reflection

 yesterday was.

in the morning, i went out to the hardware store and picked up (amongst other things) a silicon tube and a proper handle for it. then i cleaned enough sideways bat shit off our windows (they're big windows, it's hard work) to take photos and ask for help with getting them fixed...

...

i wiped my company laptop, and went to the office to return it. i had initially planned to avoid the floor - i called it "a round of unpleasantness" - but ended up being taking aside for multiple talks, two of which being people who i'd been pivotal in convincing to join and who are now very concerned and unhappy. and then there was the security contractor, who i was worried was actually going to cry.

and then there was my boss, who made it clear that he wants to talk to me next week sometime, off the record, and it looks like he has something to say that he's not allowed to say.

and then there were the two backstabbing team leads. the first was just awkward. the second, i shook his dirty hand and looked him in his teenager eyes while he tried to assure me that i'd be okay, and i told him that there are recruiters that won't even look at my resume now.

i doubt they'll feel guilty, though.

finally, one of the founders shook me by the hand and thanked me for being one of the big reasons the company is succeeding.

i know.

...

after setting the silicon around the sink, i spent the afternoon bouncing between doing a little homework for my 5pm interview with the company whose offer i didn't accept, and jumping on and off calls with recruiters.

the 5pm interview was supposed to be a re-sync for culture fit, but the two-months'-new VP R&D had other ideas, and it was effectively from scratch, and included a technical component that i simply wasn't ready for. it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but i plumb forgot the word "instrument" for telemetry and that put him off, and i didn't have a coherent answer for how i've handled disagreements over the past few months, and i clearly said more about this week's drama than i should have, so my overall feeling by the end of the session was "nuh, uh".

but maybe that's okay. he made me a bit uncomfortable, and i'm now wondering if i didn't dodge a bullet when i declined to sign.

...

mr smear's homework session was positive, dinner (leftovers because the silicon hasn't cured yet) was good, and the evening was fine except for bedtime, which was going great until mr smear did his usual pre-sleep routine and made for some very sour feelings.

otherwise, i went to bed early last night, completely buggered.

this morning so far:

i woke up tired, did some emergency dishes so that gd could make breakfast, and sat with mr smear to discuss the bedtime story. then i accompanied him to school, which was a really nice opportunity for a bunch of conversations on a beautiful morning, and now i'm home and trying to balance relaxing, getting important stuff done, and figuring out next steps.

contemplation

yesterday:

mr smear went to school by himself again, which makes us a bit nervous but i guess it's no different from him coming back home by himself... parenting is weird.

i had a chat with urchin, who's just been laid off along with a bunch of her coworkers due to a change in management. amazing timing, right before the holidays. she's apparently interested in some of our open positions, which would be cool.

yesterday was long. lots of context switching, lots of issues that were supposed to be resolved the day before but weren't. lots of planning with my coworkers (mostly productive and positive). one emotional outburst about procedure that got me called in to a room by the rnd manager to tell me i'd made a bad vibe... i just apologize to her and the guy in question, and i've got a lesson to learn.

on my way into our apartment i picked up a second notice* for the two fluxx games i ordered a while back, which was apparently sent three weeks ago. it took so long to be delivered that they've returned the package, which is really unfair :(

* a first notice was never sent, neither were any emails or sms messages...

i came home just in time for dinner, just in time to see gd almost collapse from the sudden onset of something. i rushed myself and mr smear through dinner while she rested, wished them both a good night, and then headed out to the british ze german's shiva house.

it's always weird and sad walking past my mother and my old apartment.

the next couple of hours weren't unpleasant, the story of my friend's sister's passing notwithstanding. ru55 and the irish ze german were there too, and i alternated between conversation flow and just sitting and listening. ru55 gave me a ride home, i brushed my teeth and showered, and then sat down to do some more testing for our contractor.

it didn't take long to get stuck and stop the testing. and then suddenly there were noises coming from mr smear's room, where gd was attending to him and his suddenly sore throat. when i went in to commiserate he sent me away, but a bit later called out to me, really upset that he'd forgotten to call my mom to say good night 🥹

and then, in the middle of the night, gd decided that we urgently needed to do online grocery shopping :/

today:

i slept alright, but i've been feeling a bit on/off today. mr smear's leg seems to have healed, so we left him to his devices (ha ha) and headed to the pharmacy*, did some grocery shopping and picked up a pokémon puzzle for tomorrow.

