Refraction

Things I am annoyed with right now, in no particular order:

• A certain associate director at work. My supervisor is on vacation at the moment and so I was told yesterday to compile the work I’ve done over the last three weeks for a meeting tomorrow. I do so, send him the files, and then sit down to a meeting where we go over said data and come up with slides (!!) for this meeting. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “WTF slides? I hope you’re presenting this.” I re-send him the slides for editing, he hacks and slashes them, and then sends me off with “So, you’re going to do this, right Catherine?” AGGGGGH.

  Let me emphatically state ONE THING: I DO NOT LIKE HAVING PRESENTATIONS ON SCIENTIFIC MATTERS SPRUNG ON ME. Especially scientific matters I don’t know an awful lot about. (I could rant about this, but then well we might step into confidentiality issues…)

  Suffice to say I had a bit of a nervous breakdown after that meeting (why does this sound so familiar?) and um, the same lady who found me in nervous breakdown state last time found me again this time. As my surrogate supervisor, she offered to present for me. “But Catherine, it just doesn’t feel right taking credit for work I didn’t do.” It was seriously all I could do at that point to stop myself from saying, “That’s funny, that never stopped [my supervisor on vacation] from presenting my data.”

  I really should not be taking this so hard. However, I have several issues with my whackload of slides, the foremost being that the director has NO BLOODY CLUE what I’m talking about. The work I’m presenting tomorrow is a month old. I need time to refresh my memory of things.

  I also have new, perhaps more pertinent data to discuss. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to process it because I’ve been working on these damn slides all day.

  I don’t like the way the director has instructed me to structure the presentation. As it stands, it really has absolutely no flow. Things jump from one thing to another without really being connected (and now you kind of see why I’ve hated the last eight months of work.)

• Myself, really, for breaking down and letting the idiot win.
• My supervisor on vacation, S—-, for several things: 1) calling this meeting (apparently it was his idea, or maybe I heard this wrong–after all, who calls a meeting while they’re on vacation?); 2) being on vacation and leaving me to flounder; 3) not telling me that this meeting was going to happen and that I was going to need to prepare for it; 4) leaving me to clean up a whackload of his stuff; 5) never having brought me to ANY of these meetings and therefore leaving me COMPLETELY IN THE DARK ABOUT WHAT TO EXPECT. S—-, sorry, you are seriously NOT COOL and that parting gift you gave me? Also not cool. Am I the only one who thinks that you should give gifts for your giftee and not really for yourself?
• The group at work, for PILING WORK ON ME in my last two weeks. HELLO PEOPLE! I AM GOING TO BE GONE IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS! NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO START NEW EXPERIMENTS!
• Myself again, for taking work home with me. I work enough overtime as it is.
• My mother. I really need to move out. Unfortunately, I need money to do that.
• S—- at work, who seems to have absolutely nothing to do and therefore spends her time distracting other people. It’s not easy to tune her out when she sits next to you.
• G— at work, for–I don’t know. This one’s more complicated than the others, and I’m not really annoyed with him. In fact–

Do you ever want to talk about something but are unsure as to whether it’s worth bringing up with people? As in, it’s insignificant, or boring, or … you don’t really have that much to say about it but it’s been on your mind a lot?

At work there’s a bit of “war of the radio stations” going on–it seems three or four people each have strong preferences about which radio station is best suited for working in the lab, so we swing between:

• Soft rock/adult contemporary/easy listening
• Modern rock
• Classical
• Top 40-ish type music
• French talk radio (that’s me, and I only dare put it on when I’m in at 7:30 in the morning. Which I think has happened approximately once.)

Anyway, so today we have the adult contemporary station, and I hear a snatch of a song that goes something like:
“everybody wants to be understood … you are loved …”
I think to myself: “Who wrote this song? Are they kidding themselves? ‘You are loved.’ ‘You are loved.’ What an excellent and gripping hook. And why why why why would Josh Groban sing this?!”

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t always pay a huge amount of attention to lyrics (seeing as how I don’t understand the lyrics to half the music I listen to), but when I do, lyrics can really make or break a song for me. I mean, I know half the songs on that station are along the same kinds of lines, but … I honestly wondered for about 30 seconds whether this was a parody of some kind.

