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So, most of you have probably noticed that a large portion of the world has been in a heat wave the last 4 or 5 days? It's been incredibly exciting in New York. I'm sure that some of you have had similar problems, but because of the large amounts of people and everyone having their air conditioning on, we had a miniature energy crisis. It was sort of funny. (We also had a stagnant air warning or something. a little creepy.)
Things weren't that bad for me. We usually don't use our air conditioning at home, but we've been doing so the last three nights. Not the last. The last three before friday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Actually, Wednesday we went to Queens (which finally has power back! oh my god!) to visit my cousin and her twin baby girls. Who, I can't believe this, but are actually cuter yet than the last time I saw them. oh my god, they're adorable. They're talking a little, and laughing a lot, and Lea, the smaller one, is always climbing on things. She climbed over the to window and pulls on the blinds so she can see out. That is a little girl who wants freedom! Oh man. I can't even get over how sweet they were. Are.
So on Wednesday we just got home and turned on the AC in my room and Katie and I hung out there. She's been sleeping on the cot in my room because it's got AC. But the other two nights we hung out in my parents room, all of us. It was so much fun. Like a little party. We watched DVDs on my laptop, and Katie sewed, and mom did Sudoku.
( some talk of a bad day--but split up, one bad evening, one bad morning )
And then by lunch I was well enough to have a caramel and apple crepe at the street fair! Which happened again! Last time was when roommate!Corey was in NYC, if you're reading this. . . It was a nice surprise because I'm pretty sure there was only one last year. So that was good. And I got a free Smuckers Uncrustable, which I still haven't eaten.
And thank god, the commute home on Friday was fine--except I ate a lot of fried oreos and felt a little sick--but it was so worth it!! and by that evening things were starting to cool off. Today was quite nice, and next week it's supposed to get almost cool!
Thursday was actually quite a funny day at the DOB. I mentioned before that this heat wave has been interesting in NYC. Well, we've been getting these Peak Load Management emails a lot (we actually get them from a couple different sources, so it's always a weird double thing), but during the heat wave things got even more intense. And there have been cooling centers set up, so we've gotten emails about that. Yeah, the cooling centers are for people without AC. So they can go to a senior center or maybe a library or something, and wait out the heatwave. And we've also gotten all these emails like, saying who to ask if you want to know if your neighborhood has a power outage, stuff like that. But also, the power management emails have gotten even more intense!
And on Thursday, the mayor decided he would save power for the city by having the DOB (and I'm assuming other city agencies, but my unit was talking to someone at the city's Law Department and they had power, so maybe they're just more important) taken off the city's grid and run on emergency generators. So for several hours in the morning, the whole place was freaking out. They turned off, seriously, all the lights--even, briefly, the lights in the stairs, which was quite frightening. But then they turned off the elevators (before they just asked you not to use them for trips of less than 3 flights) so they had to turn on the lights in the stairs. And we had to turn off our computers, of course. So. . . no one was really doing any work. We have little desk lights, but Katie came upstairs to hang out because we have windows (although, to conserve AC power we were supposed to keep the blinds closed) and most people need their computers to do work anyway. So my whole unit was just sort of hanging around talking. I thought it was pretty fun and aweosme, but I guess they had stuff to do, so they were less amused. Then this (sort of annoying) woman came over and was like, "You know what this is?! It's a brown out!!! They aren't calling it that, but that's what it is. . . They just don't want to call it that! It's a brown out!" And we were all sort of like, ". . . ok." It was sort of weird. But funny. Katie and I did some mocking at her overreaction later. Actually, the whole thing was an overreaction. "We're running on our own generators! Turn off ALL electricity!" By afternoon things normalized, just with less light. But it was funny while it lasted.
Also on Thursday, people came around with little name plates for all the offices--and all the cubicles! I think this is for people delivering interoffice mail or something. Anyway, I got a holder but no nameplate, since next week is my last. So Katie made me a name plate that said, "Amelia Earhart" and had a little drawing of a biplane (which I had no idea how to spell until I looked it up just now). :) Charles was very amused. And one of the guys who was giving out the plates walked by later and was like, "Oh, you made your own!" so. . . I guess he's going to start calling me Amelia now. . .
And that's about it. I found an awesome forum where people post videos of ice skating. a lot of the links have expired cos they were on temporary downloading hosts, but some of them work and if there's stuff I really want I can request it! So i've been going crazy on there. . . my ipod is going to fill up good! It's just so exciting, though, to be able to find downloadable videos to put on my iPod of, like, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, and Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, and Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Bereznhaya. . . which I said in backwards order, in pairs the girl's name is always first, but. . . I was nervous about spelling Anton's name, even though I know it now.
Tonight, I watched videos in Russian with my mom for a while. it was a lot of fun! She's not hugely into skating, but she was a Russian major in college. We watched one with subtitles and a couple that didn't have them (although I later found a translation for one, so we watched that again) and mom did her best to translate. She had trouble understanding a lot of what was said, but she certainly helped me understand a lot more than I would have otherwise, and she really enjoyed it.
Then we played pictionary, which was so much fun! :) We haven't done it a lot this summer, because work and heat saps my energy. I really don't do well in hot weather.
I'm watching a video of the 2005 Stars on Ice, and it's sort of funny because Jason Dungjen, Yuka Sato, John Zimmerman and Kyoko Ina were in the tour that year. And Jason is Kyoko's former pairs partner, and is now married to Yuka Sato, a singles skater who will (I think) occasionally skate pairs with Jason, and John is Kyoko's current pairs partner. So I'm watching a group number, and Kyoko is doing a move with Jason. . . it must be interesting, you know--in a lot of the group numbers, people who aren't partners will be skating together--you'll have a couple of guys doing a lift or something like that, and I wonder what it's like to have a former partner there. I don't know. Seems like if they split on good terms, it would make things easier--two guys that you're used to working with and trust and understand, instead of just one.
