Zeborah

I planned to write something about all the awesome cool things popping up in town around the rubble.

Or about how absolutely awesome my new job is.

Or some other things maybe apart from who am I kidding, I was never going to get around to those.

Instead I'm going to revert to one I didn't have the heart to write two weeks ago or three months ago.

You see, back in the mists of time, I can't even remember why, a chunk of the corner of one of my front teeth had to be filled with composite. Three months ago, this filling came out while I was chewing on a (cold therefore a bit toffee-like) Shrewsbury biscuit. The dentist duly replaced it for me.

But then, two weeks ago, right at the start of a long weekend, the replacement came out in (of all things) a bread roll. And then when the dentist was back in her office there were still no appointments available for eight days. Luckily after a while I worked out what and how I could continue to eat without ouchies, otherwise I'd have got very hungry. Anyway and so the dentist duly replaced it for me this Wednesday afternoon free of charge (or as I'm calling it, 'under warranty'), and carefully made it shorter than last time so there'd be less pressure on it.

So, everyone, guess what happened this evening barely two days later? That's right. And guess what was I eating? Nothing, that's what. I was just absentmindedly scraping my teeth across my lip as I always do when it gets dry, and I guess the torque got it where (one presumes) just biting something wouldn't; or I don't know. Whatever, this is official "You have seriously got to be kidding me" territory, and I guess means that if the dentist even wants to have anything to do with me again I'm going to have to go full on and get a crown instead.

Also my php include refuses to work when I use an absolute instead of a relative path and I don't understand why. I need to use an absolute path because this itself is an include and might appear in files in multiple different directories so the relative path breaks for obvious reasons. --Oh, never mind, I worked it out and fixed it. Now I can go to bed and dream of disintegrating teeth in peace.

and also swears a lot when the other hand touches anything at the wrong angle.

So yesterday I got a random flare up of what I presume is RSI because I can determine no other cause. Can't determine much cause for flare-up either, but hey, RSI. (I have perfect ergonomic set-up at work, and restbreak software, and ridiculous amounts of stress, oh wait.) It manifested by barely being able to use the left hand for anything significant without pain, and got worse from there. Like, "In order to use my right hand to scrunch up this used tinfoil, I shall pick up said tinfoil in my left-- F#$%@ no I won't."

Anyway so I didn't use said hand all yesterday (and yes, am being super careful of the right) and closed computer last night to watch movies and slept really carefully and still found it aching if it lay in the wrong position. Also any given right position became a wrong position after one minute at best.

So I got out of bed with my elbow, washed my right arm with difficulty, didn't even attempt washing my hair, and gave up entirely on the whole bra thing. Currently typing with right hand, restbreak softeware set on paranoid (doing lots of gardening between times), left hand in heatpack so it's warm enough for me to occasionally dare a few gentle squeeze-stretch exercises because circulation is good.

It seems to be getting slightly better.

--Oh Boots, I appreciate your interest in my lap, but there's really no room today.

Today's to-do list includes getting more anti-inflammatories from the chemist; booking in that massage; and getting an upgraded computer so I can use Dragon without everything freezing. (It might even fix Firefox's memory issues too...)

Right hand tiring. Now seems a good time for a walk to the chemist.

Things that don't seem like an excellent idea #1: Rubbing a cut on your knuckle as you go to empty your chemical toilet in the communal tank. I don't think it came into contact with anything more problematic than the basically-clean exterior of my own tank. I rubbed hand sanitiser into it until it stung while I was there, and when I got home washed it thoroughly and slathered with more hand sanitiser and then Dettol antiseptic cream. No signs of gangrene yet.

--

In my previous post I meant to wax more philosophical on the progression from the early day or few of relying on our own stocks of water; then a week or so of queuing for water; then boiling all water, and now six and a half weeks later being able to wash an open cut in it straight from the tap.

(Still to come: not needing to conserve it for the sake of the sewage system; and not needing to have it chlorinated anymore. Not sure which will happen first.)

