kareina

Today (Thursday) is a holiday in Sweden, so we have had a productive day:

*one load of laundry washed
*one wall in the downstairs room painted (2 coats)
*one new strawberry patch location has been prepped including decorative stone fronting and a wooden frame
*one third of the strawberries from one of the two old patches has been transplanted to the new location
*one dead tree cut down
*part of a gravel pile moved so that it is now possible to drive the mini tractor/trailer past it
*one custom fit screen built for the downstairs bedroom window so we can open the window without letting in bugs (really important now that there is fresh paint on one of the walls.

Yesterday was the end of the semester party for our choir, held in conjunction with our normal band practice for those of us in the choir who like to make more music than just singing. We had seven of us here (which, sadly is most of the choir these days). I made nettle soup from the nettles growing in our yard (I could do this daily all summer and never run out of nettles) and they liked it so much that most of them had seconds. I also did a lovely gluten-free apple and red currant crumble, and I have a second batch of (possibly) non-gluten free oat and walnut crumble topping sitting in the fridge to use on another occasion; I remembered at the last second that I should have grabbed the other (certified gluten free) box oats, so rather than poisoning my friend I made more topping (without walnuts, since the last of them went into the first batch), and used it instead. I also made some yummy bread rolls, and one of the other members brought some yummy apricot bread he had made. It was a fun evening, and the last time we get to see a couple of the guys, since they are exchange students and will be heading home to their own countries soon (and one had already left and so missed the party).

Tuesday was our normal choir practice, and Monday was nyckleharpa (and dulcimer!) night, so it has been a music filled week.

Sunday we had Swedish Folk Dancing--we are now doing the final few rehearsals before the summer performances, so it is much fun.

Saturday day we helped lord_kjar's dad cut and split wood for the year. No where near as much as we did last year, since it was such a mild winter no one used up all of what we cut last year, and he and I don't need any, since we still don't have a wood stove, so the only time we used any of the wood was for one camping event.

Saturday night I spent on line at my 30th highschool reunion.

OK, I confess, I typed it like that because that phrase will not conjure up the correct mental image in anyone who didn't go to school with me. Steller was not your typical high school. It was an alternative school aimed at self-motivated students and it was an amazingly fun place to be for the six years I was the correct age to attend. This year marks the 40th Anniversary of Steller's founding, so they hosted a party at the school and Stellerites from all over went home for it, and a bunch of us connected to the event from our computers at our homes (including locations in Sweden, Germany, Main, Colorado, California, and Washington, that I know of).

I really enjoyed the evening. Because of the time zone difference (10 hours) between here and Alaska, I was on line for the event from 23:30 to 04:00, and loved every minute of it (well, except for the short time where the connection broke and it took a couple of minutes to get it back). I got to see some old friends and lovers, I got to meet some interesting new people, of all ages. One woman who was in the internet chat had been part of the first class to attend Steller the first year it opened (and so was just enough older than I that we wouldn't have met back them--she would have graduated before I started at Steller), another (the one in Germany) graduated last year. It was interesting comparing notes with them and learning that the wonderful school I attended was pretty much the same from the beginning, and is still pretty much the same as of last year.

One of the things that has eaten a fair chunk of my time lately was preparing the Memorial Wall, with posters in tribute to those Stellerites who have already died. This was a difficult task that wouldn't have been possible at all without the facebook groups for Steller alumini, but seems to have been much appreciated. One of my old boyfriends, who was actually at Steller for the party, came in to the computer lab to say hello, and let me know that he appreciated the wall, but when he came to the poster for Steven, one of our mutual friends, he burst into tears. This did not surprise me, I cried a bit when I gathered up photos of Steven from the yearbook. His was one of the deaths that would have been so easy to prevent, if he had only made some different lifestyle choices. But it was his life to spend wisely or to squander and I can only hope that he enjoyed as much as he got.

Friday was my student's and my last day in Finland working on the Microprobe, followed by a band practice at my house (which I got home on time for, because we finished with the probe nice and early that day)

Thursday was a quiet evening at my host's house in Oulu while she was at choir, and some fun visiting with her before and after her choir session, and that brings me current on the major happenings in my life since my last update. Hope things are as fun for the rest of you.

It seems like the day only just started, yet here it is nearly midnight. Some day I am going to catch the person who sneaks in when I am busy doing something and changes all of the clocks to show that hours have elapsed when I think it is only minutes. Sadly, I don't have any idea what I will be able to do to them when I do.

Last night I accidentally stayed up so late I was able to attend a meeting. I think that I may have mentioned here that I was lucky enough to attend an amazingly wonderful high school. Steller is an alternative school aimed at "self motivated" students who are interested in taking charge of their own education, and the six years I spent there (grades 7 to 12) were an amazing experience that simply can't be understood by people who went to schools that didn't provide that sense of community and student power. This year is the 40th anniversary of Steller, and a bunch of us are organizing a celebration and all-school reunion, which will take place both in Anchorage, but also on line (a huge part of why I am part of the organizing committee is to make certain there are people on the ground there who are willing to provide a direct internet connection so that those of us who are far away can still participate).

