pendulous pronouns and amiable adjectives

sweet christmas, i'm doing it again...

in a small way, i kinda find it moderately amusing; but in most other large ways, it's quite simply annoying as all hell. they're just essentially meaninless little words, and yet they seem to hold such life-and-death sway over my emotional well-being. and it doesn't make any sense. and it kinda pisses me off.

so, like i said, today is yannick's birthday. i had originally planned on breaking into his office early in the morning and planting a gift and a cake, and then just see what would happen. unfortunately, as with most of my brilliant schemes, this one had a fatal flaw, in that i don't actually know where his office is.

sure, go ahead and laugh, but i spent nearly half an hour last night trying to figure it out on the computer, before i gave up, seeing as their group apparently doesn't even have a website.

therefore, admitting defeat, but trying to effect damage control nonetheless, i wrote him a nice sardonic little email explaining the situation, and asking if maybe he wanted to go to lunch. wouldn't you know it, even if my original plot had worked, he wasn't planning to come in to the office today anyway. [rolls eyes] well, i tried, right?

i guess the point i was trying to make was just that we traded a few messages over the course of this exchange, and though it's hard to read much into what he writes (since he really doesn't write much; it's not that his replies are terse in a bad way, but they seldom contain any more words than are absolutely necessary to say what needs to be said), it really does seem like there was/is a playful amical character about the short phrases he chose. which actually probably carries even more significance given that it seems like he just writes them quickly and then sends it without thinking too much about it; instead of endlessly reading-rereading-revising the way i do when i write to someone---trying as hard as i can to disambiguate any conceivable misinterpretation.

so, yeah, i'm going through the whole "somebody actually likes me!" bit again. as long as i don't over-analyze it (which i'm trying very hard not to), it's rather a nice little happy feeling. i like it.

of course, though, you might remember that a couple months ago i wrote about basically doing the same thing with enno. and the sneaking suspicions that this sort of thing might not be anything more than a reminder that my view of reality is, well, not particularly "realistic." stupid, stupid brain chemical imbalances... [sigh]

like i said, probably better just to try not to think about it.

as though through a glass, foggy

well, i suppose this means that fall is officially here. for the last several days, it's gotten cold enough now that the mirror fogs up when i take my shower in the morning.

i propose a brief moment of silence to mourn the passing of summer. ahhh, summer... but it sure was fun while it lasted, eh?

gotta love loewenberg

(aside: note that it is pronounced "leuh-vehn-burg")

okay, so between monday being a holiday spent in england, and the MICS conference being wednesday through friday, i basically got no work whatsoever accomplished this week. notwithstanding, the conference was actually pretty good (well, most of it) and the free room, free food, free time, and great weather were all very much to my liking.

not quite so much to my liking was the fact that i had to present that stupid poster i spent most of the previous week making, but i survived, and very few people actually payed it enough attention to bother asking any questions anyway (in the grand scheme of things, yes, that's probably a bad outcome, but for me, whose middle name is "instant gratification," it was basically the best course of events that could ever have been hoped for).

the really cool part, though, was that somehow randomly martin roth showed up (i wrote about his visit to our lab back in december). and not only that, but he even remembered who i was. maybe it shouldn't, but for whatever reason, this still surprises and impresses me (when people i've only really known for a total of a few hours many months ago decide to retain any inkling of information about me). right, so i guess the story is that he's working as a post-doc for deutche telekom's newly created "t-labs" research division in berlin now.

anyway, so catching up with him was nice, and now that he's on this continent, we might even get to see him every now and then (i invited him to come down for the party i'm throwing for thanksgiving; we'll see if he comes or not). also, it sounds like he's going to be doing some work on sensor networks, so there's the possibility we could collaborate on a project, or even that i might get to go spend a few months in berlin at some point (not terribly likely, but an exciting possibility nonetheless).

for the most part, the presentations were good, and some of them were even applicable to the stuff that we're doing. the session on thursday afternoon, though, was not related to anything i am even remotely interested in, and after suffering through it, i've basically come to the conclusion that i need to revise my approach to conferences. up until now, i've basically been going off of an elementary school sense of conscience that basically says, "if something is happening, you should attend and pay attention out of respect to the presenter." but quite frankly, sometimes it's just a waste of my time; no two ways about it.

