In high spirits

Let me say first of all, that I am but rarely in a condition which may be described as high spirits. (That´s probably because my fits of depression are much more pronounced than those of mania – but I digress.) And this is especially true of this January, with hardly any sunshine and plenty of work.

This particularly unpleasant period culminated last weekend with my first ever presentation at a linguistic conference. I was very much a zombie Saturday evening when I´d come home. And compared with that, Sunday probably could be characterized by the above-mentioned phrase…

However, as the day went on my throat seemed to be getting a bit sore, which is usually not good news. As I can´t really afford to be ill right now (having to catch up on the work I wasn´t able to do because of this other work I was doing), I decided to resort to a different kind of spirits, more particularly this kind of local plum brandy with an extremely high alcohol content and unbelievable medical properties. And it worked! No more sore throat, plus we had an interesting evening at home.

I can´t say I don´t understand how people become addicts.

Where have all the ducks gone

Last weekend we went for a walk into the park. There are plenty of ducks on the ponds there, so we always take some bread to feed them. Only this time… the ducks were gone.

All the ponds were completely frozen, so I guess it would be quite logical to expect the ducks have moved to the river or somewhere else where there´s still some water to swim in (and dogs can´t get at you by simply walking across the ice). But in that case, who´s left all those footprints in the snow? Did they have a party while deciding where to go to?  Or do the ducks come back regularly to check the situation? I wonder.

Dancing till midnight

After a break of several years, there was another Irish dance in the city last night. We were really looking forward to it, as we have fond memories of the dances we used to go to then (actually, it was before we got married, so it must have been like six years ago). The venue was quite far from the center, but otherwise it was just as great as ever.

Actually, I got the impression that we got to do more dancing than used to be the case, starting before 8 and finishing at 11, with very short breaks. There were plenty of reels and a jig and some polkas, and even a waltz at the end – I had no idea that was included in Irish dancing too. But it was a good thing, as we were nearly dead by that time, so I´m sure nobody minded slowing down a bit.

I´m afraid walking down the stairs might be a bit of a problem now… But we´ll definitely try and come for St Patrick´s.

Perfectly frozen

This year, the winter here has obviously decided to have its say in the debate about global warming. The snow which fell just after Christmas is still there, only it half thawed earlier and is now frozen rock hard. I was also beginning to have my doubts about whether the sun actually still existed, but it showed up today (probably just to disappear for another month or so).

Anyway, I went out on Sunday, when the sky was moderately less grey than usual, and took some pictures of… well ice and other frozen things. Mostly plants, I think. (Although the last picture seems to resemble something my husband calls the Great Cthulhu.)

Teaching an old guinea-pig…

Of course, you can´t teach an old dog new tricks. And as we have discovered, nor can you teach an old guinea-pig. However, that doesn´t mean that an old guinea-pig can´t actually learn something…

Mr Plinge is now 6 1/2, so he´s pretty old. And we´ve never been able to teach him anything really – in all that time he hasn´t even figured out that I don´t want to kill him, hurt him, or take away his food when I´m feeding him. He was the one in control, so it wouldn´t do for me to touch him. He learned to tell when I was going to clean the cage and jumped out and then in again himself.

But as Mr Plinge had a stroke this Christmas, he´s no longer able to jump because his hind legs haven´t fully recovered. The vet told us we should make sure he isn´t too stressed (the guinea-pig, that is), so Plinge panicking every time someone tried to pick him up didn´t seem very good. But as soon as he determined that we´re not taking him to the vet for injections any more, he started to learn. Very quickly.

So this week when he´s sitting outside and he can see the cage has been cleaned, he not only steps on my hand when I put it in front of him and lets hinself be carried home – he will lift his nose and his paws to show me that he´s waiting and I´m taking too long to fulfil my duty…

Life is full of surprises.

Exams from the other side

If you´re a student then the exam period isn´t usually very popular, because there´s a lot of work (especially for those who did no work during the whole semester) crammed into a very short time period. On the other hand, when you´re a teacher peopl tend to think the exam period is a kind of holiday.

