Train knitting

Whatever plague I got, it doesn't go away. My friendly ENT doc told me on Saturday that if it doesn't get better, I'd better drop by someday. Parental units decided to go and check their summer house and the hospital where said ENT works is en route so they'll pick me. I need to get there on my own, though. And what if I had some time on my hands.

I have about eight works in progress as usual but most of them are in the stage of 3/4 of a sweater so not easily portable. The not 3/4 of a sweater is 3/4 kilos of a blanket.

I started this top a few days ago because I needed some small thing to go with reading in bed. I generally don't like yern in all the colours! because at a certain point, something starts to clash but oddly enough, this Noro's Silk Ruby seems to work without hacking out that beautiful but mismatched olive grey.

In other news, I started digging into the horrible Ravelry backlog of yarn pics. Yesterday, I spent three hours photoshopping - easy one, crop, poke the lights gently, shrink the image reasonably, save, exit - but it barely made a dent. A dent is better than nothing, though.

Laryngitis and generalised infection of respiratory tract

 ... or sore throat, something splashing in my ears and tinnitus is acting up, can't talk and don't ask what I cough up every now and then.

I'm not going to work this week, boss is sick as well and as I need him all the time, there's no point in going there. I'll do some stuff at home... or I won't, I prefer to sleep when there's a chance and tomorrow, I need to unpack a crate of yarn which arrived today. There will be pictures.

Also, cat tax: wink!

 

The theory of dung heaps

Depression is not exactly like having fallen in a septic tank, floating in shit and trying to get outta there. It's rather like...

Imagine life as a landscape littered with dung. It may be a bird dropping here and there, or dung heaps and pools od fœtid diarrhœa, scattered here and there between swaths of solid land, reliable parhs or even large areas of pleasant countryside.

You weave your way through and it may be okay, you see the shit in advance and you safely avoid it. Or someone marked a piece of nice trail. Or you may have a friend who knows the area and will help you out. Sometimes you find yourself surrounded with dung heaps in all directions but you have a shovel and with a bit of manual labour which is actually relaxing at the end, you can clear your path. Then a pleasant summer rain comes and cleans everything.

Or the pleasant greenery changes into nettles and brambles which are, after all, nitrophilic. You step on what seems like a decent lawn but it was a but of grass on the top of a shit-mire and you're waist-deep or nose-deep in excrements, having hard time to keep afloat. Then you get out of there and your friends want nothing to have to do with you because you look less than presentable and stink awful and from their solid ground, they tell you that you should have choosen a better path, only losers and weaklings need a shovel to dig their way through and you should try harder. The pleasant summer rain comes and it doesn't bring ablution but a shit-slide. And you are spitting shit out and you have no better path to take, no shovel, there's just cold, hunger and the politburo.

The landscape is ever-changing, what worked the other day might not work tomorrow. It's complicated and not always predictable. 

So, yes, i tried not to be depressed but it's like trying not to smell foul when knee deep in guano. Doesn't work, sorry not sorry, and if you haven't helped me out of the crap, you have no right to complain.

The nicest kitty

Alvar is a dear. 99 percent of the time. A friendly cuddly furball.

And, he's pretty choleric. He's able to switch from purring plushie to a ball of fury and sharp bits in no time - and when he is not happy with something, he doesn't bother with hissing or growling, he goes for blood.

The time of the year has come - Alvar's vaccination. He hates the carrier and he hates the vet. Cat bites are nästi. I bled all over the place because the damn fucker hit a vein but I had a vet appointment so I just bandaged it and off I went. Ines didn't cooperate at all, she's cuddly only on her own terms  so she added a few minor scratches.

At the vet, there was the usual scene involving screaming, thick gloves and a blanket and when I took the gloves off thinking it was over, the sucker jumped and bit my left hand.

Obviously, the wounds started to fester overnight. I got antibiotics and more band aids and off I went to a three-day botanical event with quite some hand shaking.

Well, some people get tattoos, I get cat-inflicted wounds

Fermenting

Im sitting at a railway station, knitting. 

