Satellite

So today I'm working out of our satellite office near Main Street. It has the advantage of being extremely near to my home, and very quiet. Very very quiet. Really, too quiet; I'm getting a little bit punchy and resisting the urge to IM everybody at work for no apparent reason, just for some kind of human contact. It also turns out that I MISSED a BBQ today at work - a welcome-back for all university staff. Sure, the ONE DAY I work offsite, and this is the thanks I get... ;)

One bonus when I was freelancing was that I could play with the dog and have all the comforts of home around... make myself a cup of tea, stare at the plants. This office is absolutely spartan, devoid of any decorations whatsoever. If I am going to work from here every once in a while I will HAVE to fix it up a bit... it's so barren it stifles creativity. On top of this, I can't even listen to music because I'm using an iBook I checked out for the day and the speakers are way too tinny. Maybe some headphones would help.

[minutes pass] The security guy just came by and we chatted for a few minutes - human interaction!

My new computer is sitting at home waiting for me, too, just waiting to be set up and for me to be dazzled by its astounding speed. I'm actually slightly intimidated by it, which never happens to me - it's more power than I need right now, but not more power than I might need in a year or so, and it's unusually tall and sleek and heavy. (It's a PowerMac G5.) It doesn't fit in my tower-holder on my desk. (I thought computers were getting SMALLER?) Anyway, I'm finding it hard to stay focused on what I need to do at work today... the environment of this office is uninspiring, the laptop is kind of cramped, and I know I've got sublime power waiting for me at home. Hey ho.

[a while later] I just spent about 20 minutes reading other peoples' blogs... something I haven't done in a while, because the last time I looked it was all fifteen-year-olds bitching about their traumas. This time I got something in Arabic I couldn't read, a few people blathering about sports and politics, someone who replaces "the" with "da" everywhere in every post, and a young black single mother of a 1-year-old writing out her day-to-days. The last I found particularily interesting because her life is so, so, so different from mine... reading what somebody writes about their lives, themselves, is far different from watching a TV show or movie about it, or reading an article written by a third party. It's actually kind of voyeuristic in a way - spying on someone else's personal issues, their fights with their friends, their relationships. And yet she's put this private information out for me and anyone else to read. I don't think I'll do that, myself! Sorry all you avid readers, but you don't get the dirty details. While I do love to talk about myself *sigh*, I am pretty reserved about anything truly personal, and the whole time I'm typing I'm aware that this is going out on the airwaves (how anachronistic).

...Actually, that isn't an anachronism at all, since I'm connecting with a wireless modem at the moment. Irony.