Whee, that was fun.

Just got back from that party I mentioned last night. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it turned out pretty good except for the bit where I thought I was going to fall over the railing.

Great view though, wide-swept over Carousel-Kabutah with cells glittering or dark by turns. I thought I could even pick out the restaurant we ate at a couple of weeks ago, with its quietly lit lake. That was when I nearly fell actually, leaning out to see better; good thing I caught myself or it could’ve been a bit awkward.

It was the same place I saw, actually.

The place was lovely. I met up with Arnolt and Pree outside, by the fountain, before heading up. They filled me in a bit on who would be there and when the doors opened I nearly forgot to breathe. From high places the world is laid out to see, to reach out and touch, and there on that platform under the stars it was as beautiful as ever. I wondered if this party were more important than I’d been led to believe.

The stars were not as bright as the ones of my childhood but it was still striking being introduced to Marik with him silhouetted by the Morgan starburst region, the glow of Vrrrk softly washing overhead. I was nervous meeting him, and Charlie, and Amber, and everyone else from different departments, but being amidst such ethereal beauty helped calm me, and we got along surprisingly well. Danced, even, on that platform high under the stars.

I’m actually looking forward to seeing them again. I know Charlie at least I’ve seen around the place a time or two, must say hi next time.

Very different from my farewell party in Saralies, but a wonderful, lovely experience. And now it is very late and I must sleep.

I guess I got a bit ahead of myself earlier. We finished in time after all. It just looked like we might be delayed by an unexpectedly large administrative tangle. The rest was simpler than we thought though so that made up for it.

Anyway, I’m getting an early night tonight since tomorrow there’s a bit of an office party. It’s not in honour of us or anything, just a bit of a coincidence. But a pretty good one I think.

… This might take a bit longer than we thought.

Guess who has a new project? Not really new new but it is a definite change in approach for the project I came in on. Yup, our proposal got accepted. Fortunately it won’t really require anything new in the way of resources so we just need a couple of days to make the shift.

I’m so excited!

Wow this past week has been hectic. I’ve been a bit secretive about it but Arnolt had an absolutely brilliant idea at the beginning of the week and we’ve been working way overtime to find out if it would actually work.

Yesterday I was really nervous while we were presenting it to our supervisor. And we don’t even get to find out until next week!

I really needed to unwind today so I went swimming. Had the pool to myself a couple of hours so I got to play my favourites of the Riemeld Phases and bask in sweeping panes of coloured light. That helped a lot. Then a family from one of the other apartments came in and I had to go. Gave them a wave.

And mostly after that I lay on grass with eyes closed and basked in the wind.

So, yeah. There is stuff going on I’m not supposed to talk about and stuff I can talk about that isn’t much. Haven’t decided what I’m doing tomorrow.

Wow. Guess I got pretty caught up in work. We’ve been working and talking well after leaving for home most of the past few nights. But I probably should not go into detail on that.

Yesterday I decided to take the day completely off. Not just because I wasn’t working anyway, but I thought it would be nice to spend the day with Saralies again. I’ve been spending a lot of time in Carousel-Kabutah lately and that city is wonderful but I missed walking the wide white streets of Saralies, turning a bend to see hills sweeping down to the wide ocean.

I met up with Alliatte in the afternoon. We went and had an early dinner under trees as the sun headed down. The wind was strong and and I got caught up and swirled our table settings a bit, which was a delightfully frivolous use of all this expensive equipment. Then Allie set Samelle’s “Summer in the Field” to playing and we danced until the stars came out.

Music is often better when shared.

And Pree has found the data she was after so it is back to after-work work for me!

Maybe it’s a bit premature for me to be saying so but I think this transfer is one of the best things I’ve done. Not like I didn’t say the same on the first day and it’s only been a week but I am loving it there.

Anyway, I went and caught up with Seville and the rest of the old team today. He says they’ve got a replacement for me starting next week, which is great that they’ve been able to find someone so fast.

Apparently our contributions from the end of last week are working well too. I’m glad I got to finish my time there by contributing something useful.

