kareina: (Default)
I seem to have fallen into not posting often, mostly because I haven't spent much time at all near a computer. While I *can* post from my phone, I rarely do so. Therefore I need to see how much I can remember now...

The first week of February Keldor had a number of colleagues down with Covid/Omicron. First one of them was feeling a little under the weather after getting his third dose of vaccine, and, thinking it was the vaccine to blame, chose to go to work anyway (stupid!). Then he felt worse, went home, took a test: super positive. The same week a couple of other colleagues choose to go to work despite feeling a bit sick, and then later felt worse and tested positive. Idiots. Keldor had worked with them the days they were sick, too. Luckily, Keldor's three vaccines plus having survived Covid November of 2020 seems to have done the job--he never got any symptoms, and tested negative. However, on the following Sunday morning he felt dizzy right after getting out of bed, and spent the rest of the day with periodic dizzy spells when he moved his head certain directions.

Therefore he called in sick on Monday and went to the doc instead, where they confirmed that it was "kristallsjuka" (vertigo) and gave him some exercises to do to help shake the crystals in his inner ear into a better position. He took the whole week off of work, because otherwise he would have been working at a great height, and one doesn't do that when one could get dizzy just from turning one's head to look at what one is doing. Therefore I also took the week off of work, and we accomplished a few things around the house, and did lots of art. It was great.

Of course, in my case, I didn't take time off of work, just changed which days I would work. Since I work half-time I normally work two days one week, and three the next. Instead I worked zero days that week, and five the next.

The timing for that was good, as my friends N & B in Luleå were going out of town, and had asked P, who lives in Skellefteå, to house and dog sit for them, and said I could stay there, too. (the timing was even better, since my friend L, upon whose couch I "normally" sleep when I am back in Luleå for work, had a cold.

So I had P's company for the drive north and south, and during the week last week, which was nice, especially as she drove.

Then this week I choose to work only Thursday and Friday, which gave me five days in a row at home, which was nice. Especially as this meant that we made some good progress on cleaning the cellar and hauling away some of the previous owners junk. It also meant that on Wednesday I had the energy to sit down and work on the paper I started months ago to publish some results of my research.

By "work on", I am delighted to report I mean "finished a complete draft". I was so excited. I had gotten it pretty close before I took the suspension of studies some months back, when I went to nearly full time work at the archives, because I wanted to save up a bit more cash before I bought a house.

Now that I have a house, and have gone back to 50% work, I am hoping to get this paper published, and then sit down with my supervisor and see about down-grading my PhD to a Master's degree, and then getting it done. Would I have liked having a second PhD? yes, of course. But with first losing lab access, and then having funding issues, plus pandemic, plus death in the family. Really, it isn't going to happen with this degree. But it would still be great to get a Master's.

Tonight would have been folk dance--our Sunday dance session has switched to Thursdays, and therefore I will normally work on Thursdays (+ whatever other days are needed to bring me to the right number of hours for the week). Sadly, our dance teacher caught a cold, so dance was canceled this week, which gives me a chance to check in here.

the SCA calendar has been filling back up, and we are doing stuff again. But now I watch what is unfolding in Ukraine, and I worry that instead of having pandemic related event cancelations we might have war related event cancellations. I hope it doesn't come to that. [edited to add: which is a very selfish sounding viewpoint. Even more than that I would like countries to quit going to war and invading one another. Wouldn't it be great to live in peace, with no one needing to die in war, or flee from their homes?

I can remember first hearing the term "the information age" back in the 1970's, but, guys, really. We. Had. No.Idea. I mean really. Live maps updating play by play what is happening in the Ukraine, and everywhere else that is related to that. who could have predicted such a thing?
kareina: (Default)
I haven't posted here in a while, but I have been sending short notes via FB messenger to friends and to the Drachenwald Slack channel. To save time on catch up, I will copy paste a few of those:

Typed 8 February:

On the way home from a great time at Jokkmokks winter market. Looked at the market a bit, then fika, then look at more market them lunch then Herrskapsdans rehearsal, then performance. Then more market, dinner, and finally the folkmusic concert, which was the highlight of the day.

By the time we made it to the concert room it was pretty full, and my friend got us some chairs in the back row. By then my shoulders were aching from carrying the back pack all day (which was heavier by some fabric and a pair of boots than it was this morning), my feet and legs were tied from standing and walking all day.

