o green world

Considering that I'm at the sales conference, which is arguably one of the most fun events put on by my company, I'm in a strangely depressed mood. Actually, perhaps it's not that surprising--after the hangover that I suffered on Sunday (which was compounded by having to drive back in the aftermath of a heavy snowfall on a road full of inept Californians forced to drive slowly by the state's absurd tire-chain requirement, and being forced to buy chains at extortionate prices in order to leave the mountains), I'm in no real mood to drink. I'm also a very all-or-nothing drinker, which I suppose would qualify me as a health risk, but if I'm still able to see clearly at the end of a night of drinking, it was clearly a failure. That's somewhat of an exaggeration--I would consider Saturday night's festivities mostly successful (due almost entirely to Circle of Death, my favorite drinking game), despite the fact that I was still able to see and reason at the end of it, but I do wish that it had been a bit more hardcore so that I could have felt deserving of my hangover.

Anyway, Saturday is not the point. The point is that the sales conference is half motivational, half depressing, and I'm fluctuating wildly between those two extremes. When I'm swallowing the corporate line, it's all lovely, and the stuff that we talk about is really interesting. But then, I start analyzing too much, and I begin to wonder what I'm doing in a sales organization to begin with, and that leads to the larger question of what I'm doing in corporate America and, if corporate America isn't what I want, what it is that I should do instead. This is all compounded by the fact that I have some really good friends within the expat community from Hyderabad, as well as a handful of friends from the California office, but I'm always worried that those friendships are context-specific. I'm shy by nature (until I get to know you, and then it's no-holds-barred insanity), so I don't have a great time in crowds of casual acquaintances, which is what this entire experience is. If that's what corporate America always is, I definitely don't want it, but I have no idea what's next.

I went to the arranged dinner tonight, and the group that I went with happened to include my friend Sarah, so I had a really good time there. Now, though, rather than going out with people from my department, I'm writing this blog post, which I'll post when I get online at the conference tomorrow. Then, I'm going to go to bed and dream of a day when I'll have more certainty in my life.

Also, I'm going to have an announcement to make in the next few days, which is probably the worst-kept secret in the history of my career, but stay tuned for details if you haven't heard yet.