It really is all about me, me, me

I first saw this when Daphnewood did it. Then, Etchen did it. They are both fabulous women, and whatever they do, I want to do too. So, kindly click here (http://kevan.org/johari?name=kimananda), and let me know what you really think about me, me, me. Thank you!

*image source: http://www3.tltc.ttu.edu/

32 happy birthday wishes

I dag er det Thors fødselsdag
hurra hurra hurra.
Han sikkert sig en gave får
som han har ønsket sig i år,
med dejlig chokolade og kage til.

(Today is Thor's birthday,
hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.
He'll certainly get a gift
that he's wanted for a year,
along with lovely chocolate and cake.)

*play-doh cake, courtesy http://www.cookiepots.com/. Lack of actual singing courtesy of me!

A day in the life of a Danish bicycle

This past Monday was the official opening of my own personal bicycle season, by which I mean it is warm enough (barely) that I don't have the excuse of winter weather to convince me to take the train or the bus. The star of this season is, of course, my bicycle, which is also one of my most prized possessions. I would like to honor her - yes, her, as she is clearly a 'dame cykel' (lady bike) - by sharing the events of a typical day in her life, yesterday. The following is what I imagine she would be thinking, if she did that sort of thing. And for all I know, she does.


8:35 I have just been rescued from the cellar where I live. A lot of my neighbors never get out, and sometimes I worry that I'll never leave either. The good thing is that, when I do get out, I usually get to go somewhere far away...at least an hour, usually more. Today's journey should be an hour and 15 minutes, but will probably be longer. Serves my owner right for not taking me out more; it'll be a while before I can go faster (not fast though...my owner is always very slow). The bad side is that most of the places I go are nice enough, but the way there is usually on side roads along highways or on ring roads, so I don't see much in the way of natural beauty.


10:00 Well, the ride was o.k. and not too much longer than normal. There are still not too many of us on the roads because of the weather and the time of day. There aren't so many of us parked here either, but a lot of students live in dormitories which are within walking distance.


16:05 A bicycle's life is all about waiting. What was my owner doing in that building anyway? Couldn't she see that it was snowing? Didn't she think about me...I could have rusted! Anyway, I've just gone from school to the main library, through Christianshavn; my siteseeing for the day. I spend an awful lot of time parked in front of libraries, though I would think that taking me places is much more fun than books. I think I've seen some of these bikes before, but I can't be sure.


16:50 Now, I'm in Nørrebro, where my owner has Danish lessons...does that woman do anything other than study? There used to be a nice courtyard with lovely bike racks, but there's some construction going on. So I'm in the passageway to the courtyard. I'm in a prime position because we're here a bit early, but I guarantee you that I'll have six other bikes resting on me by the end of the evening.

20:15 Hey, my owner is out of class already. Something about finishing a practice exam early...so, amazingly, there are some things she does fast. I'm all set to ride home, but can you believe she's forgotten my lights? I'll bet on purpose. I think she should just ride illegally, but I know she won't. Now, she's actually going to walk with me to the train station, can you believe that? What an indignity!


20:45 The shame! I can hardly speak. There were no trains on the first line, so she decided to take the replacement bus. Bikes just don't go on buses; it's not allowed, and not done. She put me on the bus anyway, and then had a big discussion with the driver about whether we could stay, and how was she supposed to get home otherwise (while I was thinking, what about me...duh!). The driver talked about how it's her own responsibility to have lights, and how the space I was occupying was specifically for prams and very old people. And then...he let us stay. So embarassing...like maybe I couldn't do my job or something. Now we're on the train. I am on trains a lot, along with lots of other bikes. It's a sad fact of life that Danes ride bikes, but normally not for very long distances...anything over a half an hour away is seen as pretty far. So, maybe I should be glad that I get ridden at all, seeing as I live way out in the 'burbs.


21:05 Home sweet home. I was one of the very few bikes in my cellar to go out today, and I can feel a bit of envy from some of my neighbors - only some of them...others are not so well, and prefer to stay inside. This is the second day in a row where I've had some action, and I hope it lasts. I wonder where I'll get to go tomorrow?

Here be dragons

The cross stitch dragon: I can go years without stitching anything, and then again I have phases where I stitch prolifically. Denmark seems to set off the prolific phases. When I'm truly into a project, I can easily spend hours and hours on it every day for weeks at a time. This one is from a Teresa Wentzler pattern, and I actually stitched it twice. Not one after the other, but at the same time, switching after each small section or sub-section. One late evening, after a day of stitching, and perhaps a glass of wine too many, it suddenly hit me that one dragon was named Fred, and the other one Clive. I of course quickly stitched their names on them, so that I wouldn't get them confused. The one in these photos is Clive. Fred was a birthday present for my brother, by which I mean that I showed him what it would look like on one birthday, started stitching soon thereafter, had it done a few months after that, and then framed it and gave the finished product to him for the following birthday.

The wooden dragon: we saw lots of 'do it yourself' wooden model kits when we were in China, but didn't buy any. I suppose we just didn't think we'd put them together, or if we did, then what would we do with them? Then, we saw them again in Prague, and bought loads for all the children in Thor's family, and one for Thor. Putting it together was a mess, until I realized that the instructions were in many cases wrong, and then it became fairly easy. The painting was a bit of a bore, so I let Thor do it, just disassembling dragon sections for him to do, and then reassembling them after they were dry. Now, we're both mad to get more, but haven't found them anywhere near us. So, it's high on our shopping list for whenever we find them.