I was sleepy from not enough sleep last night, and I was not looking forward to sitting in an uncomfortable chair for an hour or so. Then the guy doing the announcement at the beginning said that there was plenty of room on the floor in front. I didn't hesitate, but grabbed my coat and pack and hurried to the front of the room and made my self comfortable on the floor with the pack of teens who were sitting there.

I fluffed up my coat and lay down with it under my shoulders, and had every intention of sleeping through the concert if I could.

The bands were young people from the Folkmusik school in Piteå, and they were far too talented to sleep through. So I lay there on the floor, eyes closed, stretching and massaging sore body parts in time to the music, and having a great time. By the time they'd worked their easy through tunes and songs from all over Sweden, the US, Ireland, Scotland, Bulgaria, and had settled into some Balkan songs sung by three girls to lots of musical accompaniments, I was finally starting to relax enough to start to drift off to sleep. Then the band asked if we wanted to dance? We said yes, and they started into a very long tune with Middle Eastern Rhythms, and all of us who had been sitting on the floor got up and danced. It was perfect! Eventually, the band got up off the stage and led us in a Balkan line dance (singing the tune, along with every one on the audience willing top participate), and the dance circled the room a couple of times before the concert was over.

Which explains why I have energy to type so much instead of sleeping in the car!

Typed 9 February:
The fabric I bought at Jokkmokks Winter Market goes really well with some tablet weaving I had on hand!

fabric

However, I am thinking I may want to embroider over, or stick beads on, or something over the sun wheel motifs, I don't much care for them--I bought it for the nice interlace sections.

Typed 10 February:

Found another post doc job to apply for today, at the University of Oslo. They want someone to use LA-ICP-MS to determine the trace element composition of quarts in pegmatites. Including getting to do field work in the fjords just south of Lofoten. I am quite qualified for it. Pity that Oslo prices for housing isn't so appealing, nor being so far south. But it is only 3 years...

Typed 11 February:

I am feeling accomplished. The replacement transmitted light assembly for my laser arrived, so I opened up the machine, took out the old one, put in the new, and it works. That sentence does not begin to convey the awkwardness of working inside the cramped quarters of the machine and trying to figure out which angle to wriggle my hands between the wires to reach the bolts I needed to remove...

Typed 12 February:

I am really loving tbe DownDog Yoga app. Have started playing with the other settings than the "full practice", which I started with and love. Tbe "hatha" setting is also really good. Yesterday I did two 30 minute sessions. A hatha yoga before choir and a "gentle" before bed.

Today's email drama, a message this morning saying "I’ve received an application from you for PhD Archaeology and Durham Doctoral Studentship. Unfortunately as you’re already enrolled on a PhD you are not eligible for DDS consideration. Would you like me to cancel your application?" So I forwarded the message to my supervisor... Followed some hours later by "I have spoken with your supervisor, and she has explained the situation. I’ll proceed with processing your application for DDS consideration.
Apologies for any distress caused."



Then, surprising news arrives:
"We would hereby like to inform you that the Faculty of Science and Technology received four applications for the announced position as Associate Professor in Inorganic Chemistry focused on Inorganic Geochemistry at Umeå University. The applications have now proceeded for evaluation by experts in the field. The Employment Committee will deal with the matter at the earliest in April 2020."

I probably still don't have that much of a chance, given that one of them is an internal applicant (which I know because he told me he was applying), but those are way better odds than I had expected when I wrote the application.

Typed 13 February:

Wow Sweden is serious about taking care of their employees. Since I have been given notice on my long time, permanent, position at LTU, I have been registered with "Trygghetsstiftelsen", who will help me look for a new job (never mind that I have been applying for stuff for a while already). Today my personal advisor called me, and invited me to our first planning meeting. Because she currently has no other clients in Luleå she suggested that they could fly me to Stockholm, and while there I could attend a seminar. So I looked at their list of upcoming seminars, and signed up for next week's "Job hunting for academics" workshop (taught in English, because of course it is), and filled in their travel agent's form. They will book me a flight, I will go to the workshop, meet my advisor, and then fly home. All it costs me is the time I am gone. I will bring a sewing project to work on while travelling.
She also gave me a code to upload my CV, personal letter, linked in profile, and a url for a job I am interested in to get feedback at no cost (the company normally charges more than 300 SEK for each of those services, with a slight discount if you ask for the package deal). The documents can be in either Swedish or English, and one can specify which language one wants the feedback (and it doesn't have to be the same language as the documents), and one can even specify specific questions for the feedback person. Since I have a local job to apply for that needs a Swedish application, I am so using this service!

