This entry is not really a travel diary in terms of a physical journey, but travel in terms of life's journey. This was my first week in a new job, in nine years!

Monday

It's 5AM and I'm wide-awake, and very soon 'up and doing'. Kerry asks if I'm nervous and I can't really admit that I am, excited but not nervous. No more Monday mornings lying in bed until the bitter end! What a great day to drive up through Washington Park! Imagine that, I work in the park!

I arrive at 7:20 to flowers on my desk and a welcome card from Gary and his wife, Lynne. More flowers arrive by post from Mary Swaim – Thank you Mary! I spend a blissful morning settling in. Gary, my new boss, sees no reason to rush me to start so I organize my new office. When we finally have our first meeting he explains that the server crashed over the weekend and no one has computer access. Unlike my previous job, I am not required to act upon this, instead I busy myself making files and labeling files until the IT guy is able to get to my office, where he fixes and moves my new computer and flat screen monitor to a more ergonomically correct spot on my desk. It's very quiet, the phone doesn't ring, no one comes in to bother me wanting things, and everyone seems self-sufficient here. I quickly find the kettle in the kitchen and make tea - I'm home! I am invited to join new co-workers, Sue and Laura from the Development Department, for lunch at the zoo. Everyone asks you to lunch here! With the computers back online, I am able to log on a work on entering in Outlook Gary's very busy schedule for March and April. After that I work on navigating the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant submission website and accompanying 65 page "How to" document, in order to get in by Friday a proposal for funding for a new exhibit in the newly renovated museum. Gary sends me home at 4:30.

Tuesday

With my new MAX pass I take the train to work. It takes 10 minutes, not including the stop at the coffee shop! I work on the NSF project, meet with Gary and then get a tour of the museum renovation, wearing a pink hard hat and a clingy silk skirt (due to a wardrobe malfunction) through the construction site. The new exhibits are going to be fabulous, a white water rafting simulation, a safari simulation with real Jeep /Land Rover, a simulated train journey along the Trans-Siberia railway, as well as Chinese riverboat and 'smoke jumper' simulations. All this in addition to the great new boardroom at the top of the museum which has a view to die for, looking over the trees at Mount Hood. Ever since a child I have been fascinated by museums and have always harbored a secret desire to work in one. It's a dream come true!

I'm invited to lunch at the zoo cafe again; everyone is going over en masse. After lunch, I start in with the NSF project, upload the project summary, project description and budget hit send and off it goes! Gary sends me an email of congratulations for getting it in three days before the deadline. I schedule 2 meetings, answer one internal phone call and cheerfully spend the rest of the day organizing anything messy.

I contemplate this new career path: being a personal secretary / executive assistant and realize that the I can equate myself with characters in some of my favourite novels, I have become Lavender Briggs or Rupert Baxter (both personal assistants to Lord Emsworth in PG Wodehouse's 'Blandings Castle' novels), "tidying the study" has become a profession for me now not a hobby. I have become that literary figure of organization, Flora Poste, and the World Forestry Center has become my 'Cold Comfort Farm', I will get to organize, create systems, tidy desks and get paid for it.

Wednesday 

Gary is out all day and apart from more updating the calendar and making sure the audio visual equipment is ready and working for Gary's museum renovation presentation to the board members of Friends of Hoyt Arboretum (FHA), I work on proofreading Memorials. These are biographies of locally renowned timber men, many from the 19th Century. When the museum is finished these biographies will be kept in Memorial Hall. Some of them are badly written with many grammatical errors. I am told that professional writers are hired to write the memorials, but many of these, written in the 70s, seem to have been penned by someone with a very meager grasp of the English language. I am reminded of Flora Poste's first telegram from Cold Comfort Farm "Everything needs changing. Send gumboots".

Thursday

Gary's back in the office and reports favourably on the trip to Oakland to a exhibition fabricator how will be building part of the tree exhibit in the new museum. A Jeep / Land Rover has still yet to be found for the safari simulation. The FHA board meeting went well I'm told and I spend most of the day working on memorials again as Gary has a meeting at Odyssey Productions in Portland, viewing some video material for the museum exhibits. I also work on organizing a group trip to the Oregon Historical Society's Lewis and Clark 1905 Exposition exhibit for the management team. The log palace in the OHS exhibit will also spend some time in the WFC museum. I go over an idea with Jennifer in Marketing and Sue in Development about having a USPS postal station at the opening days of the new museum, and special stamp cancellation for the event. Kerry and I will make this happen.

Friday

I meet with Gary and Sue first thing to go over prospecting for major donors and complete the agenda for the senior management team meeting. The meeting goes well and I am surprised that the meetings are sporadic with no agendas and no follow up notes, but I'm in the driver's seat with this one, so this will change. Nobody realized this, but the resident Mary Poppins has just blown in to the WFC. I'll have everything "spit spot" in no time! I have lunch at the zoo cafe with Jennifer, and spend the afternoon working on my notes from the management meeting and action items. I also create an event plan for the private dinner for Dr Nalini Nadkarni and other WFC guests before she gives her lecture on Exploring the World of Rainforest Canopies, which is part of the Women in Science lecture series co-sponsored by WFC and the Oregon Zoo. This whole series looks great and I've already been told that my ticket to the lecture will be reimbursed as a company event should I choose to go. Did I mention that I have the best job?