Joie de Kitty

Moving

2009-09-24T16:00:00.002+01:00

I've decided to move over to WordPress to be able to password-protect posts. There are a lot of things I have to say that I don't want the Internet at large to read. Plus I'd like to be able to post pictures of myself. So come find me at http://joiedekitty.wordpress.com/ and don't be shy about asking for the passwords of any of the posts you'd like to read. (And don't worry, there will be plenty of public posts as well.)

Sticking it to the man

2009-09-22T19:53:00.000+01:00

I am not normally a "stick it to the man" sort of person. But my insurance company is ticking me off at the moment... they're dragging their feet on reimbursing me for 3100 francs' worth of MRI/CAT scans. Usually they reimburse within a month, but it's been two months now and I'm still waiting.

So I got smart and quit paying up front. Over the past two weeks, I've managed to have the radiology center, the hospital and the pharmacy send about 10,000 francs' worth of bills straight to insurance. (A franc is worth about 98 cents at the moment, so yes, this is a lot of money!) I still have 450 francs' worth of bills that have to be paid up front, but that's a lot better than 10,000!

Maybe now the insurance company will start picking up their feet...

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my job?

2009-09-22T18:41:00.001+01:00

Today I read about full-penetration butt welds. (In the context of subsea wellhead drilling equipment.) This is a perfectly standard, acceptable piece of terminology. And it just about had me in the floor.

I swear, y'all, I can't make this stuff up!

They're never going to believe me now! ;)

2009-09-18T19:34:00.000+01:00

Everybody asks me where I get my hair dyed. They love the color. Well, the answer is, I don't dye my hair! It takes people a long time to get it through their heads that my hair is all natural.

So. One of the side effects of my not-chemo is that it can turn your hair white. And sure enough, I have super light-blonde/white roots growing in. I don't think anybody will ever believe me again when I say my hair isn't dyed!

(Mom called me a skunk when she saw my hair over the webcam this morning. Thanks, Mom!)

(The girls in my dorm prefer to think of it as my wisdom showing... I kinda like that explanation.) ;)

My Tanakh got here today!

2009-09-16T19:51:00.002+01:00

And I'm over the moon with excitement. Which probably makes me weird. But that's alright -- being weird can be a good thing. And hey -- there are worse things to get excited about. ;)

Woo-Hoo!

2009-09-10T09:48:00.002+01:00

Today is Day One of my "poison pill" break! Here's to hoping that my body will have more energy and start to heal some over the next two weeks. I really want to be able to taste food again...

Portrait of my teddy bear

2009-09-09T09:33:00.002+01:00

The teddy bear my friends gave me in the hospital, plunked down on the bed by my mom:

I thought he looked pretty cute like that. :)

The other five

2009-09-08T20:41:00.002+01:00

6. I love the weather we're having! Nice and cool, with clear blue skies. Nothing better.
7. I love that my workplace is doing everything they can to make my life easier. They have really stepped up and gone to bat for me, and it's really humbling.
8. I love that my friends are inundating my mailbox with postcards. It's great to get mail that isn't doctor-related!
9. I love my wedge pillow and my bed tray. Working in bed in your pjs has its perks.
10. I love Skype. I so could not get through this without getting to see my mom's face.

10 things to love about today

2009-09-07T11:04:00.002+01:00

I stole this from In The Pink. I only have five so far, but the day's not yet half over, so I'm a little ahead...

1. I love that I got a full night's sleep last night. That hasn't happened in a long time!

2. I love that I only have two more chemo pills to take! (Well, for this round of treatment, anyway.) It's going to be so nice to give my body a break from poison.

3. I love that I'm getting to start building my Jewish library. Amazon.com loves that, too. ;)

4. I love that my room is clean and dust-free. You do NOT want to know what came out from under the bed yesterday.

5. I love that I get to start working again this week! I've been on sick leave for two months, and that's more than enough for me, thankyouverymuch. I'll be working from home this week instead of going in to the office, but I'll be helping get our backlog taken care of.

Five more to come later!

This is your brain on chemo

2009-09-06T11:44:00.001+01:00

So, we already know that I'm having trouble counting to three, which is pretty sad if you ask me. Another thing I can't do: hold anything steady. This morning I put on a load of clothes, including my favorite pair of sweatpants. Then I put on my second-favorite (read: only other) pair and started making tuna salad. Halfway through opening the tuna can, I drop it... and get thick, greasy tuna oil all over my pants. The only clean pair I have. So I washed them out in the sink -- and spill detergent in the floor. At this point, the whole shaky hand thing is getting pretty annoying.

The silver lining is that spilling the detergent motivated me to sweep my floor, which means there are no more hairball/dust bunnies living under the bed. They got relegated to the trash can. Poor little bunnies. ;)

Wild goose chase

2009-09-05T20:32:00.002+01:00

This afternoon I went to the grocery store to stock up on some basics... eggs, milk, tuna, soft sandwich rolls (sliced bread is rough!)... you get the idea. Left the bottom floor of the supermarket with two bags of groceries and went up to the middle floor to buy chocolate. Smelled something warm and good on the chocolate floor and went to go investigate... onion/cheese foccacia for 3.90. Perfect lunch. Grabbed some, put it in the chocolate bag and hurried out to try to get home by the time my mom wanted to call me.

So I sat at the tram stop for 5 or 10 minutes, finally getting on one that goes a few blocks away from where I normally like to get off. I get off and notice that I have a problem... only two bags. The chocolate/foccacia bag (the most important one!) was missing. Okay. Wait at the tram stop for 10 minutes to catch the tram back to where I started from. Get in tram. Go one stop before realizing... hey, it smells like foccacia in here. I shouldn't be able to smell it if it isn't here. Bag recount! One... two... oh, hey, here's the third bag. I was carrying it all along.

Of course, by now I'm going the wrong way to get home, so I have to get off and wait at the tram stop for another 5 minutes to get the right tram. Got home half an hour later than I wanted to. I really wonder about the state of my mind sometimes...

My stepdad is evil ;)

2009-09-05T20:07:00.001+01:00

He got this song stuck in my head:

This cracked me up

2009-09-04T10:25:00.000+01:00

So, I'm on Amazon looking up the Torah edition that my rabbi recommended and here's what I see:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #100,557 in Books

Popular in these categories:

#13 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > Bible & Other Sacred Texts > Sacred Writings > Torah
#24 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > Bible & Other Sacred Texts > Sacred Writings > Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) > Study
#46 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Atheism

Gotta love it!

I finally did it!

2009-09-03T17:42:00.002+01:00

I plucked up the courage to meet with the rabbi of the synagogue I've been attending for the past 5 months to talk about conversion. We talked about the long, slow process of disconnection that I've had with certain aspects of Christianity over the past few years, how I started getting interested in Judaism, how I see Torah and the Law fitting in with my everyday life, and my opinions on the roles assigned to men and women in Judaism (because boy, do I have opinions on gender equality!)

Conversion classes don't officially start until late winter/early spring, but I've got a great reading list to get started on and I've ordered the Torah and commentary that the rabbi recommended (which will quite conveniently arrive the week of Simchat Torah, so I can start from the beginning with everyone else).

I'm so relieved that this first official step is taken care of!

Wow, I feel like a normal person!

2009-09-01T15:19:00.002+01:00

Tonight I finally got to go see the latest Harry Potter movie. In the movie theater. Like a normal person. It's the first non-doctor-related outing I've had in a whole week! It is, however, the first time I've gone to the movies and not eaten popcorn -- I can't taste it. So I snuck in a chocolate bar instead. ;)

Cool mural

2009-08-25T14:25:00.003+01:00

Mom never did make it inside the UN, but we really liked the mural outside...

On my own again

2009-08-25T13:21:00.002+01:00

I dropped my mom off at the airport this morning. It's hard to believe she's been here for 7 weeks... in the beginning it was weird to have her here in my world, and now it's weird to have her gone. No more late night giggling, squeezing past two beds stuck in a 6-foot-wide room, yummy homemade meals, lost slippers...

So now it's gross and grey and rainy outside, and I've gone through all my school folders and tossed a bazillion files in the recycling and read the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and eaten a whole box of lemon cookies.

