a full weekly - part iii

[... continued]

wednesday:

wednesday morning wasn't as ugh as usual, until i arrived on time to discover that class had been cancelled. fortunately, a flash of inspiration has struck on my way and i occupied myself with research for an hour or so before heading off to work.

i picked up a falafel on the way. i'd asked for a half-portion, and commented to that effect when i saw the guy stuffing a whole pita. he said "yes, yes, i know" and carried on, i paid the half-portion price and walked out, figuring that he used a smaller pita and feeling silly for not noticing the size difference. when i mentioned the experience in the office, the guys laughed and informed me that what i'd gotten was a full-portion.

i'm not exactly complaining, but that was strange, no?

i spent the day producing band-aid solutions, finally creating an on-the-fly interface for a system i'd hacked together recently and through it discovering some interesting bugs. interfaces and automation make qa better. i know this. i've had to fight to convince the others, who have finally begun to embrace one of my automated-qa solutions. but these things need time to build...

this evening, i knew where to purchase flowers and arrived home with a bunch of pink roses. i then went to the weekly creative writing meeting. that morning, on my way off campus, i'd cobbled together my answer to the homework assignment, and the response to my reading it was nothing short of glorious! the guys actually applauded, and i was extremely pleased. now that it's posted, i have to admit that i keep noticing bits that demand improvement, but i'm not entirely comfortable with modifying it.

it's not that there was too much candy on the table, it's that i could barely control myself and i consumed far more than i wanted. i left the place feeling a bit woozy on the sugar-rush :(

more hellsing, and bed.

---thursday:

my day began with enthusiasm for duolingo: they've just opened french lessons in beta. the idea is brilliant, and not only can i now say that the lessons are fun and well presented, but the fact that the translations you perform have an actual purpose is inspirational. it's kind of like the reverse of gamification.

on arriving on campus, i received a phone call from the boss informing me that the servers were down. it would take a couple of hours on the phone and remotely using my pitifully underpowered netbook, spread over the day, to determine that it was one of the hack-n-slash patches i'd been asked to perform that was killing everything. we don't know why, because the code all makes sense and everything *should* have worked, but because microsoft's azure doesn't provide basic connection information we had no way to determine who was at fault. all we know is that azure's table locking is the pits.

class: not to be a killjoy [said the killjoy], but bo burnham's sonnet 155 would be a lot funnier if shakespeare had written like that and if bo hadn't chosen to tack it on to the sonnet sequence. plenty of poets wrote sonnets that weren't numbered, and besides: his content more closely resembles barnfield.

---"just roll with it," said wordsworth, which made me recoil with disgust. "i don't roll with things that are wrong," i said, and continued silently to myself: "because doing that is what makes people mediocre."

later he annoyed me by stating that music theory is exactly like string theory, with absolutely no references whatsoever. and then i found myself arguing evolution with a couple of idiots because they don't get the difference between hypothesis and theory.

---of the stranger things that were occurring at work, scr informed me that someone had contacted the office looking for me. considering i am not officially employed by the company, this is in decidedly bad taste. when i called the person back, he was exceedingly unclear, talked in circles, and all i could get from him was that he'd found me through the company's website where i was listed as "freelance advisor". considering the fact that not even the ceos are listed on the company website, this is all wrong. the follow-up email that he sent me is incoherent at best.

*cue twilight zone theme*

---i must note here that throughout the week, girls both familiar and unknown have become increasingly flirtatious, some simply nodding and smiling at me and one even going so far as to tell me that she would be staring at me. i suspect the hair has something to do with it.

included in the list is a particularly foxy girl who was sitting near me while i was working; sometime after i overheard here telling a guy that she was too busy to talk and super-stressed because she was having her period, she moved over to my table and seemed only too happy to chat.

*scratches head*

pg tells me i'm imagining it.

