i’m going to make 2 posts today, because this was in my inbox today:

so…  yay!  another concert for us!  i’ll try to get the resolution better next time i’m online…

it’s been a rough start to my 10 days in berlin…  i got into town with too big a suitcase and took a taxi to my pension.  that part was fine, but rapidly illustrated to me that this was the first time i’ve gone to a new city without prepping a map first.  i got to my pension, but didn’t know where i was or how to get anywhere.  i’m in this turkish district south of potsdamer platz.  the food is good!

i went into potsdamer platz to get my accreditation badge and my boss’s, too, but they, as it turns out, are in the martin gropius bau, so went there, wrong entrance, around the side, lines lines lines.

lots of lines.

berlin film fest is all about lines.  you line up to get tickets, accred or public, you line up to get into movies, you line up to use computers to order online sales, which you must pick up within 15 minutes, so you must rush to the internet order pickup desk to get in line there, so that your tix are still there when you get there.

i’ve been in line with and for my boss all morning, am waiting for matt to get here, and we’re blowing this joint and rushing off to a flea market for the afternoon… i have work to do from 5pm to 7pm, then drinks/dinner/movies with the boss.  tonight: older hong kong action flick: duoluo tianshi (fallen angels).

yesterday: howl, which rocked.

later!  matt’s here!

some of you know i work at a company where we are sometimes acquiring movie rights for our clients.  so we get a lot of emails with plugs for movies in distributors’ new catalogs.  here’s the top thing in my inbox this morning:

I see i didn’t make it big enough for you to see the text well… it’s the best part:

hahahahahahah!

yesterday i returned to the gym.  i’d been out for almost 3 months because:

1. i re-injured (badly) my bad knee while participating in the "circuit training" activity that the trainers do for 45 minutes every day.  i could barely walk without pain and finally after 3 weeks went to see my doctor, who gave me anti-inflammatories and told me that i would need to work hard to strengthen my quadraceps, and that the trainers at my gym could help me to do that.  this was right before xmas, and my schedule was too full to hit the gym (yes, very very full), but on 28 dec,
2. i had an appointment at the VU to remove a small bump on the inside of the same knee.  it was removed, stitches were applied, and i was told to try not to bend my knee or sweat for the next 2 weeks until the stitches came out.
3. when the stitches were removed, the apparently closed wound popped open and was filled with pus inside so they bandaged me up and told me not to sweat or do much of anything for the next 3 weeks until i came in and had it looked at.

last week i went back to the VU and they pronounced me still needing to be careful with cleaning etc. but safe to go back to the gym and commence bicycling to work again.  so thursday i bicycled to work (felt fine) and friday i went to the gym.

several of the exercises the trainers had given me are no longer appropriate for my knee (and also my shoulder, which was injured years ago in a motorcycle accident then badly reinjured while i was kickboxing), so although marco didn’t have time to meet with me yesterday, he did give me several quick adjustments i could do, and made an appointment for me with ruud today.  so i worked out for about an hour and a half yesterday (it’s a bit slower when you have to be careful with certain things), and then went dancing (HARD) last night at the combichrist show and dj party afterwards.  my legs were killing me when i went for my appointment just a little while ago.

but i’ve got a new schema to do now and i’m looking forward to doing it.  today i was pretty much burnt out, so ruud and i just went through little practice versions of everything on it, then i took off.

tonight:  dinner at my colleague’s house and then STRANGE at ankhnaton (dance party).  yay!

as a huge coffee junkie (& snob, but that’s unrelated), i used to go off caffeine for a couple of weeks every year just to prove i could.

i haven’t done that for at least 3 years.  so here goes.

i’m a little foggy and crabby today, but no headache.  and some of the crabbiness could be that my office seems a little snitty today.  i can’t tell if i’m causing it or reacting to it.  but i’m clearly not the only one.

anyway, thank last.fm for radio distraction!

nouvelle vague.

ick.
i HATE their covers. 
i don’t know if they do anything else, but i’m sick to death of that woman’s voice.  i hear it EVERYWHERE i go, and have been stuck listening to one refrain over and over from one song on the call line for KLM Flying Blue, which is pretty likely to kill anything. 

ok.  got that out of my system.  i’ve disliked them for some time, but only today learned their name.  recognized the voice while in the bookshop, 3 songs later one of the songs i’ve heard before came on, and so i asked the clerk what the music was.

bleh.

some of you know that i taught for many years at a school with a primarily hmong population.  most of my students and their parents, and some of my colleagues, had spent years in the refugee camps in thailand.  their stories on how they escaped TO thailand are harrowing.  i have a story cloth made by the aunt of one of my students that tells the story.

i admit i haven’t given much thought to them (as a large group – i’ve thought often of individuals) in recent years, but a quick glance at the bbc front page website today showed me this:

** In pictures: Forced expulsion of the Hmong **
How the forced repatriation by the Thai military of 4,000 ethnic Hmong to Laos unfolded, despite international condemnation.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/in_pictures/8434973.stm >

so… i took this week off work because i had expendable vacation days. i intended to sleep in a lot, catch up on miscellaneous personal things, and generally enjoy the week to myself. instead, i would like to say that rather than being asleep right now at 8:40am, i’ve been awake since 6:45 because the work has begun on the roof. there is a great deal of thumping, which i can hear all the way down here on the 1st floor. i’m sure my neighbors are thrilled. astrid and i removed her plant stuff from her side of the roof yesterday and i warned her that this would be an early morning. she’s smart- she’d already made plans to sleep somewhere else all week. i had to be here to give them the keys today, but after today i’m sleeping elsewhere. it’s going to be a long week. i almost wish i were going to work. hahahahahah!

i’ve spent my morning time researching good questions to ask a prospective gp. i’ve decided this is medical week, and have an appointment today to have a weird thing removed from my knee, then an appointment tomorrow with a possible new doctor, and have already made a list of 4 more doctors i’ll make appointments with asap. and i made an appointment with a dentist, although that will be next week.

story is this: i have a doctor, but i never particularly liked him. he never seems to know anything, and comes very quickly to *often wrong* assumptions without listening to my descriptions adequately, or taking into account my personal history. there are a couple things i like about him: his availability via email and mobile phone, and his willingness to prescribe things. but sometimes i’d rather he weren’t so quick to prescribe, and instead considered a little more. by the time, for example, i was referred to a dermatologist at the VU, i had a cabinet full of miscellaneous creams that were prescribed, none of which had any effect. the dermatologists had me throw them all away. it’s wasteful. if you don’t know what something is, why not accept it and send me sooner to a specialist?

anyway.

So the best solstice present I got was from Matt’s mom (via Matt’s choice): a logitech squeezebox, so that i can listen to any of the music stored on our hard drive, or internet radio, or a series of apps, etc… wirelessly wherever in my house i want to.

last night i was randomly flipping through the internet radio choices, and because they were playing ministry, stopped on illuminated hosting radio, which proceeded to switch genres back and forth and give me lots of pleasant surprises and generally entertain me for hours.

so… big thanks to whoever does illuminated hosting radio. good fun!

i was planning on sleeping in today (much needed), but sinterklaas, zwarte piet, a horde of kids and a fucking accordian walked up and down the street not once, not twice, but 3 times.

it started at around 8am. it’s 9:40 now and they’ve been finished for a few minutes. i was interrupted in this post by the dishwasher repairman, who also showed up much earlier than expected.