...I don't have much philosophical to say about it. Just that it's fascinating to watch the regaining of civilisation. When I see people on Twitter complaining about how we haven't fixed all our roads yet (apparently Japan has or something? I know they've fixed some roads super-rapidly, but all of them to brand-new? I'm sceptical); or people in the news complaining that a hotel and Civil Defense are conspiring to keep them from retrieving their NZ$27,000 engagement ring (the building's yellow-stickered! that means it's safe for the public to wander through in search of a ring, right?!) I can only assume that either they're really really really tired, which is perfectly understandable, or that they don't have a clue just how bad the earthquake hit us.

And when it's a Tweep who lives out of town, or, well, the $27,000 engagement ring speaks for itself -- I find myself favouring one of these possibilities over the other.

The thing is, lots of things broke. People have fixed a lot of things. And it's not anyone's fault, nor even government's, that the huge lot of things that have been fixed remains almost overwhelmingly outnumbered by the lots of things that broke. There's a whole scaling issue here, folks! <flail>

I think I shall walk to my parents' this evening instead of busing bussing going by bus; see if it loosens up some of these rocks in my back.

Taking the bus is tiring. I think it's not so much that it takes anywhere from 2-4 times as long as usual; I think it's mostly that it's really hard to resist looking out the window and seeing the ruins of used bookstores (bricks and books comingled), and of churches (open-air pews and curtains flapping in the frame of a stained-glass window), and of houses.

If you live in anything resembling an earthquake zone, resist the temptation of firewalls. A firewall seems like such a good idea at the time, but it's really really not. Not if you want four walls.

Some houses and walls remain standing thanks to hastily-erected wood-frame buttressing.

Army tanks in full camo continue to crawl our streets. Yesterday on Moorhouse I saw a couple handing a bunch of flowers to a soldier. I smiled. Then I realised that the flowers were lilies and were more likely intended to be taken to somewhere like the CTV building. ( Cut for stout hearts )

On campus a hastily erected sign says "City bus". I learned in due course that this meant a bus belonging to the city, not a bus going to the city; in fact the only bus-belonging-to-the-city that passes there is one of the few that never goes to the city at all. Communicated this to some minions of the Progressive Restart folk so hopefully it will wend its way up the chain and get something done about it before things are back to normal.

Not the new normal. The new normal changes every few hours. The eventual normal, I guess.

I got enough energy to call the plumber; he'll contact me again next week. Shower pressure seemed normal today. I don't understand that shower; never have, really, it's just I know what settings worked in the old normal.

Last night I smeared toothpaste on my toothbrush and then noticed a drip fall from the tap: I'd wet the toothbrush under the tap instead of with kettle water. I stared at it for a while but was too tired to boil it then and there, so just rinsed it with the kettle water and went on. If I get gastro I know who to blame.

The Fraction Liquefaction video made me smile the other day. (Warning: May not be comprehensible to those outside ChCh/NZ.) This morning I watched it again and it made me so cheerful I cried. Cried properly for the first time. My eyes have leaked before, sometimes heavily, and occasionally I've managed a half-hearted sob but until now that's as far as my energy's extended. So having a proper cry was fantastic; albeit poorly timed, because then I had to rush off to catch my bus.

We drove over the bridge on Moorhouse, newly repaired. It felt disconcertingly vertiginous.

They had counsellors at work today. The original plan was for them to be in offices for us to visit, but one seemed to have got bored waiting for someone to turn up because he came out and wandered the workrooms instead. He seemed satisfied when I told him that I'm okay with not being okay: that is, it's rather evident that I'm an utter mess at the moment and happy as I was feeling this morning there was never any way I'd be able to get through a conversation with him without my eyes leaking, but there's no point attempting to fix it with sympathy or counselling or sleeping pills(1) because there's nothing to fix, really; it would be more worrisome if I wasn't feeling crappy. Been here before in September and I know how it goes: I just need rest and time.

(1) I mention sleeping pills not because I've been sleeping badly (I'm not) but because the doctor spontaneously offered them to me when I went to my regular checkup the other day. I declined but accepted the offer of a flu jab instead. Flu jabs are like breath mints: if someone offers you one and you're not allergic you should always accept it.

Today I also talked to my manager about next week's timetable; sounds like it can be arranged so I can go in for longer chunks of time (possibly less often, that doesn't matter to me so much) so I don't keep spending more time travelling than on campus. --Though a later email doesn't take this conversation into account. Meh, no doubt the situation will change a couple times more over the weekend.

Picked up my asthma medication from a pharmacy nearby that I never knew existed because I always went to the one in the mall.

