the alternative

a scratchy throat all day that caused trouble all night. it's still scratchy, but feeling slightly better right now so hopefully that's a trend.

i wasn't too sure that ze germans were doing the yom ha'atzmaut thing, and i made the mistake of only asking ru55 if he was going, and he didn't get back to me until this morning. so instead of going, i cancelled the car we'd rented and we had a "barbecue" hot-dog lunch at home that was really good.

a bit later, my mom and i dragged mr smear out to the beach. there was a chill wind on the beach itself, but once mr smear (mr inertia) was on the sand he didn't want to leave the beach, nor the sea. in retrospect, we should have brought him a towel...

otherwise, it was a beautiful afternoon. we took a slow walk down the beach and then up to allenby, where mr smear decided we should have hummus. that was a fantastic decision, we had a fun experience with the shifka and the meal was delicious.

then we walked up sheinkin, picking up some coffee along the way to the bus home.

unfortunately, i accidentally ordered a regular coffee instead of decaf. so it was around 6pm that i drank my fourth cup for the day.

we got home, and there was no argument from mr smear about jumping straight into a hot shower. afterwards, we started watching the tokyo ghoul series. which is really cool, but i did nap through half of the second episode...

dinner was the "barbecue" burgers, also delicious.

we got mr smear into bed, unsure of whether to expect a disrupted night or not because the ceasefire was supposed to end.

i went to bed pretty late (played slay the spire 2), and simply couldn't sleep. i estimate that it took me more than an hour and a half to finally fall asleep, after which it was fitful with claustrophobic dreams of an in-house rollercoaster with one of ze germans.

i struggled to wake up this morning, with my throat still doing a thing, but mr smear certainly helped as he made horrible noises (his throat) for the longest time. over coffee / his breakfast, we discovered that he's been avoiding going to school because he's been getting into trouble for not having his books. he's lost most of his books, apparently, and also never thought to report back that the lock on his locker is broken, and that he doesn't remember the code for the old one.

i don't know how much of any of that is actually true.

we explained to him that the books are expensive - they are - and that he's going to find them. and that all privileges are to be withheld until the situation is sorted out. on the bus to school, i explained what he needs to do and found his old lock's code, and sent a message to his homeroom teacher. on my way back home, he called to assure me that he's at least started the day off making an effort, so 🤷‍♂️...

also, on my way home, i thought some more about my work situation which is starting to freak me out. i've been trying to get a job done with AI that i have little context for, and the AI is leading me around in circles. not only do i need to change tack and focus on building the context i need, but i also *have* to  begin experimenting with AI harnesses because i'm feeling like i'm getting left behind on the most critical issue of our (engineering) time right now...

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.

communities

define irony: i just got permanently banned from the southafrica subreddit for commenting that the southafrica subreddit has become an echo chamber just like the rest of reddit. 

apparently saying that violated their community rules 😂 

...

getting to ra'anana was straightforward, apparently i got lucky finding parking as easily as i did. i got a little bit lost getting to the synagogue, but i made it time to witness ru55's barmitzvah boy doing his thing. all in all it was a great being able to be there with the gang, especially as it's the first simcha for one of ze germans' kids that i've been able to attend. it was also interesting to run into a couple of my aunt and uncle's friends that i have seen in about 25 years.

the evening was pleasant. i passed out on the couch again, and then struggled to sleep once i eventually moved to the bed... i think? last night's a blur.

...

today started off alright for me, but gd's neck was still in a bad way (and it still is). i got to work at a normal time, spent a little while with the exercise again, and finally sent them a message apologizing for the last week being a wash and including the following (translated):

i have to say that up close the code looks pretty clean and tidy, but without a real familiarity with everything it's pretty hard to understand how everything connects and who is responsible for what. i would be happy to sit down with you to get some guidance.

at that point i had some ideas about what needed doing, but i was missing some pretty big pieces of the puzzle. before i clicked send i thought about it, and i figured that either they'd be willing to walk me through what i needed to be able to do the exercise, or they'd reject my application, and either action would give me important information as to what kind of people i was dealing with.

well... a while later, i got the rejection message. i took it politely, but it did sting. it bothers me because on the one hand, i don't think what they set me was a reasonable task and i don't think their code is well organized enough to expect an easy onboarding. on the other hand, i'm plagued with that voice inside my head: "is it me? am i not good enough?"

i really hate interviewing.

...

after lunch with my now ex-bosses i received an urgent call from gd to inform me that i needed to take mr smear to his therapist, which was very last-minute. i grabbed my gear and walked home, met him outside and bussed to the therapist. had coffee, had a chat with my insurance broker, picked him up and took him home.

walked past our apartment to a nearby park, dropped him off with his friend (chatting with his friend's mom for a few minutes), and the returned home. followed, shortly after, by the two boys.

the next couple of hours were a mix of messaging recruiters / headhunters, doing dishes and (healthy) snacking, while the kids played nicely. that went on until we had to rush to get to the school for mr smear's two parent-teacher meetings, dropping his friend off at home along the way.

the rush turned out to be for nothing, because both the teachers were behind schedule.

between the two meetings, we learned that, by and large, mr smear is doing relatively well academically and socially. unfortunately, we also learned that he's being totally uncooperative with his hebrew teacher to the point where she doesn't believe he can read 🤦

so that's a fucking thing. he's promised to start playing ball, but we'll see... we'll see...

