And why is this my third time on the phone? First time after holding for 45 minutes I gave up and took the option to leave a message and have someone call me back....then I called again several hours later and was told that they are having phone problems and not getting messages. So....just brainstorming a. Little here...how bout answering the phones and not directing patients to leave voicemail when you know that option doesn't work??? I can mostly handle the itchiness during the day, heck, it's far better than the pain, but suspect my recovery would be better if I could sleep....

I'm definitely setting a record for my worst night at the bookstore.

The high points of my day so far: eating one of the chocolate caramel sugarbomb things the Infamous BlueJay made, creating a brand new readme for the dayjob out of thin air, and realizing that the fancy printer work sent me is also a copier, so I can photocopy pages from my spooky gothy coloring books.

I am a simple creature, sometimes.

Today is rather warm here in Southern California. Since the office is not air conditioned, work progress has been slow. Thankfully, one of the faculty was on campus, and stopped by. Had a nice chat. That ate up a good hour. Aside from that, updated a handful of spreadsheets, and installed a temp sound board in the theater on the other side of campus. Also, forgot a test CD to test said mixer out. By the time I got back to my office, I was dripping in sweat, by knee brace was too. Ick. I decided to wait until the end of the day to test the system, and I can drive over, then when done, leave!

In the mean time, things you learn when texting with the neice. Apparently she is on the Cross Country Team in High School! She has her first meet on Saturday! Woot.

Hello. I'm skipping, and writing based on Beep Me.

tommyrot, I am so sorry about your father. ~ma to you and your family.

Welcome, Matilda Juniper Griswold! I can't wait to hear more about you. And to see more pictures, obviously.

David, I hope Emmett located well, and that Matilda found that solace.

Connie, continued ~ma. shrift and JulieBird and Sue, I hope your parents are better.

Yay Aims! Go teacher-you!

erin, I hope the surgery went well. Much recovery~ma.

As for myself, I have a ceasefire and I found an apartment to move to in J-lm (actually, both happened on the same day. Maybe the Fucking Brutal Summer That Keeps On Giving is really about to end someday). It's cheap, close to a campus with a botanical garden I love and the National Library I love to work from on my days off, has the Best Roommate Eveh who is a geek and a good person and a living room that I want to torch badly but will compromise on urgent redecoration instead. Most of it looks like a local shelter for bad furniture that nobody wanted to adopt for free. But since the roommate is awesome I don't think it will be a huge issue.

Job is kicking my ass and vice-versa. I was there for just under two months when they told me they're moving me to tier 3 support position for technical librarianship questions and issues (I never did support of any kind before, yeah?). So while I still think I don't know enough about some things, I think it means they think well of me. And that in about six months I'll be really good at it. And that I'm about to ask for a hell of a raise comes December, cause dude, that was not what I signed up for (though it's also nice).

Lastly, the question that actually brought me here. Darlings, do you know what the plural of compactus is? (the library shelving solution, see: [link] ).

Crazy busy and miss y'all.

Darlings, do you know what the plural of compactus is?

I'd pluralize the word that comes after - Compactus shelves or Compactus systems since the Compactus part is the brand name.

Congratulations on everything, Shir!

Congrats on the apartment, Shir!

The school of science here just sent out an email to all the faculty, looking for people who'll judge an undergrad research exhibition. I thought, "I could do that -- it could be fun, and it'll look good on my CV." Then I looked at the date. It's Rosh Hashanah. Seriously, people? Does anybody actually look at that list the university sends out at the beginning of the semester that lists holidays when you shouldn't schedule things?

No comments since this morning? Where is everyone?

I survived the first week of classes. I caught a cold, but that's probably to be expected. I've got way too many students, but so far, they seem to be understanding the material and asking good questions. A few grade-grubbers so far, but at least they've identified themselves early. And all of my classrooms have moveable desks (not the kind bolted to the floor) and a ton of blackboard space, so that's good.

I stayed up too late last night and then I looked at tumblr until I went to therapy.

Where I cried. This seems to be a theme. I did bring up my body image issues and after the appointment I made one for the psychiatrist so we can try going off the Lithium. And I also asked about the nutrionist, trying to figure out of pocket costs. But the office manager said, that the nurse practioner could do that under medical coding and that she's not under my insurance but the practice is working (or fighting really) with the insurance to get her added. The insurance company keeps saying they cant' find the contract.

Which made me feel 1000% better because they are actually advocating for me and that feels huge right now.

And then I had a late lunch/early dinner with Will.

I also called Mom and while I haven't cleaned per se, I did put 5 things in my To Get Rid of Pile and those may go to Goodwill tomorrow.