undead cash-centric

i met wr outside the main library, introduced him to the noise room and we spent most of the hour on ideation. then a little while on failed research before we had to go our separate ways. he has given me good food for thought, at least.

on the way into class, i spoke to the flash boss and we agreed that we'd meet between 1pm and 1.30 so i could drop off the tax document. he promised he'd be available and, just in case, gave me a phone number to call.

the poetry lesson was great fun, in particular when studying adelaide crapsey. last semester we learned to the dead in the graveyard underneath my window, and today we studied song. once i put the following (blacked-out) idea into your head, that she's making the shroud because she wants to be the best-dressed zombie, try to read the former without seeing what i saw. when i shared with the professor, she looked at me oddly for a moment and then burst into laughter :)

after desperately declaring bankruptcy to yogi over the phone (his father's out the country, so if i *am* working for them then i need to know how much and when i'm being paid), i had lunch with wordsworth and we discussed my seminar topic. he also had interesting things to say.

on the way off campus a girl wearing a greenpeace shirt asked if she could have a moment, and i told her that she was welcome to follow me to my bus stop.
"where're you from? you have an accent."
"south africa"
"oh! it is you!"
she raised her sunglasses, and became the girl from the specialist encounter. she informed me that she had, in fact, checked out the disturbing things i'd told her, and found me to be correct. we discussed nuclear power and left / right polarization of environmental issues (i hate it when political leanings interfere with universals), and then she surprised me again when the bus came by not only remembering my name, but knowing my surname too. what gives?!

---on the way to my once-upon-a-time primary base to meet with the flash boss, i called his phone. unreachable. i called the other number, and left a message with the secretary. when i arrived, i tried calling again, but his phone was still unreachable. i perched myself on a wall, and spent the next half an hour alternating between reading, calling his cellphone, or calling the other number. the secretary wasn't answering any more, and i was transported back to six years of frustration caused by military secretaries simply ignoring calls.

that's one of the reasons it's always better to do stuff in person. but there i was, no authorization (nor desire) to entire the base, and looking so suspicious that one of the GSS dudes approached and began an interrogation. producing my high-enough ranking reserve duty card wasn't enough, i had to prove knowledge of the base to push him to friendly mode.

all that, for nothing. i left for my interview in a foul mood.

---my mood was improved somewhat when the direction ru55 gave me took me to a building called camera obscura, but i then discovered that i was on the wrong street :P

did the interview go well? the guy seemed satisfied, the work looks really cool, and i felt... a fit. i would love to work with these guys. and i have relevant experience up the wazoo :)

---i headed to care to have my eyes tested for laser surgery. i had no idea what to expect, but the first battery of tests was funky as hell. lots of pretty swirling colours, retinal-scanner-style wiping, and that strange, amusing machine that tests both your eye-pressure and your courage simultaneously.

the opthalmologist who did all the differential testing shocked me with the results: i can't believe how awful my left eye has become. he put drops in my eyes and told me they'd make my vision blurry, but nothing happened and i sat outside reading until they called me.

just prior to them calling me something happened. it was barely perceptible, but suddenly i was having trouble with the words on the page and i had to hold my iphone at a strange angle to be able to follow the line. when i mentioned this to the doctor, he told me that when he was done i could look at myself in the mirror - so *that's* why the experience seemed familiar! my pupils were completely dilated :P

it appears that i'm an ideal candidate for laser treatment (gosh, i'll bet they say that to all the guys) and it would totally sort me out. the only problem is that it would sort me out in another sense as well: NIS 7800 after the NIS 1000 student discount? damn.
that seems an awful lot for bothering them for thirty seconds.

---work: i did a good night's work. as i said to one of the managers on the way home - i shouldn't be working so well for such a small amount of money; my conscience is screwing me over in the grand scheme of things. [see previous post]

i was horrified to discover that -someone's screw-up (and mine, that i didn't perform a code-review) was way worse than i originally thought. on sunday we have to rewrite what he did completely, and there's me at 10pm sending off reprimanding emails to him and tactful emails to the boss to explain without getting the guy into shit for the damage his lack of experience and guidance caused.

...

good news, good news, bad news. the good news is that my poetry paper scored me a 99! the other good news is that i scored a 92 for the narrative analysis course... the bad news is that it's a six point drop from what i understood was my exam score. it's not clear if my mark was penalized; but if it was there's nobody who won't stand for my having been the most active and vocal member of the class. and i suffered every - single - class. wordsworth called me up devastated, but there's not much i can do short of a few inane condolences. i hope he doesn't have to redo the course...

i got home, put a load in the washing machine and headed to pg's, who's already complaining about barely seeing me.

*sigh*

i need a cash infusion, a decent job, and for the world to right itself without my intervention for a while.