kareina

I finally updated my work log summary and looked at the totals. As a half time employee I should have worked 140 hours for the first seven weeks of this year. I didn't work much at all my first week this year, since the laser was broken, and I wasn't recovered enough from losing mom. Even so, I have worked 176 hours so far this year. This is not sustainable. I need to remember that even though there are lots of people wanting to use the lab that I am only supposed to give them 20 hours a week, and to say no to more bookings once that is achieved. This last week I also managed to work 22 hours starting to catch up on Durham stuff, but I only did that by working on both Saturday and Sunday.

However, one of the things that is making this much work productivity possible is that I am really enjoying all of my evening activities, which means that I stay at work till time to head to training.

Monday evening was Nyckelharpa night, so I stayed at work till time to go, and David picked me up there. This was the first Nyckelharpa night of the year, and it was so much fun! I love the music they play, and I made some progress on embroidery for my next pretty 12th Century dress (started that project more than a year ago, but it got put aside when my viking coat vanished and I needed to make a new one. That coat is now usable (though still has seam embroidery to do), so I can work on other medieval projects again).

Tuesday was Phire (acroyoga and juggling!), followed by Choir, after which I walked home, and then did half an hour of snow shovelling (since it was still nice and cold and the snow fluffy and easy to deal with, and I knew that it was supposed to warm up late in the week), so I really enjoyed that evening.

Wednesday was Phire (acroyoga, aerial silks and juggling!) followed by Herrskapsdans in Gammelstad. Therefore I went to the effort of hooking the battery back up on the car and driving to work, so that I could drive to dance after practice. I was slightly late for Herrskapsdans, because just as I was about to go Villiam said "I want to try a thing". We got it to work, so I pulled out my phone and asked Anton to take a photo:



Thursday I had to go in to the lab to run one last experiment in the morning, and then I took my computer home and worked from home on Durham stuff for the rest of the week. I had said yes to a couple of couch surfers from France when they wrote on Wednesday asking if I had room for them on Thursday and Friday. They were supposed to arrive on the train to Luleå that got in at 14:00, but due to the weather the trains were delayed, and they finally reached my house at 0:30, which was good for me as it meant that I stayed up working till they got here, then I fed them and showed them the guest room, then I chatted with Crian on a video call before finally going to bed around 03:30.

Friday I still managed to get up before the couch surfers, so I got some work done before they came upstairs. Then I had second breakfast as they had first, and they went off to Gammelstad to see the Church Village etc. I spent part of the day shovelling the last of the snow that I hadn't already gotten off of the driveway earlier in the week, but it was much harder work, since it had warmed up to +5 C, and the snow was now wet, heavy, slushy stuff instead of the beautiful soft fluffy stuff I had been enjoying. The rest of the day I alternated between making progress sewing the new edging onto my phone baldric, reading, and working. Then, since I was feeling lazy I hooked up the car battery again and drove in for Phire practice at 17:00. The couch surfers had planned to meet me there, but they got lost, and by the time they found the gym the door was no longer propped open, and I didn't see their text message saying they were here (since I was busy doing acroyoga and juggling), so after about 15 minutes of not getting in they went to the grocery store and got some stuff. I found them when we were done and drove them home, where I showed them how to bake bread, and videos of Swedish folk dancing, and we did some acroyoga.

Saturday they departed for Trondheim and I enjoyed another day of mixed snow shovelling (this time moving the stuff that had slid off of the shed roof and landed in the driveway), sewing, work, and reading. Other than for shovelling I didn't leave the house all day, nor did I see anyone after the couch surfers left, which was a lovely way to spend the day.

Sunday I sent my friend Julia, who lives in Gammelstad, a text message (in Swedish) asking if she was coming in for the normal Sunday Phire board meeting, and if so was she driving, and if so, would she be heading home by 18:30, and if so, could I get a ride with her? She said Yes, so I then sent another message to my dance teacher asking if I could get a ride home after dance, and she said yes. So I enjoyed a third lazy day of mixed work, shovelling, relaxing, and even filling in US tax forms ready to print and post. Then, just after 18:00 Julia picked me up and took me to dance. Dance was much fun, and on the way home from dance I found out that one of the girls in my group is now dating one of the guys I know from gaming and larp. Small world. They met through the Vänster Partiet.