Early on in the planning while we were discussing the fact that nowadays there are options for those of us who can't be there in person I started thinking about those of us who can't be there in person because they had died, and I thought "someone should put together a memorial wall for them". And, because I am a Steller graduate, I understood in that instant that since it was my idea, "someone" = "me", and set to work asking for help gathering information about the few people I knew of from Steller who had died.

That list has grown to more than 50 people since then, and each time I sit down to work on the project hours elapse. Last night was no exception--I sat down at the computer after yoga, around 23:30, and the next thing I knew it was after 03:30, and I was finally ready to upload the first draft of the set of memorial posters to GoogleDrive so that others could look at it, and hopefully, fill in some of the missing information for me. Buy a convenient coincidence last night also happened to be one of the scheduled meetings for the planning group. They usually meet in early evening, just after work Alaska time, which translates to 03:00 in the morning in my time zone. Needless to say, I don't often make those meetings, even though they are done via an internet connection. I made it to one of the early ones because I happened to wake up for a middle of the night toilet run at exactly the right time, so I dialed in with my computer. Last night, since I only just got the document unloaded right before the meeting I opted to stay up and check in.

Much to my surprise and delight, despite not getting to bed till nearly 04:00 after the meeting, I still woke up around 09:00 today. lord_kjar and I spent a lazy morning enjoying one another's company and wandering around our property discussing what we want to do in terms of landscaping, repairs to the little barn in the lower property (which, when built, wasn't put onto a stone foundation, so really needs to be raised before the bottom logs rot), building on the earth cellar, etc. I am looking forward to starting that project up again, just as soon as the last of the snow and ice is finished melting, the ground dries up a bit, and we get temps consistently above freezing so we can do stuff with concrete again.

After that we decided to head to the store because he wants to make some rice porridge, and for that we need lots of milk (and cream to turn the left over porridge into ris alamalta), but then we decided to call a friend we haven't seen in ages who lives near the small grocery store over by uni. He was in, but would't be in for that long, since he had a gaming session in the evening, so we went first to his place, where I returned the silk outfit he had purchased in China some time back, then discovered that the seams were giving out (they had serged them, and since that leaves only a single line of attachment points the stitching holes were growing and the seams were about to fail), so he gave them to us to fix for him. He wasn't in a hurry, which is a good thing, since he handed the bag to us some time before we bought this house, which means that we have had it for at least a year and a half. At the time he gave us the bag I suggested that since we are often busy, but if we used a sewing machine the repairs would go quickly, that what he should do is drop by to visit, and while we chatted we could do the mending.

That never happened, and when I started the SFI course I needed a sewing project, so took his mending with me, and re-did the trouser seams by hand. They are now flat-felled, and should last him for years. Then the bag has sat, ready to return to him ever since. So today I brought it back to him, and he returned the book that his former housemate had borrowed from me over two years ago. Good thing none of us was in a hurry!

We had a pleasant visit with him till it was time for him to head to gaming, and then we went to the store. Arrived at the one near his home at 18:03, which, most days, would be hours before closing time. However, this is a holiday weekend in Sweden, which means we were 3 minutes after closing time. Oops. I hadn't looked at a clock in hours, and though it was maybe 16:00. So we drove over to the larger grocery store, which is open every day till 23:00, even on holiday weekends.

Then we had a bit to eat, I read a story in Swedish from a collection of Astrid Lindgrin's stories to lord_kjar, and he settled down to his computer to play a game and I sat down to the hammer dulcimer to try to learn the notes for the song Hårgalåten, which we sing in choir, and I noticed a typo in the version I had typed up last week. So I moved to my computer and sat down to quickly fix that, and while I was at it decided to do some major changes to the layout and design of the document, and the next thing I knew nearly three hours had elapsed. Oops. Then I did "just a little" for the Steller memorial wall project, and this time really did manage to get done with it in only 40 minutes. However, it is now 20 after midnight, and I still want to go try to play from the new, improved, version of my document which links the names of the notes to the words that I sing, so that I can learn how to play the tune, and there is still yoga to do before I go to bed. Good thing it is a holiday weekend--today wasn't actually the Saturday it felt like, but was rather a Friday with no work or classes, and we get Monday off, too, so, with luck, I will actually manage to get to most of the things I want to do this weekend, despite regular visits from that time thief.

[edited because they asked for paragraph breaks; though I maintain that the first draft was more appropriate to show how it all felt]

The last couple of weeks have been a dizzying round of social engagements, leaving me with little time to get on line, and I’m ok with that. When last I’d checked in I’d stayed with a Stellerite and his family a couple of days, gone to visit cousins in Copper Center, and then spent Christmas with a cousin in Wasilla before being dropped off at the home of my SCA brother in Anchorage.