thursday evening, they took us all to a wine tasting and we had dinner on a boat trip around lakes murten and neuchatel, which was cool. i had wanted to see if i could get in a hike on friday afternoon before heading back to lausanne, but then i realized that since we had already checked out of our rooms, i would have to carry all my stuff with me whereever i went, which would have been rather undisputably sucky. so i didn't. but the weather was very pretty. sigh.

instead, after getting everything home, i went out in search of canned air (for cleaning out the computer) and a kapo (for the guitar). of course, since this is switzerland, i failed miserably at both. four different computer stores, and not one of them had compressed air [throws hands up in disgusted resignation]. as for the kapos, i did find some in one of the music stores, but they were like 54 francs! i should probably check online to see what the prices should be, but that just sounds like crazy talk to me, at first glance...

but i had a nice walk through the city anyway, and took some detours through the parks. as i was crossing through st. francois (basically the main square in the center of lausanne), i caught a glimpse of yannick on his bicycle up ahead of me, but he was too far for me to get his attention or catch up. i wrote him a message when i got home; maybe we'll get together at some point this weekend, or something. his birthday is next wednesday (which reminds me i need to buy wrapping paper tomorrow); i'm actually a little proud of myself for having successfully tracked down the leather case for his camera (i'm pretty sure i mentioned that when we went on that miserable hike in the rain, he was carrying this beautiful brand new camera around in a plastic shopping bag. :) needless to say, when someone makes it that easy less than a month before their birthday, it's almost criminal not to buy it for them. ;)

london bridge has fallen

...victim to unabashed tourism yet again.

monday (yesterday) was some weird cantonal holiday ("jeune federale" = the federal fast), and so conlin, dena, and i hopped a plane to london for the weekend. it was cool, but good god, i just spent a *lot* of money.

perhaps the most unexpected portion of my little adventure came at the very beginning, on saturday morning, when i first got myself to the airport. now, i didn't think i was one to really hold grudges, but it seems i might (to my chagrin and shame) still be related to my late grandmother after all---the moment i saw those big orange signs in the corner where i was heading (the easyjet counters), i was involuntarily overcome with the most intense sense of pure visceral hatred i have perhaps ever felt (though a certain incident involving a ms. cheri buck-perry and a shakespeare script comes to mind, and could probably give it a run for its money... i prefer not to dwell on it, so we'll let them stay tied for now). i sincerely hope that i never ever have to fly easyjet ever again. if some foolish person had put an automatic weapon in my hand at that moment, i have no doubt that "postal" would not have even begun to describe the atrocities i would have visited upon them. suffice it to say that it's been a good long time since i actually lost my temper, but i was damn close right then, and i was reminded with painful clarity why i originally needed to learn to control it.

moral of the story: no more easyjet--- my blood pressure couldn't take that again.

but surprisingly, the flight went basically without incident, as did my prepurchased express train ticket, and i found myself in victoria station, beaming away like a kid in candyland.

the weather was downright fucking gorgeous, and so i decided to hoof it the ~2 miles from the station through hyde park to our hostel. got there around 10:00, found dena and conlin, and we were on our way. well, almost.

the girls at the front desk convinced us (well dena, but i went along with it, trying not to be the "cheap-anchor" i usually am) to buy these hideously expensive tickets to a hop-on/off bus tour for 24 hours (it was 16 pounds [gulp]). the girls were obviously getting a commission, and were not particularly honest about everything. for instance, i asked if there were any other similar services in the city, and what they cost, and she said "no, it's a monopoly." as it turns out, there was another identical company, who was not only two pounds cheaper, but had more busses more frequently, and covered more area. probably i should have gone back and given them hell about it, but i let them off the hook because the one i was talking to was stunningly attractive. yes, i am weak. it was awful. i have no idea why i was so taken with her, but seriously, she would easily make the list of most beautiful people i've encountered in the past several years. but no, even worse, i'm such a pansy that i didn't even do anything about it (well, really, what was i supposed to do, seeing as i was only going to be there for about two and a half days) except talk with her for a little while while she was running the desk the next morning and i was waiting for dena and conlin to come down.