And I'm slightly bored. So I pondered about my knitting notes backlog on Ravelry and it occurred to me that, well, I'm using Noro Maiko, introduced in around 2008 and long discontinued, and Ganpi Tape, which may or may not be in production and certainly not available outside Japan since a long time ago.

And then I tried to remember the last te when I used yarn that was actually in production.

I get most of my yarns on sale, on fleabay  and otherwise second hand so it may be discontinued when it reaches me.

But, most importantly, I design stuff based on yarn which I actually have. Which may lead to frantic search for one more ball of something that has already disappeared which would be somewhat easier if my preferred colour was orange, not the blue-green-black-white area.

I got the cyan Maiko at Webs or at Little Knits about a decade ago. The Ganpi Tape has been living in my stash for years as well until it clicked in my head. 

The other stuff in the making is in Taiyo Sock (hunt for more of that colourway included) and King, another in Tennen, discontinued but still available here and there, Ginga, discontinued about two years ago and not seen often, and Tabi (sold as Hakama in Japan in smaller balls for some reason) in col. 6, which got discontinued and I had hard time getting more - this could be counted as current yarn because it was when I started it.

Apparently, I need yarn that has been sitting around gathering dust and cat hair and maturing to its proper state to be used.

Good morning, world

 I shaked off the cats, picked the assorted mess they caused during their night runs and now I'm sitting with my coffee and sorta watching the world go by. The usual business, so much to do, where to start. 

Which lead me to the thought of how this blog started. I got a scholarship to Florence, something sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it was just in time because about half a year before, I was hanging out with this guy who raped me and stalked me and accidentally, two blocks from my place, a stalker beat her colleague with a stick after he waited in some shrubbery in front of her house. So, moving across half of Europe, changing addresses and phone numbers and everything was pretty good thing. Still, I sometimes looked over my shoulder whether someone wasn't following me. Unpleasant times.

Many years after, we had one of those heated debates with my mother, she asserted that stalkers don't really deserve to be kicked in their shins and fed to lions because what's the harm. I explained how exactly I felt harmed. My mother said Oh, poor boy, he must have been so much in love to be this persistent and you were mean to him, and poor guys these days, everything is stalking and harassment and we'll soon be like those poor people in 'Murica where holding the door for the lady will mean immediate arrest or something.
It went to and fro for a while and at the end, I just gave up reasonable debate and yelled You are my goddamn mother, you should be on my side!!!!1!!!1!
Which won me the argument. I, a person who doesn't understand her own emotions, won an argument by appeal on emotions. I wish I had actual manipulating skills, it would make life easier.

It's a gloomy winter day, I'd love to go to Italy in spring to do a bit of research for my thesis and to hang around. I don't mind sitting at home, not meeting people and doing my stuff, actually, I love it, but due to plague, libraries are closed and I feel that I'm losing the teensy bits of social skills I had so getting outta here is getting scarier. At least I've saved a bundle in dry cleaning.

Anyway, back to virology lectures and knitting.

Chaos. Someone bring me a shovel.

 I went to see my parents for a few days and life happened. I ended up in hospital, then hung around parents' because they were basically panicking that I'm oh-so-sick. All I needed were three days of sleep. Meantime, plague struck and said parents got paranoiac about me catching it. Of all people. Not my dad who has chronic bronchitis, smokes three packs a day and is a social.

It took me some time and cunning to implant the idea in their brains that I'll be fine at home so on Thursday, dad drove me there. Mom insisted that I take the whole fridge and half of the larder so that I don't starve, I had a few things that I had moved to parents' from Thomas' which belong to my place so I appreciated the lift.

But, remember, I have three cats. A friend graciously came to feed them and to water the plants but the place... well. And I had been pretty unwell for several weeks before I left so the usual storage method was first available surface. In other words, the place was a godawful mess.

I sighed and vacuumed a path through cat hair, dust and grains of litter and an occasional dried-on puddle of cat puke to open the windows.

