after the rain

well, i guess the phone call didn't go so well, so maurice is going to have to go fetch the document after all. poor guy; sounds like it will probably take him half of tomorrow. seriously, though? 400km (200 each way) for a freaking piece of paper---ridiculous. that's all i have to say.

but once he's got it, we'll try to go in and sign the new contract tomorrow afternoon, which will make me feel a lot better, considering i've already started the process for ending my current contract (which will hopefully go through without too much hassle).

the sun is shining today. it's been raining for about the last week (we even had to cancel the hike that the excom for the choir had been planning last weekend). i guess this means i can take home some boxes tonight and start packing. that reminds me, i should probably try to do an inventory while packing. you know, figure out what i actually have, and how ludicrous it looks when i write it all down on one sheet of paper (god, i hope it still fits onto only one sheet of paper... maybe i'll just use a really small font).

the other day, i was perusing a collection of films that i had indiscriminantly copied from someone (probably the mit kids, but i don't actually remember anymore), and picked one at random, since there were a good many that i had never heard of (okay, yes, i realize that doesn't really say much, seeing as there aren't very many films that i *have* heard of, in the grand scheme of things). anyway, it was called "almost normal," and let me tell you, it wasn't. ha. i've seen a fair number of films that i would classify as 'bizarre' in my time, but i think this one has currently run away with the cake in that category. which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it was pretty funny, but wow, was it ever wierd. it was pretty obviously low budget, and there was plenty of overacting, but at least some of that was probably intentional, as it added to the hilarity, however terrifying. here's the plot summary: homosexual man has mid-life crisis, decides all he ever really wanted was to be "normal," and crashes his car while drunk. naturally, (of course) he wakes up in an alternate universe, where everything is exactly as it would have been if he was reliving his senior year in high school, except in a universe where the straight people are in the minority, and the ones subject to hate crimes. there, you've got the basics. like i said, it's pretty messed up, but i have to give them points for the creative social commentary.

trying to get the damn ducks to stay in a row

i wonder if other people are actually more productive than i am, or if i just assume so...

somehow i find myself quite often feeling guilty for the fact that my brain really can't put out more than a certain amount in a certain time without just shutting down. like now, for instance. i came in this morning at around 7, since even now, i still have a whole lotta shit to do, but i simply can't concentrate anymore. blarrrgh. game over, better luck next time. who knows?

of course, it's also true that i've got a pile of other stuff on my mind at the moment as well. chiefly, (big surprise, i'm sure) is of course the apartment storieS. luckily, i think we're coming close to finishing the new one; maurice was going to call the lady today to see what we can do about this attestation she wants (since it would require him to go all the way to the other side of valais to get it, since that's where his residence is registered). but if all goes well, we'll have a contract for the 15th (i told him i'd take care of the rest of september, and he can move in after his exams when he has time on the 1st of october). then today (since i really don't want to be stuck with two months of overlap) i called galland (cue the evil music) and asked about officially getting out of my current apartment. i was kinda worried that when she asked about the name so she could get out our file that she was going to make trouble because of the tomato fiasco, but luckily she didn't even mention it, so that was a relief. i wrote up the request in a letter and i'm taking it to ivan tomorrow morning to get it signed. then i have to send it registered, and hopefully that's it. the six people that have come to look at it so far will need to go in and fill out applications, but i can't imagine that they could legitimately turn down all six of them... [knock on wood]

