Working girl

Another week gone and I feel like a lot has happened even since the last one. That's not surprising I suppose since we had a national holiday and I started my job. In the last week we also succeeded in hunting for and catching an apartment! There was a bit of back and forth on what we would go with, but ultimately I'm happy with what we found. It's a really beautiful place with a lot of space. The commute is about an hour for me, but I think I would get that in a lot of places with our budget anyways. I think the stress of being somewhere new, looking for the apartment, and thinking about my new job was piling up last week. But now that things are proving to be okay, I feel a little better. It could also be that when I'm more occupied, there's not much time to ponder and wallow (which is a good thing in my case...right?).

So to recount the weekend, the festivities started on July 3. Real fans will know that it's my mom's birthday! It was really fun because Mary found this cool cafe in Brooklyn that does tea sets with East Asian twists/flavors. For example they had green tea cake and a black sesame financier. I love macarons but unfortunately that one was my least favorite because it was black vinegar flavored.... Everything else pretty much I thought was really delicious! After that we walked around Bushwick. I'll have to go back.

[I tried hojicha for the first time there too! I love it :D]

[my mom and her new bucket hat]

The next day was the Fourth. Honestly we usually don't do much, but I also didn't feel like doing anything really because I didn't want to be tired before starting work the next day. One of my cousins' birthday is the Fourth of July so usually growing up the celebration would mostly be for/with him but with a patriotic twist. Mary, Zach, and I did do something fun though. We saw the new Minions movie. I don't know if you guys have seen the trends going around with the gentle minions but unfortunately we did not see any at the noon showing. It was pretty funny though and I do genuinely like the animation. My youngest brother Aaron said he went with his friends and they dressed up. In the meme they usually wear suits but I guess him and his friends don't own suits. Anyways, the rest of the day was pretty calm. Mary made dinner and even though we didn't intentionally go out to see the fireworks, there were people setting some off in the street so we saw a little bit of that (and heard a lot). Actually the days leading up to Monday people in the neighborhood were shooting off fireworks all night. It didn't bother me much since I could still sleep.

And that brings me to yesterday and today, my first days at work! I won't say too much about the lab for privacy's sake, but I'm working in a lab that studies cancer in cerebrospinal fluid. My role specifically is getting collections of CSF organized and processing it. The girl who I'm replacing is thankfully here until the end of next week, but it's a little bit overwhelming to learn about all of the systems/programs/protocols all at once. But I think (hope) by the end of next week I'll have gone over it enough to feel comfortable taking over. Otherwise, there's a lot of boring online training modules I have to get through. I was told that everyone in the lab is nice, and so far I do find it to be true! Like Annie said, I think I'll like it here. Another research tech also started yesterday, so it's been nice to have a buddy in this process. Funnily enough, she also is a smithie! I think she found out about the open position through a prehealth email. At times I feel myself getting in my head about being with new people and in a new place, but it's not too bad overall.

[idk if you guys remember this gelato place (venchi) in rome but some of ya got chocolate there and I always thought the gelato looked so delicious. They have a few locations here and it is confirmed as extremely delicious]

[I finally tried korean corn dogs and I now can say they are yummy. We also got mochi donuts :) I really missed the food in America I have to say, and the options here are unbeatable! also look at mary's new nails]

I hope by next week I'll feel more settled into my new role. We'll also be allowed to start moving in in a little more than a week. exciting things!