Today (Monday) I needed to bring the computer back to the office, so I opted to take the bus in. After several days of temps as warm as +5 C it was nice to see it cool back down to just under freezing. It snowed pretty much all day long--every so often I would look up from the computer to see pretty big snowflakes blowing past my window. However, it was too warm for fluffy snow, so it formed a wet, heavy, dense coating. This week, for the first time I attended the AMT (Avancerad Motoriskt Träning) at the gym at LTU. It only started recently, and is being taught by Anton, who is the one who runs the Phire parkour sessions. The Monday night session starts at 16:30, which means I can go, since my card is good to get in anytime before 17:00. It was a really good workout--he pushed us harder than I have been pushing myself lately. After training Julia picked me up and we went back to my place, where I fed her dinner and then we traded massage.

But now it is 23:26, and I should do my yoga and go to bed.

Monday I was in the office from 08:15 to 14:15, and at the ore geology seminar from 15:00 to 17:00, did the Phire bbq in the evening, then stayed up till just after midnight.

Tuesday I was in the office from 07:55 to 16:25 and then went to Phire practice followed by choir, then went home and did uni work for a couple of hours, getting to bed about 01:30. Phire was extra fun—the first “open training” of the new term, and we had some new students, one of whom is a gymnast, so she was pretty quick to learn some of the acroyoga stuff. She will have a bit of a learning curve in how to balance on a shaky base, but she has the strength to do the poses. Choir was also fun because there were 20 of us. How nice to have a decent number of people again. Hope it lasts.

Wednesday I was in the office from 08:00 to 16:40, then went to the Phire parkour and aerial silks training (one of the new students has done areial silks before, so we were comparing notes—we are both beginners, but know different stuff), followed by Herrksapsdans class (always fun!), and then flaffled around on line, getting to bed a bit before 01:00

This morning (Thursday), I didn’t make it to the office till 08:30, and by 11:00 I was feeling like I was coming down with a bit of a cold, so I went home and slept for four hours, getting up on time to eat a little something before heading in to the Frostheim meeting on campus (the original plan had been to just stay at work being productive till the meeting). At the meeting I started cutting out another linen underlayer like the one I did for my jester costume, only longer this time. The other one is really comfortable in that it is nicely supportive (being laced up rather tightly across the chest), and since I adapted the Eura dress pattern it moves well—I can stand on my hands without the fabric at the waist moving at all. This new one will be even better as it is a much nicer linen (the jester group ordered some pretty cheap/coarse linen for our jester costumes) that I found for sale at the folk costume table at Spelmansstamman the summer before last. It will also be almost knee length (the other one goes just to my bottom, for easier acroyoga), and so will be a better under layer for my tunics. I also plan to fit it all the way to my waist. The short one is fitted to half way down the ribs, and then the hip gores start already. I think it will be even more comfortable to fit it to the bottom of my ribs, and then start the side gores. No idea when I will have time to sew it though. I would love to have it ready to wear already next weekend at the Gyllengran event, but I don’t know that I can spare the sewing time. Indeed, it is a shame didn’t work today though, I have a grant proposal that needs progress and some data reduction to do.

However, the long nap must have helped, as I don’t feel any worse than I did this afternoon, so, with luck, I will be spared being really sick.

Wednesday I got up at 06:00 so I would have time to pack my last few things, bike to uni, put everything in my office and then walk across campus to D-hus on time to meet Johan at 08:00 for acroyoga. We had a good session, then I got in a a bit of work before the busses arrived to take us to Storforsen. They were due to depart at 12:30, but I was feeling tired at 12:00, so I turned off the computer, grabbed my stuff, went down and got on the bus, lay down, and took a nap. I didn’t wake till the buss was full and about to depart. During the bus ride I worked on nålbindining Villiam’s new hat for his jester costume (I started from the top centre, and it was about 15 cm wide when the trip started) while we had a group discussion on the topic of education (the theme for the whole trip).

When we arrived I was one of the first off the bus, and the very first to go inside to the hotel reception desk, which meant that while the others were getting their room keys (we had three buses worth of people, though not every seat was full) I was able to put my stuff away and go outside for a really quick walk down to the foot bridge over the river and to the far end of the board walk on the other side and back (10 minutes total) before heading upstairs to the conference room for the first meeting/presentation of the afternoon. 3.75 hours later I had time for a quick 40 minute walk before the dinner would be served, so I went all the way up to the rapids, pausing now and then to eat rödvinbär, stenbär, and kråkbär (the text is in Swedish, but there are photos of the various berries).

