It's that time of year again, when the mallards just randomly walk into the caferetia and waddle underneath the tables munching at crumbs while people are having tea.
I love working on campus.
Tag: ducks
My waistline is expanding again
My exercise regime has been shite lately. And by lately, I mean since last october. There was the wedding, then Javapolis, then Xmas, then I just couldn't be bothered. As such, I've put on a stone. This does not please me.
I went to the gym yesterday and was happily surprised that I didn't die. I'm hoping to get the motivation to go every day this week. Katy and I are buddying up to go, as neither of us wants to be bothered otherwise.
There go those plans straight out the window
Not a happy bunny at the moment.
I got my passport and visa application back today. I have just pissed away 350 quid, as visa has been denied. Well, not so much denied as me being told that I don't qualify for it as I'm currently under a pseudo-diplomatic visa. Reading between the legalese, it means that as long as I work for the EBI, I need the clearance exception visa that I currently have. As long as I have that visa, I cannot qualify for a spousal visa. As long as I can't get the spousal visa, I can't start the citizenship process.
What's even worse though is that when my contract runs its course, I'll need to apply for a spousal visa to stay in the UK. I'll have been there 9 years, but none of those will count for anything, immigration-wise. I will not have a job anymore, but I won't be able to apply for any until I get the spousal visa. Having a job will go a long way to being able to get a spousal visa. Anybody see the nice catch-22 in the making?
On the plus side, a job is not really a requirement, as long as we can show that we have means to support ourselves. That's a strong incentive to start saving; and the golden handshake I get from the EBI should help with that as well.
Still, I do not need this aggravation now.
Not the bestest of weekends, but it ended well.
Katy and I drove up to Manchester this past Friday to go visit Anna and Rho, who were (finally) getting hitched. Google says it's a bit less than 200 miles, which should take about 4.5 hours. That is, of course, when it's not snowing and raining cats and dogs. The drive up north was fine until we hit the M56 coming into Manchester. Because of road works, poor visibility and truly appalling lack of signage, we completely missed our exit and ended up on the M60. Not too much of a problem, because we had directions on how to get to the hotel from the M60 ring road, so all good.
We were at junction 5. Our hotel was at junction 23. We just needed to drive a bit more and we'd get there eventually, right? That's what we thought, until we mysteriously ended up on the M62 headed for God know's where. We stopped at some services to get some tea and directions and finally got back on the motorway and get to our destination. The hotel was in sight!! But then we took a wrong turn and ended up halfway to Anna's before we found the way to the sodding hotel parking lot. Katy was drived-out by that time, so we took a cab to Anna and Rho's.
We had a bit of a chat/rant while I cooked some curry*, ate some and went back to our hotel for some sleep. We took the bus into town the next morning and had a bit of a pootle in the city center before meeting up with everybody in a pub before the registry office ceremony. The ceremony itself was nice and simple and quiet and cute, then everybody cabbed it back to Anna and Rho's house for a post-wedding party. I'd brought some food over the night before so that I'd have something allergy-friendly to eat for the party but, due to crossed wires, most of it god used to make sandwiches. Luckily, I was able to find lots of goodies here and there, so it worked out in the end.
I have to say, I'm getting old. I don't like large crowds where everybody has to shout to get heard over the music and everybody is trying their best to drink everything in sight. Give me a quiet dinner with a nice bottle of wine anytime. Like I said, I'm old and I'm proud of it. Now get off my lawn!!! We still had a nice time talking to people in small gatherings, so that was good. Saw Rita and Tim, which we hadn't seen since the wedding.
One thing I have to ask members of the sisterhood who read my blog. What the hell is the deal with lesbians and big leather bracelets and short, spiky haircuts???
Driving back home was an altogether completely different experience. It was nice and sunny on the way home and, just as we were nearing the M6/M1/A14 junction, we decided to surprise Katy's parents and drop in unexpectedly for dinner, causing a mild panic but it all turned out nicely. That was a fun way to end the weekend and we made our way home to Cambs to face the beasties and get ready for another week.
* We'd planned on inviting Anna and Rho to dinner on Friday night, but they had company coming and would be ordering up from a curry house. I proposed to cook dinner for them and had bought enough supplies to feed 8 people. However, because it took too long to get to Manchester, they had to order in anyway so the mountain of curry I made – though highly acclaimed – was relegated to tupperware in the fridge :(
That's not good.
