03 October 2008

quietude.

I've become a complete recluse, but in the best possible way.

I arrived safely in Morgan City, just over 2 weeks ago. The drive from MN took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but I arrived in plenty of time. My first stop in LA was to empty out my storage unit in Robert, where everything was dry and untouched by Gustav and Ike. Everything I own here fits nicely in the bed of my baby truck, so I packed up, hit the road, and headed south. Though it wasn't as easy as that sounds. There was a moment, several of them, in fact, after my truck was loaded and everything covered and bungeed down, where the rover in me (and the part of me who, prior to my departure from MN, was struck dumb and scared at the thought of not only returning to Louisiana, but to Morgan City, no less) couldn't help thinking about getting back in the truck and keep driving... out of Louisiana... But, in the end, I couldn't think of anywhere to go (except to Chicago, of course), so toward Morgan City I headed.

As you may know, Louisiana recently weathered a few bad storms. After the water rises during flooding, it obviously returns to more normal levels at some point, and what's left behind is real, real smelly. So on that day, when I was already one foot back out of the state (or, colloquially here, "one foot out the state"), driving my little truck with the windows open because my air-con doesn't work, and it's still blazing hot and humid here, I kept smelling some very. bad. smelling. funk. and the smell lasted for most of the 2.5 hour drive. The best part was that, through only some fault of my own (I'd explain, but it would take much too long), I ran out of gas along the spillway, which is the smelliest of smelly. So then I had to wait for close to 2 hours, in the heat and the smell to wait for AAA to arrive.

Anyhoo, eventually I arrived, unpacked, and spent the following day getting to know my classmates in the various waiting rooms of the Occupational Medicine clinic where we took physicals and drug tests. Online training modules began the following day at the training facility, and last week we were occupied with safety/ certification classes.

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