work was so frustrating until today. why did it all change at once? I'm not sure. but diana brought back the drive I gave her on monday -- before, she was indexing at 550/hr; I told her that we expected her to be able to do 800/hr. she averaged 968/hr. I'm so impressed! setting high standards does work sometimes.
plus, I've made good progress on pscu. bins 1-6 are completely ready for final qc, allowing that there's already a list of rescans to be done. the list is short, though. hallelujah! the renaming and control copy are running overnight, and I can pass that off to qc tomorrow. an end in sight... it's a miracle...
the best thing, though, and the reason I say there's good in the world: mick asked me to come chat with him in his office when I had a chance. I know I've been looking mopey these past few days, and he's an awfully caring person, like a grandfather who happens to pay you for being brilliant at your job. anyhow, we talked about the different projects I'm working on, and then he asked how my life is going. what I need. what he can do for me. I said life is alright, I'm getting through; and I didn't need anything. I'm fine. he kept asking what I wanted, though, almost daring me to throw out a wild request.
"what do you need?" he repeated.
"a plane ticket to utah and back," I finally said jokingly. I do want that, rather badly; but the jokingly part was that I never expected he would open up a cabinet drawer by his desk, pull out a certificate for a free round-trip flight, and hand it to me.
"it's yours," he said.
when I realized he was serious I almost started crying. people don't do nice things like that. the nicest thing I've done recently is give a guy $10 outside of target 'cause he had run out of gas over by mcdonald's. but now I have a flight booked for next weekend, and I'm going to see jacopo.
it's absolutely marvelous! my day went wonderfully after that. I talked to carole about picking me up from the airport, and jacopo should be in the salt lake area that evening (the 2nd) so he can take me up to logan with him. then I made a reservation for a shuttle from logan to salt lake when I'm coming back home. I don't know if jacopo and I will do anything exciting (or illegal, or that we just generally oughtn't do), but it will be so good to see him.
plus, I promised myself I would go to the dance in sacramento tomorrow. by now I half want to go. earlier I had no desire whatsoever, but the boredom (and more particularly, the loneliness) got to me. at least I get to dress up.
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