[continued...]

whiskey tango foxtrot?!

whiskey tango foxtrot?!

tuesday: bloody tuesday.

it was scr's birthday, and our first communication was when he woke me up to tell me that all of our systems had crashed after i'd flooded them with too much data. i... i broke a cloud database. in less than twelve hours. that's kind of embarrassing.

it took half an hour on the phone to explain to him what needed to be done, and then i passed out again. the later part of the morning was peaceful except for a tense call to our isp to renew. 1.5 megabits is no longer available (why not?!) so we had to upgrade to 10, which costs almost twice as much... but at least there's no lock-in, so if we leave the country soon we can say goodbye without a fight.

---the weather was pleasant, although a bit chilly for my having left the apartment without a sweater. no matter, i wasn't going to see much of the day anyway - after a couple of hours of things being cool, they began to go awry and i suddenly found myself in a scene straight from a hollywood emergency moment, red lights flashing and systems goings down and nothing to indicate why.

it was all very intense, and i developed a nasty headache. a major part of the problem is that microsoft upgraded the cloud servers before upgrading the enterprise manager, and not all of the functionality is available through the cloud interface: we have synchronization issues up the wazoo, and things that are only accessible through the enterprise manager sometimes fail because of the versioning. and there were a bunch of errors that were only detectable when the procedures were run under very specific conditions, which is really unfortunate for emergency handling.

once i got through that nightmare, i discovered that on top of sunday / monday's misunderstanding about certain functionality (in my defence, i'd double checked with the boss and received his blessing, only to discover the next day that he'd thought he was okaying something else), in my hurry to fix it i'd missed a really important side-effect.

*sigh*

if nothing else, at least everyone now agrees with me that we should focus on stabilizing the system before adding new features.

---
i burned an hour studying complex regex strings, trying to figure out what wasn't right - a co-worker suggested i try the same string on a web tester, and it was then that i understood that the application we use (regexbuddy) is broken.

*raises clenched fist at the sky*
DAMN YOU!!!!

---
when the memorial day siren started up, i was still at work. i found myself staring at the home key on my keyboard, which i find a bit too iconic.

i left at 9, and all i wanted to do was alcohol swab my headache away.

---
yesterday:

i slept late and woke up with an hour to go before the next siren. not wanting to be outside for it (i don't have a straight answer for why not), i shortened my run to 5km and increased my pace.

the difference between jogging and running is tremendous. i think i need to run more.

---
i spent most of the day online, working very little and catching up very much.

the argument from yesterday? it's still bothering me now. firstly, because i didn't check the first link that sj posted (the others responded to it), and it's complete and utter rubbish. he later sent me this link, contradicting the addiction argument but still claiming hollywood flashbacks happen. they do not. for more see this and this.

secondly, in the aftermath of the private argument i have remembered something crucial about sj. i haven't seen him in over a decade, and because i tend to give people the benefit of the doubt i let him lead me on that he'd grown up a bit. i've remained wary of him, i just couldn't remember precisely why (although an incident with him dating a friend of mine and really messing her up was not forgotten). now i know why: because he lies. easily.

"i did psych you didnt, sane is a term i can use [...] its the same crap addicts spew at me in counceling" [sic] - as i told him, he sounds like he'd be the worst councillor ever. he also sounds like someone who hasn't even studied pop psychology, let alone been in academia. so a brief look through his cv and... hmmm... nope, no tertiary education. thought not.

---
in the evening, i went out to do some shopping, returning home laden with two giant bags. the idea was to be somewhat traditional and use independence day as an excuse to guzzle steaks.

after another horrid cooking experience, we watched aliens (whoops! i confused 2 and 3, and 2 interested pg even less than alien :( ) backgrounded by the booming of fireworks. after that we both crashed.

---
today:

first breakfast, most of this post, a little more time in bed, second breakfast (the last steak was much more cooperative), the rest of this, and then it'll be time for housework before the usual gamers arrive in the evening. between yesterday and today, my conclusion that i'm in dire need of a holiday has received experiential approval.