gd wasn't up for making dinner so i took mr smear for falafel, which was a great experience. we got home quite late, though, and it was a rush to get him ready for bed in time because we wanted to log in to a private Q&A with an ex-mossad agent who was involved in captured eichmann, and was a consultant on the netflix movie operation finale.

he told us some stories that aren't in the movie, as well the fact that the doctor in real life was a man, but apparently the movie's an extremely faithful adaptation and the true story has some elements that are completely nuts, with truth truly being stranger than fiction.

the last couple of hours were spent chatting with my mom, playing a bit of inscryption (act ii), doing random things. it's now 1am and i have an exit interview in the morning and an important double interview at noon. and i'm nervous about going to bed because i haven't been sleeping well.

wish me luck.

noise and anti-noise

getting four hostages back this morning came as a welcome surprise, i hadn't realized the release was going to be so early. it's concerning that hamas are messing with the schedule, but most of us are just grateful to have a few more back in safety. i cannot imagine how devastating this must be for the bibas family...

...

mr smear didn't go to school yesterday because started the day with a cough, but he almost always starts the day with a cough* and it became pretty clear pretty quickly that he was actually fine. having said that, he's been struggling a fair amount the whole day today so maybe it was the actual start of something...

* i'm beginning to wonder if he's not allergic to the night

we had an incident (minor tantrum) getting him out the house yesterday for a walk, on the walk we sat down and had a real long talk and it feels like we cleared the air about some stuff. at the same time, i explained to him that as a parent it's really hard to have to convince him to leave the house every damned time...

i managed to get a couple of hours in on the job application exercise, it feels like i've made some progress but nothing amazing.

...

today has been quiet. mr smear and i started it with a couple of hours of inscryption, but at some point i started feeling like i was playing through him rather than advising him. i'm not quite sure how to balance that.

gd's neck's been hurting her a lot (nerve pain) since yesterday, so it looks like i'm off to ru55's eldest's barmitzvah alone in a few minutes.

...

RIP reddit. i cannot believe how ridiculously exaggerated the political echo chamber has become, even amongst the subreddits i would have least expected. it seems like everything's either anti-israel or anti-musk.

sad - hopeful - sad

monday:

it was supposed to be a half day, but ended up being more like three quarters because one of my coworkers and i were stuck investigating sunday's mystery. we managed to narrow down where the mystery is occuring, but it's still a mystery. at least we could put a plaster over it in the meantime and our boss has prioritized root-causing it.

it was a quiet afternoon, mostly just listening to galgalatz and contemplating the hostages, the victims, the fallen soldiers...

... and experiencing a flood of political discussion in a group of apparent "movers and shakers" that gco introduced me to.

the switch to independence day was somber. we ordered burgers (delicious, but i really shouldn't have eaten all the fries), and then i took mr smear for a walk.

it's hard to say "chag sameach" right now, and it feels like most of us are feeling that. but i'm overflowing with gratitude and hope nonetheless.

we went for a walk down to what's now known as "hostage square", and saw thousands of people packed tightly in support of our hostages and their families. then we walked through a huge park filled with kids doing that annoying foam thing that they always do, safe and laughing and living their best lives.

the streets are slightly more somber than they should be, but we're here. we're not going anywhere. we made it out of egypt, we made it through the desert, we made it through short exiles, and we made it through thousands of years of exile. we made it through inquisitions, we made it through pogroms, we made it through the holocaust, we made it through 76 years (and counting) of intense wars against enemies who have never stopped seeking to destroy us.

we'll make it through this tragedy, this pogrom, this war, this torture, and we'll make it through whatever else the world has in store for us. there is no part of this story that is anything less than miraculous, and if we stick together and work hard, there's no reason for the future to be any less so.

🇮🇱 am yisrael chai . עם ישראל חי 🇮🇱

mr smear and i also picked up vegan donuts on the way home for yesterday's breakfast:

yesterday:

we managed a good start to the day, and left more or less on time for ze germans' barbeque. it was a really fun day, and good to spend time with the whole bunch (including mmf), but there were some highlights: mr smear trying to learn how to operate the grill from one of the older kids, enjoying the swimming pool and figuring out flippers, and ru55's eldest catching him vaping weed and deciding that his dad's a criminal (fortunately they resolved that by bedtime, but goddamn his kids are smart and had loads of good arguments).

we got home early enough to have a pretty easy evening.

today:

i've been struggling with allergies rather badly today.

the morning started off well enough, but the conversation i was having with mr smear on the way to school took a bad turn and we said goodbye on shaky terms. then i came home, did grocery shopping and fretted about finances, and was busy with banking when mr smear's teacher called and asked us to pick him up (he apparently wasn't feeling well, but we smell bullshit). at least gd was able to handle that.

they weren't back by the time i was ready to go to the office, but when i saw i caught them by surprise on my way out i mean that i saw them a way off, hid behind a bush, and scared them so badly that gd proper screamed and mr smear lost his footing. i mean, they do that shit to me all the time, so it's fully deserved, but it also appeared to make mr smear's day much brighter :P

the work day was long, but ended well. i ate too much, though (falafel for happy hour) and i had a hard time (as usual) keeping my eyes open during our meetings.

i got home in time for the first in a series of talks about the state of the middle east by people from all over: it was a lot longer than i anticipated (two hours), and some of it was hard to get through (in particular, a lecture in arabic via an interpreter), but there were some fascinating things said (assuming that what was said was true) and overall it was an intriguing experience.

i spent the rest of the evening (until recently) translating a video about adi kaploun into english for it to be shown in canada; gd agreed to try translating it into québécois french but i'm not sure if she can stomach it...