Gotta find something else to do. Maybe photo editing...

What I did today

2009-08-18T21:08:00.003+01:00

(minus the dancing. Dancing would have been better than taking 20 different photos before getting one that was acceptable for the new non-EU foreigner cards they're giving us.)

I was number 279 today. Two-and-a-half-hour wait... average, I guess. But I have been in the OCP waaaaaaaaay too much this year.

On hold

2009-08-04T12:25:00.001+01:00

I had a whole bunch of projects for this summer. Finish thesis. (Man, how I would like for that thesis to be finished!) Prepare presentation and defend thesis. Check out the kosher butcher and baker in town, as well as the kosher aisles in the grocery store. Start observing basic kosher rules. Start observing Shabbat (and find someone to observe with!) Talk to the rabbi (probably several times, knowing how those things go) to get set to start conversion classes.

But first I had to spend two weeks in the hospital (got out the day I was supposed to defend my thesis) and I'm working on getting better at home now. And very soon I'll be put on a medicine whose most common side effect is extreme feelings of fatigue, which make it hard to do just about anything. So I don't know how to plan anymore. And I'm the sort of person who insists on having a plan. Guess I'll have to work on that some.

Gotta get used to being on hold...

Pli interfessaire

2009-07-30T14:45:00.002+01:00

Seriously. That's the most awesome word I've learned in a long time. It's the way the hospital refers to what is commonly known as a buttcrack. Literally, it means "inter-buttock fold". I love that. ;)

Progress

2009-07-29T09:34:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I took a pain pill... because my head hurt. If that's the only part of me that hurts two weeks after major surgery, I think that's pretty good! :)

Get out of jail free ;)

2009-07-27T09:36:00.002+01:00

Happy coming home day to me,
Happy coming home day to me,
Happy coming home day to me...
Happy coming home day to me!!!

I was supposed to come home on Friday, but I got sick Thursday night so they kept me in for the weekend. Which turned out to be good, because I feel a lot better today than I did Friday. More energy, less pain/discomfort.

I get a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner tonight -- yay!

You know your mother loves you when

2009-07-25T09:33:00.000+01:00

she washes and wipes your butt and changes your diaper. When you're in your 20s.
she holds back your hair when you're vomiting.
she washes the vomit off your glasses. (How do you vomit on your glasses, anyway?)
she spends the night at the hospital in a reclining chair next to your bed. Not comfy.

24-hour stomach bugs are no fun (especially when you have a 10-inch incision across your abdomen)...

I did NOT take a picture

2009-07-12T21:48:00.003+01:00

of the naked blue man in tighty whiteys and a cotton fluff. Even if he thinks I did. I just took a picture of the advertisement on our table:

"I have an emergency!"

2009-07-06T20:32:00.002+01:00

This is not what you want to have your mother saying as she bursts into your room less than 48 hours after arriving in Switzerland.

She was making lunch while I was hanging out in bed. She had already brought the tuna salad to me for a taste test and all she had left to do was make toast. I figured maybe she caught the toast on fire in the kitchen and was going to tell her to go take care of it herself, but then I saw blood. A lot of it.

She had seen my brand-new (not-yet-opened) knife in the cupboard and decided she ought to wash it. It dropped while she was washing it and she tried to catch it... and it landed point-down in her wrist.

Anyway, so she was pleading with me to hurry up because she was bleeding out and she felt really faint and she thought she needed an ambulance. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get decent clothes on my body and a pair of shoes on my feet, but I can't get at my shoes because they're too far under my desk. I see a pair of her size 8 slip-ons poking out from under the bed and decide that the best course of action would be to cram them on my size 11 feet.

We get her downstairs in the elevator and I call for an ambulance. I explain that my mom has stabbed herself with a knife and thinks she's going to faint and needs to get to the hospital. The dispatcher asks me how old she is, what her health is like, and... whether or not it was an accident. (Don't worry, it was definitely an accident.)

The paramedics walk over from next door, asking me if this is really the address they're supposed to come to. Yep. I talk to them out front while Mom is bleeding all over my favorite washcloth inside and freaking out about how long it takes to bleed out and die when you slit your wrists. The bleeding finally stops and they take her blood pressure and get us to the hospital.

As we're getting Mom checked in at the emergency room, she remembers that she left toast in the oven on the highest temperature possible. So the paramedics call down to their center, "Salut Olivier. Tu pourrais aller au foyer à côté et leur dire d'éteindre le four au quatrième? Madame a laissé des toasts dedans..." Then they look over at me and wink and say, "The fire department's already there." Hey, not funny!

According to the nurse, there was an unusually large number of accidents that day, so it took awhile to get Mom in. Luckily for her, she managed to stab herself right between the artery and the tendon, just barely missing both. Now she's cleaned up and stitched up and should be fine in a week or so...

Reason #75 to like Switzerland

2009-07-04T10:03:00.001+01:00

Good health insurance. I'll be AWOL for awhile... just found out I have to have surgery. But my mommy is coming! Yay!

Reason #74 to like Switzerland

2009-07-01T13:56:00.003+01:00

I get a paid day off to move! This is a welcome relief from all the stress this move has entailed... now hopefully I'll have everything more or less set up by the time I go back to work tomorrow.

Learning to read

2009-06-26T14:04:00.005+01:00

I don't remember learning how to read when I was a little kid. Accounts from various family members differ slightly, but they all agree that I was able to read Dick-and-Jane-type books aloud, by myself, with minimal help, by the time I turned 2 years old. Apparently my mom taught me to read using Hooked on Phonics... but, like I said, I don't remember.

I never really realized how unusual that was when I was a kid. I remember going to the bathroom one day in preschool and seeing a memo to the teachers posted up on the wall by the toilet. I read it and didn't understand something it said, so I asked the teacher about it when I got back to the classroom. Apparently it really freaked her out, and when my mom came to pick me up that afternoon, the teacher said, "Do you know that she can read?!" To which my mother replied, "Yes, I told you that at the beginning of the year, remember?" But that exchange didn't happen in front of me, so I didn't realize that being able to read the teachers' memo was such a big deal. Plus, I wasn't the only kid in the preschool who could read -- they took a group of five or so of us out of our reading lessons with Dick and Jane every week and started teaching us to write. (I still don't hold a pen properly, by the way... supposedly this is because the muscles in my hands weren't developed enough when they started teaching me to write.)

Then, for elementary school, I went to a magnet school for gifted and talented children. Everybody in my kindergarten class could read and write. Each week we had to write two or three sentences about what we had done over the weekend. One Monday I wanted to write about something we'd done in Girl Scouts, but I didn't know how to spell the word "twenty". When I asked the teacher, she told me to go look it up in the dictionary -- we had illustrated children's dictionaries stacked up on a counter on the far end of the room. Another time, we read The Little Old Man Who Could Not Read. His wife went out of town and told him what to buy at the store. But he couldn't read the labels, so he bought things based on the shape and size of the packaging. So he was very disappointed to get home and figure out that he had bought wax paper instead of spaghetti, salt instead of sugar, etc. I had such a hard time believing that there was such a thing as a grown man who couldn't read.

When I was 10, the TV show "Christy" began to air. There's an episode where Christy teaches Fairlight Spencer to read using the Bible, and I was so jealous. How come I didn't get to learn to read using the Bible? I loved my Bible -- it had a pink cover with gold embossed lettering and Precious Moments illustrations. Plus everything that Jesus said was printed in red instead of black. And our preacher had signed it for me when I was baptized the year before. My grandmother gave me that Bible, and I was heartbroken when it was stolen out of my backpack at school a few years later.

Well, here I am, 15 years later, learning to read Hebrew. The only text I have at home with Hebrew and Hebrew transliterated into the Latin alphabet is a photocopy of the Pesach Haggadah that my synagogue uses, so I am practicing with it. I'm still at the point where I see the Hebrew and my brain freaks out thinking that it's unreadable gibberish, but when I force myself to sound it out, I manage halfway decently. I'm still too slow to follow along in the Hebrew side of the Siddur, but hopefully with some time and study and patience, that will come, too. (I guess I should be waiting until Hebrew classes start in September to do this, but I'm not exactly a patient person.)

