![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I just found out that the house concert that Tania and Mike did in Talkeetna in January is available on line for the enjoyment of those of you who missed it.
Newcommer's was a fun event!
Mar. 8th, 2009 03:31 amBut then, it always is!
This morning I made an attempt at doing some uni work--determined that even though my advisor successfully ran this sample over a year ago, today if I use the same data file he used and run it through the program the calculations crash--giving an error message complaining about a negative square root. Sigh. So instead I did my 1000 words a day and then packed stuff to take to the event. The hall opened for set up at 14:00, and we arrived at 14:30. We helped get things set up,and then spent some time playing in the kitchen. There wasn't enough of the pastry for the pies to do covered pies, but there was enough to do decorative bits. They happened to have a cat cookie cutter on site, so we cut out a bunch of cats and then added manes, tufts at the end of the tail, pepper corn noses, rosemary whiskers, and parsley flakes in the eyes. They were so cute! It took three of us as much time to make eight of these as it did some other people to chop the veg and cook the meat/sauce to fill the pies.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clovis_t got some photos, so as soon as he gets a chance to upload them to his Facebook I'll post a link to them. By the time we did that and I washed up some of the cooking dishes which had been used thus far it was closing in on 18:00, which is when the event started, so I went and got changed. The event itslef was much fun. We'd brought my hammer dulcimer and our bodhran, and a very talented musician who recently moved to Launceston was down, bring his shawm, a lute, a harp, and several other instruments. He was joined by a local recorder player, and the two of them plus one or another person doing drum provided us music for dancing all night long. It was great! The food looked to be very well received, and the kitchen was so well organized and enough cleaning happened as they went that the kitchen clean up was just about done by the time of closing court, making it fairly quick work for things to be packed up. Their excellencies announced their Majesties choice for their heirs, L & M, who will be invested as the fifth Baron and Baroness of Ynys Fawr in May. Bookings to my apprentice if you wish to attend (she's listed in the Baronial directory, or ask me if you need her contact details).
We went to the after-revel as well, and enjoyed further socializing there before heading home around 02:00. I was in such a good mood after a fun day that I managed to get the car unloaded tonight, and played my hammer dulcimer a bit (till the dogs, who'd been woken up by it complained) and then thought I'd check in here before sleep. It is now 04:00, so I'd probably best get some rest. I won't be attending the tournament tomorrow (much tough I'd love to), but instead hope to get lots of uni work done.
This morning I made an attempt at doing some uni work--determined that even though my advisor successfully ran this sample over a year ago, today if I use the same data file he used and run it through the program the calculations crash--giving an error message complaining about a negative square root. Sigh. So instead I did my 1000 words a day and then packed stuff to take to the event. The hall opened for set up at 14:00, and we arrived at 14:30. We helped get things set up,and then spent some time playing in the kitchen. There wasn't enough of the pastry for the pies to do covered pies, but there was enough to do decorative bits. They happened to have a cat cookie cutter on site, so we cut out a bunch of cats and then added manes, tufts at the end of the tail, pepper corn noses, rosemary whiskers, and parsley flakes in the eyes. They were so cute! It took three of us as much time to make eight of these as it did some other people to chop the veg and cook the meat/sauce to fill the pies.
clovis_t got some photos, so as soon as he gets a chance to upload them to his Facebook I'll post a link to them. By the time we did that and I washed up some of the cooking dishes which had been used thus far it was closing in on 18:00, which is when the event started, so I went and got changed. The event itslef was much fun. We'd brought my hammer dulcimer and our bodhran, and a very talented musician who recently moved to Launceston was down, bring his shawm, a lute, a harp, and several other instruments. He was joined by a local recorder player, and the two of them plus one or another person doing drum provided us music for dancing all night long. It was great! The food looked to be very well received, and the kitchen was so well organized and enough cleaning happened as they went that the kitchen clean up was just about done by the time of closing court, making it fairly quick work for things to be packed up. Their excellencies announced their Majesties choice for their heirs, L & M, who will be invested as the fifth Baron and Baroness of Ynys Fawr in May. Bookings to my apprentice if you wish to attend (she's listed in the Baronial directory, or ask me if you need her contact details). We went to the after-revel as well, and enjoyed further socializing there before heading home around 02:00. I was in such a good mood after a fun day that I managed to get the car unloaded tonight, and played my hammer dulcimer a bit (till the dogs, who'd been woken up by it complained) and then thought I'd check in here before sleep. It is now 04:00, so I'd probably best get some rest. I won't be attending the tournament tomorrow (much tough I'd love to), but instead hope to get lots of uni work done.
