the other side

the good news is that it looks like pg and i are more or less back to normal. just in time for yesterday's exciting news, a realistic job offer from the ceo! when i heard how much i immediately blurted: "well, it's a bit on the low side". when i got back to my pc i had an email asking me what bracket i was thinking of.

i spent some time with godmother considering budgets and things, and quite frankly it's a good offer even if things would be a little tight for a while. i got back to him in the evening with a counter-offer that i hope won't be too much, discussed everything with pg when she returned and it looks more than doable - it looks like a super-win!

now i *really* had to grind. i spent all day until midnight, minus a delicious and festive dinner with family friends who it was a pleasure to see and with whom even pg was immediately comfortable, and after that i was exhausted and simply *had* to nap.

that nap was more urgent than i'd thought, and from an hour later when my alarm went off until an hour after that when pg went to bed, my mind was soaked in oblivion and i was simply incapable of opening my eyes.

a little after i got back to the computer the magic moment occurred: it suddenly dawned on me that i'd spent two days driving in the completely wrong direction. the whole point of their solution is to make development easier, and there i was struggling to put together an old-school web tool inside of their framework. frantic, still confused post-nap, i grabbed a cup of tea and settled in for a last-minute sprint.

at 5am i sent the development head a modified app of theirs with improved comments and a couple of fixes to demonstrate that i wasn't clueless, followed by a note explaining what had happened and a request to use another day.

then i passed out. i woke up around 10.30am, ate a quick breakfast and downed a strong cup of coffee, then got busy trying to do something right. it was quite early on when i took a bathroom break and discovered the hard way that the toilet was clogged: i'll leave out the details but suffice it to say that the next ten minutes were filled with grimaces and outcries of revulsion, and all i could think of was what a perfect sense of timing the universe appears to have.

i wasn't even relieved when i eventually cleared it. just upset.

back to work: at least some of the weekend's grind paid off. about an hour ago i finally zipped up and sent off the code sample, explaining my hack-n-slash approach as a function of wanting to present him something as quickly as possible.

i really, really hope it's all okay. if not, well, i can't say i didn't try and at least i didn't submit my first attempt. it's as ugly as can be and only slightly more functional than the later version.

pg and i had a good leftover lunch, and now i need to figure out what we're doing and how.

...

ah, i spoke to an immigration lawyer today. he informed me that everything i'd understood from the cic website is correct, and that essentially the only way into canada is with a job offer. i asked how much his services cost, and i'm fairly certain that my response offended him. i was shocked at the overall amount (work permit and permanent residence etc.) - $7500?! i mean, damn, it's essentially a service to assist with the formal procedures already in place. he signed off with "i most certainly don't need to advertise myself to anyone and i've actually got way too much work on my desk; have a happy new year and chag sameach".

i was wondering if he wished "happy holidays" to all his clients but then recalled that he knows i'm israeli. hah.