On the sewerage system:

"The first task was to flush silt out of all pipes, which was expected to take up to four months, before assessing the damage and beginning repairs." [Source: The Press]

The sounds of the earthquake - I love how she says "Ooh, there's a big earthquake" in approximately the same tones as one might say, "Ooh, it's started raining". Of course then the earthquake keeps going, so, yeah.

The house keeps making little #eqnz wobbles today. I don't understand. Ken Ring didn't say anything about 1st April!

My back door is going through a phase in which the lock actually works as intended. (When it doesn't work as intended it still works, it's just when you unlock it it stays locked so you mustn't pull it shut behind you unless you've got your keys with you. Of course since the earthquake you have to make some effort to pull it shut behind you anyway so that's all good.)

This naturally swings wildly from "Eee, dead of cute!" to "Argh, quit chewing on the keyboard and putting my laptop to sleep (how are you doing that anyway???)!"

<attempts to recollect the day>

Sponge bath in a bucket. Didn't run the tap long enough to get hot, but supplemented with water from a kettle for sheer luxury. (Quite unneeded really: the friction:water ratio is high enough that even cold water isn't uncomfortable. But warm's even nicer.) Made for a good demonstration of why they call it "grey water".

Church service was nice - very sunny, big crowd. Crowd included various news cameras. I got interviewed by some Australian TV station, I think; Mum by a radio channel. I think I wasn't too wildly incoherent, but did have to resort to the blandest cliches imaginable. A couple of text articles about it: Stuff.co.nz or Herald (reuses text but its photo is of our service). Of course there are minor lacunae and inaccuracies: in addition to arriving on bike or foot plenty of us came by car (though I did walk partway I guess), and the scones and water (not tea) came after the service, not while singing.

Another article on Christianity and the earthquake.

I promised photos of sandcastles! Here are some my Mum took - the nearest structure in the first, three towers connected by a wall, is the one I helped with.

I got a flyer in my mail! I think it was delivered by the Student Volunteer Army; it's got information about where to get help and there's a copy online (pdf).

My asthma is distinctly acting up. (No preventative for a week + stress + dust. Today I wore a dustmask while walking, and wasn't the only one.) My normal pharmacy has no answerphone message so I ended up ringing HealthLine and browsed the Ministry of Health website while listening to a long recorded message. There was an option to talk to a person but I thought I'd see if my question was answered first. Apparently one can get emergency repeats from any open pharmacy. I'll call the nearest one tomorrow to double-check on that before hiking over.

Heard from an old manager. Dozed. Watched Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, which isn't up to Criminal Minds' standards, but nor is Criminal Minds these days. Updated the church website - we never officially launched it but it seems like a useful thing.

My mood dropped steadily through the day; in retrospect unsurprising. By evening it was a huge chore to make myself make dinner. I think tomorrow I'll try making dinner in the morning.

Darn it, we're going to have to pick up books again :-) - the photo and the story further down by the same guy are from my branch. But y'know, we're kind of used to this by now. And actually, if that's the worst he saw, it's not nearly as bad as last time.

In "I cannot brain, I has the dumb" news, I've taken to wearing a wee bag around my neck for my cellphone, asthma inhaler, and most especially a notepad to remind myself what I'm planning to do next. :-)

In no particular order:

The #eqnz Twitter feed is full of people with amazingly original ideas about earthquakes and volcanoes that could not possibly have already occurred to actual geologists. <head-desk>

In addition to my ordinary hayfever skinrash I get from grass-seeds when weeding, I've discovered that one of the bushes that needs regular pruning gives me an instant rash if its leaves touch my neck. I ended up fleeing straight to the bathroom, stripping, and taking a thorough shower, plus taking antihistamines. All calmed down now.

Having got hold of the local Korean TV channel, I'm watching their marathon catch-up of Queen Seondeok. The protag Deokman has spent 20-odd episodes disguised as a guy (army trainee), looking mostly like a girl disguised as an army trainee. Now for the first time she dresses in a princess's clothes and looks... exactly like a guy dressed in a princess's clothes, 너무 귀엽다.

Google Translate's "did you mean" suggestion is awesome; that's a phrase I only heard spoken so didn't know the correct spelling.

One of my drains is blocked by a dead hedgehog.