15 years ago I never imagined that one day I'd get to learn to read with prayerbooks and the like... too cool. :)

Now I know my ABCs?

2009-06-22T15:41:00.002+01:00

So, last week I learned the alphabet song in Hebrew, so I know the names of the letters and what order they go in.

This week's challenge: learn to recognize them all and write them correctly. I'm at the point right now where I can sing my ABCs, but I can't tell the difference between P and T. Can someone please tell me why hay and chet look so much alike? Or dâlet and chaf sofît? Or shin and sin?

Sure, I could wait until Hebrew classes start in September to do this, but I want to be able to read along in the Hebrew side of the Siddour now, darnit. (I never was good at patience.)

So I'm copying and recopying and recopying the alphabet. My poor alephs are pathetic looking. And I need to make some flashcards. I feel kind of like a little kid drilling math facts or something...

Things I didn't expect to see today

2009-06-19T15:44:00.003+01:00

1. A hijabi riding a motorcycle down by Gare Cornavin.

2. An electric company truck repairing a power line -- while jacked up over a foot off the ground so that the workers in the truck's arm could reach the line.

3. I'm sure I'll come up with more as the day goes on...

Edit: I saw another very unexpected thing today! But I probably shouldn't say what... suffice to say, my eyes are burning. ;)

Score!

2009-06-18T19:57:00.001+01:00

I just talked to my mom yesterday about how badly I need a suitcase and how expensive they are here. Well, I stopped by the grocery store on the way home today, and what do you know! They had all their luggage on sale for 50% off. So I got a big suitcase to replace the one I busted a zipper on a few months ago, and it only cost $70! (And it's bright purple.) My little suitcase and its matching carryon bag are still in good shape, so I didn't replace them.

Talk about a great coincidence!

Crashing into teddy bears

2009-06-16T19:42:00.002+01:00

I got in and out of the OCP today in an hour. Awesome. I was reflecting on my luck in the bus, where there was a really little kid squirming around in the seat across from me. When the bus took off, she flew through the air and belly-flopped on my knee by accident. Cried so much the bus driver had to stop and come back to make sure she was okay (she was). The poor mom was so embarrassed and kept apologizing to me over and over. I was fine... little kid tummies are pretty soft. I swear, these things only happen to me!

This proves my point.

2009-06-14T19:17:00.001+01:00

This is why you never, ever trust anyone who says they can translate into multiple languages: because unless they're completely bilingual (which is very rare, even in Europe), they can't. Case in point: AZ translation center. They claim to be the best rated around the world for translations into English. Here's an excerpt from their website:

Functional approach to translation

We apply style known as functional approaching to translation in Translation Center: translated document shall be used as original of its text in adopted culture. It means that if document is legal document, it shall be considered in legal document form. If it's in technical means, target shall be corresponded to all weight and size used in the culture.

We translate everything page by page, too. You will get prints, colors, distances, graphics, formats, headings in formalization form under original. Each of person using from translation will not need to go to other place for checking translation and words among original, sentences, annexes or extracts. We are pleasure to present translations of title papers and when a lot of document translations been in normal format you are getting title paper format without any expenditure.

Translation Center provides services for some business, schools, hospitals, organization of health and service to people, law companies, banks, art organization and individuals. Clients include great multinational businesses, local small business and individuals. We are center of full service with service in language more than 30. Majority of our clients are in Baku, but we have national and international clients in increasing number.

Current earworm

2009-06-13T18:52:00.001+01:00

48 hours ago, I couldn't recite the Hebrew alphabet beyond aleph and bet. Now I can't get it out of my head...

Good dog!

2009-06-12T14:36:00.000+01:00

The group sitting next to us at the restaurant today at lunch had a dog that looks a lot like my dog Lucy. The dog was all sweet and friendly with us, and we enjoyed talking with its owners. Near the end of our meal, though, some panhandlers came up and started pestering us for money... and the dog barked ferociously and lunged at them and made them run away. It was pretty awesome.

I have a confession to make.

2009-06-11T21:07:00.001+01:00

It's me. I'm the sock monster. I'm the reason half your socks don't have mates.

Good thing the sock I vacuumed up today wasn't from one of my favorite pairs!

Toto, we aren't in Switzerland anymore

2009-06-09T21:04:00.002+01:00

I decided to engage in some much-needed retail therapy today. While I was on the way to the store in the tram, I sneezed really loudly. The lady next to me said, "A vos souhaits!" That has never happened to me here before.

Then a lady in front of me got into a coughing fit. A man she didn't know asked if she was okay and offered her and her friends some Certs. I've definitely never seen that happen here before!

Maybe it's something in the water lately...

(And happy birthday, Mom! I love you!)

Nice TPG man

2009-06-07T21:00:00.002+01:00

Today I bought a bike! But I bought it in France and I don't have a helmet, so I had to take it home in public transport. I checked on the TPG website beforehand to make sure I could, and they say you can take bikes on the weekend. Perfect.

Except that only trams go out to France, and you're not allowed to take bikes on trams. Or so the tram driver said. But I explained the situation to him, so he let me sneak the bike in the very back car.

So, now that it's home, where am I supposed to park it???

Done!!!

2009-06-02T20:55:00.001+01:00

With the writing part of my thesis, that is. Now I just have to edit it... There really is a light at the end of the tunnel!

I'm alive.

2009-05-27T20:31:00.002+01:00

I got to sing in the concert last night. I don't know how I managed to get through the last four days of rehearsals, but I did. A lot of my fellow choir members wondered what on Earth I was doing there since I was so obviously ill, but I managed to drink enough cough syrup with codeine last night so as not to interrupt any of the soloists. I'm sure all pay for that tomorrow! But the concert went great and I'm glad I was able to be a part of it.

And now I'm going to sleep.

How many languages do your Kleenex come in?

2009-05-21T18:28:00.000+01:00

I'm starting to get pretty bored with this staying home and getting well thing, so I decided to read the bottom of my Kleenex box. It has 19 different languages on it. Who knew?!

Bad timing

2009-05-19T08:10:00.002+01:00

I am home sick from work today. Not only do I have a super-urgent project with a tight deadline, but my choir concert is next week and I'm afraid I won't be well enough in time to perform.

I need all the get-well vibes y'all can muster...

What color are you supposed to be, again?

2009-05-17T10:13:00.002+01:00

I went to the grocery store yesterday to buy ingredients for onion soup. But when I got over to the onion display, all the onions were... white?

Onions aren't white, onions are yellow.

I'm standing there, terribly confused as to why these white things are labelled "oignons" when clearly they aren't, and then it hits me:

Oh, yeah. They sell white onions in the States, don't they? I used to buy them until my grandma broke me of the habit.

Sorry, onions. Didn't mean to judge you by the color of your skin.

Organ donation

2009-05-16T21:00:00.001+01:00

I saw in the news this week that Switzerland has the lowest rate of organ donation in Western Europe. I've always meant to get registered as an organ donor but just never got around to it... until today. I let my mom know that I want to be an organ donor, and I'll be telling my Swiss mom, too, as soon as she's actually reachable!

Here's the website where you can sign up to be an organ donor in Switzerland (info in French, German and English): http://www.swisstransplant.org/l2/

For those of you in the States who are interested in organ donation, here's the government website explaining how to become an organ donor: http://www.organdonor.gov/donor/index.htm

Dear Mom's spellcheck:

2009-05-15T10:07:00.002+01:00

"Popsicle" really is a word. I promise. It's a frozen treat you eat on a hot day.

"Popsickle" is not a word. But if it were, it would refer to fruit-loop-colored frozen sickle cells zooming around someone's circulatory system. And that is kind of gross.

Thank you.

They never learn.

2009-05-09T23:38:00.000+01:00

I just left another Bel-Air creep in the dust, nursing his wounds. Poor bastard.

It got worse.

2009-05-05T23:08:00.000+01:00

You knew it would, didn't you?

I got stuck in the &%$#@! elevator. Thank goodness I peed beforehand.

Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

2009-05-04T22:05:00.000+01:00

Yeah. That was my day today. Except worse. It doesn't really get much worse than today.

