kareina

The conference in Denmark this weekend went well, though it seems perhaps a bit silly to spend so much time in transit for such a short time on site. Flew down Saturday afternoon, and home Sunday evening. Ah well, that is as much time as I was willing to spend away from home.

It was good to spend time with my cousins, who I haven't seen since mom and I visited them a bit more than a year and a half ago. When last I was there their young son (who is now 11 years old, and speaking much better English than last I saw him) proudly showed off the small treasure chest he had with rocks. Therefore this time I brought him the last of the pretty rocks I had collected on the trip to Cyprus two years ago (the rest went to my nieces in Seattle). He was very enthusiastic about receiving them, correctly identified the pyrite in about 1/10 of a second of looking at it (which is all one needs if one has ever seen it before), and then happily got out his collection, which had grown enough since my last visit that he now has three large plastic boxes with individual cubby holes for each rock, and a bit of paper towel in each to cushion them.

On the way home I finished the book I had brought with me, and I had plenty of time to change planes in Stockholm, so I stuck my nose into a bookstore, and walked out with four books in Swedish. The three books of the EarthSea trilogy, and a copy of Neil Gaiman's "Odd och frostjattarna". I had never read the latter before, and found it delightful. I managed to finish it before landing in Luleå, and it was so nice to read a book in a single day again (that used to be normal, but, other than books written for very little children, it hasn't happened since I switched to reading in Swedish). Granted, it is so short that it took only 2 hours, but still...

There was more, but it is way past my bedtime, and I get to play with building the earth cellar tomorrow...

This morning I completed the last major task for my report: burning the dvd with the data, reports, 3D model, and geochem graphs, and packaged it up in a box along with the samples and paper copies of the reports--all ready to turn in to my colleagues at the mine. Yes, it would also be nice to do a paper for publication, but that doesn't need to happen this week. Yes, I should finish converting the spreadsheet full of sample collection information into the format it needs to become one with their database. But those are minor details compared to wrapping up the project itself, and I am very pleased to be done, and before the month is over, too.

To celebrate I came home at lunch time, and after eating I went out to the field and rescued some strawberry plants that had been growing too tightly entwined with other plants to have been moved to the new strawberry patch by the house (A. the new patch is full, and B. we took only those berries that had been growing in the part of the old patch that was still only berries and the black plasticy cloth that is meant to keep other plants from growing in between the berries). While that cloth worked well in the center of the patch, other plants had done a good job of colonizing the edges of the patch, and, of course, many strawberry plants had managed to take root outside of the patch proper (they do that). However, since I don't want them to all get plowed under when lord_kjar brings his dad's tractor and the (now repaired) rotating field-smoothing device, I have moved them all to a place at the bottom of the field, next to a nice large rock. That boulder will be just the thing to lay down on drape oneself over while eating strawberries, and I figure those berries that were thriving well despite being tangled up with other plants deserve to keep growing.

We can freeze most of the berries from the patch by the house, and the lower patch can just be for grazing while out enjoying the day. Many of the berries, both the ones I moved today, and in the new patch by the house, are now in flower, so it won't be too long before we have fresh strawberries again. Good thing too, since the last box of last year's frozen strawberries is now nearly empty.

I only spent about an hour rescuing berries before I was too hot and sweaty in the bright sun in the middle of the field, so I called it done for the day (after four wheelbarrows full of berries had been moved), and, after a short break for some quality time with a book and a snack, I went out to the alleyway leading to the earth cellar and begun the project of getting it smoothed out and sloping only the amount we wish it to slope and putting down the large paving stones we got from his uncle.

Another hour work there saw the first three paving stones set into place the way we want them to be--each one sloping just under 1 cm from the upper point to the lower point, and the next located ~10 cm away, with its upper point the right amount lower that the slope continues unchanged. (To accomplish this I have taped a small block of wood to one end of the level, so that if the bubble indicates that the level is level when it sits on the paving stone(s) then they are slopping the correct amount.) This task is much easier than it might have been, thanks to a bit of weaving I did:



We made this sifter to separate the rocks out of dirt last week, using some scrap wood, some tines from a cheap rake that didn't hold together after the first use, and some scrap metal from an old computer. It isn't large, but it is as big as we could make it using those rake tines (the handle we attached to a pitch fork head that the previous owners had left here, so while the rake turned out to have been useless as a rake, the parts have all come in handy for other things, so we haven't lost the cash we spent on it), and it turns out to be plenty big enough for this project.

I had tried a week or two ago to set the paving stones in without using the level to check my work, and as a result had gotten too enthusiastic in how much sloping was happening, and I wound up with a low spot in the walk way that, now that I am measuring, turns out to have been several centimeters deeper than it needs to have been. Therefore I am sifting dirt onto the low spot to build it back up to the appropriate height, but without those rocks that make it hard to get the paving stone to sit perfectly.

I am enjoying this project, though after an hour working on it I was quite ready for another break, so I came in a curled up with my book, and finished it. This makes 15 books read so far this year—still a very small number compared to before moving to Sweden, but it is the most books read in a single year since switching to reading fiction in Swedish, and the year is only half done. Granted, part of what helped that was this book and the last are both re-reads—the Swedish versions of The Little House in the Big Woods (Det lilla huset i stora skogen) and The Little House on the Prairie (Det lilla huset på prärien).