It's Sunday. After about 16 rounds of vacuuming, there are no fluffs of cat hair floating from nowhere. I mopped the hallway - the stain cleaner rocks, it makes the puke peel off in one piece - and adjacent stains, took out the recyclables, did a bit of laundry and dusting and now, my place is not an exhibit of small carnivores but... let's be frank, my place is to neat what People of Walmart is to high fashion but at least it's livable. Three inquisitive pairs of eyes were watching me why I'm disturbing their circles and not unfrequently, one of the felines got in the way. Obviously.

Now, something got done, I'm making a bit of lunch, three puddles of cat fur landed in quiet places to have the 17th nap of the day and I can get back to work.

Lunch, meet book.

The box was supposed to be waterproof but it stealthily leaked to a bag which held, among others, library books.

I did not need those so I noticed an issue only after I wanted to return them. I decided to play it cool and pretend nothing had ever happened, hoping that the librarian will miss the faint stain and that giveaway waviness of the volume. The third volume, which developed a characteristic odour and some fungal growth, was exposed to some sunshine in expectation that lycopene would be bleached and the book would stop stinking.

Nope.

I was fined for light stain on the dictionary of law and the slightly moist volume was passed to the head librarian to evaluate.

Obviously, it was a study on swamp forests or forest swamps which was published as a part of some grant and it was not meant for sale.

The head librarian mailed me on Monday announcing that the library historians need to evaluate the book so that they could charge me for the loss.

Meantime, I made a few phone calls to the university, the publishing office informed me that these books are kept by the author, I mailed the author and in the subsequent exchange, he told me to drop by at the beginning of the winter semester and I promised him my history textbook; he wanted to be an archaeologist, he said.

The moldy book was published by my uni so I went to the bookstore. The shop assistant advised me to lend it from the library - it's been sold out for years. 

Well, internetz to the rescue, at Google page 23, I found an advert.

The head librarian knows me by name, I'm a notorious offender, not in damaged books but in late returns, I study elsewhere, and she thinks I'm cool. Gotta bring her a box of chocolates.

News on the cat front

The other day, Alvar had a bit sore eyes so I checked, flushed his eyes with artificial tears, yes, the cat let me use eye drops, and noticed that his breath smells of July dumpster. I checked his gums, yes, the cat let me stick fingers in his mouth, although he was not particularly happy, and the gums and teeth did not look exactly stellar. Swelling, some calculi... so I called the vet. After all, no idea whether he is chipped or vaccinated or anything.

Poor creature, half of his teeth is rotten. He got antibiotics, antibiotic ointment and on Saturday, the bad teeth are going to be removed. I bought soft food, too, because it somehow did not occur to me that he was not eating because of achy teeth. And I was angry at the shelter, I got him five days ago with a clear bill of health, or, to be exact, No visible traces of health issues. Apparently, nobody bothered to open his mouth. Or sniff around.

Alvar must've been hungry, he inhaled almost a whole can and trotted around, visibly happier. Later on, I found out that he neatly threw it all up, almost untouched, on the bathroom mat. Well, I needed to do the laundry anyway. Alas, he doesn't consider the medication a treat so I need to feed it to him, which includes holding his mouth open and it apparently hurts, today morning, he screamed to high heaven. Eye ointment is fine.

Zoe wanders around and when she sees me, she runs away. Half of the time, I have no idea that she's there so if she sat still and pretended to be a stone, I wouldn't notice at all.

Cat update

I was approved to adopt Zoe. The owner needs to surrender her because she's on a diet and when she eats normal cat food, she pees all over and when she's isolated from the other cats, she is angry and sad because she likes company... and I proved to be sane enough, or the owner just liked me.
The British Shorthair's name is Adam and I'm picking him on Thursday. I hope he and Zoe get on well.
I mailed that friend of mine and told her that, well, sorry for the delay but I needed to think about it, you know, the cats just heaped on me and such, but I'll take Agata, two or three, it doesn't matter. Oh fuck, she said, just today morning, a lady took her for a trial run. With said friend, I have an abysmally bad timing, apparently. She offered me Cake the Pirate Cat but only to go with her best friend Pig (a cat called Pig, to be exact) and while Cake is a dear, I don't want four, for goodness' sake.
Off to buy a cat tree. Pictures will certainly follow.

