coughing the days away

it's been a few days. stuff has happened.

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thursday:

i coughed the night away, getting very little functional sleep.
after a discussion on the prohibition that i couldn't take part in due to lack of vocal capacity, i was stuck considering equilibrium... i scribbled down "reversal", but i can't recall what i was thinking at the time.

our second class was on macbeth, and it was staggering. then i got my paper back, and walked out of the class dumbfounded. after two miserable failures, the one i enjoyed writing came back as "top of the class" and the comments on both my essays were "could've said more". that could've gone either way, and it went MY way. BOO-YA!!!

i was fascinated by a girl with ryder's eyes. when i saw the rest of her face - not so much, but the eyes...

i was agitated. i left work thinking of making a terrible movie called the isle of dr strangebug. it could be a terrible parody of the software industry.

i stopped by hardware dude to buy a latch for the door, then did some quick shopping. i returned home to argue with pg about preparing food - i only know how to make two things, which she didn't want, and then when i gave up she got up and made herself one of them - then spoke to urchin who seemed to be all confused about dates and times that we'd discussed.

i found myself involved in a long, personal forum thread defending one of my favourite lecturers, and pg dragged me away to watch a few episodes of one piece. i was eating a marshmallow when a surprise sneeze turned my front side into what could have been taken from ghostbusters...

i was then sent out to do some more shopping, and we finished off the work week watching the 1939 version of the wizard of oz. there were a couple of moments, specifically at the changing of the guard, when i was intrigued by how many songs / tracks i've heard that sample this movie.

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friday:

my boss and i were debugging until 3am, a very intimate hour of the morning for remote cooperation. i finally got into bed at 4am, with my left eye remarkably red and my right eye clear. it looked weird, and allowed me to imagine myself with completely shaded eyeballs.

i woke up with crusty eyes again, and after washing up i went to meet the guys in the park. as i crossed the road a woman in a minivan not more the three feet away held down her horn for a few seconds, almost sending me out of my skin and hurting my ears. when i turned to thank her she frantically indicated that she was hooting at her friend across the road.

oh, okay. so no harm done then, i guess :/
what's wrong with all these people?! i was asked today if i'd ever been in india: there're a few reasons i don't live in india.

we sat on the grass and discussed making waves. we came up with quite a few good ideas. then we read poetry at each other, and most of it was great fun.

thought for the day, on walking past a very serious man wearing bling and driving a rather snazzy-looking machine, honking at the people in front of him as they approached the red light: "your honking is so strong. so powerful. so sexy. you are... you are The Man. you are a god in your own universe."

i felt good enough to join the rollerblading group, and the route was long. it was slow, too, but still quite demanding as far as exertion goes. trying not to shout because my voice was gone was nigh impossible - even though the guy i usually argue with promised not to make me raise my voice he wasn't able to come through on not pushing my buttons :P
speaking of button-pushing: when someone's wearing headphones and blocking out their surroundings in the middle of a group of rollerbladers, he's a menace. he couldn't hear two of us screaming at him to make way and almost caused all three of us to hit the asphalt... his response when i explained that he was endangering us: "so?"

he made me so angry that i considered giving him an unhelpful shove if he closed in on me again on a downhill. apparently he's not new to the group, and nobody talks to him.

really. can't imagine why.

pg and i were both walking really slowly to her sister's for dinner. dinner was pleasant, and the after-dinner conversation (supported by pg's delicious chocolate-rum cake) concerned an old idea i've kept on slow burn for a decade, and *still* nobody's done anything like it and i *still* haven't had a chance to push it along, even though i bought the required equipment ages ago.

angry birds has become a thing. it fits in beautifully to all my waiting periods and downtimes. i should be reading, but it's... well, addictive.

my throat was still feeling horrible by the time we got home and i was in pain, although during lunch its situation had improved and the southern comfort and wine with dinner definitely helped.