typed 14 February (Friday):
Feeling accomplished. On Wednesday I had a skype meeting with one of my thesis supervisors to brainstorm possible approaches for an application for the Mineralogical society of America's student grant for research in mineralogy and petrology. I promised him I would have a first draft to him "before Monday". I just sent it. I think that this year's attempt has a much better chance at a "yes" than last year's (which got a no, despite being a proposal that my supervisors and I all thought was good).

and typed today, 16 February:

I have spent a big chunk of the day cleaning the piles of sewing projects, UFOs and mending to do, sorting it, organising it, and making trello cards for everything, each card in a list for where the project is, and detailing what needs doing.
It will take ages to finish all of them, but I think the odds of my doing so have now gone up...
some of them need so little work...
kareina: (Default)
As has become usual for me, I am a bit behind on posting to LJ, let me see if I can remember all of my recent adventures...

When I left off I was anticipating actually attending the shire fighter practice, for the first time since returning from Australia. The first batch of practices after I got back either we were out of town that weekend, or there were posts to the shire forum saying no heavy practice that week. Eventually we settled into the habit of enjoying the chance to catch up on sleep on Sunday mornings, and then spend the rest of the morning working on projects until time to head to the Folk music session, and so we got into the habit of not even checking the forum to see if practice was on. However, [livejournal.com profile] aelfgyfu brought her armour all the way from An Tir, so it would have been a shame for her not to attend FP, and if we were driving her out there we should bring my armour, too, so we did.

It was fun! The local practice actually has a "training" component to it, every time, which I really appreciate (and need!). It turns out that so much time of not even doing slow work has (unsurprisingly) had the effect of my not using my body properly, so most of my blows were light. I also quit earlier than the others because my forearms were not happy with the weight of my sword and shield in conjunction with the unusual movements. Sigh. Must do something about that. On Sunday I told myself that I would go to the gym a couple of times during the week, and do some slow work to get my arms used to moving my sword and shield around again. Did I achieve this goal? Nope. Didn't make it to the gym at all, and only did slow work with [livejournal.com profile] lord_kjar once, and we used invisible shields then, so my body hasn't had the chance to make any progress towards thinking that swinging a stick and blocking blows is easy.

Today is Sunday once again, and we will totally go to practice, but I am thinking I shouldn't armour up. Thursday evening I managed to do something wrong to my shoulder at the end of yoga. I normally do a head-stand at the end of my yoga session, and sometimes, if [livejournal.com profile] lord_kjar is around I get his help on my "learn to do hand-stands" quest: I go into my head stand in front of him (back towards him once I am upside down), he grabs my ankles and pulls, which, combined with some pushing from my arms, gets me up into a hand-stand. So far it is mostly me standing on my hands with the upper part of my legs leaning against him, but on a few occasions I have managed to hold my self up for a second or three before having to lower my legs.

Thursday was different. He was in the next room on the computer, but as I started to go up into the headstand I called out to him asking if he happens to be free for hand-stand help. Once I got into the headstand I could see him coming, so I stayed there, waiting for him to come over. Instead of walking around to my back side (where he normally is for this), he grabbed my ankles from the front, and lifted. This changes everything in terms of how it feels--I couldn't find the balance point with my shins towards his shoulders instead of my calves, and I felt like I was going to fall over backwards. I panicked, tried desperately to hold on to something, anything, and let him know I felt like I was going to fall the wrong way, so he stepped back so he could lower my legs towards the floor. However, in that tiny amount of time something I did really messed up my left shoulder. In precisely the same way it got messed up when I jumped off the cliff in Cyprus.

On that occasion it took several days before the pain and discomfort went completely away, though by the second day I could move mostly normally again. This time I am feeling much better already, but there is some residual stiffness, and I am not certain that putting on a helm and swinging a stick (it is the sword arm side that bothers me) is a good idea.

