Mom is here to visit!!

My mom has been here visiting since Saturday and we've been having a grand ol' time. Even though she just asked me to "do it tomorrow when I'm not here," I'm going to put some up now so I don't forget!! In the next day or so, I will have stories about when we:
*Travelled all over New York to find a shower
*Calculated the speed at which the sunset travels (11.77 miles/minute, FYI)
*Ate mexican bar-food in Queens
*and more!

In the meantime:
Here's a picture of me and my Dad, actually. He was here last week!


Me, Mom and Taylor in Queens (like where the show King of Queens is set):


A GIANT cross-section from a tree:


At the Museum of Natural History :) We liked the "City of New York" sign best:


Mom in front of Macy's, the one in Herald's Square!


More to come, I promise :)

Too long no write

Friends,

I am sorry that I haven't written in a while! Right now, I am eating a Salmon and Basil past Lean Cuisine and I thought it might be a good time to write a little update!

Well, I am officially on day 8 of the new job. The first week I felt a little useless and didn't really know what I should be working on, but this week has been much better. In fact, I would even say that I'm feeling borderline "busy." Essentially most of my work is done from my desk in e-mail, spreadsheets, word documents and the internet. As boring as that sounds, I really do get a certain amount of satisfaction out of supporting the more high-level work of other people. As a training coordinator, I essentially make sure that out training events happen by booking rooms, getting materials together, and getting the word out. The people jsut above me, on the other hand, deal more with deciding what training programs we will do and developing the actual content of the training. I find both jobs very interesting, so it's good!

Ok, enough of the boring stuff! I have a really exciting week! Last night, my dad was in town for a meeting today in the city. He flew in at around 5:30 and met me near my apartment at 7pm. We grabbed dinner at a really nice place called Henry's on Broadway and then went back to my apartment to change. Then, we went to a nice country themed bar (you know I love that!) on Amsterdam called Brother Jimmy's. We watched some of the Tigers game before heading back. One of the greatest things about having Dad in town is that he just can't seem to resist wanting to fix things up in the apartment. Because we have a 129847 year old heating system, I have no idea how to work it, so I was telling Dad how hot it was in our place. When he got back to the apartment, he immediately found the radiators and showed me how to turn them down so that it is no longer 124 degrees in there! Then, this morning, I hear strange noises coming from the kitchen and go in there to find Dad replacing the lightbulbs in our ceiling light (which hasn't worked since I moved in), so now we have light in the kitchen! YAY! Dads are so helpful!

Anyway, Dad leaves today before I'm done with work, so I won't see him again...until Thanksgiving. But, tonight Taylor and I are having lunch with the BCM Chaplain from Vanderbilt, Scott Allen. BCM stands for Baptist Collegiate Ministries and it's the Christian ministry that I was involved with all through college. I'm excited to see him!

THEN on Saturday, my MOM is coming to visit me!!!! She was supposed to come with Grandma, but unfortunately she won't be able to make it until the Spring due to her surgery. I'm bummed, but I know my mom and I will have a good time, so that will be nice!

Ok, well this is getting long, so I'm going to sign off. I promise to come up with some better writing topics in the near future. I'm actually thinking I'll do a little photo documentary of the area in which I work. I work down on Wall Street (as in...THE Wall Street), so there are tons of beautiful buildings and architecture. yay!

Update

As you probably read, my grandma had to have emergency surgery last week while on a trip to California. Fortunately, she came through the surgery just fine, and is now in the painful process of recovery. She is still out in California with my Aunt Sheryl recovering and waiting to make a follow-up visit to her doctor. The doctors all say she should be fine, so of course just keep praying, specifically for her recovery which will likely be long and painful.

Another sad side effect of Grandma's surgery is that she was supposed to come to New York with my mom to visit me next weekend, and now she won't be able to! I am so disappointed, but obviously I understand. The sad thing is that my mom might have to come by herself, and since I work during the day, she'll be spending two and a half days in the city all by herself. If you or anyone you know has October 30-Nov. 1 off of school or work, come visit me in New York!! You can hang out with my mom and I on the evening and weekends and with just my mom doing some sight-seeing during the weekdays! Just putting that out there :) E-mail me at carissa.lucyk@gmail.com if you're interested :)

Ok, well I gotta run to Bible Study. Hope all is well, please leave a comment and let me know you're reading!!

First Day at my NEW JOB!!

Well, today was my first day at my new job. This morning, I put on all new duds and headed down to Wall Street for my first day. I have been worried about what I would wear ever since I got the job, so the past two weekends have been spent shopping furiously to invest in my future! I spent almost $500 on clothes and shoes, but really it was well worth it. Here's what I bought:

3 pairs of Tahari pants, usually $228 each: $59.99 each
2 white button-downs, brown vest, grey turtle-neck, brown ruffle-shirt, black skirt, black flats, black heels, brown heels, new belt.