Can’t wait to see how next week goes!

Just got back from dinner with Arnolt and Pree. They’ve been very welcoming of me, which is a pretty handy trait to have in your teammembers, hehe.Well, we got so caught up we nearly didn’t notice the end of the day. It seemed only natural to keep going so we took ourselves over to a restaurant Pree picked out, by the side of a small lake that made up the centre of one cell. She said it was one of her favourites.

The food was delicious and the water was very still, lightly illuminated by lanterns all round. I was so absorbed in excitement I barely noticed it most of the time, but when I did it was beautiful.

I think we made some good progress tonight. I must remember to invite Pree back to Saralies for dinner by the harbour; I think she would love it.

Still getting the hang of this place. That big window onto the grounds can be distracting, although today Arnolt took me over to Zander building to see some experimental work.

Of course it wasn’t much different in practice from the test runs we conducted back in Saralies and we certainly didn’t have to be there for it but oh, wow was it thrilling! Seeing the hooks drain in, power flow and twist and shape and finally sputter out because of a misconfigured thread… Well, I may have done something just like it a thousand times before but I still wanted to rush in and tweak it. More, I was inspired, that this was something new which almost worked for the first time, right in front of me, and I wanted to do that too.

Make something, discover something new. Get at the roots of everything and see them shine.

I definitely like this place. Carousel-Kabutah is just as open in design as Saralies but I didn’t notice at first because so much of that space is filled with gardens and green and growing things.

We flitted across cells and Mitt showed me what she loved in each, her favourite theatres, music halls, the best food and where she liked to go for quiet or friends. We had all day for this and it still seemed too short. At least now I have a bit of an idea of my way around.

This time we got to see sunset from the towers too. Standing on high as golden light filled the air and shone all round on white stone, watching rolling grass and trees on hills fall dark and stepping inside for our evening meal. I have not seen anything like that since moving to Saralies where sunlight sparkles on water and it was different still to home, with its own beauty.

When the last light had gone we stepped inside for dinner. Later I came home stepping light and smiling. Another reason to rejoice at this transfer.

Today’s supposed to be my day off but I’m in Carousel-Kabutah anyway. Mitt wanted to show me around last night and I ended up I staying at her place.

This city is different from Saralies. Somewhere between it and home. A bit strange being in a city without an ocean nearby. Didn’t realise I’d made that association but I guess it makes sense; apart from my home town Saralies is the only place I’ve really spent any time. Kind of funny that I want so much to travel, see, explore and never spared the time to visit my own world firsthand. Maybe I should take some vacation time and fix that. Er, not immediately.

She showed me through some of Carousel-Kabutah’s cells, like miniature towns within the city. We didn’t get up to the top of the hill though, that’s a shame. I would have loved to see the last light of day drop below the horizon. What we saw of it shining atop the towers as evening fell was beautiful.

Maybe tonight. Today, Mitt is showing me some more of Carousel-Kabutah.

Got into actual work today. Gonna take me a while to get completely up to speed but at least I’m here.

Still bouncing all over the place and grinning at everything.

Phewf. So that was my first day in research.

I was actually pretty calm this morning. Not really worried anymore whether I was doing the right thing or not. I was sure it was. Lovely, clear day, early morning and no crowds. I showed up early, just in case. Didn’t have any problems at the door. Not that I was expecting any but, wow, that would have been a bad way to start. Getting locked out of your own job?

Anyway, I didn’t actually get much done today. Mostly being shown around. They have a really nice break room. We do, gotta get used to that. The building too. Well, the old building was lovely too. I guess I traded a harbour view for a garden and wooded hills. Reminds me a bit of home, except these ones are nearer and tamer.

Oh! And I had lunch with Mitt. Lovely sitting out with her in the sun. We made some plans for a few days from now and she filled me in on some details of the situation my supervisor didn’t mention. Mostly because they weren’t directly work-related.

Well, can’t stop to ramble any longer, I’ve got a lot of information to soak up.