most intense

That said, I didn't hate Valentine's Day as much as I usually do this year.  Maybe it was working with Cappy?  Maybe it was knowing I wouldn't be doing flowers for while after this?  Maybe it was something else 

paper

 remember that Turkish final I was in crisis mode about?  Well, my professor submitted it to this online community newspaper of sorts and now it is published on CANADATURK

http://canadaturk.ca/koseyazilari/emrahsahin/43072-sara%E2%80%99n%C4%B1n-t%C3%BCrkiye%E2%80%99si.html

My boss read it on google translate...so if you are really bored...

Oh all those posts I was going to do on my trip to Turkey.  Alas (Heyhat!) 

So... some photo favorites:

yeah Turkey!

details!

 I got the details of my flight out to training-- I'll be leaving Sunday, February 17 at 5:20am (yuck)

Please send my mail and presents from now through March 22 to:

Drury Inn & Suites - Phoenix Airport

3333 E University Dr.

Phoenix, AZ 85034

website

Oh thank GOD-- just checked the amenities:

• Free Hot QUIKSTART® Breakfast
• Free 5:30 Kickback® - Hot Food & Cold Beverages
• Free Wireless Internet
• Free 60 Minutes of Long Distance
• Free Soda/Popcorn in Lobby (daily 3-10 pm)
• Free Local Phone Calls
•  
• HBO, Our Exclusive Premium Movie Channel
• CNN, ESPN, Weather Channel & More
• Flat Panel LCD TVs in every room
• Free 24 Hour Airport Shuttle to Sky Harbor
• Free Parking
• Free In-room Coffee Service
• 2-Room Suites Available
• 24 Hour Business Center
• 24 Hour Fitness Center
• Fax Services
• Guest Laundry
• Guest Pantry
• Guest Voice Mail
• Hair Dryers in All Rooms
• Iron & Ironing Board in All Rooms
• Jacuzzi Tubs Available
• Meeting Rooms
• Microwaves & Refrigerators in All Rooms
• Outdoor Pool & Whirlpool (9 am - 10 pm)
• Smoke-free hotel

I might not want to leave

I am happy, I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is coming on

...yeah, in two weeks I'll be in Arizona training for my new life.  Am I a little freaking out?  YES.  This is pretty accurate again:

Here isyour Daily Chinese Horoscope forSunday, February 3

You'll dream of a quite different destiny -- a brighter, more illustrious or more adventurous one. Be satisfied with your fate. You'll meet a person who will quickly take on a great importance in your life. Prepare the ground thoroughly before launching your great projects. Beware of awkward reactions due to excessive impulsiveness; it's certainly not in your nature, but this astral climate will incline you to act on the spur of the moment.

But being impulsive is in the fiber of my being!!  [whine]

In other news:  I went on a picnic and I would like some chocolate, please.

Best birthday week!

 This has just been so much fun.  Thursday Kyohei and I went out for a nice dinner, Friday my awesome friend, Buket hosted a Turkish-y themed dinner and drinks at her house:

The spread!

Buket and Asli are so cute

Nail makes some killer karniyarik (eggplants and beef) LOVE

And I worked on acquiring a taste for Raki, Turkish liquor.  Here I did it right-- as the saying goes; white cheese, melon and raki

I woke up in a daze and with a slight headache on Saturday next to Buket on my actual birthday.  We ate, and then I tried my best to get down to Tampa in good time (fail)

I had tickets to see Wicked with my good friend, Mandy.

The restaurant was festive with a foaming green cauldron

Yes! More cake!

Ah, the show was so, so, so good.  One of the best I've seen.  I mean, I love everything Wizard of Oz- related anyway, but this was fantastic.

Mandy and I drank a bottle of champagne, slept in and went to one of our favorite spots in St. Pete-- the Sunken Gardens.  Since my camera is in disrepair, I had to rely entirely on Instagram

    Year of the Snake!!  This was an awesome sighting.

