My first official day of work is on Wednesday. I've been going up to campus basically every day to spend some time working on lecture notes and organizing homeworks/quizzes/calendars and things like that, so I guess I've already been working for a while. But starting Wednesday, it's official and I'll actually be earning income with that work. I don't mind getting ahead because it just means that it's less work to put in later.
I took lunch with a few of the other faculty today, which was good. We went to a little Mexican place that reminded me somewhat of Roberto's and El Cotixan, but it wasn't quite the same feel. I can't quite place what was different. I ordered a California burrito and it wasn't the same. Maybe it was the lack of sour cream or guacamole (from what I understand, guacamole isn't quite proper -- but the internet has been known to give out false information).
I got a phone call from a couple SD people last night, which was nice. I miss having an established network of (local) friends. The people I've met from Warm Springs Baptist on Friday night are nice, but I'm not sure if they are the right people to become close friends with because of life stage sorts of things.
Hmmmm... I guess I didn't say anything about Friday night. I went to the Young Adults group at Warm Springs. They're a nice bunch who seem to have all grown up together. It had a very different, sort of small group feel than what I'm used to. It felt a bit more disorganized, and not moving cohesively as a group towards a particular goal. It was just sort of hanging out. After the group, I went out for some food with a couple of the guys. There's a little restaurant/bar next to the airport where we ate (something like PJ's or PT's?). It was very chill, just talking about Henderson/Vegas with a couple guys who have been there for a while. The food was okay. I got BBQ pork potato skins, which isn't really that complicated, but still tasty -- but nothing special.
But at least now I have a couple people I can say "hi" to at church, even if I don't know most of their names anymore. Actually, Kyle greeted me by my name, which was a nice gesture. (Church people/GCF people should take note at how important this is to visitors that they are remembered by name. But even if you don't remember their name, show you remember their face.) He is a likable, outgoing sort of person and is probably the only one from the group that I feel like I connect with in some reasonable way.
In other news, I've been out to the casinos only three times since moving out here, and am winning at the 15/30 limit hold'em game at the Bellagio and the Wynn. In order to pay down my car debt to my parents faster, I've decided that for every hour of poker I play there, I'm going to put an extra $10 in the next payment. I suspect this will come to something like $120/month extra since I seem to be playing ~6 hour sessions every other week, and that feels about right for me.