(Actually, I take that back. It does get worse than today. That's the scary part. It could easily get worse.)

Today's only saving grace is that I didn't have to dig giant black ants out of my panties the way I had to yesterday...

Carol Ann Duffy

2009-05-02T19:22:00.002+01:00

...is the new British Poet Laureate. I like poetry, but I never read much of it and I'd never heard of her before. So I did a Google search on her and found a poem of hers that I really like:

Talent

This is the word tightrope. Now imagine
a man, inching across it in the space
between our thoughts. He holds our breath.

There is no word net.

You want him to fall, don't you?
I guessed as much; he teeters but succeeds.
The word applause is written all over him.

Happy unexpected day off to me!

2009-05-01T19:25:00.002+01:00

As I was leaving work yesterday, I overheard completely by accident that we have today off. It's the first time I've ever had off on Labor Day -- I slept for twelve hours last night. Oh so good!

What is up with the New York Times?!

2009-04-29T17:16:00.001+01:00

The paper has been riddled with grammatical mistakes lately (I've seen articles talking about a little girl who was "six-years-old" and a couple who got married at an "alter" made of candy) and today they violated my number one rule: if you don't know what a word means, especially if it is borrowed from a language you don't speak, don't use it!

Here is the violation in question:

"Still, for the hard-core on the right, the exits of Senator Arlen Specter (from the party) and Supreme Court Justice David Souter (from the national stage) were probably occasions of celebration, as both had been considered Republicans-manqué for a long time now (if, indeed, Souter, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush, was ever really a Republican at all)."

In this case, "manqué" is an adjective that is borrowed from French. French adjectives have to agree in number and gender with the nouns they modify. In this case, the writer used a plural masculine noun but a singular masculine adjective, and that doesn't work. So, for future reference: you can have one Republican-manqué or several Republicans-manqués, but those are the only choices you have. No mixing and matching of the two.

Thank you.

Good thing I wore jeans to work today

2009-04-23T19:30:00.002+01:00

Normally I wear nice pants or a nice skirt and leather high-heeled shoes to work, but I was feeling lazy this morning and threw on jeans and sneakers. About halfway through the morning I saw one of my coworkers digging around under her desk, splayed out in quite a comical position... it turns out that the contraption that holds all our wires out of the way had fallen down. It took both of us rooting around on the ground like pigs to get it all back in place!

Yom HaShoah

2009-04-20T21:19:00.003+01:00

Tonight is the start of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). How very shocking to see this picture on the front of the papers this morning:

That's Swiss president Hans-Rudolf Merz with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is here to speak at the Durban Review Conference, which also starts today. He met privately with Merz yesterday. Oh, by the way, did I mention that Ahmadinejad is an outspoken Holocaust denier?

Sometimes you just don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Of all the things to go dumpster-diving for...

2009-04-19T19:53:00.002+01:00

Last week I got caught up on all my filing (bills, bank statements, paystubs, school stuff, etc.) It had been several months since I'd last done any filing because my binders were full and I was too lazy to go buy a new one at school on a Monday afternoon before the weekly student government meeting. I don't have a file cabinet, so I have to punch holes in all these papers to store them.

Among the vast quantities of papers that I filed was the receipt half of the bill for my new room (anybody out there want to help me move on July 1st?) The bill had to be paid by April 7th, and I got that done well within the deadline, but I realized this week that I haven't gotten confirmation that the dorm director has received the money. This means that as soon as the library opens tomorrow, I need to photocopy the receipt and send it to the director to make sure they know I paid on time. No biggie, right?

Well, wouldn't you know... the hole punch punched out the day on the postmark stamp, meaning that I wouldn't be able to prove I paid on time. Unless the little hole I punched out was still in the trash (along with a few hundred or so of its brothers and sisters)...

Yes, that's right. I dug through my trash and sorted through a bazillion paper punches to find the one with the postmark day on it.

And I found it! Crisis averted.

So many things to write about...

2009-04-18T21:39:00.002+01:00

...and too much stress to do it. I meant to spend all day in the library doing some investigating for the last chapter of my thesis -- but it's closed. Not a happy camper.

So I find myself reading blogs, reading the latest book that was lent to me (which is set in Fredericksburg, TX, 20 minutes away from the town where I lived for five years -- it's so weird to be that familiar with a book setting), rehearsing Mendelssohn's Psalm 42, and stressing. It's hard not to stress when you're facing a looming thesis deadline, working 20 hours a week on a contract that ends in two months, uncertain about whether the place you've found to live for the next year is actually yours yet, needing to find a job, starting to go to synagogue, and uncertain about whether you'll be working or in school again next year. All at once.

I could so use a hug right now.

Musical buses

2009-04-15T21:52:00.001+01:00

...is not a great game to play when there's a very agitated mentally disturbed man on board -- I'm just sayin'.

Funny little duck

2009-04-11T22:36:00.002+01:00

All the lake birds have been pretty happy this week -- the weather has been gorgeous, which means that people are hanging around and feeding them. There was one little duck in the river near Bel-Air who was so absorbed with his enormous hunk of bread that he didn't realize he was being carried swiftly downstream by the current. Once he realized that he was rapidly leaving his friends behind, he started trying to swim upstream, but that attempt was doomed right from the start and he just ended up going downstream backwards. So he gathered all of his force and started flapping his wings and paddling his feet as furiously as he could, and he ended up running across the surface of the water all the way back to the other ducks.

(And they lived happily ever after.)

So proud of myself

2009-04-10T22:21:00.002+01:00

I went to my first-ever Friday night Shabbat service this evening. I'm not Jewish and I know only five words or so in Hebrew and it's only the third time I've ever been to the synagogue, so my goal for the evening was to get lost as little as possible during the service. (The prayer book has some of the Hebrew transliterated into the Latin alphabet, but not all of it.) So imagine my surprise when a woman who I know has never seen me in the synagogue before asked me what page we were on -- and I knew the right answer. (Page 114, for those of you who are curious.)

It's the small victories in life that count...

French grammatical mistake of the day

2009-04-05T16:20:00.002+01:00

Combien nous devons donc reconnaissants à l’Eternel pour les bienfaits dont Il nous a comblés.

Ouch.

How awesome is this?

2009-04-04T11:10:00.000+01:00

Blueberry Girl

Today is the very first day...

2009-03-29T11:11:00.002+01:00

...of my favorite six months of the year. Happy Daylight Saving Time, everyone!

Sign of the Second Coming?

2009-03-26T21:28:00.000+01:00

This week I read about tests on seamless and welded pipes... apparently there are a lot of raptured pipes out there, y'all. Better watch out.

Charge it to the dust and let the rain settle it

2009-03-22T22:02:00.002+01:00

That's the advice my calendar gave me this week. And I'm following it. Sort of. Except when I'm not.

Basically I'm willing to let whatever happens to me happen to me, as long as I stay here in Geneva...

I am sick and tired

2009-03-18T20:26:00.001+01:00

of people using the word "autistic" as an insult.

Latest occurrence: tonight on the evening news in France. Various French politicians were denouncing the Pope's statement refusing to recognize condom use as a valid method of HIV/AIDS prevention. And in criticizing this stance, Alain Juppé (the former Prime Minister) said that the Pope "vit dans une situation d'autisme total" ("is living a completely autistic life").

And it's not just French politicians using autism as an insult... I've seen the same sort of thing printed and spoken in the American media, too.

Life with autism is hard. It means having to fight much harder for acceptance than the average person, and getting rejected much more often. It means not being able to partake of many of the joys in life that others take for granted. For many people, it means not ever being able to function independently. But it doesn't mean that a person has diminished worth.

Why is that so hard for people to understand?

What is it with me and metal boxes?

2009-03-17T23:07:00.003+01:00

Apparently it's not just condom machines that are out to get me -- all the metal boxes in the world are looking to pick a fight. You'd think I'd be smart enough to walk away, but no... Yesterday I had another altercation with a metal box and lost (again). This one was, for some reason, screwed underneath my seat in the bus, and it had very sharp corners. So I was not very happy when my foot smacked into it...

