Well, it's not quite seven plagues yet, but I'm waiting.

As I mentioned briefly, Ira, our friend and fellow grad student, has begun to work for SimCompany as a co-op along with us.

Ever since he arrived in our city, things have been going awry:

• The Illness: Ira brought a cold or flu or whatever with him, and now I'm sick. Goddammit!
• The Shakes: We had a fucking earthquake. Enough said.
• The Swings: Jenna cancelled her swing trip for only the second time all summer - and it was to be Ira's first time.
• The Clouds: It rained, was cloudy, and generally Pittsburgh for a day. Note prior entries - it doesn't rain here.
• The Rivers: A water main broke on our street, knocking out water for 8 or 9 hours.
• The Insanity: Our local friends have been acting highly strange, including Gabe's little drunken attack on Hunter last weekend.
• The Attachment: Kind of lame as a last plague, but it's true that he's been acting all hurt every time we don't have the energy to spend time with him. Sigh.

So, there you have it. I sure hope things return to normal soon. I would have included my family's recent drama in the list, but we all know not even an act of God could stop my family from being fucking insane.

---

In other news, I got my very first international phone call yesterday. (Welcome to Localization!)

I was (and still am) feeling particularly crappy, so I told Ira I was walking home early, and made an effort to pack up around 6PM.

Before I got on the elevator, though, I got a call from Hunter - letting me know his plane to RI had landed safe - but could I go log into his computer, since he had accidentally left critical files checked out?

Turned out they had already changed his password, gotten in, and checked in the files. Ok.

So I went to leave again, feeling overheated and tired. I had walked no further than the BART station next door (about 7 minutes walk from the office) when my cell phone rang. No caller ID. I picked up - "Is this Aatheena?" Hm. No caller ID. Broken Chinese-English accent. Ah! Of course. Must be Christine, our contact from SimParentCompany's Taiwan offices.

Well, I can't bloody well ignore a cell phone call from Taiwan, so I return to the office and take care of the problem. (We finally managed to get the immigration papers over to Christine's office in the meantime.) I didn't manage to get out of the office until 7:30.

Sigh. I feel so ick. And I felt so ick. But at least I felt competent and mildly important, right?

In other, other, news, I've dropped hints about full-time work, and my Development Director is looking into it. Keep your fingers crossed...

But right now, I need to go home. I feel so gross, having to blow my nose every minute or two. Ew. Like a frigging runny-nosed kindergartner. But life goes on... and work goes on and on and on.