Anyway, I'll stop typing now.
Things weren't that bad for me. We usually don't use our air conditioning at home, but we've been doing so the last three nights. Not the last. The last three before friday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Actually, Wednesday we went to Queens (which finally has power back! oh my god!) to visit my cousin and her twin baby girls. Who, I can't believe this, but are actually cuter yet than the last time I saw them. oh my god, they're adorable. They're talking a little, and laughing a lot, and Lea, the smaller one, is always climbing on things. She climbed over the to window and pulls on the blinds so she can see out. That is a little girl who wants freedom! Oh man. I can't even get over how sweet they were. Are.
So on Wednesday we just got home and turned on the AC in my room and Katie and I hung out there. She's been sleeping on the cot in my room because it's got AC. But the other two nights we hung out in my parents room, all of us. It was so much fun. Like a little party. We watched DVDs on my laptop, and Katie sewed, and mom did Sudoku.
( some talk of a bad day--but split up, one bad evening, one bad morning )
And then by lunch I was well enough to have a caramel and apple crepe at the street fair! Which happened again! Last time was when roommate!Corey was in NYC, if you're reading this. . . It was a nice surprise because I'm pretty sure there was only one last year. So that was good. And I got a free Smuckers Uncrustable, which I still haven't eaten.
And thank god, the commute home on Friday was fine--except I ate a lot of fried oreos and felt a little sick--but it was so worth it!! and by that evening things were starting to cool off. Today was quite nice, and next week it's supposed to get almost cool!
Thursday was actually quite a funny day at the DOB. I mentioned before that this heat wave has been interesting in NYC. Well, we've been getting these Peak Load Management emails a lot (we actually get them from a couple different sources, so it's always a weird double thing), but during the heat wave things got even more intense. And there have been cooling centers set up, so we've gotten emails about that. Yeah, the cooling centers are for people without AC. So they can go to a senior center or maybe a library or something, and wait out the heatwave. And we've also gotten all these emails like, saying who to ask if you want to know if your neighborhood has a power outage, stuff like that. But also, the power management emails have gotten even more intense!
And on Thursday, the mayor decided he would save power for the city by having the DOB (and I'm assuming other city agencies, but my unit was talking to someone at the city's Law Department and they had power, so maybe they're just more important) taken off the city's grid and run on emergency generators. So for several hours in the morning, the whole place was freaking out. They turned off, seriously, all the lights--even, briefly, the lights in the stairs, which was quite frightening. But then they turned off the elevators (before they just asked you not to use them for trips of less than 3 flights) so they had to turn on the lights in the stairs. And we had to turn off our computers, of course. So. . . no one was really doing any work. We have little desk lights, but Katie came upstairs to hang out because we have windows (although, to conserve AC power we were supposed to keep the blinds closed) and most people need their computers to do work anyway. So my whole unit was just sort of hanging around talking. I thought it was pretty fun and aweosme, but I guess they had stuff to do, so they were less amused. Then this (sort of annoying) woman came over and was like, "You know what this is?! It's a brown out!!! They aren't calling it that, but that's what it is. . . They just don't want to call it that! It's a brown out!" And we were all sort of like, ". . . ok." It was sort of weird. But funny. Katie and I did some mocking at her overreaction later. Actually, the whole thing was an overreaction. "We're running on our own generators! Turn off ALL electricity!" By afternoon things normalized, just with less light. But it was funny while it lasted.
Also on Thursday, people came around with little name plates for all the offices--and all the cubicles! I think this is for people delivering interoffice mail or something. Anyway, I got a holder but no nameplate, since next week is my last. So Katie made me a name plate that said, "Amelia Earhart" and had a little drawing of a biplane (which I had no idea how to spell until I looked it up just now). :) Charles was very amused. And one of the guys who was giving out the plates walked by later and was like, "Oh, you made your own!" so. . . I guess he's going to start calling me Amelia now. . .
And that's about it. I found an awesome forum where people post videos of ice skating. a lot of the links have expired cos they were on temporary downloading hosts, but some of them work and if there's stuff I really want I can request it! So i've been going crazy on there. . . my ipod is going to fill up good! It's just so exciting, though, to be able to find downloadable videos to put on my iPod of, like, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, and Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, and Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Bereznhaya. . . which I said in backwards order, in pairs the girl's name is always first, but. . . I was nervous about spelling Anton's name, even though I know it now.
Tonight, I watched videos in Russian with my mom for a while. it was a lot of fun! She's not hugely into skating, but she was a Russian major in college. We watched one with subtitles and a couple that didn't have them (although I later found a translation for one, so we watched that again) and mom did her best to translate. She had trouble understanding a lot of what was said, but she certainly helped me understand a lot more than I would have otherwise, and she really enjoyed it.
Then we played pictionary, which was so much fun! :) We haven't done it a lot this summer, because work and heat saps my energy. I really don't do well in hot weather.
I'm watching a video of the 2005 Stars on Ice, and it's sort of funny because Jason Dungjen, Yuka Sato, John Zimmerman and Kyoko Ina were in the tour that year. And Jason is Kyoko's former pairs partner, and is now married to Yuka Sato, a singles skater who will (I think) occasionally skate pairs with Jason, and John is Kyoko's current pairs partner. So I'm watching a group number, and Kyoko is doing a move with Jason. . . it must be interesting, you know--in a lot of the group numbers, people who aren't partners will be skating together--you'll have a couple of guys doing a lift or something like that, and I wonder what it's like to have a former partner there. I don't know. Seems like if they split on good terms, it would make things easier--two guys that you're used to working with and trust and understand, instead of just one.
Anyway, I'll stop typing now.