I have always loved those books—they are heavy on explaining how things were done and what everyday life was like in that time, with just enough story to hold it together, and they are great for someone who is trying to learn the language, because it is full of so many useful words.

I have noticed something: even though I am now very comfortable with reading in Swedish, and rarely bother to pause to look up a word because I can understand even the words I haven't seen before from context, when I remember later what I read, the memory is in English. It is just about three and a half years since I moved here and started learning this language. I wonder how long it will be before I remember things in Swedish, instead of my understanding simply being translated to my native tongue for long term storage?

I am currently reading the book Aurien by Maggie Furey and listening to the audio book at the same time. This is the second book I have done this with, and I think that it is helping both my pronunciation and my ability to understand others when they speak. I had thought I had never read this book before, and I certainly have never owned a copy, but every so often something in the story just seems so familiar that I can't help but wonder if I have read someone else's copy at some point. Or is it just that many fantasy books revisit the same themes? Hmmm. Copyright 1994, the year I finished my bachelor's degree and moved back to Alaska to start my Master's at UAF. I don't remember having access to anyone else's books then--sure I had friends who were also avid readers and who would have lent me books if I had asked, but I don't recall it ever happening. I guess it is more likely to be because the themes are comfortable and familiar.

When I was a child I spent most of my time with a nose in a book. This form of childhood mostly continued until my current decade--while I developed many other hobbies and interests over the years I still always found lots of time to spend curled up with a book. There exists no record of how many books I read in those days, but there are hundreds of books on my shelves, most of them read many times, because I have always been an addicted re-reader. At a guess I would say that I re-read four books for every one new book I read.

However, starting in 2005 I started keeping track of what I was reading. Just in time to track a huge decrease in how much I have been reading. Last year I managed only 12 books! (eight of which were in Swedish). This year isn't looking much better. I just finished my second book of the year, and the first one barely counts, since I finished it on the 6th of January, after 207 days of reading it.

Today's book completed was Kalle och choklad fabriken (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), a book I read many times in English as a child. In fact, as a child I often read it at one sitting. The Swedish version, on the other hand, just took me 57 days to complete! That hardly counts as reading at all...

I have said before that I lead a charmed life, but, really, I do. Just little things like starting my research to do 3D geochemical modeling of an ore deposit region in northern Sweden right after a student from Germany has just completed a surface alteration map of the same region. Today was a meeting at the mine headquarters wherein he presented the results of his work, so, of course, I drove down for it.

Normally when I head down to the mine I leave around 07:15, and get there around 10:00. Today's meeting was scheduled for 10:00, so to play it safe I left at about 06:30. There is much less traffic on the highway at that hour than there is 45 minutes later, so the trip went smoothly and quickly (helped by not having to follow any snow plows, unlike the last trip, where I got stuck behind three different pairs of working plows and had to wait till they decided to pull over and let the long line of cars that had built up go past them). I do confess that having started early, and making good time I stopped twice for naps. One short five minute nap at a petrol station just outside of Skellefteå (where I also made use of their plumbing facilities). 30 minutes later, when on the smaller highway out to Boliden itself I got stuck behind a truck that wasn't doing the speed limit, so I pulled over and took a ten minute nap to let him get well ahead of me.

Worked like a charm--when I started driving again I was able to use cruise control all the rest of the way, and arrived on site at 09:00, which gave me time to return the samples (which I had brought back to Luleå with me so that I could cut pieces off of them to have thin-sections made for them) to where they needed to go before they are sent away to be crushed for their whole-rock analyses.

It was a very good meeting, and the student was delighted that someone is carrying on with the next logical step from his research so soon after he did his work. After his presentation I stayed long enough to have lunch with him and the exploration geologists at the mine and work out a few details about my upcoming plans. I got back on the road early enough that I was able to go to the office for a bit, and I am glad that I did, because the woman over in the grants office at the uni had sent me feedback on the application draft I had sent her, and it is very useful commentary indeed. Therefore I packed up my computer and brought it home so that I can make some progress on the application this weekend, in between the SCA meeting, the birthday party, and our normal Sunday folk dancing. Not to mention simply spending time working on projects with my sweetie.

In other news--last week saw some major progress on my fur lined hood--the furs are mostly assembled--I am on the very last gore. Then it will be a relativity simple manner of assembling the bits of wool and attaching the lining to the hood (plus or minus decorating the hood itself--it will look good plain, but I am also tempted to applique a bit of coloured wool onto the black hood...

I am also getting better at reading in Swedish. The other night I was curled up with a kid's book I have read many times before in English (but not for years and years) and after a while I noticed that I had achieved that delightful effect wherein one is so absorbed in the book that one is no longer aware of the printed words before one's eyes, one is simply part of the story. I love that feeling, and think it is cool that I can achieve it in Swedish, however briefly. Now if I could only get my understanding of the spoken language to catch up with my ability to read! I am reading aloud another Swedish book to lord_kjar, which will help that goal, since he is under orders to correct my pronunciation at least once a sentance if it needs it (and it usually does--there are ever so many different ways some letters can sound in Swedish, and I tend to guess wrong which it will be this time).