Next stop:  Cocktails and appetizers on the beach.  This weekend was just fantastic weather wise.  It really felt like summer.

Then her family made this fantastic dinner + cupcakes. 

It was dark when I hopped in the car to meet up with this handsome man who happened to need a ride back to Gainesville. 

Monday I was greeted with one of the most fantastic flower arrangements ever!

My Aunt ordered this from my friend's flower shop-- so you know it had to be fabulous.

BUT, there was a little extra surprise-- cash rolled up and stuck into the arrangement.  $$$$$  Hooray!  My whole family gave me money for my birthday to help me through the month of non-salaried training I'll be going through in a bit.

Gotta love these cool tropical flowers, right?

Since then, its just been a week of hanging out with friends every night.  Oh, what fun!

Dance and Pizza with Jackie on Monday

Tacos with Roger, Ashley and Mike on Tuesday

Ballet and dinner at home and drinks with the roommate on Wednesday

and last night, for no reason at all, I was out until 2 with these 2.  I think we are intending to get up to no good again tonight... here's hoping.

while it lasts

 I'm.so.fucking.happy

Feeling good, feeling great, how are you? 

This always happens to me; as soon as I decide to move on from something (in this case my steady job at the University) life finds a way to get even better.  It's a nice, sweet trick fate plays on me resulting in more heart-pulling nostalgia than necessary.  

Does this happen to you; the end of some phase in life being the best part of that phase?  The end of the school year?  The last few days of break?  The last month in Japan?  The last few bites of cake? You get the idea.  Is it only that good because you know it will all change soon?

For once I think I'll give myself the birthday present of not over-thinking this and just really enjoying it.  I'm having a fantastic birthday week, by the way, and it is about to get even better.

1) Birthday party tonight at Buket's, I think we are going for a full-Turkey theme with Turkish food, raki (liquor) and hopefully some Turkish music. 

2) Tomorrow I am driving down to Tampa to visit my good friend Mandy and see the musical, "Wicked," which just happened to fall on my bday.. nice

3) Sunday...sigh... we'll see.

heating up!

 It has been like summer here all week in Florida and I am LOVING it.

I had a weird and awesome weekend.  I haven't been that drunk in a while.  Wow that was fun. Oh, how I missed it.

Sing it, Frank....sigh....

2013- with a little help from my friends

 Happy New Year!

I'm back to work (and blogging) after a nice winter week in Pennsylvania.  The break was a little quieter and a little more boring than usual.  I didn't really have a car and the weather was so bad I didn't really want to go any where anyhow.  Plus, mom was still in the hospital the whole time, so it was just my brother and I hanging out at home, unless he was at work...

BUT, I finally got my snow wish for snowshoeing!  I went out on my own, but the best is when my dad and I hit the trails.  He had some old-school snowshoes:

The winter scenery was great:

The family farm

  Some instagram action in the backyard... I am loving this iphone more and more

I got to hang out with my beloved cousins and aunt as always too-which was great.  My aunt always organizes a party for all the neighborhood family friends I grew up with when I am home (she is awesome and I am lucky). 

  My cousins and their boyfriends were all making slushies out of the snow outside, so I did the same   Then we ate and hung out by the fire playing cards all night watching the snow fall.  It was great.

I made my big career change announcement to my family while I was there, which was fun-- it was nice to have some good and exciting news to talk about with everyone.  I studied my airport code flashcards a lot!  I'm pretty sure my brother knows them all now too

Speaking of my brother-- he got me the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER--which is saying a lot because I got some great stuff (and money, thank GOD)

A Mandolin!!!  He sent it to Florida, so yesterday was my first chance to use it.  I am kind of pathetic because I know NOTHING.  Luckily my roommate's sister is staying with us and she showed me how to tune it.  Thanks to the little booklet that came with it and youtube, I am learning and practicing my chords.  OMG OMG OMG Awesome.  Thanks to him I have all the accessories too--extra picks, a tuner, extra strings, a stand and a leather strap.  2013 is the year I will learn the mandolin.

