Sleep work study eat

Sleep work study eat sleep work study eat go to Italian class sleep work study eat play with cat sleep work study eat sleep work study eat have visit from Victoria sleep work study eat sleep work study eat run some errands sleep work study eat answer a few e-mails sleep work study eat sleep work study eat watch a bit of Frasier lent to me by a friend sleep work study eat sleep work study eat get organized for trip to Italy sleep work study eat sleep work study eat sleep work study eat

Go to Italy tomorrow morning in the very a.m.! Work (unfortunately), sleep, eat!!!, visit pretty pictures and Roman stuff, hang with my ex-intercambio Assuntina, her husband and new baby, walk, walk, walk, work a bit, eat some more, come home, finish Renaissance assignment, go back to work.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Off I go. Can't wait! Must (start and) finish packing now. Good thing I'm a bit of a whiz at it!

Stupid people are stupid

This was started on the 21st, never got finished, and thus it languished as a draft.

As if I didn't have enough to do! Am completely swamped with translations and schoolwork, and am going to Italy in less than two weeks. Feel a bit like to die, really, and not able to blog due to having to take Internets away from self when so busy. Trying to eat well and not get sick again.

Anyway... Last night Miguel Bosé (who I absolutely lurve) released his new album. And Monday as I, diligent lass that I am, was studying away at that Latin stuff for an assignment due on Friday, I heard on the radio that he was going to be signing copies at the Corte Inglés (department store from hell which monopolizes Madrid retail) near my house. So what if I had Italian class at that time? Surely it was worth it, as my friend Séamus pointed out in a "you know you're gonna go" voice. Alas, I had a bit of translation to do, so left getting out the door a tad too late. There was a huge line, and I was about 10 minutes too far back in it, judging by how close I got to the door before he had to leave for another engagement. Personally, when I'm rich and famous, I won't let my handlers book me so tight. I would stay until everyone who was there at the scheduled time had gotten their whatever if was signed. I'm sure it's not that easy, handlers being expert at, well, handling, but it was not a little frustrating, especially as I'd given my hard-earned dough to the Store of Satan for the album, when I'd rather have given it to a slightly-less-Satan store, FNAC.

Anyway! Lest you think standing in the FREEZING COLD for an hour would be boring, let me disabuse you of this notion. For I was entertained, to the point of bursting out laughing at one point (discreetly and to myself) by two of the most inane, foolish, arrogant, ignorant, obnoxious, rude and idiotic young people I've had the misfortune of having to be near in a long time. He seemed innocent enough, little gay boy waiting for a friend, and made a few pleasant comments to me. Then the little blondie Mexican princess arrived. Turns out he's American and she might as well be, and they quickly switch to English, spoken VERY loudly and punctuated with hysterical giggling. There ensues about 15 minutes of her talking about seeing some Mexican woman closer up in the line and why didn't one of them go and try to befriend her so they could cut. Much "You go. You're better than me at this." was bandied back and forth ... endlessly. But it was as I expected: they were both too chicken-shit to actually do it. My favorite part was the description of the woman in vivid detail, summed up as, "She's old and fat and hates pretty young people, especially blondies." This was when the laughing burst forth.

Around this point, Mexicani announces that she believed "these people" (guess that includes me) must hate them because they think they're gringos, with a strong undertone of "God forbid I should be mistaken for one." Had to rilly rilly rilly resist urge to say, "You might as well be, sweetie. You is way more 'Merikan than me, and that's for sure. An' iffin you don't wanna be mistaken for one, stop taking English loudly on the street." Was successful, but continued to amuse self with crafting witty commentaries during rest of wait.

Then follows a period of "Will we or will we not get in." This was repeated on and off ad nauseum until the bitter end and intersected other "conversational" tangents. We had: "I didn't even want this album anyway, I could have spent the money on food at the all-you-can-eat."; "Why are all these women here? Don't they know he's gay? I don't think he's bi."; "Remember that interview we saw with him."; and some nonsense about a girl who had called Mexicani: "What do you think she wants?" God knows, I thought to my self. She is clearly insane to actually pay money to try to talk to you.

One of the most annoying elements of this wit-fest was the incessant use of the nickname "Mikey" for Miguel. God save us! But it was more than just that. She, at least, was just a geniunely not good person, or she played a waste of space very well. I was racking my brain, thinking back to when I was younger and stupider, and trying to remember if I was ever so full of myself to regard the rest of the world with such contempt and dismissal. I honesty don't think so. I think they need a good dose of some sort of reality TV ain't giving them.

Toast is good

I actually wrote this a week ago and accidentally saved it as a draft.

I love the Internets. All you ever wanted to know about toast at the Toaster Museum!

Personally, I groove on the Handyhot and the West Coast, in blue I think. And do not leave without checking out the toast mural. V cool!

Zee cat!