As I expected would be the case, by the time the hotel dinner was served I was no longer hungry, so I made more progress on the nålbindning while my colleagues ate (for the most part the food didn’t look like anything I would have wanted if I had been hungry, so I can’t really mind the part about not being hungry). The noise level in the restaurant was really high, but I dutifully stayed till after the last of the official announcements/service of desert. However, soon after the even louder (and not very pretty) music started playing I retreated to the peace and quiet of my room and did yoga while enjoying my nice view of the rapids (this makes twice I have been at this hotel for a work gathering and gotten a room on the view side of the building, rather than the parking lot side. I am rather happy about this.)

After yoga I checked messages and was about to pick up my book when my roommate came to the room and said “we are going to take a sauna”. This sounded like an even better idea, so I grabbed a towel and followed her. The sauna was in the woman’s changing room, and it was just me, our newest postdoc (my roommate), and one of our PhD students, and was very nice and relaxing after so much noise over dinner. After the sauna we just went straight back to our room and went to sleep.

When I woke at 06:00 on Thursday my roommate was already looking at her phone, so I did my morning situps before getting up. (I would have skipped them if she had been sleeping, so as not to disturb her, but apparently her small child is always awake by 06:00, so she is used to getting up that early.) I ate a quick serving of the muesli I had brought with me and then went for a walk. Twenty-four minutes taking the pretty path, past the bottom part of the rapid, then across the rocks past the canyon and outdoor theatre to the visitor centre at Storforsen, 9 minutes to eat blåbär (Swedish blueberries), and 17 minutes back by the main trail to the rapids and along the river. Then I went to the restaurant for the hotel breakfast before the meeting. My roommate, on the other hand, chose to do the hotel breakfast first, and went out for her walk after—we passed one another on the bridge as I headed back.

The morning meetings/workshops were supposed to go till 11:45, and then the schedule said “Time for a walk in the area”, followed by lunch at 12:30. Sadly, the workshops ran late, and the guy who did the presentation after the workshops ran even later. At 12:45, when he still hadn’t wrapped up what he was saying, I stood up and left the room to go to the restaurant—the smells of lunch had been going on for quite a while, and I was hungry. A bunch of my colleagues joined me pretty much straight away. I have no idea if the presenter finished just after I left, or if others just followed my lead, and I didn’t care, either. I finished eating at 13:00, and the buses weren’t scheduled to leave till 13:30, so three of us (one of whom had never been to Storforsen before, as he is new to Sweden) went for a walk. Since I knew from that morning that I could get back to the hotel from the visitor centre in 17 minutes I kept an eye on the time, and turned back at 13:05, since I knew that I would also want to grab my pack from the hotel and pee before boarding the bus. I timed it just perfectly, as I was the last person to board the last of the three busses (two were driving away as I came out from the building with my stuff).

I did yet more nålbindning on the bus ride home, getting the hat fairly close to done, and as we were getting close I checked in to see if Johan still wanted to meet for acroyoga. He did, so I put my stuff on my trike, pedalled over to D-hus, and enjoyed a an hour of acroyoga before heading home. Ideally I should have done some Durham work that evening, but instead Villiam followed me home from acroyoga (some of the Phire folk had been doing some practising between the buildings on campus, in hopes of catching the attention of some of the new students as potential new members, and we putting the toys into the closet as we were finishing acroyoga in the normal Phire practice room) to try on the hat (confirming my guess that it needed to be about 2.5 cm longer), discuss the ideas I had for embroidering the top of it, and have dinner before he needed to head out to his evening time commitment. After he left I talked on the phone with David, who was able to report encouraging news he had had after Tuesday’s job interview, and then curled up with the computer for a bit catching up on FB and DW before going to bed at 21:30.

