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vesta_aurelia posted a meme on her journal which said "Comment on this post with "I Love Libraries" and I’ll give you seven things I want you to talk about. They may make sense or they may be totally random. Then post that list to your journal with your commentary. Other people can get lists from you and the meme merrily perpetuates itself."
I was in the right mood when I read that to ask her for an assignment, and she gave me the following words. I had best get around to writing while I still have access to a full computer, since I take only my phone and the tablet with me to Cyprus, and typing is much easier on the notebook.
communicationThis is one of the most essential things in life if one wishes to interact with anyone else. I feel so strongly on this point that, perhaps, I over-share some things, but better to err on the side of caution, which, in my case is more information, not less. It works for me.
dancingOne of my favourite activities; it is such fun to move to music, particularly when lots of spinning is involved. My introduction to dance came in the early 1980's, when I enrolled (thanks mom for doing the paperwork and paying for it!) in a Mid-Eastern Dance class, taught by Josetta of the North Country, in Anchorage, Alaska. I loved that class--prior to that I had never really thought about my body or trying to move specific parts of it just to move them, and to be able to do controlled movements. Not long later I discovered the Medieval/Renaissance dancing in the SCA, and also took to it like a fish to water. I have always had a good memory, and I loved memorizing the patterns of movement and how they relate to the music, and then doing it. More recently I have become addicted to Swedish Folk dancing, which also has patterns of moments to memorize, but instead of matching them to specific tunes and keeping the same pattern to the same tune every time they are associated with types of tunes, and people dance in couples, with the lead deciding which pattern to do at any given moment, so long at it fits the music.
embroideryThis is something I got hooked on soon after I found the SCA (in the early 1980's). I never have sat still well, so having something to do with my hands during lectures and at parties (in meetings, on the bus, whatever), was a good thing. I started with Blackwork, since there was a workshop on it when I was very new to the SCA, and then I expanded to other techniques, with laid-and-couched work being one I have done the most of, I think. Such a fast way to colour with needle and thread. Embroidery was also my gateway drug into hand-sewing. After learning counted thread Blackwork on a very fine even-weave linen I discovered that when sewing straight seams one can make a 1 mm error in where one places one's needle, and it doesn't matter. This makes sewing so fast and easy by comparison that I did ever so much of it. Till I discovered nålbinding, which can be done in the low light conditions that prevail at SCA events in Lochac and Drachenwald, where electric lights tend not to be used at indoor events... I still enjoy embroidery, but don't do nearly as much as when I was younger.
hammer dulcimersmy favourite musical instrument! I first saw them in the early 1980's, and wanted one--they sound so pretty, and unlike violin or guitar, where one has to memorize awkward positions to hold one's hand to get specific notes, a hammer dulcimer is laid out logically, with each string giving a single note if struck on one side of a bridge, and the notes are in alphabetical order, making it easy to find the one needed. For someone like me, who never had music lessons of any sort, this has an appeal. However, despite wanting one that long ago, the cost scared me off, and I didn't actually get one until this year!
monazite u-th-pb chemical dating A fun tool that I kind of miss using since finishing my PhD project. Monazite is a mineral that tends to grow in metamporphic rocks during metamorphic events. Because it contains uranium and thorium, both of which are radioactive elements that decay to lead, it is possible to tell how long has elapsed since the mineral grew (assuming that it had no lead in it to start with) by comparing how much lead it has now with how much uranium and thorium are left. The date calculated in this manner tells us when the metamorphic event was in which it grew, which is terribly useful information when trying to work out the geologic history of an area.
sapiosexualitySuch a useful word! It applies to all of us who find people attractive based on who they are, specifically their brains and how they use them, rather than their bodies/gender/looks. Sure, I enjoy eye-candy; it is nice to see someone with long, beautiful hair walk by, but I fall in love with people when they show me that they have brains and use them--when we have common interests and enjoy time together. Intelligence is an aphrodisiac.
yogaRemember what I said about loving to move? Yoga is, for me, movement. Stretching. Balancing. Balancing while stretching. Head stands. Tree pose. A way to keep my body flexible, strong, a joy to live in. I took my first yoga class in the early 1980's and loved it, but I never remembered to practice outside of class (the same is true for dance). I took occasional yoga classes off and on for decades, but didn't start doing yoga outside of class till I lived in Kotzebue, and made friends with a lady who had a huge library of yoga videos. We would meet every afternoon after school (I was working as a substitute teacher at the time) and do yoga from one of her videos, often repeating ones we'd done before and enjoyed. This helped me really learn many of the poses well enough that when I moved away I could do them on my own. But even so, it wasn't till November of 2004 that I finally started doing yoga every day. Even all these years later I still find my self saying "this feels SOOOOOO good" every day. Why do I do yoga daily? Because it feels so very good that it is its own reward! Yes, sometimes I am really sleepy and should have gone to bed hours ago, but I still make time to do the yoga because it feels good enough to be worth it. That said, the days I get to it early enough that I am not sleepy are even better!