All I need is a new bag or two and I'm set!

As far as the job goes, I must say, I am COMPLETELY overwhelmed and a suffering a little bit from disbelief. Do I really have a new job? Am I REALLY now an employee of corporate America?! Crazy! I must admit, I like it. They have so many resources and conveniences, it's ridiculous. And even though its very busy, my team is still kind enough to spend an hour of their time each going over everything they think I might need to know. They have already been so accommodating!

I will gladly spend some more time updating as soon as I have more news. For now, I'm just getting oriented to my responsibilities! For now, I'll leave you with some clandestine photos that I took while waiting for my supervisor to come get me!

Um....is it just me or is my nose HUGE?! What the heck?

Say A Prayer

I just wanted to ask everyone for prayers for my Grandma Lucyk. She had to have emergency surgery last night while on a trip out to California for her birthday. Luckily, she was with her sister and two nieces when this happened, so she has company with her out in California. My Uncle Jeff is on a plane out there right now to be with her and all signs show that she will be fine. She will be in the hospital for 3-5 days, and after that I'm sure there will be a long recover.. But for now, things look ok, so just keep Grandma Lucyk in your prayers.

Thank you.

Obviously, I'm fine

Otherwise, I'm sure you would have heard it on the news :):) Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the most surreal and scary part of this afternoon is that when I first read about the plane crashing into a building this afternoon, it said something like "police en-route to the scene, details to follow." And then, all of a sudden, I heard TONS of sirens outside my window. I'm not even joking it was so crazy for the front page of CNN to be audible outside my office. Very weird indeed.

Anyway, I am just fine, so no need to worry. My mom was really worried, I could tell because she called me about 2 hours later!! JK, Mom, I know you just don't read the news. With a kid in NYC, you may want to take that up.

Oh! And I finally received a start date today from Goldman, so I will officially report to the 20th floor of 85 Broad Street on Monday morning at 10am!!!! I am extremely excited!! While it is sad to be leaving Team In Training, I know that this opportunity will be a fabulous and enjoyable one. The spare change doesn't hurt either.

Well, I must get to bed because I finally tried ordering my groceries online from FreshDirect.com, and they are dropping them off tomorrow morning between 6:30am and 8am. I swear, it's the coolest thing. You can order almost anything you would at a grocery store, the prices are almost the same as a New York grocery store, AND they deliver it to your apartment for just $5, which is well worth it when 1) you don't have time to go to the store and shop and 2) You live on the 5th floor of a building with no elevator. Yay! So off to bed I go!

The Pressure's On!

So I just realized (I don't know how it took me this long) that my good friend Dillon has me listed in the column on his blog called "friends' blogs." Normally, this would be flattering, but in light of the fact that Dillon's blogs are deep, link-ridden, and much more well-written than mine, I feel that I will need to step it up a notch. To see what I mean, go here

And just because I randomly found them somewhere, here are a few old-school photos that include Mr. Barker and some other college friends! I just think all these old pictures are funny!




One more...

Longest Run of my LIFE!

That is not a dramatization, I really ran the longest run of my life on Saturday - 11.05 miles!! I am very excited about this, and even more excited that my ankle did not swell, nor did I have any out-of-the-ordinary pain after this run! This is exciting because a year and a half ago, when I was training for a 1/2 marathon, my ankle got all freaked out after 10 miles and I had to stop. So I used Saturday as a test to see if my ankles are week or if I perhaps had just injured it last year without realizing it. So the good news is that my ankles appear to be strong enough! As you all know (or if you don't, I'm telling you now) I am going to be training for a MARATHON this winter and running it in April in honor of my Grandma Hooper, who is a Hodgkin's Lymphoma Survivor. Anyway, here's a picture of me with a couple of running buddies after the run.


Kari, me, and Beth after 11.05!!!

Big Job Change!!

I must admit, I have not been complete in my reports on my life for the past few weeks. Now that everything is ironed out, I have past the background and drug checks, and have notified all interested parties, I am finally able to discuss the EXCITING opportunity that I am going to pursue. Since I haven't been detailing this process all along, I'll start at the beginning.

On August 28th, a fellow Vanderbilt Alumunus sent me an e-mail regarding possible opportunities in the training and development department of one of the biggest banks in town. In the interest of discretion, I'm not going to put the name on here (I'll just call it the Company), but feel free to ask me more about it in person. Here's an excerpt from the e-mail:


"I looked into Dore2Dore in case there were any alum that would be interested in a position with the Company. Please contact me should the below job description be of any interest to you. There are also opportunities with Company University dealing with Training if that is of interest to as well. Let me know...

