the question is how fast

basically a cut-and-paste of a recent email, sue me:

two big things to share: one good, one heartbreaking.

today i had my first day of work at my new job. it was good; it felt great. true to form, the morning commute was a clusterfuck/comedy of errors and i very nearly ran late, but the stress was soon forgotten. i mainly just had training/icebreaker stuff today, and lunch with an adviser. it was really good, not, like, some guy with a power point presentation droning on. in keeping with my previous experiences, everyone i dealt with was super-encouraging, down-to-earth, and funny. nothing sugarcoated but no needless psych-outs. it was good to hear, repeatedly, that: i'm not supposed to know anything right now, or for a while, really; i ought to focus on figuring out/actualizing what i want to get out of the job rather than just being a team player; that i shouldn't worry about hours for the rest of the year, and that i should make a point to take all the vacation time i get. i got along well with all the other new hires, and truly, would-have-a-beer-with-them-anyway liked a lot of them. lunch was great and i liked what i heard about the some of the work i may be doing. it's a little weird to suddenly have my own office and support staff (i.e. to be someone's boss)...but it's exciting.

then, the other stuff. as some of you know, my brother suffered a serious head injury a week ago and has been in the hospital ever since. that's the nutshell version; all i can say is it's actually way more complicated. physically, he's recovering well and more rapidly than expected. but he has a very long road ahead of him. it just really kills me, for the obvious reasons, because he's already been dealt more than his share of bad cards in the past, and because things tend to hit him harder emotionally than the rest of my family. though they have responded in a startlingly positive, pragmatic way, it's been really hard on my parents.

...and then, in a few days, there's moving.

hope your lives are more boring right now! seriously.