---
of potential interest in addition to educational value: phd on the higgs boson

bizarro on earth day - not amusing, but interesting nonetheless.

nutrition:

chocolate vs chronic fatigue syndrome

do not place baby in shopping cart

too much of a good thing

i'm tired to the point of hallucinating and i'm certain i'll pass out if i don't get to bed soon, but it's about 9pm and i'm expecting a call anytime soon to tell me that i can upload my work... a problem with the system earlier has made us think it's unreliable so i can't put code into production from home without someone in the office just in case :S

---i handled the reveal really, really badly. the march hare will happily advise and he doesn't not believe me, but i wasn't academic about it and i served as an example of "how not to" for the rest of the class :/

my mother called me up because she was concerned that my recent posts, coupled with my being ordained, are an indication of an unsound mind.

in my defense, she's not familiar with the sonnets but now knows as much as she can without actually reading them, and she understands why i'm so excited. and is disappointed with me for revealing my discovery at all! but, fair's fair, shakespeare told me to.

i'll write up a real article that doesn't just make wild-sounding statements, and as soon as it's out there academically i'll expound all here too. that shouldn't take as long as any other planned work of mine, because this is going to be my seminar paper this year and we have a very definite deadline.

---i met with the plumber at my apartment, who quickly made me unhappy by informing me that the prep work for the roof replacement is big work and quite costly. *sigh*

i thought i'd nap a bit then go to work, but upon getting up off the couch i was convinced that leaving the apartment in my present state would be a bad idea.

right - department website / work / video editing (don't ask) then bed. i don't give a damn about the french class in the morning, even though the test's on sunday and i don't have a good feeling about it.

poor man

now officially in deep shit. i didn't work nearly enough hours last month, so i have a third of the cash that i need to get through the month. if i get sorted with the flash boss, that'll sort me out with another third... and i'm still in shit :(

yesterday, i went to the tax bureau on my way to the interview - i was saddened by how quickly and easily i could prove that i'm a poor student with no money. i have 0% tax until i start earning real money.

---monday:

i woke up super-early to go over the texts for our introduction to american culture class - good texts! wordy, but fun. i walked out into a rainy, cold morning wearing my ski jacket. good thing, as while we were all crammed together under the more-or-less ineffective shelter waiting for the bus there were peals of thunder and the rain came bucketing down.

the first class wasn't too bad, although their was a problem with the microphone and i began to suspect that god doesn't like us repeating winthrop's sentiments; we received a sign in the form of terrifically loud and screechy feedback..

between classes i managed to catch an italian wearing a hat for a second, and he reluctantly agreed to meet me for ten minutes. i returned to our class on shakespeare: this intro class kicks ass! afterwards, a few of us went to fight with the secretary about getting our grades back for the freudian analysis paper (it's way overdue), and a couple of us had a subdued lunch before going our separate ways.

the meeting was cool - i didn't have time to change into something "decent", but the guy (it appears) that i'll be working with seems to be the real deal. he wasn't dressed any more formally than i was and we sat talking about everything for a couple of hours. i then hit the office for a couple of hours, then met with my nemesis for beer and story-time. not only did the retelling inspire me to spend some time writing it down as an addendum to the lie behind the lie detector, but the argument turned interesting.

unfortunately, interesting isn't good when your girlfriend's waiting for you to help her with an assignment :/

---while we were at the pub, the woman from the cable company (HOT) called again, after disturbing me at dinner last week. again, 9pm. she was flabbergasted to hear that 9pm isn't a convenient time for me to be getting calls from her. is it just me who doesn't think that cursing a customer before putting the phone down on him isn't the best way to provide a service?

---today:

after a bit less than four hours' sleep, i dragged myself out of bed, walked home, shaved, showered, then did the bus to jerusalem thing. the instructions provided were easy enough to follow, and, as usual, i arrived too early.

awkward.

the day cost me a lot, in the way of lost work hours and travel and food expenses. the symposium was a lot smaller than i'd expected, too. but i'll be damned if nine of the twelve speakers weren't fascinating and full of inspirational ideas. i learned a lot, and although i was tired and my legs *really* hurt i had a great time of it. i even met a couple of interesting and highly intelligent people.

