The Way Things Go

Its been officially 5 weeks that I've been living in Montevideo. Not a very long time, but its a hard community to get to know, partly because it's cold out, partly because I'm so drained from work that on weekends, all I want to do is sleep, play with the cats, and watch movies.

It's hard moving, to a place that doesn't have much. It has a small grocery store that provides a lot of foods you wouldn't find in similiar sized stores, but the prices are expensive, and you need to buy vegetables on the right day, otherwise its luck of the draw. The coffeeshop is the only alternative place to hang out at night besides the bars, and they often times have music and stuff at night. I havn't checked out the music yet, but I plan to, soon.

For things like clothes or electronics, I have to travel to Wilmar, which is 4o miles away, or order it online. This place is very family oriented too, mostly families, not a lot of single people. A lot of it is my own fault, I don't really want to go out and meet anyone. It will take a few months for me to figure out what I'm doing, and adjust to it. It takes a few months to adjust to any new job, so I'm not too worried. If the weekends were three days, instead of two life would be slightly different. By sunday afternoon I finally start getting restless enough to want to go out, but I have to work the next day... so thats the end of that.

As for the job, it goes. I'm not too interested in it yet, but that might change. Its a large change, from moving to a place that has everything, to a place that has everything forty minutes or two hours away. Its partly that I'm going to spend the first year fixing mistakes, and my guess is that as I look at the data, I will be spending more than a few years doing that. I'm guessing every data set we produced for our counties in the last five years will need major fixing. Thats like 20 projects worth (I haven't looked at all the data, just guessing based on how the first four sets of data looked). It completely blows my mind. The state of this data sets are unethical. If I could, I would just throw out everything from the last five years, and start with a clean slate, but thats won't work.

The other thing is the place I'm living in. Its the cleanest apartment I've lived in, but its also the most soulless, and while the neighbors are quiet, for the most part, apartment building living is really not me. Now I could probably get a house with a mortgage of less than what I'm paying now, but I think for now, I'm going to look into renting a house. Something where I can put in a garden, and let the cats hang out in. I live in a bottom apartment, where the windows look onto parking lot. they've adjusted, but I feel like I'm not giving them enough to be completely happy. But, I didn't have to sign a lease, and I payed an incredibly small deposit, so when I find the right place to live, I can do it easily.

Anyway, thats my thoughts for the week!