now is probably as good a time as any to mention that this particular hostel is apparently run by a very large family of russians. i'm pretty sure everyone that worked there was russian, and most of them were probably at least cousins, if not immediate family. as expected, i feel really dumb for having forgotten all my russian. (i actually spent a decent amount of time trying to remember something to say, in the hopes of impressing the aforementioned pretty girl; good grief, i'm even grossing myself out now...)

but yeah, so the bus tour thing. it actually wasn't so bad after all. in fact, riding around on the top of the open double-decker bus was rather cool, and made me miss my little convertible. and in any case we would have had to buy two day cards for the metro to get around if we didn't have it to take us places, so for the extra six pounds we got a great laugh out of making fun of the retarded stuff the recorded guide on the red line was saying about the things we were passing (the live guides on the yellow line were actually really good), and there was also a free guided boat ride up the river, which was really cool, even if unforgivably touristy.

saw a bunch of cool stuff, including westminster abbey, and they really got into shopping for a few things (there were gaps everywhere, and since they don't exist in switzerland, i guess it was necessary for them to pick up a few new items). i looked at the prices and about had an aneurism. it was every bit as bad as switzerland, if not worse. in all seriousness, the prices were basically the same numbers as i would expect to see in dollars in oregon, except that they were in pounds, which are worth twice as much. unbelievable. definitely going to be having a shopping spree when i'm home in december.

the food was awesome. we had a chinese buffet lunch the first day, and terrific indian food that evening. i ate so much it actually hurt (for the record, this is not a good thing, but the food was that tasty). yeah, i went off my diet for the trip, but i don't regret it too much. in fact, that bad feeling from overeating helped to remind me why i am doing it. sunday, i took it a little easier; soup at the cafe in the crypt for lunch (under "st-martin-in-the-fields-church" on trafalgar square, yes, that whole thing really is the real name), and fish and chips (yumm!) in a fancy bar that evening.

in between, though, was probably the most excellent part of the trip---we got discount tickets to see "stomp." now, i didn't really know anything about it, and so i wasn't terribly excited beforehand, but after seeing it, i was (no joke) bouncing down the street dreaming about joining the cast. it was _that_ incredible. so the deal is that it isn't really a play or a musical so much as it is a 'music performance' i guess i would have to call it. they used all sorts of ordinary things, like push brooms, match boxes, basketballs, sparklets bottles, big plastic trash cans, and basically anything else you can imagine---to make really really cool music. it really defies description.

monday morning we wandered around a different market area, and (amoung other things) into a tea shop. unfortunately, i didn't buy any, because it was (surprise) ungodly expensive, and---get this---they have some sort of fucked up licensing system in britan that prevented them from selling me less than 125 grams at a time. and you might not realize it, but in perspective, 125 grams is a freaking boatload of tea. like for me, it's probably easily a year's supply, if not more, and i've taken to making myself a pot 3-4 evenings a week, if not more. and i like a little variety, so i wasn't ready to commit to buying a shitload of only one kind, no matter how good it was. but not to worry, i eventually got a big box of loose leaf pgtips (good stuff!) in a sainsbury's grocery store, which i'm just as excited about, and only cost my like one pound, instead of the 7.99 that the tea shop lady wanted.

and interestingly enough, tea is also the subject of the very last thing that happened, and unfortunately, it is a rather sad story. we had planned to try taking high tea at the orangerie behind kensinton palace around 3:00, but we had trouble finding it, and didn't actually get there until 4:00, which wouldn't have been so bad except that literally as the clock was striking four o'clock, we were walking up the steps and reading the sign stating that "due to a private event, the orangerie will be closing at 4pm today." it was pretty disappointing; dena was really looking forward to it, and was basically devastated by the realization that not only had we missed it in this particular location, there wasn't even enough time remaining to go anywhere else, and so we had effectively missed it for the whole trip. somewhat disheartened, we went to dinner at a pretty cool little "world food" restaurant call "giraffe" which was tasty and good, but not quite high tea.

even so, though, the weekend was really cool, and i enjoyed myself immensly.

