It really tied the room together

There it is - a Venn Diagram of part of my world view or more specifically {Things ∉ My World View}...

Four years of Chemical Engineering followed by another four doing a PhD [, which I have successfully defended; I will be graduating at the soonest convenience]²... I wasn't ready for this.

In the week leading up to "Mission In Furnishing," I kept having the exchange between Walter and the Dude go through my head. Well, that and the montage of Edward Norton's nameless character furnishing his apartment in Fight Club.

Thanks a bunch pop-culture.

Linen, towels, beds, shelves, tables and ladders and chairs [oh my].¹ It's a f**kin' mystery to me. The whole week I was thinking through what I needed, and a triage on the order to get them in.

It took three visits to Ikea to get the essentials [plus dealies I simply had to have]. The first time was tough going. Halfway through my Ikean trek, I was done, mentally. It was purgatory. Chairs, followed by bins, followed by shelves, followed by office desks, followed by office chairs, follwed by stools, followed by dining tables, followed by beds, followed by light bulbs... I just wanted it to be over. I strongly advice using the website to decide what to get beforehand and just go straight for the chosen items. Otherwise, you'll feel like this, but without the laugh track.

To cap it off, my poor choice in timing - stepping out of Ikea on a Friday at 1700 - meant that my taxi was "25 minutes away" for about 2 hours. The next two visits went far more smoothly, except for waiting over 30 minutes at the warehouse for oversized items.

So, Ikea, a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't live there.

At the beginning of my furnishing travails, I balked often at the cost of things, particularly in Ikea, since I was expecting "rock bottom" prices. Being the neophyte that I was,³ I had no point of reference for the costs. But when I took the time to think about it: compared to the amount I am prepared to pay for shoes, clothes and PC parts; the cost of having things to sit on, sleep in, eat off, hide under, etc. daily for years is very reasonable.

My favourite discovery has been Hema. It's just a few minutes from my apartment and it's got a sh*tload of housing stuff, almost everything a man about town could want.

Almost.

Up until yesterday I had not been able to find baking trays. What the hell, Antwerp? How hard is it to provide a planar piece of heat-conductive metal for the purpose of baking? There was no end to bread-, tart-tins and cupcake trays, but the most geometrically trivial of baking vessels... I never had this trouble in Ireland. Luckily, I found an Arnotts-like department store that has them, understandably a tad more expensive than Tesco.

Up until now, I wrapped my oven shelves in tinfoil.  My oven is going to take a while to get used to; The fan is weak so the forced convection isn't great, and the baking times are longer than I'm used to.  The first batch of cookies were OK, but a bit harder/crunchier than I'd like. The second batch worked out a lot better. Plus, the Nestlé cocoa powder I got in the supermarket is like a party in my nose where everyone is invited,^3.5 and yields a richer flavoured cookie than the Cadbury's cocoa in Ireland.

There isn't much to report in work. On my first day we had quite a time finding a lab coat that fit me because of my apeish armspan; I now sport the largest labcoat size we could find in the building. Sure, the sleeves go to my wrist, but it's like some kind of monk robe the way it is cinched across in front and goes down to my knees.

Much like Walter White⁴ I will sometimes need to have a full-face mask with a filter for my work with powders. During my safety training, the instructor, in broken English and gesturing with his hands, told me that I have a small face, which may be a problem [for getting a seal on the mask]. It turns out that it was not a problem, but I can't help feeling insulted by being told I have a small face. :-(    :-(

[Edit: it has since been pointed out to me that trays are available in Ikea:
http://www.ikea.com/be/nl/catalog/products/10196662
http://www.ikea.com/be/nl/catalog/products/00133043

This only serves to annoy me further... Ikeeeeeaaaaaaaa!]

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¹Mick Foley's classic quoteⁱ from when he was the general manager in WWE, no youtube or soundbite of it... but trust me, it happened. Also, the ladder was "poetic license", i.e. "a lie" because I don't need one.

²"I didn't go to evil freakin' Chemical Engineering School for four years to be called Mr McNamara."

³I'm a paleophyte now. Whatever.
^3.5Don't do drugs kids.
⁴Breaking Bad shout out! What! I'm getting a buzz just recalling the season gone by.

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ⁱItself a corruption of "Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!" from Wizard of Oz