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saturday:

pg's throat finally started doing ugly things to her too :(

we got a late start to the day, and i spent it working. or happily chatting with my mum. a friend of mine sent me what had instantly became my favourite track when i heard it last year, and i've gotta keep it away from the public domain until he releases it... i'm just so pleased to have a copy, though :D

pg and i hit the beach for a stunning sunset, and although it was a bit chilly we warmed up fast. she got a bit frustrated because we were playing against the wind, but she did well in spite of the [sorry] learning curve and i left quite satisfied. dinner was fantastic frozen yoghurt.

i've begun to lose patience with pg's mother's dog, because she's annoyingly stupid. she's terrified of everything, completely inept at things like walking without getting her leash caught around obstacles and she doesn't understand a damned thing. and it's not like she's good looking and fun to pet, or doesn't perpetually (even after a bath) smell like she's been soaking in [really vulgar description removed on account of bad taste]...

pg and i went to the ozen bar to hear panic ensemble; we were sitting at the bar ordering drinks, and i haven't the foggiest idea of what made me think that i needed food. i wasn't even hungry, and i ordered what turned out to be a huge plate of rice and meatballs. my stomache operating faster than my mouth? i didn't have any trouble finishing it...

we arrived home, exhausted after a great show, in the middle of the night - only to be greeted by a dog who seemed absolutely desperate to be taken outside in search of relief. we dragged ourselves all the way around the block... for nothing. damn you, dumb hound!

i worked a bit, bringing us right back to square one before giving up and putting myself to bed.

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sunday:

i had a rough sleep - physically, i couldn't get comfortable - and woke up sweating over money issues. again. i haven't been paid yet, and bills need paying...

that didn't help me relax about the dog. the bitch was getting on my nerves.

class: prosody. prosody sucks. it took half the lesson for me to see what the lecturer was getting at, another of thinking "dammit, i need to memorize all these terms". it's tricky shit.

not just note but tone
brings light out of this wordy drone
its feet tap-tripping through its length
the rhythm hold us with its strength

i stressed about photocopying one of my classmate's notes until we finally managed to find a working machine. then i took that stress with me to work. paranoid moment: i don't appreciate people shadowing me. don't keep the same pace as me from just outside peripheral range, it makes me tense. it took three pace changes to lose him :(

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i learned a very important php lesson yesterday: global variables are not automatically accessible from within functions. that's absolutely backward, against all basic programming assumptions, and is guaranteed to **** you up if you don't know about it. now that i know about it, and have taken my place amongst the unofficial global php cabal [yecch!], i'm going through all my code and fixing bugs i didn't even know were there.

what a stupid thing.

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i went to my apartment, rummaged through my things unsuccessfully, then joined some friends for coffee. we discussed anorexia, and i was surprised that nobody was familiar with the karen carpenter story. then i went home, rummaged unsuccessfully there. i made another shopping trip, then put on howl's moving castle for a sniffly pg.

what a brilliant film.

i finally made good on some work i've been doing, and i went back to my apartment to rummage again. still unsuccessful, but i had a glass of wine and spent an hour or two with the girls talking about everything, then returned home to put finishing touches on the work i'd done.

yesterday was a great day for catching up on comics - i despise the fact that a lot of my work of late has involved waiting for remote server responses, so at least it filled time that would otherwise have been spent impatiently.

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today:

pg's so sick that it sounded like i was sleeping with darth vader. i was up late grinding away at my keyboarding, and up early to clear my mailbox and have my service record reissued. looking over it gave me goosebumps. it's good. and it's also far away.

i played angry birds on the bus to work, and i'm very conscious of how much i'm expending on it. i made photocopies of my papers when i got in, and almost immediately afterwards was called by mmf telling me where to meet him to drop them off. on the way, some idiot was hooting like crazy as i was waiting for the light to change and the guy in front of him stopped... i thought he was looking for a fight, but just then the siren started up.

that's the first time i've stood in such a public place for the siren. it is truly inspiring to see all the cars screech to a halt and everyone stepping outside, a surreal frozen moment in which everyone's doing the one thing that practically never gets done in this country: thinking of others.

time resumed its regular pace, and i met up with mmf. if his daughter hadn't been so enamored i might have just said hi and left (he and his wife were having breakfast with someone else), but after i picked her up i was invited to join them so i stayed for coffee and a really interesting chat.

as i got up to return to work, i got an sms from urchin that indicates that she's even more confused about what's going on than i thought. i hope the lengthy response (she couldn't take a call) cleared things up...

work? argue. blog. and one of my favourite artists is, as of a few minutes ago, on board with the event organization! ^_^

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i never wondered what the filler text means. until i saw this. then i had to find out.