iMisty

Most of my friends would say I am a pretty independent, liberated woman. I tend to think of myself that way, too. My self-picture gets challenged though, when Andrew is out of town for any lengthy period of time. He’s an engineer, and I don’t realize how much I rely on him to “make stuff work” until he’s gone.

I don’t think this is a gender thing. I’m utterly convinced that women can do everything men can do. We can cut the grass, pay the bills, or install gutters, like my friend Heather (link is to her AHL articles, the gutter episode happened on Facebook). Of course it’s a given that women can code, tear down computers, and administer complex computer networks, because I have done this stuff for quite a long time.

Andrew’s been gone for two weeks, and here are the things that have happened that he would normally deal with:

• The silverware drawer got so wedged that I had to actually detach the drawer rails from the sides of the cabinet, to get it out.
• The set screw on the tailpiece to his double bass came apart, causing the bridge to fly across the room. The strings are now hanging limp and sad. I called Ilya and he said it was OK to leave the bass in this state until Andrew gets back.
• We got a notice that we were enrolled in a motorcycle class and our credit card had been charged I called and dealt with this. It turned out the receipt had simply been mailed to the wrong address, and the proper person had paid for and attended the course.
• The remote control for the air conditioner has stopped working. I downloaded the manual, reprogrammed the remote, and it still didn’t work. After consulting with a neighbor who has the same unit, we have determined the remote control is faulty. At least the aircon still works, it just wants to cool the house down to 16 degrees celsius. So I have to turn it off when it gets to a reasonable temperature, and then turn it back on when it gets too hot.

Nothing really crazy has happened. It’s just funny to see all the things I rely on Andrew to do, when there is absolutely no reason I shouldn’t be able to handle them.

UPDATE: I fixed the remote, somehow, by button-mashing in just the right order. No idea how.

The term “grep” is actually an abbreviation of a command line from the Unix line editor–which is called, with typical Unix terseness, ed. The command “g/regular expression/p” would search a file for all lines containing the given regular expression and display them. This operation was performed so frequently that it wasn’t long before it was spun off into a separate program, the aforementioned grep.

Quoted from the BBedit user tutorial.

UNIX history is charming.

Andrew is going to Germany to work for three months. While he’s gone, I have decided to try again to learn French. I’ve taken French courses before. I audited a semester in uni but didn’t work at it much. Then when we lived in California, I took a year of French at De Anza College.

I never got very good at speaking French and got discouraged by memorizing vocabulary. I also never tried to listen to French radio or movies, or speak to my Franco-Canadian husband! He found my accent hard to take and I got embarrassed to try to speak with him in French. I’m actually surprised by how much I remember of the novice-level stuff but I never got past the simple past tense and my vocabulary is very small.

This time, I’ll be able to take a very intensive course (2 weeks, 5 days a week, for a total of 30 hours) followed by a semi- intensive course (5 weeks, 2 days a week, for a total of 30 more hours). 60 hours of French in 7 weeks is pretty good, and I’ll be able to listen to French podcasts and watch French films too. I’m taking my courses at the Alliance Francaise de Brisbane, and they have a nice library of booms, music, and movies I can borrow. I’d like to be able to have simple conversations at the end of the 7 weeks, and maybe understand some of the RFI news broadcasts.

Tonight was the first class. I felt like it went very slow. Most people had zero exposure to French, so I hope we pick up the pace. We learned the alphabet and how to say hello, and about formal and informal address. We also talked a bit about body language. We learned some acronyms. I have a tiny homework assignment.

If You Wouldn’t Do Your Job For Free, Then Quit [Careers]

$300 toothpaste squeezer

… studies show that people with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. They don’t schedule endless back-to-back meetings. They avoid temptations like all-you-can-eat buffets, and they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices. Instead of deciding every morning whether or not to force themselves to exercise, they set up regular appointments to work out with a friend. Instead of counting on willpower to remain robust all day, they conserve it so that it’s available for emergencies and important decisions.