Strong Verbs Are Just Better

... 100 days, welp.

Work: I continue to be stretching out how much I can concentrate in a day (typically doing better at the beginning of a week than the end). Pay-off is I seem to be 'tired but wired' at the end of it, which is annoying. Powering through readings, teaching prep for next semester coming underway, thesis>book rewrite is starting to look like an actual project (albeit one on which very little has been done). Have plans to start sketching out, lol, the NEXT book tomorrow. Meeting with MF last week went well, bit of a mid-year project summit. Tomorrow is my assigned mentoring meeting. I'm also making headway with the website, and the counter-intuitive content hosting platform.

Also sent a long email to someone MF put me in touch with, a former student of hers - we've been having very spaced out email chats about matters academic, and this time she asked for citations. I had nothing SPECIFICALLY what she wanted so she got a LOT of things with annotated notes instead... I have not changed, evidently.

House & Adulting: My basils have spider mites, and the petunias have either those or something else. Something small and greenish-yellow and smaller than a sesame seed all over their leaves. I've cut back the worst affected stalks, and am watering them a lot and spraying them with soap. We shall see.

IKEA delivery came today; I have a PROPER MATTRESS. It still smells kinda funny as it expands. I have not assembled any of the other things yet.

Discovered today that AGAIN I screwed up the new Postfinance bill-payment system, and end result is my credit card never got paid off last month. I did not notice because they just... let me sail over the spending limit. Ugh. I assume there will be fees for that. Anyway, it seems that the bill system is configured for people who pay bills on due date or after, not for little ole me, who wants to pay bills on '27th of the month', that is the month BEFORE the bill is due, not the month WHEN/AFTER the bills are due. Because I get paid on the 25th and the c'card bill comes in on the 26th. Chalk THAT up to Special Amy Moments, and this is what I have a stupidity money buffer built into my budget for.

Health: Okay? I mean. I actually went running three days after LAST going running, that's progress. Bought some disposable masks, too, having worn one at the hairdresser last week and found it much less hateful than the ones I sewed.

Hobbies: brain like a sieve has decided crochet isn't enough stimulation for evening podcasts/audiobooks anymore, and it will only stay trained on audio input if I'm ironing. I don't have enough things to iron to uphold this requirement! I did iron another hem on the tablecloth-in-progress, though I haven't sewn it yet.

Identified an easy looking crochet doily I wish to make, as a break from the endless squares, but have not yet convinced brain to start it.

The back belt loop on my favourite trousers is... fraying? Not tearing at the anchor point, literally wearing away from the belt leather. I am going to have to replace it, as these trousers fit well and aren't in stock anymore. I do not know what kind of fabric I need for that; I have looked online and ???. I have identified a fabric store and will betake myself there, I guess.

Languages: missed a german class on Sunday, but have had two since. A1.2 continues to push my capacities, but as I'm filling in the last few classes in A1.1, I can tell I was ready for the switch.

On the other hand I tried to speak to my neighbour in French today and totally failed, also failed to Normal Human. Ho hum.

Forgot to mention that last week I made a diary twitter for my stuffies, in order to make practising German more cute.

I have not done anything that marks the deconfinement s2, although i did walk past a local shoe/sports store and noted their first tactic was to do a massive e-bike sale (makes sense: public transport is operating, but many people would prefer not to use it, for obvious reasons).

Done Saturday:
- Talked to Shiny for a bit. They had been to an in-person (permitted) gathering *and* a jitsi party, and were thus in good, if tipsy, spirits.
- Laundry
- ??? Genuinely no idea what else. I had defrosted soup for dinner. I guess the afternoon went on recuperating from the previous two day's conferencing

Done Sunday:
- Made egg and avocado burritos with Jack Monroe's banana ketchup (from vegan-ish)
- Called mum. Mother's day present not yet arrived. Spoke to Ms10 briefly.
- Finished Mask #1, then had to give self a pep talk about perfectionism and skills we are not good at.
- As You Like It readthrough with wildeabandon et al, which was much fun.
- Made roast tomato pasta for dinner.
- Decided to deal with my grump about imperfect mask by planning projects /three stages ahead/. Now I HAVE to do the masks, and the tablecloths, in order to fine-tune the skills necessary to advance to bloomers, and then to bolero jackets. I know from comparable skills that, *unlike*, say, languages, I do not cope well if I just leap in a step or two ahead of my objective level, but the life strategy of strategic over-ambition has merit in many situations.

Done today:
- More laundry
- Made my assigned post at covidcoffeecorner. Stop by, we're talking about stuffed toys.
- Spent some time panicking because NONE of my keytags would swipe me into the building (I could get in by an open cellar door). Called the real estate agent, who determined it was just the front door, and also apparently just me. By 3pm it was working again? Now unsure if I hallucinated it, or if it was something the renovating dudes just happened to be doing, or if - and this is possible but I really think unlikely - I forgot that the door has a little catch and you have to push it a bit. I'm sure I pushed it more than a bit!
- Due to above, did not go for a run
- Finished reading American Chaucers
- some phd>book draft
- signed up for another book review with Parergon
- Instead of running, took trolley and went up to the Other Migros, which turns out to be closer to home than the one I usually go to. Dropped off all my plastic bottles. Bought a small batch of grocery supplies (was out of milk), and then went back around and purchased 20L of potting soil and a pot of petunias. Never had much luck with petunias before, but hope springs eternal.
- On returning home, emailed some colleagues re possibly hosting a works-in-progress seminar for swiss researchers
- made vegetarian stroganoff - StrogaNOT, if you like - from the base recipe in Vegan(ish). Added mushrooms to the eggplant, and put the cream back in (didn't have sour cream, but 250ml of uht cream with a dash of lemon seemed to work). That used up the last of my (very very sad) potatoes, and also reduced the hamster-pile of shelf stable mushrooms a bit.
- Cut out the fabric for Mask #2. Identified somewhere I went wrong cutting the last one, but then made a different mistake this time. Not worth recutting, though, so onward ho. As I said to myself in my pep talk, I will make DIFFERENT mistakes next time! This time involves t-shirt material as well as more slippy satin, I shall be Tested.