drying my hair

i don't think i have the energy to do much right now, it's been a physically trying day and an intellectually invigorating one (actually, it was physically invigorating too).

i forgot my sunglasses at home, which is an odd thing to forget in summer in israel. the world is *bright* out there.

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my meeting with the head of the english department was delightful! i'm going to be their webmaster, and having seen (more or less) the workload i'm pretty certain it's not going to cost me much, unless i get fancy and start writing them automation software in my spare time :D
in addition to that, i went against the advice i was given and proposed our (mine and wordsworth's) ideas for a zero-credit (yet mandatory) orientation course taught by students. the idea was unofficially accepted with much enthusiasm and even a bit of advice, and in the morning we're meeting to set down enough details to present the course formally and secure a lecture theatre. this is going to be fun ^_^

also in the news, there's another scholarship that my marks make me eligible for so i'm going to look into that. i've never been offered anything based on performance before.

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work: my boss pointed out the problem that had been driving me demented at the end of yesterday, i'd read a certain string a number of times and completely missed the escape character because i'd automatically processed it like a compiler would :P

windows started complaining about maybe being a pirated copy, and it turns out that someone who had it before me installed 7 over the xp that comes pre-installed. as it's a work machine, i can't keep working with a pirated copy, so i spent the afternoon installing ubuntu. the fact that ubuntu has a windows installer that handles everything in the background absolutely blows my mind! instead of staring at self-promotional setup screens, i carried on working until it was complete and then rebooted into a fully functional system. the new version's so slick that there were only two packages i needed that were more than two or three clicks to install. NICE.

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i ran off to taekwondo, as usual arriving late. there's a poomsae competition on thursday, so i walked into a simulation and did alright. then we started doing fun stuff. she really worked us hard, and i was really ready to work hard, so i went all out. i proved to one of the black belts that a spinning kick's power should come from the back leg, but i proved it a few too many times and stopped only when i heard and felt an awful popping from my knee.

at least i didn't have any balancing trouble. my right ankle usually destabilizes me...

stretching at the end of the session saw one of the younger girls literally standing on my back to push me down; after suffering a bit but getting closer, one of the stronger girls repeated the exercise but with her knee and a fair amount of power behind it. it hurt. a lot. but the satisfaction of staying so much lower than i could've gotten by myself was totally worth it.

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i came home to shower, tidy up a bit and then host a friend for tea and a chat. i talked a lot. mostly about studies (he's decided to go back to school and matriculate so that he can go to university) and veganism (he's decided to try being a vegan). our conversation led me to put together a summary of why you shouldn't become a vegan.

he left when we had to leave; the rollerblading was fun tonight and the route was really good. and long, too.

i don't know why my wrist hurts, but it does, and terribly. very random. also random: hearing that a certain italian is rumoured, outside of the department, to be a star faculty member. that's messed up.