Friday morning I got up at 06:00 and put away the trip stuff I hadn’t bothered with the night before, and then went in to meet Johan for acroyoga at 08:00. We were both running a little late (my body decided just when I was ready to head out the door that it was time to go to the loo), and, much to my delight, Ellinor managed to get up early enough to join us, so we did acroyoga for 2.25 hours! Since there were three of us we were able to try harder things, since there was a spotter available, and, at the end we played a game: Two bases pass a flier back and forth between them for as long as possible, with the flier never touching the ground. So Much Fun! Strongly recommend! (They let me be the flier!) The lead-in to the game was trying a three-person pose, and then wondering where we could go from there. We made a short filmshowing a short series we came up with, but then we just had fun playing and didn’t film any more.

After acroyoga I went to my office and worked (kinda sorta) till 15:00, when it was time for the “Thesis Spiking” by the PhD student in the next office. It is tradition in Sweden to nail (or “spika” in Swedish) one’s newly completed thesis to a post in the library a couple of weeks before doing one’s formal thesis defense. This is usually a bit of a party, with the student providing beverages plus or minus a snack. This student’s family originally came from an Arabia, so he made and brought Afghani Sherpera, a traditional candy that involved pistachios. It was quite tasty, and I took two pieces. Some of my colleagues went from there to the campus pub to have a beer and further celebrate the spiking, but I was feeling tired (and going to a pub never sounds interesting anyway), so I opted to pedal home in the rain (rather than hanging out on campus for another 40 minutes till Phire practice would begin, as I had previously considered doing).

After changing into dry clothes and spending some time with a bowl of popcorn and a book I was feeling a bit recovered, but still not up for sitting at the computer and working, so I decided to drive in for Phire practice and then head to the grocery store. However, I had forgotten that they were planing on doing a fire show outside the campus pub that evening, again in hopes of drawing the attention of the new students and perhaps gaining some potential members. Therefore, rather than ending at 19:00 they kept going till 19:20, and then decided that they would go hangout at Jonaton’s apartment. After a bit of discussion we decided to put the stuff needed for the fire show into my car, three of us would drive to the grocery store, then join the others at the apartment till later in the evening, when would do the show, and I would go home. This plan worked out well, and I enjoyed their company till 22:20, then I went home checked messages and FB and did yoga (while on a video call with Thorvald in Avacal) and went to bed around midnight.

Saturday (today) I slept in till 08:15, did my morning situps, and then did a couple of hours of thesis work. Then I took a break to make some broccoli pie and Villiam came over to help me eat some. Then we picked some black currants and mixed up a pie. He needed to head to a Phire board meeting before the pie came out of the oven. I returned to the computer and did some more work, reaching a breaking point at 17:00. I remembered that he had said that several of them would be painting the new sandwich board style sign for Phire at 16:30 ish, so I called and found out that they hadn’t started painting yet, so I grabbed the car and drove over to help. We at the pie (well much of it) in between the first and second coat of paint. Then I drove Villiam to the store to buy more lamp oil for tonight’s fire show. He had a bit of time to kill before the show, so we came back here and made a pot of soup (I wasn’t hungry any more by then, but soup is always better the next day, anyway). Then I drove him (and the lamp oil) back to uni and returned home hoping to be useful. Instead I checked messages, DW, and FB and typed this up, and it is already midnight. Oops. Perhaps I should do my yoga…

Phire, our local student jester group, got their fabric recently, so a bunch of the students came to the Frostheim meeting tonight to work on their costumes, plus a bunch of us showed up to hem our newly painted silk banners: Here are the banners are before hemming:



This meant that we had a total of 14 people there tonight, which made me quite happy. I helped one of the girls make a pattern for her jester coat, using the linen for the under layer, and then helped another cut the legs for her hose. By that time people started heading home, so I never did get to working on any of my own projects, but it was fun, so I was happy with that.

We have had enough snow that I am finally willing to call it "winter", and so very grateful I am, after a couple of years of no snow till late November or early December. However, I watch the forecast and see that it is supposed to go back up above freezing, and I worry if it will be another of those winters where the temps oscillate back and forth over freezing so that what snow we have melts and refreezes into a thin crust. This strikes me as a much better thing to worry about than politics, though not any easier to solve.

Work has been going well, I had my annual meeting to discuss how I am doing with the job, and thus what amount my annual wage will be, and the review went well. Not only do I love my job, but my colleagues are happy with me and the work I am doing. We have several grant proposals out or in the works that could result in my getting more hours, so that is all good.

