Showing posts with label style. Show all posts
Showing posts with label style. Show all posts
Sunday, October 05, 2014
handbags
WOMEN: when it comes to handbags, you have all been trained that form trumps function. this is absurd. seriously. it's not your fault, and you can do better. there ARE efficient bags out there. and if you find a design / pattern you love? cut it up and slap it on a well-designed bag. or learn how to make a bag from it. or write letters (or harrassing emails or whatever) to demand that your favourite bag designer stops fucking with you. this "i can't find my shit" scrabbling costs you time and energy, wastes your partners' time and patience, and all it's really telling you is that your bag... is broken. it's a very pretty, broken thing. sort that shit out.
Sunday, September 07, 2014
actually alive - summary and part i
the shortest summary: the week before this last one was plagued by enormously powerful screw-ups caused by good intentions. it might have been fueled by my not feeling well, which lasted until this week, and it brought about deep despair and intense emotional distress and anguish for gd and myself. we did learn a lot through it, we're in an amazing place right now.
[there's a very cool reason for the sudden rekindling of interest in jewish history, philosophy and rituals]
work's mostly excellent, though i'm a little concerned that big junior's becoming more defensive. i'm super-excited about the art / poetry projects that are moving along right now, and things have heated up with the slam team's preparation because we only have a month left before we head off to victoria.
huh.
--- tuesday 26th:
...
satisfaction at the end of the day, marred by a pinching nerve as i walk out to the gym? after almost fifteen minutes with a jump rope i rushed to the bathroom, and wobbled out sweat and woozy. i tried to continue training but after a couple of rounds i was a disaster and i showered and went home. i'd continue to feel awful for the next few days.
i slowly did the quickest shopping i could on my way, caught a bug with my eye while thinking that if i'm not in cape town then it simply becomes far from fair.
good dinner marred only by our fighting over music and raising children.
--- wednesday 27th:
slow morning, stretching, mango shake, figuring out how to watch music videos (from youtube, mainly) on the ipad (vevo and youplayer apps), and ordering a bluetooth keyboard for it. more of the pinching nerve. that prompted the purchase of dr kelly starrett - becoming a supple leopard. i picked it up on ibooks, intending to put it on the ipad but forgetting that the ipad's registered to a gd's account.
fortunately, i'd discover later that apple allows us to share purchases if our devices are registered to the same computer. a lot of unhelpful forum posts and bullshit later, but my usual complaint that apple keeps its shiny shit obfuscated (like how to use a mac's touchpad properly) isn't that surprising.
thought for the morning: those who play the loudest music usually have the worst taste.
i made it just in time for the bus to the beach club, read my new book most of the way. the beach club wasn't much to look at and the music was particularly shitty; having to keep out of the sun because i'm currently undergoing laser hair reduction kinda ruined the company event for me. at least the main speech was quick (and interesting. and i learned that i'll be out of the country for the next two events), there were vegan braai* options even though they were terribly marked - and the salad had egg yolk in it :(
* they brought in a team of south africans to handle the barbeque.
i learned an important lesson about the people i work with: a lot of them won't wear the company apparel because it has the word "geek" on it (demonstrating that they're true nerds), but think that wearing apparel advertising the products they work on is cool. let me tell you something: women wearing porn site t-shirts? sexy, not very classy, but sexy. guys wearing those shirts? creepy. and it doesn't matter what you look like. you don't look like a producer, you look like a (literal) wanker.
at least most of my team are rum drinkers.
the sumo suit competition was cut short when a man passed out in the suit and landed badly. eventually an ambulance came to pick him up. the ordeal was pretty surreal. he seems to be okay now, whoever he is.
i found a bench in the shade and took a nap for a while, i got up with a sore back, dazed and needing to pee. on my way to the washrooms i was intercepted by one of the security team. who knew my name and had been informed that i trained at tristar. we had a really good chat about jiu-jitsu for about five minutes and he threw me some tokens for free drinks.
afterwards, i picked up a drink and realized that my team had all disappeared. i did some exploring and found a dancefloor playing decent music, and hung around there until the bus arrived.
there's not much like a long ride on a bus with shitty suspension when you need to pee (for the second time).
...
buying tickets when tired and with alcohol in your system? #@$!. i'd been thinking "oh, i'm not training tonight" and forgetting that i wasn't going to be training anyway. getting gd excited for a night out and having to cancel on her because we had a team meeting? that's fucked up. that was the beginning of three days of overwhelming misery, during which i learned that there'd been some things bubbling under the surface that needed some serious addressing.
stupid levels of guilt and can't-think-straight, a better talk after gd got off work. the refund policy for the tickets was ambiguous and confusing at best, and i almost gave up on trying for it.
team meeting: important strategies and team planning and freaking out about the fact that the first slam of the season was almost upon us.
back home: relationship therapy, essentially.
--- thursday 28th:
in spite of the emotional discomfort, it was a good start to the day minus the back issues. there was slam team weirdness. i purchased bill hicks - arizona bay on itunes having been inspired when introducing gd to tool - aenima. i can't believe i've never heard that material before! it's really funny.
not a bad morning, and i managed to get my movie tickets refunded. i needed to go to the bank during lunch: the highway had a gas station smell, and somebody in the line at the bank had awful body odour.
after completing a big project and saying telling him i'll explain what i did, big junior responded with "i'm not stupid, i can read code".
...
kc gave birth! i found that very exciting news, i'm extremely pleased for her :)
i was also pleased to hear that gd's no longer working at her gym any more, it was hurting her and she can afford to pay for classes now. that was the good news: the upsetting news was that we'd both completely forgotten about godmother's summer party and my reminder only caught me two hours before it started. i was feeling stressed and dark still from the day before and now i was feeling like every #$@!ing day there was something else. i just wanted a little bit of a routine and to get some training in and spent time with gd.
[to be continued...]
[there's a very cool reason for the sudden rekindling of interest in jewish history, philosophy and rituals]
work's mostly excellent, though i'm a little concerned that big junior's becoming more defensive. i'm super-excited about the art / poetry projects that are moving along right now, and things have heated up with the slam team's preparation because we only have a month left before we head off to victoria.
huh.
- general feeling of well-being before bed, perhaps brought on by my having fed the blogging-ocd demons
- good sleep
- fighting about not taking advice when asking for it, eventually resolving it
- introducing gd to shane koyczan
- good progress at work
- shirtbreak [what was i on about?]
- javascript binding trauma - seriously, binding in java is unnecessarily complicated
- too much halva
...
satisfaction at the end of the day, marred by a pinching nerve as i walk out to the gym? after almost fifteen minutes with a jump rope i rushed to the bathroom, and wobbled out sweat and woozy. i tried to continue training but after a couple of rounds i was a disaster and i showered and went home. i'd continue to feel awful for the next few days.
i slowly did the quickest shopping i could on my way, caught a bug with my eye while thinking that if i'm not in cape town then it simply becomes far from fair.
good dinner marred only by our fighting over music and raising children.
slow morning, stretching, mango shake, figuring out how to watch music videos (from youtube, mainly) on the ipad (vevo and youplayer apps), and ordering a bluetooth keyboard for it. more of the pinching nerve. that prompted the purchase of dr kelly starrett - becoming a supple leopard. i picked it up on ibooks, intending to put it on the ipad but forgetting that the ipad's registered to a gd's account.
fortunately, i'd discover later that apple allows us to share purchases if our devices are registered to the same computer. a lot of unhelpful forum posts and bullshit later, but my usual complaint that apple keeps its shiny shit obfuscated (like how to use a mac's touchpad properly) isn't that surprising.
thought for the morning: those who play the loudest music usually have the worst taste.
i made it just in time for the bus to the beach club, read my new book most of the way. the beach club wasn't much to look at and the music was particularly shitty; having to keep out of the sun because i'm currently undergoing laser hair reduction kinda ruined the company event for me. at least the main speech was quick (and interesting. and i learned that i'll be out of the country for the next two events), there were vegan braai* options even though they were terribly marked - and the salad had egg yolk in it :(
* they brought in a team of south africans to handle the barbeque.
i learned an important lesson about the people i work with: a lot of them won't wear the company apparel because it has the word "geek" on it (demonstrating that they're true nerds), but think that wearing apparel advertising the products they work on is cool. let me tell you something: women wearing porn site t-shirts? sexy, not very classy, but sexy. guys wearing those shirts? creepy. and it doesn't matter what you look like. you don't look like a producer, you look like a (literal) wanker.
at least most of my team are rum drinkers.
the sumo suit competition was cut short when a man passed out in the suit and landed badly. eventually an ambulance came to pick him up. the ordeal was pretty surreal. he seems to be okay now, whoever he is.
i found a bench in the shade and took a nap for a while, i got up with a sore back, dazed and needing to pee. on my way to the washrooms i was intercepted by one of the security team. who knew my name and had been informed that i trained at tristar. we had a really good chat about jiu-jitsu for about five minutes and he threw me some tokens for free drinks.
afterwards, i picked up a drink and realized that my team had all disappeared. i did some exploring and found a dancefloor playing decent music, and hung around there until the bus arrived.
there's not much like a long ride on a bus with shitty suspension when you need to pee (for the second time).
...
buying tickets when tired and with alcohol in your system? #@$!. i'd been thinking "oh, i'm not training tonight" and forgetting that i wasn't going to be training anyway. getting gd excited for a night out and having to cancel on her because we had a team meeting? that's fucked up. that was the beginning of three days of overwhelming misery, during which i learned that there'd been some things bubbling under the surface that needed some serious addressing.
stupid levels of guilt and can't-think-straight, a better talk after gd got off work. the refund policy for the tickets was ambiguous and confusing at best, and i almost gave up on trying for it.
team meeting: important strategies and team planning and freaking out about the fact that the first slam of the season was almost upon us.
back home: relationship therapy, essentially.
in spite of the emotional discomfort, it was a good start to the day minus the back issues. there was slam team weirdness. i purchased bill hicks - arizona bay on itunes having been inspired when introducing gd to tool - aenima. i can't believe i've never heard that material before! it's really funny.
not a bad morning, and i managed to get my movie tickets refunded. i needed to go to the bank during lunch: the highway had a gas station smell, and somebody in the line at the bank had awful body odour.
after completing a big project and saying telling him i'll explain what i did, big junior responded with "i'm not stupid, i can read code".
...
kc gave birth! i found that very exciting news, i'm extremely pleased for her :)
i was also pleased to hear that gd's no longer working at her gym any more, it was hurting her and she can afford to pay for classes now. that was the good news: the upsetting news was that we'd both completely forgotten about godmother's summer party and my reminder only caught me two hours before it started. i was feeling stressed and dark still from the day before and now i was feeling like every #$@!ing day there was something else. i just wanted a little bit of a routine and to get some training in and spent time with gd.
[to be continued...]
Monday, August 18, 2014
drained - part ii
[... continued]
l'artère sent me an email that was distinctly lacking in professionalism, asking (months down the line) if i had paid up my event bill... which i had. not impressed.
i did some stretching, then joined gd in watching premium rush, which just seemed like a sorry excuse to put together cycling and new york city. not exactly mind-blowing.
trying to get to bed early became falling asleep after 1am.
--- wednesday:
it was a rainy morning but a good one nonetheless. having forgotten my lunch, i walked into the supermarket across the road where i'd ordered commensal meals the week before. i get that the manager can't speak english, but when i asked in french for him to speak slower it really grated my cheese when he simply repeated himself at the same speed. it took me an awkward moment to figure out more or less what he was saying.
for lunch i decided to try a little indian restaurant nearby called "pushap". seriously? i just found my new favourite indian restaurant, and it's right next to my office. which means it's right next to where i *used* to live.
godsdammit.
their thali is insane. and it's only $5!
...
in the afternoon i discovered that i'd been attempting to solve the wrong problem... i'd been given the impression that the feature i was implementing had worked once and been broken, when in fact it had never been implemented. that meant that i'd been working in the wrong problem space, and my efforts moved from backend to mobile frontend. mobile frontend is a nightmare, and what remained of my week was spent trying to get ios and android phones to use html5 the way the standard is defined: when apple and google have specifically gone against the standard, the documentation becomes utterly useless and trying to work off it is a solid waste of time :(
i was stupidly tired after work, it was too warm for a sweater and too rainy to be outside and i was too slow for la panthère verte where i managed to offend the girl trying to be helpful because she switched from english to french and i misunderstood that she was actually explaining what i'd asked her to :(
it was a great poetry evening, though, and the only thing that wasn't cool had to do with team politics. that's something that really shouldn't be a thing :(
...
i was so excited to come home and find my syndicate scanner iphone case! and so very, very disappointed to discover that the iphone 5c's volume buttons are incompatible with iphone 5 cases. what kind of a design decision is that?! it's so absurd, why would nobody mention the difference when selling 5/5s accessories?! fortunately, my letter to vistaprint's support was responded to with a full refund, and that did a good job of reducing my frustration and relieving me from my sense of ignorance.
...
hot coffee: you don't need to see more than half an hour to get a clear picture of how messed up things are and how bad it is that we all jumped on the "frivolous litigation" bandwagon. george w., you never cease to disappoint.
...
i wrote "unnecessary stress" but i haven't a clue what that was about.
--- thursday:
dreams: day and night in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, then festival fields with a three-ferrari grand prize and plenty more on display
it was cold and raining when we woke up and we were warm and cozy under the blankets. i finally cleared all the dishes and bought a couple of ac/dc albums: back in black (because i owned it) and the razors edge. i don't understand how it's possible that i've never heard the title song from the latter, because now that i have i understand why it's the title song. holy shit.
at the beginning of my lunch hour i walked in to the bell store where i got my phone intending to purchase a case with the store credit the salesman had promised me, but he wasn't there and the guy i dealt with gave me shit even before he looked up my information. he was a complete ass and i walked out in a bit of a rage. the perfect frame of mind to be calling my building manager in. those idiots couldn't grasp that i'm offering them a tenant and the money that goes with having a tenant in an apartment they're complaining is difficult to fill.
my code was fine but my machine was down. i noticed one of the guys playing counterstrike global: offensive, it looks just like i remember cs, and i guess that's the next gaming purchase...
i received a call from hema quebec, but because the french don't pronounce the "h" i thought the poor girl was saying "emma" and that made me make her repeat it for a while before giving up :/
after all that frustration, i figured out the html5 quirks and received a call back from the building manager to say that they were finally acquiescing to my (imo very reasonable) demands. i did some git wrangling until i finally tamed the beast and then took a bit of time out for myself.
[continued...]
l'artère sent me an email that was distinctly lacking in professionalism, asking (months down the line) if i had paid up my event bill... which i had. not impressed.
i did some stretching, then joined gd in watching premium rush, which just seemed like a sorry excuse to put together cycling and new york city. not exactly mind-blowing.
trying to get to bed early became falling asleep after 1am.
it was a rainy morning but a good one nonetheless. having forgotten my lunch, i walked into the supermarket across the road where i'd ordered commensal meals the week before. i get that the manager can't speak english, but when i asked in french for him to speak slower it really grated my cheese when he simply repeated himself at the same speed. it took me an awkward moment to figure out more or less what he was saying.
for lunch i decided to try a little indian restaurant nearby called "pushap". seriously? i just found my new favourite indian restaurant, and it's right next to my office. which means it's right next to where i *used* to live.
godsdammit.
their thali is insane. and it's only $5!
...
in the afternoon i discovered that i'd been attempting to solve the wrong problem... i'd been given the impression that the feature i was implementing had worked once and been broken, when in fact it had never been implemented. that meant that i'd been working in the wrong problem space, and my efforts moved from backend to mobile frontend. mobile frontend is a nightmare, and what remained of my week was spent trying to get ios and android phones to use html5 the way the standard is defined: when apple and google have specifically gone against the standard, the documentation becomes utterly useless and trying to work off it is a solid waste of time :(
i was stupidly tired after work, it was too warm for a sweater and too rainy to be outside and i was too slow for la panthère verte where i managed to offend the girl trying to be helpful because she switched from english to french and i misunderstood that she was actually explaining what i'd asked her to :(
it was a great poetry evening, though, and the only thing that wasn't cool had to do with team politics. that's something that really shouldn't be a thing :(
...
i was so excited to come home and find my syndicate scanner iphone case! and so very, very disappointed to discover that the iphone 5c's volume buttons are incompatible with iphone 5 cases. what kind of a design decision is that?! it's so absurd, why would nobody mention the difference when selling 5/5s accessories?! fortunately, my letter to vistaprint's support was responded to with a full refund, and that did a good job of reducing my frustration and relieving me from my sense of ignorance.
...
hot coffee: you don't need to see more than half an hour to get a clear picture of how messed up things are and how bad it is that we all jumped on the "frivolous litigation" bandwagon. george w., you never cease to disappoint.