Before I left, I saw some Christmas lights with my roommate and took Kyohei out for his traditional birthday dinner.  I found a French restaurant this time and it was SUPER (nailed it!)

On the way home from Pennsylvania it almost looked like I was going to have to sleep in the Charlotte Airport, but I ran to my terminal and JUST made it on the plane.  Lucky thing was my checked bag made it too-- unbe-freakin-lievable!  A New Year's miracle!  I'm very proud of USAiways, my future company.

The T-Rex in the Pittsburgh airport-- because that is just how Western PA rolls

AND to ring in the new year I saw Django Unchained yesterday:  AWESOME

Finally!  I could enjoy all the violence, great storyline and fantastic soundtrack of a Tarantino film without the usual graphic rape scene to ruin it all and mess me up emotionally!  LOVED IT!  You really killed it this time, Quentin.

RESOLUTIONS!

1. Learn at least 10 songs on the mandolin

2. Really do my best at flight attendant training-- be #1 (on the job too)

3. Visit at least 5 long-distance friends (hopefully this includes meeting a couple xanga besties, you know who you are)

4. Read a book in Turkish

5. Watch a sunrise with someone who is amazing

This is going to be a big year, one way or another.  It might be better if it weren't my dreaded [dum dum dum!!] YAKUDOSHI!! 

From Encyclopedia of Shinto 

Yes, yes, I'm only going be 32 this month, but you forget that in Asia a baby starts at year 1-- so technically this IS my 33rd year.  I can confidently say that this past year was a year of a little calamity.  So... I'm actually a bit afraid of this coming year.  Not to sound even more flaky than I do already--but my western horoscope (Aquarius) already predicts a year of upheaval.  I'm not sure how much more upheaval I can handle. 
Luckily I got a yakudoshi omamori (amulet for protection during your calamity year) from Tsubaki Shrine.  I'm not taking any chances.  Let's NOT have a major calamity

Tide rolls back

 ...and what is left on the beach after the storm?

1) Most importantly my mom is doing OK.  By the time I went to bed on Tuesday night she still hadn't woke up from surgery, which was nerve wracking.  However, I was able to talk to nurses in her ICU unit yesterday and today and all the updates seem pretty good.  I seem to keep calling when she is sleeping.  I will feel a lot better when I can actually talk to her, but... I wait.  At any rate, my brother is going down to see her this weekend, so I will get a better update then. 

2) My Turkish paper is near completion.  I submitted another draft and got that back.  I might just need to add a couple more things and write a conclusion

3) MY BIG INTERVIEW

Not my best photo ever, but I was having such a good time I had to commemorate it.

I got up at 3:40am and took off at 5:20.  I was in row 1!!  If the plane was big enough to have a business class, I would be it   Beside me sat another young woman in a suit carrying only a purse and a book.  We realized at once we were going for the same interview.  It was actually really nice to go through the process of finding our way through the airport together.  We were some of the first people to show up to interview room at the HR building so we had a lot of time to get to know each other and some of the other early arrivers.  I found out that they were doing the interview for 3 days (Tues, Wed and Thurs) and there were 2 groups of about 50 people each day.  Watching all the professional people stream into the room all morning was intimidating.

Eventually, the 2 other people I rode the shuttle with in the morning and 3 others became a little 'clique' of friends.  Before the interview, I pictured myself sitting alone in an airport reading a book and feeling nervous all day, but what I really did was hang out in a big room gossiping about airline stuff with my new group of friends.  It was actually really fun.  Everyone was so nervous and excited.  We kept saying things like, "what if we could all go through training together?"  "What if we all get the same base airport--we could get a crash-pad (apartment) together!"  It was so cute.