Norrskensfesten is next weekend, and I am pretty much on top of what needs doing (though I should have emailed the event schedule by now, so had better do that this weekend). We are at 99 registered just now, and I am good with that. I think it will be a really fun event.

I am currently reading a book in English, despite my "no fiction in English" rule. I had been checking Katherine Kurtz's web page fairly regularly, to see if she had written the final Childe Morgan book, but each time I did there was still no word. Then I forgot to check for a while, and didn't look again till this week. The book is done, and was published in 2014. Oops. I guess "a while" is longer than I thought. However, life has been so busy I have been reading it in small doses, rather than all at once like I used to do. I love having so many hobbies, but my 20-something self wouldn't believe it. However, I hope I can get it done this week, because then I will break that rule again by reading hrj's new book, which is poised to come out, and, since she is good about promoting her book in places I see (like here), I know about it, and will get it straight away. I wonder why none of Katherine's fans bothered to mention it on the email list. Just because no one has posted there in ages is no reason not to mention the book there.

Tonight, after Phire practice we had a fun excursion. Those of us who are new to the group since the last time they had one of these were blindfolded and led from the practice site to the snowy banks of the lake (which isn't quite frozen solid enough to trust it to hold a large group of us, yet), and they welcomed us to the group with a small ceremony, including a dubbing with a fire sword. Then we got to play with the burning toys. Fun. Afterwards we retired to the nearby home of one of the members for pizza and socializing. We played a game wherein we each, in turn told a fact about ourselves which we thought made us unique in the group. Those whose facts were, in fact, unique, got to do another round. I think I could have done quite a few more rounds before I ran out of ways in which I am unique. I was the only one present with three passports, who has lived in 8 different countries (and 6 US states), who has never been drunk, who can remember the moon landing (ok, that was cheating, I was the only one present who was alive then). I was also the only one present with a PhD, but I didn't bother to use that one. However, unlike some of the others, I have never built an electric guitar from scratch (nor any other instrument), I have never crawled under the barb wire to get into a relocation camp, I have no odd growths of bone sticking out from my shoulders where one would expect smooth collarbones, never lived on an Indian Reservation, nor in India. It was an interesting and fun game. Made slightly more challenging as we spoke Swedish most of the evening.

My friend has already processed the film from the photos he took at yesterday's Phire practice. He summarized them into 3 different blog posts: one roll from the first part of the evening, including a cute photo of me and E., my acroyoga partner, talking, one from the fire practice outside, and a third from after he came back into the building, including one of me standing in the aerial silks, and a cool one of E. in the middle of a drop from the silks.

Monday: A walk in the morning, followed by taking the train home from Narvik (seven hours). The first half of the trip I had a delightful conversation with a Scottish woman on her way to Kiruna. Got home just before 18:00 and spent several hours shoveling the snow that had accumulated while we were out of town (lord_kjar was in Göteborg helping C. pack up her stuff for the move up here), and then stayed up way late visiting with O.

Tuesday: Work, followed by Phire practice. (Acroyoga! Including standing on other people's shoulders, and even being a human barbell for our strong man to pick up from the ground and over-head press.) Followed by choir.

Wednesday: More snow shoveling, followed by work, followed by meeting my personal trainer at 13:00 to get a new work out, followed by more work, then meeting E. for aerial silk training. We do this at the uni gym, in the room one can book for badminton, and one books for an hour at a time. When our hour was nearly up the people who had booked next started arriving, and they didn't want to play badminton either, they were going to do fencing, and didn't mind us hanging from the ceiling in the corner, so said we could stay. Our choir president, who went with us to Finland for the SCA event last month, was one of the fencers. So, of course, I had to point out to him that there will be SCA fencers at the event in Skellefteå in a couple of weeks, if we wants to join us for that. I wound up staying up too late that evening too, chatting over FB to my friend H. in Umeå about Tolkien's elvish language, which he encourages me to study. (It is, in fact, interesting, but I am not certain when I am going to add in time to study anything just now.)

