11/29/00

Work has gotten really dead all of a sudden. I was working 16 hours every day until Thanksgiving, and then I got back from vacation and now there's nothing going on. The class I'm T.A.'ing ends on Saturday, when they have their final exam, so all I have to do this week is meet individually with a few students. My labwork is also at a lull, largely because a piece of equipment I desperately need to use is missing a part and nobody seems to know where it is.

As a result, I've had to find other things to obsess about, and right now the target of my obsession is running. I'm thinking of running a half-marathon at the end of January. The only problem is that I'm not sure if the race actually exists. It's taken place for the last two years, but I haven't been able to find out anywhere if they're doing it this year, too. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure that this is a realistic goal, since the furthest I've ever run is 7.5 miles, and the end of January is only two months away, but I'm feeling pretty gung-ho about it at the moment. We'll see if that lasts. If work gets to be busier, I suspect it won't.

I had a trying bathroom experience yesterday. The water in the building where I work had been turned off for some reason, so I had to go to the main hospital building to use the bathroom. The first bathroom I passed was in the emergency room, but I don't like to use that one because it tends to be kind of grubby. I walked another hundred feet or so to the next set of bathrooms, and found that they were closed for cleaning. So I walked yet further to a third bathroom. This one was open, but then when I tried to leave the stall, the door was stuck! I had no idea what I'd done to the door, but it just wouldn't open.

I pushed on the door as hard as I could, but was only able to open it 7 or 8 inches. Luckily, that was enough for me to squeeze through, but just barely.

It wasn't until the next time that I used that bathroom that I realized how I'd gotten trapped in the stall. It was because the stall door was supposed to open in and not out. I'd been trying to force the door the other way. Doh.