In Soviet Russia, we sometimes own your city. Sometimes not.

This week seems to be the culmination of my formal department training, though I know other mini-trainings are to come concerning my work assignments when I'm not on a public desk. Although I had backup on all of my shifts this week, most folks seemed content to just let me handle everything, only stepping in if we got a sudden rush of questions. This makes me feel pretty good about how quickly I've gotten the hang of the system.

(And now I've probably cursed myself to numerous stumpers next week, when I'm flying solo. Ah well.)

Adjusting to a more sedate work pace has been a major adjustment for me -- so much so that I went home one night this week and said to my husband, "I must be the only fully employed person in America who wants more work!" I've had a lot of down time on the job -- mostly because our department is in a bit of upheaval while the Bigger Powers That Be shift around some of our responsibilities to other departments. I understand the reasons behind the delay, but I'm not good at sitting still. Somewhere between where I am now and how crazed I was on the day-to-day in my former career, the truth lies -- probably closer to now. I hope I find it soon.

Now on to what you've been waiting for. And it's a doozy this time around!

WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK

* "How was the ocean created?" I can't even begin to summarize the answer, so I'll let the good folks at Encyclopedia Britannica take this one.

* The Hollywood Erotic Museum closed its doors in May 2006.

* The price of gold on Monday was US$862.00 per Troy ounce.

* Barack Obama attends the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

* Vilinus is the capital and largest city of Lithuania. According to World Book, it was founded around 1323 by Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas. The city has a crazy 20th century history: It was controlled by Russia from 1795 to 1918; independent for two years; then controlled by Poland from 1920 to 1939. The city returned to Lithuania in 1939, but Lithuania was seized by the Soviet Union in 1940 until 1991 when Lithuania again declared its independence. Whoa.

* The Slavic Languages family includes: Sorbian (Lusatian), Pomeranian, Kashubian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Serbo-Croatian (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian), Belarusian, Ukranian, Russian, Macedonian and Bulgarian.

* Oregon reported the nation's second-lowest foreclosure and delinquency rates in the country in the second quarter of 2007.


In other news, my Leo horoscope (courtesy of Holiday Mathis) for Tuesday told me: "Establish a trend of exchanging information with those around you."

How appropriate!