New ALDI PC

I find it slightly amusing that after considering what I would like to improve in my current computer (3 instead of 2 gigs of RAM; nVidia 8600 GT graphics card instead of 8400 GS) that the current ALDI PC which goes on sale tomorrow has exactly those specs.

I'll probably be staying with mine, though.

Mouse not found; please click 'OK' to continue

This morning, after waking up from suspend-to-RAM, my computer didn't recognise its mouse. I even get the "da-dum" sound of a USB device being disconnected, which I found suspicious (I initially thought that it might have been my printer, which could have been on when I sent the PC to sleep, but was probably my mouse).

Annoying. Especially since this was a chronic problem on Stella's PC and not one I wanted mine to develop. And also because the last time this had happened to me, I had also had the Sims open, and I couldn't figure out how to shut it down cleanly without a mouse. I mean, I can get to the "Exit" button all right, but then it asks me to confirm whether I really want to quit, and I can't dismiss that dialog with the keyboard! Neither Enter, Tab, nor the arrow keys seem to work.

So I crawled behind my PC and put my mouse in a different USB slot. Da-dum, my mouse's LED is shining again. Unplug it and put it back in the original slot, mouse LED is off. WTF? Ah well, plug it into the "new" slot since at least it works there.

(And no annoying "Ooh! New device! Wanna give me an install CD with drivers?", either, thank goodness.)

This sentence refers to itself.

“What does ‘JFGI’ mean?”

Amy's new kindergarten

We took Amy to have a look at her new kindergarten this morning (the bilingual one).

We were the only ones there, except for the director and one teacher—since they only just started up on Monday, they only have a couple of kids coming so far and those only for an hour or two each day while they get used to the place.

They showed us the rooms, and it all seemed fairly nice. (And very not-lived-in yet!) So we signed the paperwork; at least, most of it, since the final calculation of what we'll pay will have to wait until we get the coupon from the Jugendamt (it'll depend on what they figure my net salary is after deductions).

At first, Amy stayed close by us (and wouldn't speak to either of the two ladies there); later, she played by herself, but only when Vivien wasn't in the room—she came into the office while we were in there with Stephanie, the director, and said that Amy would not really play while she was in there and wouldn't react when spoken to, but that as she was leaving the room, she saw Amy starting to get out some toys and play by herself.

After an hour or so, I left to go to work; Stella just called me to say that they had stayed for another couple of hours, and that Amy had "thawed" during that time and would speak to Vivien and Stephanie as well—and even put her head on Vivien's arm at one point.

So that seems auspicious.

Stella said she'll probably go back again tomorrow afternoon. There's a girl there called Christine whose first language is Swedish (her mother speaks to her in Swedish, her father in German, and the two amongst themselves in English) and who comes for an hour a day or so since Monday together with her father, and he suggested that it would be nice if there were another child there while Christine is getting used to the place, so since it was in the afternoon when Erik will be home already, Stella agreed.

Perhaps she'll also go there next Wednesday morning when she has her day off again.

It also seems that the getting-used phase when Amy officially starts may not need to be very long, given that she already seems to like the place and has already built up a small measure of trust in the teacher there.

(Who might not be her teacher in the end, but they'll probably have all the groups together initially until there are enough children to justify employing more people.)

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When Stephanie and I went to have a look at the roof-top terrace (which is still under construction, but will belong exclusively to the kindergarten as soon as it's finished, and will include things such as sandpits and swings), I noticed her eyes in the light from the outside: they were a rather interesting (and pretty!) colour, sort of like amber, that I can't recall having seen before as an eye colour. They were too light to be called "brown", and I'm not sure whether "hazel" is the name for that colour.

Hm... *looks up the topic on Wikipedia* It seems that "amber" is the name I'm looking for. How prosaic :)