a good little student
Jan. 26th, 2009 12:07 amToday clovis_t went to fighter practice. I wanted to go--many of my friends would have been there, and it is always good sewing time. But I was good and stayed home and worked on my thesis. Total hours actual uni work today: 6 hrs, 47 min. Mostly doing edits to chapter five (yah, the one I wanted to be done and sent off to my advisor well before now--I keep finding more that can be done to improve it!), but also creating a totally new sort of figure for this one--I set up a map (using ArcMap) of all of the locations of the samples which have had monazite dating done, and then copied the outline of Tasmania + sample locations into CorelDraw, and am now adding layers with arrows showing the direction one needs to go from one region to the next to get to monazite with increasing amounts of Y or Sr. Other elements will follow, but although *often* Y increases in the direction Sr decreases, sometimes it is opposite. No idea if this figure will wind up in the thesis, or if it is just for me to organize yet more thoughts before typing up something profound, but...
In addition to the uni work, I actually got out my hammer dulcimer today! First time I've touched it in just over a week. Played with it for about two hours, though part of that was typing up the letters for the notes of the Cantigia de Santa Maria #322 into a Word document so that I could see all of them at once, since NoteWorthy has the sheet music hanging off the right hand side of the screen. The program does these jumps as it plays the music, where the score suddenly jumps left enough so that the note currently being played is at the left edge of the screen, then it holds still until the current note is almost to the right hand side, then it does another jump. This is probably well and fine for people who are able to read music--they can probably cope with the jumps. But I, who am only just teaching myself the skill, can't. While I could zoom out so that more of the notes fit on the screen, that results in them being too small to actually see. So instead I created a notational system for myself which communicates as much information as I need to play. ( see the notation system here )
Sure, I'd learn to read music faster if I tried playing from the dots themselves, but I'm so not ready to cope with the screen jumps!
So, to ( teach myself this tune ) By the end of the evening I did manage to play the first 16 bars (on my own) without looking at the screen. Next session I'll try to learn the middle bit, but two hours total time elapsed is as much as I was willing to spare today, even if I didn't play at all last week.
I also went for a walk "around the block", and explored a side street (dead end) too. My goodness, the house at the end of the side street has too much money for landscaping. What would possess someone to put such a huge, tall, metal (painted off-white) gate with large stone-work supports on such a short wooden fence? It so doesn't match! I bet it opens automatically, without anyone having to get out of the car.
clovis_t went to fighter practice. I wanted to go--many of my friends would have been there, and it is always good sewing time. But I was good and stayed home and worked on my thesis. Total hours actual uni work today: 6 hrs, 47 min. Mostly doing edits to chapter five (yah, the one I wanted to be done and sent off to my advisor well before now--I keep finding more that can be done to improve it!), but also creating a totally new sort of figure for this one--I set up a map (using ArcMap) of all of the locations of the samples which have had monazite dating done, and then copied the outline of Tasmania + sample locations into CorelDraw, and am now adding layers with arrows showing the direction one needs to go from one region to the next to get to monazite with increasing amounts of Y or Sr. Other elements will follow, but although *often* Y increases in the direction Sr decreases, sometimes it is opposite. No idea if this figure will wind up in the thesis, or if it is just for me to organize yet more thoughts before typing up something profound, but...In addition to the uni work, I actually got out my hammer dulcimer today! First time I've touched it in just over a week. Played with it for about two hours, though part of that was typing up the letters for the notes of the Cantigia de Santa Maria #322 into a Word document so that I could see all of them at once, since NoteWorthy has the sheet music hanging off the right hand side of the screen. The program does these jumps as it plays the music, where the score suddenly jumps left enough so that the note currently being played is at the left edge of the screen, then it holds still until the current note is almost to the right hand side, then it does another jump. This is probably well and fine for people who are able to read music--they can probably cope with the jumps. But I, who am only just teaching myself the skill, can't. While I could zoom out so that more of the notes fit on the screen, that results in them being too small to actually see. So instead I created a notational system for myself which communicates as much information as I need to play. ( see the notation system here )
Sure, I'd learn to read music faster if I tried playing from the dots themselves, but I'm so not ready to cope with the screen jumps!
