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June 30, 2004
June 30
After having to deal with the aftermath of the flood (wet, smelly carpet and now dirty bare floor, having to pile all unboxed possessions on top of the two tables we have and having lost nearly all ability to find anything, and now having to wait until Saturday and Tuesday, respectively, to have new carpet installed in our living room and bedroom and study room because taking care of our apartment does not appear to be a priority of our landlord), we came home today to discover our cable and Roadrunner services had been knocked out because our stupid landlord had his cable service installed today and the stupid cable person knocked out our services in the process. I hate this apartment..
We had started looking for a new apartment before the flooding and the flood and the aftermath has certainly instilled a sense of urgency into the search that we didn't possess before. The problem is is that, so far, we've only found one source of decent listings and they don't update that often and any apartment that we like seems to be in contract already whenever I call (and I've been checking the listings every day) but we looked at an apartment today and I was surprised when a Williamsburg-type person opened the door (our apartment search has been confined to inner Queens). I was in apartment inspection mode and didn't even notice the comic drawings on his desk but they didn't escape Adam's attention and he asked the guy if he was a comic artist. Turns out, he was not only a comic artist but a comic artist that worked for Marvel. What are the chances?
Posted by Jennifer at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2004
June 27
Two months into our marriage and a week and a half after having a part of our living room flood, disaster struck our apartment last night. We had come back from watching Farenheit 9/11 with some friends and were chilling in front of the TV. Adam was wired from the coffee we had after so I stayed up with him and around 1am we started hearing some water noises on the other side of our wall. We both looked at each other--the noise was an unfamiliar one. About thirty seconds later, water started dripping the ceiling around different spots throughout our apartment. We rushed to put pots or any containers we had to collect the water but our apartment is carpeted so the water gradually made its way through most of our apartment. Anything that was under a dripping point got soaked with the brackish water that was coming from the ceiling and the floor in areas where water was coming down got filled with anywhere between an inch to two inches of water. It was a total disaster. We called our landlord who rushed over and confirmed that a pipe on the second floor had burst, Adam called his stepfather and I tried to move as much of the stuff that got wet or was at risk of getting damaged into his car. I knew I wouldn't be able to get much sleep in our apartment so I spent the night at Adam's parents' house while he spent the rest of the night throwing away and moving stuff and writing down what we had lost. We were lucky in that the water had not come down in the more critical parts of our apartment (our computers, our bed, the TV, etc.) but it was still extremely disheartening and disettling. We had actually started looking for a place to move to and now we just want to get the hell out of here and get compensated for our losses. In the meantime, though, we're not sure where we're going to be living, if we're going to have to move all our stuff out of the apartment so the carpet can be cleaned or removed, and if, when, and how we're going to get compensated. Obviously, there are much worse things that can happen to people, but this definitely sucks..
Posted by Jennifer at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2004
June 19
Even though I work for a city agency, I signed up to take a civil service exam since our supervisor recommended it. Was scheduled to take the test this morning so I got up early and rode the subway all the way to the stop where the high school where I was scheduled to take the test supposedly was and walked down the street it was supposed to be on. After walking down about half a mile and not seeing the address anywhere in sight, I started getting worried but no one I asked seemed to know where the school was and by the time I walked back down the street to an alleged high school and discovered it wasn't there, it was already a quarter past the scheduled time and I was near the point of panic. I thought about just going home since I wasn't sure if they'd let me in at this point but I decided I should still give it a shot and as I walked to a bus stop I spotted a taxi and jumped in it to head to the high school.
It's a good thing I didn't give up because there was still a huge line wrapped around the high school. I was really surprised actually by the number of people that I saw there--I honestly had no idea that many people take any given civil service exam. Each person was given a card with a room and seat number and I was unhappy to find we would be taking the exam in hot, un-airconditioned classrooms. We were given four hours to take the exam and I had figured it would probably take me less than half of that time to finish it, especially since it was multiple-choice, but it turned out to be harder than I thought. I guess it could've been worse, considering the civil service title it was covering (one covering an area I know nothing about).
We had an appointment with our wedding photographer to do the layout for our wedding album afterwards which basically was a continnuum of the test, given it's multiple-choice like nature (the entire layout was done through a computer program).
Seen on the subway for the first time today:
A woman breast-feeding her baby--in her defense, she was discreet about it, covering her chest with a blanket while the baby was breast-feeding but it was a somewhat unusual sight.
Posted by Jennifer at 09:12 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2004
June 17
Our apartment is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing in terms of its size (relatively large), location (great neighborhood), and cooler temperatures during the summer (it's a basement apartment). It's a curse when we get invaded by flying ants, the house it's a part of gets sold and the new owners gut and rehab it so we're perenially plagued with noise and service disruptions, and perhaps the worst of them all, the occasional flood. We were settling into our evening routines tonight when Adam noticed the water streaming into the apartment from the window behind our TV. By the time he noticed, pools of water had collected along that side of the apartment and seeped through any adjacent carpet. This is the second time this has happened--the first time it happened at least we had a landlord living above us who was able to lend us a bunch of towels to sop up some of the water. This time we only had a few bundles of small washcloths to sop up the water. This really sucks..
Posted by Jennifer at 08:58 PM | Comments (1)
June 12, 2004
June 12
If I wasn't working, I would so apply for this job. As an urban planner (and one who happens to have been involved with this project on a professional level), I do think that this is pretty cool--there should be more classes like this.
Posted by Jennifer at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2004
June 10
Catherine just posted some really cute beauty product reviews on her website. Love the Lush shampoo one.
I love shopping but until we went to Italy, Italian clothes were pretty much off limits to me because of their high price tag here in the states. In the span of one week, however, I've managed to buy not one, but two pair of Italian pants, and both were really inexpensive (under $20). I also managed to book a four-star hotel for our trip to Toronto next month for only $70 a night! Yay Priceline!
Posted by Jennifer at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2004
June 5
Picked up our wedding proofs on Friday and thought I'd share some of my personal favorites:
The groom looking cute
Adam and I with my bridesmaids
Heading over to the reception hall
Walking down the aisle
The handsome groom
The back of my dress
Adam struttin' his stuff on the dance floor
My dad and I
Posted by Jennifer at 02:59 PM | Comments (1)
June 02, 2004
June 2
I know China has gone to extremes in trying to win the bid for the 2008 Olympics, but I didn't realize some of these kinds of extremes applied to their public sector hiring policies as well. Just read an interesting article in the NYT about how, in attempt to improve their global public image since joining the WTO in 2001, the country has imposed physical standards on potential job candidates. One province in central China went so far as requiring all women seeking government jobs to demonstrate that they had symmetrically shaped breasts! That's crazy on multiple levels but my question is who the heck would notice!
Posted by Jennifer at 10:39 PM | Comments (1)