F Stop Lounge | Real Women: Forget the Disney Princesses – Cutest photo project ever involving a 5yo girl. Now I want to dress up as Susan B. Anthony too!

My guide to perfect Korean dumplings – aka mandu – Kitchen Wench

Screen Cleaner Dress Shirt Wipes Devices On The Go [Pics] – PSFK – I totally need this.

Make an iPad wall mount – the future needs fixing – sugru – Tempted.

The Militant Baker: Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls… SO I WILL. – Brilliant. Ignore the title if it bothers you. This should be required reading for all women.

Easy, Illustrated Instructions on How to Make a Concrete Patio Umbrella Stand – Bookmarking for next spring, Snooky.

The 21 Types Of Hipster You Encounter In London – I’m a little sad we left London before the hipster explosion.

Quick update: Work. Work is good. Things are busy – I had FIVE meetings today – but so far I’m hanging in there. I still feel slightly like I have no idea what I’m doing, but it’s getting less and less. For one of the projects I’m on I’ve been asked to spend Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at our office in the city, which means my commute is only 15 minutes (or I can even walk). And Snooky’s office is just on the other side of Darling Harbour! Bonus.

I actually went to yoga at the gym Monday night. I haven’t done yoga in YEARS, but given that I’m still not allowed to run or cycle, I felt like I ought to do something. I was very careful not to strain my knee, and to my surprise I found that I could do just about all the poses if I didn’t go too deeply. It was a good workout too, judging by how sore I am a day later. I think I’ll probably make that a weekly occurrence.

The garden renovation is nearly done. The plants are in, and I even bought a few veggie seedlings on the weekend to try our hand at some winter veg. (While the sunny patch gets a lot of light in the summer, the building may shade it too much in the winter. We’ll see.) We still need to get a handyman out to do the last few bits: putting a handrail on the stairs; fixing up my busted screen door; drilling some bolts into the wall for our espaliered trees. I was hoping to get that done before the Snook’s upcoming work trip to London, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Not very bloggy, am I? I just feel like all the new stuff I’m learning at work is using up whatever spare brain cycles I used to spend on reading the Internet and tweeting and chatting to people. I’m sure the mojo will return eventually.

Carbo-Mobile – Ray’s Fight – My nephew wrote a story, and it’s pretty much the Greatest Thing Ever.

TBA at CBA
The big news is that today, after three weeks of downtime at home, I returned to the ranks of the gainfully employed!

My new commute is slightly annoying, mostly because I’m based at Olympic Park (when I’d hoped to be based at Darling Harbour). So I have to take the train, and it costs twice as much as the bus. But the actual train ride itself is only 20 minutes, and I’m going against peak traffic in both directions so it’s easy and not crowded at all. I’m also getting a little bit of exercise on the 15 minute walk to/from the station. So really, it’s not that bad. I’ve just been spoiled working in the city for the last 4 years and essentially being able to walk to work.

The offices are pretty darn nice. I’m a little disappointed I don’t get to work at the new FUTURISTIC office, but this one is only slightly older and it’s still pretty schmick. And hey, last month I had 3 days at my old job with NO ELECTRICITY. Look on the bright side, right?

I spent my entire first day just “onboarding” – getting introduced to the team and the company, learning where the fire escapes are, setting up my passwords on everything, etc. Tomorrow I think I’ll be doing more of that, likely with a big helping of “elearning” as well. There are a lot of acronyms and processes to learn, but thankfully nobody seems to expect me to pick them all up instantly. My manager told me it took him a couple months to feel at home with everything. That was reassuring.

The culture shock is pretty big, but I don’t think it’s bad. I think it’s less about “corporate” stuffiness and more just about the fact that it’s a massive company. It’s literally hundreds of times larger than any place I’ve ever worked for. I spent like 20 minutes cumulatively today trying to figure out what actual department I’m in. (For the record, it’s Enterprise Services – which is basically internal I.T. – and then Implementation and Process Delivery. I think. I saw a lot of acronyms that I’m still deciphering.) Everybody has been friendly though, and nobody asked me to fill out a TPS report. (Yet.) My new clothes fit in just fine – though I’ll admit I was skeptical when I saw several people come through the lobby this morning dressed in jeans. (They weren’t on my floor though, which makes me think they may be the developers.)

Mostly I’m just trying to hang in there, stay positive, and not to give in to imposter syndrome. They hired me because they think I’ll be an asset, dammit! I told the Snook tonight: I need to stop thinking about it as a job, because a job is something you have to worry about messing up. Instead it feels more like starting college. I’m going to Corporate BA School, and I’m going to learn a lot of marketable skills that will give my career a massive boost, and the best part is that they actually pay me to go! So I’m lucky, and it’s all worked out so far, and nothing is ruined, and it’s all going to be good.

But they lock down the Internet pretty damn hard, so I doubt you’re going to get much blogging/tweeting from me during work hours for the foreseeable future!