what sorry lives these sick people must lead

what the fuck is the deal with all this comment spam we've started getting now? don't these people have anything better to do with their lives? i mean, i know it's obviously an automated thing trawling for new posts, since there's no way in hell that a real live person could actually read all of one of my posts and then even copy-paste into the reply box in the 37.2 seconds it takes these abominations to appear, but still.

i just don't understand how people can be so incredibly stupid. sure, it's all statistics, and all you need is one sucker in 100,000, or something infintesimally small like that. but seriously---it creeps me out that even that small number of people are wandering around free, with absolutely zero higher brain functions... where the hell is natural selection when we need it?

the "increase your output" talk

well, the boyron called yesterday morning and asked if i could get back together with them. i told him i kinda needed to be at work for a while, but that i would catch up with them in geneva later that afternoon. so we picked a time to meet in front of the train station in geneva, and then i tried to get some work done.

obviously, i should have seen the portents of disaster looming as soon as i realized that i had no way of contacting them...

anyway, around 11:30, alcherio comes in and exclaims that he's going to have a quick meeting over lunch with jim, and that after that, i should go have my personal meeting with him, which shouldn't take very long. all sounded fine, at the time...

but, all-too-predictably, his meeting with jim went over by like two hours, and then the "short" meeting with me was over an hour. by the time i finished, there was no possible way i was going to make the train i told doug i would be on. and, as i mentioned, i had no way of warning them that i would be late by almost half an hour. which sucks for many reasons, not the least of which is that if they didn't wait, i'd be stuck in geneva with no idea where they were and nothing to do, but if i didn't go, then they might be waiting even longer... so of course, i hauled ass to the train station and went anyway.

luckily, it worked out pretty well, since they were about 15 minutes late getting there as well, and were still looking around for me when i came sprinting out of the station. so, yeah, i suppose "all's well that ends well," but for a little while there, i was really feeling like i wanted to wring alcherio's neck.

incidentally, the content of said individual meeting was none too reassuring either. i mean, it's not really all that bad; everybody gets this talk from time to time, regardless of who their advisor is, and most just make jokes about it, but it still makes me uncomfortable, and i don't like that. right, so basically what he told me was the boilerplate speech about "you're smart, you work hard, and i still have plenty of faith in you--- *but,* you need to get your ass in gear and publish some stuff, or we're going to be up shit creek." well, in so many words. you get the idea.

i guess i don't think i'm quite as autonomous as i should be. i'm much better at executing things than pulling random ideas out of thin air. sadly, that probably means i'm not a particularly good candidate for a phd, but i really hope that i can finish it anyway, even if i don't necessarily use it to go into a pure research position. yeah, that's about the size of it. not sure what else to say right now.

in other [happier] news, though, i'm going to london this weekend! with dena and conlin, and we're going to try to see a show or two, and catch some sights, and generally just be somewhere other than here. i'm clearly going to end up spending waaaaaay too much money on this little joyride, but it will be fun, and i'm always telling myself (and being told by others) that i need to learn to be more spontaneous, so i'm just trying to flow with it for the moment.

oh hey, back to yesterday---so the hanleys and i walked around geneva for a while. we eventually found the UN headquarters and the red cross, but both were closed by the time we got there (figures). but we spent some time in the part (the weather was perfect), and then had some beer and pizza before mr. and mrs. hanley decided they should probably pack up and get some rest before the early morning flight, and boy and jason came back to lausanne with me, where we had a few more drinks before putting them on the last train back. it was fun, and i'm tickled pink that i got to spend so much time with them. really, really great people. i miss all my friends. sigh.

the slowest gazelle is the one that gets eaten

okay, well, i might have mentioned before that i once ran into yannick fournier (the other one, not the yoga one) while out jogging, and he mentioned that there is a group of them that jog together around lunchtime on wednesdays. so, he invited me to come this week, and silly me, i actually went.

good lord, i got my ass kicked nice and squarely. i mean, i thought i had been making progress (well, probably i am, just obviously not enough), but there was no way i was going to be able to keep up with these people. eh, i suppose i didn't do too bad, but i was indisputably the tail of the pack. it was a humbling experience. though, i did finish without completely collapsing (which of course reminded me unpleasantly of the goddamn "persistence" award they insisted on giving me when i was dumb enough to try going on the morning run during the walla walla prospective student visit weekend thing. sweet christmas, that was awful.