more buck for my bang

i'm going to start with the bit that i still haven't internalized: it's kinda weird news.

let's start with the immigration lawyer: the lawyer costs a bomb even though we paid substantially less than the full fee; at that price she didn't even get to go over our forms. she just sent us a list of things we need to give her to review, and that list included a super-critical form that doesn't appear anywhere on the immigration website. she also told us what we have to write on the envelope. apparently this is an important detail and we'd written the wrong thing. in my defence, i wrote precisely what the guy on duty at the ministry had told me to.

instead of completely redoing the application, we fired off an email to the ministry with the new form and an explanation that we'd fouled up the envelope, what we got in return was a reassuring phone call and helpful instruction. part of the instruction has to do with the salary offered: in order to hire a foreign worker, the company must pay the provincial average salary for the posting / experience level of the applicant.

there was a sensation of "oh, shit" when i was informed that i've accepted (and gratefully so) a lot less than average, and we're talking about enough of a margin that the difference could cover most of a year's tuition at graduate level over here. the sensation wasn't a positive one because everyone up the chain would have to approve the new salary or the entire deal would be off.

i tend to lose confidence in that sort of situation.

and then... relief! i have been given the impression that this will not be a problem. so while i'm not going to be totally relaxed until i actually walk across the border with papers in hand - otherwise they could agree to pay me millions and it would mean nothing - but the outlook on both counts, future employer and the province, is really, really good. it's very exiting stuff!

---thursday and friday:

the weather over the past couple of days has been a little too warm: here in montreal the word "balmy" is used when the temperature rises above -5. no jokes, i find myself opening my jacket and removing my tuque if there's no wind to bring relief. hands feel the cold if they're not protected, but that's about it. it's been so warm that i've actually opened a window, and slept with just a sheet: wtf?!

on thursday i walked into the office to find the snow / salt stains on the floor cleaned and my shoes neatly placed on a small square of a black plastic bag. how sweet :)

in the office, i've been feeling like my hands are tied. i can't work until i have my permit, and there's so much i want to do and get involved in and play with! it's exciting and pleasurable and frustrating all at once.

in the meanwhile, i've been messing about with my own little projects and one of them involves using curl and jira apis. i couldn't figure out what the problem was, and tried everything, and then suddenly yesterday morning i had an epiphany and realized that the issue was security configuration, not software. this led me through a chain of fixes from which emerged a solution so much bigger, better and easier than what i'd previously planned that i ended my day well pleased with myself.

i woke up on friday morning early for a long skype meeting with sorter and -someone. i was five minutes late, -someone was about twenty. the meeting went better than i anticipated but i'm still left with not much faith that anything's going to happen.

i don't know why, but i suddenly felt distant with pg over the past two days. it's better now, but it was disquieting.

playing through on the rain-slick precipice of darkness on the ipad, even if it's the second time because saves are shared between devices, is nothing short of grand! i'm not a fan of their d-pad implementation, but it's not a big deal. i do feel a bit awkward about the ipad in general, though: between games and wired magazine i'm getting great use out of it, but pg's just not getting into it. at least i know she's got the hang of reading comics.

---this morning, i woke up three times from three vivid dreams, each connected somehow to the last.
1. i return to sea point with SxS and ru55 from a party on the same morning SxS and i have to fly. i get ready with the help of pg but SxS is nowhere to be found, i'm late for the flight, i can't find my passport anywhere and nobody can help me print my ticket.

2. walking down to an alternate mouille point on a long road. i help an old indian woman (dots, not feathers) and we start talking, then we're walking along a bridge past the most intensely beautiful scene: i look to my right straight up a giant, calm river flowing through a vast, golden city of skyscrapers. i stop to take a photo and somehow i can see below the waterline, where there are giant turtles swimming downriver towards the bridge and then turning sharply to follow it giving me great turning shots, but now when i look up the bridge seems infinitely long and is slowly sinking. the two of us continue hurriedly, i'm holding my phone above the waterline and eventually, when the water reaches my neck, we give up and swim.

3. i'm on a hollywood-like college campus and it's a gorgeous day for skiing, so everyone's getting ready. but i'm having trouble finding my gear.
then i'm with a family and we're getting ready for the bus to the slopes: they've brought me my gear and i'm expected to hurriedly put it all on because the bus is leaving. we're dressing in a glass booth on the edge of a square where some kind of celebration is going on; the announcer conflates new year's with [the weekend? i don't remember] and suddenly the square explodes with a powerful house beat that makes it difficult to do anything but dance like a wild thing. only the younger members of the family get me. we drag ourselves away to find the bus.

---i caught a link from hido yesterday morning to tri-force Live at ageha 24.03.2012, and i've had it playing while posting this. what a groovy, adrenaline-filled mix!

to quote scrapper on extra credits - god does not play dice: "it's a unique feeling, to hear someone state your own opinion, especially when it's one that you've had such trouble expressing, and when he does it so well."

poor me: a weekly review part iii

[continued...]

i slept like the dead on the couch, and was woken a bit later to vacuum, and take a call from co-conspirator. i didn't have the energy, but i told her i'd update her once i'd done the park at night.

after having discussed things with ru55, and then grabbing some tips online, pg and i took her electric grill up to the roof and i cooked my first steak. it came out beautifully. it was a perfect night and we smoked a nargila for dessert, and life was good.

it took a while to set up the subtitles for shaun of the dead for pg, but i got them going eventually. i then set upon my poetry paper before going to bed around 2am, not making it there before discovering that i wasn't in a good situation.

it took a while to get to sleep.

