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.