Atlanta

I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, and I'm just dreading the next five days. I'll be on a 6am flight this Sunday to Atlanta with my manager. We'll get into Atlanta around 2pm and have the afternoon and evening free, then attend a conference Monday and Tuesday, and fly home to Seattle on Wednesday. The really bad part of this trip is sharing a room with my manager. It's going to be weird. Otherwise, I'd probably be looking forward to it.

It's not that she's a bad person, she's really not, it's just that she makes me uncomfortable. I realize those are my own insecurities bubbling to the surface, I keep telling myself it's not her, it's me. But it's how I feel and I can't convince myself to be happy about this trip. Trust me, I've been trying to do the happy talk to myself, that it'll be fun and I'll get to know her better. It's not working. I don't want to go.

We're staying here, it's rated a 4.5 star hotel (out of 5). I'll be attending the 71st TECHNICAL Sub-Committee Meeting of this company, one of our common use vendors. The agenda has topics like "Passengers with Reduced Mobility (PRM) Update", "AEA 2007 BGR Updates", "RFID Specification Enhancements". Okay, the last one might actually be a tiny bit interesting. Radio Frequency Identificaton or putting microchips inside of the bag tags on suitcases so we can find the little buggers when they're lost. The agenda also shows another interesting event each day- "Lunch - Buffet Style".

Of course there'll be dinners and drinks out with people we'll be meeting, but I'm not really worried about the eating. I'm pretty good at eating healthy when I'm around people, it's when I'm alone that I have problems.

I'll be going to the hotel fitness center every day to escape from my manager (she doesn't work out, she's naturally thin - don't you just hate her?). There won't be any binge eating since I won't have any privacy at all. My manager is tiny, rarely hungry and eats like a tiny, little bird. Pig girl here won't want to eat in front of her so I think I'll be fine for that part.

I'll be meeting a lot of new people which might be sort of fun. The thing I'm not looking forward to is spending four freaking days in close quarters with my manager. I really just want to crawl in a cave and sleep for a couple months.

Update: I re-read this today, 9/13, and I think this actually might be a good thing as far as staying OP. Since I'll be with my manager almost every minute of the day AND night, I certainly won't be able to eat at abandon. So maybe this really isn't so awful. And maybe if I keep telling myself this, maybe I'll actually start to believe it. :)