* we left the first one in a huff because someone was drilling and there was dust everywhere while a bunch of sick and elderly people were waiting

i did some more work with the contractor, and then the new cleaning lady arrived. she insisted on wearing her shoes in the apartment, which gd eventually conceded and which i'm too nervous to discuss with her later when i get home from my voluntary exile at our favorite coffee shop. i somehow got dragged into a political discussion with her, which included a very awkward "we're not going to agree or understand each other" moment, but also her thanking me profusely for oversharing with a stranger.

i've spent the past few hours slowly drinking coffees, eating a sandwich, and trying not to fall asleep in the comfy armchair while slowly reading some more blindsight.

and spending a fair amount of time just staring into space. i guess i have a lot of processing to do.

medictation

last night i lit some incense, tuned in to an ambient station and spent the next few hours thinking long and hard about my love life, my current position at work and immigration. i've been avoiding thinking about these things and i believe i've come to terms with everything.

1. pg. i'd been listening to a lot of house music until she left, and went straight to rock for consolation. oddly enough, i've had karnivool songs repeatedly stuck in my head even though i haven't been listening to them as much and even though i haven't really given their lyrics much of a chance. in particular, deadman. today, i really listened to the lyrics a few times and i'm convinced that my subconscious was trying to tell me something.

2. work. we have a problem, and it's a serious bummer. long story short, our micro-managing cto just took a step so far back that he's undone all of my work and put us in a dangerous, inefficient and unrealistic position of being a supporting team for a single developer. but i still believe in our product - imperfect as it may be - and i also feel that i owe some loyalty to the ceo, and that's before taking into account my desire to keep a steady job at least until i have permanent resident status.

3. immigration. this is home. this apartment, this city, this country. that's a big mental switch to make.

---i slept late, and i guess it was the miserably boring weather outside that made me return to bed with tea and my kindle when i couldn't sleep anymore. i slipped into reading-induced sleep again, after which i finally had it in me to get up and do stuff.

it was seriously windy today. hard-to-walk-into kind of wind. chilly and mean.

first item on the agenda? draw cash to pay the rent. only i'd reached my weekly limit and i couldn't figure out why - it took some detectoring before figuring out that my repayment of the company's pre-panama cash advance had pushed into my rent money. shit. so i returned home, picked up my passport (i can't withdraw from a teller without it) and went back, withdrew the cash, and thanked the helpful information lady again for her earlier assistance. she was in a magnanimous mood, and offered to check that everything in my account was okay - if it hadn't been for her going out of her way, i wouldn't have known that my credit card bills are not paid automatically and i would've incurred a fine.

nice! as in, at least now i know to get in touch with them and sort that shit out.

i paid the rent, went to the gym to ask embarrassing questions about appropriate gear: i'll have to go shopping tomorrow. so much for owning as little as possible. aside from training shorts, i'm going to need shin protectors and gloves. i hear a *ka-ching* on the other end.

i finally restocked my fridge, then went to godmother for dinner. i stopped to pick up flowers on the way, the guy asked me where pg was...

anyway, yang was playing fallout 3, and i think that's what i'm going to do for what remains of the evening.

