Maternity Leave Ends

Today is officially my last day of work, errr... maternity leave.  Willa is five months old and my maternity leave (most of which was paid) is just ending.  Isn't that amazing?  I was so blessed to find this job; I worked there three whole years - I was hired on October 18, 2007 and my last day of work was October 14, 2010.

When Ryan and I moved out to USC, the plan was for me to get a campus job because if you work for the university you can get half off of tuition.  USC is $PRICEY$ so we really wanted and needed this job.  Well, getting a job an on-campus job is easier said than done.  I wondered if the application website was actually just shooting these applications into a black hole in space rather than submitting them to people who were hiring.   In retrospect, I actually got a job fairly quickly (by sheer luck) - but when you're on the job hunt everything seems to take so long!

One day, I was in the temple doing our ward sealing assignment.  I was praying and thinking about a job and I thought to myself, "I'm going to go get in the car after this and there is going to be a message on my phone for me to come in for an interview."  I don't know if that was inspiration or desperation, but after I said that to myself I felt pretty good about it.  When I got to my car, I immediately looked at my phone and there was a message!!  It was someone contacting me about my application and asking me to come in for an interview.  Isn't that amazing?  I went in the next day, the interviewers were so nice, and they called me the following morning to offer me the job of "Secretary 1" in the Academic Affairs office of the dental school.  One funny story about my interview was that I mentioned that my dad had gone to dental school there.  They all got so excited and ran to get their record books.  Sure enough, there was my dad's name (and picture on some records) with his graduating class.

Most people know that I have really hilarious stories about my work, but overall it was such a great environment to be in.  The office was full of people who were very caring, warm-hearted, and generous. I feel like Heavenly Father really put me in a place that I would be comfortable in and where I could do well while Ryan was in law school.  Law school was so stressful that it was nice for me to have an enjoyable job so that I could help Ryan chill when he got home.  It was also the perfect job because I had almost zero commute.  I found a used beach cruiser and bought it for $50.  I might have paid an additional $30 total throughout the years to replace flat tire tubes and my stolen bicycle seat, but it was a pretty cheap way to get to work.  In fact, I rode that bike to work every day up until I had Willa; I actually rode it the day before she was born.  Every day when I would ride that bike pregnant I would wonder how long into my pregnancy I would be able to ride it, I just kept going and going.  The morning she was born I went into work, but since my water had already broken and I was having contractions, Ryan was nice enough to offer to drive me to work that day :).

My wonderful coworkers threw me the most amazing surprise baby shower!  My only regret is that since it was a surprise I unknowingly had worn a really ugly outfit that day and not really gotten ready.  (I knew the outfit was ugly, I didn't know that I would be wearing it to my own baby shower; plus, it was all blue and I was having a girl.)

I have purposely pick a photo of me where most of me is covered, I did NOT look pretty that day and I don't want to scare anyone reading this blog.

Jennifer, me, Eileen's head

 Nasrin, Sharon, Mary

Oscar, the workstudy, was the only boy there.  I think my favorite part of the shower was when we played "Guess that Baby," they had baby pictures of everyone in the room and we had to guess who was who.  Well, as you can see there are several different races in my office so when it came to picking the Chinese baby to go with the Chinese coworker, it wasn't too difficult.  The best, though, was seeing the lone baby boy photo up there, not too difficult to figure out who that one was.  There is also great video footage of Oscar during the shower.  Some of the ladies were cackling about something and you can see Oscar in the background just shake his head and put his hand over his eyes.  Poor guy, what a good sport for coming along!

Eileen, Ursula, Oscar, Takiyah

 Anna, Ruth, Larissa, Jessica

Patricia and Jessica

Pauline with some attitude

As you can see, I had the awesomest coworkers in the world!  They were so so generous with everything and the shower was so fun.  I am not sad about getting to stay home with Willa, but I already miss this crazy place.