rainstorm159

One more day till I move into my new apartment! Can you believe it!? I cant... In fact I haven't even started packing. Luckily I don't have that much stuff. I'm going to be living a few blocks from Castro Street (for those of you who are familiar with the area).

I'm really excited, but also really nervous at the same time. I've never 100% lived with Greg before. In Davis I may have stayed at his place, but I always had my own apartment to go back to. I'm interested to see what it's going to be like living with him. But I guess if something does happen, I live so close to home that it would be easy to go back.

As for work, I haven't really decided what to do yet. I'm talking with my manager on Monday to determine what happens next (since my contract ran out). Part of me wants to keep doing visuals, but another part of me is tired of it. I've found the whole thing very stressful and physically/mentally tiring. I know that with Fidelia coming back it will be 2 people carrying the work load, but I'm still not sure if it's what I wanna do. I'm thinking of switching to Stock, which I find much more appealing on many levels.

I'm currently apartment and job hunting. It's hard finding a place that's in decent condition and in a good place for the right price. I'm looking at a place in Palo Alto, so we'll see how that goes. It's not an actual apartment building, but rather an add on to someone's home. I figure this way I wont have any noisy neighbors.

I'm also looking for a new job. Retail takes it's toll on you after a while. I'm tired of having to get up a 5am, and on other days stay until closing at 10pm. I want a regular schedule where I know what hours I'm going to be working and I have weekends off. I also think that I should be getting paid more (hey, who doesn't?) and getting $9.50 is rather depressing... especially considering I'm a college graduate. I know plenty of other entry-level jobs that pay a few dollars more per hour. On the other hand, I really shouldn't be complaining b/c I should feel lucky to have a job in this economy...

So I've been working full time for about 2 months now. I'm not quite sure when the woman whom I'm covering for will be back, but I did talk to my manager and they are planning on keeping me in the current position I'm in. Several people have stepped down over the past few months, so I will be able to stay full time. However, I have been applying for other jobs; not actively looking, but when I see something of interest I'll apply. The downside of this job is that the benefits for full time workers doesn't kick in until you've been full time for a year (next March for me), and I would still like to find a job with more consistent hours. But at the same time I'm not complaining. I get to be a Visual Specialist and a Store Leader/Manager, which is pretty good considering I'm fresh out of college.

On another note, Greg is graduating at the end of this quarter. We're planning on moving into an apartment together once he figures out where he'll be working. He's been applying to several places all in the Bay Area. We will probably end up in Redwood City or Mountain View, since those are the cheaper cities to live in.

Wow. It's been a long time since I've updated. Lets see, Where to begin... Well I still work at Banana Republic. I've been there for about 5 months now. I was recently promoted to Visual Specialist. The woman who was originally doing the job is going on maternity leave in a few weeks, so I've been training to take over for her. The job includes taking care of all the visual aspects of the store: marketing signs, merchandising, dressing manikins/bust forms, display windows, etc... So I've been very busy lately.

I'm not planning on working there for a long time; I may leave after a few months. While I do enjoy doing what I do and the people there are great, I don't really like how unpredictable the hours are (each week varies). I also want a full time job, hopefully a salary so I can start living on my own. I've actually been looking into apartments in the Bay Area, but I need to find some people to live with first. Almost everyone I would want to live with have other plans or they're not in the area.

I have enjoyed all the discounts that I get from working at BR. I get discounts at BR, Gap, and Old Navy (though, I only shop at the first two). My wardrobe has really grown and It's really nice stuff now. Before I had more casual looking items, and now I have a lot of more trendy clothes. Sometimes I find really good deals, like this one time when I got a $200 trench coat for $10. My taste in clothing has also changed. Working at Stanford mall, I'm now into brands that I wasn't aware of before. I love shopping at:
Bloomingdales (great selection of different brands)
White House | Black Market (very cute clothing, all of which are black or white)
Club Monaco (fashionable work attire; students also get 20% off)
BCBGMAXAZRIA (stylish clothing, a bit pricey for what you get though)
Burberry (cute accessories)
Ann Taylor (good for casual business clothing)
Express (good place to find discounts, although the quality isn't that good)
Bebe (hit-or miss, sometimes they have some cute tops)

The great thing about BR is that I get 50% off, so I'm able to get some really good deals. Also, for items that are from past seasons we get what we call a "kill price." Meaning that we take the selling price and subtract 50% off twice. So something that is going for $100 would be $25. Just the other day I bought a handbag that was originally $200 for $25.

So the job search has finally come to an end. I now work at Banana Republic in the Stanford shopping center. I start work next week, and the best part is we get a 50% off employee discount. The only thing I don't like about the schedule is that we have to be available to work weekends. It kind of makes things harder if I want to plan a trip or visit friends up in Davis. But I should be able to work around it; either request the weekend off or go up on a weekday.