---saturday:

pg transferred me a temporary solution and i got stuck into finished my paper. that was a tough paper, and made tougher by my previous failure. i managed to finish before pg's family started arriving...

the afternoon on the roof was great, everything went well except for the fact that her family aren't really big into meat. her father considered his steak to be underdone, and the truth is that the electric grill cooks so slowly that you'd have to double-kill the outside to get the inside bloodless, and i don't know if i'm psychologically capable of doing that. i enjoyed two steaks, and still had another two as leftovers by the time we were done. add the chorizos and i was stuffed - finishing the lunch with pg's exquisite triple-layer cream cake, great 60s folk music, a good cup of coffee and a nargila was fantastic.

i found being thanked at the end for hosting to be awkward. i don't feel like i did very much, and even though i live here now it's odd for me to consider myself as a host.

pg and i spent a while cleaning up, and i then bladed over to my old neighbour for a delightful and conspiratorially productive visit. i continued on to the park and figured out where we'd be. i was on my way back when i reported my success to co-conspirator; i was home already when she informed me that she'd done a round herself.

i was irritated, because she'd sent me a message during the day to ask if i'd gone and i'd ignored it because we'd talked and agreed that i would report when i had - i don't like how pushy she is. to then go and see without telling me, when i have other stuff to do, is not very nice.

when i approached her about this this morning she told me she'd only been during the day, so i guess that doesn't count, even though it was quite aggravating at the time.

i worked quite late,

---today:

and got up quite early (6.40). i finally finished the first draft of the file i'd been working on just before i had to go, and it was eerie seeing it run successfully first time. i checked my mailbox (no mail for me) and then began to use all my travelling as an opportunity to read the book i was told about on tuesday. the author is a guy i studied with (my first degree), and when i asked him what he was up to he proudly exclaimed "i've written a book!" our mutual friends claim to have read it and gave it rave reviews - i felt it worthwhile to pay the $7 to check it out on kindle.

so far, not so good. as far as style goes it's the second worst thing i've ever read*, and as far as content goes... well, quite frankly it's offensively stupid and miserable. it's a real page-turner, though. it's so bad that i *have* to find out if there's some character development, if there's a complete reversal. the protagonist is such a complete and utter douche that i feel my gorge rising at every utterance. this is what happens when a work of fiction is written by someone who has no talent, doesn't read and has zero appreciation for literature. but i'm hoping he's just really, really good at constructing completely foreign characters and then destroying them.

* psychotic american's efforts were even worse

i had a chat with mmf before class; now i understand the way the tax works, i think, and he's wired me the cash. the only problem left is that i need to find out whether my mortgage payment went through today because the internet access doesn't reflect changes fast enough. and it turns out that we had a misunderstanding concerning the amount i need to earn, so we're already up for our first renegotiation.

after class we made a promo video for this weekend's poetry event, and while it took much longer to produce it came out just as well. i'm quite pleased.

i stopped by (old) work for half an hour before going to physiotherapy; prior to the electrotherapy i was falling asleep, and i thought that would help me during. when your back's arched unnaturally and your eyes and teeth are shut tight, it's not so easy to nap.

my physiotherapist and i haven't gotten along from the start - today she really threw me when she stated that in order to treat me she "has the right" to shave parts of my beard (i forgot to shave again, and the tabs don't stick well). i do believe i "have the right" to not be treated if i don't want to look like an asshole. this isn't exactly life or death.

the rest of the workday was long and mostly uneventful. i returned home for steak leftovers (^_^) and have been working until stupid o'clock, and for most of the time my brain's been fuzzed. so i'm finally getting to bed.

i can't believe i've finally gotten all of this down!

old movies

did you know that "catarrh" (sounds like qatar, no?) means "excessive discharge or buildup of mucus in the nose or throat"? i certainly didn't.

another spring morning. it promised to lead on to a gorgeous day, and didn't fail. it felt good, smelled good; it was good.

i began the day reading emerson - i love his thoughts as much as i enjoy reading his full name - and then skipped past the bank to open up a credit line so that i can go into negatives. i'm not happy with this, but at least i finally got a (paying) job last week so i should be fine... i still managed to arrive early to class, which is a sure-fire way to not get any reading done :P

i intended to relate a funny story from class, where the teacher picked on me and i waited until after class to retort - but i still haven't reached a conclusion regarding my anonymity. one of the guys came in late, and a bit smelly, and sat down next to me. he promptly fell asleep. being a good neighbour, i elbowed him whenever he began to snore; he informed me he'd come in straight from a night shift. i've done that before - to worse classes - so i can identify. it took me quite a while to convince him to get up, get some coffee and splash water on his face. he disappeared, and didn't return. leaving his bag behind. while hunting for him between classes (before giving up and leaving the bag with the caretaker) i walked past the lecturer, and i think she invited me for coffee. awkward, although positive.

second class was fascinating as usual, but the classroom was cold! this was followed by a debate over whether (and when) to screen all the plays we'll be studying. can i have another few hours in the day, please?

after a standard lunch and a debate over the politic influence of the media* and the merits of a meritocracy as opposed to a blanket ban on politicians with families to take care of... ru55 called to inform me that the guy i interviewed with a couple of weeks ago has finally realized that he wants to work with me.

brilliant. i told him i'd be in touch if things don't work out with what i've got. how is it that after ten months of desperate searching, i finally find something and suddenly my inbox is overflowing with "hey! your cv is amazing, are you interested in working with us?" - thank you, murphy. no sarcasm. 'onest injun.

