rolling two rocks uphill simultaneously

after a night of being wired and getting very little sleep, yesterday was a bit rough. the first thing i did, after mr smear went to school and i'd already done a little more AI harness work, was head across the road to the supermarket to buy some more containers.

i'm still feeling stupid for having bought one that was clearly broken, and removing the stickers before i noticed.

but the walk itself was nice. the weather was pleasant, and there was a certain... tel avivi something... in the air.

i did another hour or so on the harness, then finally - and unwillingly - sat down to work. i spent the rest of the day doing the dual sisyphean tasks of babysitting PR review / fix loops, each pass trying to update my agentic skills to avoid the next, and each time failing more spectacularly than before. my first omgihavetotakeabreak was spent washing the containers, the second vacuuming the entire apartment*, and the end of the day i was so antsy that i did something i haven't done in years - i got dressed and went for a long walk.

* i asked gd if she knew why i was vacuuming the apartment. "to help me?" she innocently responded. "hell, no!"

i walked up to the park, crossed the river, and stopped to try and get a photo of a really weird, interesting-looking bird that might have been a white-throated kingfisher. then i passed a pond, and noticed a crow and an egyptian goose parked on the side, with another crow sitting on a sign behind them. i walked up a little distance away to join them, as we all watched the pond in the bright sun on its way to setting behind the trees. moments later, what appears to have been a little egret landed right between us, and we all shared a lovely moment together.

i got home feeling a bit better, but still frazzled. we finished watching spaceballs over dinner, mr smear had been really cool all day (he did his chores without complaining, even though it took him a long time), and bedtime was pretty smooth.

gd and i coordinated and i took a photo of the water meter at 9.45pm, and we stopped using any water until i got up at 5.45am to take another photo, and i'm relieved to see that we don't have a leak. unfortunately, though, it made the night a little more stressed than it needed to be and i couldn't get back to sleep after waking up, so 🤷‍♂️

i began my day with a coffee and stranger in a strange land on our balcony, and it's a beautiful day. mr smear gave star birds a try after making the case that he'd gotten up at 6am and taken care of all the things he needed to, so the one-hour-after-brushing-teeth rule applied, and it seems like he's enjoying it.

i've paid our rent, and i've typed all this up, and now i'm going to sit down for breakfast before heading off to pretend to be a professional adult.

a mixed feelings moment

 i'm sitting in a coffee shop with my laptop and a beer, listening to chilled music on a beautiful afternoon while mr smear plays laser tag with his classmates. the walk over here, over the bridge across the ayalon specifically, was cool - all the skyscrapers and the construction provide a great sense of scale, and it reminds me of my fantasies of returning to tel aviv while we were trapped in south africa during the pandemic.

we didn't go swimming today because mr smear didn't get up until really late. i (easily) managed to get a large set of shelves up while listening to synthknot, and i spent a good hour and a half working on the AI harness and made some very real progress. the rest of the

[oh, fuck. he just called me to ask me to pick him up because he doesn't like their music. and he asked them to change the music - which i've warned him countless times will backfire, and it apparently did - and i've just threatened him with a month of punishment if i come back and he's not downstairs trying to have fun]

afternoon was spent doing not much, including a very brief nap midway through reading a chapter of starship troopers.

we took a taxi to the party, i've just settled down, and godsdammit i'm finishing my beer at my pace and trying to get something productive done.

bloody sunday

my allergies were more under control, but it was still a difficult night with a post-nasal drip so most of the night i was awake to some degree. between the iron and magnesium supplements, my lower back and hips haven't been causing me any real problems at night, although i did have some trouble during the day...

my last dreams were difficult: a massive attack on my armored corps unit with a zangief-like russian doing a lot of damage. then fighting to hold a vampire in a huge tank of water, assisted by an our-side vampire. something about making sure he didn't die, but not giving him enough oxygen to escape. and then she left me in charge, and aside from him wounding me in the underwater scrap, i accidentally gave him enough to get out.

i wonder if the vampire isn't AI.

...

after posting last night, my mother and i did our traditional annual try-to-find-out-what's-wrong-with-her-computer. i installed O&O ShutUp10++, and disabled all the recommended things, and it does seem to have helped. unfortunately, i then learned that she's still on windows 10 and her computer's too old to upgrade. so she either has to trade it in, or switch to ubuntu, neither of which are ideal.

and i can't give her my windows machine because the screen's too small :/

...

i woke up this morning to learn that there was a stabbing attack in our neighborhood yesterday by a south tel aviv gang of refugee / foreign workers' kids. i don't know how to break that to gd or mr smear.

i dropped mr smear off at school this morning, he's had a great idea for a front-door image!

i arrived home to learn that we're having hot-water cylinder troubles, which pisses me off not only because it's just another thing to deal with (i'm about to accompany gd to the clinic and hospital, her toenail issue has fast become an emergency), but because we just had a plumber in a week or two ago and he couldn't find anything wrong.

i'm so fucking over this week already.

stormy weather

 i woke up yesterday morning with my back still hurting - particularly, a band of pain around the middle of my trunk whenever i breathe deeply. it's still happening now, though considerably less.

gd (who'd decided her jaw pain could wait) and i enjoyed a slow morning, and then we headed south the florentin and the levinski market looking for a nice place for a coffee date. we didn't find what we were looking for, and gd became distressed about all the market people and vibes, so we cut across to cafe barzilay.

i returned to the table after ordering to find gd upset, she handed me the phone and mr smear informed me how seriously he FAed at school - both in being defiant, and then following that up by lying about having seen the principal - and it looks like he's about to FO.

at least he told us before his teacher got hold of me...

so that fucked up our weekend vibe. we have a meeting with the principal tomorrow, and we have no idea how we can defend him (or even whether we should).

so yesterday was pretty shit. i mean, he seemed reasonably contrite, and he did finally catch up with his homework, but it was pretty shit.

on the plus side, without screen time he dove into building the lego monster book of monsters kit that the mongoose had bought him, so that was cool.

dinner went smoothly, but the evening fell apart when i responded inappropriately to gd sharing her feelings (like a man, i tried to be helpful instead of just listening and nodding my head), we had a massive, exhausting fight and i woke up this morning still feeling emotionally drained.

although i spent most of today reading - including continuing to read the ocean at the end of the lane at mr smear's request, and getting him into alice in sunderland, and getting through most of the complete ballad of halo jones, and winning a blake stake balatro run, and getting back from a not-unpleasant 8km walk dropping mr smear off at a friend (which means we both got exercise and fresh air and didn't get caught in the rain) - the day's still pretty shit.

gods help this kid get his shit together. PLEASE.

wackier thursday

 i'm starting this post at 1.30am on a friday morning, after tiredly and restlessly flopping around on the bed for the past couple of hours unable to get comfortable. i'm so freaking tired, but so freaking wired, and lower-back sore to boot.

