Week 1

My vacation is passing by too quickly! But it's been good so far. Here are some of the things I've accomplished during my first week off:

- Had lunch with several friends, including Tracie, Janice, Kristen, and
Stephanie.

- Cleaned my kitchen and my bathroom from top to bottom.

- Worked out almost every day this week so far.

- Colored my hair a darker shade of brown.

- Got a 100% on my paper for Intro to Hospitality. Yeah! :)

- Got halfway through my book, "The Princes of Ireland" by Edward Rutherfurd.

- Saw The Game of Their Lives, a movie about soccer that was partially filmed in St. Louis. Very cool.

- Re-signed the lease on my apartment and signed up to get the carpets steam-cleaned, which has been long overdue.

- Got my hair trimmed.

- Went to band practice where we recorded some of our songs for a CD to distribute to potential venues.

- Got my last paycheck from my now-ex-employer. It's nice, but I was expecting it to be a little more than what it was... oh well. Nice to have some shopping money now!

And that's about it. Today, Friday, is the first day that I don't have anything planned during the day, so I'm just gonna take it easy and relax. Probably the reason why this vacation seems to be getting away from me so quickly is because I haven't taken enough time to just do nothing. There's just not enough hours in the day to do all the nothing I want... :)

The Last Day

Well, folks... it's the end of an era. It's the day when present becomes past. I have lasted with this company for approximately four years, two months, and 27 days, and I consider it an accomplishment to have made it that long. :) The ship is hitting the open seas for new shores... ok, ok, I'm waxing poetic, I'll stop now. :)

I'm excited yet nervous for my new job... It'll be a completely new place where I don't know anybody. Right now I feel like I can be myself around my coworkers, but I'll be sort of a fish out of water over there, at least for the first week or so. But in time, I hope to make some new friends (but keep the old!), :) and maybe eventually it'll be like the environment I have here. It's a bigger office, though. Here I work with about 30 people, and about 100 people work in my new office. Yikes.

But it's something new and exciting to learn! I'm excited about that part. And about actually working in travel. And making more money. And wearing jeans to work every day. :) Hey, it's the little things, right?

Today at work is a fun one... we're doing an ice cream social with board games. :) Then tonight I'm throwing a Happy Hour party for myself, and I'm expecting lots of people to show up. Should be a total blast. Then it's two weeks of vacation! Well... I have to finish out school during those weeks, but shouldn't be too bad. Hope to make the most of my two weeks! I can't wait!

Delayed Start

My start date with my new job is now May 9 instead of May 2. The training class got delayed by a week, I think because the one that is going on before it was extended. This means I get an extra week of vacation! I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself for two weeks. I got money covered, though, because my old job will be paying me three weeks of vacation when I leave, because that's how much I had accrued. Guess I should start making some plans now! I do plan to meet friends for lunch frequently... Hmm... Craig, what are you gonna be doing during those weeks?? :)

Guest Speaker

I wanted to talk about the guest speaker we had in Intro to Hospitality this morning. He's one of the Senior Directors at the Savvis Center and he had a totally fascinating history, which just pumped me up about going into my industry even more and I came out of class in such a great mood. Anyways he talked about his long career in hospitality, how he was born in Dublin, moved to New York, and grew up with the catering business more or less, and that led to becoming a chef, and then working in hotels, and then eventually his job at the Savvis Center. (by the way, he gave us an amazing statistic. Savvis Center was #7 in the the world for non-sporting event sales. Number 1 was in Manchester, England, then came Madison Square Gardens and some place in New York City, and our little Savvis Center was #7. Amazing.) Anyways one of the things this guy did... he was approached by someone who found out that he was Irish and was an excellent chef, and asked him to work at a 12th century castle on the west coast of Ireland. Imagine that. He had his own staff of cooks, even his own gardener to grow his own vegetables and herbs and fruits and what not. He said it was an absolute fairy tale. And that's why he only did it for two years, because it was such a fairy tale and he couldn't do that forever. I think I'd wake up every morning asking someone to pinch me. I just sat there rapt while he was talking about this, it was so awesome. I want to look up what that castle was when I get time and I'll come back and link it... anyways. I started dreaming all these wild dreams and I am so excited about making it into the field... even if I'm starting out on the corporate side. Because I know I'll be in leisure travel soon enough.

