28/07/03

*** yesterday ***

fuck me, but what a lousy day.

i woke up at 06.50, after getting about five hours' sleep, for a driving lesson. i don't *DO* early morning.

she came over, which would have been great, except that i was forced to watch crossroads.
she wanted to see it BECAUSE it's such a bad film. after suffering for 3/4 of the movie, i started to find it funny. i was amusing myself with really mean comments, and immediately quoting the really, REALLY stupid lines - until my antics began annoying her (italics for both reasons, now). so i had to stop, and the rest of the movie was just no fun at all.
it was such a DEEP movie.

i played some cs, which would have been great except that all of my favourite servers were full, and the server i ended up on was populated by a bunch of lame-ass biznatches.
i did okay, but the last few rounds were really frustrating - i don't like being on my own against six campers.

i was on my way to a meeting with SSSO (i'm helping her to write a guide for new students), when i got a phone call from the academic secretary of our university.

now, to put this in perspective:

about four or five months ago, i was court-marshalled because i changed study courses without asking permission from my commanding officer (co for you non-military types).
i received probation.
he agreed to let me continue studying, on the condition that i would finish my degree by the end of the next academic year.

since then i have been in the offices of the business school at least once a week, sometimes as much as three times in a day, harrassing them and trying to find out whether or not i can finish in the given time.

now, here's where the israeli attitude comes into play:
every time i've been there, the secretary (the one in charge :P), has told me not to worry, everything will be fine, everything's being sorted out, and i'm not going to have a problem getting what i need.
and that everything would be sorted out tomorrow. or the next week, latest.
and everytime i've questioned this, i've been sent away, and told i'm too paranoid.

so yesterday i get this phone call, and i rush off to university. and when i get there - surprise, surprise - i'm told "nope, sorry, can't help you". they tell me now that there is no way that i can complete my degree within a year.

my co informed me before our agreement that if i'm thrown out of my unit, then i will be given approximately three weeks to sort out my shit before being drafted into regular service.

which means i now have to start looking for a place to live, and get everything (like social security, and tuition payments) sorted out on the double.
or triple, in my case.

if i'd been told about this three months ago, i would have had time to get my shit together. maybe even have come down to cape town on holiday, but now there's almost no chance of me receiving permission to go, because if i'm not in the academic corps then i have no right to take a holiday.

and i can't lie to him, and i can't not tell him - either way he'll find out and i'll go straight to prison when i get back.

thanks for caring, fucking dibs (Dumb Israeli Bastards).

so i went home, the meeting having been postponed until 18.00, and i was talking to firstfallen and shadowslight on irc when i remembered that there was a cd i was looking for.

so i went into grootbek's room, hoping to find it. what i found was a drawer packed with about fifty cds of mine, most of which i hadn't lent to him (our argentinian flatmate told me he'd caught him in my room, but i had no proof), a few of which i'd asked him for and he was adamant that he'd returned, and a couple which he denied having, and one that i lent to him about six months ago (metallica and justice for all original) which he kept telling me was in haifa (city in the north).

and not only that - but they'd all been thrown in carelessly, and some of them are now scratched to shit.

let's just say i'm a leeeeeetle annoyed. i'm seriously contemplating fucking him up chronically, regardless of the legal and academic consequences.

however, i'd rather do something personal and painful, but i'm all out of ideas. if you have any suggestions, please contact me.

i'm going to add the mail i sent him to the dear grootbek section of my mental masturbation page.

so, i went to SSSO's place to help with the guide - we made a good start, but it's going to take a while.
we had a pretty good supper, and then i went home to shower and sleep.

she came over, and i didn't get to sleep until 1am.

*** today ***

i woke up at 6am, had a driving lesson from 06.30, and then had the exam from 07.30, and effectively it lasted about an hour. the test itself was maybe twenty minutes, but i had to drive one instructor to his car, then pick up another one and take him somewhere else, and so on.

and the test didn't go so well. it's now 16.30, and they still haven't called me to tell me if i passed or failed - i think this is a really shitty system.

*** NEWS FLASH (17.01) ***

while writing this log i took a break to make myself a late lunch (spaghetti and tuna), and i got a phone call from my driving instructor, congratulating me on getting my license.
YAY!!!

after the exam, she and i went to tel-aviv to visit the art museum. we felt so cultured!
we went first to get breakfast and coffee on ibn gvirol (pronounced ihb-n gveerall), one of tel-aviv's main roads. it's always nice doing that - you can FEEL you're in the middle of a big city, sitting outside on the pavement - and it's the first time that i've felt on holiday since, well, i don't remember when.
i'm sure it was in cape town.

*** note to self ***

stop eating so many marshmallows.

we then went to the museum. absolutely amazing exhibits: they had one on impressionism, one for female artists, i can't for the life of me remember the name of the third exhibit's artist (it's a long russian name), and one of paintings from the 1300's onwards.

there were two paintings in the female artists' exhibit that really caught me. i stood there gaping for a few minutes before she (there're those meaningful italics again!) dragged me away, and everything after that, including original monet, picasso, dali, and a host of other big names i don't quite recall, looked empty and pointless.

i'm going to have to go spend a day staring at them.

oh - fyi - it costs roughly R60 as a student to enter, and R80 as an adult.
lovely.
cultured swindlers.

on the way back i received a call informing me that the papers i need, both for the army, and for my tuition, were ready. so we stopped at the university to get them, and i gave her a quick tour of the place.
the university president is a great appreciator of the arts, so we have a really beautiful statue garden, and pieces all over campus - it was kind of like an extension of the museum trip.

and that was my day until now. i await the rest of it with baited breath (tuna, of course. but you knew that).