...

after my previous post, i fired up inscryption, which turned out to be a big mistake. i got sucked in, and ended up going to bed a couple of hours later, which was way too late.

so getting this morning was rough.

i got mr smear to school, came home and updated my resume and sent it to my bosses, then shot out towards the train station to meet dod in ra'anana. trying to make sense of the train times via the app, i decided to chance taking the bus instead, and was given a stark reminder that tel aviv is the only city in israel that really *gets* public transport: an hour and a half by train(s), vs half an hour by bus. and when i arrived, dod explained how the train stations in ra'anana are effectively inaccessible to the people living there :/

travelling through my old neighborhood of gan rashal was a trip, seeing how the area's been completely renewed even though it's generally retained its layout, then seeing how shavit hasn't changed one iota. at least not from the outside. then seeing how the hillbilly farmland behind gan rashal was turned into a highway and train station, then entering ra'anana's ahuza and finding it looking pretty much identical to how i remember it.

the nostalgically gentle spring fresh-air smell of ra'anana as i stepped of the bus into the heart of suburbia was overwhelming.

we sat walked to a coffee shop where dod placed his order in french, and we had a good, long chat over good coffees. the relief of hearing that - by-and-large, in spite of his inability to find work in his chosen career - he and his family are doing alright, was big. we then aligned on the side project we want to build into a business, and our way forward seems pretty clear.

and then it was time to go home. i quickly and easily caught a bus home, and spent its entirety catching up on personal messages on instagram (which has recently become my answer to its algorithm). i had a hearty breakfast when i arrived, then walked to the school to pick up mr smear.

the plan was for me to take him to the first session of his evaluation, but as we arrived i suddenly felt sickly and faint, and i was grateful that gd could take him and i could lie down for a while instead. i eventually got up, made myself a cup of turkish coffee, and headed out in the wishy-washy kind-of-rainy-almost weather to meet with a friend of my CEO's who'd gotten in touch the evening before.

i thought i was running late, but as i stepped out of the light rail i found myself facing the sign on their build with five minutes to spare. thank you, light rail!

just before leaving the house, i noticed something strange - the invitation for the meeting had been updated by someone with the same name as lipgirl. i'd shaken it off, but when i walked inside their offices lipgirl was the first person i encountered! what a bizarre situation for a reunion :)

the boss man handed me a strong cup of coffee, and we sat down to chat.

what was supposed to be a 45 minute discussion ended up being more than an hour, and i cannot begin to describe how utterly amazing the fit would be if i could get this job, the alignment with my values and interests is simply unreal! i then chatted with lipgirl for a while, catching up* as well as diving into our ridiculous aliyah story, and she may have a contact who can help us expose it.

* there was an awkwardness talking about a friend of hers passed away half a year ago from cancer, i didn't remember her but i *think* she might have tried to set us up once upon a time.

anyway, in addition to how incredibly enticing the company is from a business / tech point of view, i have it on good authority that it's a great bunch of people to work with.

i left the office buzzing. partially from the excess caffeine, but in large part from what an amazing opportunity this is - i'm praying that i get through their evaluation rounds 🙏

i sent a thank you to my CEO, caught the bus home, unloaded the story on gd as i did the dishes, helped mr smear with his math homework, and then sat down for dinner, not once having looked at the exercise i was supposed to be dedicating the afternoon to... this exercise has become A Thing. A Heavy Thing.

hopefully i'll get it done tomorrow. maybe even over the weekend, even though i try not to do any form of work on shabbat...

we had a long goodnight chat with my mom after dinner, and after getting mr smear into bed gd and i finally finished watching beetlejuice beetlejuice.

it's... it's not a good movie? although it kind of is? from a plot and engagement point of view it's really meh, but at the same time it feels like a horror stoner movie that's parodying itself. and it has some redeeming moments. it feels like an art house movie, the kind that might have been produced by the character of delia deetz herself. in a way it felt more like a play than a movie.

i didn't enjoy the movie, but i also didn't not enjoy it.

...

good news on the OB/GYN story! earlier we received an email from him directly, with a proper summary of gd's care along with exactly the prescription we were looking for and that he denied prescribing when i spoke to him directly. it was clomiphene. i've passed that on to my rollerblading friend, and i'm relieved that this rather uncomfortable little story doesn't have to been dragged any further.

making memories

 phew.

last night i told mr smear we'd go out early this morning and head to the beach. he wasn't too enthusiastic then, but in the morning he absolutely refused to go to the beach. i managed to talk him down, compromising on the beach itself but not on going for a ride.

we enjoyed a fun ride down to the beach. when we got there, mr smear didn't follow my instructions to use the stair guide for bikes and dropped his bike, obliterating his front brake.

so that kind of sucked. but at least the rear brake was still good.

then, as we got to the bottom of the stairs, on a beautiful, perfect-beach-weather morning, with relatively few beachgoers and fantastic conditions, he said: "dad, i wanna go to the beach."

godsdammit.

we didn't have beach gear, because we'd gorram agreed not to the go to beach.

anyway. we rode down the promenade for a bit, then he decided he was ready to turn back. on the way, we stopped to get him a fanta, and then a fruit shake. we ended up sitting on a bench for quiet a while, just chatting and enjoying being where we were.

it was pretty cool.

eventually we decided it was time to go home, and by then it had gotten a lot hotter. by the time we got home, we were sweaty, and ready for some a/c, and three hours had gone by.

it was a good morning.

after showering, we enjoyed a big breakfast (neither of us had eaten, he hadn't been interested when i offered), and then settled in to watch gremlins 2, which we'd agreed to hold off on until it was daytime so he wouldn't be scared. he made it through about half the movie before decided to nope on out, primarily because it was too gory (all the slime :P).

he and gd then watched the aristocats, which they enjoyed. i didn't see much of it because i was passed out on the couch for the most part.

the rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur, but then we had some drama: mr smear had agreed to go out again, and we'd reminded him for about two hours beforehand that it was happening, and then the time came to go and he was not interested in going. it took a combination of convincing and coercing to finally get him out the door, but although the first minute or two were quiet and uncomfortable he suddenly opened up and started talking about the games he remembers from the ps3 back in south africa. that led to a conversation about nostalgia, and about how our moments together now will be something i already know i'll have nostalgia for, and about rebelliousness and teenage hormones and how no matter what he feels we'll always have his back.

we ended up taking a rather long walk through the park, and we both enjoyed it. it was a very good end to a very good day. we got him in time for a second shower, a delicious dinner and the first part of the seventh harry potter movie, and a pleasant bedtime.

and then some more inscryption, act iii. i just discovered the mycologists for the first time 🤯

*sighs deeply*

i think i'm in a better place today than i've been for a while. hopefully that translates to a better work week. regardless, today was a day full of stuff i'm grateful for.

restful

 i got some more sleep, then woke up to a quiet morning. including resting a little more, and reading some naruto, and playing more the hex.

i've played a lot of it today, it's really gotten in my head. it's... well, it's a daniel mullins game. it's real art, real subversion of expectations, and loads of fun.

mr smear had a video "playdate" with our old neighbor's kid, and then two of them ended up playing roblox together for a while and it seemed like they were having a really good time.

in the late afternoon, we all took a walk (the weather's been quite pleasant), ending up at vaniglia for really nice ice cream.

...

i've spent a lot of the past couple of days feeling grateful that we're here in tel aviv. that we had the privilege of being able to go into the debt we needed to in order to fight the canadian and israeli authorities and escape south africa. i've been remembering how trapped and scared we were, and i remember visualizing just being here.

we're very, very lucky to live in a place like this. even with the war going on. very, very lucky.

a day after

 did nothing yesterday afternoon. played inscryption, played some lego harry potter with mr smear (finished year three), thought a lot about what i wrote in yesterday's post.

like, okay. so i'm depressed. now what?

i woke up this morning to the news of the drone attack in tel aviv - my mother was awake at the time, and heard it - along with a link to a video horseman sent me about curating the five people you're closest to into a network to achieve things because it's not possible to achieve big things alone in this world.

this morning is, so far, going alright. and although we only found out about it last night - and dramatically believed that the child whose mom i messaged was ignoring my text - mr smear has been invited to a laser tag birthday party and we're leaving to take him there in about fifteen minutes (well, my mom and i, gd just left for a catch-up sewing class).

a good friday

 firstly, starting off the day seeing a video about elements of purim having pagan origins, and then looking it up and finding all sorts of weird stuff (eg. this). so that got stuck in my head today.

i spent some time updating drivers on my windows machine while waiting for my family to be ready, which took a long time. we eventually set out to the furniture store, where i explained the problem and fully expected to be dragging us through a huge ordeal involving selling our current bed and buying two new ones, but i was stopped short.

"do you know what a mattress topper is?"

no, no i did not. and now i do. and i've tested one out, and i've ordered it, and i was so relieved to be presented with such a great (and inexpensive) solution that i was on the verge of tears.

so that was a good start to the day.

we then walked up and down the street until we found the place we bought our couch, and ordered two additional cushions for it.

then we bussed to dizengoff center and picked up mr smear's new prescription, as well as really good food for breakfast (and later lunch) - i had really good vegan cholent, it was glorious.

we missed the bus home, so we strolled up dizengoff and picked up coffees and had a variety of tel aviv / purim experiences before getting to the dominator store - mr smear has been asking to go there for months - and then we hopped on a bus back home.

i've played a lot more bloons adventure time than i should have, but i did claim the martian throne when it was already claimed at a stupidly high level. i even napped in the middle.

it's been a quiet afternoon, listening to good music and doing dishes while mr smear plays spider-man, and putting a little bit of effort into sprucing up an old poem of mine inspired by godspeed you! black emperor. now i'm enjoying a glass of whiskey and gathering thoughts.

humble still-fast

if anyone ever feels like i'm overdue a nice, warm slice of humble pie, just remind me that i once took a shower in a public bathroom while a party was going on, and only realized once i was completely done that i'd forgotten my towel.

that was not a pleasant conclusion to an otherwise very pleasant shower.

i slept, although that's about as positively as i can put it. i woke up early, walked across to the fit house cafe to pick up a coffee. their schtick appears to be that those training have to keep running loops out and around the building, i'm guessing because the warehouse footprint is tiny. it's a lot of very serious, rather unfortunate-looking people running laps between the coffee shop patrons.

i sat in the hostel lobby with my coffee, putting some more work into my article on SPA hosting, then eventually went back to the capsule for an hour or two. listening to the wired for love audiobook and playing more bloons adventure time. i realize that my brain's skipped over some parts, and i think gd and i should try actively listening to it together as "homework".

eventually i got up, packed up and took a walk towards the school to pick up mr smear, after giving up on a few different places (sick patrons, no vegan options, and a packed supermarket full of the mentally differently-abled), i just sat down at a nice little coffee shop in spite of the lack of edible options.

i'm exhausted. but the weather's nice for the moment.

the lack of circulation

 today began unpleasantly, starting with me spending most of the night being harassed by nightmares. mr smear was in his usual uncooperative mood and did something that triggered a Very Bad Morning (he tried to swat gd away and - apparently accidentally - smacked her in the face). the walk to school somehow improved things, and then unimproved them. fortunately by the afternoon things were okay again.

then i got back to the battle of the mold, having discovered some behind his bed last night when reading to him. it was a massive undertaking and we kept finding more, and we sent photos to the landlords who spoke to the building manager who arranged for an expert to come in.

i spoke to the expert after he'd seen the situation, and then to a coworker, and Today We Learned. apparently the mold is due to a lack of air circulation in our apartment, compounded by the temperature differential and our limited use of airconditioning which would otherwise serve as dehumidification.

so we've got a whole lot more cleaning to do, and then we have to start changing how we deal with the elements, and apparently it's all just "the cost of doing business" in tel aviv.

i'm very excited for mr smear to return to mma (hopefully tomorrow), and a bit disappointed that my coworker and i didn't go test out office chairs today.

the workday went pretty well, otherwise, although i lost track of time and ended up rushing home to help gd with the dishes only to arrive and find out she was managing the dinner prep without me. so i chatted with mr smear, then we all ate together (finishing another re-watch of the incredibles), then it was the tooth brushing and showering ritual, then i read to him (more hitchhiker's guide), then gd and i watched the halloween episode of freaks and geeks, then i did a whole bunch of dishes and contemplated life, adulting, and the weirs.

