April 30, 2002 - 1:15 p.m.

i stayed up until 4 a.m. this morning, eating chips and salsa, some gooey white chocolate and drinking a&w sparkling vanilla cream soda. i found it in the american import section of the nearby supermarket. can you believe i paid $1.52 for one can? well, it's delicious, and it was for a caffeine emergency - i was up working and reworking my readymade submission near deadline.

while i was glued to the computer, simon watched two bad movies that he knew i wouldn't want to see. we've had to resort to deal-making now with his excessive movie-viewing habits. he wants to watch nearly every movie that comes out, regardless of how bad the reviews or trailers might seem. he'd be perfect in the marketing division of a film company: he has something nice to say about nearly every movie. let's just hope a potential employer sees it that way and is willing to give him a job.

part of the deal-making involves simon taking advantage of opportune moments to watch things on his own. whenever i feel a nap coming on, for example, i watch simon leap up to grab a horrible b-grade video and pop it in the vcr (after the requisite five or so minutes of spooning, of course). one of last night's picks starred sylvester stallone, and a few days ago he got his jean-claude van damme fix. i just don't get it. if i would have put my foot down and said no to the time machine the other night, i would have ended up at home alone, i'm sure.

i was catching up on my sleep this morning when the doorbell rang. it was the mailman, letting me know that some very heavy boxes had arrived and that he would be delivering them around lunchtime. it turned out that all six boxes sent on my last day in the u.s. had arrived: two boxes of books and four boxes of nice dishes and glassware.

MY DISHES ARE HERE! MY DISHES ARE HERE!

[sigh] i feel like steve martin's character in the jerk, when he gets hold of the newly printed phone book with his name listed inside. things are going to start happening to me now.

i'm too weary to open the dish boxes and search for damaged items, but i'll give a full report later.

i insured the dishes for a nice sum of money. if they're intact, then i've got some fantastic dishes for our future place. if they're broken, then i'll get cash from the post-office grievance office, which simon and i can use to move out of beaumaris. it's a win-win situation, really.

in other news, i filled out an online survey today about my undergraduate institution. i hope the other participating alumni were in more of a positive mindframe than me. i checked "strongly disagree" to all three of the following statements:

* the university deserves the support of its alumni, friends, corporations and foundations.
* i experienced a deep sense of community while at university of the pacific.
* being involved at pacific has helped me achieve my career goals.

if there would have been a box marked "ha ha ha" instead of "strongly disagree," i probably would have checked that instead.