...
i wrote "unnecessary stress" but i haven't a clue what that was about.
dreams: day and night in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, then festival fields with a three-ferrari grand prize and plenty more on display
it was cold and raining when we woke up and we were warm and cozy under the blankets. i finally cleared all the dishes and bought a couple of ac/dc albums: back in black (because i owned it) and the razors edge. i don't understand how it's possible that i've never heard the title song from the latter, because now that i have i understand why it's the title song. holy shit.
at the beginning of my lunch hour i walked in to the bell store where i got my phone intending to purchase a case with the store credit the salesman had promised me, but he wasn't there and the guy i dealt with gave me shit even before he looked up my information. he was a complete ass and i walked out in a bit of a rage. the perfect frame of mind to be calling my building manager in. those idiots couldn't grasp that i'm offering them a tenant and the money that goes with having a tenant in an apartment they're complaining is difficult to fill.
my code was fine but my machine was down. i noticed one of the guys playing counterstrike global: offensive, it looks just like i remember cs, and i guess that's the next gaming purchase...
i received a call from hema quebec, but because the french don't pronounce the "h" i thought the poor girl was saying "emma" and that made me make her repeat it for a while before giving up :/
after all that frustration, i figured out the html5 quirks and received a call back from the building manager to say that they were finally acquiescing to my (imo very reasonable) demands. i did some git wrangling until i finally tamed the beast and then took a bit of time out for myself.
[continued...]
drained - part i
örmagörd. i can't believe it's sunday after 6pm as i begin writing this, and i haven't had a chance to breathe the entire week nor the entire weekend. i've been super tired and busy and i really, really need a rest. to be clear, the weekend's chores are far from over :(
--- sunday:
after saturday night's blogging, 1.30am to bed, followed by a good sleep. more blogging and chores - including trying and failing to take a good photo of me for the slam team's fundraising efforts. on our way to midi 6 for breakfast i remembered to take pieces of chalk, and i took *just* enough to cross out "A LIE" from
BEAUTY IS
A LIE and replace it with
BEAUTY IS
SUBJECTIVE
BLINDNESS
IS A CHOICE"
i felt much better after that.
midi 6 was great, and our second attempt to take a photo of me was a fantastic success!
my beard was all scratchy and called for an emergency shave. airplane sent me some work he's done recently and it's EPIC comic work! more blogging and chores, then suddenly not feeling good at all.
gd and i don't agree on the current ebola situation, and i'm siding with these people. the ad preceding the video was for dr pepper, though, with the doctor moving through a hospital treating patients with soda. that's messed up.
my mother surprised me by calling using facetime - it must've been about 3am her time, and she was testing it out. apparently she's more of an "early" adopter than i am :P
we watched some being human, i felt a bit better, the weekend ended.
--- monday:
as opposed to a photo of me from the end of last year that garnered a lot of likes, the approval for my new profile picture has actually been flattering :)
i got up early, did a ton of dishes and buggered about with google play music and somehow left late in spite of my best intentions. i tweaked my latest poems, which i'm *really* pleased with, arrived at work and spent the morning focused.
arguing with my building manager: that awkward feeling when you're talking to someone who obviously didn't think about what they just said, it was incredibly stupid and you don't want to sound condescending because you need them to do you a favour :/
i booked a hotel room for gd and i for the cfsw! very cool, we got a king-sized bed for the same price as a regular discounted room :D
work: there's little more worrying than when shit SHOULDN'T work and it does. i began a big refactor, and i wrote down "constants fudging" but i don't remember why.
i rushed out in a hurry to meet gd and get to godmother's for dinner, which was absolutely delicious (in particular the veggie burgers). yang was there and we were all cool for the first time in a while. we went on a yeh! mission afterwards, then returned home to construct shelving that gd bought for our bathroom.
it's unbelievable how much difference it makes not having all sorts of shit around the sink.
--- tuesday:
light rls during the night and too much internet time were followed by a garbage and dishes morning.
on my way into the building i ran into a friend of newk'd's who's just started working for my company.
the morning was filled with javascript closure binding issues - completely mental - and was *really* bad timing for me to install a version of our software that has a major bug in it that made testing my changes a nightmare.
it's amazing to me that when i walk out looking for privacy and quiet in order to be interviewed for a future job, i'm blasted by trucks, bells, horns and wind. the thing about the interview is that it's a personal connection that i tapped back in february and it took until now to score the phone call; i felt obligated to hear these guys out. and it's a really, really interesting opportunity, so i explained that i'm committed for the next while and that i'll be in touch when i'm ready.
it's nice to have options!
airplane suggested that i listen to the make comics podcast, and the first episode i downloaded basically told me not to work with the kind of people that i've been working with :S
the afternoon was spent dealing with closure binding and ogg vorbis oddities, and once i was done i *needed* kickboxing. the class was a killer, primarily because i was working through breathing difficulties (allergy season?), it was humid and i was dizzy and i ended up hurting my hand because my new gloves aren't good for pads and bags. so i need to sell those, now, and buy bag gloves. i'm not happy with that at all :(
badger and i continued our argument over israel / gaza, and the jolly moroccan joined in. it took a while for me to realize that he wasn't referring to israel's actions as criminal, rather it's existence. so that was the end of arguing with him. as far as i'm concerned, even though a lasting peace in the middle east is impossible, we can still ease the palestinian suffering. and i believe that israel's the only player that can do that, and that it should.
badger and i went on a loblaws mission, i was harassed by spiders (one in the car climbing down to my lap, and a couple on the way home). i'm not a fan of spiders.
[continued...]
after saturday night's blogging, 1.30am to bed, followed by a good sleep. more blogging and chores - including trying and failing to take a good photo of me for the slam team's fundraising efforts. on our way to midi 6 for breakfast i remembered to take pieces of chalk, and i took *just* enough to cross out "A LIE" from
A LIE
SUBJECTIVE
BLINDNESS
IS A CHOICE"
i felt much better after that.
midi 6 was great, and our second attempt to take a photo of me was a fantastic success!
my beard was all scratchy and called for an emergency shave. airplane sent me some work he's done recently and it's EPIC comic work! more blogging and chores, then suddenly not feeling good at all.
gd and i don't agree on the current ebola situation, and i'm siding with these people. the ad preceding the video was for dr pepper, though, with the doctor moving through a hospital treating patients with soda. that's messed up.
my mother surprised me by calling using facetime - it must've been about 3am her time, and she was testing it out. apparently she's more of an "early" adopter than i am :P
we watched some being human, i felt a bit better, the weekend ended.
as opposed to a photo of me from the end of last year that garnered a lot of likes, the approval for my new profile picture has actually been flattering :)
i got up early, did a ton of dishes and buggered about with google play music and somehow left late in spite of my best intentions. i tweaked my latest poems, which i'm *really* pleased with, arrived at work and spent the morning focused.
arguing with my building manager: that awkward feeling when you're talking to someone who obviously didn't think about what they just said, it was incredibly stupid and you don't want to sound condescending because you need them to do you a favour :/
i booked a hotel room for gd and i for the cfsw! very cool, we got a king-sized bed for the same price as a regular discounted room :D
work: there's little more worrying than when shit SHOULDN'T work and it does. i began a big refactor, and i wrote down "constants fudging" but i don't remember why.
i rushed out in a hurry to meet gd and get to godmother's for dinner, which was absolutely delicious (in particular the veggie burgers). yang was there and we were all cool for the first time in a while. we went on a yeh! mission afterwards, then returned home to construct shelving that gd bought for our bathroom.
it's unbelievable how much difference it makes not having all sorts of shit around the sink.
light rls during the night and too much internet time were followed by a garbage and dishes morning.
on my way into the building i ran into a friend of newk'd's who's just started working for my company.
the morning was filled with javascript closure binding issues - completely mental - and was *really* bad timing for me to install a version of our software that has a major bug in it that made testing my changes a nightmare.
it's amazing to me that when i walk out looking for privacy and quiet in order to be interviewed for a future job, i'm blasted by trucks, bells, horns and wind. the thing about the interview is that it's a personal connection that i tapped back in february and it took until now to score the phone call; i felt obligated to hear these guys out. and it's a really, really interesting opportunity, so i explained that i'm committed for the next while and that i'll be in touch when i'm ready.
it's nice to have options!
airplane suggested that i listen to the make comics podcast, and the first episode i downloaded basically told me not to work with the kind of people that i've been working with :S
the afternoon was spent dealing with closure binding and ogg vorbis oddities, and once i was done i *needed* kickboxing. the class was a killer, primarily because i was working through breathing difficulties (allergy season?), it was humid and i was dizzy and i ended up hurting my hand because my new gloves aren't good for pads and bags. so i need to sell those, now, and buy bag gloves. i'm not happy with that at all :(
badger and i continued our argument over israel / gaza, and the jolly moroccan joined in. it took a while for me to realize that he wasn't referring to israel's actions as criminal, rather it's existence. so that was the end of arguing with him. as far as i'm concerned, even though a lasting peace in the middle east is impossible, we can still ease the palestinian suffering. and i believe that israel's the only player that can do that, and that it should.
badger and i went on a loblaws mission, i was harassed by spiders (one in the car climbing down to my lap, and a couple on the way home). i'm not a fan of spiders.
[continued...]
Monday, August 11, 2014
not so much resting or relaxing - part v
[... continued]
--- thursday:
thursday was consistently crap, beginning with the electricity being cut when i was mid-shave. at least the water was still running, 'cause that would've been way worse. it was a beautiful morning that was properly soured by bnw's husband posting an ugly piece of anti-zionist propaganda on my wall, and what followed would only be (relatively) resolved much later and only yesterday did something positive come out of the whole thing. i don't need to convince you to love israel, i just need to convince you to avoid media bias and misinformation. more on that later, or some other time.
because my phone wasn't working i wasn't sure if the bank had called me to collect my card, so i went *again* and was disappointed *again*.
--- on my way to work i bought a headset because i'd read up on my microphone problems. for the iphone 4 there's really not much you can do about it (i tried cleaning the various mics). i made a call i'd been needing to make, the headset worked perfectly for about five minutes and then *IT* stopped working. wtf?!?!
just then, just after i'd tried calling back three times and resetting with no luck, gd contacted me upset because [okay, i'm going to have to leave this out]. when i called her and she couldn't hear me and that made things worse i flew into a silent, seething rage. i furiously messaged her - messaging is NOT an appropriate medium for furious communications - and then told my boss i needed a couple of hours to get myself a new phone. i was originally going to head downtown to the apple store, but he sagely pointed out the bell office across the road.
score!
i walked in, silently suffered the salesman's manipulations and examined my options*. i finally walked out with a two year contract that costs $5 more (for an extra 2gb of data), a two year warranty that includes water damage (i've learned my lesson) and a shiny green iphone 5c.
* there weren't many, really. and i was a little annoyed about aota having taken a new phone with my current contract and leaving me with a refurb, but later i'd remember that the company was paying my phone bills so we're definitely square.
...
örmagörd: in the two days that i've had it, i've realized just how much poorer my quality of life was for the bad performance and utterly shite connectivity of my previous phone. perhaps naming it gir was looking for trouble? the new one is subject b.o.b. and his cover, which is on its way, is a scanner from the purchase menu :D
of course, as i called gd on my way back to the office it started raining. #$@!#$#@$%%!
and she was working, so she was annoyed because she thought it was a pocket dial.
i spoke to my mum quickly, and for that i needed the headset i'd bought in the morning so at least it wasn't a complete waste. i felt a little awkward when i remembered that i was using the corporate network for a personal call, but i don't know why that should bother me.
later, when i got home, i'd be intensely grateful that itunes restores backups so beautifully. it's an absolute blessing!
--- i stayed really late to make up the hours, switching from phpstorm to enide because the former is incredibly annoying to use. the latter's just like any flavour of eclipse, only it can't perform a proper search through javascript code. i don't know how that got through, so now i don't know which ide to use and i'm fairly close to reverting to a combination of notepad++ and vi. that should tell you everything you need to know about the current state of tools available for software development.
...
i briefly logged in to crunchyroll when i got home. i love what they've got, even if their selection is rather limited, but it bothers me that they don't have dubbed versions available. i prefer subs myself, but for gd it's too much of a strain :(
i spent the night doing organizing things and finding and customizing images for my phone. its appearance is important to me. it looks really cool now and with the cover it's going to be magnificent!
--- friday:
i woke up from crazy dreams. my notes from those dreams were: houseboat saving a book, making servants' lives difficult, conflict in israel over three celebrities posing together, mom pointing them out but i didn't understand
i woke up to see that protoplasm had been to a wolfmother concert. i'm pretty damned jealous. and my music collection's only getting larger as the salaried weeks go by :P
speaking of which, i've just discovered google play music, so gd and i can shared my itunes music library. AWESOME!
well played, google. well played.
[continued...]
thursday was consistently crap, beginning with the electricity being cut when i was mid-shave. at least the water was still running, 'cause that would've been way worse. it was a beautiful morning that was properly soured by bnw's husband posting an ugly piece of anti-zionist propaganda on my wall, and what followed would only be (relatively) resolved much later and only yesterday did something positive come out of the whole thing. i don't need to convince you to love israel, i just need to convince you to avoid media bias and misinformation. more on that later, or some other time.
because my phone wasn't working i wasn't sure if the bank had called me to collect my card, so i went *again* and was disappointed *again*.
just then, just after i'd tried calling back three times and resetting with no luck, gd contacted me upset because [okay, i'm going to have to leave this out]. when i called her and she couldn't hear me and that made things worse i flew into a silent, seething rage. i furiously messaged her - messaging is NOT an appropriate medium for furious communications - and then told my boss i needed a couple of hours to get myself a new phone. i was originally going to head downtown to the apple store, but he sagely pointed out the bell office across the road.
score!
i walked in, silently suffered the salesman's manipulations and examined my options*. i finally walked out with a two year contract that costs $5 more (for an extra 2gb of data), a two year warranty that includes water damage (i've learned my lesson) and a shiny green iphone 5c.
* there weren't many, really. and i was a little annoyed about aota having taken a new phone with my current contract and leaving me with a refurb, but later i'd remember that the company was paying my phone bills so we're definitely square.
...
örmagörd: in the two days that i've had it, i've realized just how much poorer my quality of life was for the bad performance and utterly shite connectivity of my previous phone. perhaps naming it gir was looking for trouble? the new one is subject b.o.b. and his cover, which is on its way, is a scanner from the purchase menu :D
of course, as i called gd on my way back to the office it started raining. #$@!#$#@$%%!
and she was working, so she was annoyed because she thought it was a pocket dial.
i spoke to my mum quickly, and for that i needed the headset i'd bought in the morning so at least it wasn't a complete waste. i felt a little awkward when i remembered that i was using the corporate network for a personal call, but i don't know why that should bother me.
later, when i got home, i'd be intensely grateful that itunes restores backups so beautifully. it's an absolute blessing!
...
i briefly logged in to crunchyroll when i got home. i love what they've got, even if their selection is rather limited, but it bothers me that they don't have dubbed versions available. i prefer subs myself, but for gd it's too much of a strain :(
i spent the night doing organizing things and finding and customizing images for my phone. its appearance is important to me. it looks really cool now and with the cover it's going to be magnificent!
i woke up from crazy dreams. my notes from those dreams were: houseboat saving a book, making servants' lives difficult, conflict in israel over three celebrities posing together, mom pointing them out but i didn't understand
i woke up to see that protoplasm had been to a wolfmother concert. i'm pretty damned jealous. and my music collection's only getting larger as the salaried weeks go by :P
speaking of which, i've just discovered google play music, so gd and i can shared my itunes music library. AWESOME!
well played, google. well played.
[continued...]
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
sweaty in sheep's clothing
örmagörd.
it's soooooo hot. and we only have one fan, it's in the bedroom. i'm standing here with the window and door open to the night air and i'm sweating bullets.
after a great weekend, i went into work today and found myself very comfortable indeed. it's a great environment, the conditions are excellent and my team members? very smart, and very chilled. and even if they weren't i would be making the best of it, but i hope my first impression lasts. the funny thing is that one of the reasons i'm so at home is because it's just like the army: a big company with more bureaucracy than employees. very dilbert, without a very NOT-pointy-haired boss. very i-can-handle-this-shit.
--- friday:
i performed my duties while gd watched half of american: the bill hicks story. we sat down to eat, all excited about watching the amazing spiderman 2 on crackle, but it was just the trailer. it should have said TRAILER, then. bastards!
so we watched bad boys instead, learning the ads by heart as they each repeat three or four times every twenty minutes.
--- saturday:
waking up was tough, and "ghetto shaving" without water wasn't actually as bad as i thought it'd be. the craigslist guy delayed my exit because he woke up too late to meet at our appointed time and i had shit to do. after making me wait for ages the day before, he should have been too embarrassed to screw that up :/
i made my appointment just on time, the consultation was brief and not particularly enlightening. my neck was too tanned to get started with the treatment, though, so i made an appointment for three weeks' time and i'm supposed to be exceedingly careful about staying out of the sun. i've had more exposure with less protection in the two days since than in a long time, which is kinda embarrassing...
i picked up a coffee bodum to replace gd's nail-you-in-the-hand one, met the craigslist dude for a smooth handover and slumped on the couch for more ffix. that damned grotto is mean! but after a few attempts (and, i'm ashamed to admit, a quick glance at a walkthrough) i got through to the boss and he's waiting for me for next time.
i left home late to meet vfmp and his boyfriend, and arrived with about three minutes to spare - talk about cutting it close. half an hour later we were in the suburbs (west island), enjoying a beautiful afternoon with badger and co in the swimming pool, stuffing ourselves on a great vegan barbeque and then losing myself in the jacuzzi. i've got to get us a hot tub. i felt like i'd returned to the womb, i don't remember when last i relaxed so perfectly! high on a hot tub, i was.
badger's dogs (boxers) are wonderful, one of her friends broke the ice by farting loudly as she joined us poolside (she's pregnant), and all around everyone was nice and interesting. the music was good too, it turns out that badger's into good trance :)
i was disappointed when gd called to say she couldn't make it, but not surprised. her timing was excellent, though, because the guys were just leaving so we all went together. gd and i had an evening of bad boys and massages. not quite as good as a jacuzzi, but certainly nothing to complain about.
