I’ve been in Albany a month already. Woah. It certainly flew by, probably because of the recent HeWeb Conference that cut October in half.
So, a recap of my month here. First, my job. The reason why I’m here. Like all new things, it takes time to settle in, and it’s definitely taken time. I’ve slowly learned about Merit, job responsibilities, and everyone’s names, but there’s a lot more learning to do, for sure. I made it to the website, though, so I call that a win.
Adjusting to Albany has been a bigger challenge. My apartment isn’t located in the best place on earth, nor the worst, but what I don’t like the most is how far I am from things…except work. My commute is 4 minutes, but to go shopping, to the library, the mall, or basically anywhere else, it’s 10-15. Not terrible, but inconvenient. It’s also not convenient to run around my neighborhood like it was in Rochester, but I’ve found a park about 10 minutes away that I like, at least.
My apartment itself still doesn’t feel like home yet. Probably because there’s no decorations on the walls. Right now, it feels like a temporary space, one that I’m just living in for the time being. Even though I am fairly confident that I will be moving to a new place after my lease is up, that’s a year (well, now 11 months) away, which is a long time to not have my apartment feel like home. Today, for the first time, I hung up a few photos and put all the little knicknacks on my dresser that I used to have. It wasn’t much, but surprisingly it helped me feel a little less lonely.
I haven’t found too many friends in Albany yet, more likely because I haven’t tried super hard. I’ve had weirdly full weekends and will be gone again next weekend and the following weekend…then all of a sudden it’s Thanksgiving and I’ll have been “living” in Albany for two months.
woah.