grinding

wha... hey! when the hell am i supposed to find time to blog?!

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tuesday night:

the blade was tough, including a moment with one of the girls who stopped herself from falling by grabbing at my crotch. was that intentional? all i know is that it was awkward enough for me to recall it.

after completing the route i joined botchman and a couple of friends to celebrate his birthday singing in the middle of rabin square. that was nice.

even nicer was getting home and seeing pg wearing the inappropriately feminine baggies that i bought in india with one of my smurf vests. it's a good look, and justifies my possession of such items even if it does cause me to rethink wearing them myself :$

while prepping a quick snack i got some juice from the chilis on my hand. without thinking i wiped my eye... and voilà! i understand pepper spray. a serious quantity would not be fun.

we watched dr horrible's sing-along blog - pg was unhappy with the ending, but otherwise enjoyed it - and then it was way past bedtime.

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wednesday:

i knew it was a possibility, but when the buses are all late getting to class on time becomes stressful. i just made it, but i prefer comfort. at least i knew to use a different entrance.
on sunday i'm going to test how long it takes me to blade there so that i won't be beholden to the whims of the drivers.

we were supposed to have moved classes; this caused a bit of tension. once back in our original seats i discovered that the other "completion" guy is also a big comic fan in addition to being a great source of course material :)
it was a tiring class. i'm learning when to switch off with this lecturer - an important skill when one has plenty of other stuff to read and the only definition for 90% of what's floating around the room is verbalized mental masturbation. i woke up for the definition of narrative, though.

"is having a chain of events enough to define narrative?"
nobody breathed. i raised my hand.
"your question is ambiguous. when you say 'chain' are you implying a connection?"
"no."
"then no. narrative requires that the events be connected meaningfully."
"what's meaning?"
"the lies that we tell ourselves to make sense of things."
"good answer, but that's not the one i'm looking for."
shit. i meant to say causality. i need to work on my articulation.

between classes i hurriedly maneuvered through the coffee machine, arriving (again) just in time. the next class held too much philosophy and engaging gothic darkness (i like edgar allan poe - who doesn't?) to concentrate on reading for the others... is this a bad thing? i can't complain :)

the guy next to me sat down at the beginning of class complaining about hebrew being an infantile and useless language. when we got up, i attempted to impart my personal impression of it being a rather elegant one when spoken correctly but after a minute or two i was no longer sure what he was trying to get at.
he sounded like he was changing topic when we walked out the class, but i felt someone tapping on my shoulder and i turned around to see pg: "what are you doing here? isn't it your day off?"
the guy i'd been talking to spat out an "okay, bye" and left in what appeared to be a huff. pg and i stood there for a second while i wondered how sensitive he could be.

i turned on my phone to find eleven missed calls. that's a worrying number. nine of them were from a blocked number and two from an unidentified one... i called that back to discover it was the insurance company calling me to verify that i'd really be at home at the time we'd agreed upon. we'd verified the day before. wtf?!

they claim to understand that they behaved pathetically.

i ran into a problem the kid once had (our conversation was a tad off) and then into eidetic who took the bus with me - we talked math, and it was fun reliving some of my experiences from my first degree.

insurance salesmen, huh? the pitch was good, although i had to work on my suspension of disbelief when he claimed to have a BA in insurance. i still ended up buying, though. it seems like sort of a good idea.

i ran into a neighbour on the way out. i'm always saddened when people don't know how to respond to someone merely being friendly by wishing them a good morning / day / evening... you don't have to know someone to do that. just do it.

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coming in to work... walking through a forest of concrete, plastics and neon... the windows every shade of yellow to white and all on a grey-blue fading background while the cool air soaked up all the worries of the day.

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the evening was filled with https trouble. i'm not overly fond of ssl right now. my situation was not helped by my fasting for the morning's tests.

i sent our lecturer a mail about student rallies* and tactlessness, and was really happy to receive a response a couple of hours later informing me that she supports the politic participation** and that i was "fine with feinstein" :)

* the government is setting aside lots of money to assist students of religious institutions - this is a large community of people who don't serve in the military and don't pay taxes like the rest of us. all we want is equality! us secular students shouldn't have to cover all the other stuff *and* be left behind in the budget.
not cool.

