Getting out of the hellhole

My parents hardly say anything about my work beyond Do not think that other jobs are just okay all the time or Work harder. I'm not actually complaining too much in general (1) and even less to them. Yet, the other day, mom forwarded me a notice that Technical University of Civilized Town that there's an opening for a part-time teaching gig at the Faculty of Art and Architecture and prompted me to apply and not to tell dad. I shared the idea with my friends who voted unanimously for Go and try it so I found my diploma (not a difficult job, the big tube is hard to lose), got a credential and intended to write a CV. At which point I got stuck. A friend arrived to the hotel for two days. We landed at the bar, being served by one of the worse gossips, talked intellectual shit ranging from differences between Finnish and Estonian, Latin poetry and various geekeries. The waitress probably regretted not having elephant ears – I know she spreads gossip about me, or, well, downright lies, and now she'd have a lot of fodder if she only understood the difficult words or, well, the general point, such as when I was explaining the word 'vittu' and its derivatives and their use as curses in Finnish. Or Florentine epigrams (those guys at least spread the gossip in written and in verse, pasted to the public well). Or... whatever. Just the normal talk. The next day, the task was to get to the post office to mail the papers. Jean-Pierre graciously helped me to write the CV, or, to be exact, wrote it after he asked me about what I had done and such. My self-confidence keeps saying things like Oh, it's no biggie, it was just a grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, anyone can get that. I basically felt as if I were polishing a piece of shit but J.-P. is an experienced academic nomad so I left it up to him. We walked through the woods – the other option was to wait for two hours until they open and then go to the local post office, hoping that they are open in the afternoon as well. Letter was posted and now I'm waiting. Actually, I do hold hopes. An opening is not advertised a month before the start of the academic year, which means that someone died or got pregnant with triplets without informing the department in reasonable advance and they need someone, anyone, with a certain degree of literacy, who would take said job NAO. Or, with about the same likelihood, the spot is kept for a friend of a friend and it was announced publicly because it's required by the law and I won't get a decent answer even. Whatevs. Now I'm waiting. ______________________________________________ (1) Should anyone want to point out that whenever I talk about work, it's all curses and screams with a recurrent theme of I want to get out of that hellhole!!!!11!1!elebenty!!!, as it is not too much, given the general crap I'm dealing with.

The smell of cyanide in the morning

I needed the terrace cleaned. The good old things like hot vinegar, some chemical shit to remove calcareous deposits and copious amounts of scrubbing didn't help much so I got a bottle of industrial strenght something. It had all sorts of warnings (corrosive, will tear your heart and drink your blood, use respirator and hazmat suit etc.) and when poured on the crap, it reacted, producing a lot of foam and something relatively easy to scrub off. It kept dissolving sponges and brushes, too. While smelling of bitter almonds. I don't really know why, for goodness' sake, on perfumes, you get all the linalools and citronellals, which may be and often are constituents of natural oils, and on various household and chemical plant products say Less than five percent of non-ionogenic tenzides; acid. I want to know what caused the bitter almond smell, was it hydrocyanic acid or some smell-alike? I couldn't have enough of that smell, it was beautiful, weren't it for another acid smell, good old vinegar, or, to be exact, concentrated acetic acid, which came along. They could keep the acetic acid for themselves but I'd love to have a bottle of bitter almonds. Terrace cleaned, new gunk may build up.