the void

 the day started off on the right foot, i spoke to the recruiter and learned that she had, in fact, initiated with the salary requirements and that we were playing a negotiation game (which, after hearing from her about their situation, i totally get). then that metaphorical right foot's ankle was sprained when i tried to discuss the offer with my wife, who freaked out before understanding what was going on; that led to a ridiculous chain reaction which almost ended our marriage, and it would take a couple of hours to be able to reel things back in and deal with each other properly. regrettable things were said and done. absurd surreal moments were experienced.

we're okay now, but we're still processing.

what followed was an awkward, unfocused workday that was at least partially successful - great success - but which felt like it could certainly have been more productive overall.

i took mr smear to his second-last session with the current therapist - at least he seems to be doing okay - and went to work from a hotel lobby close by. i was so caught up in a conversation with my mother that i was surprised by a phone call from her asking whether i was coming to pick him up. fortunately i was close enough to un-abandon him within a couple of minutes (in spite of the forever that it took to pay for my drink), and the evening was relatively uneventful even if i did have to check in and out of work a couple of times.

so that was a day. an exhaustion of a day.

...

today's wake up was brought to me by the following:

holy @#!$. this is a one-two combination that clarifies how unprepared the west is for whatever's coming. it's hard not to be creeped out by the sheer scale of what the CCP is getting away with while we all (kind of) get on with our lives 

• Discord: The Most Evil Business In The World
• Sam Cooper: How the West Was Infiltrated by Its Enemies

bonus listen: The Daring Ruse That Exposed China’s Campaign to Steal American Secrets

ugh.

...

physically, i've been feeling so much better since wednesday. like, feeling well, for the first time in ages.

we just did a big grocery shopping, and we're about to go out to sort out a couple of things before shabbat/sukkot. hopefully this will be a peaceful holiday, it helps that rosh yehudi's plans were cancelled by the city after the yom kippur debacle...

the ostrich

 it's saturday afternoon, and my mom's about to start packing.

yesterday morning saw us do a grocery mission, by the time we got home we found urchin here with her puppy (which was great, aside from the peeing on the couch). i skipped out to pay the falafel guys and have a very interesting "hands" chat with horseman, and the biggest thing that happened for the rest of the day was us finally hanging curtains which look great and work really well :)

this morning my mom wanted to go to the sea, so we dragged mr smear with us and had a nice walk, stopping by the mongoose for a chat. the beach was great, and we left *just* before god turned up the heat. we stopped for a big, delicious (and expensive) brunch on dizengoff, then walked home, by which time the heat had become thoroughly oppressive and we arrived in dire need of a nap.

now we've rested a bit, now to get through the rest of the weekend.

...

i'm having a really hard time explaining to my mother - who doesn't want to think about any of this stuff - that no matter how she might feel, she needs to be here. she's so busy worrying about the stuff that we know will be okay once she's here, that she's incapable of considering the stuff that's going to put her and us in deep trouble and is getting more and more likely the longer she's over there.

i don't know how one deals with this stuff.

breathing easy

 we got to sleep in yesterday morning, and we achieved two things. the first was getting gd sorted out temporarily (we need to start going through the official channels this week) and the second was grocery shopping.

my neck was still messing with me (it's still giving me trouble, but yesterday was really bad) and i had to lie down quite a lot.

otherwise, there was a lot of joy in the apartment as a result of my deciding that mr smear was ready to play among us. even though it took a while to get set up - accounts and friends are really messed up, and there's no way for the two of us to play at the same time from different devices which just makes no sense at all - we had a blast taking turns!

this morning i felt better, and i got to sleep in a bit again. i began my day with the pokémon card game online. i gotta admit, i've been having more fun playing this than the magic the gathering game, i'm really excited by how simple and elegant the mechanics are! mr smear wasn't too keen from the get-go but he appeared to enjoy watching me play, so maybe when we have a little cash to spare i'll invest in a proper starter kit :)

so that's what i did this morning, while he played more among us and minecraft, and by lunchtime i was ready to go outside. it was a beautiful day! gd wasn't feeling up to it but mr smear came along without any fuss, and we strolled through to rabin square to chill by the fountains and the fish pond, then meandered through masaryk until we were hungry, then stopped to eat at may 6. the vegan options were great, and i was particularly proud of how mr smear handled himself eating in public (he's less messy than at home :P). we enjoyed our meals and had a good time!

then we took a slow stroll back the way we'd come, stopping a couple of playgrounds and picking up ice lollies on the way home.

i didn't realize how dehydrated i was until i got in to our apartment... anyway, we played some rayman: legends and then discovered that among us is available on the ps4, went through the whole sign-up ordeal (for nothing, it wouldn't merge our accounts) and then played until it was time to get ready for bed, at which point mr smear realized that he was, in fact, a bit hungry. anyway, we got through feeding and showering and brushing teeth without any issues, and the two of us had an interesting chat about dreams and meditation when i was supposed to be reading the bfg (mainly because the bfg said something very wrong about humans wasting time sleeping).

now i've played some more pokémon, and i'm just about ready for bed. this has been my first real weekend in a while, and it actually feels like i've relaxed and unwound a bit :)

two summer eyes, or not?

it seems to have been such a full week, and i have been so happily exhausted that i have not wanted and shall not want to elaborate too much. for the past two years i've been reading snippets of jean webster - daddy long legs and i just got through some now, so i wonder if there'll be any tonal creep.

---wednesday:

at 5.30am my mother woke me with a message; her response to mine was that she'd thought my phone would be set to night mode. as i've unfortunately had to explain to a number of people throughout the years, my phone has no "night mode" because i would absolutely hate to miss anything urgent because i was doing something as mundane as sleeping.

serendipity? shortly after i received a burst of sms'es informing me of the bus bombing in tel aviv from a scared pg.

here's the thing that bothers me in particular about wednesday: israel was preparing to move in to gaza to deal with hamas, whose ongoing rocketing has been tolerated for far too long.
so i'm really impressed with israel's leadership... the day of a bombing they agree to a ceasefire and then don't say a word about the rocket attacks afterwards? if that doesn't give the hamas a sense of victory and incentive to keep on going, i'll eat my hat. witness their post-9/11-style celebrations afterwards.

could it be, perhaps, that anything decisive that could relax a scared nation (israel) might be considered a threat to the political positions of those in charge?

not that i think that netanyahu et al have much to worry about, they'll keep their hands on the reigns for a while longer. it scares me that the world will see hamas legitimacy in this, and then both israel and the palestinians will be in for an ugly ride.

