119

Today's magic number is 119, because this is the number of emails remaining in my inbox by the end of the day today; at the end of last week, I think the number was approx. 374. (Of course, this is not quite as bad as a certain person of whom I am aware who has 1281 emails in their inbox, with 682 of those being unread. That person ought to perhaps stop doing overly kind things for other people, like taking broken computers to the tip...).

There has been a woeful lag in blogging. I am ashamed, esp. as there have been marvelous rants, incisive cultural and behavioural observations, and loads of amusing events. Sadly, each day is a new world to The Brain of Amrie and she forgets what creatively brilliant and brightly coloured balls were bouncing around in her head the day before. Then she is so poopt-edy when she gets home from work, that she is lazy and does not blog... but she does knit, so she is not entirely a lazy lout.

Let's see... umm.

It has been cold. My toes are rawther chilly most of the time, although have managed to figure out that front room is cosier if middle door is shut (but it doesn't really attain full cosiness, as am penurious scrooge with my heating) and am proud of m'self for making a cunning draft stopper for the 1-inch gap under the middle door out of some looovely light brown file-waled cordouroy, 1 kg of rice and a black ribbon (and some black thread for a seam).

Tomorrow is my last office day before my next excursion. Thinking about the 6.15am flight on Tuesday kind of makes me feel a bit faint. But this decision is my fault, entirely, as it was selected so that my arrival in Newark will be before rush hour traffic. Work has been amusing in a nuthouse sort of way this week, because:
* people outside my office keep thinking of more, more complicated and wonderful (and costly) things that I personally need to do to improve US numbers
* people keep suggesting things that can come out of my budget to support them 'helping' me do my job (thereby creating more work for Sally, Clare(nce) and moi)
* faculty members keep referring to the fun that I am apparently going to have on my 'trip' -- this is the trip where I work for 23 days in a row primarily in four different metro areas (and 7 hotels) with one day off. This is not to be taken as a whinge, but it is really annoying to have people just think this is luxurious and posh.
* people express disapprobation that my little 'trips' are so long (thereby inconveniencing their addition programming that they want me to do for them) -- It is tempting to ask them if they think that, since our campus is supposed to be this Environmental Wonderland of Erudition (EWE -- titter), it makes sense for multiple short hops across a big ocean to be taken to areas that are very close to each other on a single continent.
* and today, a new entertainment came in the form of a faculty member who felt rather ill-equipped (well, that is his own fault -- oops. sorry. how rude of me.) at an event that he guested at for us.

• He criticised that we/I didn't send him a tablecloth -- we barely have enough for our own staff.
• He wanted fourteen boxes of prospectuses for undergraduate and graduate levels (shipped across an ocean AND a continent, I might add) so that he could give one to each person who came to his stand. A prospectus is a big book approaching 100 pages in length, which is NOT printed on lightweight paper product. (He is from the Enviromental Science department)
• He brought me some pictures of other universities' tables -- the ones who did not have people like him standing in for them. There were no pictures of those tables... WOW! I have never seen an exhibition display before! That is soooooo helpful.
• He looked at me disapprovingly for the fact that I am leaving again. And he asked how much of the time I am in the office. 'Oh. About half the time,' she answered perkily. 'This will be my sixth trip for work since beginning in February!'

* my computer has been brain-wiped, but is now acting like it is operating on a walker (aka, Zimmer frame). This is not amusing in anticipation of going out into Wild World.
* my left eye has been twitching for an entire week now. This is called a blepharospasm. There will, however, be no Botox injected into me ever, particularly near my eyelid! Ick.

******
It is not all woe and grumping, though...
* I like it being cold!
* There is a new girl in the office. She did her doctoral studies on the effects of WWII on Poland, particularly women, and one of the methods in which she was punished as a child was that she wasn't allowed to read :) I think we will get along well! (To my non-familial readers, this was a primarily method in which I was punished...)
* Sally has begun a blog!
* Clementine did not murder me for sitting in her prescription chair and moving all the adjustments around.
* The Norwich Beer Festival is this week, and our office is having an outing thereto this Saturday. The queue on the news on Monday looked formidable.
* Am having massage splurge at Ritual tomorrow after work. Rituals are good things to have. Oh look -- knitting time! (Have not gone to knitting tonight due to exhaustion and continual eye-twitching, which is kind of making me sea-sick).