Another NY 4th

The Perfect Storm

Tomorrow somehow compounded rather terribly. Somehow, the university found a way to get confused over two people submitting paperwork at the same time with the same last name. Despite the fact that one is male and one is female, two separate addresses, and one was applying as a student, one as an employee - they still were unable to get past this. 6 weeks after my first day and I have not been paid a dime. I love my job, and I say that a lot on here. It helps a lot when something like this happens.

I am assured that a paycheck should be made for me tomorrow. Tomorrow, however is not the typical pay day, as they are a biweekly system and we are at the off week. I was told if I checked online, it would listed the pay check that I would be picking up tomorrow. There is nothing online. By the time I found this out, there was no one around to inform.

On Tuesday I agreed to go test at the facility this Friday (tomorrow). My plan was to head to NY and if I could leave from testing, I would already be an hour into my trip and that would mean out of the city to avoid the congestion of traffic on a holiday weekend.

My dad called me Wednesday to ask if I could get time off to come to watch Tiger play at the golf tourney that is in our area tomorrow to which he somehow got passes to. The day of the passes: Friday. I found out that he had asked all of his friends, but on such short notice, no one could get off on a Holiday weekend. He called me figuring I could, and hoping that to be the case as the result of a no would mean going alone or not going at all. Unfortunately he was a day too late and I already committed to testing.

By volunteering for testing, and after realizing that I may not actually get paid tomorrow, I need to follow up with accounts during the day to make sure I have money in my bank account by the end of business tomorrow. Unfortunately, again, I will be offsite testing. At the facility I cannot bring in my cell phone, and if I leave, I have to go through security again. With this being a holiday weekend, even if we get out at 3:30, the people I need to talk to about getting paid may already be gone. Additionally, I may not make it back to the office in time to even pick up the check. You see, since this is my first check (after 6 weeks) it is a physical check. Only after the first will they do direct deposit.

You know what that means. I have to drive back into Philadelphia tomorrow after heading an hour towards NY, so that I can pick up my check because otherwise I literally won't be able to afford the gas to get me home. I am that broke.

Why am I that broke? Because 6 weeks ago when I was convinced to not bother financing my computer, I had the money then, I was sold on the idea that yes I would be down to a couple hundred dollars initially. But I also had my Go Trip coming up where I would not be spending any money for a week. By the time I returned, my first check would be waiting for me and it would replenish my funds.

I spent all of my graduation money on my Trip cost and the computer and 6 weeks later I have almost no money to my name. You know what that means. If I do not get paid tomorrow, and having no one to contact anyone to force them to write me a check by any means necessary, I will be unable to even go to NY for 4th of July weekend. With no NY trip, there would be no reason to volunteer to test in NJ tomorrow to make myself closer to my destination. Had I not volunteered I could have been around to sit down with people at payroll and finalize things. I also would have been able to go to the golf tourney with my dad.

So, somehow, everything converged on this day leaving everything up in the air, me broke, my dad without a friend to go to the golf match tomorrow, my friends in NY unable to make plans since they do not know if and when I will be coming, etc. etc. It's both incredibly frustrating and impressive at how much this situation is total FUBAR. Sheesh.

Sleepy

This no-time-off is going to kill me if I don't start making smarter decisions about bed times and such. That is why I am going to NY tomorrow after work for a concert. Smart.

To Quote A Show

If you do your spring cleaning now, you know what you will have to do when spring gets here? Nothing.

I don't know if that's exactly the quote but it comes from The Office. It might not have been my reasoning for my cleaning today, but it applies. Recently, when a boggle cube when missing, I pulled some of the furniture out to look for it. What I found was hidden gems. The gems are priceless. Why? Because they literally are worth nothing. Aside from the large clumps of dust, several bottle caps, batteries, change, and pens lay underneath the couches. I pulled them away, along with the run and most of the other furniture in the living room today and cleaned the floors, the baseboards, etc. There is definitely a sense of satisfaction or motivation that comes from a clean home. Not a surface clean, but a get-in-the-cracks-clean that only happens a few times a year.



Spring break is upon us. I will be staying in New York City to check out and check off a few things on my list of places to see before I graduate. Hopefully the next weeks BreadCrumbs will consist of snapshots of these activities or places. Wish me luck.

The Lake Has No Benches

I had wandered into Central Park a few days ago a bit later than I had hoped and spent very little time in there as it is quite creepy in the dark. What I accidentally found was the giant lake that starts at 86th street. Despite having been in NY for almost 4 years now I have not spent much time in Central Park, almost never traveling north of 70th within it. I decided I wanted to go back to this lake when it was day time in the stretch of amazing weather we were to experience.

Today I did just that. I walked from Penn Station, after leaving a friend of mine, all the way up to Central Park and then proceeded to stroll through the park with the end goal of reaching the lake, finding a bench, and reading for a few hours. Little did I know that the path surrounding this body of water is purely meant for walkers and joggers and thus is without a place to sit. Bummer.

I did find another bench and got some reading in. Today was an excellent day to be outside and I am glad that I was able to be for much of it.

New Ideas

I had an idea today for a new blog. I don't plan on ending this one, but the new blog would be more of a project. This new idea, however, will probably end up in the 'idea' pile I have which exceeds the 'accomplished' infinitely.

I also did some reading about the MTA today. I was curious about abandoned subway stations after seeing one used in the plot of a show. I found out there are several ranging from entire stations either closed or never used after being built, to lower or upper levels closed off from a station. It seems as though this was an area a Columbia student focused on as there is a site hosted on Columbia's servers detailing all of these stations, some with pictures.

This led me to find out how many subway stations there are in the New York area. How many do you think it is? I was surprised myself to find out there are 468 functioning subways stations. Crazy.

NY^2

Movie Week: Two Down

Saw Avatar tonight. It is almost 2 am and I have to be awake in 4.5 hours for work. Heading to NY for new years.

Be safe tomorrow night, everyone!

i hope that you would do this for me

packing: part 2 of 3

im really not gonna write about packing again other than to say my plan of putting all my clothes in bags failed when i realized too late that we have no bags - so theyr sitting in a pile on my floor.

today was the last day of work. it remains to be seen if i will be allowed to work there form my apartment. fingers crossed.

on my way to and from work fro a few years now ive passed this hill in the midst of a series of windy back roads that was mainly dirt for awhile. then over the course of the end of last summer i notice some activity and in the winter there was construction. now every day (that im alert enough to realize where i am) i look out my window at this place. its not the biggest house of seen or the most elaborate but something about this place just causes me to look up day after day.

thanks to alex for snapping the picture out the driver's side window on the ride home.

new york tomorrow!