The cat has now just gone crazy chasing what appears to be a fluffball and making all sorts of strange noises. The fun never stops around here! She has delved into all the various corners and crevices of the living room and come up with lots of things thrown down there to entertain her at earlier times this week: chewing gum packages, foil wrappers from chocolates, twist ties, not to mention the throw rug. These get cleared up onece a week when the cleaning lady comes, but she still manages to accumulate lots more by next time.

In the time it has taken me to write this, calm has returned. To bed for the both of us!

Post-work weekend shell shock

I'm feeling really rather dazed. (Dang British understatement has clearly rubbed off! Feeling really frigging really rilly rilly dazed.) Friday was a bit of a nightmare. Well, it all started Thursday, carrying on from the weekend before when I had a buttload of translation for a new agency due tout de suite. It didn't all start to hit the fan until Thursday, though: trying to get two additional documents for the rush rush one, and the cat miaowing all over the shop and me being very tired and having to miss Italian class to work, which I rilly rilly hate, and then opening up the last document, this one for another agency and seeing its technical specs for a stupid warehouse. Plow on I did, and got to bed about 2 in the a.m.

Got up at the crack of dawn to do a final go-over for the rush rush ones, knowing I had until noon to finish the horrible technical one. No problem. Off to class, a quick breakfast and I'm on my way home when I get a call from the technical agency. "Don't you remember I told you to disregard the 12:00 deadline in my e-mail?" They wanted it by 10:00, 15 minutes earlier. I had totally spaced that. Profuse apologies, race home to bash it out. The Internets very slow, terms very ugly, stress stress stress, cat moderately all over the shop again. People skyping me and texting me in the middle of things. Stress stress stress! Send it in at 12:02.

Set about chilling and making lunch. The phone rings. Ummmm, I'd translated the wrong bloody thing. Complete tweezle brain on my part, I'd basically done the part I wasn't supposed to do. Big upset, tears aplenty, stress aloads. Set about bashing out the part I should've done, which was much much easier (oh, merciful gods), and if I hadn't been such a muffin head, and if I'd read my e-mail with the due attention it deserves, and not forgotten details like deadlines, none of this would be happening. Or so I couldn't stop telling myself when engaged in the aforementioned bashing. (Getting headache just remembering this.)

Finally, it is done. Apologies are apologized (pax Plato). I have lunch. I watch an episode of Frasier. I get a bit of shit together. I have a much-needed nap. I sit down to start and complete a 2000-word essay for my Renaissance studies course, due by midnight, British time. (Thank the Greenwich gods for a one-hour time difference, and the OU gods for the relatively new e-TMA, OU speak for assignment, system, which I can use for this course. No more printing, envelope addressing, PT-03 form filling out, stamping and dashing to the post office. I sat down at 12:20 p.m. and had submitted the thing by 12:22. Ain't technology a gem?) I think, although now is clearly not the right time to make this determination, it's not too bad, but certainly can't be all that great, given that I only spent about four and a half hours on the thing. Still, it's certainly not as bad as it would've been if I hadn't actually done it!

Saturday I had a stinky contract to translate for yet another agency. (I'm up to three now, and I think that's my absolute max.) Stinky stinker took ages, and as it had to be that day, and I had another one waiting in the wings, it was making me a bit stressed. (Don't ask about Saturday deadline, some people clearly leave things to the last minute and then get all anal about them. No one I know, though!) Finished far too late, but got to bed by 1 in the a.m. or so, with a quick phone conversation with mom in the middle.

Sunday promised to be a doozy, and it was. The translation was interesting (all about women and health, empowerment, violence, education, etc.) not very difficult, really, just a bit tricky and very very very very long. It had lots of quotes from documents and declarations and resolutions which I had to track down the English original for, as they were from UN organizations folks like that. This is a two-edged sword. On the positive side, you have to think a bit less, and you're sure that the "translation" is accurate. On the negative side, sometimes they can be a bugger to track down (although the UN comes out ahead of the EU, hands down), and you have to be very careful that they haven't changed things or left things out in the Spanish, and that you've got the right bit of the document! In addition, the folks writing the thing got some facts wrong, and so I had to write a note about that whenever I stumbled across one. Examples: wrong number of UN member states, Hellen Keller, a strange sentence that came out to mean something along the lines of "what percentage of women are the presidents or heads of states for their countries" (as the answer was 6%, this was clearly not what they were trying to say).

Sooooo, I have basically been sitting at my computer all day (which beggars the question why I should have chosen now to post this ginormous blog entry). I have had breaks only for cat cuddling, short phone conversations and food accompanied by a couple episodes of Frasier, which incidentally, I am growing to like since it was forced upon me by a friend.

To bed, for I must give that big boy another read through tomorrow in the dawn's early light. On the bright side of things, I have made loads of dosh today, more than I would make in a month's TEFL teaching, so there you go. Worth it? I think so, but am not entirely sure.