Last day of my batch!

I kind of expected to have that kermit-flail reaction, like so:

But instead I’ve been talking with people, attending Alicia’s awesome code dojo (we round-robin paired on a Flask app for Abstract Salad Factory, which is where everyone brings an ingredient for salad, and then everyone shares the ingredients, and makes whatever salad they like from those things), and not exactly ever making it out the door to have lunch. (That’s what trail mix is for!)

Also went to Madelyn’s awesome short presentation on “how not to be disrespected,” which, one, was a great presentation anyway, and TWO, Madelyn has such incredible presentation & comedy skills that it was ALSO an absolute blast.

And now somehow it’s five, and I still haven’t heard back from the Latvian embassy, and I’m going to go talk to Sonali and Nancy about JOBS STUFF, and then there are presentations, and THEN there’s our end-of-batch party, and we are dressing up like programming languages. So. This is going to be pretty fun.

I will reflect more on all this soon, for whatever definition of “soon” ends up being right.

Leaned more heavily in to spending time with people. Coffee-walk check-in is the best. Went costume-questing with Alicia and Shad, who are both clever AND a lot of fun. (Our end-of-batch party is Thursday, and it’s a costume party, and the theme is programming languages…) This also took us to an art store, which was fabulous.

Had another soba-licious lunch (two days in a row!), this time with Allie. Hooray Corcoron. Also, dip soba is a thing! You get noodles, and something hot to dip them in, and a separate dish to hold them over as you eat them. It’s amazing. It is another form of “yes, adults, it is okay for you to play with your food.” And then you get soba broth (soba-yu) to pour INTO the hot noodle liquid so you can drink it, because it is full of All The Healthful Things. Okay!

I am sure I did some programming things, but I don’t think I did all that many, and that is okay.

Also made two Annoying Adulthood Phone Calls (I warmed up with a call to my dad, partly to ask about one of the things, and partly because it was a phone call that didn’t scare me).

I called the Latvian embassy (I got the voicemail — all in Latvian — and left a message in English, ending with “Paldies” [thank you in Latvian]. Woulda done Latvian if I knew it!). My brother, my sister, my dad, and I all applied for citizenship last year, and got it, but I have to go to Washington, DC (where the embassy is) in person to do the passport application. Which, ugh. I thought it would be So Easy to do that this summer, and it turns out this was not the case. So now I’m trying to get it done next week. And if worse comes to worst, I’ll take a plane trip soon, and whatever. But I’d rather not. A little train trip would be so much nicer.

I ALSO called the health insurance broker to finally resolve this insurance gap of mine. Since I’m on leave from my old job, and thus not working, my coverage through them ended at the end of July. But that’s a qualifying event, so there’s a special 60-day open enrollment period. You may notice that it’s almost 60 days later. But I did it! I called. And left ANOTHER voicemail. And the very nice broker returned my call, and I had to talk to her for a long time, but now I’m enrolled and I just have to give an insurance company money soon. And then, if anything horrible happens, at least I will not be All The Bankrupt. Just, like, out of savings. Hooray American healthcare. Hork. I’m not in any particular rush, but it will be cool to have a regular adult job with a paycheck and health insurance and stuff again. More energy left over to do awesome things.

Not enough sleep, but what a good opportunity to finally try my first “flat white,” which if I remember correctly, Ann described as “like a latte with less milk.” And it’s got almond milk. And it’s delicious and small. And it’s also not a second iced coffee before 11:00.

There’s so much I want to be working on, but also I should probably be working on my niceties for my batchlings. There’s a tradition (of unknown age, to me) of putting together things with little nice things about all the never-graduating people, and they’re due Wednesday morning (tomorrow!), and they took me WAY longer than I expected last time. Mostly this is because I actively admire a lot of people here, and sometimes it’s tricky to verbalize a feeling.

What else did I do this day? (I’m finishing this Thursday morning, and reminding myself why I’ve written these on the days they applied to.) I did some more PostgreSQL (or however that’s capitalized) study. I got distracted a lot. I had a really good conversation with Liz in the evening about how maybe the last week of one’s batch isn’t so productive on the code front, because it’s the last week that one is around these PEOPLE. I think I’m changing my tack for the rest of the week.