place is really home and that I'm forming great groups of friends.
My roommates and I have also started attending weekly bar trivia on Tuesdays. It's something I did occasionally in school, and we've all wanted to find a good place, but we were very particular in some of the details around it. For example, we wanted to play for cash prizes, but without too steep of an entrance fee. We also wanted it to be multiple rounds so that we'd have a chance to catch up should we ever fall behind. We finally found a place in Bellevue, and usually get dinner there as well. We actually ended up winning our 1st week there, which was election night. Our team of 6 payed $12 ($2/person), and won $68. The next week (this past one), we came in 3rd and won a $10 gift card to the bar. We're planning on pooling all of our winnings to pay four our entrance every week, and also eventually buy our dinner/drinks. I'm personally not very good at trivia, but I have contributed at least 1 answer (out of 60+) each week. Andrew is a genius when it comes to music and movies, and even most sports, so that really comes in handy.
Last night I went to a dueling piano bar in Queen Anne with a friend from school and her friends from work. I had been to one in New Orleans, but this was much different. The way it works is you "tip" the pianists to play songs you want to hear, but the more you tip, the sooner your song gets played. The "dueling" part comes in when they start playing a song you don't want to hear. You can then pay to stop that song and play one you want for at least $1 more than was originally paid. This can go back and forth for however long people want, and is actually quite entertaining. At one point, a Taylor Swift song was playing before getting stopped. People then pooled money together to get it playing again, only to have it snuffed out again. The room of 75+ people was fiercely divided in their allegiance in this battle and others. I'll definitely be going back.
Tomorrow I'm going to the Seattle Sounders soccer game against the LA Galaxy. I also went to one a couple weeks ago which was the quarterfinals against San Jose. MLS playoffs are different than most American sports - it's a 2-legged aggregate scoring system, meaning whoever has the most goals after 2 games moves to the next round. I saw the first game against San Jose, so there was no guarantee Seattle would advance. Luckily they did, and now I'll be at the last semifinal game. Seattle is really dedicated to their soccer team - they average over 40,000 attendance per game, and tomorrow's game is sold out. Surprisingly, tickets are relatively cheap, though I do get a discount through work since Microsoft is a big sponsor of the team.
Next week I'll be going to Colorado to see family for Thanksgiving. We're coming from all over the country and meeting there, so it'll be interesting to see how things work out. I'm used to having to bring homework and working on job/internship applications around this time, but now I get to just relax and enjoy some time off. Hopefully everyone reading this will too.