Now it looks like my ankle crashed into a rainbow at ninety miles an hour. Y'all be careful -- those darn rainbows hurt more than you think.

This is a lung?

2009-03-16T20:42:00.002+01:00

Back in autumn when all the trees lost their leaves, two of the trees in Place Neuve had some seriously ugly white netting wrapped around them. A few weeks later, a banner reading "Ceci est un poumon" was put up on the netting around one of the trees.

Now, let's think about this logically. First of all, a tree is not a lung. It is a tree. Furthermore, a lung and a tree do not perform the same function. A lung takes in oxygen and releases carbon dioxide. A tree takes in carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. So they cancel each other out.

I ought to cover up the "This is a lung" banner with one of my own... "Ceci est l'anti-poumon".

Uglytown

2009-03-15T17:07:00.001+01:00

I felt sluggish all morning, so I decided to try taking a walk to see if that would help me feel better. And since the weather is so nice, I decided to take my camera with me in the hopes of finding something interesting to photograph.

Yeah, that didn't happen. There are parts of Geneva that are pretty, but I don't live in any of them. There are a few quirky things on my side of town, but I've already taken plenty of pictures of them over the past 2 1/2 years.

I came home from my 45-minute walk with a sore knee and a grumpy spirit... and went straight to bed.

I love my bed. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Community

2009-03-14T22:40:00.006+01:00

Have I mentioned yet on here that I cry at the drop of a hat? Well, I do. I manage not to do it in public, but in private...

This made me cry every time it came on TV during the year before I left the States to come to Switzerland. Yes, I know it is just a commercial. But try to forget about that for awhile.

Then, last Friday, Les Enfoirés did their annual charity concert on TF1. I only got to see the first song before the university firewall cut my access (darn firewall!), but it, too, made me cry. (The people in this video are not Les Enfoirés... couldn't find a video of their version with decent sound.)

I moved around a lot as a kid. I went to 8 different schools from kindergarten to 12th grade (and I skipped 7th grade, too!) I've been to three different universities in three different countries. I've only lived in 9 different cities (again, spread across three countries, plus two states), but I moved 15 times (give or take a few -- it's hard to keep count once you've run out of fingers) between the ages of 9 and 22. You do the math.

In some of these places I managed to fit in; in most I didn't. I am not in touch with anyone I went to elementary, middle or high school with. I am not in touch with anyone I worked with during my year off in Texas (and trust me, I have absolutely no desire to be!)

It wasn't until almost a year after I moved here that I realized I wanted to stay. It came to me one spring night as I walked out of the train station and into town after returning from a trip to Italy. All of a sudden, it felt like I was home. And the feeling hasn't faded since then... if anything, I grow even more convinced with each passing day that this is where I'm meant to stay.

Building a life here isn't exactly simple, though -- even if you ignore the fact that the Swiss government and the average Swiss citizen don't want me to be able to stay here. (It's especially amusing to hear half-Swiss people complain about foreigners being allowed to immigrate here -- after all, they wouldn't exist if their foreign-born parent hadn't been allowed to stay in the country! And it's even more amusing when said half-Swiss people have foreign-born spouses hoping to apply for citizenship someday... oh, the irony.) The 2 1/2 years I've spent here count for nothing when it comes to the 10-plus year process of gaining citizenship. They don't even count towards a permanent residence permit...

That's frustrating, but that's not what really gets to me. What really gets to me is flying in at the airport and not having anyone happily waiting to greet me. Being alone on my birthday because everyone is always out of town over the Christmas holidays... and because I'm just not important enough to anyone here yet to be worth staying in town for. Not having a place of my own yet, and therefore not being able to easily invite the people I care about to come over and spend time with me.

It takes a long time become a member of a community. I'm not a patient person at all. But I'm incredibly determined, and I've waited 25 years to get this far, so what's a few years more?

That's what I'm trying to tell myself, at least.

Happy Pisces, Easter and Salon de l'auto

2009-03-13T21:53:00.002+01:00

Yes, I realize that it's a bit odd to jumble those three together, but that's what the chocolate shops in town have done...

Pisces:

And Easter/Salon de l'auto as a two-for-one:

(Please don't let your pets try this at home.)

My two roommates have been working at the Salon de l'auto since it opened last week, and they're learning to hate customer service jobs every bit as much as I do. (I worked for two department stores back when I lived in the States -- one was tolerable, the other was a nightmare. I'll have to remember to tell y'all some of the more memorable stories... if you can handle it!)

It is so nice to be able to go on photo-hunt walks around town without freezing!

I am loving Katy Perry

2009-03-12T22:36:00.002+01:00

If you're particularly conservative, you won't, but I think she's brilliant...

In an Annie Oakley sort of mood

2009-03-11T19:39:00.003+01:00

I can't give out too many details here, but I am so proud of myself today! Along the lines of "anything you can do, I can do better".

I love being the best. :)

Ow.

2009-03-07T23:18:00.002+01:00

I called my dad from the pay phone downstairs this afternoon. I was slouched forward, listening to his opinion on the current world economic situation, when all of a sudden I had an idea. I jerked upright and WHACK! I hit my head.

I howled in pain, and tears started streaming down my face, but my dad was so absorbed in what he was saying that he didn't notice at first. I kept saying, "Dad? Daddy? Hold on... hold on, okay? Dad?"

"Sweetheart, are you okay?" he asked.

"No!" I said, crying. "I... I... I cracked my head on the corner of the condom machine in the phone booth, and it hurts!"

And he laughed his behind off at me.

Thanks for the tea and sympathy, Dad.

(Okay, to be fair, his laugh is really infectious, and so once he got going I couldn't help but laugh and cry and hold my head all at once. I sounded truly hysterical.)

Glad to know I made his morning...

I don't know about your panties...

2009-03-06T23:02:00.001+01:00

...but mine don't have built-in cooking appliances. Apparently, some people's panties do... or, at least, that's what the document I proofread at work today said before I added in the runaway 'r'...

I love my job. ;)

Happy first day of spring!

2009-03-01T22:07:00.002+01:00

No, the vernal equinox isn't until the night of March 20/21. But meteorological spring is considered to start on the first day of March, as the TF1 weatherlady pointed out last night, and I'll take as much spring as I can get, so -- happy first day of spring!

Here. I've got a hint for you.

2009-02-24T11:26:00.002+01:00

If you want me to do freelance work for you:

DON'T call me 3 times over the course of the 2-hour-long meeting I have with the Big Boss of my organization on Friday morning.

DON'T leave a message that does not tell me who you are or include the name of the organization you want me to work for and the nature of the work you'd like me to do.

DON'T ask me to please call you back at MY telephone number.

DON'T keep your Sabbath day holy but text me 3 times on mine.

DON'T wait until the 3rd text message (in other words, the SIXTH time you've contacted me) to finally give me a number at which I can actually reach you.

Because you know what? That makes me think that maybe you're not such a great person to work for. I'm just sayin'.

I guess I've finally recovered from Vermont

2009-02-22T16:53:00.002+01:00

It snows a lot in Vermont. Usually from mid-October to mid-May, with everything that falls from December through February piling higher and higher because usually there's no thaw until March.

Moving from San Antonio to Middlebury was a rude awakening, let me tell you.

Three years of lots of snow, little sunlight and temperatures as cold as -40°F/C (not factoring in wind chill!) was enough to last me a lifetime.

The one winter I spent back in Texas was a relief. No snow. Lots more light and very few days where the temperature hit freezing. No reason to put on more than one layer of clothes at any given time.

Then I moved to Switzerland. It snows a lot in Switzerland, although not very much in Geneva. We had two days of snow the first winter I was here, and about five days of snow the second winter. After Vermont, I should be able to handle that, right? No way. On mornings when I woke up to snow outside, I cried. I hated snow so much. Even one day of snow a year was too much for me.

And now, this winter it has snowed countless times. Supposedly it is the snowiest winter Geneva has had since 1985. And you know what? I love it! It's so soft and quiet and soothing. It makes the town slow down and be less busy. And, let's face it -- 25 above is a heatwave compared to 40 below.

I'm still never moving back to Vermont, though.