--- yesterday:
there was a scary freak-out at 1am caused by a leg cramp, followed by deep dreaming and stunningly restful sleep. newk'd and his girlfriend came over for haircuts and i taught them both the basics of tekken, and it was gratifying to see them both get it and to see her beat him in a close round :D
we left for yoga in the park, and our exit was plagued by not-a-comedy of errors. our spirits and tensions bobbed up and down until we got to the park, where we met up with horseman and gd's best friend and did some really hard yoga that had at least two of us feeling all bubbly and good afterwards!
i tried really hard to avoid the sun but even my oversized hat couldn't protect me; we made our way to see great friends of gd's who i hadn't met yet and our first stop was a new vegan place that had just closed for the afternoon. fortunately they have a car, so we drove over to aux vivres which is always full of win.
the couple is fascinating, he's a writer and she's a producer / director / artist, and he's also slowly becoming a well-respected self-taught physicist. we all talked for hours, my brain was really flexing and being stretched and it was so nice to feel like it was mutual!
after they left, gd made delicious noodles, we watched about half of men in black 3 and then quickly passed out.
--- today:
no snooze for you! gd was having none of it. i crawled out of bed, did the dishes and made breakfast, then climbed into an argument of gd's because a "friend" of hers kept attacking her for having a different view of what's happening in the middle east. i'd post here what i wrote but i've already said that i'm done for now, though it's a relief that instead of fueling the fire what i wrote managed to get her to back off.
...
dressing like a grown-up sucks, but i'm very fond of gd's drawing for the day which is of me dressed up as a capital letter.
[revenge exit difficulty]
i left a little later than i'd planned, and was horrified to see 18 minutes till the next metro written on the display! fortunately they'd gotten it wrong and just before i gave up and rushed off to find a cab the next one entered the station. i could NOT be late for my first day.
inside the metro and out, i was sweaty in my sheep's clothing. in spite of that, i felt good and confident with the orientation. i would spend the rest of the day setting up my dev station and learning the ropes. one of those ropes was finding lunch, and after a couple of failed searches i ended up walking all the way to my old supermarket. we have no freezers, so i'll have to pick up a frozen meal every day and the walk takes a good chunk of my lunch hour...
it's a nice excuse to walk outside, but there was a lot of sun and i was unprotected :(
and for some reason my liver was hurting me. i suspect dehydration. at least once i got back i learned where the coffee and purified water are located.
i returned sweaty after my walk and then proceeded to nuke my lunch; when i opened it and the steam hit my face things got even worse! once i got back upstairs, i made a point of going around my team and inspecting them for dress code. tomorrow, i'm going in wearing shorts and a t-shirt :)
i walked out feeling like i'd have to be a complete asshole to be fired. i mean, i'm competent and professional, they're easy-going people and i only have to do my job. which looks interesting and challenging enough.
...
i stopped by walmart to finally pick up sunscreen, tried and failed to find a good sports bag and saw a sign that said $7 for badminton sets. gd wants to play, so i thought "how convenient!", picked up a set and went to pay. i was not pleasantly surprised when the bill came to $10 more than i was expecting, and after waiting for a manager for ages and then dragging him back to the source of the trouble we discovered that some asshole had thrown a completely different (much higher quality) badminton set in the wrong rack.
jolly good :/
...
i came home, went for a good run and sat down to a feast gd had prepared. neither of us had the energy to watch much, having to fold laundry and make the bed was a bit of a buzz-kill and i really shouldn't be drinking beers in the middle of the week. i had shit to do.
but at least i've written this, right?
it's soooooo hot. and we only have one fan, it's in the bedroom. i'm standing here with the window and door open to the night air and i'm sweating bullets.
after a great weekend, i went into work today and found myself very comfortable indeed. it's a great environment, the conditions are excellent and my team members? very smart, and very chilled. and even if they weren't i would be making the best of it, but i hope my first impression lasts. the funny thing is that one of the reasons i'm so at home is because it's just like the army: a big company with more bureaucracy than employees. very dilbert, without a very NOT-pointy-haired boss. very i-can-handle-this-shit.
i performed my duties while gd watched half of american: the bill hicks story. we sat down to eat, all excited about watching the amazing spiderman 2 on crackle, but it was just the trailer. it should have said TRAILER, then. bastards!
so we watched bad boys instead, learning the ads by heart as they each repeat three or four times every twenty minutes.
waking up was tough, and "ghetto shaving" without water wasn't actually as bad as i thought it'd be. the craigslist guy delayed my exit because he woke up too late to meet at our appointed time and i had shit to do. after making me wait for ages the day before, he should have been too embarrassed to screw that up :/
i made my appointment just on time, the consultation was brief and not particularly enlightening. my neck was too tanned to get started with the treatment, though, so i made an appointment for three weeks' time and i'm supposed to be exceedingly careful about staying out of the sun. i've had more exposure with less protection in the two days since than in a long time, which is kinda embarrassing...
i picked up a coffee bodum to replace gd's nail-you-in-the-hand one, met the craigslist dude for a smooth handover and slumped on the couch for more ffix. that damned grotto is mean! but after a few attempts (and, i'm ashamed to admit, a quick glance at a walkthrough) i got through to the boss and he's waiting for me for next time.
i left home late to meet vfmp and his boyfriend, and arrived with about three minutes to spare - talk about cutting it close. half an hour later we were in the suburbs (west island), enjoying a beautiful afternoon with badger and co in the swimming pool, stuffing ourselves on a great vegan barbeque and then losing myself in the jacuzzi. i've got to get us a hot tub. i felt like i'd returned to the womb, i don't remember when last i relaxed so perfectly! high on a hot tub, i was.
badger's dogs (boxers) are wonderful, one of her friends broke the ice by farting loudly as she joined us poolside (she's pregnant), and all around everyone was nice and interesting. the music was good too, it turns out that badger's into good trance :)
i was disappointed when gd called to say she couldn't make it, but not surprised. her timing was excellent, though, because the guys were just leaving so we all went together. gd and i had an evening of bad boys and massages. not quite as good as a jacuzzi, but certainly nothing to complain about.
there was a scary freak-out at 1am caused by a leg cramp, followed by deep dreaming and stunningly restful sleep. newk'd and his girlfriend came over for haircuts and i taught them both the basics of tekken, and it was gratifying to see them both get it and to see her beat him in a close round :D
we left for yoga in the park, and our exit was plagued by not-a-comedy of errors. our spirits and tensions bobbed up and down until we got to the park, where we met up with horseman and gd's best friend and did some really hard yoga that had at least two of us feeling all bubbly and good afterwards!
i tried really hard to avoid the sun but even my oversized hat couldn't protect me; we made our way to see great friends of gd's who i hadn't met yet and our first stop was a new vegan place that had just closed for the afternoon. fortunately they have a car, so we drove over to aux vivres which is always full of win.
the couple is fascinating, he's a writer and she's a producer / director / artist, and he's also slowly becoming a well-respected self-taught physicist. we all talked for hours, my brain was really flexing and being stretched and it was so nice to feel like it was mutual!
after they left, gd made delicious noodles, we watched about half of men in black 3 and then quickly passed out.
no snooze for you! gd was having none of it. i crawled out of bed, did the dishes and made breakfast, then climbed into an argument of gd's because a "friend" of hers kept attacking her for having a different view of what's happening in the middle east. i'd post here what i wrote but i've already said that i'm done for now, though it's a relief that instead of fueling the fire what i wrote managed to get her to back off.
...
dressing like a grown-up sucks, but i'm very fond of gd's drawing for the day which is of me dressed up as a capital letter.
[revenge exit difficulty]
i left a little later than i'd planned, and was horrified to see 18 minutes till the next metro written on the display! fortunately they'd gotten it wrong and just before i gave up and rushed off to find a cab the next one entered the station. i could NOT be late for my first day.
inside the metro and out, i was sweaty in my sheep's clothing. in spite of that, i felt good and confident with the orientation. i would spend the rest of the day setting up my dev station and learning the ropes. one of those ropes was finding lunch, and after a couple of failed searches i ended up walking all the way to my old supermarket. we have no freezers, so i'll have to pick up a frozen meal every day and the walk takes a good chunk of my lunch hour...
it's a nice excuse to walk outside, but there was a lot of sun and i was unprotected :(
and for some reason my liver was hurting me. i suspect dehydration. at least once i got back i learned where the coffee and purified water are located.
i returned sweaty after my walk and then proceeded to nuke my lunch; when i opened it and the steam hit my face things got even worse! once i got back upstairs, i made a point of going around my team and inspecting them for dress code. tomorrow, i'm going in wearing shorts and a t-shirt :)
i walked out feeling like i'd have to be a complete asshole to be fired. i mean, i'm competent and professional, they're easy-going people and i only have to do my job. which looks interesting and challenging enough.
...
i stopped by walmart to finally pick up sunscreen, tried and failed to find a good sports bag and saw a sign that said $7 for badminton sets. gd wants to play, so i thought "how convenient!", picked up a set and went to pay. i was not pleasantly surprised when the bill came to $10 more than i was expecting, and after waiting for a manager for ages and then dragging him back to the source of the trouble we discovered that some asshole had thrown a completely different (much higher quality) badminton set in the wrong rack.
jolly good :/
...
i came home, went for a good run and sat down to a feast gd had prepared. neither of us had the energy to watch much, having to fold laundry and make the bed was a bit of a buzz-kill and i really shouldn't be drinking beers in the middle of the week. i had shit to do.
but at least i've written this, right?
Friday, July 11, 2014
gearing up - part ii
[... continued]
gd went to bed early and i sat down to watch hackers. i didn't realize that the netflix version is the director's cut! there's so much of that movie that i've never seen before*, it's all quite important and the overall experience was thoroughly enjoyable. i've loved that movie since i saw it on the big screen, and up until now i never realized how much it's influenced me: note the rollerblades, the outrageous clothing and the truly excellent soundtrack!
* or perhaps had simply forgotten, and it's not the director's cut? i can't tell.
...
note to self: don't log in to imdb and start rating movies and making lists before bed...
or ever...
--- wednesday:
my bank account's hit rock bottom, and i'd been waiting for an SOS infusion from my mother just in case my permit was delayed. i woke up to an email informing me that it still wasn't transferring.
i was half asleep as i made us breakfast, which has become a thing. i desperately need to reset my body clock! anyway, i stretched with gd, continued rating movies on imdb, then went back to bed. the re-sleep was AMAZING, the difference night and day [sorry]. i ran shadowrun online's daily mission (i haven't won one yet) and agreed to help uncle hate out with an excel file, then headed out to the bank to figure out what was going on.
the idiot at my bank branch - a guy who messed with me a long time ago because he didn't trust my identity - informed me that the idiot at the other bank branch had given me incomplete information for an international transfer.
amazing! how very professional.
so i walked across the road to an excellent indian restaurant and scanned and sent the correct details while i waited. the vegetable briyani was terrific and i honestly can't believe i ate so much, i was *really* hungry!
...
in the rush to enter a train on the way back home i almost got pushed into a closing door, luckily for me the driver stopped the doors before they closed on me and for half a minute i glared at the asshole who'd been behind me :@
...
i didn't quite rest but had no time or headspace for the coding i needed to do. i left for the slam team meeting having achieved precious little.
it was a gorgeous day on mont royal. did i see a policewoman wearing black and white camo pants? what the hell?!
it was a good team meeting, i learned some interesting things and suffered inspiration overload. i've got sooooo much to write it's ridiculous.
...
i came home, and i don't know what i was expecting to do for the rest of the evening but whatever it was disintegrated in the furious flames of a crazy fight with gd. it was the kind of fight where we each thought the other had had enough and was ready to split up, it was a horror show and it astounds me that it ended with two very worn out, very loving combatants.
we're weird.
and while neither of us want to ever experience that kind of thing again, we both know that these are just obstacles on a long road together and we can only hope the rest of them will be a little more minor.
--- thursday:
yesterday morning was good and slow. the money had transferred successfully, so that was a load off my mind, and i attacked my task list item by item, finally looking at the first stages of my collaboration with airplane. his first page is gorgeous! i'm delighted by that :)
almost as much as by receiving news that my permit's been approved ^_^
[continued...]
gd went to bed early and i sat down to watch hackers. i didn't realize that the netflix version is the director's cut! there's so much of that movie that i've never seen before*, it's all quite important and the overall experience was thoroughly enjoyable. i've loved that movie since i saw it on the big screen, and up until now i never realized how much it's influenced me: note the rollerblades, the outrageous clothing and the truly excellent soundtrack!
* or perhaps had simply forgotten, and it's not the director's cut? i can't tell.
...
note to self: don't log in to imdb and start rating movies and making lists before bed...
or ever...
my bank account's hit rock bottom, and i'd been waiting for an SOS infusion from my mother just in case my permit was delayed. i woke up to an email informing me that it still wasn't transferring.
i was half asleep as i made us breakfast, which has become a thing. i desperately need to reset my body clock! anyway, i stretched with gd, continued rating movies on imdb, then went back to bed. the re-sleep was AMAZING, the difference night and day [sorry]. i ran shadowrun online's daily mission (i haven't won one yet) and agreed to help uncle hate out with an excel file, then headed out to the bank to figure out what was going on.
the idiot at my bank branch - a guy who messed with me a long time ago because he didn't trust my identity - informed me that the idiot at the other bank branch had given me incomplete information for an international transfer.
amazing! how very professional.
so i walked across the road to an excellent indian restaurant and scanned and sent the correct details while i waited. the vegetable briyani was terrific and i honestly can't believe i ate so much, i was *really* hungry!
...
in the rush to enter a train on the way back home i almost got pushed into a closing door, luckily for me the driver stopped the doors before they closed on me and for half a minute i glared at the asshole who'd been behind me :@
...
i didn't quite rest but had no time or headspace for the coding i needed to do. i left for the slam team meeting having achieved precious little.
it was a gorgeous day on mont royal. did i see a policewoman wearing black and white camo pants? what the hell?!
it was a good team meeting, i learned some interesting things and suffered inspiration overload. i've got sooooo much to write it's ridiculous.
...
i came home, and i don't know what i was expecting to do for the rest of the evening but whatever it was disintegrated in the furious flames of a crazy fight with gd. it was the kind of fight where we each thought the other had had enough and was ready to split up, it was a horror show and it astounds me that it ended with two very worn out, very loving combatants.
we're weird.
and while neither of us want to ever experience that kind of thing again, we both know that these are just obstacles on a long road together and we can only hope the rest of them will be a little more minor.
yesterday morning was good and slow. the money had transferred successfully, so that was a load off my mind, and i attacked my task list item by item, finally looking at the first stages of my collaboration with airplane. his first page is gorgeous! i'm delighted by that :)
almost as much as by receiving news that my permit's been approved ^_^
[continued...]
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
pinched nervous - part one
oh, man. nobody i need to speak to today is answering their phones. is a little professionalism too much to ask?
my main issue is with the company i've signed a contract with. over two weeks have passed, and it doesn't feel like things are proceeding. they're not talking to me - and right now my contact's not answering her phone - and if there's a real problem then that means that i've just spent two weeks not looking for other work. my bank account is a ticking time-bomb and this state of not knowing is incredibly stressful.
--- saturday:
it took us forever to leave the apartment for p.m., we were both hungry but kept getting distracted. i'd taken my umbrella but it wasn't raining, which i hate. i suspect that i lost it before returning home, because i can't find it anywhere now. i really hate rain :(
p.m. was delightful as usual, and we were both surprised at the size of our appetites! we followed that with yeh! for dessert; their sorbet was brilliant, but i'm not sure it was worth the aggravation caused by the insane crowd inside.
the level of pain in my shoulder and neck had increased considerably over the course of the hours we were out, and i could barely handle the walk home. i went to bed early because i couldn't handle anything else, and woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night in agony.
