01 June 2000

So. This is the new design. How do you like it? Does it crash your browser? It shouldn't; tables are about as complex as I get here. If you have any gripes/suggestions/etc., feel free as always to email me.

I started work in the Admissions Office today-- beginning new jobs is always a bit awkward, but as far as I can tell, this is going to work out fine. It may actually be fun, wonder of wonders.

See, there are six students hired as "summer kids" (as we're called around the office). As a result, work has kind of a summer-camp atmosphere. We all arrive and leave at the same time, work on projects together, and hang out with each other when there's no work to do. By midafternoon we were already joking around, teasing each other, and plotting ways to sneak off en masse to check our mailboxes.

Two of the girls I work with, Claire and Carrie, are friends of Emre's, so I was already acquainted with them. Another of the girls has abhorrent taste in music (we were subjected to fluffy statutory teen raunch all afternoon) and, of the bunch, is the one I predict will drive me totally insane this summer. The fourth girl won't be starting till Monday, but I know of her and have heard only good things.

The lone guy in the group, Osama, is already convinced I have it out for him: Whenever I am submerged in a new group of people all at once, my immediate reaction is to joke around and poke fun a little, surely some unconscious attempt to put people at ease. Osama, apparently, doesn't quite get my brand of humor. At one point late in the afternoon he made a comment, half in jest but half definitely not, to the effect that I had offended him. And not just once, but THREE times. Yes, he recounted a short list for me. Oops. Guess I'd better lay off on the humor for awhile.