with regard to the whole 'tomato tragedy,' on monday evening, xavier helped me look over all the letters back and forth so far, and we went to visit the guy downstairs, and looked again at my balcony. and while they may be small, we at least did find some little good newses that will probably help me. first, the letter from the company that did the "de-blocking" (which was incredibly rude, even as swiss letters go) had two important points in it that i had missed before. it said that they claim there were 30 centimeters of covering all of my balcony! this is patently ridiculous by anyone's standards; in all liklihood, it's never rained 30 centimeters in one day here before, and even if it had, 3 centimeters would have been more than enough for it to start leaking into the inside of my apartment, where there was nothing. we also looked for any cracks, or anything that might have allowed it to leak, and found nothing. another thing i had missed in the letter was that he actually wrote the word "probably" in his explanation of how the problem might have come from my balcony. this at least shows that they are not sure, and have no real proof (as i've asserted from the beginning). secondly, when we went downstairs, we found that they've already done the re-painting, without saying anything to me, even after my last letter left specific instructions not to perform the repairs before the facts had been established. this misstep on their part could make it harder for them to put pressure on me, which is good. in fact, (i dare not hope as much, but it seems like) since it's pretty clear they were just fishing, there's even a possiblity that they've already given up, and just took care of it themselves, like they were supposed to. certainly not holding my breath on that one, but boy, would that be nice.

ICRA deadline the 15th. i seem to remember back at the beginning of the summer saying something about wanting to have something ready in advance... well, yeah. that obviously didn't happen. good grief. here we go again.

sometimes news is just too important to wait for confirmation

okay cosmos, hold off on your jinxes and hexes this time, because i have to share this now, even though i haven't actually signed anything yet. i'm just that excited.

just got off the phone with "mme. guro" of rilsa (the by now infamously asinine gerance i've been referring to for the past three weeks), and she is indeed back from vacation, and told me that we can have the apartment (yay!) but that she needs yet another stupid piece of paper (boo!). i guess we need to come up with an "attestation de non-poursuite" for maurice as well, and then she'll write up the contract for the 15th of september. which isn't the most convenient thing ever, since maurice has exams until september 27, making it not the greatest moment for moving, but if i have to, i'm more than willing to pay the overlap just to ensure that we get it, and have him move in later. i'm just that frustrated with the whole deal. :)

there's plenty more i should write about soon, but i have a big pile of shit to do for work today, so i need to knuckle down and try to keep myself out of trouble for a while.

the writing on the wall

someday, probably rather soon, i'm going to get myself stuck in a situation that i can't smooth-talk my way out of. for a while there this morning, i half thought it was going to be today.

but no, rest easy my children, i live to fib another day.

i had my individual meeting with alcherio this afternoon. and of course the reason for my distress was the fact that i've made precious little meaningful progress in the last 3 weeks since we talked, as i have bemoaned in several previous posts here, i believe. and, naturally, my computer crapped out this morning. luckily i'm finally at a point in my life where i'm organized enough not to lose any appreciable amount of data, but it still took the better half of today to rebuild the machine. and then there's the camera-ready deadline for SAB coming up september 1st, followed closely by the ICRA submission on september 15th, and then my midterm review in october, just in time for the SIS deadline october 31st. and this morning, i felt like i had a whole lot of nothing.

well, that's not entirely true; i busted my ass to get a new version of the SAB paper out last night, so i had that to show him, and that made him happy. unfortunately, now that i've addressed most of the reviewers's comments, it's a page too long, but we'll find a way to deal with that.

i'm much more worried about getting something reasonable for these next two looming submission deadlines. but he asks me what we're planning, and i propose a bunch of stuff, and half make up some more on the fly, and he responds with suggestions and critiques, and we talk about it for an hour, and he actually seems to think we're on the right track. funny thing is, i kinda do as well. which should be calming, i suppose, except that the feeling never really seems to last more than about 36 hours, and then i start to feel lost again. maybe it really is just a matter of me needing to be more satisfied with simpler accomplishments, and not set such high standards for myself that i always think all my work is crap, but i think that more likely it's that i really am a slimeball, and i probably deserve to be a soulless politician. problem is, i don't think i really like playing this game; it's giving me ulcers (okay, so that's an exageration; i haven't been to the hospital, and i'm probably not going, but my stomach has been tying itself in knots with increasing frequency and intensity lately).

