Snow Tracks

When the train crossed over one of the less known rivers that empties into the Sound, I saw not only that it was all white, but that there was a track of human footprints going from one bank to the other. I could see even the individual prints despite the speed of the train and the distance.

Just after pulling out of one of the smaller stations, I saw a big house with a huge lawn around it, and the whole thing was fenced in from the highway, the train tracks, and the gas station next door, as if it were an oasis from the troubles of the metro. A white oasis, too, since the whole enclosure seemed untouched since the first snowflake landed in the first blizzard of this winter. To lend to its timelessness a half-covered Lincoln Towncar seemed sleeping in the lawn, as if it had been there for decades, before the highway, before the train, even, before the gas station next door that used to give gas for a dime a gallon.

And before we arrived in the next station, we passed by a field of temporary bathrooms. I think they belong to the company in whose barbed wire fence the blue, familiar bins are huddling together. Instead of evoking the sense of disgust, or perhaps the sense of antiseptic, or for some, the sense of relief during a free outdoor concert event, now these plastic boxes of toilets stood each with its own snowcap, and collectively they looked like penguins, brooding quietly, without moving an inch, in a violent snowstorm.

Except today the sun is out, the sky is blue except where the huge smokestacks of Bridgeport bellows out its white innards. It was very cold, and had been so since yesterday evening. Today is my sister's birthday, the one with the family and a stable job. She still had to go to work. I called her last night, not really for her birthday, just to have a quick chat before I started my evening. I talked to her son, my little nephew with a funny voice, as all children have, to me. The funniest part was that when his mother told him to say "Good Night" again to me, he retorted with "I already said it." So innocent in his own assertive way. I forget that if left alone, children can be so much more assertive, so much more self-assured than most adults I know. I don't know what happened to us. I think when children have the right kinds of parents, they get to grow in ways society won't let us, the adults, the responsible adults with our taxes and mortgages and jobs. I think that made his very rational response to refuse saying what he was told to say very beautiful. In some ways, if only society would respect us, be more patient and tolerant of us, as my sister is to her son, we might actually find life a little more bearable.

This week I started using the Microsoft equivalent of the web development framework I had been using for most of my programming career. When I started this job, I felt expectedly dismayed by their choice of web development framework. I always quietly dismissed websites that use it. Now I was about to learn it and apply it, too. Being in a new life, I was more inclined to be open-minded. After all, I was already using Windows at work, and having to deal with all its imperfections. So actually, before I started the latest project, I felt excited to learn something new, even if it was the "enemy", the pathetic enemy that is a bloated giant in the Information Technology world, a Goliath grown old while continued to be bossier by the day. I get excited at learning anything new, regardless of ethics. After all, I work at a financial services company, a place I have decided to work in only to learn, not to embrace.

I also started learning about the finance instruments and techniques employed by this and most investment banks. I was impressed by how much there is to learn. I guess when I decided to change fields, I didn't appreciate how much there was to learn. I mean, I should have imagined someone who never had exposure to biological sciences besides what they were required to learn in high school, imagined this person entering my field of bioinformatics and be awed by the many layers and complexities of the field, all the papers, all the little things people are discovering all the time. Coming into the finance world isn't like going to work for a tech company that does online sales or has a main product to push. I could just spend all my time doing programming and learning more about programming techniques, but I also have the choice to learn about all the tricks of the trade that you can go to school for years to learn, to get a degree on, if you wanted.

So I am excited about what I am doing. I am excited about the new changes in my profession. And I do enjoy my new lifestyle. Especially now that I have no more evening obligations. I still have this laptop because the old job hasn't totally given up on me, hoping I could help them from time to time, but so far I haven't heard from them. I have this computer until May. Not sure why May. Hopefully, by then, I will be in New York. Not hopefully, I have to. And all the while, I hope to keep learning. Learning is what motivates me to keep living for another day.