So, to ( teach myself this tune ) By the end of the evening I did manage to play the first 16 bars (on my own) without looking at the screen. Next session I'll try to learn the middle bit, but two hours total time elapsed is as much as I was willing to spare today, even if I didn't play at all last week.
I also went for a walk "around the block", and explored a side street (dead end) too. My goodness, the house at the end of the side street has too much money for landscaping. What would possess someone to put such a huge, tall, metal (painted off-white) gate with large stone-work supports on such a short wooden fence? It so doesn't match! I bet it opens automatically, without anyone having to get out of the car.
When I went to sleep last night it was with every intention of fist sleeping in (I was up till 02:30), and then spending today day working on uni work. However, we were woken up about 10:30 by a phone call from some friends visiting from Adelaide wanting to meet up with us. They were spending the morning at Salamanca Market, so we agreed to get ready and meet them in that area when they were done shopping. We'd been putting off a trip into town to run some errands, so thought we may as well do that whilst we were in town. And then my computer successfully connected to the internet from the bedroom (a minor miracle), revealing an invitation to a BBQ hosted by some of my fellow geology grad students at 3pm. So we met up with the friends and enjoyed an ice cream, then did our shopping, and then enjoyed the afternoon with the geology crowd & plenty of yummy and (other than the corn chips) all very healthy food (roasted garlic from their garden, yum!). When we got home I put things away, did a few useful chores (like recording how much we'd spent) and then played with my hammer dulcimer for the first time this year. I now have two tunes largely memorized, and can usually hit the note I'm intending to hit. However, the clock says that it is now after midnight, despite it feeling like it should still be *much* earlier in the day, and I've not done any uni work yet. A fun day, but not productive. I guess that tomorrow I can't check e-mail till after I've read over chapter five and am certain that it is ready to send to my advisor (but then I'll have to check, so that I can send it!).
Slowly getting back into the flow
Dec. 27th, 2008 11:42 pmDespite waking up very low energy today and having a hard time focusing on uni work, I still managed just over four hours of uni work today, which is my best time since the Sunday before Christmas. Those four hours resulted in 956 new words for my thesis and three new figures (and much refinement of previously existing figures and a good bit of editing previously existing words to make them reflect the revised figures). Didn't really accomplish much else with my day. I did spend a bit of time playing with my hammer dulcimer, I can now generally hit the notes I'm meant to hit when playing Bransle l'Official, and am starting to learn to play Boateman (even though I have no interest in ever sitting out of a dance if there is dancing happening, and therefore I'm unlikely to ever play for dancers, still it strikes me as easier to start learning to play my first instrument with SCA dance music, as I *know* these tunes from years of dancing to them, though it is odd to think of them in terms of the names of the notes instead of the steps that go with them).
I have a hammer dulcimer!
Dec. 1st, 2008 10:00 pmAnd it sounds wonderful!