for basically my entire life, i've managed to get by rather well on just doing what i'm told, working harder than i should, gritting my teeth, and sticking with it through the pain. but recently i've been wondering if that will always be enough. specifically, what if the reason why i'm having so much trouble here with my phd is that i really do need more than that, and i'm just not cut out for it? i mean, to be an effective researcher, i probably *should* be able to come up with stuff on my own and not have to rely on people telling me what to do so i can knuckle down and do it.

but i *want* it. i don't even know why, but i've dreamed about those three little letters for as long as i can remember, and i don't want to give up yet. is that just me being stubborn? will it make things worse if i do eventually wash out?

winning the nectarine lottery

it's amazing how much one can derive intense satisfaction from seemingly insignificant things. like nectarines that actually separate easily from the pit. unbelievably fantastic. and after years of frustration and disappointment at being unable to determine which is which before it's too late, and more often than not getting the infuriating kind, i think i've finally figured it out. the yellow ones from italy seem to be okay, where as the ones from spain and france are total crap. not sure about the white ones yet, though. finally, a legitimate use for the swiss obsession with marking all the produce with an exact point of origin...

showed the apartment to three people last night. they all seemed pretty interested, so i guess that's a good sign. also went back into the rilsa office this morning to ask (again) about the new apartment. unfortunately all i was able to do was confirm that mme. guro will not be back until next monday, they haven't made a decision yet, and probably will "sometime this week." --- i wonder if she has to practice in order to lie through her teeth like that? anyway, i stressed yet again that this was for a september 1st contract, and she made some quick comment about not thinking that it would end up being for september 1st after all (which i suppose makes sense, if they obviously aren't going to make a decision until the 28th at the earliest). haven't decided if that's good or bad yet, but i really need to stop thinking about it. it's consuming my life, and i'm not getting anything done.

i must shake this unproductive haze, and soon

friday i finally got an update from claudio (the guy currently living in what i continue to hope will be my new apartment). i guess he called them last tuesday, and they said (you guessed it) that they would probably decide by friday or monday. well, friday came and went, and today's monday. honestly, the shitty truth of seems to be that the most likely explanation is that really are waiting for the first lady to come back from vacation (on the 28th). this constant waiting and worrying and tricking me into thinking that it might almost be over has really been messing with my mind. i haven't slept very well in going on three weeks now, and worse, i'm not making much progress at work either, since i can't seem to concentrate. if you feel so inclined, please write to me and tell me to get my ass in gear before this disaster gets any worse (there are some deadlines coming up, and stuff could get real messy if i don't find a way to snap out of this funk).

and despite the fact that we don't yet know if i'll have anywhere to go, ivan suggested that i go ahead and post an ad on the newsgroup at epfl for my current apartment. i guess we not only have to find the replacement renter for them, but we have to give them several options and a month to process it... ridiculous. so we're trying to have everything ready to give our notice before the first of september if i do end up getting this new apartment. but if worse comes to worse, and i have to pay october's rent as well, i could probably make a private arrangement with the incomer to let them move in earlier and recoup some of it.

on the upside, though, it's looking like it might be fairly easy to get rid of it, since in the first day that it was up, i got three people responding wanting to visit it. a pair of indians came by last night (frankly, i don't think the agency would accept them, but a name is a name, at least to start with), and there're two more people coming by this evening.

yannick is finally back, after being gone since... honestly, i don't even remember when he left, but i know it's been several months at least (he was doing some kind of internship in georgia so they could collect fire ants to study, since they aren't indigineous to europe). we went to yoga on saturday, and caught up a bit afterwards, which was nice.

while doing my shopping, the interdiscount (the home-electronics subsidiary of coop that thinks they're 'circuit city' but are really closer to an overglorified 'radio shack') had a table of cheap dvds (well, by swiss standards, anyway), and there were actually some french ones that i had heard of (i see no point in buying region 2 dvds of american movies, that's just stupid). so i grabed a handful. i also went looking for a high threadcount fitted sheet, but of course failed after learning that: 1. they don't count threads here (the lady had no idea what i was talking about), and 2. my bed is apparently an uncommon size (140x200cm). par for the course, i guess.

