returning to usefulness

[kareina]

The past few days have been kind of low energy, with not much work being accomplished. While it hasn't been as hot here as it has been in Portland, it has still been hot enough to slightly lower energy levels, and having started the week with adventures followed by a late night I haven't really perked up to normal energy levels since, as you might have been able to guess by how infrequently I've posted this week.

So, what have I done? Well, in terms of uni related stuff my biggest accomplishment prior to today was successfully registering for the conference in Edinburgh that I'll be attending at the end of August. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, the initial deadline for registration at the early bird rate was while I was still traveling. So back then I e-mailed them and let them know that I was interested in attending, but until I arrived in Italy and settled into a routine and spoke to my supervisor, I couldn't know if it would be an option to attend. The replied that since I am still, technically, a student, I would be able to register at the student rate, and they'd waive the late fee for me, but please let them know as soon as possible. Soon after I arrived here an announcement was sent out letting people know that the late period of registration was drawing to a close, and please register now, so I spoke with my supervisor and determined that it is ok for me to be absent to attend the conference. However, the on-line registration form requires that one pay at the same time as one registers, and at that point I did not have sufficent cash available to cover the registration fees, having used up pretty much all of my savings just getting here. So I contacted them and let them know that not only was I still interested in attending, but I had approval from my employer, but wouldn't be able to afford the fees until I received my first pay check at the end of the month. They wondered if I'd need to book a room, because the reason they require payment in advance is that the conference has to pay for all of the rooms booked, even if people don't show. So I checked with sismith42 and ascertained that it would be ok to stay at her house, and that she was a reasonable distance from the conference location, and wrote back to the conference to let them know that I wouldn't be needing the banquet (remember my "not interested in food in the evenings quirk?) or a room, and they agreed to let me delay payment until I got paid.
In the meantime I consulted with my UTAS advisor about which aspects of my research would be best to share with this conference and into which session my work best fit. (The reason I wanted to attend this particular conference, besides the location, is that 11 of the sessions are on interesting-sounding topics!) I prepared a very rough abstract and sent it in as a "holding" abstract, and let them know that the real thing would follow ASAP.

The days slipped by, and, eventually, I got paid (direct deposit). However, I still didn't have my ATM card from the bank. So I went in to withdraw some cash, and found out that they had my card there ready to pick up, but the PIN had been sent to Uni (I hadn't yet received it). However, card in hand, I went to the web page and attempted to register. It didn't work--said that they card number is the wrong style for the type of card selected (I'd picked "MasterCard", because amongst the symbols on the card is one with two conjoined circles over which the word "Mastero" appears, and that looked like a reasonable Italian word for "Master Card". Nope. It turns out that this is not the same sort of debit card that works like a credit card I had in Australia. Talking to the co-worker who helped me obtain the bank account in the first place, she let me know (again? for the first time? I don't remember) that when we got the account we were told (in Italian, of course) that I'd need to return once I had the ATM card, and that I could then obtain a pre-paid credit card, which, my co-worker assures me, is better than a normal credit card in that it requires no credit check, no delays or waiting to obtain, and one can't run up debt on it, as one can only purchase items with it which cost the same or less than the amount one first put onto the card. Alas, the bank was closed for lunch just then, and when we tried later, it was closed for the evening. That was Friday. On Monday, as I've already recounted, I went on an Alpine Adventure, which was ever so much fun, but did mean that I didn't get to the bank. So on Tuesday I tried again, on my own this time (brave!), and managed it. The woman at my branch who speaks English doesn't have as large of a vocabulary as she would like, but we managed. Much to my surprise, given how long it took to get the ATM card, I walked out of there with a card in hand, and, since the first transfer of funds from my account to the pre-paid card was free, I'd asked her to go ahead and put 1000 Euros on it, since that should last a while before I needed to do it again (at a charge of 1 Euro if I do it on-line, or 2.50 if I go into the bank and they do it for me). She explained to me that for security reasons with this card before one uses it on line one needs to first create a "virtual card" on the bank's web page, and then use that card's number to make the purchase, and she showed me which buttons I'd need to accomplish this task.

That evening I attempted to register for the conference. I managed to create the virtual card, and had all the numbers I needed. Since I'd previously e-mailed him my registration details I e-mailed him with the card number to go with it. The next day I got a "sorry, the card was denied" e-mail.

Thinking that perhaps the virtual cards work only on line, I went to the conference web page, went through all of the pages, telling them my name, address, affiliations, uploading my abstract, selecting which field trips to attend, selecting the "don't need a room" option, letting them know of my food restrictions, etc. and, eventually, got to the payment screen. Entered in the number of the card, the security code, my full name (is that the form they want? It says "as printed on the card, but there is no card with my name on it--not even the physical card from which I generate the differently numbered virtual card), my address, etc. Then I pushed the "pay" button, and got a "card denied" error. Darn.

