Apartment hunting and unexpected things

Now would be about the time that Gabe and I would be moving into a new apartment in Los Angeles. Gabe would be starting his orientation week in a couple weeks, and I would be starting a new job and he a new internship. That was the plan anyway.

A couple weeks ago, Blizzard offered Gabe the chance to stay with the company, this time as a producer. Though he has already been doing some producing, his internship has mainly consisted of doing financial projects. In his new position, he will solely be a producer (while still attending classes in Los Angeles). This means that he’ll be creating and keeping track of production schedules and working with the artists to complete projects—among many other things. He has recently been working on the new expansion to World of Warcraft. Here’s a link to the trailer that was just released:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyeZ8khSEC0

Since the new job offer, we’ve been scrambling to figure out details for the fall. It’s amazing how these details have started to come to together. Just last week, I was offered a full time position at GEOS, the company I’ve been working with this summer. To my surprise, they offered me a position on their office staff rather than on the teaching staff. At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. After all, I left an office job in Pittsburgh where I often felt purposeless and unappreciated. But I’m actually really excited about this position. For once, I’m excited rather than scared or worried about this unexpected thing.

Many good, unexpected things have been happening, but finding an apartment has definitely not been one of them. I knew that Southern California would be more expensive than anywhere we’ve lived before, but I was really shocked to find how little we could buy with $1,000 a month in this area. Our first experience searching for apartments was quite a depressing one. A dirty, dingy apartment in a frightening part of Anaheim with a vase of flowers on the side of the road which one of the residents told us was “there for a reason.” After a few overpriced apartments later, we found a month-to-month apartment in Costa Mesa, a city about fifteen minutes away from Blizzard and eight minutes away from GEOS. Yes, the apartment is overpriced compared to what we’re used to, but we’re pretty thrilled to find a decent apartment in a decent neighborhood close to our jobs.

The future is still full of uncertainties, but it’ll feel nice to settle down here—for a little while anyway.