last night, jim, fabius, and i went to the outdoor summer movie theatre thing and saw "thank you for smoking." easily the funniest film i have seen in a pretty long time. very enjoyable. highly recommended.

no news is a royal pain in the ass

whoever said "is good news" clearly did not suffer from hypertension. i am seriously about this far from snapping like a postal employee (thumb and forefinger held very near one another).

well, at this rate, they may actually be waiting for the first bitch to come back from vacation before straightening out this insanity with the new apartment. when i was there on the 4th, she had reportedly left for 3 weeks, which means i guess she won't be back until the 25th... allow me to point out once again that this is for a contract set to begin on the 1st of september. my frustration is rapidly progressing out of the realm which may be adequately expressed in socially acceptable language.

even ivan is getting impatient, and called me again this morning. and i had nothing to tell him. god, i just want this all to be over, so i can get on with my life.

fresh pasta friday, and the sunday night drinks

all in all, this was a good weekend, in my opinion.

friday conlin and dena came over, and we made fresh pasta with my pasta machine that i bought myself for my birthday last month but haven't had opportunity to use yet. it came out spectacularly, and they raved about my cheese sauce. i enjoyed it heartily as well, but it was far from on my diet, so i'm a little irritated with myself after the fact. anyway, hadn't seen them since their big trip back to boston, so we had a very nice evening talking about nothing in particular, but just "stuff."

saturday was spent mostly bumming around, some apartment cleaning (dug through one of the closets in anticipation of moving out soon), and a decent jog. did my 9k course, but with a different mindset this time. pretty much everything i'm reading seems to tell me that calories burned aren't really dependant on speed, but almost entirely only on distance. then there's also that the heartrate charts mention that while working at a higher HR for the same about of time may burn more calories, it only burns the same amount of calories from fat as working at a lower HR (just at the lower HR, a higher percentage comes from fat). so, given that last time i went out i nearly keeled over when my HR spiked around 210, i thought it might be worth a try to take it a little easier. i strapped on my little gps-o-meter gadget, and instead of watching the pace screen, like i usually do, i switched it to monitor my heartrate, and tried to keep it around 180 (random guess that didn't feel too painful). looking back, i guess i'm not sure what i hoped to learn from it, since i don't really have any way of determining how effective it was, but it was less debilitating, so i suppose that's probably a good sign.

i also listened to a significant portion of the second audiobook in the series i started last week, philip pullman's "his dark materials." the first one, "the golden compass," was pretty much your standard faire adolescent fantasy, where some kid or kids sets out to save the world, probably unwittingly or even unawares, but nonetheless has a pivotal role to play, including the apparition of uncanny abilities or aptitudes. as deroggatory as that sounds, i ate it up, because i love that shit for some incomprehensible and deeply shameful reason. though i was reasonably pissed about the fact that it didn't really end so much as slap you upside the head with the back cover, laughing at you that you thought you might have actually gotten some resolution to the story in the first book of a trilogy. this upsets me greatly, not even so much because it's unabashedly commercial in nature, but more because it's just lazy and irresponsible writing. any idiot can write a cliffhanger just by witholding important details, but it takes real skill to leave just the right amount of hidden unanswered questions to justify a sequel while making the reader believe that the story had actually come to a satisfying conclusion. for example, with the exception of the very last 30 seconds, i'd say the first season of veronica mars did a decent job of this (said last 30 seconds were downright in-your-face despicable and unforgivable, but up until that moment, i really felt like the story was over and i was happy about it, even if there were still a few unanswered questions).

