Last Day in the Jersey Office (with a Side of Music)

Before I start on today (which still isn’t done – I have to disconnect the very computer I’m typing on, pack some clothes for the three days in upstate NY, and head to the parent’s house at a reasonable time before the trains turn to shit), I must mention one more key highlight from yesterday: my last official piano lesson with Jinah, my teacher, at the Montauk Club.  We talked about a variety of things in the piano room for about 15 minutes, slightly rolling into the lesson time (I arrived early, as always), from relationships and the future to music and traveling.  She is definitely going to miss me and I still feel bad that I’ll be sacrificing my weekly lessons as a result of moving to DC.  The lesson that day was an overall review of everything I’ve learned over the last year and five months that I’ve been her student; many of the pieces played I admittedly haven’t reviewed in awhile, not just because of all the time I’ve recently been spending on packing but because I’ve simply focused more time on the newer pieces.  I got chewed out a bit on some of the earlier pieces but being able to continuously improve on the old and make it my own is something I’ve grown to enjoy in the world of piano playing.  As a final encore, she played a number of video game tracks on the piano that she hadn’t played before; the most powerful one she played was the “2300AD Overworld Theme” from Chrono Trigger… wow, just wow.  I seriously was flush listening to it, the tidal waves of nostalgia that rolled over me, bringing back memories of my first ventures into that desolate, destroyed world… and learning what caused it all.  For a moment I was the teacher, as it usually happens when she plays the sheet music I bring in – I describe the feelings associated with the songs and what is happening in the game when the track is played – in this way, she can convey the appropriate shaping and bring out the right notes.  Seriously, when this Chrono Trigger song looped and Jinah brought great emphasis on the first measure… the feeling was indescribable; it is that feeling and wanting to generate it myself – that is one of the major drives for my continuing to play the piano, even while in DC.

…With the end of another workday comes my last day (for awhile at least) in the Jersey office.  The Pro: I won’t be working in Dirty Jersey anymore (Papi took some offense to such terminologies associated with Jersey…hahaha, I’ll never take ‘em back!), so now my peoplez in New York can get off my back about that!  The Cons: …there are a couple, but the biggest is that I won’t be working alongside the crew of co-workers that I’ve become good friends with over the past 11 months.  I have grown quite fond of the various characters that have defined my experiences here, both in the office and at the bars after work:

• G-Man and his incredible ability to make me not only laugh (almost on-command, he’s that funny) but put things in perspective;
• Cheffron’s constant borrowing of electronic cables from me, our detailed talks of gaming and our increasingly growing PC-Apple feuds;
• Adrian’s Republican self – oh yes, I offended him a lot, but in recent days I think we may have started to get along;
• Jayna and our LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG walks;
• LaVornga (he seriously looks and sounds like my boy Alex, it’s scary sometimes) and his imposing presence, though he does allow us to keep the humor alive no matter how disruptive it is;
• Amit and his addiction to Black- I mean Crackberries (I blame him and Jayna for getting Cheffron hooked too);
• Berlin and his quiet deamenor… and yet he can shoot the most stolid stares… and when he curses, WHOA man, nobody sees it coming;
• Hodges… well what can I say – he’d get a few paragraphs to himself at this point, we’ve become very good friends and I enjoy spending time with his new family (and his parents – his mom’s awesome);
• Wendy and our great convos over not just video games (which, if it weren’t for work getting in the way, would not end) but of times in and around NY – she also is the only girl in the office to laugh hard the first time I made a cheezburger reference;
• Bayron and his affinity for music (I’ve listened to all the tracks by Telecom, the band he’s in) and the Beatles;
• Cesar and his ridiculous stares he made at me during demos that almost always made me stumble, as well as his knack for knowing exactly what to say;
• Wu and our constant uber-techie discussions (always a treat pre- and post-demo);
• Papi and his endless words of wisdom (many thanks), his Greek hair, and his very ecletic combination of words that, if written down, would not make sense but coming from him verbally seems to solve all the world’s problems…

Ahhhhhhh, very good memories, and all reasons why I’m gonna seriously miss all of them and the many people I know I didn’t list here.  Thanks for the good times everyone – I will definitely be keeping in touch and I look forward to coming back for the holiday party!  Hopefully before then I’ll meet with some of you… let’s make it happen!

I personally would like to continue this, but I unfortunately must break down everything that’s in front of me before it gets too late and I end up getting home around 11pm and get like five hours of sleep… which I guess wouldn’t matter since I’m not the one driving to my uncle’s house… screw it, I’m typing more! MWA-HAHAHAHAHA!

So after surveying what’s left of my apartment, I will have to get at least two more decent boxes to pack up my bathroom stuffs and the remaining loose items that are floating around here… hmmmm, thoughts of cleaning… rising… <looks towards the floor to the left of his Alienware computer> Crap!  OK, I guess I am not going to type anymore.  Time to sweep up the dust and reorganize the already-sealed boxes.

As Jill would say: “Ciao!”