things are largely f'ed

So a lot of stuff has been going on lately - both bad and good.

Last week a lot of shit happened at work. It started on Wednesday when one of my coworkers was training another. There was an argument about the integrity of how the training was happening, the trainee left and had a discussion with our boss about it. At the time they came to a good closing point ending with productive ideas about how to fix the problems and it seemed things were resolved amicably for the most part. We all went to lunch in a shocked but thrilled mood. Then we came back from lunch and hell broke loose. Our boss had another chat with the trainee, questioning the trainee's story, integrity, and everything. Apparently it was a swear-fest, and an unpleasant experience. Trainee took the rest of the day off (understandably).

Which brings me to Thursday. The day started off fine, extremely tense, stressful, and awkward, but fine overall. And then later in the day I hear that the trainee coworker has been asked to resign. Trainee obviously refused (why should he/she??) but the rest of us were shocked. At least I was. I mean a simple dispute that seemed to have been happily resolved, in one day, turned into someone potentially losing their job. Wtf?? Stress and tension in the lab increased exponentially.

Friday, the thought of going in and dealing with trainer and trainee supposed to be training together again and not knowing how to diffuse situations gave me such a tension headache that I called in an hour late. That gave me enough time to solve the awkwardness that could have resulted from trainee/trainer. Overall the day seemed better though. I think the absence of the boss and no new drama helped to increase the stress.

Saturday I spent the morning Christmas shopping (mostly at Target - what an amazing store) and the evening at a Christmas party of one of Tom's Air Force friends. It's kind of weird because she was an '05 Rochester Mayo graduate, and one of her high school friends is the elder sister of the current girlfriend of one of my sister's ex-boyfriends. Well if you can make sense of that sentence you are a genius. Before we headed out to the party, however, I got a phone call from home with some terrible news. When I was in kindergarten through about 6th grade my best friend was Brenna and we practically lived at each other's houses over the summers. The phone call was informing me that her father had died to bone cancer.

Sunday was the big Lord of the Rings marathon at the Riverview Theater. Tom, Hannah, and I were there from 10:30 am to 10:30 pm, watching the first two extended editions, and the final regular edition of the LotR movies. We ate popcorn, candy, hotdogs, and pizza. It was an amazing, but ridiculously long day. And man I had a sore butt by the end of it! Between two of the movies I got a text from home that just showed a picture of Belle laying on her bed with a bandaged paw and a cone shaped E-collar on her head. I immediately called home and discovered that she had torn the webbing between two of her toes and had to go to the emergency vets to get stitches. Ugh!

Monday was back to work and the madness there. Strangely enough, other than trainee updating his/her resume and looking at jobs, it was pretty normal. It was like the madness of the week before had just evaporated. Unfortunately it hasn't, it just lurks under the surface waiting to strike. Spent all evening cleaning and doing laundry before my aunt and uncle came up the next day - they had an early flight on Wednesday so were going to stay at my house the night before.

Tuesday things were good as well. A bit hectic for me though. I left at 3pm to head down to the airport and caught the 3:45 shuttle to Rochester. Was picked up by dad and then headed to the wake (friends' dad remember?) with both the parents. Afterwards we ate dinner at Arby's, then drove over to Owatonna. There I was picked up by my aunt and uncle on their way up from Iowa and they drove me back home. They slept in my room and I stayed in the twin bed in the guest room.

On Wednesday I got up early and drove them to the airport and then headed to work. Got there early because of how early I took them to the airport, but got right to work. Had a busy morning doing behavior training and then dissections. The afternoon was more laid-back, some rotarod training and graph-making and candy-eating. Eventually headed home, quickly packed, and began the drive back down to Rochester. Luckily the weather didn't turn bad until a little south of Cannon Falls. Then it got pretty bad - mostly visibility issues with the thick snowfall. That and people just don't know how to drive in snow. It didn't get too slick until closer to Rochester and by then it was too late to claim me as a victim.

Now the days have started to meld together at home, spending time bonding with the family. Yesterday (Thursday, Christmas Eve) I slept in (yay) and spent the day doing who knows what. At around 5 pm we all headed out to TGI Fridays for dinner (our usual tradition of going to Timber Lodge couldn't happen since apparently they went out of business). It was okay, but not fantastic. We then came back home, fed Belle, then went to church. Came home, watched our traditional White Christmas, and then I headed to bed.

Today I woke up around 8:45 am, headed down, and watched tv with dad while waiting for Megan and Sara to get up. When they finally did, we opened stockings full of candy (yum) and then ate breakfast. Finally got around to opening our presents from Santa - and hooray! A bunch of stuff I needed and of course the things I wanted as well. Hooray for the selfish materialistic side of the religious tradition! Spent the rest of the day being completely lazy, reading my book and watching movie marathons on tv. Now the rest of the family is at a movie in theaters and I'm at home alone with Belle. I just didn't really care enough about the movie to want to spend the money on it. Even though my parents probably would have paid. But still...

So now I've finally done something of an update. I hope you all have a great holiday season!