--- sunday:
i was a little better in the morning, but i tried reading and was too sore to be able to absorb china mieville's poetic writing. i took myself off to the clinic to register myself, there was only a three hour wait so i went home to do it there.
on my way i realized that what i was suffering from was a pinched nerve around the area where i have a slipped disc. a #$@%&*% pinched nerve!!!what a pain in the neck.
i took my b12 and d sublingual tablets simultaneously, which feels a bit weird but i can't see why that's not a good idea, and headed back. i stopped for a quick bite at the subway next to the clinic, which must be the dirtiest subway i've ever been in. it's only about a hundred meters from another one, so next time i'll go there instead...
the clinic's waiting room was a zoo, filled with noisy kids and half of them were hacking and wet-coughing without covering their mouths. of course, their parents were ignoring them. except for one, who was singing "old macdonald had a farm" repeatedly in an attempt to calm her infant. at one point i couldn't take it any more and stood outside the entrance where i could barely hear names being called. i hated that woman with every fiber of my being.
gd arrived a few minutes before i was called in, and she had a fit about all the coughing. she found the box of face masks which was hidden away, and we learned that "we can't force sick patients to wear them" translates to "we can't tell people they exist or advise people to use them" in receptionist-speak.
the doctor tested for neurological damage - haven't had that tested in a while - and of course my situation had improved dramatically in the three or four hours since i'd registered so i couldn't really demonstrate why i'd come in the first place. right? excellent :/
i joined gd at the second cup next door, which was disappointingly out of soya. when she'd finished her drink we went back to her place for munchies and a failed attempt at watching horror flicks. gd's really into paranormal stuff, i just wasn't in the mood.
i had a chance for a very short nap and was pulled out of exquisitely deep sleep to go see hilary jane perform at l'alizé. the weather was fine when we left the apartment, but as we arrived at our destination's metro station it became cold and wet. gd wasn't at all dressed for this and we had to take a taxi - fortunately diamond taxi's app works well.
--- lina gatineau has a voice with incredible potential, only it's in dire need of some training. singing hallelujah jeff buckley-style is ambitious for anyone, and her performance was cringe-worthy :(
hilary jane and her funky 80's-style dance was a lot of fun, and her fantastic voice was only highlighted by the previous performance.
the wastelanders are amazing.
--- it was still a bit wet when we left but considerably warmer, warm enough that gd was willing to go support her friend who was doing burlesque for her birthday. we hit the village, where they've recently closed off the street for the summer, and went inside. the show itself was disappointing - there were only two short bits in total. the first was pretty cool, but her friend who went on second didn't impress, and i suspect that the enthusiastic applause she received was more for it being her birthday.
gd introduced me to a bunch of her friends, some of whom were cool and some of whom were awkward. she was standing next to me and talking to a friend of hers who's transsexual - and a bloody impressive job she's done too - and i rested my hand on gd's back only to find another hand there already.
then i got awkward.
one of her friends started talking to me later when gd had left, and i amused myself greatly when he asked what i do and the first thing off my tongue was "i'm a writer".
huh! how about that?
i mean, i've done a lot more writing in the last half a year than i have programming, that's for sure...
--- so after a very queer evening we went home; gd was freezing even though it was 19 degrees, so when we walked out of her metro station i gave her my t-shirt to wear over her mini-jacket. i'd been wearing my "follow me until you die" syndicate shirt and couldn't stop smiling as i followed her home.
...
an ubuntu update messed up the chrome installation on her computer, which is really weird and very frustrating. i gave up after reinstalling chrome but i'll have to figure this out soon or re-install the whole damned thing :(
[continued...]
my main issue is with the company i've signed a contract with. over two weeks have passed, and it doesn't feel like things are proceeding. they're not talking to me - and right now my contact's not answering her phone - and if there's a real problem then that means that i've just spent two weeks not looking for other work. my bank account is a ticking time-bomb and this state of not knowing is incredibly stressful.
it took us forever to leave the apartment for p.m., we were both hungry but kept getting distracted. i'd taken my umbrella but it wasn't raining, which i hate. i suspect that i lost it before returning home, because i can't find it anywhere now. i really hate rain :(
p.m. was delightful as usual, and we were both surprised at the size of our appetites! we followed that with yeh! for dessert; their sorbet was brilliant, but i'm not sure it was worth the aggravation caused by the insane crowd inside.
the level of pain in my shoulder and neck had increased considerably over the course of the hours we were out, and i could barely handle the walk home. i went to bed early because i couldn't handle anything else, and woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night in agony.
i was a little better in the morning, but i tried reading and was too sore to be able to absorb china mieville's poetic writing. i took myself off to the clinic to register myself, there was only a three hour wait so i went home to do it there.
on my way i realized that what i was suffering from was a pinched nerve around the area where i have a slipped disc. a #$@%&*% pinched nerve!!!
i took my b12 and d sublingual tablets simultaneously, which feels a bit weird but i can't see why that's not a good idea, and headed back. i stopped for a quick bite at the subway next to the clinic, which must be the dirtiest subway i've ever been in. it's only about a hundred meters from another one, so next time i'll go there instead...
the clinic's waiting room was a zoo, filled with noisy kids and half of them were hacking and wet-coughing without covering their mouths. of course, their parents were ignoring them. except for one, who was singing "old macdonald had a farm" repeatedly in an attempt to calm her infant. at one point i couldn't take it any more and stood outside the entrance where i could barely hear names being called. i hated that woman with every fiber of my being.
gd arrived a few minutes before i was called in, and she had a fit about all the coughing. she found the box of face masks which was hidden away, and we learned that "we can't force sick patients to wear them" translates to "we can't tell people they exist or advise people to use them" in receptionist-speak.
the doctor tested for neurological damage - haven't had that tested in a while - and of course my situation had improved dramatically in the three or four hours since i'd registered so i couldn't really demonstrate why i'd come in the first place. right? excellent :/
i joined gd at the second cup next door, which was disappointingly out of soya. when she'd finished her drink we went back to her place for munchies and a failed attempt at watching horror flicks. gd's really into paranormal stuff, i just wasn't in the mood.
i had a chance for a very short nap and was pulled out of exquisitely deep sleep to go see hilary jane perform at l'alizé. the weather was fine when we left the apartment, but as we arrived at our destination's metro station it became cold and wet. gd wasn't at all dressed for this and we had to take a taxi - fortunately diamond taxi's app works well.
hilary jane and her funky 80's-style dance was a lot of fun, and her fantastic voice was only highlighted by the previous performance.
the wastelanders are amazing.
gd introduced me to a bunch of her friends, some of whom were cool and some of whom were awkward. she was standing next to me and talking to a friend of hers who's transsexual - and a bloody impressive job she's done too - and i rested my hand on gd's back only to find another hand there already.
then i got awkward.
one of her friends started talking to me later when gd had left, and i amused myself greatly when he asked what i do and the first thing off my tongue was "i'm a writer".
huh! how about that?
i mean, i've done a lot more writing in the last half a year than i have programming, that's for sure...
...
an ubuntu update messed up the chrome installation on her computer, which is really weird and very frustrating. i gave up after reinstalling chrome but i'll have to figure this out soon or re-install the whole damned thing :(
[continued...]
Saturday, May 24, 2014
still skew
... although i made it out to aux vivres to meet vfmp, his boyfriend and a friend of theirs. we've been talking about brunch there for months, and the blueberry pancakes truly are brilliant!
now if only i hadn't tripped up the steps at the metro in the middle of a bustling crowd. that was a bit embarrassing :$
...
gd has just discovered that one of her co-workers has been stealing her clients, and it looks like they're dealing with him. her stories really do make me question the locals' integrity - there're so many of them! and that's ignoring all the big stories about corruption etc.
--- if our paving becomes a battle between kinetic rubber and solar roadways*, rollerbladers are going to lose out no matter who wins. but everything else will be awesome, so maybe we'd better figure out a way to make all-terrain rollerblades?
* they're most of the way there with a week to go! go on, put some cash in!
10 things that the people who love their lives are doing differently is on point.
here's a wonderful poem about english pronunciation. i learned a thing or two, actually.
holo-lambos??? SIIIIIIICK!!!
now if only i hadn't tripped up the steps at the metro in the middle of a bustling crowd. that was a bit embarrassing :$
...
gd has just discovered that one of her co-workers has been stealing her clients, and it looks like they're dealing with him. her stories really do make me question the locals' integrity - there're so many of them! and that's ignoring all the big stories about corruption etc.
* they're most of the way there with a week to go! go on, put some cash in!
10 things that the people who love their lives are doing differently is on point.
here's a wonderful poem about english pronunciation. i learned a thing or two, actually.
holo-lambos??? SIIIIIIICK!!!
Friday, May 23, 2014
big news, little news and attitudes
okay, the most important item first: my butt HURTS. gd dragged me along to studiotec, where she goes as a part of her back treatments; their atwater facility's comfortable and inviting, the guys were all very cool. i don't know if my levels were really good or if the instructor always says that to first-timers, but i was fascinated to feel the differences between my muscles groups (and my lack of symmetry).
i was amused that i was able to power through push-ups (i could have kept on going), and by how difficult certain basic exercises became as electricity pulsed through my arms and chest and back and legs. overall, the experience was satisfying, but while i was feeling pumped up when i walked out i found that later, after an hour of jiu-jitsu with a guy a full weight-category larger than me, i just didn't feel up to rolling or finishing with a kickboxing class.
and i slept like a baby last night, so there's that too :)
--- news news
driverless car licenses are going to be a thing soon. it's sad that they're going to be so strict about it, but it's a definite first-step in the right direction!
we're going to have to keep on waiting and praying for patent reform. the situation is abysmal! and almost as frustrating for me, personally, is the fact that nobody's even talking about international copyright reform and the outrageous prices of digital books.
in good security news, microsoft won a small victory against the fbi. in really bad security news, it looks like snowden might be collaborating with the russians. it might just be a smear tactic, but if it is for real then i have to say that the americans brought this on themselves. they didn't need to treat him like a hero, but they certainly shouldn't have treated him like a traitor.
--- personal news
how the hell is it friday already???
wednesday:
i slept well, and woke up to some game time. tales of honor has a bit of a learning curve, i made some progress but found myself stuck with something that i'm going to have to research online before i continue.
i resumed reading jean webster - daddy-long-legs, which i *still* hadn't finished. every time i returned to it after many months i'd have to start again; it's not very long. it is, however, beautiful. i finished it yesterday afternoon and immensely enjoyed every minute of the reading experience! ^_^
wednesday's weather was simply wonderful! it was cool in the shade, warm in the sun, the birds were singing and a fresh breeze was pleasantly gentle.
my biggest concern was how to go about taking advantage of such superb weather as best i could!
there's been a story going around about dirk diggler's dad, and i got a chance to talk to him and clear everything up. i then spoke to my mother, who's traded in her written-off car and was able to cover the cost of its replacement, so that's all good.
...
i napped, which would have been great had i not held my neck awkwardly, and woke up to rls. ???!!?
and my heel, which had cracked again, was hurting me badly. it's only just beginning to relax now...
...
i read some more, then went to starbucks thinking to get some work done on my comics. my netbook's having issues with wireless, refusing to connect to my phone's hot spot, and i ended up not being very productive. it also didn't help that a gushy couple was sitting next to me at the study table, being offensively "couple"y in arabic. that's not a pretty combination.
i was almost at my front door when i heard someone struggling to learn to play a trumpet or something. i'm so glad it's one building over!
boxing class was good, i skipped sparring and went to gd's. on the way i spoke to my toronto cousin, and i worry that i might have offended him when i ended the call... probably not, but i'm always nervous when people suddenly shut down.
gd made delicious tofu spring rolls, and she made a LOT of them. i'm not sure how comfortable i am with the process, though, because i watched and heard her burning her fingers on each one...
there was too much food, once we'd gotten through about half the batch and simply couldn't continue we focused on the pervert's guide to ideology. what a treat! then gd decided to give community another chance, and now she's in :)
--- yesterday:
i was deeply bothered by rls again. and bad sinuses... AGAIN. this time i'm blowing blood out my nose, i don't know what they hell the deal is. i used a spray last night, which helped during the night but i woke up uncomfortable again. i really, really, really want to be breathing normally again. i'm sick of this!
gd began her day with a fight over the phone with a bureaucrat, she's been fined by the city for something her neighbours did and pulse - her legal counsel, that's their introduction - warned her that fighting it would only make it worse and that she should just pay up. i decided to take care of it myself, partially because she doesn't have the cash and partially because hey, if it wasn't for those fines we'd never have met!
it bothers me tremendously that she works so hard and barely makes ends meet. her work conditions are worrying (she rarely gets a lunch break and sometimes can't go to the loo for hours), and i understand that they're actually pretty good for her industry... it makes me feel privileged to be in software...
i needed to wait for gd for a while, and i sat down in java u. i was once again unable to get my netbook online, so i continued reading. we picked up lunch, then had another small coffee and talked about crossover fan-fiction until our studiotec appointment.
after the studiotec experience, we went our separate ways and i came home to finish daddy-long-legs. i did some email clearing - this is hard work! - and then headed off to jiu-jitsu.
it's been a while since i last did jiu-jitsu with someone who's an entire weight division larger than me! [i apologize in advance] i came eerily close to scoring a cauliflower ear :/
i almost laughed inappropriately: at one point he took his mouth-guard out to say something and it didn't make much difference :P
anyway, i know it's summer: most of the mat's covered in puddles. there's another thing i'm going to miss about winter...
i had my head in the clouds on my walk home: half the sky was purple and grey, half yellows and light blues. it was gorgeous!
i took my bloody sinus headache to gd's for the other half of the spring rolls and a few episodes of community. just before bed, after an otherwise perfect evening, i learned a lesson about which buttons of gd's not to push when she's tired :(
*sigh*
--- friday:
i enjoyed the deepest sleep i've had in the longest time. i woke up with strained glutes (yep, still very sore) and in the mood for olive. trickle, in particular.
i missioned off to city hall to pay gd's fines, which wasn't an unpleasant experience, and then went downtown to get my french results. the good news is that i didn't get a worse score. the bad news is that i improved it so marginally that i might as well not have tried :(
shit.
i was close to popeye's and they're having a serious sale, so i stopped there. i had to wait in line outside the store for about twenty minutes! i found myself staring at shoes for most of that time. there are so many fashion victims walking around with obviously expensive, glaringly ugly footwear.
i walked out with a giant (2kg) tub of progressive's vegessential and carried it home, and have done very little with the rest of my day.
i was amused that i was able to power through push-ups (i could have kept on going), and by how difficult certain basic exercises became as electricity pulsed through my arms and chest and back and legs. overall, the experience was satisfying, but while i was feeling pumped up when i walked out i found that later, after an hour of jiu-jitsu with a guy a full weight-category larger than me, i just didn't feel up to rolling or finishing with a kickboxing class.
and i slept like a baby last night, so there's that too :)
driverless car licenses are going to be a thing soon. it's sad that they're going to be so strict about it, but it's a definite first-step in the right direction!
we're going to have to keep on waiting and praying for patent reform. the situation is abysmal! and almost as frustrating for me, personally, is the fact that nobody's even talking about international copyright reform and the outrageous prices of digital books.
in good security news, microsoft won a small victory against the fbi. in really bad security news, it looks like snowden might be collaborating with the russians. it might just be a smear tactic, but if it is for real then i have to say that the americans brought this on themselves. they didn't need to treat him like a hero, but they certainly shouldn't have treated him like a traitor.
how the hell is it friday already???
wednesday:
i slept well, and woke up to some game time. tales of honor has a bit of a learning curve, i made some progress but found myself stuck with something that i'm going to have to research online before i continue.
i resumed reading jean webster - daddy-long-legs, which i *still* hadn't finished. every time i returned to it after many months i'd have to start again; it's not very long. it is, however, beautiful. i finished it yesterday afternoon and immensely enjoyed every minute of the reading experience! ^_^
wednesday's weather was simply wonderful! it was cool in the shade, warm in the sun, the birds were singing and a fresh breeze was pleasantly gentle.
my biggest concern was how to go about taking advantage of such superb weather as best i could!
there's been a story going around about dirk diggler's dad, and i got a chance to talk to him and clear everything up. i then spoke to my mother, who's traded in her written-off car and was able to cover the cost of its replacement, so that's all good.
...
i napped, which would have been great had i not held my neck awkwardly, and woke up to rls. ???!!?
and my heel, which had cracked again, was hurting me badly. it's only just beginning to relax now...