Hey, ho, nobody's home

2009-02-21T17:15:00.002+01:00

It's a gorgeous day in Geneva. Blue skies, warm (for winter) weather, little chirping birdies all over the place. Perfect day to go walk around town.

This morning I went down to the rues basses, which are normally chock-a-block full of pedestrians. Not today. The stores were really empty, too, which suits me just fine -- I had a nice, leisurely shopping trip where I got two winter/spring skirts that were originally more than 100 francs each for just 35 francs total. And the buses and the streets were empty... I guess everyone is out skiing. I don't know why. I'd much rather walk around town with my coat unbuttoned than freeze my butt off on the slopes, especially after four months of colder-than-usual weather.

Especially since it's supposed to be gross outside tomorrow...

Could somebody please tell me

2009-02-19T22:24:00.000+01:00

why the French call gear hobs "mother strawberries"?

This has been bugging me all day.

Thank you.

Uncertainty

2009-02-18T20:16:00.002+01:00

I hate uncertainty. I am the sort of person who likes knowing exactly what lies ahead, exactly what step to take to achieve her next goal... and for the past 2 1/2 years, I have been able to do just that.

Not so much anymore.

Here's what I'm certain about:

My contract at my current job will end in March.
I will defend my thesis and earn my MA in June.
I will be moving out of my apartment in June.

Here's what I'm not certain about:

Whether or not I'll keep working at my current job past March (the person I'm replacing has not been straightforward about when she's coming back -- the date has already been pushed back once, and it looks like it may get pushed back again).
Whether or not I'll find a permanent job that will issue me a work permit before my student permit runs out.
Where I will move to when I have to leave my apartment in June.

Here's what I'm bound and determined to have happen:

No matter what I have to do, I will be in Switzerland (and preferably Geneva) after my current permit expires in September 2009.

I'm handling this better than expected, actually, especially given that I have no family on this continent that I can rely on and given that most of my friends are more or less long-term out of town. I've got two plans in mind:

Plan A: Find a permanent, full-time job that will issue me a work permit. (Advantages: stability! At last! Plus the satisfaction of knowing, for the first time ever, that I'm completely self-sufficient and can provide for myself on my own. That would be nice.)
Plan B: Enroll for a BA in Arabic language, literature and civilization, enroll in Judaism classes at a local synagogue, and find a part-time job that will pay for 3 more years of studies. (Advantages: Arabic is a great language to add to my combination both for international organization translation work and for humanitarian work. Learning about the history of the Arab people and about the Coran will give me a better understanding of the situation in the Middle East, as will learning about the history and religion of the Jewish people -- a definite advantage if I decide I'd like to do humanitarian work. Disadvantages: It's really hard to find a part-time job that can accommodate the very irregular schedule that I would have as a student! Getting CELTA certification over the summer and teaching English would probably be my best option.)

Now, here's what's weird. Even if Plan A works out as early as tomorrow, I probably won't have enough time to find a place to live before I have to move out of my apartment in June. And let's face it -- Plan A isn't going to work out tomorrow. Or the day after that. It probably won't work out before my current job is up. So I actually have to put Plan B into motion first in order to be able to register for student housing in time to be guaranteed a place to live. I've gotten everything I need together (or, at least, everything I think I need!) and will be going to register for Arabic and student housing tomorrow. That way, I can drop Arabic and move out of student housing and into my own place if I find a job without being stuck between a rock and a hard place because I didn't find a job and waited too late to register for classes and housing to be accepted.

Keep y'all's fingers crossed (and thumbs held) for me!

I love this statue

2009-02-17T22:15:00.002+01:00

I saw this statue outside the Royal Palace in Budapest last August and just had to get a picture of it. It reminds me of my favorite poem:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

I'm not much on plums (can't stand them, actually), but it was so hot outside that day that I might well have been tempted to steal one out of an icebox and eat it to finally cool off a bit!

38 down, 12 to go!

2009-02-15T16:50:00.002+01:00

My thesis was my Valentine's date this year. Not very romantic. (Although we did break my bed together once...)

I finally got my head in the right place to work on it after a conversation I had with one of my friends a few weeks ago. She's in the same boat I am -- working 50% (for those of you in the States, that's 20 hours a week) at a job with a fair commute, tired and needing a break from work when she gets home in the afternoon, and having a hard time succeeding in putting aside enough time each day to do research. And not stressed out about it yet, since the written version of the thesis isn't due until mid-May, with the defense in mid-June, but definitely feeling guilty about not doing as much work as one thinks one ought to.

Where our stories differ a bit is that I already started writing the analysis portion of my thesis last summer, but got seriously bogged down with a pesky chapter back in October. I had a lot to say in this particular chapter, but hadn't really done all the research I needed to do and hadn't narrowed down what I wanted to talk about quite enough. And so I thought about it for a couple of weeks, decided on how I wanted to narrow things down, spent a couple more weeks taking notes, wrote the first few pages and then got completely sidetracked by life for awhile. Then I told myself that I would churn the chapter out during the week I had off for Christmas/New Year's... but then I got very sick with bronchitis and was too miserable to do anything but lie flat on my back in bed. And all the putting off and waiting and dragging things out made me feel guilty. And the more guilty I felt, the less I wanted to think about my thesis and the more paralyzed I became.

And then my friend and I talked about it, and I realized that I'm not in such a bad place. At the time of our conversation (late January) I had 28 pages already written and turned in, and I had an 8-page rough draft of the current chapter happily stored away on my hard drive. These 8 pages still needed a bit of an overhaul to get the theoretical argument structured the way it should be, but at least I had already spit out most of the chapter. And when I had to write a thesis for my BA, I didn't even start writing the analysis portion until April (with a mid-May deadline to turn everything in, just like my current thesis). So, 28 pages done plus 8 more in very rough draft form at the end of January wins out against 0 pages at the beginning of April, hands down.

Funny how getting rid of guilt can free you up so much. A few days after that conversation, I went to check out the last few books I needed to take notes from to finish the chapter. I spent two weekends taking notes, and then this weekend I sat down to put it all on paper. I finished the (now 10-page) chapter this afternoon and emailed it in as quickly as I could! That milestone felt so good.

So now I have just 12 pages left to go! It will feel so good to go to the library tomorrow and turn in all the books that have been sitting in my room these past few weeks.

Relief...

Spring is on its way...

2009-02-14T16:39:00.000+01:00

Spring always seems to sneak up on me each year. My brain knows that the days start getting longer starting on December 22nd, but my conscious self doesn't pick up on the changes until, oh, say, this week. I heard little birds singing when I woke up on Monday... it's the first time I've heard that in months. Then, a few days later, I realized that the sun was still shining outside at 6pm. It was a beautiful moment.

Of course, winter is in no hurry to go away... it snowed a lot here on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and I woke up to five positively miserable pigeons huddled together on my windowsill. When I got up, they sort of nervously glanced over at me as though to say, "Please stay over there so we can stay over here. Please?"

But slowly and surely, spring is on its way...

Do you KenKen?

2009-02-13T16:09:00.003+01:00

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/crosswords/kenken.html

It's a brilliant new little math/logic puzzle on the New York Times website where you have to fill either a 4x4 or 6x6 grid with the right numbers. Here are the rules:

1. 4x4 grids must be filled with the numbers 1-4.
2. 6x6 grids must be filled with the numbers 1-6.
3. A number cannot repeat within the same row.
4. A number cannot repeat within the same column.
5. Each heavy outlined area (called a "cage") must be filled with numbers that make the mathematical equation correct. (For example, in a 6x6 grid, if you have a cage comprising two squares, and "11+" is written inside, you must fill in the squares with a 5 and a 6 in some order because 5+6 is the only way to make 11. If you have a cage comprising two squares in a 4x4 grid, and "3-" is written inside, you must fill the squares with 4 and 1 in some order because 4-1 is the only way to make 3.)

New puzzles posted every day -- try not to get addicted!

Where did January go???

2009-02-12T15:28:00.001+01:00

I cannot believe that it's the middle of February already! January went by in a blur because I was sick. Two weeks of bronchitis, a week of a cough, and a week of bad allergies. I think I singlehandedly made Kleenex sales in Switzerland skyrocket...

