Just a Hello to All my Harry Potter Buds

[KathyK]

Hi Everyone!

Once upon a time I was posting to OTC fairly often.  A long trip and
various RL events have conspired to keep me away. I feel badly, as I
love chatting it up with my cool HP friends, even when I don't have
much to say about Snape's actions or motives in recent books. ;-) 

I thought I'd just give a random update about what's going on with my
life and a brief introduction for those of you who don't know me.  

My name is KathyK, I am 26 years old and live in Waterbury, CT.  Once
upon a time I thought I might want to leave Connecticut, but I have
since decided I *love* New England and Connecticut and would not enjoy
living out of the area for very long.  I don't know that I can
properly describe why I came to this conclusion except to say that
Connecticut is HOME--the place I love more than anywhere else in the
world.  I just don't know that I can feel that about another location.
 I don't know how I would go about it.  I know it's lame.  Who says,
"I love Connecticut?"  No one else I know.  

Since graduating college, I have simply meandered through my life with
no real goals or plans for the future.  I have worked as a video store
manager, grape picker, door-to-door sales woman, restaurant hostess,
and a sit-on-my-bottom-all-day-tethered-to-my-desk-by-a-headset
customer service rep for a major wireless telecommuncations company. 

I accomplished the *one* goal I set for myself about two months ago. 
I am completely debt free thanks to the generous pay of the
aforementioned customer service job .  Once the goal had been
achieved, my job lost all meaning for me.  I quit about two weeks ago,
with no prospective job (I *meant* to give notice, really.  I just
couldn't stand the thought of another 8 hours of whiny, irresponsible
customers).  It was scary but necessary for my well-being as I hated
every minute of every day I was there.  Apparently I need more than a
paycheck to sustain me.

The big Quitting was about two weeks ago now.  My quitting nicely
coincided with my mother's purchase of a new condo, so I have been
doing all the grunt work (painting, cleaning, shelving, making sure
door stoppers work...good times) and NOT searching for a job as I
ought to be.  

In the meanwhile I have also been assessing what I enjoy and what I
hate doing, based on experiences over the last few years (both with
work and with non-work stuff).  Because I cannot live my life just
working for a paycheck.  I don't function that way.  I get upset and
depressed and chock full of self-loathing. 

Oh, I bet you are all very happy I gave you my oh so happy work
history!  Just the best thing ever, right? ;-)

Okay, well I enjoy reading and spending time with my friends and
making gel candles, although I haven't made some in a while.  It turns
out my family and friends don't like receiving candles for *every*
holiday year after year.  And my five-year-old nephew would probably
think his Aunt Kathy was insane if she showed up with candles for him.
 So I need a new hobby. I'm thinking about taking up piano lessons or
a foreign language.

I enjoy reading about my friends in my LiveJournal, although I don't
update it nearly as often as I'd like.  My idiotic rantings can be
found here:  http://opaleye-dragon.livejournal.com/  My friends are
much cooler.  Really!

I also adore photographing clouds.  My goal here is to one day
photograph the clouds at night.  My best friend assures me this is
possible in some way for those who have more knowledge of photograpy
than 'point and click.'  One day I will do it.   

My recent favorite thing to do has been picking out RL things that
remind me of Harry Potter or HPFGU and photographing them--like the
shop near my house called "DADA" and a little sample of vodka from the
liquor store called "UV."  Yeah, it's real geeky, but so what? :-)


Blah, blah.  Enough about me.  What's going on with everyone else?

KathyK, who very much enjoyed Alla's unexpected Potter moment