![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enismirdalAs I may have mentioned at some point, or maybe not, one of my flatmates is planning to move out. He's now found a flat in the area he wanted (paying 30% more than he is now, but that's the price for the location - I guess if he's happy, it's all good). So we had to look for a replacement.
He posted the ad on Gumtree initiallty. As usual, a dozen replies within a couple of hours. He arranged for the most likely-looking candidates to come on Saturday, one every half hour over the lunchtime kind of period.
It was exciting but quite exhausting. There were 5 people scheduled, so we'll call them Adam, Bernadette, Chloe, Dominic and Edwina for convenience. Hehe.
Adam was American (from Arizona). He wore very tight skinny jeans, but I suppose we shouldn't hold that against him. Aside from a slight tendency to say, "Right on!" quite a lot, he seems really nice and chatty, and he made a good first impression - as in, natural, quirky and friendly. He's a student, so that's a plus.
Bernadette was fine, but quite different from all of us - she seemed to be slightly the trendy, clubbing type. But she had a cool job, and came across as a nice person, and had an Oxjam badge, so probably is quite cool.
Chloe we all adored. She's an Aussie interior designer and is so damned adorable. Conversation was just effortless, and I had to keep an eye on the time because we were quite absorbed. She has an adorable accent - Princess Beatrice crossed with Kylie Minogue, if that's something you can imagine!
All we knew about Dominic was that he was gay (presumably he mentioned this in the original e-mail because he'd had some hassle with it before) and that he was a TV researcher. But as he didn't actually show up, that is still all we know, so I guess we can discount him!
Edwina (an Aussie journalist) was 20 minutes late and turned up very businesslike. She kind of gave the impression that she was responding to what we said as a courtesy acknowledgement rather than because she was interested, and was a bit, "OK, let's see the room." She did mention that a lot of the places she was looking at were more expensive, so maybe she was after something posher. She didn't seem like a bad person but at the same time, she didn't really do anything for any of us, and was just very abrupt - in and out in 10 minutes, whilst Adam and Chloe both took practically half a hour.
So overall we're thinking either Adam or Chloe, depending on who is still interested and replies and stuff. It's fun stuff!
As previously mentioned, other flatmate was back in the UK for three days or so, so we went out for Hummus and then went for a drink or two with various friends, which was fun.
Today I made an absolutely awesome soufflé. Whipping egg whites until they stand up in peaks is MUCH easier when you have a giant bowl and a giant whisk than doing it with a fork or a small whisk in a cereal bowl. An electric whisk is better still but we don't have one of them yet. The other thing I did today was go to Covent Garden, first to Stanford's to get a map for my supervisor, then to Treadwell's to browse (awesome shop) and then to CyberCandy, where I picked up Pretzel Flipz, and Peanut Butter M&Ms to bring to my flatmate when I visit her in 2 weeks' time, since it sounds like she needs some creature comforts. (Getting hold of her usual foodstuffs, i.e. hummus, paneer, tofu, is difficult-to-borderline impossible in the Czech Republic so I suspect she's subsisting mostly on pasta and sauce.)
Have recently been discovering the wonders of working from home. Until I have experiments to do again, I seriously plan to take advantage of the flexibility of academia. Using a computer whilst sitting in bed in a nest of blankets is a very pleasant way to work. :D
He posted the ad on Gumtree initiallty. As usual, a dozen replies within a couple of hours. He arranged for the most likely-looking candidates to come on Saturday, one every half hour over the lunchtime kind of period.
It was exciting but quite exhausting. There were 5 people scheduled, so we'll call them Adam, Bernadette, Chloe, Dominic and Edwina for convenience. Hehe.
Adam was American (from Arizona). He wore very tight skinny jeans, but I suppose we shouldn't hold that against him. Aside from a slight tendency to say, "Right on!" quite a lot, he seems really nice and chatty, and he made a good first impression - as in, natural, quirky and friendly. He's a student, so that's a plus.
Bernadette was fine, but quite different from all of us - she seemed to be slightly the trendy, clubbing type. But she had a cool job, and came across as a nice person, and had an Oxjam badge, so probably is quite cool.
Chloe we all adored. She's an Aussie interior designer and is so damned adorable. Conversation was just effortless, and I had to keep an eye on the time because we were quite absorbed. She has an adorable accent - Princess Beatrice crossed with Kylie Minogue, if that's something you can imagine!
All we knew about Dominic was that he was gay (presumably he mentioned this in the original e-mail because he'd had some hassle with it before) and that he was a TV researcher. But as he didn't actually show up, that is still all we know, so I guess we can discount him!
Edwina (an Aussie journalist) was 20 minutes late and turned up very businesslike. She kind of gave the impression that she was responding to what we said as a courtesy acknowledgement rather than because she was interested, and was a bit, "OK, let's see the room." She did mention that a lot of the places she was looking at were more expensive, so maybe she was after something posher. She didn't seem like a bad person but at the same time, she didn't really do anything for any of us, and was just very abrupt - in and out in 10 minutes, whilst Adam and Chloe both took practically half a hour.
So overall we're thinking either Adam or Chloe, depending on who is still interested and replies and stuff. It's fun stuff!
As previously mentioned, other flatmate was back in the UK for three days or so, so we went out for Hummus and then went for a drink or two with various friends, which was fun.
Today I made an absolutely awesome soufflé. Whipping egg whites until they stand up in peaks is MUCH easier when you have a giant bowl and a giant whisk than doing it with a fork or a small whisk in a cereal bowl. An electric whisk is better still but we don't have one of them yet. The other thing I did today was go to Covent Garden, first to Stanford's to get a map for my supervisor, then to Treadwell's to browse (awesome shop) and then to CyberCandy, where I picked up Pretzel Flipz, and Peanut Butter M&Ms to bring to my flatmate when I visit her in 2 weeks' time, since it sounds like she needs some creature comforts. (Getting hold of her usual foodstuffs, i.e. hummus, paneer, tofu, is difficult-to-borderline impossible in the Czech Republic so I suspect she's subsisting mostly on pasta and sauce.)
Have recently been discovering the wonders of working from home. Until I have experiments to do again, I seriously plan to take advantage of the flexibility of academia. Using a computer whilst sitting in bed in a nest of blankets is a very pleasant way to work. :D
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 10 Nov 2008 13:50 (UTC)