When it rains, it pours

The Central Registry of Cats aimed its eyes or radars or chemoreceptors at me.

I was intermittently whining to a friend how much I miss Max. On Monday, she said I have a cat for you and pointed me to an offer of a Russian Blue commenting that she's not exactly British but blue enough, and she's even on a diet. I was thinking about it, after all, life has been a bit messy and maybe adding a cat to it might not be the best idea but then I thought that damn it, a cat won't make it any worse and contacted the shelter lady who gave me more information, vouched for me with the owner... and the thing started getting rolling.
On Tuesday, the shelter lady from whom I got Max messaged me whether, just in case, I would not want another British Shorthair. Oh fuck, I thought to myself, I was sort of vouched to adopt the Russian, looked at the picture (squee! Plushy kitty! The widdle ears!), thought about it for about two seconds whether it is reasonable to get two cats and decided that bite it, asked vet friend whether a healthy cat can eat urinary protection diet - yes, sure, it's a good prevention of urinary problems - and said that, well, yeah, I'll adopt him. After all, the Russian likes company.
On Wednesday, I told about this to a friend and she responded Oh fuck, I just wanted to ask you whether you wouldn't adopt our Agata, the other cats bully her and don't let her pee and eat... I told her that, ahem... well, I'll think about it.

Lady horticulturist: cleanup and chill

My dear mother got finally persuaded that I could mess with the hedge trimmer as well. My ultimate and quite obvious argument was If you don't let me do it, I'll never learn it.

Also, she has vertigo on the first ladder step and I don't. 

And then, it's fun. It's destructive, not too finicky and things get done.

And then...

... even more destruction.

I also hear that smoke from fragrant herbs is a good protection against various noxious miasmata. Spruce is not a herb but it is fragrant enough and in times o plague...

Knitting in the times of cholera

I went to parents' for a few days and took some unfinished stuff in case there was a quarantine or something.

Five sweaters in various stages of progress and there are two more downstairs. 

The yarn in the upper right corner is Taiyo Sock in #4, discontinued for about five years. I got some but not enough for anything so when I randomly found some more, I got all they had. Same with pale blue Kumo. I have plans for them but first, I need to liberate some needles - meaning that I need to actually finish something. At least I found my dearly loved misplaced 40 cm/2 mm needle (and ordered a new one meantime).

And, yes, no bright blue nail paint on my toes. They're all in my place.

Anniversary

A year ago, I got my kidney removed. It was mostly tumour, anyway.

It was a story full of randomness. In winter, my depression worsened so the doc added new meds, I had some cold from hell, got a live vaccine and had a few other reasons to feel shitty. I had vertigo even when lying down, once, I had a syncope and when I became conscious again, I just was not able to get up from the floor, not sure if it was a lack of coordination or general weakness, this sort of stuff. I stopped taking the new psych meds and the vertigo started improving but I was quite a bit off and as I went to parents', I dropped by at my GP. She did the poking and prodding, decided that by all counts, I'm healthy, I don't look healthy at all, though, and I should get an ultrasound of my abdomen because I feel sickish and it could be the appendix. Well, I know where my stomach is but I didn't object. Some seven hours and five doctors' offices later, I ended up in the university hospital where a friendly urologist showed me a nice big potato on the ultrasound. I asked where my kidney is, then, and he explained that it was the thin line around that potato. Oopsie.

For my birthday, I got a CT which showed sliced potato. Kidney potato was hacked away with the rest of the kidney and the tubing and I ended up with a sexy scar.

And, I'm entitled to all the tasteless cancer jokes for the rest of my life.