* if you want to change the world, through a medium of fear, become a journalist. it's frightening how much power they wield - they can frighten one into doing the most absurd things.

i read a bit of sir ronald harwood - collaboration, then called up the campus IT department to harass them about collaborating with me. the head of development sounds like a bureaucratic bumbler, and when i told him what i want to do he briskly informed me that a system like that already exists and there's no need to waste his time. so i visited our department secretary and asked her to show me this wonderful system, which has absolutely nothing to do with what i tried to describe and isn't at all useful to our administration either.

i think it's time to build something.

i was handed the cassette of the dresser and sent to set up. the caretaker wasn't too happy with me but we got sorted out in the end, and everyone arrived on time. altogether. all three of them - the department head and secretary, and an italian wearing a hat. awkward. not positive. good grief.

not the end of the world, though. we were just watching a movie, and it's a *brilliant* one. a great pity that none of the shakespeare class got to view it, especially after this morning's lecture about the difficulties in classifying his plays according to genre. it really is a tragically funny film.

moment: on the walk to work, i turned up a dark path surrounded by thick vegetation with a woman feeding many angry cats and panic ensemble - fear playing off my ipod.

work saw us (both developers) hating either flex (it was doing such very weird things, i'm so glad it was his problem) or apache / php installations. aspie was in, and loves that shit so she jumped in to lend a hand. our debate spawned this preachy post.

eventually she gave up, and we completely uninstalled. i left, caught the last bus home, and... umm... as usual, i've no clue where the last hour and a half went. this is becoming normal. not cool.

undead cash-centric

i met wr outside the main library, introduced him to the noise room and we spent most of the hour on ideation. then a little while on failed research before we had to go our separate ways. he has given me good food for thought, at least.

on the way into class, i spoke to the flash boss and we agreed that we'd meet between 1pm and 1.30 so i could drop off the tax document. he promised he'd be available and, just in case, gave me a phone number to call.

the poetry lesson was great fun, in particular when studying adelaide crapsey. last semester we learned to the dead in the graveyard underneath my window, and today we studied song. once i put the following (blacked-out) idea into your head, that she's making the shroud because she wants to be the best-dressed zombie, try to read the former without seeing what i saw. when i shared with the professor, she looked at me oddly for a moment and then burst into laughter :)

after desperately declaring bankruptcy to yogi over the phone (his father's out the country, so if i *am* working for them then i need to know how much and when i'm being paid), i had lunch with wordsworth and we discussed my seminar topic. he also had interesting things to say.

on the way off campus a girl wearing a greenpeace shirt asked if she could have a moment, and i told her that she was welcome to follow me to my bus stop.
"where're you from? you have an accent."
"south africa"
"oh! it is you!"
she raised her sunglasses, and became the girl from the specialist encounter. she informed me that she had, in fact, checked out the disturbing things i'd told her, and found me to be correct. we discussed nuclear power and left / right polarization of environmental issues (i hate it when political leanings interfere with universals), and then she surprised me again when the bus came by not only remembering my name, but knowing my surname too. what gives?!

---on the way to my once-upon-a-time primary base to meet with the flash boss, i called his phone. unreachable. i called the other number, and left a message with the secretary. when i arrived, i tried calling again, but his phone was still unreachable. i perched myself on a wall, and spent the next half an hour alternating between reading, calling his cellphone, or calling the other number. the secretary wasn't answering any more, and i was transported back to six years of frustration caused by military secretaries simply ignoring calls.

that's one of the reasons it's always better to do stuff in person. but there i was, no authorization (nor desire) to entire the base, and looking so suspicious that one of the GSS dudes approached and began an interrogation. producing my high-enough ranking reserve duty card wasn't enough, i had to prove knowledge of the base to push him to friendly mode.

all that, for nothing. i left for my interview in a foul mood.

---my mood was improved somewhat when the direction ru55 gave me took me to a building called camera obscura, but i then discovered that i was on the wrong street :P

did the interview go well? the guy seemed satisfied, the work looks really cool, and i felt... a fit. i would love to work with these guys. and i have relevant experience up the wazoo :)

---i headed to care to have my eyes tested for laser surgery. i had no idea what to expect, but the first battery of tests was funky as hell. lots of pretty swirling colours, retinal-scanner-style wiping, and that strange, amusing machine that tests both your eye-pressure and your courage simultaneously.

the opthalmologist who did all the differential testing shocked me with the results: i can't believe how awful my left eye has become. he put drops in my eyes and told me they'd make my vision blurry, but nothing happened and i sat outside reading until they called me.

just prior to them calling me something happened. it was barely perceptible, but suddenly i was having trouble with the words on the page and i had to hold my iphone at a strange angle to be able to follow the line. when i mentioned this to the doctor, he told me that when he was done i could look at myself in the mirror - so *that's* why the experience seemed familiar! my pupils were completely dilated :P

it appears that i'm an ideal candidate for laser treatment (gosh, i'll bet they say that to all the guys) and it would totally sort me out. the only problem is that it would sort me out in another sense as well: NIS 7800 after the NIS 1000 student discount? damn.
that seems an awful lot for bothering them for thirty seconds.

---work: i did a good night's work. as i said to one of the managers on the way home - i shouldn't be working so well for such a small amount of money; my conscience is screwing me over in the grand scheme of things. [see previous post]

i was horrified to discover that -someone's screw-up (and mine, that i didn't perform a code-review) was way worse than i originally thought. on sunday we have to rewrite what he did completely, and there's me at 10pm sending off reprimanding emails to him and tactful emails to the boss to explain without getting the guy into shit for the damage his lack of experience and guidance caused.