Thursday: Work, the laser Technician returned to do the other repair he noticed needed to happen when he was last here, but didn't have the parts at the time. He was done around lunch time, so I dropped him in Gammelstad so he could do some sightseeing before his flight, and I went home for a much needed nap. Then shoveled more snow, and then went to the Frostheim Social night, where my apprentices helped me drape a pattern for a set of Thorsbjorg trousers (3685), because I thought they would make good jester trousers for our acroyoga performance at the SCA event in a couple of weeks. (They had been included in the slide show at the talk in Norway, and that inspired me to want a set. Of course I had seen them before, but until I wanted something to wear that would be good for acroyoga, I hadn't thought of making some for me before). Thursday, despite staying up visiting with O. for quite a while, I still managed to get to sleep around 02:30, which was nearly two hours before lord_kjar and C. finally arrived home with the trailer full of everything she owns.

Friday morning we took it easy and had a leisurely breakfast, then around lunch time lord_kjar dropped me and O. at uni so I could work and he could head home. (I normally have Friday's off, but since Monday was a travel day, I needed to work.) After work I went to the gym to do the new workout, which my trainer had finally sent me the pdf for that afternoon, followed by Phire training, including a bit of juggling, some acroyoga, some fan dance, and some aerial silks. It was a great turn out, and the gym was quite full.

Saturday was a laundry day, and I finished up the hardest part of the pattern: the feet. once I was happy with the whole pattern, I cut out the trousers in some blue/black/white/grey striped wool twill I bought years ago (when living in Italy) and started the assembly--three hours of hand sewing was enough to get the seat attached and both legs stitched shut (but not finished). Then I selected some leather from the scrap leather box and cut out the feet bottoms, but by then I was too tired to do more that night.

Today I did a small phone app workout, followed by pinning the leather feet bottoms to the trousers and sewing one of the feet on before it was time to meet E., O., and A. for more practice. She and I did acro yoga, and the boys practiced double staff stuff, taking breaks now and then when she and I wanted to try new/dangerous/tricky stuff and needed spotters to make certain she didn't drop me on my head or something. I need to work on more wrist strength stuff--getting from the bat pose (hanging from my hips from her upraised feet) to the side star (laying horizontally across her upraised feet), requires a fair bit of arm/wrist strength to push myself up into position. But so much fun! We have started deciding which poses we will use for the performance at the SCA event in Skellefteå in a couple of weeks, and my apprentice #2 will play La Belle pavane on her chalumeau (medieval clarinet) for background music.

This evening is folk dance, but we will be there a couple of hours early, because this is the week that we are going to do filming of all of the dances our teacher has choreographed, so that she will have a record, and so that people other places can learn them. For this reason C. won't be coming along, since she hasn't trained in those dances, and she wants to do more organizing of stuff, but she will normally come along to dance, I think.

Next weekend we might head to Umeå for the folk festival, depending on if they have recovered from packing and the road trip up from the south, and the following week I head to Italy for a week. The weekend after that is the event, for which we need the acroyoga routine ready, so we had better find time to practice between now and then.

Of course, I should have gone to bed before 01:00 last night, but I didn't. So instead of getting up at 05:30 to start my morning exercises I slept till quarter till seven. I still did my before-getting-up situps, and then went to the living room and did the pushups and squats section of what would have been yesterday's phone app workout, but yesterday I opted to stop after only the abs and "extra bodyweight" sections, because I thought that 52 minutes were enough. Of course, the two sections that remained to be done today added up to only 10 minutes, which was good because that gave me time for a shower before riding in to work with lord_kjar.

Work went well, and kept me busy till time to go meet my friend at 13:00 at the gym, where we did the "day one" workout as I haven't yet received the description for the day two workout from my trainer. After the workout we spent a bit of time doing very basic acro yoga--just the airplane position, since she isn't used to doing it, so just that much takes an effort.

Then I worked for another couple of hours till it was time to go to Phire practice at 16:00. Since E., the girl who is so good at acro yoga, was sick today I was on my own, but managed to convince a number of people to give it a try. Mostly just the basic airplane pose, as they had trouble holding their legs still if they were base, and had trouble balancing if they were flying. But it is good for me to practice being base, too, and I still have fun flying, even if the base wobbles a bit. But boy does it give me appreciation for E.'s skill. When she lifts me into airplane it is as stable as laying on the ground, and she has no difficulties doing all the advanced poses. Hopefully she will be feeling better by next Tuesday (even if she is better by Friday, I won't make it to practice then, as I will be in Finland).