2012: fair, kind and true

2012 was without a doubt the biggest year of my life. shakespeare's three most important words echo those of corinthians 13:13, "faith, hope and love", which sum up the most significant events of the past year.

faith: my freak discovery of shakespeare's hidden-in-plain-sight messages has given me faith in the awe-inspiring power of words, and in myself as an ambitious steward of his.

hope: our most cordial reception in canada, the speed with which we've found ourselves and acclimatized, gives us hope that this was the right move to try. 2013 will let us know.

love: pg agreed to marry me, and travel around the world with me until we find a place suitable for settling down and starting a family.

all the rest is commentary. 2013: may you be even more brilliant.

scheduling

i woke up late this morning, took my sweet time, and slipped outside to pick up the package from pg. after all that worrying over snowboarding gloves, my israeli ones arrived first :P

the slipping was pretty literal - a passer-by gave me a friendly warning when he saw me almost see my own ass. the thing about snow and ice and bad boot grips is that you have to keep your centre of balance just a *teensy* bit more forward than is comfortable.

anyway, none of that was important. what was important is that it was the craziest snow i've ever seen - even if that's not saying much - and when it wasn't flying into my face it was absolutely beautiful. if it had been rain i would have said it poured, and i couldn't stop thinking about what a pleasure it was that if too much collected on a glove or the inside of my not-quite-closed jacket i could tap it off or blow it off.

i gotta say, though, it was pretty cold. and a traffic light that takes more than two or three minutes to let pedestrians cross the road is insane!

good news: my two pairs of gloves work well as a single inner / outer. awesome ^_^

the most awkward part of the walk in both directions was carrying the rental agreement, which i was doing because the post office tab explicitly stated that i would need to prove that i live at the written address. for next time, my passport was enough :P

...

it's difficult to express just how heart-warming a walk through the snow with uplifting house can be.

...

the day was long but calm. it's nice to be appreciated. and it's nice to have one's suggestions taken seriously and implemented and feedbacked into good policy. shit, even the kid with zero experience is behaving like a professional. it's like i fell out of the frying pan and landed in a pile of snow.

i came home, disappointed myself by putting both lupini beans and non-mediterranean olives in the salad (both are boring), and have decided that i'm going to welcome in my birthday by opening pg's package and getting to bed early. my gift to myself will be me being here, now, happy. this last year was tough, exhausting, and deeply satisfying on several levels and i can only hope that the next year will be one of consolidation.

twingling nerves

yesterday was exciting! well, the second half at least.

i got up stupid early (7am) to get some work done on the event website, and was fairly productive until i had to leave for work. the meeting with the insurance guy was set for 11am - it was only about noon when he finally rocked up. turns out he's from the same company :S

i got a bit of work done, but not enough that i don't have to do anything on the weekend. my 4pm meeting on campus had completely slipped my mind... boy, were we all surprised when i jumped up at 3pm, explained the situation, hurriedly handled most of a meeting that had been deferred from the morning while simultaneously packing up...

i made it to the university in good time. unfortunately, i arrived without my beloved phone cover: i'm guessing i must have dropped it on the bus. as soon as i realized it was missing i called up the bus operators, who registered the details but explained to me that they have no way to contact their drivers.

REALLY?!?! and this on the bus line that has wi-fi? so the drivers have internet, the drivers have cellular phones, but the company can't get in touch with them??? bloody liars.

the worst part of this story is that the bus line goes past our apartment, and i only realized that i could have simply called pg and asked her to hop on and check after i'd finished talking to the monkeys. by that time it was too late :(

it was super-heated on campus. the walk up had me disgustingly sweaty. i was surprised to discover that the girl that i thought i was going to meet was the *other* girl-with-the-same-name from the master's students...

the hand-over was very different to what i expected. i thought i was going to get a bunch of info, tips and tricks, who-knows-what - instead, i was informed that i already know everything there is to know about the content management system and that i already had the keys to the department's blog (it's on blogger).

i gave her a lot more info than she gave me: i'd been talking to the head of the faculty's IT department in the morning and the english department on the way from the office, and i've secured permission from both sides to join the faculty dev team for the express purposes of moving our website from the completely unusable and unsupported cms to joomla. the alternative? waiting for them to get around to it during the first semester... i don't think i'll really have enough time to do stuff then :P

on the way to meet the dev team, i ran into gco's girlfriend and she offered to arrange the meeting for me (it turns out everyone had left for the day anyway) - then i headed to the bus stop to go to the old office.

