and oh how I miss walking up to the edge and jumping in, like I could feel the future on your skin

Well, its Wednesday afternoon, and I've given up all hope of having a coherent work-related thought before the end of the day. I've been getting little pieces of work done in fits and starts, none lasting longer than five minutes, but the time has come to admit defeat and do a little healthy goofing off. I earned it, I took an exam this morning.

Yes, I take exams. At work. Work is a lot like school for me, if I had to wear a suit to school, and was only allowed to study for 8 hours while sitting in a cubicle, and had class only twice a week on average. So OK, it bears some resemblance to school, but through the warped lens of the corporate work week. Oh, and I'm not allowed to bring my books home, which can get kind of irritating. I mean I'm not completely prohibited, they're not protective of the books or anything. Its just that while I'm a trainee I'm eligible for overtime, and bringing the books home would be an indicator that I ought to be filing for that, and they would rather I not do this thing. So.

Speaking of work (since I've had a few questions on this), its going down like this: I am currently an underwriter trainee here in Boston. For the last few years the Liberty Mutual underwriter trainee program has lasted about twelve months. In the midst of massive, albeit unrelated, reorganization my manager has been asked to shorten the length of the program. She's pushing for it to last 9 months in the new incarnation, but there's considerable pressure to cut it all the way down to 6.

In theory, when I am mostly done with the training program, that's when I'll be relocated to the Chicago office and thus move. My current best guess is that will happen around the end of January or early February. But they have specifically avoided giving me a hard and fast date for the move, and a couple of times I've heard a rumor of it happening much earlier (say, like, November.) I am dubious about moving that soon and lobbying against it (I want to get as much out of the training as I can, after all.) So I have moderate confidence that I will be here in Boston through New Year's.

Although... for you Chicagoans (and Evanston...ians... Evanstonites? Evanstonauts!) who would like to see me before then, you will hopefully have an opportunity in the middle of October. There's a National Account Underwriters Meeting October 12-14 in St. Charles, IL, and I am hopeful that I will be able to arrange my flight such that I can stay in town for the weekend. That would be just swell.

Anyway. That's enough for now. A weekend-summarizing post will likely follow in a bit.

yes its true that I believe I'm weaker than I used to be

My weekend in review:

• Friday night was $5 buy-in poker (no limit Texas Hold 'Em, of course) at sleetfall's. Selected members of the Tuesday night gaming crew combined with Rachel, the girl Jon is currently pseudo-dating, to get drunk and lose money to one another. I did well early on, several big wins in early hands including a miracle straight on the river. Then I made a couple of bad plays, which by the light of day I chalk up to being drunk, and abruptly lost interest. Fortunately the game was not far from wrapping up at that point. After poker we played a little Apples to Apples and a little Fluxx, both always enjoyable, although being tired and still inebriated I had nowhere near the required mental capacity for Fluxx.
  
  
• Saturday I drove out to the Lincoln/Sudbury area to rendezevous with thablueguy, who had invited me to staff at the one-night non-combat Prophet's Fall event that evening. The Maruto Jen (the pan-Asian culture'd Japan analogue in that game) were holding a trial for a Nyphian Duke accused of killing a Jen foreign ministress. The fact that he had killed her was not highly disputed; the Duke attempted somewhat unsuccesfully to convince the court that the ministress had become a Chaledon (sp?), a vampire-like monster that the insular Jen were largely unfamiliar with. He was doing pretty well until right at the end, when he inexplicably admitted that there was a Nyphian Prince who had also become a Chaledon but had not been murdered. Things went rapidly downhill from there. I played the role of cultural liaison in the form of a Vallesan with knowledge of Maruto Jen culture who was there to interpret and explain the trial procedure to the accused. Nyphians hate Vallesans, you see, because Vallesans are frivolous and generalky useless (think, say, Brujah opinion of the Toreador.) It was big fun, and hopefully there will be a PF weekend in September I can get out to.
  
  
• Sunday I recuperated and generally knocked around. That pretty much brings us up to date.