insuring tomorrow

monday:

i barely slept during the night, between the hydration unit needing a refill and an sms that arrived from pg's phone that i thought indicated that i needed to be awake enough to speak to someone.

only in the evening i received fifteen / twenty messages and it appears that my service provider has been storing and sending in batches. thanks, fido. between that and the huge difference between fido and bell in 3G coverage, i think i might happily switch to the latter.

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the old couple in the metro
arm in arm,
tall, stately
with well-groomed,
matching mustaches

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i got to the office a bit late, but in plenty of time to settle in before the developers came in. have i mentioned not disabusing them of the notion that i'm in charge? i held a status meeting and laid out a plan of action, drilling them with the urgency of their work this week and following up throughout the day.

i had a chat with the cfo: in addition to discussing possible personal insurance measures, he talks ski resorts with authority and i'm looking forward to taking his advice!

i had to wait until the evening to sort out my medical insurance, because i didn't think to carry my policy number with me. fantastic. i had to hope that my camscans would be good enough...

i left pretty late, bouncing home with grinding tunes and doing some quick shopping before learning a bit more with michel thomas and making a far-too-tasty-to-be-mine lentil salad. i ate too much.

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tuesday:

i managed to get up on time, and decided (now that i have an exercise mat) to try out tabata. based on how i felt afterwards i'd guess that it's pretty much as effective as they say, and fifteen minutes in total really isn't a pain.

i was upset at breakfast over reading that international groups of poets are participating in the "evil israelis invade gaza" bullshit. seriously, poets are supposed to be seekers of truth and the tiniest effort to understand what's going on in the middle east would provide anyone with fantastic food for words. i must conclude that these groups have no poets; at the very least none worth reading.

i have to post about my day but i'm tired enough and it's exhausting just thinking about it. in large part this was due to all the israelis pg and i have to deal with - i'd have to deal with them anyway if i was there, but being over here makes it a little bit harder.

the bank convinced me to sign up to get all my communication electronically instead of in the mail, but they're still sending mail. i can't sign my mother up for the same service without a conference call. the companies handling my pension / insurance are all equally incapable of keeping track of where i live and so i've come to the conclusion that i shouldn't trust any of them with anything. i updated the army with my details before i left the country, and they've just sent me another request to update my details. my tenant managed to break the sleeper couch he was entrusted with. after struggling with a real scanner (camscanner wasn't good enough) with a bad french-only interface i sent through emails to my medical insurance while pg faxed them and i've no clue when they'll get back to me.

one day when i have permanent resident status here in the first world (oh please let that day come!) i'm going to uncouple myself from that godforsaken cultural desert and never look back. i will always support israel and it's right to exist, but i will never support how inconsiderate they are. oddly enough, the army shows more consideration to the palestinians than the government and private organizations do to israelis. that's just sad.

to add to that, i developed a headache from stretching myself too thin. you know that feeling, when you have so much on your plate that nothing seems to get done?

i took some friendly advice to go with some very positive feedback [thats a code for me], which was to dance more diplomatically around those who would sell the bear skin prior to shooting the bear. i know i prevented something bad from happening, i just hope that i didn't step on too many toes to do it.

after a long chat with the ceo in which we both kept losing our trains of thought, i sat down to perform a code review whose primary purpose was to introduce the beginner to code reviews while simultaneously retraining the old hand: i appreciate that bad habits are tough to break, and that he agrees with my ways of doing things, but i'm going to keep grinding until he stops over-complicating everything: laziness rules.

after another late night, i came home and produced an even more delicious salad than before*, then studied some more with michel thomas** before writing this.

* i don't know what makes it so tasty: it's lettuce, tomatoes, stuffed olives, cucumber, canned lentils, microwave broccoli and cauliflower, lemon-flavored fish oil, white vinegar, olive oil and himalayan salt.

** he's really something. he makes french easy (from english) and logical and inspires confidence.

now i'm totally bombed.