that didn't work - wr and co-conspirator caught me waiting for the bus, and there went an hour of my day. it was a fun, interesting hour, though - we've got a candidate for class rep and a platform on which to push her; wordsworth and i have found a way to let co-conspirator participate in the orientation course (i had reservations at first, but we resolved them in the interest of avoiding group politics), and she taught me a thing or two about the master's course registration process... it's good to know people who have time to harass the entire faculty :)

our enthusiasm for the course is contagious, apparently: wr, now going into his final - no really, his FINAL year* - wants to take the course too :P

* he has one course left to go to complete his degree... he's been studying the same degree for about seven or eight years now.

it was on that note that i left (again) for work. the first person i ran into was sorter, and we sat outside for coffee and business for a short while - i was happy to report progress, he had a lot to say about financial sources, and between the two of us this little project has rather a lot of potential. the best part is that as soon as this month is over i will have time to dedicate to it, and it's fun regardless of whether it succeeds or not. we don't have to invest in anything else until we're ready to release an alpha version... so an even split of the profits might be good pickings :)

i'd had a long email argument with -someone in the morning about the way i'd written one of the classes, and it continued as soon as the two of us were sitting together. much flurrying on the whiteboard later, and i finally managed to untangle my proposal into a flow diagram. it's funny how the second it was drawn up properly it became so simple and sensible! and how important it is to have two people working on the same code.
that freed up my next hour or so for documenting things before grabbing the bus home.

i decided i'd spend some time with pg before working, and we sat reading together after dinner, then playing tekken... tekken was interrupted, though, by a phone call from pg's ex. she disappeared for a while, then returned with a pile of cash, a guitar, and a retelling to raise the hackles. at least she told the creep off, and explained that she never wanted to see or hear from him again. story over - i'm glad i didn't have to intervene.

we played a bit more, and then i did a *little* bit of work... but sleep overpowered me. and not just any sleep - a complete, deep, *satisfied* sleep in appreciation for a week well done and *knocks wood* my life being in a good place right now. it's taken what seems like forever, but i'm financially stable and doing jobs that i like, i'm reading and gaming again, i'm making time for friends in addition to being in a fantastic relationship, and i believe that if i work really hard i might be able to keep this up ^_^

---getting up at 7am was night impossible, and 7.30 was only slightly easier. i've now posted, done the translation for the event, and am off for breakfast with urchin.

[twingling]

thursday, friday, new year - part i

[post divided retroactively]

thursday:

bus drumming has become a habit: reading with good music in the background, i find my feet tapping and my free hand rapping on my leg and i don't care. and i'm not alone; i love seeing other people doing the same :)

i walked into campus with a really cute girl from our class, and our discussion was apparently so riveting that she followed me back out of the class to continue it while i went for coffee. as we got to the machines the cute girl that i'd sat next to the day before (and mentioned) walked past, and stopped to inform me that she'd had a really interesting dream about me... apparently we'd been arguing a lot. all i could do was be flattered, and apologize :P

---the italian lecturer: i spent the lession wishing he'd picked a different profession. what he does to poetry is unforgivable, and i dislike (intensely) the fact that we're to learn *his* point of view, even if there are a plethora of more plausible possibilities. he did redeem himself a little, though. *if* i score 100 on the final exam then i won't have to hand in a work for extra credit. if i don't, it will essentially be a topic of my choosing that can cover the entire history we've studied.

that's mighty generous.

a stray quote from his class: "it was a major major major major shift". reminded me of a certain character from catch 22 :P

i have begun conspiring to put together a study group beginning this week: we have less than a month to go before the final, and half of us haven't a clue what's potting. this course is heavy.