** i believe it's important to take part in the vestigial fantasy of pseudo-democracy that we claim.

a quick stop to shop on my way home scored me a glance at inspirational dreads - i find the idea of colouring the ends quite pleasing...
of course, the sales pitch had distracted me from my laundry duties, and i was lucky to get home before it got smelly. how often does that shit happen to other people?

i spent the evening uploading photos and reading alongside pg with incense and total eclipse - freefalling upwards and angel tears in the background. that plus whitman made me very sleepy.

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thursday:

i woke up super-early to go to the clinic; the tests went smoothly and i even applied the second h. pylori one myself :P

i realized halfway to the pharmacy that i wasn't going to be able to get there, get my stuff and get back to the university before class started, so i walked to cafesito to sit with my ex-neighbour and a couple of others for breakfast. it was a fun way to begin the day!

bob dylan made me smile on the way to the university, i familiarized myself with campus computing and printing, then entered a class that, well, was way more boring than necessary. the lack of sleep made things tougher, too. the lecturer said some interesting things, he just took far too long to express them.

i hit the computers again to update the wikipedia - i actually had to recreate a user it's been so long - then walked off campus to find out about the linkin' park concert that's coming to town. awesome!!!

on my way back the security guard gave me grief. when i asked why, he began explaining. there was a long queue behind me and all i could think of was how silly he was being... he took a while, too. when he was done, i looked at him blankly and asked "can i go in now?"
sheesh.

i lay down under a tree until pg came, and we went for lunch. i had to eat quickly in order to make the study i'd signed up for...

i'm not allowed to be specific, but i can say that i was sent somewhere to verify something and then asked questions about it. there was a problem with the somewhere, but that apparently didn't affect my ability to participate.
when i returned to answer the questions, i was asked to wait for two minutes - just then, a girl two doors down stepped out of her office and asked if i could spare two minutes for her study. sure i could!

that study was awesome. i received a base amount of cash, NIS 10, and then another 10 to play with. it was a standard game theory experiment; i needed to decide how much to transfer to another anonymous participant, who'd receive three times the amount i'd sent. he'd then have to decide how much, if at all, to send back to me. we both walked away with a decent amount *and* i'd kept some back just in case he was going to be a bastard. and it was real money, which made it interesting :D

i rested a bit on the grass with pg until my next class, then i went in to discover that i hadn't done any of the readings for the day because i'd misread the syllabus :(
that's especially awkward when you're the loudest in the class, and the only guy. well, usually the only guy - we've just been joined by a philosophy major who chose the alternative course that i'd considered and skipped for the same reason he just moved: too much workload for someone who has to work for a living.

i wasn't prepared for the next class, either - i need to read hiawatha in its entirety... that's a long piece. the class was fun, though - and it ended with an amusing private discussion with the lecturer involving a question someone posed to me recently: "why can't enrichment involve money as well?"

the bus ride to work put me on a bit of a downer... i arrived at work, signed in and got a phone call that threatened to burn my ear from a guy looking for a team leader in an established hi-tech company that was impressed enough by my cv. turns out that there are people in the industry who know how to read :P
he kept trying to convince me that it'd be worth my while to scrap the studies and join him full-time. he even told me to keep his number in case i change my mind. it's nice to be appreciated :)

i got stuck with a lot more shift work than usual, and it was slow going. it *had* to be a busy night, especially when i have so much reading to do. i barely got halfway through this post...
and every time i had to jump down to answer a call someone had done something unnecessary with the headphones - either they were disconnected, or tangled... anything to make speaking with irate and confused people less pleasant.

i was hungry by 6.30pm when i arrived at work, and the burgers only arrived after midnight. boy was i happy with mine.

pg and her mum picked me up from work; we were going to go through to botchman's party, but it was almost done. we called it an early night.

i slept well.

all i've done since getting up is blog, read comics, pick up my monitor and order ink, and purchase העיר (ha'ir) - there's an article on lihi sagi and it's really good :)

now to get on with the weekend. did it really rain this morning?!?!