---note to self: between acclimatization and shirts made with polyester, it's not a good idea to wear a jacket over my blazer unless it's really cold. and the jacket should be removed on entry to the metro station.

i was leaving the hot, packed early rush-hour metro car, wearing my jacket, when i noticed the packet on the floor of the doorway being trodden on by other now ex-passengers. the israeli moment of hesitation passed - could it be a bomb? - and i picked it up and stepped out, holding it up and looking askance at anyone in the immediate area. only one person responded, negatively, and so i found a bench and placed it there. i continued on my way, then stopped when mrs negative indicated that it might belong to somebody still on board.

good idea! so i walked up to the door, looked inside at nobody looking at me, and then realized that i should be waving the packet in question if i was going to get anyone's attention. only by the time i returned with the packet the door closed on me and the train pulled out.

awkward.

[private note about stressing and money and sitting comfortably in three degree weather with the window open, thinking what a beautiful day it was, and showing off by counting and talking at the same time]

i had one thing that i needed to do on wednesday, and i spent all day trying to do it right. after much struggling i realized that the way it's currently implemented isn't subject to any particular rule-set. the "wrong" fix took all of two minutes, and the success was totally unsatisfying in light of the wasted day.

i ate dinner at my aunt's, which was delicious, and i think i upset my uncle a little after he was really rude to me. afterwards, my aunt and i discussed maturity and stress and perspective for the longest time, then my cousin drove me home. he's such an aggressive driver that we had quite the argument on the way; i find it impossible to reconcile the ideas that he's really not a bad guy with him seeming to take pride in behaving like an asshole.

there was still no modem, nor sign of a modem, when i returned home. and thursday was supposed to be internet day.

---thursday:

i woke up on pg's side of the bed, with my neck stiff and sore because her pillow isn't good for me at all. fortunately i managed to correct it before getting up.

for the second time, i began my day with tabata. it does feel good, although i stretched during the cool-down period and i almost pulled a muscle in my leg :(

---the big news for the day: pg has all of her results, and they're very good, and she has a degree! now she can decide what actually interests her.

---on my way out i picked up an envelope from distributel, the guys who were supposed to bring us internets. it was a form that i should have received at least a week before. i called them up to find out what was going on.

when we signed up two weeks before, we'd done so under my name and with pg's card. however, the form we'd received was for mr. pg, which seemed suspect. the support agent informed me that she was not at liberty to talk with me as my name did not appear on the account. when i asked to speak to a manager, i was informed that that would be impossible as my name does not appear on the account. so - a rock and a hard place: no pg, no authority, nothing to be done.

shocked and angry, i approached the secretary and asked her if she had any ideas. she sure did: she picked up the phone and became pg for the day! she gave the agent hell, i got pg on skype at the same time so that we could verify her details, and the three of us convinced the agent to let me do as i please.

the first item on the agenda was figuring out what was going on. as it happened, our appointment for installation was fictitious and upon closer inspection it appeared that the idiot who sold us the service had not only grossly misinformed us, but when he'd realized (apparently at least a week and a half later) that it wasn't okay to have a mismatched account name and card holder he manually transferred the account to pg, *forgetting* to inform us and automatically cancelling our installation.

thank goodness these idiots record all their calls. the agent listened to my previous call, then her superiors did too, and they were all (apparently) horrified and apologetic. and would i please bear with them? the internet would be installed in just another two short weeks.

seriously?! it would take ages to cancel everything, but i semi-patiently held the line and handled callbacks and eventually it was all done, and they were *so* sorry to see me go and *so* hoped that we'd give them another chance. for a company so keen to keep subscribers, they're certainly going about it ass-about-face.

the secretary called bell, told them to hook me up with a discount, and within five minutes the guy had offered me a sweet deal and arranged for installation two days later.

@#!$.

---i spent the rest of the day putting finishing touches and actually enjoying the satisfaction of success. and then playing with a mac, which wasn't so bad once i got the hang of it. the linux backend makes it less alien.

i returned home really late, too tired to do anything or even eat decently. i overcompensated for the lack of effort (toast, peanut butter and tofurkey: i won't be buying any more tofurkey) by eating more than i needed to.

---friday:

i woke up early, had a slow morning and ended it with a bad shave*, which would have discoloured my morning if i hadn't walked into the office and been turned into a superhero. i've been told a couple of times that the biggest reason the company wants to employ me is because i speak both tech and business fluently. i justified their faith** in me when i was asked by the boss for my opinion on a topic, and after explaining why the question was badly expressed discovered a serious flaw in the interaction between the company's business model and its core product. the cfo was called in, and he's a wealth of interesting and useful information, and i laid out their options and advised them to put everything on hold until the board makes a call with more than miscommunication to work with.

all that before my first cup of coffee.

* i accidentally clipped too much of my moustache, it looks terrible but i don't want to shave off the whole beard because of it :S

** please, work permit, hurry up and get sorted out already so that i can get to work!

---it fascinates me that pg, who's so shy and communicates so sparingly, is so comfortable online. verbose, even. and she's got no issues with making use of all the smileys available, and sends long paragraphs of text that are endearingly expressive.

she reminds me of something...

---friday was spent bonding and exploring lower-level code. it was relaxed and interesting.

thought for the evening: how can nine degrees feel so warm?

i did some shopping, made lentil salad and watched some tiger and bunny. my mom called to talk, and then i took a pre-party nap. i was woken just as i entered that level of sleep from which being aroused doesn't change your state - getting up was tough.

my cousin came over to pick me up and ensure that i wasn't violating some weird dress-code he made up. thank goodness his friend, neuroscientist, was there to balance things out! i told them later that i don't want to go to any party where the likes of me, style-wise, aren't welcome.

there was something eerie about meeting neuroscientist. he's one of my cousin's best friends, he's smart and interesting and educated and really fun to talk to. we have some really odd things in common and my cousin was freaked out by our conversation for most of the night. the talk remained on a high level in spite of the quantity of alcohol i was plied with; i definitely had too many beers in that bar in the village that was playing the quebec take on country music and had strange toilets.