While I had just started my job with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society a month and a half earlier, after talking to my dad and some of my friends, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to at least take the time to talk to someone about the opportunity.

I wrote back saying that I might be interested, and I was set up to meet with one of the recruiting managers of a recruiting firm that works closely with the Company to staff its more administrative positions (like the one I have). I will technically be working for this Firm onsite at the Company. The Firm works closely with the Company(the bank that I will be working at) to hire and manage certain categories of employees, including administrative assistants, recruiting managers, and the training coordinators who then work on-site at the Company but receive their pay and benefits from the Firm. I was probably more nervous about this "meeting" than I ever was about any interview that I had ever gone to because I wasn't sure that I was even interested in any of the opportunities with the organization. This was especially nerve-wracking because I know that many, many people would give anything for an interview to work at the Company. I just have never been one of those people who was particularly concerned about working for the best bank in the world.

So anyway, in talking with Mr. Marty (Pseudonym, just so I don't get in trouble), I decided that I was very interested in talking further about positions with training at Company University. I proceeded through three more rounds of interviews, talking with more than seven different people on the team that I would be working on. Everyone I spoke with had nothing but good things to say about the other people in the department and the work. The more I heard, the more I liked what I heard. During my final interview, I even got to meet two girls who have the exact job that I will be doing. They were positive, encouraging, and very friendly. So, I was VERY pleased when I got a call last Thursday offering me a job!!

Just a little about the position (since I'm sure that's what you're wondering). I will be a training coordinator in the OTFS (Operations, Technology, Finance and Services) division of Company University. CU, as it is called, is the training and development branch of the Company. As training coordinator, I will be responsible for ensuring the smooth operation of training programs for these division. The job description is as follows:

• Reserve training rooms at training center
• Schedule speakers/facilitators for upcoming training events
• Set up training event details in Learning Management System
• Prepare printed materials specific to the training session, e.g. agendas, handouts
• Respond to inquiries related to training events
• Send email and/or voicemail communications on any schedule or other course changes
• Interact with divisional training teams on action items for upcoming training events
• Be an “onsite” representative to ensure training events are properly prepared and executed
• Support faculty during training events
• Consolidate and summarize course evaluation data
• Answer questions related to historical class statistics and attendance
• Follow up on open issues
• Manage training program budgets and vendor contract/invoice processes

What I like most about the job is that it really is very similar to what I am already doing, except it incorporates my education because it focuses on training and development of the people of the organization. I see many opportunities to work hard and really have a chance to contribute on my new team. It is really a great opportunity.

Of course, the other benefit of this new position is that it comes with a much higher salary than my current position. While I would never want to be one to make such a decision based solely on money, the fact that this position pays 50% more than what I am currently making in addition to overtime, I am a happy camper.

My first day is October 16 (I have put in my two weeks, and my current team has been very understanding), so I will definitely let you all know how it goes!!!! Please e-mail me ir you have any further questions :)

Um...this is not ok.

So on Tuesday morning, at work, we had a brief discussion about the shooting on Monday in Pennsylvania. One of my co-workers mentioned that she had seen a news story with a map of recent school shootings. We spend some time having a relatively NOT P.C. discussion of how we now seem to be able to analyze what should be an infrequent abberation much like the weatherman analyzes the weather. I mean, seriously, look at the map below and tell me: doesn't it look more like your "weekend outlook" than your "recent fatal trips to school." It's just so sad that it has come to this for so many people. And the saddest thing is, each time that it happens, the story gets a ton of coverage, and other would-be suicidal shooter people realize that they, too, can go down in history. So sad.

Oh, and this map only goes through 2005 (the most updated I could find). It doesn't even include the three shootings in the last 2 weeks.

Another run in the park, another batch of stories!

Tonight, I ran the entire loop of Central park for the second time. Except this time, I decided to run in the opposite direction (the fist time I went counter-clockwise). The main reason for this was that it would be dark at the end of my run, and I wanted to avoid running near Harlem after dark. So my run was an enjoyable six miles in the (finally) cool, fall weather in New York. Not only was this run enjoyable, it was also blogable!! You betcha. I came out of that run with more stories certainly than the entire rest of my day combined. And, you know what, while I was running, I was thinking about all the things I would write in my blog, and it kind of made the time go faster. See how things work out like that?

So anyway, I had a very interesting run. I’ll tell this story chronologically, so imagine each of the events happening at a different point in my clockwise loop!

The first crazy occurrence of my run was when I spotted my first wildlife!! That’s right, a raccoon ran right out in front of me and then just kind of stopped there, scared that I would run into it. So I swerved around the raccoon and I think actually made the guy behind me come pretty close to kicking it (I was blocking his view until it was nearly too late!).