We were ushered into another room where we watched an informational presentation about working for USAirways.  Then, for the first task, we had to stand in front of the room, introduce ourselves and say what we thought being a good flight attendant meant.  Then we were ushered into a simulation room where they checked whether or not we could strap ourselves into the "jump seat" and reach the defibrillator in an overhead bin without our shoes on.  Nailed it.

Then we had to wait for our one-on-one interviews while we ate lunch.  I was one of the last, so I was really starting to sweat by the time I was called.  The woman who interviewed me was so great.  For once, I can honestly say that I killed that interview.  I actually thought of good things to say for the 6 work-related questions.  I was feeling pretty good, but still physically shaking from nervousness.  

The whole time we were hanging out waiting for each new phase, we were able to talk with and ask questions of the trainers and other flight attendants that were around.  This was actually super helpful and I learned quite a bit. Everyone was super cool and nice too and had been working for at least a decade or 2 with the company.  It seemed like everyone really liked their job.

After the interviews, they started to call people away.  Now I know that there were being dismissed and were not going to be considered for the job.  At the time, I didn't really understand if we were being cut or they were... so, there was a constant element of not-knowing.  One of the guys in my group that we were sure would get it got called out.  Next we had to break up into small groups and solve one of those survival team-work exercises.  You know, decide which of these 12 items is most important and why after your plane crashes in the tundra.  My group picked me as the spokesperson.  Probably a good thing for me.  Then more people were called out...then there were 8 of us.

When the trainers came back in, one announced that we had one final activity to complete and that he would read to us from this sheet of paper.  "It says," he started, "We would like to congratulate you on your acceptance to USAIRWAYS."  One of my interview friends, an absolutely gorgeous women from Tunisia, turned to me and said-- "Sarah, what does that mean!?"  I stared back in disbelief and said, "It...it...it means we got it!!"  After everyone realized what had just happened we all jumped up and cheered.  People were hugging, crying, congratulating us.  It was the most dramatic employment scene ever.  The whole day felt like a reality show.  Of my clique of friends, 3 of us made it-- the Tunisian woman, the other woman from Gainesville and I! 

We were then given a stack of paperwork to read and sign as quickly as possible so that we could get back to the airport in time to catch our 5:45 and 6:00 flights.  I entered my I-9 info, was fingerprinted and photographed holding my social security number.  Wow-- serious stuff.  It was all such a whirlwind that I was in a complete state of shock.  I've been rejected by so many jobs that I only kind of wanted that I never even imagined I could be accepted to a job that I actually wanted.  

We will find out later when we are to report for training, but another person on the shuttle back said that he thought he saw "Training date Feb 18" on one of the screens, so we will see..... 

I'm excited and stressed because this is such a HUGE HUGE lifestyle change.  Also, the reality of not having a paycheck for the 5 weeks of training or health insurance is a little daunting.  I have a lot of logistics to think about.

I'm going to start making flashcards of airport codes and air crafts and studying now.  Training is apparently NO JOKE.  If you don't get a 90% on all your tests you are OUT.  

I'm so excited. 

I'm not going to tell my family until I make a big announcement over Christmas when I am there... and I'll figure out when to tell my current job when I know when I will be training.

Wow, my life is changing so quickly.

Hi  Here isyour Daily Chinese Horoscope forThursday, December 13 As Belinda the good witch once said in The Wizard of Oz, 'You had the power all along, my dear.' Remember this as you go about your business today. Whatever shortcomings you think you're facing, you're wrong. Everything you need to overcome them is already within your soul. let's go!

tension

 Nah uh!  This was my horoscope today:

Aquarius Horoscope

Today December 11, 2012

Daily Overview

Your working life is getting a little stranger today -- so make sure that you're focused on the future! You may be just one or two steps away from a big career move that could make life a lot more interesting.

Tomorrow is the big interview, so... here's hoping.  I already did a dress rehearsal of things to wear last night and discovered that the heal on my interview shoes needs replacing.  duh!