In Albany Now

So here I am, in Albany now... settled into my new room in a house shared with an older man and a married couple. Nisha did me a gigantic favor and drove me up here. It's okay here. The perks to where I stay is that it is pretty cheap (385/mo sans utilities) and it is only two blocks away from the hospital. Today was my first day of orientation. It was pretty intense. It started at 7:30 and ended at 4:30. I was exhausted by the time it was over. We got our employee badges, of which I have to get a duplicate because the lady who made mine spelled my name wrong, which is not surprising. I did not feel lonely my first day here but now I do feel lonely. I keep counting the days till I can go back to the city. I miss it a lot. I am not far, but it still sucks that I am more or less stuck here for a while now. I feel like I may be forgotten and I don't like the idea of that. I am trying to embrace the various elements of a new life here. It is difficult. I should not be awake now, but I am. It is difficult for me to sleep here.

A while back I had posted an ad on albanydesi.com saying that I was looking for a place to stay near Albany Medical Center. Today I received a phone call from a lady named Madhavi saying she was interested in sharing a place with me. I told her I already found a place, but suggested that we keep in touch because I do not have any friends here. She delighted at that idea and invited me to her place, where she stayed with a friend of hers and that friend's family. I, thrilled at the idea of having made such a fast friend, allowed her to come pick me up in her car and drive me to the friend's house. All was well for the first 10 minutes or so, during which we engaged in small talk. Then, the friend goes out and brings back a presentation board and begins talking to me about some pyramid scheme bullshit called "Ambit Energy". I sat there, tuned out to what she was saying, totally stunned that I was fooled into coming to this stranger's house to hear about that crap. I was totally exhausted from the orientation and the last thing I wanted to do was listen to another boring lecture. I was angry that I was deceived because none of this shit was mentioned during the car ride over to the woman's house. I was upset that I had been betrayed; I looked forward to getting to know people in the Albany area and here I was getting duped into wasting my time at a stranger's house, listening to shit I really did not want to be bothered with. On the ride back home I figured I would take advantage of the car ride and asked her to drop me off at Price Chopper because I needed groceries. I knew she'd probably try to get me to feel obligated to do her some type of favor in return, likely something related to Ambit, but at that point I was so tired that I didn't even care. She drove me and my groceries to the house I am staying in and before I left she said in one breath, "keep your mind open to the possibility of doing this", "please give me some people as referrals", and "don't feel obligated to take part in this".

How the fuck do I end up meeting these whackjobs???

On the other hand, I ended up meeting this nice girl in my class named Polly. She was really sweet. She's an older nurse, married with two kids around my age. I can't wait to see her tomorrow.