...
i read some more, then went to starbucks thinking to get some work done on my comics. my netbook's having issues with wireless, refusing to connect to my phone's hot spot, and i ended up not being very productive. it also didn't help that a gushy couple was sitting next to me at the study table, being offensively "couple"y in arabic. that's not a pretty combination.
i was almost at my front door when i heard someone struggling to learn to play a trumpet or something. i'm so glad it's one building over!
boxing class was good, i skipped sparring and went to gd's. on the way i spoke to my toronto cousin, and i worry that i might have offended him when i ended the call... probably not, but i'm always nervous when people suddenly shut down.
gd made delicious tofu spring rolls, and she made a LOT of them. i'm not sure how comfortable i am with the process, though, because i watched and heard her burning her fingers on each one...
there was too much food, once we'd gotten through about half the batch and simply couldn't continue we focused on the pervert's guide to ideology. what a treat! then gd decided to give community another chance, and now she's in :)
i was deeply bothered by rls again. and bad sinuses... AGAIN. this time i'm blowing blood out my nose, i don't know what they hell the deal is. i used a spray last night, which helped during the night but i woke up uncomfortable again. i really, really, really want to be breathing normally again. i'm sick of this!
gd began her day with a fight over the phone with a bureaucrat, she's been fined by the city for something her neighbours did and pulse - her legal counsel, that's their introduction - warned her that fighting it would only make it worse and that she should just pay up. i decided to take care of it myself, partially because she doesn't have the cash and partially because hey, if it wasn't for those fines we'd never have met!
it bothers me tremendously that she works so hard and barely makes ends meet. her work conditions are worrying (she rarely gets a lunch break and sometimes can't go to the loo for hours), and i understand that they're actually pretty good for her industry... it makes me feel privileged to be in software...
i needed to wait for gd for a while, and i sat down in java u. i was once again unable to get my netbook online, so i continued reading. we picked up lunch, then had another small coffee and talked about crossover fan-fiction until our studiotec appointment.
after the studiotec experience, we went our separate ways and i came home to finish daddy-long-legs. i did some email clearing - this is hard work! - and then headed off to jiu-jitsu.
it's been a while since i last did jiu-jitsu with someone who's an entire weight division larger than me! [i apologize in advance] i came eerily close to scoring a cauliflower ear :/
i almost laughed inappropriately: at one point he took his mouth-guard out to say something and it didn't make much difference :P
anyway, i know it's summer: most of the mat's covered in puddles. there's another thing i'm going to miss about winter...
i had my head in the clouds on my walk home: half the sky was purple and grey, half yellows and light blues. it was gorgeous!
i took my bloody sinus headache to gd's for the other half of the spring rolls and a few episodes of community. just before bed, after an otherwise perfect evening, i learned a lesson about which buttons of gd's not to push when she's tired :(
*sigh*
i enjoyed the deepest sleep i've had in the longest time. i woke up with strained glutes (yep, still very sore) and in the mood for olive. trickle, in particular.
i missioned off to city hall to pay gd's fines, which wasn't an unpleasant experience, and then went downtown to get my french results. the good news is that i didn't get a worse score. the bad news is that i improved it so marginally that i might as well not have tried :(
shit.
i was close to popeye's and they're having a serious sale, so i stopped there. i had to wait in line outside the store for about twenty minutes! i found myself staring at shoes for most of that time. there are so many fashion victims walking around with obviously expensive, glaringly ugly footwear.
i walked out with a giant (2kg) tub of progressive's vegessential and carried it home, and have done very little with the rest of my day.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
biologically shocking
i can't train with my nose and chest like this. today's far better than the last two days, and that's said with a perpetually running nose and one incident where i was forced to spit a mouthful in public. trust me, swallowing was not an option, and on the crowded streets it was impossible to do it surreptitiously :(
--- the primary theme of the last day has been preparing for the slam finals. i met up with rabbit at a nice little coffee shop in saint henri so that we could help each other figure out which pieces we're going to perform. the new piece that i have yet to publish? rabbit, with all her talk about always being able to cut, was forced to agree with me that it's simply a four-minute piece and cannot be less.
i initially felt bad about our reciting poetry possibly disturbing the people around us, but it became clear that those who weren't listening to their headphones weren't unhappy about it at all :)
the two pieces that i'm readying for the second round aren't what i expected at all, as a matter of fact. signs in the dead of night made rabbit tear up, and i can make acupuncture pretty emotional. i'm actually surprised at myself for how comfortable i am acting these as opposed to reciting them. the last couple of months of slam have been good to me, i guess.
...
while there, i received a call from the company i've been interviewing with for a while. i'm finally ready to disclose that it's google, and the reason for said disclosure is that they called to say they're not interested. i may have passed all their technical exams but their hr committee determined that something about my profile "wasn't a fit" for the job i was applying for. i don't know what that means. but i'm extremely pleased that i didn't risk the job i've accepted!
after we were done i walked to h2o's gym to meet up with gd. the lack of signage freaks me out - i'd been given instructions and couldn't find the place, even when i was already in the building on the correct floor. how can that be good for business???
my sinusitis was terrible and i was completely exhausted; i felt utterly spoiled to have gd taking care of me for the evening. i ordered indian from the usual place* and we both ate too much.
* this'll be the last time, i thought i'd confused the numbers before but cari mela is insanely expensive. it's a lot of food for two people, and it's delicious, but $40 is outrageous for dinner in front of the telly**.
** netflix
we watched pirates! band of misfits - i'd actually forgotten i'd seen it - and i think even less of it now than i did before. it's beautifully done, but the story is pathetic.
we chased that with two comedies i'd already seen: my girlfriend's boyfriend was just as great the second time, and thinky pain was even better (than the first time).
i took the night meds and we both went to bed early.
--- today:
i woke up after midnight with aching feet. i was suffering serious rls and no amount of stretching (on top of salt water, the usual fix) or massaging was helping. at one point i was feeling too confined and i didn't want to disturb gd, so i snuck out the back (a nifty feature of her apartment) and literally walked up and down the dark street, quite stoned from the night meds, eventually becoming antsy to return even though my feet were still griefing me.
fortunately, they calmed down a bit a short while later, but well over an hour had passed in torment and it's never been that bad before. i returned to bed, and gd woke up and convinced me to use a nasal decongestant spray. i'm usually loathe to use those because "once you pop"... but it did help to make the rest of the night easier. i wasn't feeling well-rested when i got up, but i was definitely feeling better.
...
i finished a game of hero academy with zenstar this morning, and decided that i've outgrown it. it was fun for the longest time, but the ratio of the effort it takes to recall a game versus the pleasure derived from the game has steadily worsened over time. i'll stick with penny arcade: gamers vs evil for social gaming and another case solved, even though i've cleared all the cases, still has some entertaining challenges while i wait for the next round of cases to be delivered.
...
this morning's discussion turned to songs gd and i want played at our funerals. i like the fact that we've both got good ones :)
...
even though i ran errands today, my focus was primarily on memorizing and practicing my performance for sunday. so any time i was walking or on the metro, i was talking to myself in a way that those around me probably weren't too comfortable with.
i hurried down to wire's area with the intention of having coffee with him, but he was in a hurry so he dumped two thirds of the cash on me and we walked and talked until we got to where he was headed. firstly, it's great that he's on his feet, and secondly, it's great that i didn't lose a friend over money.
i was already on the green line, so i headed to an art supply store i'm familiar with to pick up charcoal pencils for gd who's been getting back into drawing since just before we met. i dropped those off at the front desk of her work and sneaked off, which i hoped would be seen as romantic [it was]. from there i headed to the saq to pick up wine for uncle hate's birthday. on the way i passed an asian dude who was so decked out in hipster garb that i had to fight the urge to say "hey dude, you left your identity at home".
there's nothing that destroys a well-made subway foot-long better than an unfinished cut down the middle.
our muay thai instructor and i travelled together from lionel groulx and he imparted a lot of sparring advice. i was intrigued to discover that he's actually about to return to university to work on his master's.
i called up uncle hate to wish him a happy birthday, and was almost sorry to have asked him how he is; turns out he's been having a really uncomfortable week. anyway, once he was done complaining he simply said "goodbye" and hung up, so that was easy enough.
i passed out on the couch, hoping that after a rest i'd be ready for sparring, but that's definitely not happening :(
instead, i've taken the opportunity to catch up with all sorts of things. then i got an email from steam telling me that an item on my wishlist is on sale.
bioshock infinite for $10? or $15 for all three???
*that* is a price i'm willing to pay.
i initially felt bad about our reciting poetry possibly disturbing the people around us, but it became clear that those who weren't listening to their headphones weren't unhappy about it at all :)
the two pieces that i'm readying for the second round aren't what i expected at all, as a matter of fact. signs in the dead of night made rabbit tear up, and i can make acupuncture pretty emotional. i'm actually surprised at myself for how comfortable i am acting these as opposed to reciting them. the last couple of months of slam have been good to me, i guess.
...
while there, i received a call from the company i've been interviewing with for a while. i'm finally ready to disclose that it's google, and the reason for said disclosure is that they called to say they're not interested. i may have passed all their technical exams but their hr committee determined that something about my profile "wasn't a fit" for the job i was applying for. i don't know what that means. but i'm extremely pleased that i didn't risk the job i've accepted!
after we were done i walked to h2o's gym to meet up with gd. the lack of signage freaks me out - i'd been given instructions and couldn't find the place, even when i was already in the building on the correct floor. how can that be good for business???
my sinusitis was terrible and i was completely exhausted; i felt utterly spoiled to have gd taking care of me for the evening. i ordered indian from the usual place* and we both ate too much.
* this'll be the last time, i thought i'd confused the numbers before but cari mela is insanely expensive. it's a lot of food for two people, and it's delicious, but $40 is outrageous for dinner in front of the telly**.
** netflix
we watched pirates! band of misfits - i'd actually forgotten i'd seen it - and i think even less of it now than i did before. it's beautifully done, but the story is pathetic.
we chased that with two comedies i'd already seen: my girlfriend's boyfriend was just as great the second time, and thinky pain was even better (than the first time).
i took the night meds and we both went to bed early.
i woke up after midnight with aching feet. i was suffering serious rls and no amount of stretching (on top of salt water, the usual fix) or massaging was helping. at one point i was feeling too confined and i didn't want to disturb gd, so i snuck out the back (a nifty feature of her apartment) and literally walked up and down the dark street, quite stoned from the night meds, eventually becoming antsy to return even though my feet were still griefing me.
fortunately, they calmed down a bit a short while later, but well over an hour had passed in torment and it's never been that bad before. i returned to bed, and gd woke up and convinced me to use a nasal decongestant spray. i'm usually loathe to use those because "once you pop"... but it did help to make the rest of the night easier. i wasn't feeling well-rested when i got up, but i was definitely feeling better.
...
i finished a game of hero academy with zenstar this morning, and decided that i've outgrown it. it was fun for the longest time, but the ratio of the effort it takes to recall a game versus the pleasure derived from the game has steadily worsened over time. i'll stick with penny arcade: gamers vs evil for social gaming and another case solved, even though i've cleared all the cases, still has some entertaining challenges while i wait for the next round of cases to be delivered.
...
this morning's discussion turned to songs gd and i want played at our funerals. i like the fact that we've both got good ones :)
...
even though i ran errands today, my focus was primarily on memorizing and practicing my performance for sunday. so any time i was walking or on the metro, i was talking to myself in a way that those around me probably weren't too comfortable with.
i hurried down to wire's area with the intention of having coffee with him, but he was in a hurry so he dumped two thirds of the cash on me and we walked and talked until we got to where he was headed. firstly, it's great that he's on his feet, and secondly, it's great that i didn't lose a friend over money.
i was already on the green line, so i headed to an art supply store i'm familiar with to pick up charcoal pencils for gd who's been getting back into drawing since just before we met. i dropped those off at the front desk of her work and sneaked off, which i hoped would be seen as romantic [it was]. from there i headed to the saq to pick up wine for uncle hate's birthday. on the way i passed an asian dude who was so decked out in hipster garb that i had to fight the urge to say "hey dude, you left your identity at home".
there's nothing that destroys a well-made subway foot-long better than an unfinished cut down the middle.
our muay thai instructor and i travelled together from lionel groulx and he imparted a lot of sparring advice. i was intrigued to discover that he's actually about to return to university to work on his master's.
i called up uncle hate to wish him a happy birthday, and was almost sorry to have asked him how he is; turns out he's been having a really uncomfortable week. anyway, once he was done complaining he simply said "goodbye" and hung up, so that was easy enough.
i passed out on the couch, hoping that after a rest i'd be ready for sparring, but that's definitely not happening :(
instead, i've taken the opportunity to catch up with all sorts of things. then i got an email from steam telling me that an item on my wishlist is on sale.
bioshock infinite for $10? or $15 for all three???
*that* is a price i'm willing to pay.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
oh, flip
i've just published my modernized version of narcissus and echo after deciding that it's good enough without my pretentiously ruining it with rhyme. i came to the starbucks intending to sort out an nda for mti but my netbook is seriously griefing me. also, i don't feel like doing anything else until i finish posting, it's been a crazy few days and the weekend's probably going to be interesting too.
i'll start with a quick summary of the things at the forefront of my mind right now:
(in no particular order)
1. job hunting. i interviewed yesterday for the aerospace job. it's not exactly what i expected but it's still an awesome entry point and it has room for mobility in the right direction if i play my cards right. long story short, i interviewed welland already received feedback that i'm their top candidate. my recruiter's pressuring them to move quickly in light of my final interviews for the other super-exciting opportunity on tuesday and while writing this post received a callback.
2. gd. i've been weird about things for the last few days, but it's more psychological sabotage than anything real. everything's fantastic in spite of skeptical me and feels right.
3. i retook the french oral comprehension exam this morning. my oral comprehension has definitely gotten better, but the number of "je ne sais pas" answers has increased noticeably. i hope i improved my score!
--- tuesday evening:
the gym experience was full of amusing faux pas (mainly with the kickboxing couple) but was primarily a good, solid training. the jolly moroccan has been implementing the diet and was eager to report that he was feeling really good on it ^_^
the dark, quiet and wet streets on the way to gd's felt like home. i love that sensation, it reminds me of misty middle-of-the-night streets in cape town. gd gave me a quick pre-interview haircut, after which i was totally bombed and fell into bed.
--- wednesday:
i slept amazingly well, though it included a long dream in which i needed to escape from brother bear and i felt like i'd done something illegal. waking up was perfectly comfortable, and i left with gd who advised me to go to winners to find a tie for my big interview. winners wasn't open that early, so i spent the forty-five minutes waiting with a cup of tea and half-heartedly trying to produce poetry.
ties are stupidly expensive. i managed to find a couple that i liked and happened to be "discounted", but i think paying $10 for a tie is ridiculous so when i see a scratched out $50 i just don't know where to file the information. as it is, i was on my way out when i noticed a loose thread on one of them and i guess that was the reason for the "good" price.
--- i came home insanely hungry, peanut-buttered a couple of slices of toast and was walking past my desk calendar on my way to my computer when i noticed that i had made an appointment with army brat's recruiter that was going to begin in half an hour and i'd completely forgotten about it. what absurdly fortunate timing! i hurriedly stuffed the food into my mouth while pulling on some smart duds, left the recruiter a message to say i'd be a little late and fast-walked to the metro.
when i arrived, fifteen minutes late, the receptionist directed me to a computer where i'd have to fill out a form. annoyed - wasn't this supposed to be a meeting with a recruiter who already had my resume? - i started filling in my details but stopped when they asked for my social insurance number and i couldn't proceed without it. i returned to the receptionist's desk and told her i wasn't comfortable providing that, which prompted her to call the recruiter and disdainfully inform her that i wasn't playing ball.
the recruiter came out and asked what the problem was. she then explained to me that i could simply enter zeros in that field instead, told me that the receptionist was supposed to have let me know, and that i could ignore all the fields aside from the basic personal data. i certainly wasn't about to spend an hour telling them what's on my resume... which they had already... so i entered null data as much as i could so that they could let me sit down with the person i'd come to see.
let's just say they didn't make the greatest first impression on me ever. although, to be fair, it's better than another recruiting company that took over a year to contact me.
...
the actual meeting was pleasant, and the woman seemed to have a vague idea of what i'm about by the time i left. although she did say something really weird: apparently she has a number of employees who had to physically leave the country in order to apply for permanent residence. nobody else i know had that experience and that's certainly not what the immigration site says, so i can't help but feel that somebody there's doing something very wrong indeed.
--- i had a big lunch (i was still hungry) and then napped with french radio in the background. the cleaning lady arrived and gave me some very helpful immigration info - a real-life contact that i can consult for free! hooray! i napped a bit more and then hit the starbucks. i got some studying done and was comfortable except for a weird minute or two when i noticed that one of the eyes of a creepy-looking dude with a squint was on me and i couldn't figure out if he was staring at me or out the window.
i went to the further supermarket to pick up sublingual b12 for gd, and the walk there and back was consumed by my working on the performance of my latest piece. it's one thing to remember it all, it's quite another to get the emotions right :)
i made it to muay thai, which wasn't a great class for technique (i partnered with a beginner again) but it was excellent for conditioning. he made us work really, really hard. i chased that with boxing, but skipped sparring because i'm *not* risking concussion before two important interviews :P
gd came over for another relaxed evening.
--- yesterday:
i slept well, and woke up slowly and pleasantly. once gd had left i called back a company i'd applied for and the woman i spoke to was really nice; the only issue is that halfway through the call she informed me that their bread-and-butter is adult content. i decided that i'll interview anyway, but i'm not sure i'd accept a job like that.
the big interview: the only real preparation i had to do was dressing nicely. i gave gd a chance to vet my clothing before she left, and i walked out feeling capital! as in, like a capital letter. irrationally presentable, and just as confident without the fancy dress. but confident i most certainly was.
which is good, because i didn't have a chance to pick up coffee on the way. i was comfortably anyway, and i'd done some research so i ended up demonstrating my skill-set by asking more questions than they had the answers to. by the time i walked out i was feeling really good about our hour together, although there were a couple of things that i wasn't entirely happy with. i'd referred to "remote terminal" as "remote desktop" on a couple of occasions and they'd asked me to quantify my customer-facing experience. on the spot, i didn't really have anything to go on and i'd only figure out a rough estimate in the evening.
i walked out exhausted, i'd drawn on a lot more energy than i'd realized. i was under pressure to get passport photos taken, print out my convocation and registration form for the french exam, pick up coffee and write a follow-up email before getting to morgan stanley for their recruitment event. the last two items didn't get done, the former because there was a long line at the starbucks and the latter because i'd only really figure out the numbers i needed to send later.
of course, when you're in a hurry and dressed nicely the street-cleaning truck has to drive precisely along the route you're taking to the metro :/
*and* a girl careened through a stop street and would've taken me out if i hadn't suspected that that was going to happen.
