An Abbreviated List

Things I will miss about Livermore

- the people
- the CAUTION! OPEN DOORS SLOWLY signs on the bathrooms
- having a government email address
- my dosimeter
- my enormous spreadsheets
- the overabundance of tampons and sanitary napkins everywhere you looked in the bathrooms
- the bike system
- my badge
- free ice cream
- lack of homework
- the town
- Pleasanton, which is very pleasant
- my mentor’s office and the candy therein
- LASERS
- my sweet office supplies
- almost literally covering my entire cubicle with post it notes
- the cafeteria’s utensil dispensers
- California drivers and California road markings/signage
- freedom from any responsibility other than work
- having webcomics update at 9:00 pm instead of midnight for me

Things I will not miss about Livermore

- the climate control
- having email blocked at work
- waiting days and weeks in order to get relatively simple computer permissions
- being treated like a 4-year old by the interns only a few years older than me
- people forgetting that I'm on meeting maker and consequently never letting me know when there's a meeting I'm expected to attend
- filling out my enormous spreadsheets
- constantly having my badge checked by suspicious employees
- having to move offices every other week because whoever’s room it really was had returned from vacation
- waiting for the visualization software to load, or dealing with it when it was broken
- sizing pictures pixel by pixel
- not being allowed to take pictures on site
- having to deal with grown-ups all the time
- explaining that I’m still in high school and being told what a great opportunity I’m getting
- talking about my high school and its surprisingly demanding course load
- explaining that I’m leaving early so I can get my driver’s license and having to listen to various
stories about driving
- the isolation and homesickness
- the achingly slow internet connection

Another Country Heard From

So I haven’t written anything on here in a while. I could excuse myself by explaining that work has finally started being interesting as well as very demanding and tiring, and that I’ve also been really homesick and thus disinclined to write. BUT this is my blog so I don’t need to make excuses: you may be interested in my drivel but you probably aren’t anxiously awaiting it, staring at your rss feed salivating at the thought of my incoherent ideas and moaning.

This post therefore is serving as a catch-up, to let you know what you missed and to motivate me to actually get around to writing posts about the following when I get around to it. In the last few weeks, my mother, sister, and I went to Monterey Aquarium, Stanford, and Muir Woods. We played Wii at my mentor’s house and wandered around San Francisco. My sister flew home on her own for field hockey tryouts, and my mother and I visited our cousins. We went shopping and bought spiffy new clothes and bento boxes. We had pedicures. I learned how to drive (sort of). We learned Dutch (Hoe gaat het met u?). I brainstormed plans and schedules for the next school year. In short, we lived and loved California. And now it’s almost time to go home. I’m happy, my mother less so, although I’m sure she’ll feel different when she sees how pretty our new windows are, and I’ll probably miss the cooler weather.

Goodbye Livermore. Je bent adembenemend mooi and dat was geveldig, but I’m looking forward to my flight back.