the second-last presentation was the worst, though. the guy read his entire presentation, stopping for a breath at every comma (and those were plentiful) and stopping at each period. not only did it take an eternity to get it over with, it was really tough to follow what he was saying :S

i met nystire's sister after i left, and she walked and talked me to the bus. my head was still spinning from the overload and exhaustion... i met nystire at the central station, and we chatted (mostly about civilization: me paying the station a shekel not to piss on their walls :S

the bus ride to tel aviv was quick, because i had my eyes closed for most of it. the guard at the gate had no problem with letting me in because he recognized my hat. i love my hat ^_^

wr and i were too late for the mckinsey presentation, but it turned out that one of the team leaders there to talk to potential candidates is a friend of mine... i was disappointed to discover that they only hire full-time. especially since they're on campus, and advertising for "students". dammit!

i had dinner with wr and his girlfriend at the vegan place across the road from me, and as she's a political vegan the two of us had words. loud words. i did manage to keep a civil tongue, though, and she got what i was getting at eventually. i don't care what people choose, but i do care if they don't understand the choice they've made.

i rushed home, changed, and met up with pg and her mom to join the rollerblading group. it was a fun route tonight, but i was too tired by the end of it...

pg bought me an orgasmatron! gods, they're awesome ^_^
bedtime.

the fire's still not out... - part i

[post divided retroactively]

it's been a long few days - and they've been good ones. not too conducive to writing things down, though...

---thursday:

i spent the two hours following my last post doing... nothing. i met up with wr on campus, and we would have talked about friday night's upcoming show (phototaxis) but were distracted by an amusing conversation with one of the girls in my class. we also met the phototaxis' cello player; she left a bit confused by our general randomness :P

i walked into class to discover that half the guys had been convinced i was australian. one of the girls wanted me to say "put another shrimp on the..." - for pete's sake! i'm NOT australian, so what difference does it make if i say it or an israeli does???
i felt like i'd walked into flight of the concords :/

i was accosted by a girl from my other class on the way back home - she hasn't gotten over monday's horror and is looking to vent even though we haven't had a chance to speak to the lecturer yet...

i tried reading on the bus, but i was too tired and slow to get anywhere. i got stuck in a short time-suck reading wired and chewing an apple until i realized that i had to be getting somewhere...

on my way out, i had a revelation! i suddenly remembered that the front panel of my pc has audio output jacks... i moved the cable from the back to the front and voilà! i have sound from my windows installation! so now i just have to switch the cable around whenever i boot into a different os. thank you, microsoft, for another fantastic win :/

i grabbed my dvd player, discs and a few beers and headed for the bus. i got off at the wrong stop, didn't listen to the directions i was given, and learned that bnei brak is more complex than i'd thought before finally giving in and following instructions until i found the place.

i was just as surprised as a bunch of my friends to learn that they know my classmate who was hosting us... botchman even ended up staying there afterwards. it was only at 3am the next morning that i received a phone call from the chemist asking if it was possible to keep the aforementioned classmate from the anime evenings because they'd had a *thing* in the past. i was almost as taken aback by this behaviour as i was by botchman's insensitivity to the bro code :S

we watched cowboy bebop: the movie - and it is stunning! my classmate and i amused ourselves by discussing some of its features in literature terms we've had forced down our throat; specifically laughing at mise en abîme in the form of the jack-o'-lanterns and witch costume :P

---friday:

i got to drive myself to florentine, where i had about half an hour or so to wait to meet with the girl who had my camera. in the meanwhile, i talked with the guy at the store about the fire and our pitiful political situation, then walked up and down the street eating sunflower seeds and chilling.

i picked out a cop for hooting unnecessarily in an urban area... should'a given himself a ticket, no?
he ignored me. surprise!

i felt a bit selfish after leaving the girl's place - she'd drawn more talk out of me about me than i could of her, and i have to admit that i'm curious as to why she's not talking about her shaved head and medical marijuana. but i'm not going to pry.

i took a shuttle back home, made a nuisance of myself when a couple turned their backs and walked from their dog relieving himself in the middle of the avenue, responded to a few comments (so people *do* read my blog?) and then turned in for the night.