my progress with my weight was kinda stalled for most of last week (stuck around 67kg), but the last few days have weighed in at 66, so i'm crossing my fingers and hoping we've made it off the plateau and that we're back on track now. i want 60 by christmas---and i want it bad. i guess i'm starting to feel a little impatient, but at least for the moment, it is fueling my resolve rather than eroding it, which i suppose is the far preferable of the two options, even though i feel a bit frustrated sometimes.

the boy and the rest of the hanley family appeared in town on saturday, and i got to spend the day with them, which was positively awesome. i miss him a lot, and his family's pretty cool too. we took the boat across to the chateau de chillon, and saw the fortress on the lake there. mrs. hanley and i were constantly fighting over who got to pay for things, but it was all in good fun (sadly, she won every time, though). oh, and in the prison section of the chateau, there are a bunch of carvings including lord byron's personal signature in one of the columns. however, of greater importance (discovered by jason, i think) was on the adjoining column, an inscription which read "boyron." and hence, that is what we shall dub the boy forever more. :) or at least, add it to the list.

also, i was very happy that the weather was nice for them; it was a beautiful day. i'm curious how the rest of their trip is going though, seeing as just after i put them on the train to interlachen it started pouring down rain in lausanne saturday night. sunday was overcast in the morning, but that was okay since i had to come in to the office and do work anyway. then around three i went to the gym to lift with ildar, and while we were walking back afterward, someone up there just started dumping buckets---fucking unbelievable. there must have been at least an inch of rain in less than half an hour. i was literally soaked to the bone.

eventually the poster got finished, and i went to dena and conlin's for dinner, which was great. we had tasty fish tacos, and i made airplane and hostel reservations to go with them to london this weekend for the holiday. (some national swiss fast or something; but i'm not arguing if we get monday off for it...)

we also played monopoly, which was very amusing; seriously, it must have been the first time i played since i was, oh, what, say fifteen years old? wow, talk about flashbacks. anyway, i've got news for you; even once you're older, the game still takes forever. :) but it was fun, and surprisingly unpredictable. for a while there it was really rather uncertain who would win; the big pile of money moved from one person to the next basically every turn. by the time we finished the busses were already stopped, and it was still raining pretty fierce, so they let me stay in their spare bed, which was very nice of them.

yesterday afternoon, i finally made it over to OBI to look at their canvases and stuff for painting, and realized that it's likely to turn out to be a bit more of an investment than the joke that i had originally planned it to be. the 60x70cm canvases were like $25 each, and then i'd have to start buying paint on top of that. so, suffice it to say that i chickened out, and i'm back in "thinking about it" mode for the moment. maybe i'll be able to buy something cool in london this weekend to go on the walls...

also, my computer has escalated it's tantrums from being finicky about overheating when you ask the processor to do too much at once, to now it won't even start up. i am supremely irritated by this, and not sure what to do about it. jim suggested giving it a thorough smack with the compressed air (which i tried to buy at obi last night, but they didn't have any), but if that doesn't work, i guess i'm going to have to sink for a new motherboard (and probably a new processor to go with it). hopefully i can reuse my ram; having to replace everything all at once would rather suck.

twinpeaks tonight. we're starting back in with episode 10 of season 2. which reminds me, i need to figure out what i'm serving, so that i can get my ass to the store and back home in time to set everything up...

sore fingers, many parties, and quite a bit of exercise

seems i've lapsed again, and have some catching up to do.

been to several more yoga classes. yannick and i did make it to the crazy mario guy's class a week ago monday. it was alright, but a little strange; and he definitely did too much talking (descriptions are good, but not if it means getting a complete rest between every posture). also, the incense made my throat itchy. it's also a little sad that yoga is so "commercial" (for lack of a better term) here. yannick was mentioning that his shotokan (spelling? it's a form of karate) class is only like 20 francs a month for once a week, whereas these yoga classes are 20-30 francs per class. if i were a just a little less mature than i am, this is where i would invoke the "but it's not faiiiiir" argument.

