Friday, January 26th

Rushed home today having looked at wooden floors (+ ordered one!) to call J. Woke up this night and thought/hoped there might be bigger time difference in Memphis (were I was supposed to call him). Looked it up, no, shame. So I call but get a somewhat sleepy Jack on the phone; there was a time difference.... I called an hour earlier than arranged, felt so bad. I guess I served as the wake up call for him (he said he was awake but don't believe it) + roommate (made myself very popular there I am sure), we agreed I'd call in another half hour, at which point I managed to catch him in the bathroom, and was lucky enough to also talk to the roommate. After he had also made some dinner arrangements and got a cup of coffee I finally managed to discuss the IRB. We finished an hour later, I hope I can declare some of the phone costs at work... Then spent the next 3 hours working on the proposal I thought was finished. Have sent it off now to be handed in by someone at uconn.I find it difficult to talk to him, because I miss him when I do. I got a loud laugh at my control condition, he suggested if I needed a manipulation with someone who uses a knife I might be better off using a chef than a knife thrower. So I end up laughing about my research rather than worrying about manipulations.
Our house looks lovely still. We rented a greenwheels car to go to a shop that sells wooden floors. There we picked up 2 enormous planks of wood, oak, one misty white/grey, the other more yellowy/brown. Lugged them up to the third floor and put them in the living room. I liked them both, B had a strong preference for misty white (and I did too in the end), so misty white we ordered (before rushing home). We also introduced ourselves to our downstairs neighbours (who had been glued to the window staring at us when we last looked at the house from the outside). I think they appreciated that. They have lived there for 40 years, are very 'amsterdam'', and very talkative, but very nice. They wont become our best friends but I think we will get on well, and they keep an eye on things (and spend the entire summer in a caravan, so we can have our noisy rowdy parties then).
Well, that's about it for today, still suffering from work frustration, told B I might be manically depressive in my work - have days that I think things are going well (i.e. yesterday), next day I think what I am doing is terrible, and get completely stuck (at which point I get stressed because I want to work as fast as I did in the States and finish my dissertation asap). Right now feeling fairly satisfied that IRB is off (with slight worry I put mistake into it). Luckily we can get ourselves out of bed early again tomorrow morning for the necessary distraction: having purchased kitchen and wooden floor we now move onto the carpets.