*and* running to get into the metro car and having the person just ahead of me *stop* as they stepped inside.
once i got to the right metro station i took a bit of a wrong turn, but by that stage i was a little more relaxed and less certain that the world was hating on me personally. as i met up with my friend* and we walked inside my phone rang. it was the recruiter, calling to let me know that i was the top candidate. that totally made our day! and gave us a good excuse to pick up some wine from the bar :P
* the name tag i'd been given said "totalwaste" with the title "friend" underneath.
we had a good time talking, i finally met her husband and we've made up some good excuses to see more of each other.
the first developers i met were a really nice bunch and we all hit it off. the guy who presented at the end made his job sound fantastically boring.
...
i finally got home, had a quick chat with my mom, sent the email that needed to be sent, got all my exam stuff together and ordered indian to gd's place. i was completely braindead on the metro, and arrived just before my food did. we couldn't find any french movies that we agreed on, and ended up watching an episode from the first season of heroes instead before heading to bed.
--- today:
i barely slept, i woke up with a sore throat, a sore back and running late for the exam. fortunately everything was better by the time i arrived with coffee in hand, and just as fortunately the two degrees celsius wasn't particularly cold because i didn't have a sweater.
registration was efficient, there was a little confusion prior to the test but everything went smoothly.
i went straight home after the exam, lay down on the couch and resumed watching rebellion, a very clever french movie about imbecility in war. i fell asleep long before getting to the end of it, and when i woke up i came here to try and Get Stuff Done.
aside from this, though, that hasn't really happened. but i'm in "i'm a little distracted by the insanely good news and i don't care too much about anything" mode ^_^
i'll start with a quick summary of the things at the forefront of my mind right now:
(in no particular order)
1. job hunting. i interviewed yesterday for the aerospace job. it's not exactly what i expected but it's still an awesome entry point and it has room for mobility in the right direction if i play my cards right. long story short, i interviewed well
2. gd. i've been weird about things for the last few days, but it's more psychological sabotage than anything real. everything's fantastic in spite of skeptical me and feels right.
3. i retook the french oral comprehension exam this morning. my oral comprehension has definitely gotten better, but the number of "je ne sais pas" answers has increased noticeably. i hope i improved my score!
the gym experience was full of amusing faux pas (mainly with the kickboxing couple) but was primarily a good, solid training. the jolly moroccan has been implementing the diet and was eager to report that he was feeling really good on it ^_^
the dark, quiet and wet streets on the way to gd's felt like home. i love that sensation, it reminds me of misty middle-of-the-night streets in cape town. gd gave me a quick pre-interview haircut, after which i was totally bombed and fell into bed.
i slept amazingly well, though it included a long dream in which i needed to escape from brother bear and i felt like i'd done something illegal. waking up was perfectly comfortable, and i left with gd who advised me to go to winners to find a tie for my big interview. winners wasn't open that early, so i spent the forty-five minutes waiting with a cup of tea and half-heartedly trying to produce poetry.
ties are stupidly expensive. i managed to find a couple that i liked and happened to be "discounted", but i think paying $10 for a tie is ridiculous so when i see a scratched out $50 i just don't know where to file the information. as it is, i was on my way out when i noticed a loose thread on one of them and i guess that was the reason for the "good" price.
when i arrived, fifteen minutes late, the receptionist directed me to a computer where i'd have to fill out a form. annoyed - wasn't this supposed to be a meeting with a recruiter who already had my resume? - i started filling in my details but stopped when they asked for my social insurance number and i couldn't proceed without it. i returned to the receptionist's desk and told her i wasn't comfortable providing that, which prompted her to call the recruiter and disdainfully inform her that i wasn't playing ball.
the recruiter came out and asked what the problem was. she then explained to me that i could simply enter zeros in that field instead, told me that the receptionist was supposed to have let me know, and that i could ignore all the fields aside from the basic personal data. i certainly wasn't about to spend an hour telling them what's on my resume... which they had already... so i entered null data as much as i could so that they could let me sit down with the person i'd come to see.
let's just say they didn't make the greatest first impression on me ever. although, to be fair, it's better than another recruiting company that took over a year to contact me.
...
the actual meeting was pleasant, and the woman seemed to have a vague idea of what i'm about by the time i left. although she did say something really weird: apparently she has a number of employees who had to physically leave the country in order to apply for permanent residence. nobody else i know had that experience and that's certainly not what the immigration site says, so i can't help but feel that somebody there's doing something very wrong indeed.
i went to the further supermarket to pick up sublingual b12 for gd, and the walk there and back was consumed by my working on the performance of my latest piece. it's one thing to remember it all, it's quite another to get the emotions right :)
i made it to muay thai, which wasn't a great class for technique (i partnered with a beginner again) but it was excellent for conditioning. he made us work really, really hard. i chased that with boxing, but skipped sparring because i'm *not* risking concussion before two important interviews :P
gd came over for another relaxed evening.
i slept well, and woke up slowly and pleasantly. once gd had left i called back a company i'd applied for and the woman i spoke to was really nice; the only issue is that halfway through the call she informed me that their bread-and-butter is adult content. i decided that i'll interview anyway, but i'm not sure i'd accept a job like that.
the big interview: the only real preparation i had to do was dressing nicely. i gave gd a chance to vet my clothing before she left, and i walked out feeling capital! as in, like a capital letter. irrationally presentable, and just as confident without the fancy dress. but confident i most certainly was.
which is good, because i didn't have a chance to pick up coffee on the way. i was comfortably anyway, and i'd done some research so i ended up demonstrating my skill-set by asking more questions than they had the answers to. by the time i walked out i was feeling really good about our hour together, although there were a couple of things that i wasn't entirely happy with. i'd referred to "remote terminal" as "remote desktop" on a couple of occasions and they'd asked me to quantify my customer-facing experience. on the spot, i didn't really have anything to go on and i'd only figure out a rough estimate in the evening.
i walked out exhausted, i'd drawn on a lot more energy than i'd realized. i was under pressure to get passport photos taken, print out my convocation and registration form for the french exam, pick up coffee and write a follow-up email before getting to morgan stanley for their recruitment event. the last two items didn't get done, the former because there was a long line at the starbucks and the latter because i'd only really figure out the numbers i needed to send later.
of course, when you're in a hurry and dressed nicely the street-cleaning truck has to drive precisely along the route you're taking to the metro :/
*and* a girl careened through a stop street and would've taken me out if i hadn't suspected that that was going to happen.
*and* running to get into the metro car and having the person just ahead of me *stop* as they stepped inside.
once i got to the right metro station i took a bit of a wrong turn, but by that stage i was a little more relaxed and less certain that the world was hating on me personally. as i met up with my friend* and we walked inside my phone rang. it was the recruiter, calling to let me know that i was the top candidate. that totally made our day! and gave us a good excuse to pick up some wine from the bar :P
* the name tag i'd been given said "totalwaste" with the title "friend" underneath.
we had a good time talking, i finally met her husband and we've made up some good excuses to see more of each other.
the first developers i met were a really nice bunch and we all hit it off. the guy who presented at the end made his job sound fantastically boring.
...
i finally got home, had a quick chat with my mom, sent the email that needed to be sent, got all my exam stuff together and ordered indian to gd's place. i was completely braindead on the metro, and arrived just before my food did. we couldn't find any french movies that we agreed on, and ended up watching an episode from the first season of heroes instead before heading to bed.
i barely slept, i woke up with a sore throat, a sore back and running late for the exam. fortunately everything was better by the time i arrived with coffee in hand, and just as fortunately the two degrees celsius wasn't particularly cold because i didn't have a sweater.
registration was efficient, there was a little confusion prior to the test but everything went smoothly.
i went straight home after the exam, lay down on the couch and resumed watching rebellion, a very clever french movie about imbecility in war. i fell asleep long before getting to the end of it, and when i woke up i came here to try and Get Stuff Done.
aside from this, though, that hasn't really happened. but i'm in "i'm a little distracted by the insanely good news and i don't care too much about anything" mode ^_^
Thursday, April 17, 2014
i don't even. part iv.
[... continued]
--- today:
everything took so long with my back the way it was that my planning meant nothing and i ended up running late. not by too much, and when i arrived they didn't notice, but *i* noticed. i also discovered, too late, that one of my really nice shirts from last year is now too small. training, huh? it does that shit.
as my train passed gd's metro station and the doors opened, my phone somehow acquired a signal and i received a message from her wishing me luck. wtf?!
...
the meeting... was awesome. the guy's really nice, we seem to have clicked, and after going through all my experience i was thrilled to hear that i appear to be exactly what they're having trouble finding.
*crosses fingers*
this is a REALLY exciting opportunity. the other employer that i'm interviewing with? if i have to choose between these two, big-life-decision-wise i'll have no choice but to go with today's. and i'll be seriously bummed about the other one, because i want that one as well. i'm praying that i'll have that problem. i can't imagine a nicer problem to have!
...
i came home, posted and went out to a local java u that i didn't know existed to meet the illustrator i do muay thai with. at some point i discovered that if i walked with my toes turned out in an exaggerated fashion my back wouldn't hurt as much, so getting there and back was less trouble than before. i ran into a friend from the gym who's almost done with his psychology degree and has decided that he's turning professional as a boxer, which impresses me no end. there was a lady occupying the seat next to the only available power outlet and i was very pleased that she was obliging enough to move over :)
the meeting was excellent, but unfortunately she was pressed for time. we'll definitely meet again, probably on the weekend, and she seems like the real deal in every respect!
i closed the door to my apartment on my way out to the supermarket and felt and heard something in the middle of my spine click, and as quickly as it began the nerve issue was over! i'm taking things easy, though, and i hope that this is properly resolved. it's such a relief to not be feeling so much pain!
on the way i completed memorizing (and tweaking) my new work. awesome! i ate at subway, shopped quickly and returned to make a phone call.
the recruiter, after hearing about my c / c++ / c# / java experience, informed me that i'm "underqualified" for the job. he then told me what the job requirements are, and i'm OVER-qualified. i didn't try too hard to mask the offense in my voice when i explained to him that that was not the case. he then asked me for my salary expectations. i told him the same thing i tell everyone - that i refuse to give it - and after telling me that he understands he informed me that without a salary expectation he wouldn't be able to proceed.
"well, that's unfortunate." i told him. he quickly wished me a good day and put the phone down.
...
what i'd *like* to have said was "sir, you appear to be underqualified to represent me."
--- damn, i just answered a telephone survey that i think was for a national broadcaster, but after giving them some basic demographic info they asked my name and my address. that was when i realized that it could totally be a scam, and i might have already given them too much info. i declined to continue and i hope there's no damage done :(
everything took so long with my back the way it was that my planning meant nothing and i ended up running late. not by too much, and when i arrived they didn't notice, but *i* noticed. i also discovered, too late, that one of my really nice shirts from last year is now too small. training, huh? it does that shit.
as my train passed gd's metro station and the doors opened, my phone somehow acquired a signal and i received a message from her wishing me luck. wtf?!
...
the meeting... was awesome. the guy's really nice, we seem to have clicked, and after going through all my experience i was thrilled to hear that i appear to be exactly what they're having trouble finding.
*crosses fingers*
this is a REALLY exciting opportunity. the other employer that i'm interviewing with? if i have to choose between these two, big-life-decision-wise i'll have no choice but to go with today's. and i'll be seriously bummed about the other one, because i want that one as well. i'm praying that i'll have that problem. i can't imagine a nicer problem to have!
...
i came home, posted and went out to a local java u that i didn't know existed to meet the illustrator i do muay thai with. at some point i discovered that if i walked with my toes turned out in an exaggerated fashion my back wouldn't hurt as much, so getting there and back was less trouble than before. i ran into a friend from the gym who's almost done with his psychology degree and has decided that he's turning professional as a boxer, which impresses me no end. there was a lady occupying the seat next to the only available power outlet and i was very pleased that she was obliging enough to move over :)
the meeting was excellent, but unfortunately she was pressed for time. we'll definitely meet again, probably on the weekend, and she seems like the real deal in every respect!
i closed the door to my apartment on my way out to the supermarket and felt and heard something in the middle of my spine click, and as quickly as it began the nerve issue was over! i'm taking things easy, though, and i hope that this is properly resolved. it's such a relief to not be feeling so much pain!
on the way i completed memorizing (and tweaking) my new work. awesome! i ate at subway, shopped quickly and returned to make a phone call.
the recruiter, after hearing about my c / c++ / c# / java experience, informed me that i'm "underqualified" for the job. he then told me what the job requirements are, and i'm OVER-qualified. i didn't try too hard to mask the offense in my voice when i explained to him that that was not the case. he then asked me for my salary expectations. i told him the same thing i tell everyone - that i refuse to give it - and after telling me that he understands he informed me that without a salary expectation he wouldn't be able to proceed.
"well, that's unfortunate." i told him. he quickly wished me a good day and put the phone down.
...
what i'd *like* to have said was "sir, you appear to be underqualified to represent me."
i don't even. part iii.
[... continued]
monday continued:
i left gd's when it was time to get ready for the first night of passover. i walked in a semi-daze, completely high (on life, and it's been mostly sustained this whole week) and utterly distracted.
not the best time to receive a series of messages from aaa telling me she didn't *get* it, apparently she changed her mind at the slam and still wants to date. i gently chided her and put her off, hoping she got the message this time...
...
the spring rain would have been more welcome had i not been dressed well. just saying.
--- the first night passover dinner was insanely tedious. if it wasn't for the fact that i won't let my family down, it was so bad that even if it wasn't the last time that our hosts will be hosting (for a while at least, they're not going to be here next year), i'd say i'd never go there again. it's not that they're not nice people, and the food was good, but it was like nobody cared enough to participate in the seder AND they went through every single page of the damned haggadah anyway. it's okay if it's one or the other, but both?!
and the company. oh gods, the company. not only did i want to be spending my evening with gd, but i was surrounded by people i have absolutely nothing in common with and who amongst themselves couldn't keep a conversation going for more than a minute unless it was about sports, and that conversation lasted about five minutes and was entirely composed of random facts and completely unfounded speculations being thrown across the table.
damn.
DAMN.
and yang, who i usually can at least have some kind of entertaining interactions with even if they're negatively entertaining, was being even more of a yanghole than usual so i didn't want to talk to him at all.
...
for some reason, in my head i can summarize the experience with "we had to keep our shoes on at the table". the only positive thing about the seder being so bad is that it was the primary cause for certainty that i wasn't simply hallucinating those 24 hours.
--- gd was amused that i was considerate enough to carefully floss and brush extra-well before heading over to her place as i'd eaten something for dessert that she's so allergic to that micro-contact would send her into anaphylactic shock. pulse and her had both warned me about this; i had this horrifying vision of having to call 911 in the middle of the night...
i ran into vector as i walked into the metro, and it sounds like he and i are going to be able to get to work on our collaboration in a couple of weeks - so that's cool.
--- yesterday:
i came home in that same state as after a long night of hard partying, happy but in an altered state of mind caused by a combination of excess happiness and sleep deprivation.
and i thought that when i got home i'd post, and call people back, and otherwise be productive. boy, was i wrong!
i received a phone call from a recruiter i'd never heard of with a contract that urgently needs to be filled and that, quite frankly, is PRECISELY what i'd consider my ideal re-entry into aerospace! what terrifying serendipity! what freakishly good fortune!
i cited aota and my last commander as references, and was pleasantly surprised to get a phone call from aota a short while later informing me that she'd provided me an AMAZING reference and inviting me over for coffee. what?! how awesome is that?!
...
that was when the universe decided to give me a kick in the backside. literally. i was on my way up the stairs at aota's metro station when my nerve pinched again. sciatica, apparently. it began by bothering me every few steps, and would proceed to get progressively worse as the day worn on...
...
i spent hours at aota's chatting with her and her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend until i realized that i was really hungry and that i needed to get going anyway. i was entering the metro when the morning's recruiter called, hoping to catch me in time for a quick face-to-face introduction, and after i decided not to put myself in a position where i might be late for dinner i realized that i'd dodged a bullet because i wasn't exactly dressed for success. rule: don't meet potential employers or recruiters wearing street clothes.
on the metro: a bag isn't a person, and doesn't require its own seat on a packed train. but the dude didn't need to give up BOTH seats in order to let me have one.
by the time i returned home my lower back was in agony every few steps. so much for grateful positive vibes, huh?
the second night's seder was suuuuuch an improvement! both uncle hate and yang disagreed, but that was purely on grounds of them being assholes. we skipped bits that weren't imperative, everyone was friendly and positive and joined in, and even the elderly italians across from me were very sweet and we had fun chats about the most arbitrary things.
also, it was far quicker than the previous night's. and the food was good.
--- by the time the seder was done my sciatica was constant and extremely painful, i was limping and wobbling occasionally, struggling to sit or stand. i called gd when i got home and discovered that she suffers from it too, not only did she have advice for me but she talked me through finding appropriate meds. they helped a little, even if i woke up with cotton wool between my ears...
