Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 16:18:27 +0200
Subject: "The Periodic Adventures and the Adventurous Periodical of Marleigh," Issue 17

Hello,

This week was annoying.  It started out well enough.  Emma and I went to
the market on Saturday, and it turns out cherries are in season.  We
both bought a bunch, and they were really good.  The next day, I invited
her to come dancing with me.  The Uni-Ulm dance group has the gym every
Sunday night for free dancing with music provided.  I was supposed to
meet Nils, my latin partner there, and I brought Emma along since she
was bored.  Nils didn't show, but I ended up spending most of the time
teaching Emma the basic of various dances and attempting to
reverse-engineer how leading is supposed to work.  Our chacha and rhumba
was even sort of ok by the end.

Monday was normal.  Tuesday the two directors of the MIT-Germany Program
were in town for a few hours, so we met them and went out for Chinese. 
It was a fun dinner.  It came out during it that the MIT-Germany Program
has absurd amounts of money, and that it negotiates our contracts
seperately from the regular interns.  I guess a typical intern at DC
would make 600DM (~$400) per month.  And no, life here is cheaper, but
not that cheap.  My rent is 400DM per month.

One other notable event of Tuesday is that my laptop spontaneously
died.  I was working at home, and it died about 3pm, so I went back in
to work to have people there deal with it.  I left it with Ralf, who
said he'd deal with it.  The tech support people still hadn't shown up
by the time I left work Wednesday, so I came in Thursday, looking for
Ralf.  He didn't seem to be around.  Later I found another co-worker,
Stefi, and she said Ralf was out sick until Monday, but she'd bug tech
support for me.  We went to Ralf's office to get the laptop, but it
wasn't there.  I figured Ralf took it home to try to fix it, and that it
would be stuck at his place until Monday.  Turns out the tech support
people picked it up (though his office was locked, so heaven knows how
they got in) and are dealing.  They say the whole hard drive needs to be
wiped, reformatted, and everything reinstalled.  Joy.  I've been
spending my day today downloading things I need to put back on the
laptop and waiting for the tech support people to call me, saying I can
pick it up.  Stefi says she got them to promise that Win95 would be on
it by the end of today and I could take it, but we shall see.

What else of note...  I'm going to Rome in July.  I ordered my plane
ticket yesterday.  Emma's supposed to come with, but she keeps not quite
ordering her plane ticket.  She keeps wanting to call the youth hostels
to find out how secure they are, and thinks her credit card number will
be stolen over the web so doesn't want to use that.  Sigh.  I'm pretty
sure she'll buy it eventually, she's just being so paranoid that it's
getting on my nerves.  O well.  If worst comes to worst, I'll go myself
and have a fabulous time.  Heck, it's Rome, what more do I need?

German Word of the Week:
sich (etwas) verstauchen = to sprain (something)

As we were coming down the stairs from the Chinese restaurant Tuesday
(after our dinner with the MIT-Germany Program people), Emma tripped and
fell.  She hurt her ankle a bit.  The directors were going to stay and
make sure she was all right, but she pretended it was better so they
wouldn't miss their train.  I helped her back to her apartment, where
she discovered that there was no ice.  All we could find in her freezer
was chocolate and vegetables.  Her apartmentmate totally freaked when
she heard that Emma wanted to put frozen vegetables on her ankle and
wouldn't let her use them.  Emma was then going to use some frozen
chicken she bought the other day, but this self-same roommate had
accidently eaten it, thinking it was hers.  I offered to go out in
search of ice, which is a trickier thing to do than it sounds like.  Ulm
all but shuts down at 8pm, and it was almost 9.  I went to the train
station, which still had some stores open.  The fish market was open, so
I asked the guy there for some (the fish was being kept on a layer of
crushed ice) and he gave it to me.  Emma was very greatful for my help,
though she just about fell over laughing when I told her I had to steal
it out from under a dead fish.  Anyway, she went to the doctor at DC the
next day and it turned out to be a sprain.  She should be all better in
about three weeks.

Honor and Glory...
	to gallant fish mongers
	to cherries being in season
Dishonor and Notoriety...
	to random fatal software errors and inefficient repair
	to my laptop still not being back from the shop

Emma just called.  She was going to come over and order her plane ticket
this afternoon.  I guess she just broke a very important piece of
equipment and needs to stand there, pretending to be more ashamed and
concerned about it than she actually is.  O well.

Tschuess!
Marleigh

PS:  It's a quarter after 4, and he tech guy still hasn't called.  I'm
not likely to be on line this weekend.  Sigh.