Saturday, February 01, 2003

 

Ack! It's February already! How did that happen? Heck, it's still hard to believe that it's 2003! Shows how much I've been paying attention.

Renegade Rose had a great practice on Thursday. We had twelve dancers (!), several musicians, and lots of enthusiasm. I do enjoy teaching beginners a dance, but I'm hoping to soon graduate from the stage of having to go back to teaching the basics every week because new people show up. We're beginning to have kit (or "costume" for the uninitiated) discussions, and of course nobody can agree on what we should wear. Some of us did a spontaneous dance-out at the Farmer's Market last fall, where we wore bright baggy "harem" pants, black shirts, and arm-bands. That was fun, but nobody actually wants that for real kit, so we have to think of something else. I personally don't see a problem with harem pants, as long as you wear bells to keep from tripping over them when you dance -- they're nice and cool. :) Actually, the idea for that kit came from what I just wore to practice one evening! But that's another story. Renegade Rose is scheduled to dance at the Seattle Folklife Festival over the Memorial Day weekend, so we need to come to a kit consensus and hammer out a few dances before then. :)

Hugo and I went for a run this morning. Ugh. It wasn't a very long run, and we didn't go very fast at all, but still -- Ugh. I haven't been running in waaaaaaaaaay too long. Hugo wrapped my knee up in an ace bandage before we started (as a preventative measure -- I've been having some issues with my right knee for a few months). As he was wrapping it I was asking, "Are you sure it's supposed to be that tight?" He said, "Yeah, you're supposed to support the kneecap." It felt pretty tight, but I figured I just wasn't used to it. By the time we got to the end of the block, though, I had to stop and re-wrap it because it was cutting off the circulation in my leg. I was laughing, saying, "This thing is making me limp! I thought it was supposed to stop me from limping!" At which point Hugo remembered that you really don't have to wrap those things very tightly for them to work properly. :} We re-wrapped the knee, and the rest of the run was better, though he hit his stride right about the time I hit my "I can't go any further" point. Sigh. I need to do that more often.

We've finally had some rain up here. For a couple days straight, actually. It's good, because it's been a really dry winter up here, but it makes things rather muddy when it all decides to come down at once. :P And I discovered yesterday that my umbrella is pretty much useless. It's very wimpy, so if there's any wind at all, it will use that as an excuse to turn itself inside-out at every opportunity. If it hasn't done that for a while, it decides to shut itself up the proper way -- on my head, of course. Sigh.

I should probably attempt to do some schoolwork, especially if I want to go to the contra dance tonight. I just remembered this morning that I have a Diff. Eq. exam on Monday, so I should probably study for that as well. Oh, the joys of school. :}
# posted by Lacey 5:36 PM

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

 

Hugo thinks I should call my blog "Land-O-Lacey." I deigned to raise my eyebrows at the suggestion. He didn't press the issue.

:)
# posted by Lacey 11:03 PM

 

Guess what -- I'm completely caught up on my schoolwork! Wow! I am amazed. I thought I'd be struggling along playing catch-up for another week or two at least, but I'm all up-to-date on assignments and readings and everything! I worked a half day yesterday, from 9-noon, then headed to the library to crank out some problem sets. The library was really busy; I talked to my friend Beverly who works there in the music history section, and she said there were a number of school groups in for the afternoon, so it was a bit of a challenge finding someplace I felt I had some quietish personal space where I could concentrate, but I found it, and I got my work done. I did differential equations for about four hours, until linear ODEs and inverse LaPlace transforms were coming out my ears (if only you'd been there to see them!). Then I came home and did all of my physics homework that was due today. I ended up not having to turn it in, because my professor is in the hospital having some sort of gall bladder surgery and lecture was cancelled, but it's nice to have it done anyway, because I have another problem set due next week. I have a bit of a break on math homework for next week, because I have an exam on Monday -- hmmm, is that a good thing or not? All in all, though, I'm feeling much better and more confident about how school stuph is going this quarter than I have yet. I should go to the library more often.

I have fun jobs at work this week. I get to train Alan, our "new guy" (he was part time temp during the holiday season, but we hired him full time, and a good thing, too) to do all sorts of things. I'm not quite sure why the're having me train him; maybe because I do most of the things he'll be doing more often than most of the other people, maybe because I'm only around half time now and they figure I might as well spend the time I am there being useful in training somebody else to do my job all the time that I'm not there. Either way, I like training, and Alan is quick to catch on, so I think it'll be a rather good week at work.

We started burning the first of the drip candles I got the other day. After a while we noticed that there was something wrong -- it had been burning for a nice long time, but hadn't dripped at all. In fact, we had watched a pool of red wax start growing up on top of the candle, and the next time we looked back it had disappeared, and not down the sides of the candle! The wick was too thick, and was burning all of the wax rather than making it spill. I was afraid that all of the candles in the case would be similarly defective, but we put a new one in this evening and it works just fine. I was playing around melting the other one onto it, and found a lovely bright blue color in it that I don't remember from the other candles. That was a pleasant surprise.

Hugo found a "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" quiz on the BBC website, and we did it together while I was washing dishes before dinner. We ended up with 80%, because we couldn't agree on a few of the answers. Then, of course, he went looking for more Hitchhiker stuph online. He found the H2G2 website, which is basically designed to be like the Guide itself, where you can open it up and look for absolutely anything. Lots of people posting on lots of random stuph, just for fun and to have it out there. There were some pretty funny things. Check this out if you're interested: http://www.h2g2.com

Okay, I think that's enough for today. I guess a nice long blog entry today makes up for my negligence the past few days. :)

P.S. Graham, I made that link on my very own! Aren't you proud of me? :P
# posted by Lacey 10:56 PM

Monday, January 27, 2003

 

Too Many Textbooks

Okay, I'm confused. Very very confused.

I just answered a knock on the door to find a package on the porch, textbook-sized. I thought, "Wow, that book that Seth sent sure got here quick. It doesn't look like the sort of packaging he would have used, though...." And I was right on that count -- it wasn't from him. But it was a physics book -- from the people that were supposed to send it to me originally! So I guess they were right in their email, though still rather rude. But now I'm wondering who on earth sent me a second differential equations book -- because it obviously wasn't this company, and it wasn't the one I ordered it from -- the two came in completely different packages from different places. Unfortunately, I didn't keep the packaging from the first math book I received; that would have been smart, but oh well. But I just got my credit card bill in the mail, and I was only charged for one math and one physics book. So where did the other one come from? Because now I definitely have two differential equations textbooks, and very soon I will have two physics textbooks as well, when the one that Seth sent arrives in a couple days. Aaack! What am I supposed to do with them all?!!!!

I also got more Chinese herbs in the mail from Mom. Yay for Chinese herbs! I'm feeling much much better now -- I woke up this morning feeling more normal than I have for a week, so I think I might actually make it through school today (though I'm not looking forward to my physics test). Got to get back to homework!
# posted by Lacey 10:38 AM