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i had a hard time sleeping last night, a combination of anxiety over this morning's final census training conference call and the fact that it was still very hot outside. usually i can count on the fact that even if it's hot during the day, at least it's cool at night. last night was not the case, temperature was still in the 80's, and i woke up covered in a thin layer of sweat.

the conference call was at 9am, i had everything set up on the coffee table, ready to go. two supervisors were running the conference call. people said their names as they joined in, and a roll call was taken once the conference began. i thought there'd be a lot of interactions but the call was essentially a verbatim reread of the capstone self-study guide i spent 2+ hours yesterday going over. the only interactive parts was during the handful of roleplay exercises, and volunteered were asked from those attending the conference. i volunteered to roleplay a census reinterview. there was also a last minute covid-19 section that was recently added, i picked up a few good tips, like having the option of calling the respondent from outside the house if they don't feel comfortable answering questions face to face with social distancing. afterwards there was a Q&A. i asked if we could leave notices in the mail slot, but learned that as a census worker we're legally not allowed to touch anything mail related (so the answer is no).

the whole conference call took nearly 3 hours. the supervisors admitted to us later that we were actually their first capstone conference call, normally this would all be done in person. afterwards back on our census employee portal, there were two new items in our training, a short quiz testing everything you learned, and a survey of the training itself. i wonder if the quiz questions are randomized, but they were easy questions, mostly common sense stuff, and i managed to score perfect (all the other online quizes i've taken i usually get at least one question wrong). while doing the training survey, it crashed on me while filling out of the questions. nothing i could to get it working again, so i texted my supervisor. she told me to wait a few hours and try again, maybe it might fix itself. i finally solved the problem by logging into the census portal using firefox instead of the chrome browser, that seemed to work and i was able to complete the survey.

once the survey was complete, when i logged back into my census employee portal, there was no training modules, they simply disappeared. i didn't even get a chance to say good bye!

my supervisor called me in the early evening, congratulating me for completing the training. she asked if i'd put in my work availability hours, and that i could be assigned cases as early as tomorrow. she told me if i wanted to take a short break before starting, i could go back and change my availability, just to get a breather. she also answered a few more questions i had that i didn't ask during the conference call. like if we're assigned to work at 9am, we should simply leave at 9am, we don't have to be at the first address by 9am. i also noticed that typical enumerating times were rather late, since that's when people would most likely be home. i asked what happens if i knock during dinner, and she said the survey comes first. if the respondent refuse to answer, that just means the census will need to come back at another time. she said cases are assigned overnight, and i would know by morning whether i had work or not, either way they'd let me know.

i went out after my conference call, to take a short walk in this blistering heat and to visit star market to buy some portabella mushrooms on sale. i hade a chicken salad bagel sandwich for lunch. i spent the rest of the day intermittently turning on the AC. it was so hot today, by mid-morning temperature was already in the 90's.

for dinner i made a meat sauce and had some pasta for dinner. i'm better at portion controlling my pasta, just one cup, and 4 scoops of sauce. the mushrooms were for the sauce, wanted a little variety than just ground beef. while making dinner, i accidentally knocked the lid off of my terracotta garlic keeper, smashing it into tiny pieces of the ground. later i went onto ebay and found a plastic garlic keeper, less liable to break, let's hope it can keep the garlic just as fresh as the terracotta pot.

i dug up my honeywell enviracaire 11520 air purifier and ran it in the living room on top of the coffee table. i was hoping the circulating fan would somehow cool the house at the same time purifying the air (i noticed the most was getting a bit dusty). it did feel a bit cooler, i could feel the cold air on my feet, but when i checked the temperature, it was 80 degrees outside but 84 degrees inside.

after midnight i checked my census app and it showed me a message that i don't have any census work for tomorrow because not enough workload. that means i essentially have a free day tomorrow. most likely i'm going to take a trip down to chinatown or maybe the malden 88 if i want to get in a motorcycle ride.