[continued...]
monday continued:
i left gd's when it was time to get ready for the first night of passover. i walked in a semi-daze, completely high (on life, and it's been mostly sustained this whole week) and utterly distracted.
not the best time to receive a series of messages from aaa telling me she didn't *get* it, apparently she changed her mind at the slam and still wants to date. i gently chided her and put her off, hoping she got the message this time...
...
the spring rain would have been more welcome had i not been dressed well. just saying.
and the company. oh gods, the company. not only did i want to be spending my evening with gd, but i was surrounded by people i have absolutely nothing in common with and who amongst themselves couldn't keep a conversation going for more than a minute unless it was about sports, and that conversation lasted about five minutes and was entirely composed of random facts and completely unfounded speculations being thrown across the table.
damn.
DAMN.
and yang, who i usually can at least have some kind of entertaining interactions with even if they're negatively entertaining, was being even more of a yanghole than usual so i didn't want to talk to him at all.
...
for some reason, in my head i can summarize the experience with "we had to keep our shoes on at the table". the only positive thing about the seder being so bad is that it was the primary cause for certainty that i wasn't simply hallucinating those 24 hours.
i ran into vector as i walked into the metro, and it sounds like he and i are going to be able to get to work on our collaboration in a couple of weeks - so that's cool.
i came home in that same state as after a long night of hard partying, happy but in an altered state of mind caused by a combination of excess happiness and sleep deprivation.
and i thought that when i got home i'd post, and call people back, and otherwise be productive. boy, was i wrong!
i received a phone call from a recruiter i'd never heard of with a contract that urgently needs to be filled and that, quite frankly, is PRECISELY what i'd consider my ideal re-entry into aerospace! what terrifying serendipity! what freakishly good fortune!
i cited aota and my last commander as references, and was pleasantly surprised to get a phone call from aota a short while later informing me that she'd provided me an AMAZING reference and inviting me over for coffee. what?! how awesome is that?!
...
that was when the universe decided to give me a kick in the backside. literally. i was on my way up the stairs at aota's metro station when my nerve pinched again. sciatica, apparently. it began by bothering me every few steps, and would proceed to get progressively worse as the day worn on...
...
i spent hours at aota's chatting with her and her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend until i realized that i was really hungry and that i needed to get going anyway. i was entering the metro when the morning's recruiter called, hoping to catch me in time for a quick face-to-face introduction, and after i decided not to put myself in a position where i might be late for dinner i realized that i'd dodged a bullet because i wasn't exactly dressed for success. rule: don't meet potential employers or recruiters wearing street clothes.
on the metro: a bag isn't a person, and doesn't require its own seat on a packed train. but the dude didn't need to give up BOTH seats in order to let me have one.
by the time i returned home my lower back was in agony every few steps. so much for grateful positive vibes, huh?
the second night's seder was suuuuuch an improvement! both uncle hate and yang disagreed, but that was purely on grounds of them being assholes. we skipped bits that weren't imperative, everyone was friendly and positive and joined in, and even the elderly italians across from me were very sweet and we had fun chats about the most arbitrary things.
also, it was far quicker than the previous night's. and the food was good.
[continued...]
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
i don't even. part ii.
[... continued]
--- sunday:
i enjoyed a good wake-up, though it was a rainy day and i went through it to the walmart to pick up a yoga mat. pulse had been talking about the importance of colours, and i was amused to hear that if i want to focus on my upper back i should go with green. i have a thing for green, so that's no biggie. there was a single yoga mat left in stock. it was green, odourless (i'd been warned about chemical mats) and apparently eco-friendly. so that was easy! as i walked to the check-out i received a message informing me that pulse had gifted me a $25 discount on yoga supplies from some online source.
why was the world making it feel like my birthday?
there was a problem at the check-out with the card reader. i was so offended when, after a couple of failed attempts, the cashier grabbed my card and began rubbing the chip as if we were in the nineties. i *told* her it was the reader, not the card. before she could do any damage i thanked her for her efforts and found another counter. my card passed through first time and i left with an image in my head of the first cashier as a kid blowing into a nintendo cartridge.
i went supermarket shopping, forgetting to make change for the laundry, then hit the gym to train. i was specifically going to meet the guy who joined us for yoga last week because i didn't have his number and the instructor was coming in later than we'd agreed. he didn't rock up at all, and instead i worked on the punching bags. i worked really hard, really well and for a long time; so long, in fact, that i didn't leave myself the time i'd intended to return home, shower quickly and return with my new yoga mat. suddenly the instructor had arrived and i'd only had a few minutes' rest. we began the yoga class.
my arms and legs were kinda tired after all the work on the bags. that made the exercises particularly difficult, but i pushed through and was as satisfied as i was sore by the end.
i had a short time between yoga and horseman visiting, really just enough to shower and eat and maybe rest a bit. instead of the latter, when i got home i found a message from aaa waiting for me. oh, i thought. we're going to have the talk.
i called her up and was surprised when instead of the talk, she was inviting herself to the slam! oh, shit. i couldn't think of an inoffensive way to end things in that context, so i remained polite and unenthusiastically told her i'd see her later. i started stressing about the potential drama, already planning to take gd out for a drink after the slam to explain everything, and was discussing the situation with supertongue who's a bit of a drama expert. she told me that i *had* to call aaa back, and i'm really glad i listened!
because i took a moment to compose my thoughts, called her back and told her how i feel. i was relieved to hear her say that it wasn't just me - so i wasn't being an ass! very sweet. we agreed that dating isn't working, but that we both like each other and hanging out is cool. it was actually the nicest "we're not going to date any more" talk i've ever had and we were both laughing for half of it. that was cool, i immediately felt much better, and just then horseman arrived for a tekken session.
we played the new tag tournament, it was a lot of fun but not as competitive as usual. both our games were off but it didn't matter :)
as we left for the slam i stressed about getting dressed, and halfway there i recalled that i'd intended to shave. shave! my beard was looking a bit scraggly. and pulse's comment about presenting my poetry with respect still ran in my ears. but there was no time for that. there was just time to grab a quick bite at la pantere verte and arrive to sign up.
i'm sorry, said my buddy as he greeted us at the door: we've changed the way registration works this week... didn't you get the memo? all the slots are taken, the only thing open is the open mic.
DAMN! i was so disappointed! i signed up for the open mic and made sure he understood that if there was an opening for the slam that i wanted it instead. a slow hour would pass before he could inform me that someone had dropped out, which was an enormous relief :)
we sat down with pulse and gd, were joined by bnw and had a really good time! i was really excited when pulse gave me some insider information that the guys at the company i've been interviewing with are just as excited to have me join them - i don't know if she's exaggerating because she's being super-nice but i'll take it ^_^
we enjoyed ourselves until aaa showed up, at which point things started getting a little weird. i was sitting between everyone and the stage and pulse, gd and aaa were sitting in a row with aaa next to me; i kept thinking "past, hopefully future and present" and both myself and gd, who was being respectfully considerate, were having trouble deciding where to look at any given time.
then the evening began. i was wearing my syndicate shirt, amusingly showing "follow me until you die" to the girls because my back was to them; i was uncomfortable specifically because i couldn't keep an eye on things.
some of the open mic pieces were pathetic, one of them was a surprisingly dramatic improvement by the guy who i hated on the open mic when i judged. still not amazing, but he's at least heading in the right direction :)
...
the slam began. the first guy up was someone i quite like, though his piece left a bit to be desired. my name was announced, and i whisked my bundle of nerves up onto the stage.
1. i should've raised the height of the mic. i'm an idiot.
2. i needed more confidence. my piece deserved more confidence, and now i feel like i let it down.
3. in spite of my shaking and lack of power, i blew the first dude away, was received with heartwarming applause and the mc was so impressed he joyfully fist-bumped me as we passed each other.
4. the judges seem to like it! certainly better than last month.
everyone at my table was thrilled when i sat down, and i turned to look for the scores. as i did so i felt a pair of hands on my back - i stiffened, knowing that it was a victorious "pat on the back" from aaa and sensing that it was a lot more sensual than it should've been. that was our first physical contact after three dates and an ending, and it was totally unappreciated... especially with gd right there! after that i noticed that something was going on between gd and pulse, and a few minutes later they'd disappeared. my phone began to vibrate with messages from gd and there was far too much for me to say in such a short space - as soon as the first round was over i phoned her.
when i heard her voice i was both touched and terrified; i apologized profusely and we agreed to have coffee in the morning to talk it all over. on my way back to the table aaa passed me to say goodbye. her work was done (she didn't say that, obviously), she needed to go.
#$@!. couldn't she have left first?!
...
during the break vfmp and his boyfriend showed up to take the girls' place. much less dramatic :P
mc june went up as the feature for the night. his hop-hop's all french, but even though i could barely follow the words - never mind the poetic meaning - the man was enthralling. the performance was amazing, powerful, obviously clever, and his beatboxing partner who joined him at the end was just brilliant.
moments before the feature, i was informed that i'd made it through to the second round. score! i was thrilled ^_^
i'd prepared the quebec immigration song for the second. i'm really, really, REALLY lucky that i was called up towards the end, because after hearing the first two poems i knew that it wasn't nearly strong enough. fortunately, i still have advice memorized and i decided that it would have to do.
about a minute before my name was called i felt something in my chest harden. it was something akin to anger; a sense of purpose, and rightness. my nerves were blasted away by it and i jumped onto the stage, reset the mic's height and cleared my head.
oh - my - gods. i have never commanded an audience before, but i now know what it feels like. i stared into the darkness and emptied myself into my words, each one flying out precisely. there were laughs in the right places and finger snaps, and the response when i finished was overwhelming. what unbelievable elation and pride! what a reward for finally getting my shit together on stage!
i took fourth overall (when that was announced there were actually a couple of boos, and not from my table ^_^ ) and a couple of the established poets not only made an effort to catch me to introduce themselves but one of them was excitedly talking about us hopefully going together as a team to the nationals. i hope, i hope, i hope that i've made it into the finals next month!!!
...
it was pouring with rain when we left, bnw and i headed to the metro together and stopped halfway at a cool bar to dry off with a couple of drinks. we had a fun time telling hysterical stories and discussing the evening, and when the rain relaxed and we'd finished our drinks it was time to go home.
--- from the moment we said goodnight, i couldn't stop thinking about gd. i was practicing speeches in my head and fretting about all the things that could possibly go wrong, planning apologies and explanations well into the night.
all this was wrapped in ecstasy, a very real high off the evening that was so strong it was shocking!
--- monday:
sleepless before a date with destiny [i wrote that on the way there]. i picked up my laundry, it was the most beautiful, warm, misty spring morning that would turn into a hot - over 20 degrees hot - sunny day. a fantastic day for extremes, i thought, and i couldn't imagine how right i was at the time.
gd's name is the french version of a character out of greek mythology; i wasn't sure if looking up her story was a mistake or a treat, but it was definitely educational.
...
we met at her metro station, and walked and talked for a while until we found a good place to eat. a sweet, cozy diner-type deal, there wasn't anything vegan on the menu but the waiter managed to sort out a huge, delicious off-the-menu special anyway. the coffee was good and we were having a lot of fun, though a lot of our discussion was decidedly inappropriate and the waiter wasn't embarrassed to chime in every now and again because he could hear everything we were saying. i would've been offended but the attitude was totally good :)
we took a semi-romantic walk down to atwater market and around the area, then to her apartment. we talked for ages there too, culminating in a first kiss that,
quite frankly,
i will never forget.
[continued...]
i enjoyed a good wake-up, though it was a rainy day and i went through it to the walmart to pick up a yoga mat. pulse had been talking about the importance of colours, and i was amused to hear that if i want to focus on my upper back i should go with green. i have a thing for green, so that's no biggie. there was a single yoga mat left in stock. it was green, odourless (i'd been warned about chemical mats) and apparently eco-friendly. so that was easy! as i walked to the check-out i received a message informing me that pulse had gifted me a $25 discount on yoga supplies from some online source.
why was the world making it feel like my birthday?
there was a problem at the check-out with the card reader. i was so offended when, after a couple of failed attempts, the cashier grabbed my card and began rubbing the chip as if we were in the nineties. i *told* her it was the reader, not the card. before she could do any damage i thanked her for her efforts and found another counter. my card passed through first time and i left with an image in my head of the first cashier as a kid blowing into a nintendo cartridge.
i went supermarket shopping, forgetting to make change for the laundry, then hit the gym to train. i was specifically going to meet the guy who joined us for yoga last week because i didn't have his number and the instructor was coming in later than we'd agreed. he didn't rock up at all, and instead i worked on the punching bags. i worked really hard, really well and for a long time; so long, in fact, that i didn't leave myself the time i'd intended to return home, shower quickly and return with my new yoga mat. suddenly the instructor had arrived and i'd only had a few minutes' rest. we began the yoga class.
my arms and legs were kinda tired after all the work on the bags. that made the exercises particularly difficult, but i pushed through and was as satisfied as i was sore by the end.
i had a short time between yoga and horseman visiting, really just enough to shower and eat and maybe rest a bit. instead of the latter, when i got home i found a message from aaa waiting for me. oh, i thought. we're going to have the talk.
i called her up and was surprised when instead of the talk, she was inviting herself to the slam! oh, shit. i couldn't think of an inoffensive way to end things in that context, so i remained polite and unenthusiastically told her i'd see her later. i started stressing about the potential drama, already planning to take gd out for a drink after the slam to explain everything, and was discussing the situation with supertongue who's a bit of a drama expert. she told me that i *had* to call aaa back, and i'm really glad i listened!
because i took a moment to compose my thoughts, called her back and told her how i feel. i was relieved to hear her say that it wasn't just me - so i wasn't being an ass! very sweet. we agreed that dating isn't working, but that we both like each other and hanging out is cool. it was actually the nicest "we're not going to date any more" talk i've ever had and we were both laughing for half of it. that was cool, i immediately felt much better, and just then horseman arrived for a tekken session.
we played the new tag tournament, it was a lot of fun but not as competitive as usual. both our games were off but it didn't matter :)
as we left for the slam i stressed about getting dressed, and halfway there i recalled that i'd intended to shave. shave! my beard was looking a bit scraggly. and pulse's comment about presenting my poetry with respect still ran in my ears. but there was no time for that. there was just time to grab a quick bite at la pantere verte and arrive to sign up.
i'm sorry, said my buddy as he greeted us at the door: we've changed the way registration works this week... didn't you get the memo? all the slots are taken, the only thing open is the open mic.
DAMN! i was so disappointed! i signed up for the open mic and made sure he understood that if there was an opening for the slam that i wanted it instead. a slow hour would pass before he could inform me that someone had dropped out, which was an enormous relief :)
we sat down with pulse and gd, were joined by bnw and had a really good time! i was really excited when pulse gave me some insider information that the guys at the company i've been interviewing with are just as excited to have me join them - i don't know if she's exaggerating because she's being super-nice but i'll take it ^_^
we enjoyed ourselves until aaa showed up, at which point things started getting a little weird. i was sitting between everyone and the stage and pulse, gd and aaa were sitting in a row with aaa next to me; i kept thinking "past, hopefully future and present" and both myself and gd, who was being respectfully considerate, were having trouble deciding where to look at any given time.
then the evening began. i was wearing my syndicate shirt, amusingly showing "follow me until you die" to the girls because my back was to them; i was uncomfortable specifically because i couldn't keep an eye on things.
some of the open mic pieces were pathetic, one of them was a surprisingly dramatic improvement by the guy who i hated on the open mic when i judged. still not amazing, but he's at least heading in the right direction :)
...
the slam began. the first guy up was someone i quite like, though his piece left a bit to be desired. my name was announced, and i whisked my bundle of nerves up onto the stage.
1. i should've raised the height of the mic. i'm an idiot.
2. i needed more confidence. my piece deserved more confidence, and now i feel like i let it down.
3. in spite of my shaking and lack of power, i blew the first dude away, was received with heartwarming applause and the mc was so impressed he joyfully fist-bumped me as we passed each other.
4. the judges seem to like it! certainly better than last month.
everyone at my table was thrilled when i sat down, and i turned to look for the scores. as i did so i felt a pair of hands on my back - i stiffened, knowing that it was a victorious "pat on the back" from aaa and sensing that it was a lot more sensual than it should've been. that was our first physical contact after three dates and an ending, and it was totally unappreciated... especially with gd right there! after that i noticed that something was going on between gd and pulse, and a few minutes later they'd disappeared. my phone began to vibrate with messages from gd and there was far too much for me to say in such a short space - as soon as the first round was over i phoned her.
when i heard her voice i was both touched and terrified; i apologized profusely and we agreed to have coffee in the morning to talk it all over. on my way back to the table aaa passed me to say goodbye. her work was done (she didn't say that, obviously), she needed to go.
#$@!. couldn't she have left first?!