Well, it isn´t – or at least not always and not everywhere. We ´re actually required to go to work as often as during the semester, and twenty students a week who need to write a test and then be examined (which means you should spend about twenty minutes actually talking to them) do take up quite some time.

Not to mention the fraying of nerves and general exhaustion.

Believe me, a couple of students trying to persuade you that you´re going to destroy their lives and make them unhappy till the end of their days if you do what you think is right (and fail them because they just don´t deserve any better, as compared with the majority who tried hard enough to more or less pass) will make you very exhausted.

Exams seen from the other side are not much better.

Snow on the water

We´ve been snowed under for a week now and it looks like nothing much is going to change soon, and they say we haven´t had so much snow in several decades. I went for a walk last weekend when the snow was still fresh to take some pictures. Unfortunately, the sky is overcast all the time, so the landscapes look kind of gray. But you can´t see it in these photos.

Seen from the outside

It´s funny how you don´t usually realize that yourself as perceived by yourself is not the same thing (or person) seen by the others. Sometimes it can be rather unpleasant when you suddenly find out, as people tend to tell other people what they think about them only when they´re somehow pushed to do it. I was reminded of this earlier this week, but fortunately it was a very nice experience.

We were in the changing rooms after my Thursday belly-dancing lesson. Most people had already left, as it always takes me a long time to change (no idea why, really). Suddenly, one of the remaining ladies told me how well I could do the choreography we´re learning. Really, she said, I´ve watched you before, you´re very good.

Now, one thing that is definitely true about myself is that I´m not particularly talented in any way regarding sports or dancing. The movements have never come naturally to me, and I need to study them first and process for some time and then I can try to copy them.  Admittedly, we´re doing a saidi dance now, which is not very feminine, so maybe this is not as apparent as might otherwise be the case. I certainly do remember all the steps and movement once I´ve learned them. Also, I ´ve done belly dancing before.

Of course I explained all this to the lady, but she repeated her opinion on me and complained that she could never do it like that. At this point, another girl came in and overhearing the last remark she started to persuade the lady that she was wrong and she could dance well enough too. The whole situation got rather funny at this point. We concluded by saying that the important thing was whether one enjoyed the experience.

The lady and I were ready to leave at the same time, so we continued to talk as we were leaving the building. She asked me what I do for living. When she heard I am a language teacher at university, she said, Oh that´ll be it. I´ve been wondering. There´s this kind of self-confidence I can see in you… I guess I gave a laugh at hearing this, which prompted her to specify that it wasn´t like over-assertiveness or something, just a quiet, calm self-confidence thing.

All right. One thing I´ve never really had, apart from a talent for dancing, would be a lot of self-confidence. So my first thought was, I must be a damn good actress! But then I thought that I have changed a bit in the past few years, so maybe there is something that could be interpreted as self-confidence. I certainly feel more content with myself than I used to.

It´s just that up till now I´ve never realized this could be seen or sensed by other people. But this particular instance made me quite happy.

(Not) getting things done

This winter doesn´t seem a good time for me to get things done. Or at least, the things I planned to do, because I seem to be doing something most of the time.

The most important thing I wanted to do over Christmas was preparing a presentation for the February conference. And what I did do was this:

First I was ill. The second week of the holidays, the guinea-pig was ill. But I managed to finalize all the materials about my grant project, prepare the exams for January, and even write the required report about the grant project. And then, suddenly,  it was January…

So, this week I spent Monday and Tuesday examining students. I decided to start writing the presentation on Wednesday, but I ended up correcting the grant report. In the evening I got a phone call asking if I could make some changes to the documents I´d prepared for another university where I might get a job next year. So on Thursday I tried to do that.

Which means that now it´s Friday morning and I still haven´t started working on the presentation. In fact, I´m sitting here writing this post instead of doing something useful. Oh my. What a year this is going to be.

City sunrise

Just before the end of the year, we took advantage of a rare clear morning and went to the park to take some pictures at sunrise. The park is north-west of the city, so there will always be some buildings interfering if you want to photograph the sunrise. But this time it didn´t look all that bad I think.