1st Week at Dendreon

Sorry Dad (and my other 6 readers), for the delay in posting about my first week.  I kept meaning to, but I've just felt crazy busy since work started.  After having all the time in the world for the past four months, I think it's going to take some time to adjust to being back at work.  Work itself has been a little crazy and overwhelming too.  My first day was a pretty good indicator of what I was to expect for the rest of the week; lots of work to be done and not a ton of guidance...

I think some of that uncertainty is just inherent because of the nature of my position (now that I understand it a little better).  Basically there are a lot of processes that have always been conducted internally by Dendreon and now because the company is growing so much, those processes need to be transferred and conducted at external facilities across America and in Europe and it's my job to coordinate and facilitate that change.  This means that my job is not only new to me, but it's new to everyone else too!

All of my coworkers (and boss) still seem really friendly and are definitely willing to answer any questions, but sometimes I feel like I don't even know what I don't know so it's hard to come up with the right questions.  I know that I'm still super new on the job and I'm learning and understanding things a little more each day, so hopefully I'll get myself up to speed soon enough to meet deadlines.  Yikes!

So that's the quick and lowdown about work, now for a few highlights from the social calendar:

- I started a bellydancing class last week that meets every Wednesday for the next several weeks.  It was a lot of fun and interesting, but very different from the "other" classes I'm used to taking.
- The weather this weekend was really beautiful (meaning partly sunny and high of 56) so I went to a BBQ/picnic meetup with the "20 and 30 Somethings" group on Saturday afternoon.  It was at a pretty park/beach that I hadn't been to before, but there were so many people that it was actually a little difficult to break into a conversation and meet new people.  Luckily, the girl I met at my first meetup (Rebecca) was there so we just found a sunny patch of grass and hung out.
- Saturday evening I met up with the other Amanda and her husband (my PPD coworker's cousin) for a nice dinner and my very first Sounders game.  People in Seattle take their soccer very seriously, so even though I'm not a natural sports fan I couldn't help but get wrapped up in all the excitement.  We even won the game (which apparently doesn't happen all the time).
- Sunday morning I went to another meetup with the "Besties" group for some brunch (chorizo sweet potato hash).  Yum!  I've already got more plans to hang out with this group again soon :)
- I went on one other online date (it was a week ago actually), but in his photos he was already leaning towards chubby and then when we met in person I realized that those pics were taken 20lbs ago.  Not so cute...  Also, I think he spent at least 45 minutes talking about his dog, even though after 20 minutes I told him I wasn't a "dog person" he still just kept on going and on.
- Tomorrow I'm hanging out with my new gay BFF again!  We're going to see a show (no, not like Broadway... like a concert).  Obviously I was little concerned about how to delicately handle the whole "in the closet" situation.  It didn't seem appropriate to tell him that I didn't want to date him because he's gay and I suppose there's always a small possibility that he's just effeminate.  So, rather than waiting for him to message me after our first date and then for me to respond with the, "let's just be friends cliché," I made a preemptive strike.  I figured if I made the first contact, but still explained that I just wanted to be friends he might take it a little better.  He sulked for a week before responding, but then said he was willing to accept my offer of friendship, so hopefully we have as much fun together tomorrow as we did earlier.

Okay, I think that's about it for now and time for me to get to bed!  Goodnight!