---i went for coffee with a couple of the girls, and as we left the building a guy walked past hurriedly. i *knew* i recognized him from somewhere, but without context i just couldn't place him! i spent the next few minutes driving myself nuts trying to figure it out...

a couple of weeks ago my appointment to see a skin doctor was cancelled on the day. on thursday, my new appointment (for tomorrow) was also cancelled. i called up to say that it was beginning to seem personal, and discovered, quite by accident, that both appointments had been for the wrong doctor.

fantastic.

i had lunch with pg and taught her basic binary arithmetic, then got my exam timetable so that i could figure out when to go snowboarding. tomorrow, we begin to arrange.

second class: i was thinking of watchmen's alien, and trying to figure out how to connect everyone through the massive threat of... humans. i was reading haraway - a cyborg manifesto and thinking about our future, laughing at our lecturer for his claim to be "living perfectly" and thinking about how that unhealthy mindset contributed to all of my polygraph trauma that transformed my reserve duty role to that of an expensive warden (i have no idea what my reserve duty will really be like :P).

after class, metaphor and i found the new anime class and performed a sound check (with only a minor altercation with the lecturer; all she had to do was say "i'm early, and i'm teaching". passive-aggressive is stupid, we couldn't know she secretly wanted to get started).

botchman picked me up on his bike, took me home through crazy traffic to switch bags, and then we continued on to the climbing wall. we hit the wall hard, and i was extremely satisfied afterwards. i think my hearing might have been a bit damaged by all the teenagers *screaming* at each other...

that guy from earlier? he works at the wall! what a crazy coincidence!

botchman gave me a ride to campus, and i arrived *just* in time for the anime evening. we had a whole bunch of new people - things seem to be rolling! ^_^
botchman went back to pick up scrapper, but they took far too long and missed metaphor's presentation on evangelion and why there are so many versions of it. it was an interesting talk, and absolutely brilliant watching it on a big screen.

metaphor asked us to introduce ourselves, and when it came to me i simple said "i like to break things by doing them the way they're supposed to be done". it's a fairly accurate explanation of most of my behaviour :P

---i was irritated by the flash boss - halfway through the movie he called me, and i ignored him. then he called me again and i scrambled outside to answer.
"is this an emergency?"
"no, no - "
"then can i call you back? i'm in the middle of something."
"oh, i just called to tell you that your program's not working. i've sent you an email."

if he'd just have let me call him back, i would've enjoyed the rest of the movie that much more. a little patience goes a long way and in both directions.

---after the movie we had time left over to watch something else, and i'd fortunately remembered to pack my discs on the way to campus in the morning. unfortunately, i'd left my schoolbag at home when i switched it for the climbing wall... :S

botchman and i went to play frisbee at rabin square, and it was good frisbee. what an excellent evening - wall, anime *and* frisbee!

---when i arrived home the first thing i encountered in the online arena was a debate over whether marilyn manson is more artistic than shakespeare. after reading a few interesting arguments, i put mine in:
okay - i've just been studying literature theory and i have what really is the only answer: you can argue and discuss all you want, there's no way to differentiate between any two accepted artists by "how artistic" they are.

the current academic consensus would probably swing the way of manson though, purely on the basis that he forces us to re-evaluate the things we think familiar far more intensely than shakespeare did, but then shakespeare was severely limited by his environment.
(and no, it doesn't matter if shakespeare was one man or many :P)

[edit: boy, was i ever wrong!]

it's always relative to the current condition of whatever society you're referring to. shakespeare was pretty damn roguish in his day, and although (as was stated above) his stuff wasn't original his perspectives and his crossovers (see "the merchant of venice") were seriously inspired and nobody can touch his verse. nobody.

technically, i'd go with shakespeare. provocatively (as in thought and emotional response) i'd have to go with manson. there's nothing like a debate that totally depends on perception: isn't it wonderful that all of us live in such different realities, as do/did our artists?

oh, and [thread owner]: shakespeare was held in VERY high esteem. may i suggest that you obtain a copy of "the norton anthology of english literature"? it's quite educational, especially the bits between the excerpts :)

pg and i watched hunter x hunter, and then it was long past time for bed.

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