After Phire it was time to head to choir, which was much fun. We got some new exchange students, so there were 12 of us tonight--exactly six each male and female voices.

Since I did my yoga during Phire practice I can head to bed as soon as I post this, which would be very wise, since tomorrow I am meeting my friend at 08:30 for another workout, and then I will go to work, where, at 10:00, the laser service technician will arrive from Germany. He will be here all day, and tomorrow as well. I suspect that I probably ought to work full time the next couple of days while he is here, but I don't know for certain yet if that will be happening. It is mostly up to him, and how easy he finds it to have someone else present trying to learn stuff as he works.

Tuesdays will be my longest day this semester (side note: I have been in Sweden long enough that it feels funny to use that word in this context, since here that spelling means "vacation"). Today's schedule:

06:00 wake up, start situps
06:19 finish situps (and reading LJ/email)
06:34 start my actual morning workout (phone app)
07:04 workout done (today was a shorter/easier day than yesterday)
07:38 start playing dulcimer
07:44 done playing dulcimer
07:58 start walking to work
08:44 arrive at work and start my day
11:20 pause work and head to the gym
11:30 meeting with my personal trainer (who showed me my first workout routine, now I just need to find time to do it--he promises to email me the details tomorrow)
12:37 back to the office, arriving just as a friend dropped by to say hello
12:58 resume work
15:44 pause work to eat some dinner and check personal email, LJ and FB
16:30 begin Phire practice (today: staff work, acrobatics, head stands (with splits) and hand stands against the wall, and juggling)
18:02 pause in Phire practice for a meeting, during which I did yoga
18:18 resume Phire practice (more staff work and juggling,and some hand stands against the wall)
18:40 done Phire practice
19:00 begin choir practice
20:30 done choir practice, hang out and chat with people for another 30 minutes
21:12 shovel snow
21:18 check mail, look up used pianos and keyboards for sale, and email the choir officers the list so that the group can buy one, instead of us needing to bring ours
22:15 get this far in typing this post. Once it is done and posted I may do a bit more yoga before bed, since my legs could use it...

Choir was much fun today--we started two new songs, both of which are done in mixed groups. The first was Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 (which song could have been a factor in my having been a career student--it came out when I was 14 and convinced me that I never wanted a "job"), and the second was Alice Cooper's Poison (while I had heard this one before, I didn't have hearing aids then, so had never actually heard/understood the lyrics before tonight--Oh, My! I didn't realize that it was a love song, nor that it had such... vivid images).

Tomorrow the only thing on the calendar is work, so I should be home early enough to do something useful around the house. Unless I just sleep.

I joined Phire today for their practice session. While most of the people present were doing stuff with juggling, and practice with swinging around sticks (which, during a performance or outdoor practice session would be burning), some of us played with the aerial silks. I have thought they looked fun since first I saw them, but never had an opportunity to try before tonight.

First she taught me two different ways to hold the fabric with one's feet, one of which she finds easier than the other. I tried them both, they are both hard, but the one she thinks is easier was, in fact, easier, once I got the coordination together to do it at all. Much to my delight, after only a handful of attempts I got the trick of it, and succeeded in climbing all the way to the top, and got back down again safely. This took much more effort than climbing the same distance on a rock wall, which I suppose shouldn't be surprising, since one has to hold on with only one's arms in order to wrap the fabric back around the foot in order to be able to stand up higher to make any progress. (One of the boys demonstrated climbing up with arms only. I am so not ready to do that yet, my arms simply don't have the power in them, yet.

After that she showed me many other things one can do, several of which involve being upside down or horizontal. I actually remembered to get out my camera, once, so there is evidence:



Sadly, this was the last meeting in the gym for the semester, so I need to wait till January to try it again. Other than holidays they meet two times a week, once at the Uni, and once in a school gym near the uni, and I expect that I will be joining them often. On Tuesdays I will have to talk them into doing silly people tricks with me, since there will be no aerials. aelfgyfu, how did we do that trick where you were laying on your back and I did a shoulder stand in your hands. I can't remember how it worked... Do you have any good suggestions of other fun things to try? Or what this sort of thing is called so I could ask google for ideas?

It will be interesting to see how much I improve on the silks over the next year, since my birthday present to myself was a year with a personal trainer...