Something in the office smells like bologna (or ‘baloney,’ if you’re one of the people who spells it as it sounds), probably my favourite lunch meat ever, which is affecting my gut. I’m so hungry! Ack. I could take lunch now, but that wouldn’t make an even split in the workday. Must … hold … off … just … a … little … longer …

The lady who works nearest to me - I’ll call her ‘Alice’ because she reminds me of that character from The L Word - let me know today that all was not as simple as it looks. That is to say, I mentioned that I was going to sign up for the 8-day insurance course that is occuring the week of the 24th of July, and her jaw dropped. “That’s not enough time for you to prepare for it!” she exclaimed. Personally, I’m appalled. Sixty-four hours straight of studying seems like overkill for any test, really. But the way she put it, it’s “extremely intense, and the test is really tricky. They’ll try to get you on a lot of the questions, and the material is not going to be stuff you’ve seen before.”

The question is, how am I meant to get this done - pre-studying and all - before my four months are up? The answer: it ain’t gonna happen. Let’s hope Big Boss Man doesn’t notice this. I’m getting it all done as quickly as I can, but you don’t realize how much stuff there is to do and how much information there is to take in (interesting though it may be) until you’ve been here awhile.

I read in a Yahoo! Health blog today that the human brain loses its attention span six to eight times every minute. Crazy, innit? But it makes sense for me. I’ve been getting more bored/distracted/otherwise occupied so frequently lately, it’s not even funny.

Props to Alice, though. If she hadn’t told me about the insurance program, I assume I would have gone to the late-July course grossly unprepared. For a training program, those in charge aren’t doing much ‘training’ at all. Maybe it’s a ploy to get us all used to working independently, but let’s be honest, the Firm and its business is a complex thing, and a little guidance would be helpful! As is, it comes as no shock to me that no one is left out of the last fifty-two trainees, as stated by a friendly neighbourhood informant. Little is being done to keep up the morale of the trainees, I’ll tell you that. And it frustrates me to death.

Today’s lunch break will be dedicated to getting in contact with my insurance company in an effort to figure out exactly what the deal’s going to be with my now-defunct vehicle.

The cops found my car, still running, a block from my house. The cop who ‘interviewed’ me (read: photocopied my driver’s license) said that it had been “stripped,” but didn’t elaborate. So I called up the inpound lot where my car is resting now, and apparently I can’t even go and look at the car until charges have been paid to the tow company. *grumbles* The lady on the phone then said to me, “Well, we’re not supposed to tell you what’s on the report, but …” and then proceeded to say that my baby is “heavily damaged, with broken windows,” “all electronic equipment has been removed” (bye, bye XM Radio), “seats have been stripped from the vehicle,” and so on, and thereforth. Anyway. I need to have the insurance guys take a wander down there and check out the situation. Pain in my ass.

On the upside, Big Boss Man was very understanding. However, I’ve now been informed that the insurance exam that I’m meant to take pretty soon requires a week-long class after some self-study time. The nearest location for this that I’ve found is over in Edison, NJ, which isn’t bad at all. I guess it’ll be okay. Need to get my act in gear and sign up for a course, though. I’ve only got so much time left!

Ooh. Meg and I finally got to see Imagine Me & You last night, the film with Piper Perabo that we’ve been dying to see forever. And it was completely worth the wait. That was the cutest romantic film I’ve seen in a really, really long time, and I highly recommend it if you’re in the mood for one of those ‘I’m going to eat junk food and give myself a facial’ kind of evenings.

As much as I never wanted this blog to turned into somewhere I simply ranted and raved about the problems of my life …

OH. MY. GOD. I’m totally going to do it anyway.

As if the stress in my life weren’t enough right now (though there was a big plus today when I passed my Series 31 in nine minutes - guess I do work best under pressure), some bloody asshole stole my car on Friday night. I know! You never think that’ll actually happen to you! And before you ask, yes, it was locked, and no, it wasn’t on some dark, deserted street. It was parked right in front of my apartment. Except, when Meg and I came out of the house on Saturday morning with the intention of heading out early to Virginia, a big, ugly, cyan van was parked in its place.