However, we made a cake to bring to practice, so we have to go, even if I don't suit up. I will post photos of it (it is cute!) after people there have had a chance to see it.

In other news, Wednesday was Sweden's National Day, so it was a holiday from work, and our Folk Dance group had a performance at the celebrations in Gammelstad. It was much fun, despite the rain, and there were a reasonable number of folk in the crowd given the weather. We perform again next weekend for the big weekend of folk music activities, and again at Midsummer.

I didn't accomplish as much this week at work as I would have liked--the four day adventure-filled weekend I took while [livejournal.com profile] aelfgyfu was here left me rather tired and slow on Monday and Tuesday, but by Wednesday, when I had the day off for dancing, I was feeling pretty good, so on Thursday I actually spend the day playing with my data, and on Friday I finally got around to deciding which of the samples I have collected I actually want thin sections cut from, and got them ready to ship off to the company (in Canada!!!) that does that for us. I would have shipped them, too, but there was no one on duty in the uni shipping office when I checked, so it will have to wait till Monday.
kareina: (Default)
I blame not making time to type up what I am up to on being busy and lots of small-scale travel.

When last I posted I was spending a week down in Boliden collecting rock samples from the drill core stored there. It is fun, but tiring, and while they generally provide a decent room with access to a kitchen, it is *Not Home*, and I would rather be at home, since I rather like it there.

That weekend instead of going home I met [livejournal.com profile] lord_kjar at his brother's house, which is located in Bureå, 15 min south of the city of Skellefteå (Boliden is 30 min inland from Skellefteå, so it wouldn't have made sense to do the 2.5 hour drive home, only to turn around and then do the 2.25 hour drive to the brother's house.) That was our third weekend in a row at the brother's house working on projects. Their place is starting to feel like home to me. It helps that when we are in project mode they let me do the cooking.

During those three weeks we managed to complete a linen underdress for her, a linen under tunic for him, and mostly complete a wool over dress (both in the fitted gothic gown 13th century style) (the over dress still needs lacing holes). Meanwhile, while I focused on helping with the sewing projects [livejournal.com profile] lord_kjar was useful out in the Bus/motor home. I am told that he re-did much of the electric wiring and installed lights where they want them. They also ripped out the old ceiling cover (of fuzzy carpet) and replaced it (with a heavy duty-smooth vinyl paper designed to be used in boats, so it is water resistant and fire retardant), re-did the bathroom, replaced the kitchen sink, counter, stove, and installed a new stove hood. I think they accomplished lots of other needed tasks, too. It is looking good to have everything done before we need it for the road trip to Double Wars in May.

The following weekend we didn't do the 2.25 hour drive south to the brother's house, but instead we drove to Umeå, which is fully 3 hours drive south. Why? Because our friend L, who lives in Umeå, invited us to come participate in a Kontaktimprovisation and Clown workshop. I had never heard of Contact Improv before she mentioned it to me, and I want to know why not! Imagine combining massage and dance, two of my favourite activities! I don't know how much that weekend's workshop, which ran from Thursday evening through to Sunday evening of Easter Weekend was typical for Contact Improv, and how much was only there as part of the Clown workshop, but I will try to remember enough to sort of describe it.

The warm up sessions generally involved breaking into groups of three people (since there were 15 of us total). One of each group would lay on the floor, and the other two would start to massage them. after working over the whole body once the massage movements would become longer strokes along the limbs of the one getting massaged, and they would start to move, in part in response to the touches, and in part the touches would follow the dancer's movements, accentuating them and encouraging them. Gradually the dancer (who had been getting the massage) would move more and more of their body, first rolling around on the floor, and gradually working towards upright too, and the touches would become briefer and less contact. Once all the dancers from all the groups were moving on their own we would stop, another person from each group would lay down to be massaged, gradually moving into dance, and then finally the third person would get their turn at massage/dance. It often happened that I was sleepy at the time we started this process, so I always volunteered to be the first dancer, as I could sort of nap during the first part of the massage, and then doing the movement woke me up enough to do the massages for the other two.

