… to borrow a phrase from crystal_storm.
Today was my last day of work. As of now, I’m not gainfully employed… And I have no idea when I might want to work again. It’s all a little odd.
It started out with breakfast with two work friends who I regularly see on the bus (I had mushroom and gruyère omelette, mmm).
Then I did a small amount of work, checked a fix from last night that had worked except for one teensy issue, put in a tech service call, did a bit more work (and managed to finish the last of the update requests!), got a call from a tech about midday trying to figure out what I needed and then, in 15 minutes flat, he managed to fix the issue. I asked if it was okay to send him some extra user IDs to add to the htpassword file because some people had been having problems with access; he said, sure.
I went to lunch. The work end-of-year lunch. At Masani, on Drummond St. Let’s just say it was five courses (appetiser, antipasto, primi, secundi, dolce) and divine. I’m not sure whether the asparagus with truffles was the highlight, or the roasted duckling in cherry sauce or the turkish delight sorbet with summer berries. The antipasto was pretty amazing too: roasted baby pigeon and crab and palm hearts. I’m sure it was even more amazing for the people who had wine with theirs.
My supervisor gave me a gift on behalf of everyone: a little all-in-one suit for Harper that says "Get up, Stand Up" in rasta colours and a T-shirt for Harper that says "I’ll stop screaming when you sort out the planet", both in fairtrade organic cotton (bought from the shop on Nicholson St that someone mentioned on my last post about this). Utterly awesome!
Four and a half hours later, I waddled back to work. To a message from the tech guy saying he’d added all those users and could I just give him a call after I check it’s working. I did. It was. At 4.59pm, on my last day, I sent out the message to the five department managers telling them that, miraculously, the project was live and functioning. By the skin of my teeth. I honestly thought I was going to have to hand that over to someone.
Doug called to tell me he had (painstakingly, via public transport, poor love) trekked out to Port Melbourne for me and retrieved the belly cast kit from the courier depot where it had ended up (they *claim* they tried to deliver it yesterday… but we think they are lying through their teeth). But yay! That means the plans for Sunday’s belly cast party are all go.
Then I toddled off to the farewell bash for Jenny Lee, my old boss at the School of Culture and Communication who is accepting one of thosevoluntary redundancies the Arts faculty is handing out. The room was filled with old students of mine (*wave*) and with good friends: paracelsus , and p_cat , and matcha_pocky . I chatted for as long as I could but I knew I couldn’t stay long because horngirl was coming over to discuss housesitting.
journey2master went to bed, exhausted, I ended the evening relaxing in a bath and chatting with crystal_storm about life, the universe and everything.
An intense, full day. But a really wonderful one.
I finished my project! And I’m now a woman of leisure! Well, until the baby is born… that’s when the real work starts!