After the raccoon, I kept running for about a mile or so. Now, I’ve always been told that I run on my toes. One time at the Y, this guy came up to my treadmill and was like “are you a sprinter?” Do I LOOK like a sprinter to you, buddy, get to the point! He went on to tell me that I run on my toes like a sprinter. Who knew. Anyway, this happened again at TNT practice a few weeks ago, one of the coaches stopped me and told me, essentially, that if I liked having my shins in one piece, I should learn to land more flat-footed. Well, today’s chastisement takes the cake. While I was running down the east side of the park, this relatively good-looking boy ran up beside me and motioned for me to take my headphones off. Ok, fine. Then he says, “Are you ok?” Naturally, I told him I was, as I was clearly running with no problem. Then he looked down at me again and said, “You really run on your toes.” I asked him how I could fix this problem and he – ingeniously – suggested that I land on my heel. Brilliant. I told him that I have had several people tell me that I run on my toes, but no one has bothered to help me fix the problem. He replied, “Well, at least you’re building up your calf muscles” and sped away. Another critique, still no advice...So a note to all the single women reading this (are there any?), a good way to pick up a good-looking, athletic boy is to develop a noticeably bad running form. They will swoon, I promise.

Ok, so I kept running for about another mile when I approached a fork in the road where I had not previously seen one. It’s one of those scenarios where you don’t notice it coming from one direction, but from the other direction, it presents quite the conundrum. Well, I used my best Lucyk judgment and followed the advice of our family vacation T-shirt and (now) the CD of photos that I received from said vacation – I took the fork. This did not turn out so well. Before I knew it, I was running in the horse lane which, as you may have inferred, means that I was running on piles of horse poop, and it smelled AWFUL!! The thing is, though, the horse-poop trail was separated from the normal road by a cobblestone divider. If you have ever run on cobblestone you know that it is a sprained ankle waiting to happen, so I had to take my time getting out of the horse-poop trail before I could be free from the stench.

So now I’m rounding the final major turn in the park when I realize that it feels as though something has made its way into my shoe (presumably some wood or a rock or something) and is lacerating my toes. I stopped on the side of the path, sat down, and took off my shoe only to find that my toes had been rubbing together creating a very raw patch of skin that was sending sharp pains through my foot. I had about a mile until home, so I decided to keep running to get it over with because both walking and running hurt equally. It was another ½ mile before I realized that I was no longer carrying the keys to my apartment in my left hand. Not good. Without those keys, I have no way to get home, no phone, no money, nothing. All I had on me was my iPod and my keys. I turned around and ran the ½ mile back to the spot where I thought I had sat down (really the side of the road looks the same everywhere, so I was guessing. I spent about 5 minutes trying not to look like I was looking for something because I didn’t want anyone to offer to help. Finally, just as I was about to give up, I glimpsed the American flag keychain on my ring. I grabbed the keys, kissed them, danced around a bit, and headed off.

My final interesting encounter of the day happened just after this when I saw a family of 3 raccoons crossing the path in front of me. Crazy, I’ve never seen wildlife in the park and today I saw 3 specimens!

As a result of my key detour, I bet I ran about 6.5-7 miles today. Good times.

That is the end of my run. Oh, and stay tuned, my next post will be well worth your time to read, I promise!!

Relaxing Weekend

Well, this has been a very relaxing weekend. Taylor's parents are out of town this weekend and since the house is a little quite without Morgie, I have been out here keeping him company. But, let's be honest, I would probably be out here anyway, I love going to Taylor's house.

Friday night we went to the Museum of Modern Art because they have FREE admission sponsored by Target on Fridays from 4pm-8pm. Not gonna lie, modern art can be just a little weird. Things like random Televisions showing home videos and balls of hair definitely qualify as art. But, we did have a great time and saw some very famous pieces like La Persistencia de la Memoria (Dali), Les Demoiselles D'Avignon (Picasso), Starry Night (Van Gogh), and the Campbell's soup thing by Andy Warhol. So there it is, my gift to you, a virtual trip to the MOMA :)

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to an appl orchard and bought some apples and some cider as well as this mix that made fresh apple crisp. I baked (yes, BAKED) that yesterday, it was DELICIOUS! Then we went running yesterday afternoon, watched college football, and went into the city. Taylor hung out with his friend Cooper who is moving to Alabama this week and I met up with a co-worker to go down to a fundraiser for Team In Training down on the Lower East Side. It was fun, but I was ready to call it a night at midnight, for sure!

Today, we're watching the Jets (who are currently, at leat, beating the Colts). I think we're also going to go watch some of the game at Taylor's friend's apartment before going to Fleming's for their SWEET Sunday special. You get a 12 oz. prime rib steak, a salad, a side, and a desert for only $28. It's a very good and delicious deal! After that I'm going to head back into the city and watch some TV before going to bed :) Just an update!