We did most of our dancing without music, other than whatever noises the dancers were inspired to make. Since a number of us like music the noises we made was often very musical, and sometimes were songs with words (both made up on the spot, or a few times songs that a bunch of us happened to know). The Clown workshop was a bit odder. I haven't had any particular interest in being a clown, or any sort of performance, but that was the other focus of the weekend, and it was the weekend we happened to be available to go play and do something different, so when she suggested it we said yes. Besides, while I don't particularly want to perform, neither am I easily embarrassed, so when faced with an assignment to think of an emotion I happen to be feeling and then come up with a way to express that emotion through dance I can do so. Perhaps not as well as someone who lives to perform for others, but I did participate. And if a certain percentage of my clown dance involved climbing on the bars on the wall no one who knows me is surprised to hear it...

After the weekend we brought L home with us for a visit since she had a chunk of time with no classes she needed to attend, and it has been nice to have the company--especially as she joins me for my daily yoga session. I haven't had a consistent yoga partner since [livejournal.com profile] clovis_t quit doing yoga with me, and I miss it.

She is still there the first half of this week, too, but I, sadly, am not at home. However, I am at a delightful home this time. I am, once again, in Boliden. Yesterday and today was a geochemistry course taught by the guy whose PhD thesis I was given when I started this job with the words "your project will be something like this, but in 3D". It has been quite a useful and entertaining class. I will stay here the rest of the week and collect more rock samples before heading home on Friday.

Unlike my other trips to Boliden, this time I am not staying in the company owned apartment room that I usually stay at. That was fully booked this week, so instead I am doing an experiment. A couple of the geologists here own a house in a village about 30 minutes drive inland from Boliden, and they are kindly letting me stay with them. I asked them in part to see how I go with a 30 minute commute, since [livejournal.com profile] lord_kjar and I plan to start house-hunting next winter (once we have saved up a down payment we are happy with). We both want land (enough to host a medieval camping event "in the back yard" and a shop. Such things are best found out of town, but how far are we willing to go to get what we want?

So I am staying with this lovely family, in the village of Svansele, in their beautiful large house which was built in the 1880's. If we can find someplace half so nice I will be happy--the house has ceilings which must be nine feet tall, large, spacious rooms, and fabulous view down to the Skellefteå River. They have 4 hectacers, and own all of the land down to the river, and some of the land across the road, too. The house came with a large barn, and in one of the rooms in the barn they have a huge trampoline, which they are able to use year round, since it is under cover and not being snowed on. They only moved her in October, so they don't yet have the horses and sheep they plan to get, but they have a very sweet cuddly cat, a friendly rabbit who also cuddled with me at first meeting, and a bunch of hens who are paying rent in yummy eggs.

I have had "shop" on my wish-list for a while, but now that I have seen the trampoline in a barn idea I think that "barn" might just have been added to the "would be nice" list. They are also thinking of converting part of the barn to a climbing wall. I want a climbing wall!

So far I have had only two work days of commuting here, and Monday only sort of counts, since I woke up in my own bed in Luleå at 04:30 and then did the 2.5 hour drive to Boliden, leaving home at 05:45 to be certain I could get there on time for class at 08:30, and then did the drive out to their place (stopping a couple of times to look at the map on my phone to see how far the little blue dot had moved since last I looked, to be certain I didn't miss my turn (they had left class a little early to go pick up their daughter from day care)). But so far I don't mind the commute, since the drive is quite pretty. I do have to be certain that I bring both lunch and dinner with me though--by the time I get into the car in the evenings after class I am starving again (never mind that I had nibbled on more food during the afternoon coffee break), so I eat a little before starting driving, and eat a bit more while driving, and am well fed for the day by the time I get home at 17:30.

I can't say I liked the evening sun in my eyes during the drive home on Monday, and at first thought that I should take care not to look for houses located to the west of the uni for that reason. And then I remembered that we live in the north. Sun in the eyes will only be an issue for a short time each year, and there is no direction that will never have sun low in the horizon at one time or another. So I am free to pick any direction I want (though, to be fair, it is less often low enough in the north as to be in one's eyes when driving that way).

That sort of catches you up with what I have been doing, though I haven't reported on the progress in embroidery, nålbinding, or looking at rock thin-sections at work, you can be assured that they are all doing well. I have been enjoying reading other people's posts, even though I haven't been making time to type, and I encourage you all to post whenever you have the time to spare.

After I get home on Friday I actually get to stay there for two full weeks before I depart for a week in Cyprus, immediately followed by a week at Double Wars.

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