One doesn't get many that important events in life

Which is what V. said when I apologised for ranting over and over again about my kidney.
"Sure," I replied. "I have a finite supply of kidneys and should I need to get rid of the other one, it would be an entirely different issue. Much more interesting."

There is actually something darkly funny about writing "get kidney removed" to the to-do list. In the last few months, everything seems to go wrong. Not abysmally wrong, just... I get some vague idea that matters are sort of settled, life can go on as usual, nothing exciting expected anytime soon. And, then things change enough to warrant some planning, rearranging and rethinking which needs time and energy, I plan, arrange and organise, dust settles, the first spark of a hint of a speck of idea that the dust might have settled and life is back to mundane, something changes again. Rinse, repeat... get kidney removed and finish rinsing and repeating when the pathology results are back.

My mother says that one should learn to find the positive side of everything and try to enjoy it as much as possible. She certainly did not mean gallows humour, I cannot even say that I still have one left or that in liver, it would be worse, it cannot be hacked off and they say that it is a pain in the arse to stitch it up.

You're fine

my GP said, and in one breath, she continued, "but the stomach should be seen by a surgeon."

I hear that everyone hates this sort of patients. They have a handful of vague symptoms pointing vaguely in several directions, most of them are whiners and hypochondriacs but then there is that handful who are apparently sick but it is not exactly easy to find out what is the problem.

I went to see my GP because I reached her on the phone, otherwise I would see my ob/gyn who is closer at hand and as good for vague stomach complaints. I listed my vague stomach complaints and other vague complaints and kept apologising that I know that these are vague complaints but I generally feel crappy and it's differently crappy than normally crappy so I though I would rather get checked. The doctor did her poking and prodding, found out that I do not look fine overall but there is nothing much
I was referred to a surgeon who ordered a few tests, nodded his head, said something about something being wrong with my kidney, added an uncalled-for rant about how they might save said kidney and referred me to urology to the university hospital.
The inevitable part of medical care is the red tape and following the protocols so as an outside patient, I had to go through the emergency entrance and start there. Apparently, a paper starting with STAT has quite a bit of mana so I proceeded fairly quickly.
The urologist did his ultrasound and showed me what the problem is, something that looked like a potato. I nodded and asked where the actual kidney is, just for scale and the doctor showed me a thin line surrounding the mass.
"It is not pretty, is it," I said.
"No," the doctor replied and scheduled me for a CT scan and for a next checkup.

I was down and pissed. Rather more pissed than unhappy because I had exams to do and things to write and with the damn depression, I was not exactly productive so having another so another goddamn problem and another need to rearrange what I had already rearranged  annoys me to no end.

Nectarines

I like them not really ripe and crunchy. I used to get them in Spar down the street, slightly more expensive than elsewhere but they were great.

I got another package today, they looked good but they are past their prime, slightly squishy and less crunchy than I would like. One had a tiny rotting spot... and the package contained a substantial amount of fruit flies who were smart enough to sit still when I carried it outside.

I believe that all living things should be treated fairly and with dignity, with the exception of the ecosystem under my bed, metaphorically speaking. In other words, I don't want to share my room with tens of fruit flies. They are used as a model organism in genetics because they breed rapidly and mutate fast so within a week, I'd be living with thousands of mutant Drosophillas.

I put the offending nectarine in the trash bin along with some kernels and other leftovers, placed the good ones in the fridge and then took the trash away - the fruit flies will certainly fare better in the trash bin anyway.

Most of them are gone but there is half a dozen sitting on the wall giving me a doubtful look. So what, where's some food?

Nope.

Some more random whines

I feel somewhat off place quite often. I haven't got used to it yet.

I play my card of I am another studip Erasmus student when around the university, mostly for myself because people don't generally want to interact with me.