Being sick didn't keep me out of trouble, though. Back while I had bronchitis, we had a business/social dinner with a VIP and his wife. I didn't have much time to get ready, and my ride came to pick me up early. She called me and told me to get my behind downstairs ASAP... so I threw on my skirt and boots as quickly as I could and ran downstairs to the car.

Now, mind you, having bronchitis meant that I could only talk like this. I could barely make myself heard to the person sitting next to me, much less to the entire room. Before going to the restaurant, we had a bit of a social hour, and I was stuck there in the middle of everybody, unable to say a word. Then, as we were leaving for the restaurant, my Swiss mom pulled me aside and said, "Hey... You know you're wearing one black boot and one brown boot, right?"

Um, no. I didn't know. And I think I would have been better off not ever finding out, thanks.

Then, when we got to the restaurant, I ended up sitting across from the VIP's wife. Right after we sat down, she asked me a question and I answered as loudly as I could. Her jaw dropped, and she exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, you've lost your voice! I was wondering why you weren't talking to anyone... I thought you were really aloof or shy or something." Nope, sorry. My vocal cords just don't work.

Between the mismatched boots and the whispering, she must have really thought that I was crazy... (!)

How to make an American birthday cake in Switzerland

2009-02-09T16:11:00.003+01:00

1. Decide to make a cake for your coworkers to celebrate your birthday.

2. Put off that plan because nobody else is at work on your birthday.

3. Put the plan off some more because your boss broke her ankle.

4. Dig out the only cake recipe you have. Read the list of ingredients:

1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs, separated
2 cups cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup buttermilk
3 oz melted bitter chocolate

5. Decide that this is, indeed, a feasible list of ingredients to assemble in Geneva. Oh, except the buttermilk. Can you make buttermilk from scratch?

6. Google "how to make buttermilk". Google hit #1 says to mix 1 cup of milk with 1 Tbsp of vinegar. Yuck. I don't like vinegar.

7. Keep browsing Google hits until you find a palatable buttermilk recipe. The winner? Mixing 1 cup of milk with 1 Tbsp lemon juice. Lemon juice is good for you.

8. Put on all your winter clothes and heavy coat. It's snowing outside.

9. Realize, just as you're walking out the door, that you don't know how to say "baking soda" and "baking powder" in French, and that come to think of it, you've never seen them in the store before, either.

10. Make an emergency call to your Swiss mom while she's stuck in a snowstorm in France. (How was I supposed to know that she ignored the French weather report that said Do not leave the house unless it is an emergency and went to Megève anyway?) Find out that "baking soda" is "bicarbonate de soude" and that you have to buy it at the pharmacy.

11. Wonder why on Earth baking soda would be sold at the pharmacy as you make your way out to the bus stop in the snow. (It was the French weather report that said to stay home, not the Swiss one!)

12. Pick up all the ingredients you need at the local Coop -- oops, except for the bitter chocolate. They seem to be out.

13. Go to the two largest Coop stores in town. Hmm. They're out of baking chocolate, too. Ask around and find out that they don't carry it anymore.

14. Silently curse the Swiss grocery store monopolies. Coop was the only grocery store chain that carried bitter baking chocolate. Nervously pick out powdered chocolate for crème dessert and buy it as a substitute.

15. Go home. Start feeling sick. Put off making the cake until you're well.

16. A week later, decide to make the cake. Assemble all the ingredients and measuring tools on the kitchen counter. Um... how big is a cup? I haven't seen one in over a year.

17. Decide that a cup is about the size of one of the glasses in your cabinet and pull it out. Begin reading the instructions.

Cream sugar & butter.

18. Decide to let the butter sit out on the counter for half an hour, since you have to cream the butter and sugar by hand. Go to your room and take notes from Vinay and Darbelnet's Stylistique comparée du français et de l'anglais for your thesis.

19. Return to the kitchen. Cream the sugar and butter. Read the next instruction.

Add vanilla.

20. Pry the teeny cap off the teeny vial of (fake) vanilla. Reminisce about the wonderful Mexican vanilla they sell in San Antonio.

21. Try (and fail) to pour the vanilla in the mixing bowl. Take a knife and stick it in the top of the vanilla vial to widen the opening.

22. Try (and fail -- again) to pour the vanilla in the mixing bowl. Shake the vial out of frustration. Oh, that's how you're supposed to get the vanilla out. Well, at least most of it made it in the bowl. Next instruction.

Add egg yolks.

23. Hmmm. I've never separated eggs before. Will a spoon work?

24. Yes, the spoon works. Awesome. Three perfectly separated eggs.

Add dry ingredients, alternating with buttermilk.

25. Oops. Forgot to make the buttermilk. It has to stand for five minutes.

26. Twiddle thumbs.

27. Add the dry ingredients, alternating with buttermilk. Mix by hand.

Mix in melted chocolate.

28. At least this part is easy! There's just a hair too little chocolate (had to use what little was left of my baking chocolate) but oh well.

Fold in beaten egg whites.

29. Crap. (Am I allowed to say "crap" on my blog? It's an accurate representation of what I thought at the time...) We don't have a beater. How on Earth am I going to get stiff white peaks by hand?

30. Lose track of time as you beat the living daylights out of the three egg whites.

31. Holler out at your roommates in frustration, "Any of y'all feel like helping me in here?!"

32. Have your roommate pull out the beater that you didn't know you had. Let her finish beating the egg whites while you preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C, right? Don't feel like going to look it up).

33. Come to think of it, maybe I'll set the oven to 160°C. It cooks mighty fast.

34. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

35. Pull out your cake pan and realize that it's a 10" round, not a 9" round. Pour half the cake batter inside, decide that making a two-layer cake isn't going to work, and pour in the rest of the cake batter. Cross your fingers that it doesn't overflow in the oven.

36. Stick the cake pan in the oven. Check after 20 minutes (the oven cooks fast, remember?) Stick it back in for 10 more minutes. This time, the knife comes out clean.

37. As the cake cools, make the icing from memory. 250 g (1 cup) butter, 1 package powdered sugar, another vial of (fake) vanilla, heavy cream, and 150 g melted baking chocolate. No, scratch that last part. 90 g powdered chocolate, plus a little extra heavy cream.

38. Beat by hand and wonder whether your arms are about to fall off.

39. Once the cake has cooled and acquired a bizarre slant, ice it. Make the icing thicker in the places where the cake has sunk so that it looks flat on top.

40. Take the cake to work. Serve. Yum.

The end.

Help me help Hadassah -- February 1-3, 2009

2009-01-30T20:55:00.002+01:00

Hi everybody!

I'd like to invite all of you who read my blog to join the Young Hadassah International cause. From 1 February to 3 February, we are holding a Facebook-a-thon with a goal of raising $5,000 for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

What is Young Hadassah International?

YHI and Hadassah International (the organization with which I work) are nonprofit humanitarian organizations whose goals are to spread knowledge about, and raise money for, Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Our membership comprises men and women from a wide variety of faiths and nationalities who work together to achieve our mission of building bridges to nations through medicine.

What is Hadassah Hospital?

Hadassah Hospital is Israel's premier medical institution, renowned for its commitment to treat all patients with compassionate care regardless of ethnicity or religion. From its humble beginnings in 1913, when two nurses sailed to Palestine to provide proper nutrition for mothers with new babies and to eradicate trachoma, the hospital has grown into a world-class healing, teaching and research facility. At Hadassah, five thousand health professionals work to treat nearly one million patients each year. Recent research and treatment breakthroughs at Hadassah have been made in fields as varied as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, orthopedic surgery and cancer research. Among other projects, Hadassah's worldwide outreach program provides training in treating and preventing HIV/AIDS for Ethiopian doctors and nurses, established the first pediatric oncology department in the West Bank, and trains health experts around the world in emergency preparedness and terror medicine.

What is the Facebook-a-thon?

