Sick Leave? Sure, If That's What You Want to Call It

I have to use up my sick leave before the new job starts (11 days - but who's counting?) because the conversion to being a true federal employee allows for me to keep my annual leave - in the form of a nice, fat check - but not sick leave. Bastards.

After being sick so many times in the past few months, I only had 24.5 hours left. But, after some fast math in my head (divide by eight, uhhhhhhh), that's three days! Three whole lovely, sunny, tasty days. Determined not to forfeit hours that I had earned by working very, very diligently (hahaha! RIGHT.), I approached my supervisor tentatively:

Heather: After speaking with HR, I discovered that my unused annual leave will be converted, but I am going to lose my sick leave. I earned that leave, and I don't want the government to steal it. I gave three weeks notice, instead of the one week recommended by HR, so can I try and use it up?

Supervisor: Sure.

Heather: Uh, neat. Thanks!

And now I have tomorrow and Friday off, and my last day will now be September 1 instead of the 2nd. Fantastic!

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In other news, I have discovered the perfect kind of underwear. Not bikini, not a full-on thong. Nope - somewhere in between coupled with lacy goodness. I'm not even sure if they have a name, but they are pretty damn sweet. I mean, pretty damn Swayze.

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As I have tomorrow off, I finally got around to watching Casablanca. For the first time.

I KNOW.

As a World War II historian, I am kind of amazed that it took me this long to see it. Maybe I thought that I would have had to watch it for one of the many classes I took at UM (or GWU, for that matter). Yeah, if everyone else hadn't already seen it!

And so, I can finally give an informed review: LOVED IT! (oh, In Living Color flashback...). I can see why this film is consistently ranked in the top ten movies of all time - the acting alone was flawless. Sentimental, yes, but it captures the "Vichy" mentality prevalent in Casablanca at the time. One thing that I found interesting - that I would have missed had I not read an article about it - was the French girl who started dating a German soldier. French soldier gets pissed, etc. Women like her were treated like criminals once the war was over - many had their heads forcibly shaved. Right -- you didn't need to know that, but I felt like my entire expensive education was justified just because I picked up on that one minute scene.

I did quite enjoy hearing some of the most famous lines in cinema. I'll spare you.

But we'll always have Paris.

Sorry.

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The National Zoo is allowing the public to choose the name of the panda cub. We all know that it should be named "Butterstick," yet it is not one of the choices. Here's a link to a site that somehow bypasses the zoo's voting form and *might* give Butterstick a chance. (Is "hacking" the correct word anymore?)

The adorable Butterstick.
(image courtesy of the Smithsonian National Zoo)