...

good news, good news, bad news. the good news is that my poetry paper scored me a 99! the other good news is that i scored a 92 for the narrative analysis course... the bad news is that it's a six point drop from what i understood was my exam score. it's not clear if my mark was penalized; but if it was there's nobody who won't stand for my having been the most active and vocal member of the class. and i suffered every - single - class. wordsworth called me up devastated, but there's not much i can do short of a few inane condolences. i hope he doesn't have to redo the course...

i got home, put a load in the washing machine and headed to pg's, who's already complaining about barely seeing me.

*sigh*

i need a cash infusion, a decent job, and for the world to right itself without my intervention for a while.

faring well part ii

[... continued]

wr called to let me know that i might have a cheaper ticket for the pixies and placebo - alright!

i spent the rest of the workday making notes for the next guy; then i caught the evening shuttle for the last time :)

i spent the evening getting organized (for tonight's party) and dealing with a facebook virus my sister passed on to me before heading out into the murky, dusty air on my blades and hitting the climbing wall for their thursday night cheap-beer special.

last night's climb can be accurately described with the words "pain" and "shame" - i really don't go enough, and i think i do need to get back into training. at least scrapper's interested in getting going, and we ran into our chinese friend who also wants in. and from next week, i can do mornings, too :D

i'm annoyed that my blister popped. it had to happen, i know.

i think my blood pressure must have dropped on the way home, because i was touch and go for a bit and arrived bathed in sweat and feeling broken. i quickly showered before going to meet ru55 for a walk to the harbour to meet grootbek and company. i couldn't take the indignity of the crowded entrance to galina, so i said goodbye after a while and headed south to the comfort. that proved to be almost as bad, and i was so offended when they asked me to pay NIS 30 after advertising free entrance until two (i was on the list, and it was 1.55am) that i walked.

a good thing, too. i needed the sleep.

i woke up late this morning, and with my chest retaliating against my sinuses. i do hope my body will have calmed down by tonight.

---*sigh*
i've been posting this from my patio, a beautiful sunny day shining through with chillout in the background and nag champa burning enthusiastically, with the only things on my todo list being have a fun day and then prepare for the party tonight.

i love today.

drifting off

i got to the show on time, but it began an hour late. i left just as the band was getting ready to get on stage, and i had to run to catch the last bus :/

i met up with SxS, his cousin and ru55 in a park, we chatted for a bit before dropping ru55 off at home - i gave his fiancée a birthday present that she absolutely loved: i didn't realize i was the only one to get her a serious gift, though :$

dinner was amazing: we all ate way too much and after such a long day i've been passing out constantly since. we went off to mmf's place, where yogi, grootbek and our irish friend joined us, and i crashed on the couch while they all watched or played poker. now i'm going to get some real sleep because the last couple of days have really taken it out of me!

oh, and i spoke to my mom and finally admitted (i was asked not to tell, but i can't keep secrets from my mommy) that i'm not going to the kibbutz for passover after all - our cousin and her husband are separating. that leaves me with a couple of choices, and what i really want to do is find out who of my friends aren't celebrating and do the big meal in the style i referred to the other day.

flaked out and all soldiery

right - this was a HARD week. i was completely exhausted when i returned to base on sunday... exhausted to the point where the raising of a limb or the flexing of grey matter was a chore. with that as the background, sunday and monday were two of the most physically demanding days, both mentally and physically, that i've undergone in the last half a year.

this week was spent in the deep desert, being drilled and living like real soldiers, sleeping in crappy tents, dealing with no water, eating rations and trying to remain focused on the million-and-one different things that we had to remember for every step of the way.

without getting down all the details, i can say that on the whole i enjoyed the experience, although i got horribly sunburned and i had some frustrating moments with my platoon (although the team's getting on much better). i even managed to get a couple of good words out of my commander :)

today i got *really* lucky, after missing the bus from the base i hitched a lift with a cute major - she not only got me to a good place but she gave me a few pointers as well, and i managed to find a bus travelling from the previous base i was assigned to and they let me ride with them until be'er sheva. after three days without showering and working my ass off, i had a good shower before changing into my clothes for mmf's wedding and heading off to meet up with ru55's fiancee to get a ride to the event.

the wedding was really nice, we had a lot of fun, and i just completed my mission as designated driver.

now i'm at SxS's, about to crash for a couple of hours before heading back to base. my commander was so impressed today by my offer to do the book report on my partial reading of the hebrew one that he gave me an extension which will make all the difference! in addition, my day-job commander has okay'ed my vacation so although there's no "final" in the military i'm pretty darn close to it.

this week i was way more relaxed, and i've found my groove. it's a bit late as far as the peer-review is concerned, because there're a bunch of assholes who've been discussing openly how they're going to screw me over - but there's not much i can do about that so i'm just carrying on and hoping for the best.

back into character

i forgot to mention a couple of amusing things from last night:

1) it turns out that both mmf and ru55's fiancee both share my low blood pressure / fainting problem. what are the chances??