– I need to be angry. If I'm angry, I'm not sad.
– That's a fucked up philosophy.
– I know, but it gets me through the day
– We need to talk.
Once more unto the breach.
I had my first allergic reaction serious enough to scare me yesterday in close to two years. I'm really not happy about it. In fact, angry, frustrated and scared would be better words.
I don't know how it happened, or why. They say that, statistically, a person with food allergies will react once every two years, no matter how paranoid you are. Something will slip through and bite you in the ass. Well, yesterday, I got bitten.
Sometime during the afternoon, about an hour after lunch, my right eye started to itch and swell up. When I went to the bathroom, I found that my face was red and blotchy. I think I scared my coworkers. I took some benadryl and started to wait it out. In the end, my nerves got the better of me and I asked for a coworker to drive me to Addenbrookes. In my heart of hearts though, I knew it was a waste of time because by that time, the benadryl was kicking in and the blotchiness was gone. I no longer itched and the swelling wasn't getting any worse. As I pretty much predicted, by the time I was seen by the triage nurse and told that “somebody would see me shortly”, I felt ok. I then proceeded to spend the next hour cooling my heels in the waiting room until Katy arrived to join me and we decided to just go home. By that time, most of the swelling in my eye was gone and there wasn't anything they would have done anyway.
What really frustrates me though is that I don't know what caused my reaction. What we had for lunch was leftovers from the previous night's dinner and that was perfectly fine. I was finally at a point in my life where I could happily (well, most of the time) live with my allergies. I was comfortable. Now, that's gone. I'm paranoid again about every thing I eat. I know I need to just jump back into the saddle and try and get over this as soon as I can, but it's easier said than done. Is it just something that I know I'm already allergic that slipped in somehow? Maybe it was something on the cup that I got from the cafeteria and later used to drink my tea. Maybe it was something that fell into the dish from the communal microwave. Maybe…. maybe… maybe.
Maybe my body decided to hate me some more and become allergic to something new, which will mean I'll need to overhaul my diet again and make it even more restrictive. Maybe… maybe… maybe.
*sigh*
I'll just have to work through the list of ingredients that I had for lunch and see if something comes up again. Hopefully, it won't. That'll mean it was just “one of those things” and I'll be able to leave it behind me and go back to living, instead of being afraid.
The good news though is that I know I'm surrounded by people who care and will look after me if bad things happen. This helps a lot.
Craptabulous.
I'm in a astonishingly bad mood today, and I don't know why.
Walking the tightrope…
Feeling iffy these days. The holidays were a bit draining, and now I'm worrying about stuff that I shouldn't need to worry about (like the roof) and concentrate about stuff I should be worried about (like money, kids, immigration and long term life plans).
I have a feeling it's going to be a bumpy year, even if I'm actively hoping it won't be.
The weekend, and then Belgium!
Saturday was a good day, and it wasn't. The rover was booked for its yearly MOT so we drove in to Saffron Walden and, after a few turn arounds, found the garage. The mechanic had been recommended by someone at work and he was going to have a look at the brakes, which had been mentioned at the last MOT, and then test the car. While that was going on, we went window shopping in town and had breakfast at a decent little greasy spoon called Mocha.
The MOT didn't go according to plan at all. when we called the dude to see if he was done, he told us that the car needed work done. a lot of it. It needs a complete new exhaust, two back tires, break pads in the front and possibly shoes in the back. Parts and labour in upwards of 500 quid. That's the bad news. The good news is that he's going to try and give us a good price for all the work that needs to be done, as well as a full service and have it all done by next monday. [In retrospect, that was optimistic as hell as it turned out to cost upwards of 850 quid, which is probably more than the car is worth at this point in its life. Still, according to Katy, it's like driving a new car right now, so at least some good came out of it]
We had plans to have dinner with Phil and Caroline, but it was now rather difficult to get to their place. Being cheeky, I asked Phil for a lift so we were still on for dinner. It was a nice evening, with lots of food and lots (and lots!) of wine.
Another bit of bad news was that we found that it's physically impossible to get a taxi at midnight on a saturday night in the middle of nowhere, unless you've pre-booked it. We hadn't, so after a dozen futile calls, we resigned ourselves to sleep on an inflatable mattress in the middle of the sitting room and Phil would drive us home tomorrow morning in time for me to get my cab to Heathrow and for Katy to go to work.
