Apparently this will involve wine & cheese. The Creative Writing Orientation starts at 3:30 pm, followed by a happy hour gathering at what is the official English grad student pub, which I used to frequent as a member of the UW Biology grad student softball team. "Frequent" might be too strong a word, as it might have happened two or three times.
I'm sure there will be stories.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
6,000 Miles
Hit 6,000 miles on the Speedster (my bike, the nice one) 2 blocks from Marriah's new house (that she calls the boat because it looks like it has been pieced together room by room-- it's hard to explain but it really does feel like a boat; the porch has a carpet on it.) This means that in the five years I've had my bike, I could have biked to Boston and back.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Monday Night
Enjoying my last fake Sunday night. Last week of work and then, as a student, I will enjoy real weekends (as in not working on Saturdays). In fact, I will only have class on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, so I will have to be careful to leave some room for actually doing my work and not take off on four-day weekend trips every week.
I was a little nervous about actually going back to school, self-doubt creeping in, so I decided to focus on one aspect of returning to the world of academia that I knew I could handle-- extracurriculars. Right now my top choices include, but are not limited to:
-Cycling team
-Climbing at the indoor rock wall
-Intramural basketball (although I am slightly intimidated playing basketball at a university of 50,000 students where statistically there are thousands of ex-varsity high school basketball players who could kick my ass, and I'm not sure how successful I will be fielding any type of sports team from the English Graduate department)
-Joining the UW Yacht Club where I can pretend that I know how to sail dinghies
-Rowing club
-Yoga classes
And for a team sport option, I might even look into ultimate and see if I could compete. That could be fun now that I'm retired from rugby and could use a field sport that involves running and much less contact.
I was a little nervous about actually going back to school, self-doubt creeping in, so I decided to focus on one aspect of returning to the world of academia that I knew I could handle-- extracurriculars. Right now my top choices include, but are not limited to:
-Cycling team
-Climbing at the indoor rock wall
-Intramural basketball (although I am slightly intimidated playing basketball at a university of 50,000 students where statistically there are thousands of ex-varsity high school basketball players who could kick my ass, and I'm not sure how successful I will be fielding any type of sports team from the English Graduate department)
-Joining the UW Yacht Club where I can pretend that I know how to sail dinghies
-Rowing club
-Yoga classes
And for a team sport option, I might even look into ultimate and see if I could compete. That could be fun now that I'm retired from rugby and could use a field sport that involves running and much less contact.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Seasonally Affected
It's fall. Or really it is fall right now because it's 8:30 PM. It's dark, there was just an amazing sunset, and now it's chilly and crisp instead of damp and cold. It was winter this morning, though (I woke up to a steady rain and 50-ish degrees), and I assume it will be winter again in a few hours as has been the pattern-- grossness until 5 PM when the sun comes out, blinds you for an hour and heats the air about 15 degrees just long enough to make you question your wool sock decision. I've stopped looking at the forecast.
I've only just realized why the weather has been affecting me so badly, especially this past year. It's embarrassingly obvious in retrospect-- the main perk of my job has been that I get to work outside. Clearly, however, this is only a benefit when it's not rainy damp and miserable. I'm pretty sure in a few weeks when I will be excited about what I'm doing with my days (/life), my mood will be less weather-dependent. And biking in the rain to somewhere warm and dry will be undoubtedly more pleasant than biking in the rain to a drafty, leaky, unheated houseboat office.
Right now, though, I am enjoying the fall. Even if it is coming in isolated chunks. Yesterday I picked up our first box of veggies from our CSA share with Helsing Junction Farm. The pickup was at a house in our neighborhood, so I stopped by on my way home from work and walked the 10 blocks home balancing the box on my handlebars. I felt very Seattle.
We even get a few fresh flowers every week as well.
Last night I made summer squash soup with cilantro, and tonight I used most of the rest of the cilantro in a tomatillo avocado gazpacho. My favorite part of getting a random box of produce is googling new recipes.
Yesterday was better than today because yesterday I started my day by waking up early and going to yoga. Today I woke up early and went to the dentist. Yesterday the workday went by quickly and I did lots of random little projects, like replacing mainsheet blocks and fixing door latches, while listening to the first chapters of Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought. Today I spent the entire day staring at the computer screen, spending way too much time changing around our e-newsletter template because I'm sick of the old one.
As you can see, there is not much to report. But I'm trying to be better about blogging.
I've only just realized why the weather has been affecting me so badly, especially this past year. It's embarrassingly obvious in retrospect-- the main perk of my job has been that I get to work outside. Clearly, however, this is only a benefit when it's not rainy damp and miserable. I'm pretty sure in a few weeks when I will be excited about what I'm doing with my days (/life), my mood will be less weather-dependent. And biking in the rain to somewhere warm and dry will be undoubtedly more pleasant than biking in the rain to a drafty, leaky, unheated houseboat office.
Right now, though, I am enjoying the fall. Even if it is coming in isolated chunks. Yesterday I picked up our first box of veggies from our CSA share with Helsing Junction Farm. The pickup was at a house in our neighborhood, so I stopped by on my way home from work and walked the 10 blocks home balancing the box on my handlebars. I felt very Seattle.
We even get a few fresh flowers every week as well.
Last night I made summer squash soup with cilantro, and tonight I used most of the rest of the cilantro in a tomatillo avocado gazpacho. My favorite part of getting a random box of produce is googling new recipes.
Yesterday was better than today because yesterday I started my day by waking up early and going to yoga. Today I woke up early and went to the dentist. Yesterday the workday went by quickly and I did lots of random little projects, like replacing mainsheet blocks and fixing door latches, while listening to the first chapters of Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought. Today I spent the entire day staring at the computer screen, spending way too much time changing around our e-newsletter template because I'm sick of the old one.
As you can see, there is not much to report. But I'm trying to be better about blogging.
Monday, September 06, 2010
Back To School Shopping
Of all the clothes I have purchased at secondhand stores in my life, yesterday was the first time I ever found something in the pockets.
This is what I discovered in a pair of jeans I bought at the Ballard Goodwill:
No joke. It's what it looks like. (And a guitar pick, too.)
This is what I discovered in a pair of jeans I bought at the Ballard Goodwill:
No joke. It's what it looks like. (And a guitar pick, too.)
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