...
during the break vfmp and his boyfriend showed up to take the girls' place. much less dramatic :P
mc june went up as the feature for the night. his hop-hop's all french, but even though i could barely follow the words - never mind the poetic meaning - the man was enthralling. the performance was amazing, powerful, obviously clever, and his beatboxing partner who joined him at the end was just brilliant.
moments before the feature, i was informed that i'd made it through to the second round. score! i was thrilled ^_^
i'd prepared the quebec immigration song for the second. i'm really, really, REALLY lucky that i was called up towards the end, because after hearing the first two poems i knew that it wasn't nearly strong enough. fortunately, i still have advice memorized and i decided that it would have to do.
about a minute before my name was called i felt something in my chest harden. it was something akin to anger; a sense of purpose, and rightness. my nerves were blasted away by it and i jumped onto the stage, reset the mic's height and cleared my head.
oh - my - gods. i have never commanded an audience before, but i now know what it feels like. i stared into the darkness and emptied myself into my words, each one flying out precisely. there were laughs in the right places and finger snaps, and the response when i finished was overwhelming. what unbelievable elation and pride! what a reward for finally getting my shit together on stage!
i took fourth overall (when that was announced there were actually a couple of boos, and not from my table ^_^ ) and a couple of the established poets not only made an effort to catch me to introduce themselves but one of them was excitedly talking about us hopefully going together as a team to the nationals. i hope, i hope, i hope that i've made it into the finals next month!!!
...
it was pouring with rain when we left, bnw and i headed to the metro together and stopped halfway at a cool bar to dry off with a couple of drinks. we had a fun time telling hysterical stories and discussing the evening, and when the rain relaxed and we'd finished our drinks it was time to go home.
all this was wrapped in ecstasy, a very real high off the evening that was so strong it was shocking!
sleepless before a date with destiny [i wrote that on the way there]. i picked up my laundry, it was the most beautiful, warm, misty spring morning that would turn into a hot - over 20 degrees hot - sunny day. a fantastic day for extremes, i thought, and i couldn't imagine how right i was at the time.
gd's name is the french version of a character out of greek mythology; i wasn't sure if looking up her story was a mistake or a treat, but it was definitely educational.
...
we met at her metro station, and walked and talked for a while until we found a good place to eat. a sweet, cozy diner-type deal, there wasn't anything vegan on the menu but the waiter managed to sort out a huge, delicious off-the-menu special anyway. the coffee was good and we were having a lot of fun, though a lot of our discussion was decidedly inappropriate and the waiter wasn't embarrassed to chime in every now and again because he could hear everything we were saying. i would've been offended but the attitude was totally good :)
we took a semi-romantic walk down to atwater market and around the area, then to her apartment. we talked for ages there too, culminating in a first kiss that,
quite frankly,
i will never forget.
[continued...]
Monday, April 07, 2014
sprung spring
what a ridiculously magnificent day! i've spent most of it inside, preparing for my exciting job interview tomorrow, but every step i've taken outdoors has been magically spring. i should probably go out for another coffee just for an excuse to be outside again... he writes, sipping from the cup of tea he just made...
--- friday:
so i went out on friday night to meet a woman i'd been planning a date with since before i met aaa, already assuming that it'd just be a pleasant evening. the metro was overloaded, apparently due to line issues, and i walked out of the vendôme station into the pouring rain. there was a long line for the bus so i decided to walk instead, which seemed like a mighty good idea when i arrived at sherbrooke to discover that most of the road was missing. which would kinda explain the traffic.
i enjoyed walking in the rain; it wasn't too cold... i was about halfway there when i received an sms from aaa which was pleasantly positive! good timing :P
i walked into honey martin and was met with a heavy bar smell, thick air and drunkenly loud, friendly voices from cozily crowded tables and benches. it was welcome respite from being drenched! my date arrived five minutes later, both of us quite pleased that i'd managed to secure a couple of seats.
it was a really nice evening! if it wasn't for aaa, i would definitely invite her out for a second date. we'd just started on the second round of guinness when she dropped a bomb: "i don't understand the whole dating scene. i only ever go out on first or second dates..."
oh, man. and here i was setting her up for another of those?! what a shitty move! and we'd had (and then continued to have, in spite of my guilty conscience) such a good time connecting on so many different topics, including raising children - this is relevant because she's got a five year-old daughter. oh, i knew that before, in case you were worried. i'm cool with that.
she gave me a ride to the metro station and i said goodbye in the nicest non-committal way i could, grateful that she didn't push me into saying anything final. i walked off wondering if there's a delaying tactic i could use to see if aaa and i work out first? is that totally uncool? it feels uncool. but that's society for you, you're not allowed to like more than one girl at a time... and aaa was pretty clear before we met that she's not interested in open relationships.
...
aaaaaaanyway, there was a terrible, funny moment when the bartender came to our table to take orders, which she hadn't done before. i'd received changed from the first round and given her half, but my coin pouch was in my wet jacket so i kept the remaining coins in my hand or on the table. this girl didn't hesitate, she glanced at the table and just lifted them! i wasn't going to argue with her because that's definitely not alright, but she totally forced a double tip. i was not impressed.
...
it was really, really cold on friday night. maybe it was the moisture, because the temperature wasn't low at all.
--- yesterday:
i slept great, though i woke up with my back still uncomfortable. i rewrote my resume according to what one of the recruiters had told me - though i think she's an idiot so the rewrite may be a mistake - and that entailed trawling through my blog to line up dates. which led to me labelling a bunch of unlabelled posts, which is always engrossing.
...
on my way to yoga the woman from h&r called. she's managed to reduce the rate from $300 to $160. ummm.... no. thanks, but no thanks.
...
i had ten or fifteen minutes to warm up before my instructor arrived, so i wrapped up and worked on one of the bags for a while. i wear one of my pairs of '99 mr. price specials for yoga, and didn't think it'd be a problem for kicking (i wore them when i started taekwondo in 2001)... so i wasn't impressed when they split down the front. at least it wasn't so bad, but i hate the fact that my favourite clothes are falling apart. anyway, i went to do pull-ups and was surprised to find myself holding my body almost horizontally and doing them with ease, right until the last two which surprised me by throwing my back out completely.
bad, bad timing. DAMN.
anyway, the yoga wasn't bad and my frustrating back didn't get in the way too much. one of the guys from boxing joined us and was just as impressed with the instructor as i am :)
i tried taking a hot bath when i got home but that did nothing for me. i made pasta (using the medium-firm tofu and runny sweet-and-chilli sauce) and it came out a bit rough, and finally spoke to my toronto cousin who i've been playing telephone tag with for about two weeks now. aaa and i chatted a bit and she's still sending mixed signals. it's a thing, i think.
i spent an hour or so sewing my pants while watching house which has just become available on netflix. nice! i ate a lot of junk food. yesterday and today. i'm not entirely proud of that.
i found a digitized copy of my discrete math book and loaded it onto my kindle, reading it on the metro and in starbucks* just before entering résonance for the mile end poets' festival event for the evening**.
* a woman was describing some dramatic event to her friend so loudly that it felt as if the drama were happening right there. not very nice.
** i've missed all the other events, which is a shame.
i arrived five minutes late, they were just beginning the sound check. after enough time spent waiting for events to begin in montreal, i have reached the conclusion that montreal and israel operate on similar ideas of time and truth about time. it's unprofessional.
anyway, the sound check was actually pleasant to listen to, as opposed to the horrors i'd associated with the place.
first, my criticism regarding the restaurant. it's hipster vegan. i wish that didn't mean anything, but the table i sat down at was filthy and had the previously seated's half-eaten meal on it. i was there for about two hours, and the waiter only cleared that shit about ten minutes before i left. when i ordered a cider during the intermission, i was asked where i was sitting and i pointed my table out. i returned to my seat and resumed reading my kindle; the waiter, when he arrived, softly asked the people at the table next to me if they'd ordered anything. i only registered that something was going on after he'd walked away, so i had to run after him to get my drink. i almost felt bad for asking "would'a been nice if he'd asked everyone, huh?" so loudly, but didn't because the whole hipster-apathetic thing doesn't do it for me and, after a cue from the main poet, i began to suspect that the dude's glasses weren't prescription. just sayin'.
okay, first up: jason. is it this jason? i'm not sure. but the dude is essentially a one-man band playing deep, dark sounds that i would've been even more excited by had they not been so darned LOUD. because they're discordant, in an impressively touching way. reminiscent of godspeed you black emperor.
second: karen fennel. she's funny, and has some extremely clever ideas, but i didn't like her actual performance. at all.
third: ian keteku. holy crap, what i've found on him online doesn't do him any justice. clever, beautiful poetry presented by a guy with a good sense of humour who knows how to flip to dark and serious on a dime. i see why he's famous on the slam circuit.
finally: emma frank and her band. really not my taste in music, though it was obviously great for what it was. at some point i just couldn't take any more, though, so i upped and left. i got home to an email from aaa, and i responded. then i responded again to clarify. then i realized that i'd just sent a mixed signal of my own. i hope she got the right meaning.
--- today:
i slept well, woke up slowly, then got up and found my back still hurting. over breakfast i was listening to french radio and i really feel like my listening's improving...
i went out for coffee and shopping, the stunning sunny morning was sweater weather and i really, really wish that i could dress precisely like that all year round! everything felt right with the world ^_^
...
the guy ahead of me at starbucks had forgotten something on the counter and jumped across me to get it. i immediately stepped to the left, right onto the toe of the idiot behind me. why - would - you - stand - so - close - to - me???
oh, she's arabic. that's why. middle-easterners, i'm trying to escape that shit. please let me go.
i don't know if she was trying to be cute by repeatedly complaining after i repeatedly apologized.
...
today's been off and on as far as focus is concerned, i hope i'm going to be ready for tomorrow!
i've been sitting at a table for the past couple of weeks when using my computer and i've decided that that might be why my back's unhappy. so i returned to my standing desk a couple of hours ago and it seems to be helping a little.
oh, and fp called to tell me that this evening wouldn't be good for a quick visit, and asked if i wanted to meet during the week. so i bit the bullet and told her "not really". she's clearly unhappy that i'm not interested in giving her another shot, but as flattered as i am by that i'm looking for something with a bit more spark.
over the phone or in person, that doesn't feel very good.
right, coffee and studying. and then an early night.
--- oh, and israelis lighting up in a news studio as a sign of protest. good show, guys. good show!
so i went out on friday night to meet a woman i'd been planning a date with since before i met aaa, already assuming that it'd just be a pleasant evening. the metro was overloaded, apparently due to line issues, and i walked out of the vendôme station into the pouring rain. there was a long line for the bus so i decided to walk instead, which seemed like a mighty good idea when i arrived at sherbrooke to discover that most of the road was missing. which would kinda explain the traffic.
i enjoyed walking in the rain; it wasn't too cold... i was about halfway there when i received an sms from aaa which was pleasantly positive! good timing :P
i walked into honey martin and was met with a heavy bar smell, thick air and drunkenly loud, friendly voices from cozily crowded tables and benches. it was welcome respite from being drenched! my date arrived five minutes later, both of us quite pleased that i'd managed to secure a couple of seats.
it was a really nice evening! if it wasn't for aaa, i would definitely invite her out for a second date. we'd just started on the second round of guinness when she dropped a bomb: "i don't understand the whole dating scene. i only ever go out on first or second dates..."
oh, man. and here i was setting her up for another of those?! what a shitty move! and we'd had (and then continued to have, in spite of my guilty conscience) such a good time connecting on so many different topics, including raising children - this is relevant because she's got a five year-old daughter. oh, i knew that before, in case you were worried. i'm cool with that.
she gave me a ride to the metro station and i said goodbye in the nicest non-committal way i could, grateful that she didn't push me into saying anything final. i walked off wondering if there's a delaying tactic i could use to see if aaa and i work out first? is that totally uncool? it feels uncool. but that's society for you, you're not allowed to like more than one girl at a time... and aaa was pretty clear before we met that she's not interested in open relationships.
...
aaaaaaanyway, there was a terrible, funny moment when the bartender came to our table to take orders, which she hadn't done before. i'd received changed from the first round and given her half, but my coin pouch was in my wet jacket so i kept the remaining coins in my hand or on the table. this girl didn't hesitate, she glanced at the table and just lifted them! i wasn't going to argue with her because that's definitely not alright, but she totally forced a double tip. i was not impressed.
...
it was really, really cold on friday night. maybe it was the moisture, because the temperature wasn't low at all.
i slept great, though i woke up with my back still uncomfortable. i rewrote my resume according to what one of the recruiters had told me - though i think she's an idiot so the rewrite may be a mistake - and that entailed trawling through my blog to line up dates. which led to me labelling a bunch of unlabelled posts, which is always engrossing.
...
on my way to yoga the woman from h&r called. she's managed to reduce the rate from $300 to $160. ummm.... no. thanks, but no thanks.
...
i had ten or fifteen minutes to warm up before my instructor arrived, so i wrapped up and worked on one of the bags for a while. i wear one of my pairs of '99 mr. price specials for yoga, and didn't think it'd be a problem for kicking (i wore them when i started taekwondo in 2001)... so i wasn't impressed when they split down the front. at least it wasn't so bad, but i hate the fact that my favourite clothes are falling apart. anyway, i went to do pull-ups and was surprised to find myself holding my body almost horizontally and doing them with ease, right until the last two which surprised me by throwing my back out completely.
bad, bad timing. DAMN.
anyway, the yoga wasn't bad and my frustrating back didn't get in the way too much. one of the guys from boxing joined us and was just as impressed with the instructor as i am :)
i tried taking a hot bath when i got home but that did nothing for me. i made pasta (using the medium-firm tofu and runny sweet-and-chilli sauce) and it came out a bit rough, and finally spoke to my toronto cousin who i've been playing telephone tag with for about two weeks now. aaa and i chatted a bit and she's still sending mixed signals. it's a thing, i think.
i spent an hour or so sewing my pants while watching house which has just become available on netflix. nice! i ate a lot of junk food. yesterday and today. i'm not entirely proud of that.
i found a digitized copy of my discrete math book and loaded it onto my kindle, reading it on the metro and in starbucks* just before entering résonance for the mile end poets' festival event for the evening**.
* a woman was describing some dramatic event to her friend so loudly that it felt as if the drama were happening right there. not very nice.
** i've missed all the other events, which is a shame.
i arrived five minutes late, they were just beginning the sound check. after enough time spent waiting for events to begin in montreal, i have reached the conclusion that montreal and israel operate on similar ideas of time and truth about time. it's unprofessional.
anyway, the sound check was actually pleasant to listen to, as opposed to the horrors i'd associated with the place.
first, my criticism regarding the restaurant. it's hipster vegan. i wish that didn't mean anything, but the table i sat down at was filthy and had the previously seated's half-eaten meal on it. i was there for about two hours, and the waiter only cleared that shit about ten minutes before i left. when i ordered a cider during the intermission, i was asked where i was sitting and i pointed my table out. i returned to my seat and resumed reading my kindle; the waiter, when he arrived, softly asked the people at the table next to me if they'd ordered anything. i only registered that something was going on after he'd walked away, so i had to run after him to get my drink. i almost felt bad for asking "would'a been nice if he'd asked everyone, huh?" so loudly, but didn't because the whole hipster-apathetic thing doesn't do it for me and, after a cue from the main poet, i began to suspect that the dude's glasses weren't prescription. just sayin'.
okay, first up: jason. is it this jason? i'm not sure. but the dude is essentially a one-man band playing deep, dark sounds that i would've been even more excited by had they not been so darned LOUD. because they're discordant, in an impressively touching way. reminiscent of godspeed you black emperor.
second: karen fennel. she's funny, and has some extremely clever ideas, but i didn't like her actual performance. at all.
third: ian keteku. holy crap, what i've found on him online doesn't do him any justice. clever, beautiful poetry presented by a guy with a good sense of humour who knows how to flip to dark and serious on a dime. i see why he's famous on the slam circuit.
finally: emma frank and her band. really not my taste in music, though it was obviously great for what it was. at some point i just couldn't take any more, though, so i upped and left. i got home to an email from aaa, and i responded. then i responded again to clarify. then i realized that i'd just sent a mixed signal of my own. i hope she got the right meaning.
i slept well, woke up slowly, then got up and found my back still hurting. over breakfast i was listening to french radio and i really feel like my listening's improving...
i went out for coffee and shopping, the stunning sunny morning was sweater weather and i really, really wish that i could dress precisely like that all year round! everything felt right with the world ^_^
...
the guy ahead of me at starbucks had forgotten something on the counter and jumped across me to get it. i immediately stepped to the left, right onto the toe of the idiot behind me. why - would - you - stand - so - close - to - me???
oh, she's arabic. that's why. middle-easterners, i'm trying to escape that shit. please let me go.
i don't know if she was trying to be cute by repeatedly complaining after i repeatedly apologized.
...
today's been off and on as far as focus is concerned, i hope i'm going to be ready for tomorrow!
i've been sitting at a table for the past couple of weeks when using my computer and i've decided that that might be why my back's unhappy. so i returned to my standing desk a couple of hours ago and it seems to be helping a little.
oh, and fp called to tell me that this evening wouldn't be good for a quick visit, and asked if i wanted to meet during the week. so i bit the bullet and told her "not really". she's clearly unhappy that i'm not interested in giving her another shot, but as flattered as i am by that i'm looking for something with a bit more spark.
over the phone or in person, that doesn't feel very good.
right, coffee and studying. and then an early night.
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