From 1 February to 3 February, we are asking people to go to www.causes.com/younghadassah to donate $20 to help buy much-needed medical equipment for Hadassah Hospital's Center for Individualized Medicine. The Center represents the medicine of the future, where we treat the patient, not just the disease. As research reveals the genes that make each of us a unique human being, patients will be able to receive targeted treatments that match their genetic profile. The cutting-edge fields of molecular medicine and cell therapy play a pivotal role as doctors strive to formulate individualized treatments for cancer and immune-mediated disorders. The Center for Individualized Medicine comprises:

the Center for Molecular Medicine, which provides doctors with the ability to analyze each person's genes and proteins individually;
the Center for Cell Therapy, where researchers are looking into transplanting individual cells to repair and regenerate damaged cells instead of transplanting whole organs and laying down the infrastructure to treat diabetic patients with transplanted pancreatic islet cells; and
the Center for Immune Mediated Disorders, where researchers are examining the mechanisms of autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, asthma, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis and colitis to create specific patient-tailored treatments.

What if I can't donate $20?

That's okay! Most of Young Hadassah International's members and donors are students and young professionals between the ages of 18 and 35, and a lot of us have been affected by the current economic crisis. There are other ways for you to become involved, though. First, get informed -- check out the Hadassah International website to learn more about our activities and our relationship with Hadassah Hospital. If you're interested in receiving the latest news from the hospital and updates about YHI and Hadassah International's latest activities, subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter. And don't forget to tell your family and friends about us. The more people who know about us and support us, the easier it is for us to meet our goals and help promote peace through medicine.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and let me know if you have any questions. I've only been officially working with Hadassah International since October, so I'm still learning the ropes around here, but I'll answer everything you want to know to the best of my ability. Hadassah is a cause that I'm really passionate about, and I hope it's one that you become passionate about, too.

Kitty

Happy birthday to me!

2008-12-28T10:36:00.002+01:00

Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit!

2008-12-27T19:47:00.002+01:00

That's the name of the calendar that Santa Claus left in my stocking. I can't wait to see what other pearls of wisdom it has to dispense throughout the new year...

Anyway, the expression captures the sentiment I felt when riding the tram yesterday. The little screens were posting all the changes to the TPG schedule, and what do you know -- they actually decided to send buses to the airport and train station in time for people to catch the first plane or train out of Geneva in the morning. Isn't that positively ingenious?

No more walking 45 minutes to the station because I can't afford a cab...

Swiss consumerism

2008-12-26T19:31:00.002+01:00

After-Christmas sales started here today, much like in the US. Today was a bit special in Geneva, though, because the stores stayed open until (drumroll please)... 7:30 or 8:00 at night! How convenient to have late-night shopping!

I bought three tops and a cute bag at Promod today, all for 50% off. I deliberated awhile over whether to get the bag -- it was cute, but never in my life have I come anywhere close to paying 45 francs for a purse -- but I'm glad I did in the end, since it was the second-to-last one left and it rang up for only 22 francs. Nice to have little surprises like that!

I was hoping to get a sweater or two at H&M, too, but they had close to zero selection and zero sales, so I walked out empty-handed. I guess a lot of people were as disappointed as I was, since there was no line at the register and it was the emptiest store on the street (usually it's the busiest).

Happy shopping day!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T19:22:00.002+01:00

I am staying in bed today, and it feels wonderful! Santa Claus gave me seasons 1 - 3 of The Closer, so I'm going to curl up with a bag of popcorn and a Coke and turn my bed into my own personal cinema.

Hope y'all are all having a great day!

I should have known better...

2008-12-24T21:57:00.002+01:00

...than to wear eyeliner to church tonight. I always cry during the Christmas Eve service. I get teary-eyed during the sermon. I get teary-eyed during Communion. And I really start to lose it when we sing Silent Night by candlelight and then O Come, All Ye Faithful at the very end of the service, with the last verse about Jesus being born coming right after midnight and the church being flooded with light...

I love Christmas!

It's not Christmas without Tuna

2008-12-23T21:52:00.000+01:00

This is one of my favorite shows in the whole world:

Welcome to Christmas in Texas' third smallest town, where the Lion's Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies! It's 24 hours before Christmas and all comic hell is about to break loose as the town attempts to cope with seasonal traumas such as a disaster prone little theatre production of A Christmas Carol, and a yard decorating contest that is being sabotaged by a mysterious Christmas phantom...

(I couldn't embed the videos, but if you click on the links, the clips will open in Windows Media Player.)

Bertha and Charlene

Helen and Inita

The Tasty Creme

Vera Carp

Anybody remember this?

2008-12-22T21:40:00.003+01:00

From the Claymation Christmas special that aired a few years in a row in the late 80s:

I think I saw the show for the first time when I was just shy of five. I had never heard "We Three Kings" before, and I thought that the Wise Men and the camels were actually singing two different songs. I thought that it was so rude of the camels to keep interrupting the Wise Men...

I know. I was a strange child.

My poor toes

2008-12-21T21:36:00.002+01:00

I've had black nail polish on my toes for several weeks now. I didn't realize how used to it I had gotten until I took the polish off today... now my poor little toes look like naked mole rats!

I think I'd better repaint them...

O Christmas Tree

2008-12-20T22:00:00.002+01:00

Santa Claus sent me a cute little Christmas tree in the mail because he knew that I was bummed out about spending the holidays alone. Small problem: Santa didn't pack the tree in the box as well as he might have, so when the tree arrived, its plastic base was shattered.

Tonight I tried to superglue the base back together, but all I really managed to do was glue my fingers to one another. I was bound and determined to get the tree up, though, so it was time to make use of my creative spirit and scavenge around my room for useful items.

After a certain amount of thought, here's what I came up with (don't laugh):

Thankfully, the the tree came with a tree skirt:

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Back by popular demand

2008-12-19T21:57:00.000+01:00

This is one of their updated performances from this year. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the original, but this one's good, too.

Straight No Chaser -- The Twelve Days of Christmas

The Changeling

2008-12-18T23:31:00.000+01:00

Good movie. Incredibly disturbing, though. And hard to believe that such a thing actually happened. (I looked it up after I got home to see if they were lying when they said "Based on a true story". They weren't. Seriously creepy.)

If you can handle disturbing true stories, go see it.

BOOM!

2008-12-17T14:01:00.000+01:00

My roommate has an unnatural obsession with Brussels sprouts. I swear she cooks them every single day for lunch. The problem is that she's a bit of a forgetful klutz in the kitchen... While I was standing in the doorway talking to her, she took the (glass) top half of the double boiler off of the bottom half and put it down on an adjacent burner. A few minutes later...

BOOM!

The top half of the double boiler exploded. Luckily, I was out in the hall, but my roommate got showered in glass. There was glass all over the stove, in the sink, in the recycling bin, on the table, on the chairs, and all across the floor...

Closer inspection revealed, of course, that the burner in question was on. What remained of the base of the double boiler was scorched black, and huge bubbles had formed in the glass. Fortunately, the glass didn't melt to the burner.

In the midst of all this excitement, my roommate's first concern was for her Brussels sprouts. Unfortunately for her, they, too, had been showered with glass and were entirely inedible. She picked through them quite thoroughly, but not a single one had been spared.

Maybe next time she should buy a double boiler that's not made out of glass...

Naughty software

2008-12-16T22:20:00.002+01:00

Today I read some documents that had been changed from PDF to html format using character-recognition software. As was to be expected, there were a few character-recognition errors -- places where the software saw one character (such as "I") but thought it saw another (such as "1"). These weren't too big of a problem, since they didn't happen very often and didn't affect the reader's understanding of the document.

Until, that is, I came across a place where the software mistook "P" for "F". This error led to a list that read as follows:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Fart 4

Who knew that character-recognition software had such a juvenile sense of humor?

Meet my new feet

2008-12-15T22:06:00.000+01:00

Aren't they precious?! I saw them at the store a few weeks ago but didn't bother to stop and look... after all, stores almost never have my shoe size, and I didn't want to be disappointed. I saw them again this weekend, though, and since I've been looking for slippers for 3 years now (I'm picky!) I decided to risk a peek. And what do you know... there was a pair that fit!

(I'm lucky I bought them when I did... I went back by the same store a few days later, and they were all gone! Not surprising, since they were only 15 francs -- that's a really good deal in Switzerland!)

Merry early Christmas to me!