Arrived in CA

[compilerbitch]

Well, I'm here. :-)

The flight was long, though entirely uneventful. The best kind. The aircraft was a 767, with a seat-back entertainment system. I saw Starsky & Hutch (not brilliant, not terrible, ideal for the mind munged state I was in when I watched it). I spent quite a bit of the flight daydreaming, sleeping, but still had time to spare to read a (crappy) novel cover to cover.

The apartment complex is pretty amazing. GOK what NASA must be paying for this. I have a huge room, my own bathroom, air con, kitchen etc. Cable TV with 150 channels, cable modem (which is what you're seeing this being sent from!), the whole bit. I'm very pleased with it. The complex is kind of a cross between a hotel and an apartment building -- it's an apartment building, but it has service levels that are closer to that of a hotel, including free breakfast, fitness centre, swimming pool, spa, etc.

*bounce*

I am now in the weird state of trying to stay awake. My body clock says, "Urgh, long past midnight", but the clock on the wall says 4.47pm, so I really must stay up until at least about 10 local time or I'll be useless past lunchtime tomorrow.

This is the first time I've been to the US since 9/11. I was astonished by just how long customs seems to take now -- must be 5-10 times longer than I remember it, but they seem to have more customs officers on duty to redress this at least in part. Also, it was the first time in probably about 60 or 70 flights that I've ever had my bags randomly searched. This was no problem at all -- they just X-rayed everything, and seemed *very* apologetic for wasting my time. Oddly enough this was after the customs officer read my paperwork and realised I was working at NASA!

The temperature here is quite hot, but actually a bit cooler than Cambridge has been getting recently. If anything, I seem to be finding it a bit less temperature-extreme than at home.

Thanks again to doseybat, galliana and abraxia for seeing me off this morning. Keeping me off the meeping-about-going subject seemed to do me a lot of good. Now I'm here, I seem actually to be reasonably OK, totally OK so far, really. I think it helps, weirdly, knowing that I really am here on my own for 10 weeks, because I seem to have mentally snapped into a 'going solo' mode. We shall see how it goes. I'll be posting here regularly.

As a slight aside, my nice theme has gone bye-byes for a while because my web server at cam is currently AWOL. I shall attempt to do something about it, but for the moment please resign yourselves to the vanilla 'Component' theme until I've sorted things out!

In the morning, I have to report to NASA for my induction. I'm rather looking forward to this now!

Comments

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

I know it might sound barking but try heading down to the gym/swimming pool a physical workout might help
alternativly you could try power napping to keep going
if you got access to games then I find playing some FPS always keeps me awake

anyhow i'm pleased your all there
and I 'm off to while away the we small housr watching the very same movie you watched on the way over and probably followed by HP3 but I shouldn't talk about that

hope things go well
kate

[dredpiratebunny.livejournal.com]

welcome to the us!
how long will you be staying here?

[galliana.livejournal.com]

It was a pleasure. You were always my favourite Gonk, and now you can be my favourite Space Gonk!

*bounces*

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

now I realise you might have been upset about her leaving but did the three of you have to go and start a riot :p :)

[galliana.livejournal.com]

It wasn't at all easy for me to metamorphose into 400 testosterone and adrenaline fuelled football supporters, but after a fair amount of straining and squeezing and muttered incantations to the Old Ones, I did it.

Of course, we were a little on the *small* side.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

LOL