The first long week is nearly over

I am really enjoying my Finslipa ditt uttal class (Fine Polish your Pronunciation). The teacher is good, and we are going over so many details about how words should be stressed, which sounds in which words are long, and when it changes, and why. It will take time before I get these things right, of course, but knowing about it is half the battle. So it feels worth the huge amount extra time each day I have class. (Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday)

 

My normal schedule is work from when I board the bus in the morning at 06:30, till I get off the bus in the evening at 15:50, which means that I have put in more than the 7.95 hours of work I am supposed to do for the day, which means that on my work from home days I can work a shorter day, and I am only on campus from 07:50 to 14:26. This works. But my class doesn’t start till 15:00, and runs to 17:00. The next bus isn’t till 17:26, and this week it was 10 minutes late every time. Needless to day, on class days I do not try to work on the bus home, too. A 10-hour work day is more than enough! (This is why I am making time to type here now!)

 

On Monday, our first class, one of my classmates came up to me afterwards, and reminded me that she had interviewed me for a job with the Archaeology department in the spring, and wondered what job I am working at the Uni now? We chatted a bit, and she invited me to come by the archaeology department for a visit. We agreed to meet for fika on Wednesday at 14:30, and then head to class together.

 

On Wednesday we were joined by Johan, who apologized for not having replied to my letter saying that I was now working at the library, and that I am still interested in working with them, and a couple of their PhD students. It was a nice meeting, I caught them up on how I am doing, told them I have one paper published (Today!)  and another under review, and that Tobias and I are looking to put together a funding application. I wondered if they would be willing to hire me if I brought funding. Yes, of course they would! Of course Johan isn’t so optimistic about funding getting granted, for good reasons.

 

I am not really clear what my chances are at getting funding, but I do know that they will be better on my next application than it was on my last because I have been reading successful applications as part of my job. The more of those one sees, the better one can make one’s own applications. Getting some publications out there doesn’t hurt, either. Time will tell.

 

Ever since I started at the uni, and heard that they have “friskvård timmar” (we can do an hour of exercise or other health-related activity during busing hours each week), plus the uni is willing to reimburse us up to 2000 kr towards things like gym membership, massage, or other health improving activity each year, I have been meaning to go over to the climbing wall on the other side of campus and check it out. But work has been just busy enough on the days I came in, and I have worked at home just often enough that it hadn’t happened. Yesterday I had a big chunk of time in the middle of the day with no meetings, but couldn’t go home early because of my class. So I finally remembered to bring my climbing shoes from home, and Finally walked over there!

 

It is a 10 minute walk from my building to that building. The single day entry fee is 155 kr, and the membership comes with various prices, depending on what options you get, and for how long. She said that if I buy the day pass, and then decide to get the membership, I get a discount of the price that I had already paid. So I did that, went down, and checked it out. I haven’t had easy access to a climbing wall since the 1990’s when I was at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where the uni gym had a climbing wall, and membership to the gym was an automatic part of your student fees, so didn’t cost anything I didn’t already have to pay, so I used it often. Since then I have had occasional visits to a climbing wall, but not often, and not regularly. I have missed it, but not enough to go to the effort of getting to one that isn’t nearby. Ideally, I would like my own climbing wall at home, so I never needed to go anywhere at all, but I still haven’t had a house of my own with a space that would be suitable for that.

 

This wall has a fairly large bouldering area, and a good sized rope climbing area. One may not use the ropes if one hasn’t got a “green card”, which one gets by spending more than 700 Sek and taking a class, which meets only in the evenings, and, of course, one needs a climbing partner to do rope climbing. So for now I am ignoring that part of the gym.

 

But the bouldering wall is nice. There are plenty of areas with the good, easy to hold onto holds that I am so fond of, so I could just hop on and start climbing directly. I haven’t forgotten everything, and my normal yoga, hand stand training, and acroyoga and, more recently, Pilates, means that I am strong enough to climb, but not to do the really hard stuff with the tiny hard to hold holds. But there is enough variety of locations that I enjoyed a good 20 minutes climbing on that first session before my foot complained about the shoes, and my arms threatened to hurt later if I didn’t stop. So I did, went back upstairs and bought the 4 month membership. (if one wants to pay in advance, the choices are 4 months, or 1 year--my current job contract ends 30 June, so I didn’t see much point in buying the year--that sounds like temping the job gods to send me a different direction for my next job.

 

This morning I decided I should bring my electric scooter to work with me, and let it live in my office all winter. On days when it hasn’t snowed recently I could use it to get over to the climbing wall, in a fraction of time than the 10 minute walk takes. However, Keldor has been home from work all week with a serious cold, so he has been waking up with me, driving me to the bus stop for company, and then going home and sleeping again. Today I considered just taking the scooter to the bus stop, but he wanted that little extra time, so we put the scooter in the car and drove up. When the bus was almost there I went to get out of the car, and realised that I had left my hood and mittens at home! This discovery put me in “panic mode”, as the bus was nearly there, so there was no time to head home and get them. There is no way I am going to ride an electric scooter without mittens on a -7C day, so, so my panic-mode decision was to just send the scooter home with Keldor. In hind site, I should have brought it with me anyway, as the plan is to just leave it in my office all winter. Besides, I did have my sheepskin gloves in my computer bag (I just didn’t know that when I was panicking, as I looked in the wrong pocket of that bag).

 

However, despite not having the scooter at the office, I still made it to the wall today--that is two days in a row. Today 15 minutes was how long it took before my feet had enough of the shoes, and my arms thought it was enough exercise, but it was fun. I will try to get over there everyday, or at least most days I go in.

 

But not tomorrow. Much to my delight one of my meetings for tomorrow was changed to an online meeting, so I asked if I could do the other online as well, and got a yes, so I am working from home. Yay!

But next week is week two, of three, of staying late for class, and this weekend is thesis corrections.