So, there you have it, my writing assignment of the week. If anyone else wants to play feel free to say so, and I will try to give you a list of words in a timely manner, despite my upcoming travel...
vesta_aurelia posted a meme on her journal which said "Comment on this post with "I Love Libraries" and I’ll give you seven things I want you to talk about. They may make sense or they may be totally random. Then post that list to your journal with your commentary. Other people can get lists from you and the meme merrily perpetuates itself."I was in the right mood when I read that to ask her for an assignment, and she gave me the following words. I had best get around to writing while I still have access to a full computer, since I take only my phone and the tablet with me to Cyprus, and typing is much easier on the notebook.
communicationThis is one of the most essential things in life if one wishes to interact with anyone else. I feel so strongly on this point that, perhaps, I over-share some things, but better to err on the side of caution, which, in my case is more information, not less. It works for me.
dancingOne of my favourite activities; it is such fun to move to music, particularly when lots of spinning is involved. My introduction to dance came in the early 1980's, when I enrolled (thanks mom for doing the paperwork and paying for it!) in a Mid-Eastern Dance class, taught by Josetta of the North Country, in Anchorage, Alaska. I loved that class--prior to that I had never really thought about my body or trying to move specific parts of it just to move them, and to be able to do controlled movements. Not long later I discovered the Medieval/Renaissance dancing in the SCA, and also took to it like a fish to water. I have always had a good memory, and I loved memorizing the patterns of movement and how they relate to the music, and then doing it. More recently I have become addicted to Swedish Folk dancing, which also has patterns of moments to memorize, but instead of matching them to specific tunes and keeping the same pattern to the same tune every time they are associated with types of tunes, and people dance in couples, with the lead deciding which pattern to do at any given moment, so long at it fits the music.
embroideryThis is something I got hooked on soon after I found the SCA (in the early 1980's). I never have sat still well, so having something to do with my hands during lectures and at parties (in meetings, on the bus, whatever), was a good thing. I started with Blackwork, since there was a workshop on it when I was very new to the SCA, and then I expanded to other techniques, with laid-and-couched work being one I have done the most of, I think. Such a fast way to colour with needle and thread. Embroidery was also my gateway drug into hand-sewing. After learning counted thread Blackwork on a very fine even-weave linen I discovered that when sewing straight seams one can make a 1 mm error in where one places one's needle, and it doesn't matter. This makes sewing so fast and easy by comparison that I did ever so much of it. Till I discovered nålbinding, which can be done in the low light conditions that prevail at SCA events in Lochac and Drachenwald, where electric lights tend not to be used at indoor events... I still enjoy embroidery, but don't do nearly as much as when I was younger.
hammer dulcimersmy favourite musical instrument! I first saw them in the early 1980's, and wanted one--they sound so pretty, and unlike violin or guitar, where one has to memorize awkward positions to hold one's hand to get specific notes, a hammer dulcimer is laid out logically, with each string giving a single note if struck on one side of a bridge, and the notes are in alphabetical order, making it easy to find the one needed. For someone like me, who never had music lessons of any sort, this has an appeal. However, despite wanting one that long ago, the cost scared me off, and I didn't actually get one until this year!
monazite u-th-pb chemical dating A fun tool that I kind of miss using since finishing my PhD project. Monazite is a mineral that tends to grow in metamporphic rocks during metamorphic events. Because it contains uranium and thorium, both of which are radioactive elements that decay to lead, it is possible to tell how long has elapsed since the mineral grew (assuming that it had no lead in it to start with) by comparing how much lead it has now with how much uranium and thorium are left. The date calculated in this manner tells us when the metamorphic event was in which it grew, which is terribly useful information when trying to work out the geologic history of an area.
sapiosexualitySuch a useful word! It applies to all of us who find people attractive based on who they are, specifically their brains and how they use them, rather than their bodies/gender/looks. Sure, I enjoy eye-candy; it is nice to see someone with long, beautiful hair walk by, but I fall in love with people when they show me that they have brains and use them--when we have common interests and enjoy time together. Intelligence is an aphrodisiac.
yogaRemember what I said about loving to move? Yoga is, for me, movement. Stretching. Balancing. Balancing while stretching. Head stands. Tree pose. A way to keep my body flexible, strong, a joy to live in. I took my first yoga class in the early 1980's and loved it, but I never remembered to practice outside of class (the same is true for dance). I took occasional yoga classes off and on for decades, but didn't start doing yoga outside of class till I lived in Kotzebue, and made friends with a lady who had a huge library of yoga videos. We would meet every afternoon after school (I was working as a substitute teacher at the time) and do yoga from one of her videos, often repeating ones we'd done before and enjoyed. This helped me really learn many of the poses well enough that when I moved away I could do them on my own. But even so, it wasn't till November of 2004 that I finally started doing yoga every day. Even all these years later I still find my self saying "this feels SOOOOOO good" every day. Why do I do yoga daily? Because it feels so very good that it is its own reward! Yes, sometimes I am really sleepy and should have gone to bed hours ago, but I still make time to do the yoga because it feels good enough to be worth it. That said, the days I get to it early enough that I am not sleepy are even better!
So, there you have it, my writing assignment of the week. If anyone else wants to play feel free to say so, and I will try to give you a list of words in a timely manner, despite my upcoming travel...