I enjoyed a mellow time that first full day back in Anchorage (Saturday), and took it easy baking bread, checking mail, visiting with my SCA family, and getting over the sniffles I’d picked up at Christmas. The next day (Sunday) I went to a party with friends, and enjoyed meeting new people and designing a bit of knot-work for a guy who wanted a tattoo of a Thor’s hammer with the god’s head on the pommel, and the beard branching out into knotwork on the business end of the hammer.

The next day (Monday) involved a dinner date at a restaurant with several friends, followed by an evening with another good friend from highschool and his wife (I knew her through the SCA before they met).

The following day (the 30th) I flew to Fairbanks, where the local SCA held a dance for me. Had a great time dancing with old friends and people I’d just met. Didn’t get to sleep that night till nearly 03:00 (I wasn’t sensible enough to make time for yoga before the dance, so did it afterwards).

Got up early the next morning (Thursday) and met a friend of mine from Highschool for breakfast, and had a great time discussing the difference between his last job (teaching Mathmatics and doing research at a small liberal arts uni in the lower ’48) and his current job (teaching Mathmatics and doing research at UAF).

Had just time after breakfast to look at mail (but not post anything) before some SCA friends called asking if I wanted to do lunch. After lunch met yet another friend for a cup of tea, and then enjoyed a few hours with my host before heading to a New Year’s Eve party, where I met a couple who will be moving to Sweden for a post-doc position soon. Looking forward to meeting up with them again at Drachenwald events.

I finally got to sleep about 03:00 that night (yoga was, once again, done after the festivities of the evening) and got up early enough on Friday to catch a morning flight back to Anchorage. I got back on time to help clean my brother’s house for the bardic the next night, and then bake rolls for the tapas party that night. Friday's party was fabulous—there are ever so many wonderful people in Oertha, and I got to see a fair few of them that night, and enjoyed conversations with all of them. Finally got to meet the fiancée of my “baby brother” (adopted as such in high school), and approve mightily of her influence on him.

The next morning (Saturday, the 2nd) I went to see Avatar with said baby brother and his lady. While the movie was lovely, I think I’d have enjoyed it (and other movies) more if it wasn’t necessary to endure a couple of hours of the bad guys stupid decisions before our heroes can overcome the obstacles and solve the problem.

I got home from the movie on time to bake a braided bread loaf and some cinnamon-apple-pistachio rolls for the bardic that night. By a delightful coincidence Tania also baked a braided bread loaf for the evening. Her loaf was made with thick ropes of dough, braided in a straight line, and brushed with egg before baking. Mine was braided from thin ropes of dough, coiled into a braided mat, and brushed with butter before, during, and after baking. Very different looks and textures, and both really, really yummy.

The bardic was lots of fun—many of the same folk as had attended the party the night before, and some who hadn’t. A reasonable amount of singing (though, as always, I’d have been happy with more), and plenty of laughter and good cheer.

The following morning (yesterday) I slept in (for the first time in ages), went for a walk, and then packed my bags before returning to the home I’d stayed at my first couple of days in town. The kids there wanted a re-match of Settlers of Catan, so we played that, but not as late into the evening as on my first stop at their house, since vacation is over and they had to go to school during the day.

Today (Monday) I actually managed to get some uni work done—nearly five hours! It was nice. Then we went for a walk, played more Catan, and made some rice-krispy/cornflake treats. On a lark I separated out a bit of the butter-marshmallow molten mix and combined it with some of my muesli instead of the packaged cereal, and, to no one’s surprise, liked it *much* better. After the kids went to bed I had a few hours to just sit and chat with their folks before coming to the airport, where they have free internet access, so I get to update this journal.

In a few short hours I’ll be back in Seattle, where I’ll be till Thursday morning, then I fly back to California, where I’ll attend 12th night before flying back to Milan the following Monday.

Two weeks was so not enough to see everyone I wanted to see, but I had much fun with those I did see, and I will just have to come back again for another visit one of these days...

Over seven hours of uni work today, editing chapter three. The (much) improved description of that sample + the new calculations for pressure and temperature formation (most of the time elapsed) resulted in 58 new words for the chapter total. Somehow, it doesn't look like much when reduced to a total like that, but I'm much happier with that, tiny, segment of the chapter. Tomorrow: repeat this for the other few samples from that region for which I can do these sorts of calculations. Hopefully that will take less time, and I can move on to the other portion of the chapter as well. Not much else to report, other than being overjoyed to find yet more folk from highschool* on Facebook. One of whom I had the biggest crush on...

*for those of you who don't know, I went to the world's best highschool--an alternative school which gave the students an amazing amount of power over the school and our education. As a result, my school experiance was far, far more positive than most, and therefore it is wonderful to find old friends from there again.