The morning was rough. I did something incredibly stupid which was to go to bed drunk without rehydrating myself and my head let me know just how silly that was at 5am. Lots of water later and a few advil, my headache cleared and the trip to Heathrow and subsequent flight to Brussels was routine. Once we'd landed, we got our kit and took the train to Antwerp. Hotel check in went surprisingly smoothly and we went to get some food. We found an italian restaurant close by that had good food but a truly weird italian landlord that was just… well weird.
The food was good and plentiful and reasonably priced, so I'm willing to put up with eccentricities. We chilled at the hotel for a bit then went to the conference center to pick up our conference packs and get dinner. We actually skipped dinner cause we were too full from our late lunch, so we only had hot chocolates at a little cafe near the venue.
I'm looking forward to the conference as it promises to be really, really interesting. at the same time though, I wish I was back home giving comfort to the katylady. She's feeling rough physically and low mentally. Her job is stressing her our and putting her in a bad place. A hangover and a dodgy stomach really aren't helping today either. as much as I'm looking forward to the conference, I'm looking back to being back in cambs to be with her :(
The first day of the conference went well. I had a decent night's sleep, given the fact that the bed is smallish, and the duvet doesn't cover me completely. Still, it was ok. Had breakfast at the hotel and we decided to walk to the conference center. We thought it would only take about 10 minutes, but that turned out to be closer to 25. It was a miserable, grey day too. Fun fun fun. The good news though is that the pastries they serve for breakfast at the conf center are simply sinful. I mean… I had 3. I'm a bad bad man, but I couldn't help myself.
In my defence though, it was a good thing because I had to skip lunch because they only served pre-packaged sandwiches with no ingredient labels on them. With all the sugar I had in the morning, I have to say that I really wasn't very hungry by lunchtime.
I managed to snag a Duke stress ball and a raffle ticket from Sun (it's a classic gimmick, they throw the stress balls in the crowd and the people who catch them can enter a prize draw – except that the speakers forgot to throw the thingies during their talks, so I just walked to one of the speakers at the end of the session and simply asked for one :D)
We got back to the hotel and chilled again before going to dinner. With my lack of lunch, I was feeling ravenous. The evening was a bit disappointing. Our guide was a typical man, who was convinced he was leading us to the promised land of good restaurants. After 20 minutes of walking in the rain, we settled for the first one we could find where we could all eat. It was ok. Decent food, but pricey and it took a solid hour for us to get the food after we ordered. When it was time to go back to the hotel, we decided to go for the cab option. It took another 20 minutes for the cabs to arrive. Sometimes, I really, really miss Taxi Co-Op…
Then there's the bank saga… I didn't have time to get any euro before I left the UK so I've been bumming off people here as I only have pounds on me. The night manager told me that there's an ING cash machine “nearby”. It took 15 minutes to walk there in the pouring rain for me to realize that it won't accept either of my cards. I was not a happy camper walking back to the hotel. My coat and jeans are currently hanging up to dry. They should be fine by tomorrow and I'll try again at other banks if I can find any.
I also found out that the hotel wireless network is extremely wonky. For some asinine reason, I can log on correctly the first time I get a new daily access code from the lobby, but if I hibernate my computer, I need to stop the DHCP and DNS client services on my laptop, flush my DNS cache and then turn everything back on before I can connect properly *. Still, it works – which is more than I can say for the wireless at the conference center, which was abysmal. It's almost pitiful, given the fact that this is an IT conference…
Ah well, off to bed now.
* Having said that, it might honestly be my laptop. It seriously need a complete reinstall. It's starting to act truly bizarrely at times…
People conspire to annoy the hell out of me today
A lot of my daily work time is spent answering support emails. Usually, people ask questions that fall into a few general categories and these are quickly dealt with. Once in a while, they have a genuine bug to report or encounter a snag we haven't seen before. All of which are ok.
Once in a while though, you get dumbasses.
We have a very comprehensive user manual for all the projects we work on. It takes a lot of time to make sure it's up to date and complete. It is. Sadly, the dumbasses never seem to use it.
I have just spent the last 15 minutes politely answering questions sent by email when all I want to do is send a one liner that would simply state “clearly, you haven't read the fucking manual”.
One day, I will.