---saturday:

we must have been in that bar a long time, because by the time we walked into the club it was almost 3am. we'd quaffed energy drinks on the way in, and i'd shovelled down a delicious salt-n-something slab of chocolate while we stood outside and i shivered because i wasn't wearing a sweater underneath my jacket. that plus the music would have been all i needed.

to describe the evening in short: montreal is partying like it's 1997, only minimal isn't quite as crazy as uplifting and there was a higher ratio of guys. but when the music was good (most of the time) it was good, and when it was great (a few songs here and there) it was really awesome.

---i left earlier than the others, arriving home in time to hit the sack at 7am and waking up two hours later for the internet guy. he was pleasant and professional and we soon had everything up and running.

internet. hooray! i spent the next hour or so listening to mutha, chatting with k-twang and pg and dispelling greatly exaggerated rumours of my planned wedding date.

it snowed beautifully this morning; the real thing is due to start this week. i'm very excited ^_^

my aunt picked me up and took me to the bank, where we opened an account without much fuss. it's an important step and it's finally done.

what i can't figure out is how anybody can immigrate to this country without friends or family. it's nigh impossible to get a job without being here, and you have to have means to stick around until you can get a work permit, and without a social insurance number you're pretty much incapable of doing anything for yourself. something's not quite right with this...

we went shopping (there's a loblaws close to our apartment, and it's got an israeli aisle so we can get non-dairy versions of things we like), and then i spoke to pg for a while, and then i passed out. i didn't sleep for long because my feet hurt, so i spent the rest of the afternoon / evening slowly and steadily doing things. that's as vague as it sounds, some of the things were on my to-do list and some were just because i felt like it.

this has taken me forever to post. i'm going to bed now.

creeping mindwarp

ye gods - john dies at the end has crawled into my braincase and is wriggling around. i'm halfway through and addicted, and my consciousness is trapped in its lucidly eerie world. you can call it escapism... and i'm definitely enjoying it... but it feels like a trap. i have things to do, and half the day has been spent with my eyes glued to my kindle.

even the jokes he tells are only funny in context; meaning that i would find them funny and perhaps laugh out loud if i was actually in the story with these characters, as opposed to merely observing as a disembodied entity. jason pargin has written an alternative reality device that feels very much like the soy sauce he describes.

---i began the day early enough, hitting campus to sit with wr for a few minutes, return some of my study material and ensure that i don't have any books outstanding in the library.

i had a choice of remaining there to do some research for my thesis proposal, or returning to my neighbourhood to comic script on the avenue. i chose the latter, it made me feel like i'm on holiday.

i read over a delicious pasta lunch, then suddenly felt exhausted and went back home to nap. once i'd rested enough i hit the avenue again for coffee; i got some scripting done, stumbled upon thesis proposal material by accident, learned that pico sucks but that using a non-graphical terminal makes awesome use of the netbook's battery, and otherwise enjoyed a pretty, breezy evening that was only intruded upon by occasional honking idiots and irresponsible dog owners.

then i returned home to read more on the couch.

the race to nowhere

i woke up at 4.30am just to check that my alarm clock was set for the correct 5.30am.
*yawns just thinking about this*
waking up at 5.30am turned out to be a mistake, too - it was too late and the pressure to get ready and equip myself was intense. of course, under pressure and half-asleep is a recipe for disaster: everything went pear-shaped :(

i slurped half a cup of coffee and raced to the starting point, and by the time i arrived i was already exhausted. half-marathon? 6.30am? on 4.5 hours' sleep?

it had never occured to me to wear a helmet, which is mandatory at this sort of event. a bunch of us turned out who'd forgotten / didn't care, and that's been cited as a major cause in what appears to be the city council's decision to cancel inline skating next year :(

those of us sans helmet began in the middle of the pack, crouching to get by the guards. unfortunately, rollerblading awkwardly bent over put me on bad form even when i straightened up and it took me more than half the marathon to realize that i was being completely inefficient: by that time, it was far too late.
it didn't help none that i hadn't thought to pack an energy bar, and my blood pressure dropped during the first stretch. at least it wasn't drastic enough to pass me out of the race, but it made for an exceptionally uncomfortable 21km, in addition to the bad form and the bitter wind being against us for a lot of it.

i was in such bad shape that at some point i hallicinated that one of the guys holding out water was offering yoghurt, and i thought "wow! what a great idea!" before expending excess energy in circling back to be tremendously disappointed. it was only a half a minute later that i realized what utter nonsense i'd imagined.

[i just received my results: my place was pretty close to the middle, with an average of 20kph. i could have done better.]

i had breakfast with pg's parents (her mom came in second place!), and we returned to our neighbourhood together. i was going to shower and go straight back to bed, but tahoma called while i was stretching and i decided that a cup of coffee wasn't impossible.

we had a fun debate in the sun, which i chased with a meander through bicycle-only tel aviv (they just did it for the day, but it was peaceful and comforting) on my way home for a nap. the nap didn't work out, and pg arrived home from her adventure down south so we went out for a great lunch and returned for a proper sleep.

we crashed until dinner time, joining her family for a big dinner. i decided that a movie was in order, and dragged pg along on a mission of spontaneity: we had no idea what was playing. pg got to choose, and she went with mirror, mirror.

what a great film! there were a couple of things i didn't appreciate - but i won't spoil them - and the beginning was a bit awkward, but overall it's entertaining, witty, and aesthetically very pleasing.

we ran into a bunch of mongoose's friends on the walk home, which was a bit awkward. the more i think about it, the more offended i am by him.

...

the long day of nothing (the marathon seems a separate date) was followed by a good night's sleep. i've done a couple of chores, greatly reduced the size of my todo list and i'm now ready for a pre-wall climbing lunch and a bit of work before i go.

it doesn't FEEL like sunday...

yesterday:

there are certain birthday presents which are awesome, fully customizable, and available only in the US. giant suck.

after a sweaty blade back i hit the shower, and came out dizzy. we picked up a coke and a slab of chocolate on our way to the cinema, which helped. running into urchin was a surprise - haven't seen her in ages!

we watched the king's speech, and it really is awesome. i'm sure that most of the humour went over all the israeli heads around me because they're not aware of just how uptight the british can be, and that's in the present tense :P

we did ze sushi for dinner, eating tons of it. and i drank quite a lot of sake. i was exhausted when we got home, with a big belly (okay, i can't really blame one meal for that) and passed out almost immediately.

