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.