Got up nice and early this morning, managed to do some laundry and get in a good hour's worth of uni work before heading over toclovis_t's parents' house, where we moved furniture out of the room we will occupy when we move in with them next week. Then I left him there and went another 20 minutes south to the home of the tallented artist who made my hammer dulicmer. I spent nearly two hours there learning as much about it as I could manage in that short time. It is lovely, made in a Medieval Style (but modern tuning). He didn't use blackwood after all, the piece he had turned out to be the wrong size for the project, so the sides and bottom are myrtle, another lovely Tasmanian wood, and the top is something else I've forgotten, but comes from the US and makes a better soundboard. He liked the juxtaposition of using both Americian and Tasmania wood for an instrument for me, who will hold dual citizenship in both countries in only 11 more days. I promise to take photos of it to share with you tomorrow, but I'm too sleepy now. It has a lovely sound. As exected, when someone like me, who has never played an instrument in her life, strikes it with the hammers in a random manner, it makes pleasing sounds. When someone like him, who is used to playing music, strikes it, it makes really, really pretty sounds! Indeed clovis_t's dad was impressed that a new instrument would sound so nice, since, generally, instruments sound better with age and "settling" in to the new stresses the wood is under.
After getting the instrument I pickedclovis_t and we came home, where I proceeded to spend another nearly three hours trying to figure out how to play tunes I know. Much fun! But, as expected, I didn't get back to uni work, and it is now late, and I'm sleepy, so I will put the computer down now that I've sent notes to the folk who want to give new homes to the items we are getting rid of, and hope that tomorrow is a much more uni-filled day!
Got up nice and early this morning, managed to do some laundry and get in a good hour's worth of uni work before heading over to
clovis_t's parents' house, where we moved furniture out of the room we will occupy when we move in with them next week. Then I left him there and went another 20 minutes south to the home of the tallented artist who made my hammer dulicmer. I spent nearly two hours there learning as much about it as I could manage in that short time. It is lovely, made in a Medieval Style (but modern tuning). He didn't use blackwood after all, the piece he had turned out to be the wrong size for the project, so the sides and bottom are myrtle, another lovely Tasmanian wood, and the top is something else I've forgotten, but comes from the US and makes a better soundboard. He liked the juxtaposition of using both Americian and Tasmania wood for an instrument for me, who will hold dual citizenship in both countries in only 11 more days. I promise to take photos of it to share with you tomorrow, but I'm too sleepy now. It has a lovely sound. As exected, when someone like me, who has never played an instrument in her life, strikes it with the hammers in a random manner, it makes pleasing sounds. When someone like him, who is used to playing music, strikes it, it makes really, really pretty sounds! Indeed clovis_t's dad was impressed that a new instrument would sound so nice, since, generally, instruments sound better with age and "settling" in to the new stresses the wood is under. After getting the instrument I picked
clovis_t and we came home, where I proceeded to spend another nearly three hours trying to figure out how to play tunes I know. Much fun! But, as expected, I didn't get back to uni work, and it is now late, and I'm sleepy, so I will put the computer down now that I've sent notes to the folk who want to give new homes to the items we are getting rid of, and hope that tomorrow is a much more uni-filled day!
Time has been zipping along, doing is normal trick of disappearing much faster than I think it ought. On Saturday I was busy all day, but only managed 3.5 hours of uni work. And I can't blame e-mail, because sca.org e-mail addresses were down that day, so I had no new messages needing replies. Went to a "Heritage Bush Dance" on Saturday evening, and had much fun dancing.
Today I managed even less uni work--not quite an hour all up :-(
However, I went for a ride on my trike for the first time in ages, and we've done some packing, and found a number of items we need to be rid of before moving, and I've advertised the stuff for sale to the geology department and local SCA e-mail lists, and have posted a variety of miscellaneous stuff to FreeCycle, many of which have found homes already.
In the evening I was still restless and not working, so I went down the hill tobaronsnorri's new home and got to meet his sweet new kitten, Fleur, and the amazingly friendly young rooster he's gotten (there are advantages to renting a house on 5 acres of land from sensible landlords who approve of animals). He got the rooster because his hens keep going "clucky" and trying to sit on their eggs (and then they quit laying any new ones), and he thinks that if they are that determined to sit the eggs, he may as well arrange things so that there will be a purpose to the exercise. However, this rooster is still too young for that, but he will grow. In the mean time he is friendly enough that he lept out of the pen and into baronsnorri's arms, and then settled happily down and quit making the sad lonely noises (the hens aren't yet being nice to him).