2) ze german (hurricane) was sitting behind me while four of us played mario kart, and in frustration slammed his wii remote down, hitting me square in the head. i still find that amusing.

the afternoon was perfect - it's been a long time since i've enjoyed a civilized shower and after the excellent biltong and great steak leftovers (eaten after the belgian waffles, of course) i took another nap. we picked up yogi, went to mmf's and i split before they all headed off to his bachelor's party - now i've got packing and homework to do before hitting the sack.

i am really sad that this weekend has come to a close.

post zionist post nav

in the quickest summary ever, we spent a week in jerusalem visiting the sites and receiving a solid injection of zionism (and i've begun to grow fond of the city itself), and after a restful weekend reading and finishing projects we entered a week of introspection (personal review) and navigation (running around the desert hunting down little metal plates with numbers on them).

the most important item on the list of things to do is to calm down. i need to learn to chill out and takes things easy, and i'm still finding it hard to do. maybe it's the lack of minutes in the day, maybe it's the fact that i'm surrounded by idiocy, and perhaps it has to do with the fact that as much as i have what it takes to be an officer, my ability to express myself and my comprehension are limited and altogether it's a highly frustrating experience.

oh, and the bit where most of the people with me in the course are not my friends, we don't know anything real about each other and oftentimes don't even like each other might have something to do with it too.

right, the dailies (in case you were wondering, the summary ended after the first paragraph):

the essential books in my future home:
alice in wonderland
the complete narnia series
the science of discworld

speaking of which, i bought copies of dune, ender's game, the adventures of huckleberry finn, the rest of the sherlock holmes books and i think something else that i can't recall right now. the trip to the book store was enforced, my commander got permission for me to do the book report on an english book instead, which means that i have the same deadline and have to choose something i've already read. it's either dune or ender's game...

the nose-picker came up to me one evening and placed his hand on my neck: "they're sending me home". bummer, dude. i'm really glad i'd bought wet-wipes just in case...

jerusalem at 3am covered in fog makes me feel at home. the morning prayers at the western wall were quite special.

i sketched a portrait of a previous chief of staff while he talked to our battalion that was good enough that when the guy next to me glanced at it he laughed out loud... oops :S

the toilets in the hotel we stayed at read: "BOER OK".

my niece told me a story that does my head in.
parting of the jewish mourning process is to say a certain prayer (kaddish), and the belief is that every time we say this prayer the soul of the departed rises up to heaven. my father, not being particularly saintly, didn't cause us to scramble to prayers in the wake of his demise.

i personally, don't believe his soul deserves rest.

my niece explained that her father claims that my father came to him in a dream and complained that nobody had said kaddish for him and so he couldn't pass on to the next world. her father, being the self-righteous prick moron that he is, took it upon himself to say prayers.

last week i had a really odd dream, and one part of it remains clear as crystal. it's almost an exact copy of the scene from a clockwork orange of the man licking the warden's boots, with my now-ex male biological forbear doing the licking. it irks me to think that he might have found redemption, whatever form it may have taken.

i think that speaks rather lowly of me.

we paid a visit to david ben gurion's old house, and in the middle of a talk an interesting idea began to form in my mind. it's been developing since, and although my buddies just laughed at me when i gave it voice i think it's possibly a good direction to take when i finish with my military service.

the sneaky bastard finally pushed me to a point where i gave up trying, and then a few days later approached me and repeated my words back at me. i pointed this out to him, and since then he's been trying to be friendly - it's a pity for him that he's so untrustworthy.

our platoon leader opened a debate about zionism wherein i was the only person not allowed to talk... "yet". by the time he let me loose i'd prepared a speech - and a lot of people came to me afterwards to thank me for giving such a touching one. score!

we have a mouse in our room. the stories being told are getting more and more rediculous as the days go on, and we're hiding our food in the weirdest places. the problem with our mouse is that he's talented enough to open up boxes and packets.

it turns out i'm pretty damn good with finding my way around the desert - a pity that our team almost didn't get to try as our commander decided that we weren't prepared enough [of COURSE we can learn a full page of data by rote within fifteen minutes!]. i'd deliberately picked a difficult partner, and we spent the first session arguing constantly about directions (eventually he started listening to me). we've been described as r2d2 and c3po traversing the dunes :P

i improved my physical to such a drastic degree that further improvement is going to be really hard. i finally have real incentive to do push-ups.

this week was crazy as far as exertion and exhaustion were concerned - and not helped by my consuming an energy drink before the physical, which was then cancelled. i couldn't sleep that night, and was royally screwed for the rest of the week... up until thursday afternoon, at least, when i scored an hour and a half siesta in the kitchens ^_^

can, a short video of dick hoyt and his son, is really, really touching.

my SC [the pointy-haired boss] is a tosser, i think that's been pretty well established. i have no time to think during the course, let alone participate in a popularity contest - "man of the section" my ass. hell, i haven't even been in the office for half a year, and he thinks that voting should be my top priority :/

summer's coming to an end! fog in the morning!

i think the best skill i've acquired during the last four months is the ability to stay awake during boring lectures. i don't actually know how i do it, but i suspect it's got to do with my habit of listening to all the tiny noises around me - like papers shuffling and pens clicking. fascinating that in a big lecture theatre there's a constant symphony / cacophony.

the last day was mostly a bitch, and ended with a screaming match before going to bed without showering. i managed to get my sat phone fixed when we arrived back in tel aviv, bought the books, and returned home *just* too late to pick up my dvds from the post office :S

i did laundry, some important shopping, messed about on facebook, and went out for lunch and to meet up with egg. we paid the sports store a visit on the way back apropos snowboarding, and then i walked home to pack and be picked up by ru55, SxS, mmf and one of ze germans to come through to ra'anana for friday night dinner.