---
the incredible heat! two days of heatwave, and i can't decide if i'm loving it or not. my day began around 8am with phone calls to the city council, eventually giving up and missioning off to visit them in person. the guy i spoke to asked if i really think i can change things in the "wild west of israel"...

then i visited the police station, where my attitude was laughed at again. both parties referred me to their main branches in jerusalem. great.

i was pleasantly surprised to see a column of cars waiting patiently (not hooting, at least) for a garbage truck. the guy performing the slamming of the bins was taking his time because he had a cellphone nestled between ear and shoulder... that's a bit wrong, isn't it?

i then had another police chat when i walked past a cruiser whose engine was running. at least for them it makes sense to do it.

herzeliya: the chocolate melted, the coffee had some milk in it (even though i'd asked for none). and mmf was too busy to see me, so i spent an hour or so sorting out student union bureaucracy and playing with iphone camera apps, eventually leaving (in a rush) when i realized that i was going to be late for my physio appointment and offending mmf with a badly formed question when i asked about next month's paycheck.

only i hadn't checked my physio appointment properly, and arrived about two hours early. so i met up with pg and we had lunch at haronson. good food! a woman with a pram bumped it into me and apologized; i would've preferred not being bumped into at all. then her large friend stood up and for a minute his bum hovered way too close to my head for comfort...

israelis and personal space, not quite what i grew up with.

we went home for a perfect (very short) pseudonap, then i headed out to the bus to return to the physiotherapy.

---
the pram in the middle of the aisle of the bus i'm used to. still shocked by, but used to. it's the woman's other children at the back of the bus that bothered me - the one with her face covered in pizza tried to forcefully share her slice with my shirt, then threw it to the ground (roughly) and continued to harass the other passengers.

how do i know i'm in a first world country?

---
the electro-therapy was staggering, but the face-pads wouldn't stick to my beard properly (oops) so it was less traumatic than usual. the physiotherapist gave me some good advice regarding exercise, though... i think it's time to lower my standards and return to taekwondo.

i came from there to work, and my mind's been a mess since i've arrived. i did get something done, but my heart's just not into it. and i've still got stressers like my seminar to keep me distracted. gonna go get some exercise now, then see if i can kill that shit off before the holiday officially begins.

netless - part i

[post divided retroactively]

it's been a long week, and now that i'm living without internet at home it's harder to keep this blog updated. that means that some amusing sidetracks are going to go missing, because... because i've already forgotten what caused me to scribble to myself in the first place. as this blog is meant as a personal journal, and not to please an audience*, this is not a particularly good development.

* not please, but edify if possible. and hopefully not bore.

---overall threads of thought:

1. living with pg is a completely new experience, but is comfortable nonetheless. i'm fascinated by how smooth the transition has been. so far - it's only been a week or so...

2. the seminar's *still* hanging over me. at least i've crossed the halfway mark, and actually begun to write about my topic.

3. the new job's a little weird at the moment, where the first explicit instruction i received was "chill for the moment". i've just received a communication that there's stuff for me to do, and i'm quite excited about doing it!

4. things are calming down with the old work, which is good because i'm not planning on paying too much attention to it.

---wednesday evening:

i found sound cables i thought would be tougher to get hold of, and was incensed by bad queue handling at the supermarket. they never cease to disappoint me. i'm also irked by the fact that i've had a membership account with them since 2005 and i never get my points or coupons, and every time i complain i receive an incredible excuse followed by a guarantee that they'll begin to treat me like everyone else.

i'd been getting worried that something terrible had happened to wr, as he didn't respond to messages or answer his phone for about a week... and then he called me. i wonder at people who consistently can't keep it together.

pg and i spent the evening on the roof with a hookah pipe and great 60s music.

---thursday:

a sunny, beautiful morning. spent discussing whitman. some of the criticism he received, such as that his work proves metapsychosis because only a reincarnated ass could have produced such filth, made the class entertaining.

i don't remember what "lunch fight over policy" was supposed to mean.

hamlet's "to be or not to be" now holds new meaning for me. studying these works from a philosophical point of view is astoundingly educational.

we had a no-go on the screening, another problem with room booking. this is like a bad joke, one that goes into negative funny.

i was exhausted, as usual, and napped in the sun for a while before heading into the labs to catch up on rss feeds* and work my seminar a bit, then chatted with yogi over the phone before churning out my first villanelle.

* i've never seen the entire casey heynes video before. without the whole clip, it kinda seemed like i should feel sorry for the little kid. not any more.
also: further evidence that we should fear AIs... i've always maintained that some things just shouldn't be connected to the internet. nor given access to robotic arms.

the forum for master's students on thursday night: i walked in to a full room wherein i was the only male, wearing my (now mostly faded) pink "real men DON'T wear pink" shirt. the comments flew on entry, and i just grinned and responded that i'd faded my shirt with the sheer force of my personality. and from that point on, i was one of the girls.

all we did was go around the table introducing ourselves, which turned out to be fascinating and educational. two of us finished with a debate about god.

---friday:

waking up super-early to participate in the half-marathon. my girlfriend telling me "my mother's faster than you" was particularly amusing because she really is. her mother beat us by about twenty minutes (although, to be fair, it was a choice to stay with pg and i even pushed her - physically - for some of the tougher segments). i feel like an idiot for not finishing with her because i ran the last hundred metres... i didn't think that through.

i had a fight with a security guard because he wasn't willing to let me out of the end area to use the toilet and then come back. when his friend shouted at me "it's not him! it's the rule that's stupid" i got even angrier: in hebrew, if the sentence had had a comma it would've been "that's the rule, stupid!" (זה לא הוא! זה הנוהל מטוטמטם!). i eventually just shoved him out the way and went through.

pg's feet were hurting because she'd worn her old blades in case it rained... it did rain, but not enough to justify twenty kilometres of discomfort :/

we stretched out for a while, then went upstairs to clean and switch wheels in the sun with good music, after which i put them on again and headed to the wall.

and waited. at least i had angry birds to keep me company. i'm playing that a lot.

we had a great session, and i had really sore fingers and arms afterwards. a couple of us sat over ice-cream and beer for a while chatting, then i returned - remembering to shop on the way.

---i was the fourth in the line, and fairly certain that the girl at the check-out counter was calling for security to kick me out. i was wrong, though - she was looking for someone to man the other counter. when he arrived on the scene, the woman behind me asked if he was opening the counter, and as soon as he responded in the affirmative she was there. a couple of us started moving across, not willing to get into an argument with her about cutting ahead like that (it's the norm), when her friend asked her what she thought she was doing...

