kareina

On Tuesday I posted my "urgent to-do" list of Uni stuff to be done as soon as possible. On Wednesday I accomplished none of it (unless you count speaking with my boss about which conferences to attend next and downloading the appropriate abstract templates as "progress"). Wednesday evening was Dance Practice. We had a small turnout, just clovis_t (who didn't want to dance much, since his knee is still aching from too much sliding on the ice when he was in Scotland for the holidays), the family who hosts practice, and a single couch-surfer. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, since fewer people can mean better dancing, as it is easier to see the level to which they've learned each dance. After dance I stayed up way too late reading (having had two naps during the day when I could no longer stay awake), and enjoyed every moment of it.

Today I surprised myself by waking up reasonably early, despite the late hour at which I'd retired, and came in to the office, intending to be useful. I then proceeded to spend hours accomplishing small tasks unrelated to that to-do list, reading e-mail etc., and inviting people (using the Facebook invite tool) to join me in listing to Tania's upcoming House Concert in Talkeetna as it is also played live on line on Whole Wheat Radio. Eventually I decided that I was hungry and restless, so I went home, cooked a bit more food, and then finally got my hanging-pot rack installed (thanks to the loan of a drill by a friend at dance practice). With this accomplishment I can *finally* claim to be moved into The Closet. It has been bothering me to have my pots and pans stacked upon the wooden ice-chest in the living area, rather than hanging from the ceiling as they should be. Now that they are up the place looks *much* better, and it will be much easier to lift down the one I need from its hook, rather than having to lift the entire stack to get to the one on the bottom. Once I'd finished that task, and a variety of related clean-up details I took out the last of my restlessness with a quick 30-minute walk around the block and then returned to Uni, where I managed to get a good draft of a confrence abstract written by about midnight, and e-mailed off to my boss for comment. Good thing too, the original deadline for that confrence was Friday (fortunately, it has been extended till the 28th, but I'd still just as soon send it off promptly.

With luck tomorrow will see me crank quickly through the rest of the list before we head out to play D&D in the evening...

At long last I have obtained shelves for The Closet. IKEA delivered them this morning; less than four hours later I had them all assembled. Well, all but one last shelf. All of the others came with four little pegs upon which they rest wrapped in plastic and taped into a grove in the shelf. That one did not. I'm told that IKEA will probably replace the missing pegs, but I'm not looking forward to the several hours it will take to get public transit back out there, just to pick up one small handful of pegs. I may well check the local hardware store and see if they have something about the right size--if it costs less than the cost of public transit to IKEA it will be worth it to just buy them here. Heck, if they've got something close but a little bit too big, I could take it to the lab and use the lathe to make it the correct size...

I am much happier now that I've got the space available to organize my books and stuff when it arrives. Two more weeks! I can't wait. Why it takes so long to get here via truck from the UK, I don't know, but I am so looking forward to having stuff again! Kitchen toys! Garb! amrour, books! fabric! blankets and pillows and towels! games! Have I mentioned that it is only two more weeks?

My second experiment is running. I should have spent time this weekend getting the third one ready to go, but I didn't, and while they day is young, I'm tired, which is not the best time to weld tiny gold capsules, so I'll have to do it tomorrow morning. Afternoon won't work, I've got Italian class then... However, tomorrow morning I also need to polish the first experiment, as the epoxy we put it into will have cured by then, and once that happens we can take it to the microprobe and see the results.

Despite several late nights in a row, I woke up early this morning because I didn't want to miss my meeting with the owner of The Closet (as I've named my new home). This gave me time to get to the post office, where I posted the forms to the shipping company in England who is dealing with my stuff as it clears customs from Australia before heading to me here, and paid the fee for the Italian class in which I've enrolled. Then a quick stop at a store to buy some fresh sponges and a new broom (the student housing I've been staying at had a broom, so I haven't needed one yet) and, more importantly to break a 50 euro note--I wanted to have exact change for the cash portion of my transaction to obtain The Closet.

( The meeting took ages ) Eventually, he managed to convince the owner that the numbers were correct. After that we signed the forms, I got my keys, and we were free to go.

( That is when the real work started. )

Whilst scrubbing The Closet I did have one adventure brought about by being a bit too tired to think clearly. One of the tasks I decided upon for the day was moving the washing machine to a new location. I'd observed that the water hoses attached to the machine were plenty long enough to reach the new, improved, location. However, this goal was complicated by a minor problem. The kitchen sink/counter is both up off the floor standing on legs and attached to the wall behind. The washer hoses come out from the wall behind the sink, then pass along the floor under the cabinet and out between the legs of the cabinet to the back of the washer. In order to move the washer to the other wall it was necessary to get those hoses out from between the legs. Since the back of the cabinet is firmly affixed to the wall it wasn't possible to lift the legs and slide the hose under.

Therefore I decided to unhook the hoses. I did pause long enough to look under the cabinet and determine that the hoses disappear up somewhere behind the cabinet itself, with no sign of any kind of valve or attachment point visible. I started unscrewing the water inlet hose from the washer itself. It started dripping a bit of water as I unscrewed. I glanced again under the cabinet--nope, couldn't see any valves--they'd be up somewhere behind the cabinet. I thought "ok, better make this quick", pulled the bucket in reach and under where I was working and unscrewed the hose the rest of the way. Result: water gushing out of the hose at a very high rate of speed. oops. Quick! Put end of hose into the bucket. Bucket is very rapidly filling. Eeep! Stand up, move end of hose into sink. It *just* reaches. Now what? I can't let go, the hose would fall on the floor and gush water every were. Finally, at long last, and not a moment too soon, my brain wakes up. Open under-sink cabinet. Look in. Oh, look! Someone punched a hole in the back of the cabinet before attaching it to the wall so that one can reach the shut-off valve. Shut valve. Water stops. Pick up sponges (one in each hand) and commence moving the water from the floor into the bucket. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

It is a very good thing that this afternoon was on the warm side. I'd dressed in jeans and a t-shirt this morning, since it was coolish at 06:30 when I got up (and I knew I didn't want to wear my new skirt for house-cleaning), but by afternoon it was too hot to work wearing that much, so I'd taken everything off and was working nude, so when the kitchen floor and I got our shower it was just me getting wet, not my clothing. Oddly enough, once I'd managed to get the floor dry(ish), I decided to call it a day, since my brain was clearly not functioning.

That is why I didn't get any uni work done today. I suppose I *could* have tried doing some after cleaning, but given my demonstration of the brain not thinking things through, it is probably best that I didn't. Perhaps tomorrow I'll get the house ready to move into. I hope so. It takes only two minutes to walk down the four flights of stairs from The Closet, cross the street, walk up one flight of stairs and down the hall to my office. I'm looking forward to that commute. I'd also like to get the moving done ASAP so that I can return to the uni work. I want those experiments started, I want those papers ready to submit. Preferably before I hear back from my thesis examiners with a list of corrections to be made.