Argh.

Mege drove down to the wedding in her car after we’d done the whole police thing, and the wedding itself was beautiful and small. Unfortunately, the sores on my lips prevented me from imbibing in the open bar and champagne, but apart from that it was a really nice occasion, and let’s be honest, I’m really happy for my mom.

The police called me later on Saturday and let me know that the car had been recovered, but they were really evasive when I asked them questions as to its condition. The lieutenent on the phone said to me, “Erm, was anything wrong with the car before it was stolen?” I of course answered with, “Well, it made a weird humming noise when you reversed …” to which he responded, “Hmm.” Long pause. “Well, you’re going to have to come into the station tomorrow so we can have a talk about this.” That’s it. Very clear, yes? When we got back to Jersey on Sunday, then, we wandered over to the police station, where they directed us to come back between nine and five on Monday. So we went back to the station today, and they said to call between eight at night and four in the morning to make sure the ‘auto theft unit’ was on duty. I did that, and of course was directed to call back tomorrow at eight in the evening.

Nothing is ever easy! Just give me my car back and let me deal with it. I want to settle all of the insurance stuff and get this out of my mind.

As I told Meg this morning, maybe all the random crap that’s been happening to me lately just means that, next week, I’ll buy one of those scratchcards and win that “$1000 a week for life!” prize. Ooh baby.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Dixie - well, Virginia, to be precise - for my mom’s wedding. My uncle and his wife have flown in from Vietnam, and my aunt and cousin have come over from California, so it’s going to be a bit of a random family event. Mom left me a voicemail the other day informing me that, after Woody’s daughter reads some kind of religious passage (why, I don’t know, because neither Mom nor Woody are religious), I’m to read something about ‘the meaning of marriage.’ I hope I get to take a look at it first, just so that I know, and approve, exactly what I’m to be saying. You know.

Anyway, it should be a nice event. I’m taking Meg along as my date, which will make things interesting. How better to come out to the whole family than at a family member’s wedding? Haha. Although, chances are everyone knows already. That’s the nature of my family. We have big mouths. It’s genetic, I think.

And I’ve got a pretty dress to wear, too. That’s always fun. It’s been awhile since I’ve had the opportunity to wear one. Could it be a year ago already, at the graduation ball?

So! I am, like, way sick, I’ve decided. When Meg came over last night, my headache was still in full force despite being fully medicated, and my throat was wickedly sore. By the time my flatmate TJ got back from dinner at about nine, I was completely feverish and a bit woozy, so much so that the minute he walked in he said, “Are you drunk? Stoned? Are you on drugs?” I denied it, claiming illness, but I don’t think he believed me. He simply shook his head and went back to playing Party Poker, adding, “Man, I wish I felt the way you looked. Then I’d know I was fucked up.” Haha.

Per the proclaimed TMI post in Becca’s journal, I’m going to continue. Basically, you knew I was delirious when I decided, firmly, that I had mouth cancer. I spent over an hour looking up the symptoms online yesterday and this morning, and came to the conclusion that all of them fit me: heavy smoker (well, used to be), a couple of small sores on my bottom lip, a white patch on the inside of my cheek, a feeling of weakening of the gums, and so on. But you know what? I can blame the white patch in my cheek and the weird gum feeling on my grinding thing, which will be resolved this weekend, otherwise I’m popping over to Sports Authority and getting a bright red mouthguard. As for the lip thing, I think it’s just a cold sore. Now. Hmm. I’ve never gotten cold sores before. This is one thing for which I can most definitely blame Meg, I think. *winks*

Anyway, let’s hope that’s all it is! I’m going to pop to CVS on my lunch break for some Carmax; I have approximately six tubes of the stuff, I’m sure, but they’ve all decided to play hide ‘n seek with me this week.

On another note, Meg and I had a long talk yesterday afternoon as well, and we’ve cleared the hurdle. It was basically resolved by agreeing to disagree about the aforementioned issue, and refusing to allow such a thing, so long as we can, affect our relationship. I am very, very happy about that, and we ended up having a really nice evening together - well, save for me feeling like I was going to faint from time to time, but you know.