highly stressed, and oracle day

Service Oriented Architecture - so i can only assume that the japanese, chinese and koreans have a superior model.

last night i worked until 23.30, after a long chat with the boss. i've been posted as watchdog over our lead, as it's understood that i'm in a good position to review and modify his code. which is absolutely appalling. he could win a code-obfuscation contest without trying.

for example, it took me ages to figure out (i'm not too familiar with php) that he had received an array, assigned it to a temporary variable, modified the original array, used the results, then reassigned the temporary variable's array to the original one.

wow.

and that was an example from the things that kinda made sense...

they've upgraded the servers again, so i had to reconvert my now-modified code to 1.5. that took me over half an hour longer than expected, and was really frustrating. now i'm recoding half of it anyway due to another prior misunderstanding.

back to my life in cardboard boxes. by 22.30, i was super-stressed, and blazed out to catch the bus. i'd remembered to slide my card, but forgotten to press "exit", so it didn't count. swak. at least i got that sorted out this evening. but it didn't help my anxiety.

i got home, and spent an hour or so packing like a madman on speed. my mommy called, and her timing couldn't have been better: she gave me a better sense of perspective; i relaxed; i had a shower; i went to sleep.

i woke up at 6am today. i spent two hours finalizing the packing. i moved all my emergency must-haves for tonight to the storage room. i left seriously worried. you probably know how it is.

the oracle day was great. the first speech on israel's r&d spending was boring, the keynote on SOA was pretty cool, and the intel speech that followed was fun. and funny. of course intel wipes the floor with amd... using their own benchmarks.
no - shit.

the food was great, but the security was atrocious, and there wasn't enough seating. it was kinda infuriating. in normal society it may have been manageable, but israelis are pushy as hell and a large part of the lunch-hour was none-too-pleasant.

then it was time for the lectures. the java one was completely filled by the time we arrived, and we literally couldn't get through the door. so what was the point of registering for it specifically, then?? we went to the dba lecture instead. the first one was boring. the second one was simply cruel and inhumane. halfway through i opted for a break, and we went and found an ex-soldier who served in one of our support sections, harrassed him for a bit, and got some assistance in our army work. the kid and i couldn't stop smiling, because the whole thing was completely rediculous.

we made it into the central java lecture at 15.00, and although i kept nodding off, i was awake enough to get more than the gist of it. as much as the kid was laughing at me for sleeping, i had to explain the lecture to him afterwards (it was in british english, and the concepts were based on those i'd learned in university).
defensive copying IS important, and it's not very complicated to implement. i've just never thought about it before!

after the lecture we went with one of our new teammates, and a guy from our support section, to the beach, which was a lot of fun. i haven't played in waves since sa, and i missed the water :D

afterwards, the others left, and the two of us sat over a couple of breezers. we walked to the bus station, parted company, i put on socks and shoes, and took the bus to work (missing my stop, and walking a-ways).

there was a large group of teenage girls on the bus, some of whom were simply beautiful. too young! too young! and all i can think of is (hed)p.e. - amerikan beauty: "i'm going straight to hell".

i got to work all sandy and damp.

i made it just in time for a long, yet interesting meeting, and am now back to working on the problems from last night.

the mongoose made me very proud just now. we spoke on the phone, and he told me that after months of not arriving on time, he was finally caught this morning - he's being confined to base. his girlfriend's leaving on tuesday, and they'd planned a holiday starting tomorrow - so he wasn't too impressed. considering that he does the work of all the graphic artists in his section, and he works (IMO) WAY beyond what's required for the army, he told his TL that if he didn't defer the punishment to next week, he's going to stop working and request a transfer.

he got the deferment ^_^
good for him!

he's agreed to stop working so hard, though - which means i'll actually get to see him on base now and then. it's been a while since we so much as sat and had coffee together.

i'm so stressed, i can't focus on my work. i have no idea which apartment i'm returning to tonight. i have no clue if all my belongings are going to be sitting in the street, are stolen, or are broken. i'm even thinking of worst-case scenarios, like sleeping in the barracks if it's all gone. this sucks.