in a box

on my way to work - i decided to take a couple hours' break from being distracted at home, and i think it helped - i returned to the post office to pick up my minicards. yay! and nothing interesting happened while i was there.

i had a chat with my mum, which left me more than satisfied that her decision to resign was the right one. if only she'd done it sooner! [yes, mother, i *know* you couldn't have known. it's alright. i forgive you :P]

first dealing back at work - having our financial officer explaining to me in even more explicit terms just how little the army helped me. actually, it took her a few attempts and i'm still not 100% percent certain how the army justifies screwing lonely soldiers so simply and effectively to itself :@

i had work to do, and barely touched it because the other guy was experiencing release woes. there were trying moments where i had to be very careful not to lash out (verbally) at him; poor guy has only just finished his (unrelated) degree in CS and it's not fair to expect him to understand that working methodically and according to the procedures will make life simpler for him. i don't do these things because i'm a productive worker in the factory sense of the term, i do them because they make everything easier. the less thinking about menial, trivial stuff one does the more one can focus on the important things. i don't like wasting time because other developers forgot that they were supposed to be reducing my workload. (oh, no - no hinting that the SVN is badly designed or implemented. never.)

---
one of the managers was bored, and came in to harass me. it began with him attacking me for defining myself as a hippie, because "hippie" is only one set of attributes i incorporate. i tried to explain to him that those attributes are my primary motivators, and that telling me i'm not a hippie because i don't smell bad is tantamount to calling a woman a man because she's productive. see what i did there? and the conversation only spiralled downwards, with him pushing and prodding until eventually i got it through to him that he was...

"you know what i'm getting at?" he asked. "yeah, you're getting at being a prick. and you're succeeding."

i sent him a message later to inform him that if he wants a complete "box" for me then i'm a hippie pastafarian pirate. i think that covers everything ;)

---
the flex boss finally got back to me, on a positive note. so i'm going to get paid, there's an extra addition to the project, and i'm still within my trial period. good stuff.

i had a pleasant dinner with pg, during which i observed her asymmetry and she mine. i laughed hysterically for a while after realizing that the reason i always have difficulty getting my sideburns to match is because my ears aren't quite level. s'not fair! :)

walking her mother's dog brought us to my place. the dog doesn't dig my pad - she's been here a couple of times and still can't figure everything out. she's the most miserable wretch of a canine you ever did see, and it's impossible to tell what it is that's frightening her at any given moment - she's constantly shaking and nervous :(

---
someone told me, a few months back, to watch steve jobs' stanford speech. it took me until now to get around to it, and it astounds me to hear the man spouting what i've been preaching for ages - slowly, but surely, we're all going to get somewhere.