Edited to add: Dromoland Castle is the one he was talking about. Check it out. WOW.

Meeting SKP

I met my favorite author on Thursday, Sharon Kay Penman, at her book-signing in Lexington, Kentucky. She's one of those people whom I consider myself pretty "cool" to have met. :) When my friend Janice and I found out she was touring, we almost immediately made plans to see her, and Lexington was the closest she was coming to St. Louis. So we asked off of work for that day and the next, got in the car, and drove about 5 1/2 hours to meet her. She's an awesome lady. She writes historical fiction, using people who actually lived in the Middle Ages as her subjects, fleshing them out and breathing new life into them and into their stories. She endearingly talks about them as though they were friends of hers, and Janice and I loved that about her. When you read her books, the dialogue that she writes is so believeable (if you imagine a world where people regularly say "for certes" and "mayhap"), and seems to bring the characters to life on the page. I told her about the historical fiction author I'm currently reading, and how it seems rather dry compared to her writing. We also had to tell her about how her books had inspired us to travel to Wales (the place she does her best writing about), and various sites in Wales where events in her books took place, particularly the house now recognized as the home of the Welsh Princes. She seemed to be intrigued and insisted that we keep in touch, handing us her business cards with enthusiasm. (She also seemed to be bowled over by the fact that we'd driven all the way from St. Louis to see her, which people in Lexington almost regarded as a foreign country, by their apparent amazement that we'd come from there.) As I'm writing this, I'm switching back and forth from this post to an email draft that I'm working on to her... I hope she writes back! That'd be pretty cool. :) From the impression we got of her at the book signing, she seems to be pretty good about email and often asks people to write to her, so I'm sure people write her all the time... I can only hope I'm interesting enough to get some sort of response! :) Anyways... it was a very fun trip overall, Lexington is a beautiful place with lots of stables and horses, :) and I'm really glad that we went.

Big News!!

Here it is... the culmination of my pursuits that I've been talking about on this blog up till now... a goal finally accomplished... I have been offered a NEW JOB at a travel company! And a BIG and well-respected travel company at that!! I start May 2. I am so so so excited and so ready to get on with it. I will be in training for three weeks, and then I will start regular employment after that. It is a corporate travel position, but the company is big enough for me to eventually move into leisure travel, whenever I'm ready, and if I am quite honest with myself, I think corporate travel is the best thing for me right now. It's much less sales-oriented, so I can get a feel for booking travel reservations without having to worry about the sales aspect of it. And sales is what I was most worried about. So working in corporate travel is kind of a load off. I still want to eventually move into leisure, and this definitely paves the way for me to do that. And, the pay is higher than what I'm currently making, which was a very pleasant surprise! I haven't officially quit my current job yet (was gonna do that today but the boss is out), but I'll do that Monday. And I have a four-day weekend to look forward to it... road tripping tomorrow and Friday, going to the baseball game on Saturday... life is good. :)

For Ryan

I don't know what to say about the Pope's passing that hasn't already been said. Of course he was a giant of the 20th century. Of course he was an admirable man who drew young and old alike of all faiths to him. Of course he set an example of peace and love in the world. Of course the amount of media coverage given to his death only testified to how much the world loved him and will miss him. And of course it will be difficult for the next pope to fill his shoes. All I can say is that I was blessed to witness his papacy, especially when I got to see him in person at the Mass he celebrated in St. Louis, and perhaps someday I'll tell my children about how great of a man he was. Now all we can do is look forward to the future and stand behind whoever is chosen as JPII's successor...

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Added later: Actually, I wanted to add a little memory I have of him from when he came to St. Louis... I remember he was speaking to the congregation during the Mass, probably during the homily. He spoke in slow, heavily accented English, as if it was taking all his concentration just to pronounce the words correctly. Finally he seemed to have strained himself to the breaking point, as if he were trying to sustain a large weight, and suddenly let it go and an outpouring of Italian or maybe Polish came cascading out in a breath of relief. The audience, of course having no idea how he finished the sentence he was in the middle of, just laughed. He once again put on the yoke of English and finished the homily, which I remember was an excellent one, I just don't remember what it was about.

I'll also never forget the flash of cameras when he elevated the host during the Eucharistic Prayer.
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And no, I haven't gotten HoB yet. But sometime I will have to look for it. I've just been far too busy! I do want to see it though! :)