Livre d'Or

Thank you to everyone who came to my slightly last minute party on Saturday; it was great to have one last chance to enjoy the multi-faceted conversations typical of Cambridge geek events. And lovely to see deborah_c and her excellent offspring, simont, pseudomonas, fivemack (sorry for making you ill), and some tree kangaroos on the BBC.

Yom Kippur was very much what I want out of the day, with a truly excellent rabbi and our lovely Reform liturgy, and a community I feel so much part of. I got loads of congratulations and good advice on the job, and generally even though it was a solemn occasion it also felt like a great send-off.

I have spent today packing, somewhat inefficiently, and have more to do this evening. Tomorrow morning my parents are driving me to Stoke-on-Trent and settling me in a doctors' flat there; it feels a lot like the first day of uni all over again! But yay for lovely parents making this far more less painful than it might be otherwise.

The thing about the flat is that it has no phone or internet access; I expect I'll be able to access the internet from work and on my new shiny phone, but I doubt I'll have lots of time for hanging out online. I would welcome text messages, phonecalls (or paper letters / postcards if you're into that). See locked post for contact details. And if I don't manage to post with life updates, I'll try to at least ping Twitter so you know I'm still alive.

I haven't updated for a couple of weeks, because I have barely had time to breathe during that time. It involved two international moves and catching up with months worth of family time and quite a lot of headless chicken imitations!

Anyway, the culmination of all this was that I arrived in New York yesterday evening. I am here until the end of July, mostly studying at Drisha but I'm likely to be free to meet up evenings or weekends if anyone feels like it. Next weekend I am going to Montreal to see rysmiel. And the first week in August (after the course finishes) I might go on a long diversion to California, but that has to be finalized. Anyway if you are somewhere within a reasonable day trip of New York, let me know if you want to make plans.

( why I've not been online much recently )

So, if you were in New York for a month with fairly limited free time, what would be your priority?

Having spent the weekend sorting my head out, I'm now at least emotionally committed to leaving this job and Sweden mid-June, and probably spending the summer in New York doing Jewish learning. So today I talked to both my boss and the head of HR for the department and gave formal notice that this is what I'm doing. I haven't actually bought plane tickets or a registration for Drisha yet, but in my head it feels like a decision. And this comes with the realization that I actually only have a month more here. I hope I can make the most of it, I have plans for jack coming to visit and running activities for Shavuot and hopefully will have some actual goodbye parties now I really am leaving.

( what I'll miss about Sweden )

Let's see. I've basically not been online at all since Monday. I've missed you guys!

( if you care what I've been up to )

Between 5 o'clock Friday evening, when I saw the parents off, and 9 o'clock, a whole series of stupid little things went wrong. With the cumulative stress of starting out in a new country and not getting enough sleep or enough to eat for a couple of weeks, I got everything out of proportion. I couldn't think of ways to deal with these minor problems and I was frustrated by all the little things here I don't know how to do here. Happily, I got a nice email from rysmiel, which was very cheering, and then I phoned pseudomonas who was wonderful and came up with lots of practical suggestions and distracted me with interesting conversation. I love my friends; thank you for being there.

The only one of the problems that is at all serious is that, having told me it was very important to buy a computer through the university purchasing scheme, the financial department have now turned round and said I can't do that after all. I don't at all mind buying my own computer; that's what I was intending to do anyway. But I would greatly have preferred to do it when I was back in England, where I know the system (and have the ability to buy things by mail order, which I don't here, either online or by phone). Now that I'm in a sensible mood I can see that the only consequence is minor hassle; it will be harder to find what I want, and I may end up paying slightly over the odds, but it's not at all impossible. Of course, it does mean that it will take me longer to get online than I was hoping, which is a pain. I'm annoyed with the department for messing me around, but on the plus side at least I can buy something which isn't Dell. Meh.

Oh, and I'm starting Swedish lessons on Tuesday. It's an intensive, Ulpan type course taught entirely in Swedish and with emphasis on getting speaking confidence. I think that will stand me in good stead to learn the language, and also make me feel less of an idiot because I'll be able to deal with simple small talk in shops and the like. Also, learning is good.

Now to catch up on at least some of the friends page for the week.

I'm in Sweden. I can't get into the place I'm staying until my kind hosts have finished work, which means I can't get rid of my huge heavy bag. This makes it extremely tempting to spend the waiting time wasting all my money in an internet cafe!