After that I came home, replied to all of the e-mails asking after the things I'd advertised on FreeCycle, and then did a tiny bit more uni work. Alas, tomorrow isn't looking great for uni work either, as we will be heading toclovis_t's parent's house to clear out the room into which we will be moving at the end of the week, and then from there I'll go pick up my new Hammer Dulicemer from the talented artist who made it. I am *really* excited about that part of my plans! I can't wait to see what he's done with it, and will post photos tomorrow evening...
Today I managed even less uni work--not quite an hour all up :-(
However, I went for a ride on my trike for the first time in ages, and we've done some packing, and found a number of items we need to be rid of before moving, and I've advertised the stuff for sale to the geology department and local SCA e-mail lists, and have posted a variety of miscellaneous stuff to FreeCycle, many of which have found homes already.
In the evening I was still restless and not working, so I went down the hill to
baronsnorri's new home and got to meet his sweet new kitten, Fleur, and the amazingly friendly young rooster he's gotten (there are advantages to renting a house on 5 acres of land from sensible landlords who approve of animals). He got the rooster because his hens keep going "clucky" and trying to sit on their eggs (and then they quit laying any new ones), and he thinks that if they are that determined to sit the eggs, he may as well arrange things so that there will be a purpose to the exercise. However, this rooster is still too young for that, but he will grow. In the mean time he is friendly enough that he lept out of the pen and into baronsnorri's arms, and then settled happily down and quit making the sad lonely noises (the hens aren't yet being nice to him). After that I came home, replied to all of the e-mails asking after the things I'd advertised on FreeCycle, and then did a tiny bit more uni work. Alas, tomorrow isn't looking great for uni work either, as we will be heading to
clovis_t's parent's house to clear out the room into which we will be moving at the end of the week, and then from there I'll go pick up my new Hammer Dulicemer from the talented artist who made it. I am *really* excited about that part of my plans! I can't wait to see what he's done with it, and will post photos tomorrow evening...My Hammer Dulcimer is Nearly Ready!
Nov. 26th, 2008 10:18 pmI've just heard from the amazingly talented artist, who has been building it, and he says that my hammer dulcimer is almost ready, I should be able to pick it up next week. Talk about a truly wonderful birthday gift! He tells me "I ended up setting yours up with the modern
tuning { still looks medieval } its a 17/16 dulcimer that gives you bass strings and treble strings set out in fourths and fifths it's fairly large hope that's ok, if not I'll keep it!!" Somehow, I doubt that he will need to keep it, I've wanted one of these things since I first saw them back in the mid-1980's, but every time I looked into them, they were out of my price range. With the quality of the work Harry does, I think that it will be more than worth the wait!
And whilst I'm bouncing about my wonderful birthday gift for myself, I also offer really bouncy, happy birthday greetings to the lovelywestern_duchess (today my time) and handsome dd1066 (tomorrow my time). May you both get gifts you will love half as much as I'll love my new toy!
Excuse me, I need to go bounce some more!!!!
Oh--I nearly forgot--progress report: My advisor has gotten a spreadsheet working to calculate temperatures and pressures with yet another technique. I've gotten part of my data entered in, should get it usable to write something tomorrow, I hope...
And did I mention that my hammer dulcimer is nearly ready?
tuning { still looks medieval } its a 17/16 dulcimer that gives you bass strings and treble strings set out in fourths and fifths it's fairly large hope that's ok, if not I'll keep it!!" Somehow, I doubt that he will need to keep it, I've wanted one of these things since I first saw them back in the mid-1980's, but every time I looked into them, they were out of my price range. With the quality of the work Harry does, I think that it will be more than worth the wait!
And whilst I'm bouncing about my wonderful birthday gift for myself, I also offer really bouncy, happy birthday greetings to the lovely
western_duchess (today my time) and handsome dd1066 (tomorrow my time). May you both get gifts you will love half as much as I'll love my new toy!Excuse me, I need to go bounce some more!!!!
Oh--I nearly forgot--progress report: My advisor has gotten a spreadsheet working to calculate temperatures and pressures with yet another technique. I've gotten part of my data entered in, should get it usable to write something tomorrow, I hope...
And did I mention that my hammer dulcimer is nearly ready?