AWESOME dinner. proper steak and fantastic potatoes, and there're still leftovers!

we spent the evening / night / morning talking, playing scrabble and having a good laugh over monopoly [i won!], and at sunrise got into the pool for a couple of hours before getting to bed. i can't say that i've slept better than this in many months.

chief crazy work-horse

the kid and i just got back from cafeneto - extremely therapeutic. things with sunshine seem alright, and the kid participates when i let off steam... he's like a good therapist :P

today started off dodgy - the anguish begun the day before hasn't abated, and until a couple of hours ago things have just been snowballing (as in getting bigger and bigger, not as in clerks).

it was a mission to get piles to help me take the plastic bottles to the recycling bin this morning. once we were done, i specifically told him - twice to make sure - NOT to throw away the packet. the kid and i were laughing now about the stupid, completely uncomprehending look he gives. halfway back to the office i registered that he wasn't carrying anything.
"what the $#@! did you do with the packet?"
he looks at me totally innocently: "i threw it away. why do you ask?"

most of what i recall from my army day (due to some memory-suppression) is playing spider solitaire. i started the day watching demo videos of ruby on rails with brother bear - friggin' insane, the things they do. it's impressive as hell, and i hope i don't find an excuse to have to use it (i don't do web dev. even when i do, i don't).

in the afternoon, i managed to catch our branch officer earlier than i'd expected. we sat organizing, but there was yet another screw-up on the receiving end and it's out of our control as usual. this is all very frustrating, as i write this i have exactly 1 week and 6 days to go before my release. this is a another tense period of my life.

i organized entry permission for a friend who used to serve on our base, and we milled around for about half an hour before i got back to my solitaire. the late afternoon was a bit of a blur of interesting work-related discussions and me stressing.

-- lying to the cute, well-intentioned girl on the bus --

i hopped off the bus, and walked through to meet ru55's girlfriend and pick up my calculus book. it's bloody heavy. we chatted for 50 seconds, and then i made my way to work (bumping into my tallest's ex, turns out she lives in the area).

my mother sent me an email laughing at me for my idea of studying engineering: most of my family on my mother's side are either in that or medicine :P

work SUCKED. i've now gotten most of it out of my system, the remainder of the evening was insane because my manager was almost as pissed off as me, and demanded that i call the guy - i had to learn his name, find his phone number (harassing a girl i've never met in order to get it), and eventually settle for mass emailing anyway. all this while handling mmf's RFIs (he's tampering with a website) and SxS's girl-friend trying to set me up with some french girl.

the final straw, when i was running late for the bus, was getting into the elevator and feeling something sharp in the middle of my back. i tested with my hand, and there was definitely something bothering me (my heavy bag on my back, not smart to not deal with it). so i hurriedly dropped my bag and was halfway through ripping off the windbreaker when the elevator doors opened.
so i moved my little mission to the foyer, where the guard stared at me in disbelief as i, in disbelief, removed a thick, inch-long nail from centre of the windbreaker's back.

how it got there is an absolute mystery to me, but it's the perfect physical embodiment of where my head's at. i handed the bent nail to the guard as i left, and just made the bus.

inpassing.org is excellent

KICKASS!!

we visited the newlyweds in their hotel, which was a well spent hour or two. we agreed to meet up later for x-men at the imax. YESSSSS...

and an extra-special thank you for the hint to remain until the end of the credits. we were shuffling through to the exit when i suddenly remembered, and began calling to the others "no!! WAIT!!! there's more!!". we then had to squeeze and fight our way back through the pushing, shoving masses to get back to our seats, but DAMN - that was worth it. i spent quite a while puzzling through the ramifications... that was well thought-out. respect!

SUCH a beautiful movie. totally styling. after the movie, we went through to a park for a while, and then spent the rest of the night at ru55's, just having a jolly good time and being remarkably silly.

around dawn SxS and i went back through to his place - this time i remembered to open the couch, and i slept really well. wake up and breakfast were great; we spent the afternoon at our friends in pituach, swimming and chilling.

*sniff*

now it's time to get going and say goodbye again.

where am i? why? HOW long??

what an interesting weekend!

yogi picked me up, we went to his parents place, and installed the program we wrote last year. and it worked first time - yeeee-hah! very exciting.

we went to my favourite pizza parlour, and had these folded-over pizzas (don't remember the name at all), which were truly excellent. visited ru55, chilled for a couple of hours, and then he gave me a ride to the lizard.

danced around with the guys until about 2.45, got home and into bed at 3.30.

woke up at 6.40 (thank the lord for automatic snooze, i would've missed the alarm).

got to the base, signed in and went for coffee. i took half an hour, so i was told off by my commander. as punishment, i have to read a lengthy user manual in hebrew and pass a test on it. that REALLY sucks.

at the same time, i discovered that i was supposed to guard yesterday.

i spent the morning making repeated phone calls to the asshole in charge of guarding. eventually ended up guarding anyway - although i did get a great shift. so i slept, none too comfortably, from 6pm till 5.40am, and went to guard for four hours. it was actually alright.

met some guy yesterday on the base who surfs - said he'll call me if they go on friday / saturday morning! w00t!!

spent the rest of the day in konenut (reserve), which was actually quite fun. a whole group of the guys want to train with me (taekwondo) - so cool!!

i just got home about an hour ago - i'm doing laundry, showering, then cleaning up for my "date" at 20.30 :) i wish my washing machine didn't smell mouldy... i'm not actually sure what part of it is producing the smell, which is infuriating.