A long day, but a good day

The Good

• It's kind of cool that at this job I get to feel all smart. George thinks I'm a genius with computers, which is, um, different than it is at Olin. He also thinks I'm a genius at communicating (or maybe he's just comparing my communication skills to what he would expect from an engineering student). Today I wrote a short informal proposal for developing a web interface for the database, which will occupy most of my time until I leave DC. In the proposal I had to explain a few things such as SQL, and the pros and cons of PHP vs. ColdFusion. When George got my email, he came down to my office raving about how this is the first time "one of you computer people" has written something that he can understand. So, go communication skills, I guess. Anyway, it's a bit of a self-esteem boost.

The Bad

• I have a meeting scheduled for 10:30 am on July 5th. Bleh. I was planning on coming in late that day.
  
• I'm as close to broke as I think I've ever been. Paying rent last week meant transfering most of my savings account to checking. And then I checked my balance online today, and I have, oh, about $60 left in my checking account. Something got messed up with my paycheck that was supposed to come in last Friday, and they only issue checks every two weeks, so it'll be a while before I get that money. Lucky lucky lucky for me, I have parents who are willing and able to help me out. Middle class privilege... I'm thankful that I have a safety net.

The !?!

• I was reading a Microsoft support article today, and the article was offered in a variety of languages: French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and... Brazilian. Um... right. I think we can still safely call it Portuguese, even if there's a distinct accent in Brazil.
  
• In one of our many phone conversations today, Babette told me that George will probably offer me a job for after I graduate, and she just wanted to give me a heads up so that I could start thinking about what it would take to make me want to work with the EPDC, i.e. international travel, a nice office, etc. Whoa, so what should I do? I enjoy working here, and it seems like it would be really stupid to turn down an opportunity to continue working at an organization that I respect, in a city that I like, doing work that I'm good at. But it's scary--I feel like I'm staring the rest of my life in the face. I've been telling myself that doing Teach for America was just a backup plan in case I didn't have other options immediately after graduating, but now that I do (probably) have an option, and a good option... I'm not sure that I want to take it. But should I, anyway? I suspect that I'm sort of trying to put off "growing up," which is one of the things that I think is ridiculous about American culture--that we get to have such a long adolescence. So--ahhh--kind of freaking out.