Lunar Eclipse

Wow. I can't believe I stayed up for this. Okay. I didn't really stay up. I went to sleep at 11pm and woke up at 2:15am. Thereafter I got ready and went downstairs outside my apartment at got ready to take pictures. Granted, I wish I had a tripod and a bigger lens...but I am glad to have gotten to see the beauty and majesty of the lunar eclipse. Even it it happens quite a lot of times. But from what I read, not so common is the total eclipse. Enjoy!

1st shot at 2:40am
subsequent shot at 2:54am:
at 3:15am:
at 3:33am:
at 3:49am:
at 3:59am:
last shot at 4:02am:
although it would have been awesome to see the moon cycle back to full, I just had to go to sleep.

Happy Birthday Sharon!!

YEA!! I hope you have been having a wonderful time celebrating! I don't know how you do it but you have to teach me how you seem to be more graceful and appear more youthful as time goes on. Nice tan too!

Performance Goals

So I'm new to this concept. At my old workplace, there was no formal review period. no setting of goals. things were from the hip and it was alright with me.

Now, working for the Company, it's all about performance, goals and action items.

:)

This place I work is such a interesting social experiment for me! The newest thing to analyze...

Performance and goal setting!

What goals should I set for myself? Do I set low goals so it'll be certain that I can meet and exceed them? Will my manager know I'm low balling the goals and ding me for that? should I be aggressive and set lofty goals and bank on effort being seen rather than results? of course, in a perfect world, i'd set lofty goals and reach them!! but for now, i have no goals. for i joined the Company mid-review period and was told not to set back goals for the 2 months I was working.

will i get a raise? we'll see!!

oh...and the latest on Arrowhead...i met the nicest lady today that, from day 1, has had a terrible time working with Arrowhead. I can confirm now...that it really is him. I thought, maybe some of use are too critical and too bossy or whatever. but this lady was super nice. right off the bat. and for her to have a problem. *sigh*

Evaluations

So I'm now worried about the fate of Arrowhead. Apparently, he's been having some problems dealing with people in the past. It' snot that he's a terrible guy. But it seems that he not quite as effective as he should be and may in fact drag people down with him.

I never really thought about him and his work and its effect on others. but today, a colleague was doing an impromptu review and now i feel bad for him. he has all the best intentions. but for some reason, he cannot turn those intentions into product. my colleague asked me if he had given me some product that he created and worked on. and i can't say that he had. :( i'm racking my brain to think of the positives. not that he has that many negatives. it's just that they sort of overshadow his positives.

it's weird. not until today have i ever really thought about the work performance of someone that i work with. i hate that it's not a great impression. and now i'm worried about Arrowhead. I wish I could help him. i'll try to. i'd appreciate any ideas to help. Or maybe I shouldn't help. Maybe I should just let things happen as they may? oh...these are the days of my life...

New best friend #4

I can't believe I forgot about new best friend #4!! I'm going to call him Arrowhead, for he is deserving of name and I have a bottle of Arrowhead water on my desk and I can't think of anything else right now. You can feel free to suggest some new names as we get to know Arrowhead better.

Arrowhead calls me about 3 times a week and then sends me about 5-7 emails a day on average. Of course, they are not all to me only, but there I am. On all these emails. when sometimes, they don't even concern me. I do appreciate being kept in the loop, but i keep trying to find a way not to unnecessarily bombard someone's email, and I wish Arrowhead could do the same.

It's good though because at least the emails are all work related. It was funny one time as he called me one day, and I didn't pick up the phone. yes. i was screening. and then two seconds after the phone stopped ringing, I got an email that simply said:

"Are you there?"

I was. But to him I wasn't.

In any event, Arrowhead and I get along well. It's not that bad. mostly just funny. But sometimes, I think he just calls me so that he can tell me what he thinks and then sees if I think like he does and then get me on his side so he can turn it around to someone else and say that there is consensus for what he thinks. Okay, that didn't happen to me but to my colleague and so I'm wary of his motivation for calling. It's not as simple as just an exchange of information. Welcome to the world of corporate politics!

I like Arrowhead. Except for the times when i think he's trying to get me to do his work. me don't like that so much. We'll see what happens with Arrowhead. Maybe he'll chill out a little.

My New Best Friends

So in the past several weeks, I made a couple of new best friends. :)

#1 - IT guy - I have new best IT guy friend. he comes to visit me in my cube every so often for no reason at all. sometimes there is a reason. most of the time it is just to say hi. it's a little weird b/c we don't really have anything to talk about other than the project we are both on. But sadly, that project has now been scraped for the time being and I wonder if new best friend #1 will no longer visit me. hmmm...that might be alright. but it's always good to know someone in IT.

#2 - Facilities guy - I met this new best friend only last week and he has come to visit me twice and talk to me about our upcoming dealings with each other. It's cool. He's a little bit easier to talk to than best friend #1 (probably due to my lameness in the IT sector) but still...I don't really know what he's talking about. I do appreciate the heads up, though. And he's the type of guy I could see having a beer with. with a group of people of course.

#3 - Wikipedia - my bestest of all new best friends. Wiki has helped me understand what people say and write to me. I can't tell you how many acronyms have been thrown at me. I have come to rely a lot on Wiki for helping me speak a tiny bit intelligently. I see us having a long lasting relationship. no beers for me and Wiki though.

I do anticipate having more new best friends in the future. It's a big company.