"what? nobody else moved!"
i got in on that one: "because you didn't give us a chance to!"
"oh, alright then. go ahead"

i was pleasantly surprised at how easy that was. we even had a neighbourly discussion about it because she had the decency to apologize. freaky. in contrast to that, the next night pg and i went to the supermarket to do serious shopping, and i was absolutely appalled to witness two elderly "ladies" actually come to blows over a place in the express queue.

that's just pitiful. i've just had a long conversation with one of our managers about the cause of that behaviour: it's holocaust mentality manifesting itself as an innate (and extreme) fear of being taken advantage of; coupled with a complete lack of consideration for anyone but oneself. this is, in my opinion, the cause of half of our country's problems.

the other half is caused by "honour", the sense of which we seem to have acquired from our rather barbaric neighbours.

that shit's gotta go. all of it.

---i've never worn an apron while cooking before. we made cottage pie. we made it well.

---saturday:

i went out to cafesito early to use the internet, prematurely buying coffee before discovering that they've given up serving wireless because there are so many open networks about. not are. were. it would appear that everyone in the neighbourhood has been learning about securing their systems. there's me, having paid eleven - no - FOURTEEN shekels for a cup of coffee, sitting on the farthest corner so as to use cafeneto's wifi instead.

coffee - a most profitable enterprise. considering the mark-up on a cup of coffee, no matter how fancy you get with it, it's bloody rude to take money for using soya instead of dairy milk. it's rude to take at all, even ruder to take no less than a third of the cost of a litre.

i won't be buying there anymore. you're not getting me twice.

---i had an interesting chat with a woman who laughed at me when i responded (as i almost always do) to someone hooting next to the coffee shop. it's pathetic that the city council gets rich on parking tickets without providing any legal solutions, but they don't take a cent for something as offensive as hooting. if they were to implement a NIS 100 fine - approximately one tenth of the penalty in new york - they'd make a fortune and people would stop being such complete jerks.

---thought for the day: someone asked me what album i would want to listen to if humanity was about to be wiped out and i only had time for one. des'ree - supernatural, because it's too hard to choose from so many good ones, and that's an album that would make me comfortable with the fact that it's all over. it's proof that's lots of our species just don't deserve to survive.

"Mom's ISP" saved the day. after doing some work at pg's mom's place, she invited us out to lunch. the food was great, and everything was fine until pg and i had an argument (over something stupid) that made us all uncomfortable :(
it was resolved soon afterwards, but not cool.

i spent the afternoon on the roof working, fighting with a mosquito and munching shalva: i don't know why that stuff's so addictive.

seminar: i managed to stretch out my piece on the oval portrait to almost as long as the house of the seven gables. rock on!

[continued...]

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

[... continued]

did i say night? is it sleeping late if it's only a handful of hours? i woke up just before noon to post photos from my recovered camera and respond (belatedly) to all the birthday wishes i got), then bladed to the wall to meet with scrapper.

the wall was tough on us, but i pushed through for a good finish. i left satisfied for the first time in ages :)

my hands were really sore, though.

i bought capetonian wine on my way home as a dinner gift, then scrambled to get ready to go to one of my professors' poetry readings. we'd left too late, though... i was disappointed. pg was shocked that tel aviv pubs and bars are so crowded and busy so early on a friday evening - i think i need to introduce her to the city she lives in :D

i was blessed with a crazy meeting on our way out... we ran into a friend of mine that i haven't seen in years! i've been worried about darko, but he seems to be doing absolutely fine and we sat chatting for half an hour over beers before pg and i had to get going.

shaking his hand afterwards painfully reminded me that i'd been on the wall a couple of hours before :P

dinner was loud, boisterous and fun - as usual :)
half the family was there, and already i've received pleased communication from south africa that pg has been described as my "lovely" girlfriend... news sure does travel fast :P

watching the news on the fire was pornographic. the media presentation was too detailed to be respectful of those who lost their lives...

---part of the dinner conversation covered a couple of cousins of mine - one in hospital with meningitis and his sister so riddled with cancer that she's had both her breasts and her uterus removed. that's so unfortunate that i don't want to absorb the information.

---my biggest complaint about the meal was that there was too much food and that i couldn't stop eating it even when i was totally stuffed :(

pg and i made it early for show, and i was disappointed to discover that the tmuna theatre wasn't in its usual configuration - kc's sister and boyfriend could definitely have joined us. even more disappointing when considering them because the show was awesome - the phototaxis kick ass! and yael deckelbaum was, as usual, AMAZING.

one of their songs put the following line in my head: "you'll have to buy back your meat from me". i can't even remember what the original lyrics were :P

---saturday:

we had a post-show social with wr and his brother, and i was presented with the new album as a gift ^_^

i stopped off at home to check my work schedule, and was surprised to find, yet again, a problem with it. this has got to stop!

i crashed at pg's, and we slept late. we had a really lazy, comfortable start to what turned out to be a breathtakingly perfect day outside - we need rain! it's winter! this weather is TOO good!
we had an excellent breakfast at cafesito, then came to my place to pseudo-study - i can't say that i got too far with my paper, although i did, at least, start writing it.

i passed by eidetic to pick up the gear from thursday evening, then went with pg to ze sushi for an excellent meal. aside from a few moments of discomfort when a mother couldn't get her baby to stop screaming, everything was as it should be. i may have consumed too much saki. the chef made a point of treating me to extra sashimi :)

when we returned, pg got stuck into my haiku magnets before going to bed, and i spent a few hours having issues with the flex debugger (thank you, chrome, for being difficult), then with the bytearray (why is it that most of the tutorials are simply wrong?), then overloading (because actionscript doesn't allow it), along with a few more things that i really shouldn't need to understand. i don't *wanna* be a flex expert :/

i love marilyn manson, doll-dagga buzz-buzz ziggety-zag kicks ass.

---today:

i had a decent sleep, waking up to attempt fielding's tom jones. i didn't get as far as i'd have liked.

i entered a poetry competition (general gripe, sunday morning surprise, springs have sprung and slow spiral): i hope i win something!

flex and i have been weirdly bonding this morning. how is it that the man i'm doing this for has unwittingly chosen a test-the-waters project that's so complicated? he *just* called me to say that we got the tender for the first job, so it looks like i'm going to be busy this week :)