[continued...]

glazy - part ii

[... continued]

hah! we ran into urchin at the cinema - i was well pleased to see her taking my advice. also, i was highly amused to find that we'd booked adjacent seats so i sat between her and pg while we watched scott pilgrim.

did i enjoy the movie? i don't know. it's a brilliant movie, that's for sure. i'm not familiar with the comics, and i'm sure that makes a huge difference. either way, i wasn't prepared for such a wonderful combination of techniques and stories: the movie left me with an overwhelming amount of processing to be done.

i... was... tired...

---today:

something about the connection between myself and pg has been dampened over the last couple of days. i can't put my finger on it, and i'm almost certain it's my own fault. perhaps it's the influence of at the sign of the cat & racket: she's a bit too quiet sometimes :(

i met up with sammy for coffee and a brief discussion of travelling india, then got to work to fight with its virtual world.
first news: there were a number of changes made over the weekend, systems fell, nobody informed me before suggesting that it was a software problem when none of the software had been modified. so thanks again for last night's two hours.

i also learned about dealing with our IT guy. he doesn't give a damn about his job, about any of us, and more than likely that's compensation for incompetence. also, he never sends out mail that isn't in english - so i kinda assumed that his english comprehension was alright. now i've learned that he uses google translate and actually types in hebrew...

---a company that recently received my cv called me up today... to ask me to explain it to them. am i the only one who's noticed that employing people in an hr dept. to filter resumes when they don't know anything about the field in question isn't the most efficient way to find good workers?

just a thought. just sending it out there, in the hope that it makes a difference. the big companies are shooting themselves in the foot by hiring off lists of irrelevant requirements. does it matter that i have years of intense and valuable experience in c++ when the requirement specifically says "c#"?
i mean... shit. there's no way i could handle basic application development with what i have.</sarcasm>

at some stage i asked if she understands the profession, and the answer was "yes". later on i asked if she's just reading off a list of requirements, and the answer was still "yes".

nice one.

---the boss and the head manager shared their lunch with me - that was a nice gesture. i didn't have to waste cash and they didn't need to throw out food... the head manager always prepares too much; he's the same guy that always throws plastic bottles into the trash and always prints things out unnecessarily.

we need to run an intervention.

...

my neck and back have been decidedly stiff this evening, and my right arm got tingly at one stage. i'm hoping rollerblading will sort that out a bit.

so the entire day was about firefighting (including a phone line emergency that i had to help out with). i've had enough.

i had a great chat with my mum on the way home, i'm glad i've finally gotten all this off my chest, and now it's time to get some exercise. i've eaten too well today.

pool, bugs, chinese, work, drink, photo

damn, we're good!

the kid and spot picked me up, and we had an awesome night of pool. i was completely bombed by the time i got to bed.

the entire day that we were on base, we dealt with a major problem in our system: SABOTAGE. wtf?!?! somebody with access deleted a crucial part of our system. we don't know when, we don't know who. it took all day to get it back up and running.

our systems:

it was extremely gratifying to learn that the guys in our new section don't expect us to deal with these kinds of problems, so from now on we're going to make a point of doing our jobs to the letter. and fuck them.

we went to visit someone from our section who's just had surgery (same op that i had on my nose), and we all ordered chinese. we learned that if you order szechuan, you don't automatically get rice. fuckers. not the best meal, but would've been pretty good. spicy as hell.

i didn't have time to play volleyball, as i went straight from the base to work. more skew than straight, i suppose - i stopped off at home to pick up some clothing.

i told the boss i wanted 4.5k... so i got 5k plus travel and food expenses covered.
^_^ nice!!!
i officially begin on the 23rd, just as soon as we're past the holidays. i'm rather excited!

i ran into wr at the lizard, who was about to begin a shift. so i stopped in for a drink and a chat, then made my merry way home. i've just uploaded all the photo's from south africa (FINALLY! the mongoose passed them along!), so i can now get around to inserting them in the appropriate blog posts.

i'd do that now, but i'm bloody tired, so i'm going to bed.

long date, hard talk

two days ago - the date:

i met up with metalhead at azrieli, and we sat down for a while. then we hopped a bus to my place, and chilled and talked for a few hours until she left.

boy, how first impressions change. to be fair, i really like her. she's interesting, seems intelligent, and i like her style. but something just doesn't do it for me, and i don't have time for a girl who's not totally perfect. so i've been feeling sucky about "leading her on" since.