Anyway, I thought I'd have at least a brief internet fix (though I might be sensible and not just hang out here for the next two hours), so I saw all your kind messages when I logged on just now. Thank you all so much, I really appreciate having such lovely friends.

Other than that, nothing to report. I have been awake too many hours already, and I'm tired and bored. But nothing bad has happened.

Er, well, actually this post is mainly about shopping, but that would be a much more boring title! I decided to go into town yesterday in order to get a few things I need for moving. But Mum and Granny got on my back about buying new clothes, which I don't really need (now or ever), and the trip turned into this marathon clothes shopping expedition of doom. But boobies were involved too, so I supopse that makes it a bit better.

( shopping report )

Anyway, the promised boobies. I did the Bravissimo thing, as recommended by a number of well-endowed friends. It was an interesting experience; their idea is that instead of measuring you with a tape-measure, the assisant watches you trying bras on and adjusts the size until you get something that fits perfectly. Which is probably a good idea, given the vagaries of clothes manufacturers generally! And it wasn't too intrusive; the assistant was very matter-of-fact about it, which I very much approve of. She offered to go out of the room while I changed bras, so even if you were shy you wouldn't have to do deal with a stranger seeing you topless; I'm not shy, and her obviously sensible attitude meant I didn't care.

I came out as 32E, in line with the Bravissimo theory that most women need to go down in back size and up in cup size to get a good fit. But 32E is really into Barbie doll territory! I can cope with the idea of being an E-cup, but how can there only be 32 inches around my chest?! Anyway, I bought this bra in the end. It's functional rather than wonderful, but I am impressed with how well it fits. Oh, and it's slightly more expensive than I would normally pay for a basic M&S bra, but not ridiculously so. And they didn't pressure me into buying anything, which I was worried about with all that personal attention.

Bravissimo has a good range, including sexy, plain, colourful, feminine, something for almost every taste. And this was reflected by their clientele, which did seem to include women of all ages and dress styles (I'm assuming people's tastes in bras vaguely reflects their tastes in outer clothes, but of course one never knows!) The trouble is that what I want in a bra is that it should be made mostly out of cotton (synthetics against my skin are sweaty and horrible), and that it should not have a horrible piece of wire under my breasts. And in any lingerie shop those preferences restrict my choices a bit. The assistant said that underwired styles are lot less uncomfortable if they fit properly, and she did demonstrate this principle, but I still prefer elastic rather than wire.

The other thing that's interesting about Bravissimo is the area where you wait to be assigned to a fitter. It's nice, with comfy chairs and a generally pleasant ambience. But the table has a stack of men's magazines! Obviously they have a lot of customers who drag bored boyfriends along and make them wait while they're being fitted. And they're carefully chosen men's magazines too, hobby mags and Men's Health and so on, rather than lad mags. I can imagine that women waiting for bra fitting would feel very uncomfortable if there were a stack of Nuts and Loaded in the waiting area! Interesting anthropological observation, though.

Anyway, that shopping trip took about 7 hours, which is time I can't really afford and is an extremely annoying way to waste a whole day. Also, I feel as if I'm sickening for something, something vaguely tonsilitis shaped. Which I really don't need when I'm about to move to Sweden! I really hope I'm wrong.

I decided to schedule some time with pseudomonas yesterday. I don't see him enough because I tend to take him for granted, assuming that since he lives in the same city, I can see him any time... and then never make arrangements. But anyway, he had bank holiday Monday off, so we had a very pleasant day together.

It started off annoyingly due to train stupidity, but we met up in the end. I found a very cool patchwork padded jacket in the market for £1 (I love that jumble stall, I really do). And we had a picnic on Jesus Green; it was a lovely spring day for most of the time we were outdoors, which is really pleasing.

Then to the Fitzwilliam to see thir Blake exhibition. This turned out to be a small thing, mainly a couple of dozen plates from Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion. So the rest of the afternoon was for quality time with the ceramics.

Lots of lovely conversation. I'm getting a bit stressed about the move to Sweden because I'm supposed to be going there next week and haven't really got the practical details sorted out yet. Nor have I written the grant application I'm supposed to be working on, and it would be starting on a really bad foot not to get that done before the deadline. But pseudomonas was really reassuring. I am going to do this, I am going to just turn up in a foreign country with a couple of suitcases and just see what happens. It's just that it's going to happen awfully soon, rather than at some point in the distant future!