right, well, back to the pullman books, the ending was abrupt, but i'm reading the second one now, "the subtle knife," so i guess that's gotta say something in his favor, if i'm still interested in the story. this one, though, i think is a little weaker in development. specifically, i'm having a huge problem suspending disbelief of the whole "murderer" thread, which is completely illogical/unrealistic and unsupported, and only exacerbated by the fact that he seems to be using this as an undercurrent/catalyst for the rest of the second book. but we'll have to wait and see how it turns out, i guess.

sunday was some more cleaning, some laundry, and then in the evening fabius, jim, and jim's visiting friend john came over, and we played settlers, along with assorted drinks (fabius made mango lassies, jim made caphirenas, and we tasted the absinthe i brought back from rhodes) and a chocolate cake i had made that morning. nothing too earth-shattering, just a low-key pleasant evening.

and, naturally, i'm still waiting on news regarding the new apartment...

just give me the goddamn apartment already

[heavy sigh]

i don't know how much longer i can take this. i know it sounds melodramatic, but seriously, it's like i've been jacked up on adrenaline (and not in a good way) for nigh upon two solid weeks now. i caved and called them this morning. predictably, the girl pretended to be shocked that i could consider calling her, when surely they would have called me if they had decided to give it to me (which is stupid anyway, because if they don't decide to give it to me, i need to start looking again--they've already stolen two weeks of precious time, and now they expect the losers to wait for a snail-mail letter to show up before they even get to know what happened). i [again] got the standard line: "oh, i think they will probably make a decision tomorrow or monday." give me a break, bitch, that's what you people have been saying since LAST thursday.

in other news, to try to take my mind off it, i decided last night to try to break my knuckle-cracking habit. not sure how this is going to to turn out. i've already caught myself a few times, but if i force myself to concentrate, it seems i can counter the urge. well, it's only been 12 hours, so we'll probably have to wait a bit longer to see what's really going to happen.

apartment hunt, chapter 3

so, monday morning i took in the letter from maurice's mother (the usual "yes, i'm an oral surgeon, and i give my son enough money to pay rent" deal), only to find that the lady i had been talking with (who had even started to warm up to me just a little bit, i think) was now on vacation for three weeks. [insert boilerplate rant on stupid european august vacations here.]

this meant i had to talk with the other girl, who of course treated me like dirt since we'd never seen each other before. but she took the letter, and told me that our file was now complete. obviously, my next question was "so when do we sign?" but she then told me that it didn't look like they had decided yet. i countered with, "then why did you send me all over christendom collecting these stupid forms?" and get this: "oh, we always do that to everyone." yes, yet again, the swiss have proven that they still have the market cornered in shitty customer service.

she went on to claim that the original girl would deal with it when she got back. now, remember that she's gone for three weeks, that it's august 7th at this point, and that the contract is supposed to change on september 1st. it's pretty clear that we're not dealing with the brightest crayons in the box. i attempted to convince her that this was unacceptable, and she brushed me off saying that something would probably be done "soon." how's that for nebulous?

next, yesterday evening, i got a message from the current tenants asking if i knew what was going on, since last thursday they had been told that the decision should be made by last friday, and that it was most likely going to be us (this is good news that i didn't previously have). i responded asking if they might be willing to call the agency and ask, since i don't want to pester them too much for fear of pissing them off and having them give it to someone else.

i guess that just brings us back to the standard "waiting uneasily for something to happen..."

well, there probably weren't fireworks in 1291 either

jim, fabius, and i went to geneva on tuesday evening for the 1st of august (independance day in switzerland), because they were convinced there would be fireworks. i, on the other hand, had read in the newspaper the previous week that the display had been canceled on account of fire danger unless there was sufficient rain. but jim claimed to have checked the website, and didn't see anything about any cancelation, so we went anyway, assuming there had been enough rain to keep it on.

short version: nothing happened.

slightly longer version: we had a nice time with their friend shalu, who lives there (or near there). got a drink, went to a gelatteria, walked around near the water front for a while, and then came back. i had a good time, but i'm not convinced it was worth the 20 francs in train tickets...