yesterday:

i spent the morning dealing with the ministry of immigrant absorption, and the ministry of interior. was okay. i spilled maple syrup all over my uniform.

i was exhausted, totalled, and bombed, and spent my day in a daze. i don't really remember what i did on base. i missed the bus to get home, and ended up taking a slightly obscure set of buses, running into the most beautiful girl on our base (maybe, i no longer trust my taste), and intended to crash on contact with my bed. neil gaiman - american gods made me stay up till late. he's an evil bastard, he is.

oh - and i had to clean the sleeping bag i took from our base supply: i got a phone call threatening to court-martial me if i didn't get it back by 15.30 today, and it had melted marshmallow inside.

today: i went to the post office first thing, then to the base. i'm very proud - i managed to get through a hebrew phone menu all by myself! and i got to the right people (paying my electric bill)!

i returned the sleeping bag - to find out that whoever called me had made a mistake, and that i still have another few days to return it.
pricks. at least they apologized.

i can't say i worked the whole day - i did bits and pieces as we prepared for a hard night, and we played a lot of xonix and snood. i've almost finished sir arthur conan doyle - a study in scarlet. great read.

we started working at 17.30. everything was going fine, and then the production server started giving us hassles. so we reset it, and our database wouldn't start.

DAMMIT.

after struggling, and calling our base's dba center (to discover that they can't help us), i called the ex-soldier who made my life difficult. and i am impressed no end by how quickly and effectively he helped - and i actually learned how to do it myself for next time.

t'would have been nice to have learned this while he was still with us, but i suppose it's alright now :)

finished everything, hung around on the base a bit with the mongoose - and to hit on a really cute support girl - and then got a ride home.

i finally made that call, and said "goodbye" to metalhead. man, that sucked. really sucked. i hope she's not offended - i'm totally not good at this shit, and i feel like i fscked up somehow.

so - a shower, and to bed!

i'm baaaaaack....

that was a long couple of days!!

i just got back from playing pool with spot, after a long, long day of doing nothing (being prepared for battle, or something). after guarding the 2-6am shift. which was kind of mediocre.

i've definitely slept too much. but i *did* finish michael crichton's eaters of the dead, which is BRILLIANT.

yesterday was *interesting*. the morning was insane, we had our primary production database go down, and i was helpless. eventually we found someone who could fix it, after hours of phone call after phone call, failed attempt after failed attempt.

we also went to the firing range... was fun!

tomorrow will hopefully be just another day, then working tomorrow night, and then off to the kibbutz for 3 or 4 days for passover! w00t!

*blown away*

that was a crazy day.

no pizza nightmares, but waking up was still harsh. i went to the hospital, only to be informed that the secretary had got confused with my phone number, so couldn't get in touch with me to tell me that the appointment was moved to two days ago.
right.
so the appointment's next week.

i got back to the base to find serious problems. i tried fixing it, i did the same thing three times out of desperation, and when it didn't work (and due to other factors) i figured it was something else... so i gave them instructions on how to deal with it, and left for rehearsals.

later on i found out that my commander - aside from being upset with me for leaving them in the lurch - had gone into the office, done EXACTLY the same thing i did, and it worked.
colour me unimpressed.

the rehearsals were alright, but i had two lines to rap, and for some reason i just couldn't get them right the entire day.
i don't know why. maybe 'cause they don't quite make sense in english, but i think it was more the pressure.
so i screwed up the lines again in the actual performance... but it's okay, everything else was superb.

the event overall was actually quite nice. i got offered a ride home from the incredibly sexy girl who organized everything... and lives in my area... only to remember that i was supposed to visit my boss. she was kind enough to take me to herzliya and drop me off :) i like her...

i just got back now, busy studying RFID (OMFG i held one of the capsules that goes under your skin!!) all the way home. i forgot - AGAIN - to bring my referral with me. i don't know what the hell's wrong with my brain!! probably the same reason i can't handle my lines...

so i gotta go to the base first tomorrow, and THEN go to the medical base in rishon... i kill me. good night.

