today in settling-in
It's Monday, and that means time to call my old NHS practice, register at a new one, and complete the process of letting Camden Council know that, o hay guyz, im in ur borough. You charge me council tax whynot (students live residence-tax free, however, I am no longer a student). Sigh.
Yesterday was an uneventful evening at The Galley, except for the fact that Kodiak was pretty amicable to me and that a candy tin has been placed in the staff room.
Came home to find the estate kitty curled up underneath the bushes outside our building. She doesn't belong to anyone so far as I can tell, has no collar, no indoor home, but is somehow soft- & full-coated, very well socialized, and generously fed, so there must be at least one old lady taking regular care of her.
Thursday was my first volunteer day with E, an 80-something great grandma of an expansive clan, who needs a little housework done every couple weeks because her knees are going and she can't really push the vacuum around anymore. It was about 45 minutes of tidying and an hour plus of chitchat over tea & cookies :3 The volunteer coordinator rang up around the time he figured I'd be gone to see how E had got on with me, but we were still nattering away. Before the visit to E, which will definitely be a recurring thing for as long as I can spare Thursday afternoons, I made a call to new member A. She wanted somebody to help her sort out her bookshelves. Great, I thought, I love books, I am pretty awesome at organizing, this will be easy.
A has three rooms of bookshelves. Almost all haphazardly filled with the usual shove-em-in-as-you-go method for those of us with maybe one half-size bookcase. She is also something of a self-professed hoarder, and although her flat wasn't really cluttered, the shelves themselves contained a number of non-book items she absolutely did not want disturbed, because like all of us packrats she knows exactly where every little item is right now in its sublime state of organized chaos (my mom will attest to this ability - every time she made me clean my room I couldn't find a thing).
So on the fly I came up with a sort of labeling system which I hope will make things easier when we start moving books, otherwise there is no way we could avoid a day or three of utter pandemonium. For right now we just make notes of where all the different categories are situated, swap them around once A decides where the permanent homes of Art or English Textbooks will be, and alphabetize from there. Definitely a multi-visit job, but A was very encouraged by the signs of progress at the end of day 1, so I think we can keep momentum if I just keep up the enthusiasm.
And in a final tweak to my ever-transmogrifying weekly schedule, which both I and the boycreature agree is for the best, I've dropped the museum volunteering. The gals setting the schedules wanted everyone to be able to commit to set times, which I just can't do, and week by week I found myself getting more and more discouraged as it ate up all the free days I could spend looking for jobs, relaxing (hahaha whut's dat) out with friends, or actually spending quality time with le boy (like going to see Wayne's World 2 at the Prince Charles Theatre with a boatload o' diehard fans :D EPIC!!). I think we have so far seen LESS of each nothing now that we live together, which is both bemusing and upsetting. But it's just one of the things we've both been getting used to gradually, as we figure out how to make do in one double room until I make a job switch and make enough to handle slightly higher rent for a better place all to ourselves. Really a place all to ourselves would automatically make it a better place - the flatmates are alright people, if a little weird sometimes, but they are also The Reason We Can't Have Nice Things (¬_¬) I am kinda really tired of having to do their dishes over again when I want to cook because if left to their own devices they would let all the kitchenware get oil-encrusted in about 5 days. One of the frying pans was a lost cause before I got here, and if le boy and I actually get a quality replacement, we will be keeping it to ourselves.
Yesterday was an uneventful evening at The Galley, except for the fact that Kodiak was pretty amicable to me and that a candy tin has been placed in the staff room.
Came home to find the estate kitty curled up underneath the bushes outside our building. She doesn't belong to anyone so far as I can tell, has no collar, no indoor home, but is somehow soft- & full-coated, very well socialized, and generously fed, so there must be at least one old lady taking regular care of her.
Thursday was my first volunteer day with E, an 80-something great grandma of an expansive clan, who needs a little housework done every couple weeks because her knees are going and she can't really push the vacuum around anymore. It was about 45 minutes of tidying and an hour plus of chitchat over tea & cookies :3 The volunteer coordinator rang up around the time he figured I'd be gone to see how E had got on with me, but we were still nattering away. Before the visit to E, which will definitely be a recurring thing for as long as I can spare Thursday afternoons, I made a call to new member A. She wanted somebody to help her sort out her bookshelves. Great, I thought, I love books, I am pretty awesome at organizing, this will be easy.
A has three rooms of bookshelves. Almost all haphazardly filled with the usual shove-em-in-as-you-go method for those of us with maybe one half-size bookcase. She is also something of a self-professed hoarder, and although her flat wasn't really cluttered, the shelves themselves contained a number of non-book items she absolutely did not want disturbed, because like all of us packrats she knows exactly where every little item is right now in its sublime state of organized chaos (my mom will attest to this ability - every time she made me clean my room I couldn't find a thing).
So on the fly I came up with a sort of labeling system which I hope will make things easier when we start moving books, otherwise there is no way we could avoid a day or three of utter pandemonium. For right now we just make notes of where all the different categories are situated, swap them around once A decides where the permanent homes of Art or English Textbooks will be, and alphabetize from there. Definitely a multi-visit job, but A was very encouraged by the signs of progress at the end of day 1, so I think we can keep momentum if I just keep up the enthusiasm.
And in a final tweak to my ever-transmogrifying weekly schedule, which both I and the boycreature agree is for the best, I've dropped the museum volunteering. The gals setting the schedules wanted everyone to be able to commit to set times, which I just can't do, and week by week I found myself getting more and more discouraged as it ate up all the free days I could spend looking for jobs, relaxing (hahaha whut's dat) out with friends, or actually spending quality time with le boy (like going to see Wayne's World 2 at the Prince Charles Theatre with a boatload o' diehard fans :D EPIC!!). I think we have so far seen LESS of each nothing now that we live together, which is both bemusing and upsetting. But it's just one of the things we've both been getting used to gradually, as we figure out how to make do in one double room until I make a job switch and make enough to handle slightly higher rent for a better place all to ourselves. Really a place all to ourselves would automatically make it a better place - the flatmates are alright people, if a little weird sometimes, but they are also The Reason We Can't Have Nice Things (¬_¬) I am kinda really tired of having to do their dishes over again when I want to cook because if left to their own devices they would let all the kitchenware get oil-encrusted in about 5 days. One of the frying pans was a lost cause before I got here, and if le boy and I actually get a quality replacement, we will be keeping it to ourselves.