And then there are the cultural differences.
I am clumsy so since... well, forever, my cellphones were of the sort that can fall from the 3rd floor and nothing happens. And I am not an iThing person, for various reasons, one being that them poseurs can stick their apple stuff up their posteriors - and this is quite a general opinion on my home turf. Also, why should I pay twice as much for something that will break in three days maximum, because it will take three days maximum until I drop my phone on the stone floor.
Which is beside the point. I have an android thingy which looks like carved out of an old tyre, I dropped it the moment I unpacked it, it jumped a few times and looked as happy as any other time, and it has a microUSB port. Which means that to charge it, I need a USB - microUSB cable. Of which I have plenty, there are several circulating around our household and obviously, I took one with me to Vienna.

One.

It survived a month.

I set out to find some place with USB cables. I live 100 metres away from Mariahilfer Strasse (*) and some months ago, I went to H&M and noticed that they have phone cables and dug through them to find a nice colourful cable for mom's iPhone that needs super special weirdo cable so I supposed I'd just go there, grab that damn cable and go home.

Did I say that I don't exactly thrive in new environments, and in places with too many people? Which is why I am not too adventurous and why asking someone is the last resort?

I ventured to Vienna's main shopping street... I got a scented candle in H&M - it had a sticker with a warning that it contains some-or-another aromachemical which may cause allergic reaction and shouldn't be eaten or whatnot, which is why I immediately liked it - but they only had iPhone cables. They had only iPhone cables even at the mobile operators' shops. At the end, I found one of those stationeries that has stationery and all sorts of other crap. The shop clerk warned me that this is not for iPhones and asked three times whether I am sure that I don't need an iPhone cable.

WTF.

Not that I wouldn't be able to survive without my phone for a week but I only have my public transport ticket in the app.



----------------
(*) I hereby state my intention to ignore the ß. The German orthography changed since my school days so I don't know where should it go and although this ligature developed from the sz digraph, today it stands for ss and it's developed from the ss digraph as well so I can happily apply some folk etymology and consider the ß a long s and s rotunda digraph... so... anyway...you get what I mean. [Insert slightly desperate handwaving.]

New people

I hate people. Not in some specific way, I don't have any objections against you, you and you back there. Nor would I want to get rid of them somehow or hurt them or some such, I actually like people... but, somehow, not too close, not too many, not between me and the doorway. And as long as they do not want to interact..

Which is why back at home, I have that magic paper with an official stamp that says The carrier of this flat piece of cellulose is weird, when hiding in the shrubbery, place noms and coffe nearby and leave quietly; absolutely no poking with a stick, no, not even a little bit.
I need to get similar piece of paper or some other credentials here and so far, I haven't really understood how the system works, I'm going to the cripple office tomorrow to find out.

Today, I went to register my temporary residence here. I had a nice walk around Mariahilf in the morning, found the municipal offices, got my numbered piece of paper and after waiting for some 10 minutes, my hands were trembling and I had an urge to run away.
The office lady was nice, after all, daily dealings with foreigners, citizens and other random idiots makes one be sorta nice as it's the easiest way of handling them. I got my paper and went to the university instead of running back home and hiding for the rest of the week, which cost me quite a bit of effort.

At the uni, my Prague eduroam credentials seemed to be working just fine so in the lecture room full of people, I could pretend to myself that I wasn't really there but the introduction was quite short and then the classes started.

I don't talk to strangers unless in dire need.
I talked to the teacher explaining that, well, autism spectrum disorder, I'm doing my best not to run away, sorry, I appear dumber than I really am. She took it easy and said that I don't need to talk if I don't feel comfortable. Good.

Course ended, I ran away in case some of my classmates would want to interact, had a walk and awarded myself with some food.

Now I'm happily locked in my room now feeling guilty - I could live on dried apples for the whole week, right? and mailing around 14 people regarding my courses and won't get out until tomorrow.

Could be worse.

Same shit, different place

I had a temp job at the main Erasmus office and whined to my boss and a long-time friend that I should do a German exam. And back in the day, at the high school, I spent four years of German classes with a psychotic teacher whose method was 50 % grammar drill and 50 % yelling that we're incompetent lazy stupid useless semiliterate chimpanzees who will never accomplish anything. I thus have a somewhat complicated attitude towards Goethe's and Schiller's language. Practically, I prefer to avoid it unless it has to be used and in that case, I prefer to find someone who would do the using for me, thank you very much.

