WHAAA!

I've been reduced to the status of a teething baby - one of my wisdom teeth came in yesterday!! I can actually see half of it sticking out. It hurts and I have a terrible headache :(

the impossible map

For anyone who complains that the NYC subway map is hard to read, take a look at this beauty:

Pittsburgh bus map

WTF??? what are the arrows between lines? And which busses represent which lines?

Custom bobblehead dolls

Custom bobblehead dolls made from your photo

I WANT ONE!!!

the power of music

It's amazing how listening to a song will bring back powerful memories and emotions from the past. I came across some really old songs on my iPod playlist and I vividly remembered walking to work in high school, and the things I was thinking, the people I was with, etc... I must have looked absolutely crazy to the other people on the subway because at various points I was tearing up, and then I would close my eyes and mouth the words and really focus, but it's really awesome be recall the past like that.

I love music. I love singing. I miss singing.

I wonder if I'll ever get to do it again in some organized way.

relaxing day

It was really hot outside (108F with heat index), and then there was a pretty big thunder storm, so I stayed inside all day. Really, I barely even left my room, or changed out of my pajamas.

After a year and ~3 months I finally finished the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - that's right, a book that hasn't even been released yet! And it ends absolutely nothing like the movie does. Understandably so... if the movie actually followed the book (even remotely), it would have been at least 10 hours long. They should make a SciFi miniseries with it, that would be really entertaining.

I also continued HP:OotP. I want to refresh my memory before I embark on HP:HBP. I'm almost 1/4 through. I forgot how thick it was. That's ok b/c book 6 is buried somewhere in my boxes.

Alex and I also began planning our whirlwind 4-city hopping tour during thanksgiving: Pittsburgh, Virginia, NYC, Orlando -- and back again 4 days later. Woohoo! At least this time we'll have a car of our own.

Congratulations to Alfred. Today he announced his engagement to his girlfriend Alida.

So that's 4 friends who've become engaged since January. I guess it's about time the dominoes started falling... and I mean that in a good way. Really.

When did this happen??

Daylight savings extended by 1 month, starting March 2007

Daylight Savings Time

justice!

From the dean:

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Those of you residing in the Towers are painfully aware of the chiller unit problem that left you without air conditioning for 6 days. I've discussed the matter with the Housing Office and they are developing a response that will most likely include some form of rent rebate. The decision as to the nature of any such rebate will be communicated to you in a few weeks, after the new students finish moving-in.

--------------------------------------------------

I was considering deducting those days from my rent anyways, but I was afraid of the wrath of the housing office. I guess I can pay the rent now.

hire me, please! pretty please?

For the last 2 weeks I've been submitting my resume to listings at pretty much every job search engine out there (including Craigslist), and Pitt and CMU. Today someone actually called me back! I have a tentative interview next week (he'll be in NYC on business).

At first I was really excited (because no one has responded to my other 20 resume submissions), but now all I keep thinking about is "what if I said something dumb on the phone?" or "I had a typo in my email, they definately won't want to talk to me now" (I did indeed notice a typo in my email about scheduling the interview). So I'm trying to talk myself down... I probably won't hear back from them.

I think part of the reason they called me in the first place is that they were totally shocked to receive my resume and called me out of curiosity. The very first comment I got was "I must say you're very overqualified for this position! Can you please tell me your motivation for applying to this job?" (as office manager), and the other comment was "why would anyone from NYC move to Pittsburgh?"

Now I must say the whole thing was a bit informal. It's a startup by 2 guys who are only a few years older than me... actually, one of them graduated from Cornell in 2000. So maybe my little slip ups will slide by? Arg.

Can anyone just find my blog by google or something? Maybe I should stop writing things like this for random people to read. Live and learn.

the AC is a marvelous invention

This morning at 8:30 am the AC finally came on. I wasn't here, but that's what the maintenance update in the elevator said. However, yesterday, the very long maintenance sheet had a very complicated story about the power unit on the chiller burning out, creating some sort of feedback such that it caused a leak in the system. So when they replaced all the broken equipment Monday, they found that the chiller wasn't actually chilling anything because all the air was escaping. So they shut it down again to try and trace the leak. At this point, I'd had enough so I did what I should've done for the previous 4 nights - I slept in lab.

I did not vandalize this sign... either Katie or my boss did:

It was actually pretty comfortable, except my toes got really really cold at night. I wish I'd brought some socks.

too hot to live

The AC is *still* down from Thursday. I haven't slept more than 3-5 hours a night in a few days. Sometimes it's ok to fall asleep when there's a slight breeze coming from the window. But by 5 am the breeze stops and I always wake up feeling the pressure of hot, stagnant, humid air covering me like a very thick and unpleasant blanket.

The maintenance updates that are hanging in the elevators have all been graffitied with things like "I'm not paying rent for these days," or "no Christmas bonus for you!" and "We will remember!"

I actually spent some time looking up NYC tenant's bill of rights today. Technically, the landlord is supposed to provide a "safe, habitable" environment.. and I would definately say the last few days have not been habitable, but on the grand scale of things, I doubt the housing dep't would agree. They deal with things like rat infestations, and drug needles lying around. There's a heating requirement for landlords, but nothing mentioning maintenance of central air systems. The best the tenant can do is withhold paying rent until the problem is solved, but in the end I think you have to pay it all. Or, go to an arbitrator to determine the real value of the apartment without AC and then deduct that from the rent. Luckily I haven't paid my rent yet. I think I'll hold out for a bit and send a nasty letter along with my payment. Not that it will do any good. I can deduct the rent for the last few days but I have a feeling they'd just take it out of my security deposit.

I'm so exhausted, I can barely keep my eyes open :(

...too...hot...

The AC unit for the whole building is broken, AGAIN (3rd time in 7 days)... if they don't get it fixed soon i'm not going to be able to fall asleep. My skin feels like it's on fire!

my reward

When I finally have a job and am settled in Pittsburgh (apartment set up, car taken care of, etc...) I'm going to reward myself with a beautiful blue topaz ring from www.ice.com. I'm not sure which one yet, there are a few that I think are really really gorgeous. Yay!