Also, I think I’m just kind of bitter that I don’t get my random tune-out-able Top 40 music now. I’m not sure I really like it any better, but at least the music tends to be a bit more upbeat (important at the end of a long day.)

So… I actually have a costume for Hallowe’en this year. I don’t think I’ve had a proper Hallowe’en costume for a really, really long time. I had a blast making it, actually, and have resolved for the 7465384th time that I will learn how to sew my own clothes.

In fact, this Hallowe’en costume is almost a cosplay, since I’m dressing up as a video game character. And because of that, it’s incredibly nerdy; I’m okay with that, though. 🙂 Working with a bunch of science geeks does tend to have that effect on you.

I think a couple of the other students at work are coming dressed up, so there are definitely going to be some group shots there. 😀

And what’s this? Not only do we have a new single from LOVE, but she also have a MySpace page!

Plus, we are treated to this piece of news:

待望のファーストアルバムリリース決定！
12月5日に待望のファーストアルバムがリリースされます。
タイトルは「Embryo Love Songs」

Debut album, people! I am excited 🙂

… if the people you are now working/study with are of a totally different demographic than you.

During icebreaker (brise-glace) games, you are asked:

1. Etes-vous mariée?
2. Vous avez des enfants?
3. Où travaillez-vous?

During a game of “Who am I?” (“Qui suis-je?”), celebrities chosen include:

1. Gordon Campbell
2. Luciano Pavarotti

During said game, no knows any “jeunes chanteuses américaines (populaires!)” except for Jennifer Lopez.

The instructor is asked his opinion on the current state of politics in France.
(Which, by the way, has pretty much completely dashed my hopes of living in France. Ever. Unless I get married there. To a nice French boy.)

Fresh from the Golden Compass movie website:

It was originally an ermine, and for the moment, it’s a jackal. Makes me wonder what it will be like in another 10 days or so. XD

[edit] Monday 1 October: Now it’s a lynx!

[edit] Sunday 14 October: Back to being a jackal.

In no particular order:

• No one does “FULL MOON PRAYER” better than Fukiko Nakamura. Case in point: Youtube clip of COS performing live Far less wince-inducing than Nami Tamaki’s performance.
• Work is more and less stressful than school at the same time. I don’t know. I’m a little perdu at the moment. Maybe more than a little.
• Nachos are delicious 😀
• Note to self: lab book needs catching up. Also, processing of latest HPLC data needs to be done. Also, coordinate with Brian re: spectra (not “spectrums”) for new compounds.
• Jigglypuff is cute. But do you know what’s even cuter? Kirby as Jigglypuff.
• I have re-discovered my love for Dvorak. Anyone up for a game witht the Paranoia or Programming decks? (I plan to print out the “ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US” deck as well one day. It has pictures! :D)

So a new bunch of co-op students have started, and it turns out a couple of them are IB alumni. I think this is way beyond cool, but that’s only because I love the IBO. XD

One of them went to an international school, so very naturally, my thoughts turned to Fukiko Nakamura, who was also a student at an international school. It turns out that the (ex-)vocalist of CORE OF SOUL may have been an IB student too! This would just be pure awesome for completely irrational reasons 😀

I am currently quite fond of this game, “Hikkoshiboroboro“. It’s a rather standard dodging game, but the creators have done a wonderful job injecting some human emotion in there that isn’t related to anger or fear: this, my friends, is a game about love.

Okay, so basic story, according to the Google translator:

Step beauty of the girl friend became to move to the Saitama new city center. Step beauty under the sweetheart above the friend as for the running man, step beauty was waived without conveying the thinking which is concealed in the chest. The lonesome face of the step beauty which was shown separation occasion, the thought [hi] coming out of that day. The word which you could not say. The running man who is regretful, if the air is attached, chasing step beauty, had produced to run the self recklessly on the one road of countryside!

Not that you really play a game like this for the story. (“Step beauty” is a literal translation of the girl’s name, I think: it could be read “Ayumi”. I don’t really understand the part about attaching air, although the kanji used there is 気, which is “emotion” or “mood”.)

The game itself isn’t particularly novel–although I kind of question a girl who doesn’t notice chests and television sets flying off the back of her truck–but there’s humour in there, and a wonderful piece of background music.