Aaah. You know it's bad when I only blog when I can't sleep. Or is it you know the insomnia is bad when I resort to blogging? Not sure. But I'm watching 'The Roast of Bob Saget' on Comedy Central and blogging, so I must be really desperate. Hehe. No seriously, here's the scoop:

1. Portland is lovely, and I've been exploring the city a bit by bus this week. I plan to continue this through the end of the week as it's likely my last full unemployed week of 2008. (Well, let's hope anyway.) I love being back in a city and feeling free and unencumbered, able to explore on foot, and learning a new transit system. (Though I'm sure I'll love knowing it even more.)

2. Starting as soon as my criminal background check clears I will be working for the Portland Public Schools Chinese Flagship Program, as an Assistant Coordinator. I'm excited, anxious, proud, and nervous. I'm sure you'll hear all about it as soon as...

3. I'm in the process of a redesign. There are several phases to this, and I'm not sure how long it'll be before all the phases are complete, but I'm hoping to at least be able to launch the preliminary stages soon. For some reason, while I redesign things I can't bring myself to update the current version... I'll try harder. Thanks for sticking around! :)

4. Living with Brian is turning out much more natural and comfortable than I think either of us expected. It's been about three weeks and in some ways I feel like we've always been together (except when I wander back into the kitchen to check on the rice I asked him to cook, with step by step directions on the box, and realize that he doesn't actually know what 'simmer' means. Sigh!). We're still getting our gears together but I'm so looking forward to what the future holds for us here.

5. That being said, I miss my east coast friends very much :( I've joined a few Meetup groups and have my first event on Sunday, and do have a few contacts out here, but still nothing comparable to the support system that I have out east. Working in a public school administrative system will likely mean that I won't have many co-workers my age - and work is where I've met most of my best NYC friends. I'm going to have to adjust to other means of social networking... and learn to use the phone more often!

6. Okay, I miss my blog. I promise to write more frequently even though I'm sick of the design. I've been writing in the Portland blog but it's just not the same!! Snif

7. A year ago today. A guy I'd been dating, and about whom I was starting to develop somewhat strong feelings, had just broken things off in a somewhat typically avoidant and male fashion and I had decided to pretty much stop trying to look for a relationship before getting to know people organically. Not two weeks later, I met Brian.

8. I can't believe it's almost been a year.