if you know me well at all, you might be in shock.

My boss gets random e-mail blasts from anywhere and everyone, most of which she just discards. This past week she got an e-mail about an event for this group called MIX Santa Fe, a social and networking type of group that's really just getting up and running. They have an event every third Thursday of the month at different locations, and this week it happened to be at a place called Corazon right around the corner from my office. Not sure if I have mentioned Corazon before, but I had tried to go there a couple of times before -- one time it was closed for whatever reason and another time it was their toga party for gay pride week. Didn't seem like the best time to check it out. So on Thursday night for the mix event I actually went. And no, I'm not kidding. If you know me well at all you know that I'm not a huge fan of going out in general, partly cause it's ridiculously expensive and also because I don't like large crowds of people I don't know. Some people may even say that I simply don't like people in general. That is definitely true to some degree.

So I get to Corazon, answer a couple of questions so I can get a free drink, and sit down to people watch and just see what happens. One girl came up to me and said "You look like you know just about as many people here as I do." And that was the start of a pretty good night. I met 6 girls, well women I guess, all in their mid to late 20s. Two lawyers, one life coach/artist that just moved back to town from Australia, a therapist and a physician's assistant, both who just moved here from Brooklyn, and one girl that just moved here from Germany where her husband is currently on a tour. Definitely an interesting mix of people, especially for me since I generally get along better with guys than girls. I have two friends that are girls, Martha and Kate, other friends that I have had that are girls have kind of disappeared. And for some reason it's easier for me to be myself around guys. No idea why, but that's just the way it is. Now back to the group I met. I feel kind of awkward cause I know that I'm the youngest one and the only one still in college, but I'd like to think I'm not your stereotypical college type. I don't spend my time binge drinking and looking for all the parties -- I'm much more of a low key person and don't think it's fun to see if you can get through class or work with a massive hangover. College students are weird.

Anywho, the group of girls I met all decided to leave Corazon and go grab some food. That was definitely interesting. We talked about everyone's jobs and how diverse they were and the talks about the physician's assistant and the therapist lead to more discussion about people's psychological and social behavior in general. One thing in particular that I thought was interesting was the notion that many people think they can basically go into a doctor's office and they'll fix them. In reality, there are an innumerable amount of things that we still don't know and can't treat or don't know how to treat. The majority of people that are sick don't have a textbook case, and let's face it, doctor's don't have magical powers. And even if a person can't be fixed or healed right away, they still feel better if the doctor simply has time to sit down and listen. Doctor's actually having time for a patient these days is not common.

After dinner we decided to make an e-mail list of everyone and plan to do regular hiking trips. Next Sunday we're going hiking up Atalaya Mountain, which I read has an altitude of about 13,000 feet I believe. This will be interesting for me. I'm used to being at sea level and I don't think my body has yet to fully adjust to Santa Fe's 7000 foot altitude. And I'm not in great shape. Going to the gym takes a lot of time once you factor in needing to shower afterwords and such, and I'm not a fan of working out when other people are there. Especially in the tiny work out room at my apartment complex. Very close quarters. But I am excited for the hiking part. I've been wanting to get out to some trails but just haven't yet, especially since I really didn't have anyone to go with. Should be a good experience.

Work is pretty much the same. I'm enjoying it -- been doing the layout for our new office and doing redlines for a project in Alamogordo. I talked to Marc a couple of weeks ago and he has gone back to KPF in NYC, taking the train an hour each way, probably working tons of overtime. I get the want to make a lot of money, but being a lowly intern in an office of 200-300 people does not sound like a good time to me. I also have no interest in designing skyscrapers. That kind of design work seems so impersonal to me. I want to design things for real people -- spaces that I can imagine and know how they'll feel on a day to day basis -- not a giant building full of cubicles for overpaid CEOs and business drones. I will also be getting to experience something new on Monday. The marketing guy in our office, Brian, and I will be going down to Albuquerque for a pre-prosal conference. I'm pretty excited to see what that's like and to see what kind of projects might be starting up in the future. I'm not sure how the drive will be -- I don't think Brian and I have ever had an actual conversation, so an hour-long car ride there and back should be interesting. I'll update on how that goes sometime next week.

Now I should probably get off the computer and go help my grandmother with dinner. I drove down to Muleshoe for the weekend and my great uncle and aunt Travis and Sue are coming over for dinner in a couple of hours. I imagine there will be a game of cards involved.