whoa. damn. wtf just happened? where am i??

i *just* got home. from a crazy, crazy day. after an AWESOME weekend!

thursday:

arbed the day along with little bits and pieces of work. i was bombed completely when we got to the beginning of the guard cycle, but i was looking forward to a relaxed weekend nonetheless.

when i got back to my office, i got the coolest email!! i'm officially replacing my commander for two weeks, while he's on a course - that puts me in charge of three other people, one of whom is higher ranking. i'm rather proud. and my commander's rather upset that's he's been replaced by a private.

almost all of the girls guarding this weekend were either troublemakers, or crying and in shock. that SUCKED ASS.

during my first shift, i found out that all the work i've been doing the last few weeks (outside of the army) has been for nought. not a good feeling, but i've learned a lot, and the pressure for the coming week has been reduced considerably.

i was joined for my shift by the mongoose and a couple of other guys, and we had fun. after the shift, i had to change the clocks on our servers - there was a girl from our section on duty, so she came by and helped out a lot. only problem is that we spent over an hour working on one of them, only to give up and report this to my commander... who says "whoops! forgot to tell you that we don't need that one".
bastard. i WILL get him back for it.
the girl was really cute, though.

so, i got to bed really late.

friday:

aside from everything else, due to the shift from daylight savings time we lost an hour of sleep. and i forgot to change *my* clocks. i arrived late for my shift, and the rest of the weekend the officer in charge didn't get off my back.

it was a dark, dark, sunny morning. the sun shone - directly into my face. i'd forgotten my glasses. i was exhausted. the commanding officers were constantly around my booth, so i couldn't sleep. it SUCKED. and it lasted a looooong time.

also, i tried all day to come up with a way to get my commander back - and failed.

the other south african came by, gave me a bandage for my sprained hand (awww...), and joined me in a shopping spree. yes, i got permission to leave the base to get cigarettes and birdseed. i am cool.

i got given some lessons in outlook calendars, the password to the internet machine, and a cup of coffee. a good recovery for the morning, all in all.

one of the guards called me smelly. i decided to take a (LONG) shower BEFORE sleeping. i didn't get any more complaints after that :P

it was an absolutely STUNNING day. hot, with a slight breeze.

had some really interesting discussions, took a nap (missing lunch, waking up only for a quick and rather pointless inspection... seated...), and then went up for my night shift.
which involved reading, supper (we were relieved for half an hour)... and a cute incident where the officer didn't notice i was smoking while talking to him, during my shift, totally forbidden.
:P

yesterday:

couldn't sleep during the night, the girls didn't stop screaming and singing into the walkie talkie - i was going NUTS. the mongoose called around 2am, which woke everyone up and almost killed me.

the run-up to the shift sucked.

i started my day with coffee and birdseed - funny thing is after a major wrestle with the coffee machine, i got back 14 shekels for the 2 i put in! never mind.

the afternoon was relaxed - had some interesting conversations, and slept and chilled. the shower totally rocked ^_^

and i came up with a way to get revenge on my commander. life is good.

lunch didn't rock though. this soupy thing that vaguely resembled beans and potato stew.
ew.
and i spilled some on myself as we carried round to the guys guarding :(

the evening shift was great. the mongoose visited, bringing excellent food, and we spent a few hours hanging. after he left, i was surprised by the guy who interviewed me - bringing me chocolates! yay!

after the shift i spoke to my mom, and then happily went to bed. i even managed to convince the girls to quiet down.

today:

today was insane. i finally slept enough, and made it to my shift on time - including a < 5 minute shave! the shift ROCKED. i took the main gate, so i spent my morning chatting and flirting - and had people running around organizing me breakfast and coffee, everything was grand.

no, really grand - i totally enjoyed my weekend!!

i went straight from guard duty (with full rights to go home) back to my office, and got hit with a mass of emails - our systems were screwed. i spent a frantic couple of hours working on them, and when i was done, i had to deal with our two new kids - who are NOT being helpful at all. it's actually quite rough to be in charge. but i think (i hope) i did okay before leaving. i'm about to shower and go to the wedding - empty-handed and in uniform :$