So I called the bank's help desk, where I found someone who is fluent in English (Yay!) who explained that there are two options with the virtual cards--a single use version, and a multiple use version. Apparently the single use versions don't work on many web pages because they actually do two transactions--one with no charge to ascertain that the card number is correct, and a second with the actual charge, which is denied, because the card has already been used for the first, zero balance, transaction. So I created a new virtual card of the second type and went through all of the registration steps again. This time, when I reached the final button of "enter payment details here" it brought me back to the "review your information before paying" screen, and there were a variety of error messages on the top of the screen. Darn.

So I e-mailed the conference people. Again. Explained about the errors (sent them a copy) and gave them the new, improved, card number. Then I found a cheap air fare to get me to Edinburgh and went to create a new virtual card to pay for it, and got an error message which Bablefish tells me says something to the effect that there is already a virtual card out there which hasn't expired, so I can't do a new one. I couldn't remember if I'd specified a cash limit when I created that card (if you don't then the entire amount on the card is available for transactions, if you do then only the amount you specify is available), so I logged into my bank account to see if I could figure it out. Looking there it showed that my prepaid card had a total of 100 Euros on it. Not 1000. WTF? So I called the bank back (got the same nice English speaking guy, who remembered me from earlier). He taught me how to use their phone system to log in so that he'd be able to see my account details on his end (no way would I have understood what the computer was asking for without his help!) and he confirmed that despite my having told the bank teller on three different occasions that I wanted her to put 1000 of my money on that card, she only did 100. This explains the *real* problem with my payment--the conference and field trips costs 135 Pounds, which is considerable more than 100 Euros. So he taught me how to re-charge my card myself to get it to a high enough balance that I could actually pay for the conference and air fare, and I did so. He suggested that if I go in and speak to the teller there is a chance that I may get the 1 Euro fee waived for having to do that myself so soon, since the error was hers.

So I e-mailed the conference people. Again. And explained that no, the credit card number I'd just sent them wasn't going to work, and here is a new, improved, number to use. Then I booked the air fare (having to start over, since the session had expired by then) and successfully used the virtual card to pay for it. Then I booked air fare home from the Textile Conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands. At that point it was late, and I was too tired to work out how I'm getting from Edinburgh to Eindhoven, so I called it a night and went home, where I stayed up late cooking food for the next day (because it is nicer to do the cooking after midnight, when it isn't so hot, and it is easier to just grab the already prepared food the next day, rather than cooking when I'm meant to be working).

This morning, despite the late night, I got up early, but I played hooky from uni work and instead when to the Natural History Museum with clovis_t. Their mineral collection is even more impressive than that which lines the halls here at uni (and the stuff here is very, very nice!) (he took photos if anyone is interested). They also have lots of dead things (both fossils and taxidermy) if you like such things. The near-by planetarium wasn't open today, nor was the (living) butterfly enclosure (just as well-those places tend to be really hot--I'll try that some time in the winter, when it will feel good). However, the Villa Belgiojoso Bonaparte Museo dell'Ottocento, which is across the street from the Natural History Museum Park, was open, so we wandered in there for a bit. What an opulent building. Some time after Napoleon quit using it it became a public building and houses an art collection. Unfortunately, the people who run the building didn't think things through when they decided to set a bunch of 22 cm high metal cubes scattered around the room that contains nothing else but a very lovely painting, on the ceiling. Yes, you guessed it, staring intently at the ceiling I failed to see the block. Felt it. Twice. Once when it impacted my right shin (leaving a small divot), and again when my right knee landed on it as I overbalanced and failed to correct. Ow! No, I can't remember what the painting was any more, why do you ask? (Ironically, I'd considered putting one of the small frozen bottles of water into my backpack before I left the house in the morning and decided against it. After that bump I wish I had--it would have felt nice to ice it straight away.)

After the morning's adventure we went home for a short nap and some lunch before coming in to uni, where I found an e-mail confirming that, finally, the conference payment worked, and I am registered. He let me know that he will be doing the booklet of abstracts next week, so please get him the final version by Monday, so I did a couple of minor edits and sent it off to him, letting him know that I'd also sent it to my advisor for comment, and promising to let him know if the advisor was happy with it, and if he wants any changes to get them turned in as soon as possible (and also let my advisor know about the Monday deadline). Then I celebrated the successful registration by starting to make the poster itself. I've got the first, most important, figure complete, and notes about what other figures I'll want to add later... Yay, Uni work!

Perhaps for my next trick I'll finish editing that paper for which I'm a co-author.

Comments

[madryn-1960.livejournal.com]

Isn't it jolly how one can just decide to slip out to another country for a few days! That's the best thing about being in Europe, apart fom the history. Everything is a stone's throw away.

Sorry about the heat. Poor Baby! Must be dreadful. But it's Ausgust now, Autumn will be lovely and it's coming very soon.

[kareina.livejournal.com]

It has been better the last couple of days--we got some mid-day rain (it had only rained a couple of times at night thus far), which did wonders to help bring it down a bit--I actually saw the thermometer inside drop all the way to 24 C.