(A few months ago, I was in Zürich and I found out that I'm not able to understand their variety of German at all. I decided that I can fight back and speak Italian because they should at least sort of know and it's them who will be ashamed. Which is better than me being ashamed.)

So, I did my bit of whining and said friend poured some more tea and said And why don't you go to Vienna? The Austrians are sorta cool, it's almost next door, let me see, your department doesn't have an agreement with the Vienna university, that's odd, one would think that they would, but you can go via some other department, try Theatre Studies or Archaeology, they've always had free spots in the last few years.

It has to be noted that at my department, they found out that I speak French. Not that it would be difficult, I list it in my CV, in very small letters because the only reason that I actually speak French is my lack of inhibitions, my level being somewhere between sort of passable and halfway Italian. The professors were enthused that there's finally someone who can go to École des Chartes. Not sure how happy they were when I told them that I'm going to Vienna instead but after all, it's useful because the Vienna University has courses in Latin papyrology and... anyway.
And the Theatre Studies guy was only too happy to sign my papers, basically saying that they get whined at for not sending any students over, good that there's someone at last.

The paperwork is a major pain in the arse.
I got a paper with a big round stamp that says that I'm an Officially Recognised Cripple, or a special needs student. It's entered in the information system that people are officially required to be nice at me or I may run away and hide in the shrubbery behind the building, just in more formal words. It has a great placebo effect - when things are getting on my nerves too much, I tell myself that I have that magic paper so what. I thus take the liberty to politely annoy people until I understand the effing forms and how to fill them in. It's good.

So, I did the Prague bit of my paperwork and now it's time for the Vienna bit. Oh, the good old days in Italy where nobody cared whether I actually registered somewhere and when I did, for a proof of income, a debit card was just fine. (No, I'm not going to try and find out what mind was behind this idea.) But the thorough and industrious red tape at least gives clear instructions - or has given them so far. I really liked the Vienna University application process - I got an email saying Follow this link and fill in your name. Do not enter any other data until further notice. A few days later, I got an email saying Follow this link and fill in your domicile. Do not enter any other data until further notice. You get the gist.
Thorough and industrious red tape at the Vienna University has a problem, though - I can't register for courses outside the department to which I came to study, which is Theatre Studies as per all the papers, unless I have an explicit approval of the relevant department.

I wanted to take some art history courses because I wanted to take some biology courses and as per the Erasmus rules, 51 % of my credits need to be from my home faculty. Not department, the whole Arts, I asked twice.
Actually, I was copying learning agreements of students coming to Prague and I happened to come across some such that read something like Medical Faculty, courses: virology, infectious diseases, other medical stuff I, other medical stuff II., Medieval French Literature. I remarked that easy credits are acquired from sports, no?, and the more experienced office workers explained the above mentioned requirement. And then I asked twice.
So, well, there were not many useful courses for me and for not that many credits compared to boatloads of damn interesting stuff at Natural Sciences. And most of the courses in botany are in English, even, which would make the whole studying affair a bit less frustrating, wouldn't it. So, art history courses would provide a few extra credits so that I don't get into some red tape mess.
To sum it up, I need an approval from three other persons. Sigh.

And I need to register with some other effing office. Which wants me to prove that I have funds/income/an affidavit from parents that they would cough it up for me equating to something like 1200 euros per month. No way in hell. At least I can go there up to three months after arrival so I can throw all money that I have, plus something from my family on a pile, show them the bank statement, not tell them to shove it up their arses, get my stamp and go home and return the money to where it belongs. (My financial institution called Cash in Cat Food Can works just fine, thank you very much. Feringa has pretty cans and the food rocks, if you add a bit of estragon and pull out those bits that look like arteries, you can serve it as a true unadulterated French delicacy. Just saying.)

I guess I should go and do a bit of accounting. But, there'll be more insane rants, promise. Sooner than in half a year.