decidedlyodd

Tomorrow is Labor Day in Germany (as well as most of the world besides the USA and Canada). Of course this means everything will be closed for the entire weekend, which means everything was pretty hectic today.

First, I got up at a decent hour today, because I had made plans to eat lunch with Ruzica et al. sometime between noon and 1. So, that was a good start. I got my deposit back on my apartment, less 40EUR for cleaning costs. It turns out, there’s not going to be anybody around to estimate the cleaning costs when I actually do move out (they’re all on vacation), so instead I just pay 40EUR regardless. While I’d like to get all of my money back, now at least I don’t have to clean my apartment at all. I intend to get my money’s worth!

Then, I went to the post office. I sent Kendra some GRE books I don’t need anymore. I sent like 7kg worth of papers and books back (39EUR just for surface shipping!) to my parents’ house as well, so I won’t have to carry them in my luggage. Oh, and my IRS refund check, which I’d been holding onto with the hope that I may be able to send it with the travel reimbursement check from U of Toronto (still haven’t gotten it yet).

I was afraid the lady at the post office was going to (rightfully) be mean to me, since my big box of papers and books wasn’t taped up and had no address afixed to it and since I couldn’t figure out how to fold the box I bought for Kendra’s books. At the USPS, I think they now make you go buy a whole roll of tape even if you just need a couple pieces. However, the lady taped up my box at not additional charge, while I filled out the customs and address form. With the other box, she exchanged my unfolded box for a pre-folded one, which was really nice. So, in the end it all worked out. Maybe die Post isn’t as evil as I remember. Or maybe it’s just the fact that since Telekom (the evil, evil phone monopoly) used to be part of die Post until fairly recently, it’s easy to assign guilt by association.

Next, I went to the bank and transfered a bunch of money out of my German account into my American account. Hopefully, the Euro will stay strong against the dollar for the next few days. The lady at the bank I think knows me as the guy who comes in all the time to do Auslandsüberweisungen. I’ll probably have to do at least one more right before I leave again too. All of this of course, makes me realize more and more than in fact I really am leaving and very soon. Just when the weather was starting to shape up too! Oh well, it’s not like the weather in California is bad or anything during the summer.

After I finally got back to work around 4pm, Jochen and I finished up taking the shots for our paper video. The equipment worked fine and now I just need to add some final text to the actual paper. Eurographics seems to be coming along with their program, but as of this writing, it’s still full of dummy text. I’m still not 100% sure if I’m going to go to SCA or not. It’s the weekend before Eurographics in the same location, so on one hand I wouldn’t have to incur any additional airfare and it is generally more related to my research than Eurographics. However, last year it ran something like $300 for a student registration, which seems steep for a 3 day conference. So, I’ll wait and see.