got french?

we've got a positive-yet-unhurried response from the government (that they'll look into my case "immediately") and we've consulted with an immigration lawyer: the latter has suggested that applications not made in the lingua français might be receiving less attention than they should. so... we'll try again.

if i do obtain a work permit i think i will take an intensive course; being able to follow bits and pieces isn't the same as being able to participate in a dialog.

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monday:

the new guy may be hard to follow, but i can't help but appreciate how he seems to agree with most of what i say.

i spent most of monday wracking my brain trying to resolve a conundrum that i'm certain would have seemed less complicated had i been performing at a higher level... i was quite distracted.

the saga of installing visual studio express continued, as even after getting the installation order correct i discovered that the project required another element that needed to be installed prior to running a service pack.

ugh.

pg and i enjoyed a quiet night of nothing and went to bed early. i was totaled.

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tuesday:

i'm swimming through the streets of a flooded city avoiding and fleeing sharks.
when i manage to escape i find myself in a large guest-house trying to hide from someone who's coming.
i scramble over a balcony into a friend's bedroom and urgently inform them that we'd been told to clear out before the attackers catch sight of us... but then they're right outside the window torturing another friend and there's nowhere to run.

they take us hostage, threatening us and pushing us around with swords and we're all terrified and certain that we're going to die; but after a while an opportunity arises and out of the confusion we somehow come out okay.
the attackers seem calm, rational and peaceful once disarmed but i really can't forgive them.

a guy i served with confronts me because his daughter's playing violent videogames and i'm shocked that he's blaming me.i tell him to exercise some control.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!" he rages.
"i mean get rid of those games and give her a copy of [an educational game i used to enjoy], it's amazing."

suddenly we're in the cartoon-style game with animal characters and we go up the stairs; a cartoon bunny comes hurtling out a set of doors into the yard holding an oversized flamethrower and attacks two other animals.

wow - i really didn't want to get up this morning because i was so comfortable. i was still in sleep mode until after my first coffee, which explains how i managed to leave my favourite tuque (cape town taekwondo) on the metro.

i've been developing a relationship with one of the guys in the office; i can't help but be reminded of nemesis. this one has been sabotaging my monitor all day, and i suspect that revenge is in order. that's him and aota.

between my pre-coffee state and definitely feeling woozy afterwards, and yesterday's distraction, i've begun to worry that i may be coming down with something. i'd rather not :(

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the visual studio installation drove me nuts today: uninstalling in order to re-re-install was rendered impossible by an uninstall error on a satellite package. and if that happens, each package (and there are plenty of them) must be uninstalled manually. i went through the process multiple times until eventually finding a special download package that skips the problem one.

a whole package that exists to solve an issue that - according to google - is only mentioned on one random forum page?? it couldn't have been listed on the express site?!

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i got techie with a jira installation to enable CORS, which makes me join other forum-dwellers in wondering why that's not enabled out of the box.

i went shopping for lunch and added rather delicious (and cheap!) meal replacements. i'd rather they were dairy free and not just lactose free, but this country's not quite there yet.

i finally remembered to buy hand-cream! and promptly left it on the self-service scanner :/

the new guy introduced me to yii, which looks good but i was too unfocused to really grasp it all.

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i learned today that my second mum was in worse shapes than she'd been letting on. it saddens me that she felt the need to hide these things and chose rather to suffer them without our family's support. at least hers is taking better care of her now than they did the last time.

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i was going to go to bed early tonight, but i guess that's not a reasonable plan when there's stuff i feel i have to say.