tuesday the 30th was movienight slash going-away-party-for-jacob at markus's, and nidhi and dave came as well (they are phd students at cmu that are spending the next four months at epfl; nidhi is actually using the other desk in my office, since julien is in canada). katja brought me my backpack, which was much appreciated. it was a pretty big crowd, and a good time was definitely had, but i reminded myself the hard way why i generally play hard to get when offered alcohol (i usually politely decline for the first half of the evening, and then have a drink or two later). i made the mistake of accepting the first one that markus offered me as i came through the door, and by the time i left, i was really quite tipsy. not anywhere close to getting sick, but speaking a little louder than was necessary, and getting overly worked up about something i was describing in french such that i aparently invoked more "colorful metaphors" (explitives) than was expected of me. ha.

wednesday was our little end-of-the-summer twin peaks reunion. we had an excellent bbbq, and were enjoying swapping summer stories so much that we didn't end up seeing anything, but just chatting for the entire evening. it's good to have visitors again. i really like hosting. i don't know why, but it's fun for me.

thursday i went to the intermediate class at jean lechim's yoga studio, which was actually really good---this guy was easily in his 70s, and could have just as easily kicked my sorry little ass into the next country. his focus was more on precision in the postures, so the class had a much more isometric (rather than aerobic) feel to it, but it was still excellent. i hadn't realized how much i had slipped into letting myself cheat in the time that i've spent without a real teacher. he's also spent significant amounts of time studying with iyengar himself, which is cool. but he put more emphasis on the breathing and less on the props than the other iyengar studio i went to before, which was a very welcome change. not sure what i'll end up doing, since if i go regularly to the thursday evening class, i probably wouldn't be able to go to the movienights anymore, which would be sad. we'll see.

friday jim talked a bunch of us into going to an indian restaurant downtown, which was surprisingly both quite good and almost affordable (by swiss standards).

then saturday, yannick and i went back to yogaworks for our second class (since the second class is free), and that was definitely an aerobic workout. i was sweating like a pig. oh, and i don't plan on putting up with any more of his whining about how he's afraid of going to an intermediate class because he might fall over. :) true, he's probably not as flexible as i am, but it's quite clear that he's much stronger---i think he weathered the class better than i did. you know, it can really get annoying sometimes when people are so perfect that you can't even hate them for it... life must really be tough... [rolls eyes]

oh, and either the gods are mocking me, or i have the worst timing in the universe (or possibly both). he rented a room in an apartment with several other students and moved that weekend; i didn't even know he was looking, or i would have tried to talk him into splitting a place with me, like the arrangement that fell through with enno. this irritates me to no end, as i missed yet another opportunity... maybe third time's a charm? hopefully?

other than that, it was a pretty uneventful weekend, playing with my new toy (the guitar). my fingers hurt pretty bad still, but i'm trying to do it as much and as often as i can stand it, in an attempt to power through this phase until they heal. hopefully i'll be able to report back with success soon. sunday, i almost went on a hike by myself (since noone wanted to come with me), but then didn't get my act together soon enough to catch the train, so just went running instead. speaking of which, i'm doing a little better now; saturday i did 5km out, rested, and then 5km back, and on sunday it was more like 4 and 4, then tuesday i even did ~7km without resting in the middle.

monday florence and xavier (my non-insane neighbors) had me over for a "sicilian dinner" and pictures of their vacation, which was really really cool. and they gave me a whole bunch of stuff that they brought back (olives, sundried tomatoes, olive oil, a rock from etna, all sorts of stuff...). very tasty, and very fun.

last night, i showed "what's up doc?" to the twin peaks group, and we had lasagna with garlic bread and salad, and then we also made banana bread for desert, since i had some bananas which were passed the point where i enjoy eating them raw. good food, good conversations, good laughs, good times. :)

and here we are.

one of these times, i should do a quick overview of stuff happening at work, but that always seems less exciting (yeah, yeah, shut the hell up, i know the rest of the stuff isn't particularly exciting either, but it's better than work, and it's all i've got, so stick a sock in it, buster. [smirk]).