An elegy to the past, cancelled

Yes, it's true. I'm starting afresh, totally against my will. The event which triggered this? I went today and picked up my new passport. I'm gutted...well, that's an exaggeration, but I am horribly disappointed with this new, shiny, crisp, thin, empty identity document.

This is my third passport. My first one I wasn't ever that attached to, even though I made my first overseas trip with it (to Paris), and became an ex-pat with it (to Lisbon). But my second passport, ah, it was my eternal companion. We had adventures together. It brought me amusement; it brought me annoyance. I adored it. As an exercise in total self-centeredness, I would like to share a few selected memories, fond and otherwise, with you.

1) A story of beginnings. I used to be early. Really early, for everything. Then I got to Portugal, and found that not everyone was as prompt as I was. So, in order to evolve, I determined to be, no not late, but not so early. This is why, when I realized half-way to the bus station that I had forgotten my passport, I didn't really have time to go back and get it. Which wouldn't have been a problem except that the bus was to take me to visit a friend in Switzerland. In the end, I brazened it out, and made it past passport control on the border from Spain into France (not a problem as I wasn't stopping there anyway), and from France into Switzerland (I presented my California i.d., which got me a rather scathing 'you come to Switzerland with your...driver's...license?!', but which also got me into the country).

Then, I started to worry. On the return journey, I was to arrive back in Lisbon just a few short hours before having to go back to work. Any passport related delays would be very bad. So, I made a day trip to the consulate in Bern (this was the day after my friend and I made a trip to the consulate in Zurich...to find that it no longer existed) to get a new one. At the consulate, the guard at the entrance told me, 'You can't get into Switzerland without a passport.' Then the woman behind the window counter told me, 'You can't get into Switzerland without a passport.' She had more to say:

Counter woman: We cannot issue you with a temporary passport. You should have brought yours with you.
Me: I didn't leave it on purpose. But in any case, I don't have it, so what should I do?
CW: Well, you'll have to get someone to send it to you.
Me: But I'm only here for a couple more days.
CW: Well, then you should have thought of this before.

This is the condensed version. At some point, I decided to give up gracefully and just leave, as I clearly wasn't getting anywhere.

CW: But you can't travel without a passport!
Me: Well, I got here without one, didn't I? So, I'll just have to go back without one.
CW: Wait a minute. Please fill out this form, while I check with a consular officer.

The consular officer was friendly and chatty...'Oh, so you live in Lisbon? Great city, Lisbon,' etc. I got to present some passport photos, pay some money, wait around a while and show proof that I was me (the driver's license, of course). And then I got my genuine Swiss-issued U.S. passport. The old-fashioned kind with the number stamped onto the front. As I couldn't prove my citizenship without my old passport, the new one was only valid for one year. When I got back to Lisbon, I went to the embassy there with both passports, had the old one cancelled, and the new one extended to the full ten-year term.

And, for what it's worth, I encountered not one single passport check on my way back from Switzerland.

2) A story of amusement. My passport's humble beginnings provided a good test of who's really paying attention to what they should be paying attention to. This because instead of the expiration date on the main information page, there was a 'see page' reference, to guide the reader to the extended date. No, actually two 'see page' references, the first for the original 1-year limit, which was crossed out and replaced with the reference for the extended limit. It's scary how many airport personnel and customs and immigration personnel clearly didn't look. Even more amusing are all the people who couldn't seem to figure out where to find the expiration. At some point right before moving to Denmark, I had to have extra pages put in...you'll of course kindly ignore the fact that 90% of the stamps that had filled up the original pages were from Lisbon, London or Copenhagen, and just think of me as a world traveller, yes? Thank you! Anyway, the extra pages were put in so that they cut off the page with the new expiration from the back where only the old expiration page could be seen. I have gotten such great quirky joy out of trying to guide middle-aged men behind glass in airports to where they could find that magical date...'no, it's not expired, the new date is on page 22...no, not so far forward...it's before the extra pages...no, no, the page before that....'

3) A story of annoyance. As my passport was issued same-day, it is not the usual cookie cutter format. It's what I believe is called a 'foreign issued' passport, which I'm not sure is done anymore, or maybe just for cases like mine. This was never a problem...except when I went to open a bank account when I first got to London. Apparently, it's difficult to do this in England, especially if you've just arrived and haven't set up residence yet. I could only go to one bank, because I had a letter from my new employer to that one bank (and in fact to that one branch of that one bank). Everything was done, and I was ready to move money into the account...and then my bank advisor made one final telephone call, about my passport. Not to check on me, but to check on the format of the thing. His end of the conversation included things like, 'no, the information is on the third page...typed...the photo is underneath, on page four'. After the call, he turned to me and said, 'I'm sorry, but we can't proceed because we are unable to verify your passport.' Excuse me? His final words (final because I couldn't stand to hear anymore): 'We're not saying that it's not a real passport, because it probably is.' In the end, I went in with my driver's license...well, it worked in Switzerland, didn't it...and made the very logical case that 'If I can't open a bank account, then where am I supposed to put my money?', which quite worryingly seemed to impress the person helping me...but got me special bank manager approval to open an account.

And now, it's time to start anew. I don't want to. I want to keep my old passport, and add more and more pages to it until it no longer fits in my carry-on luggage. But of course that's not possible. So, my new task is how to bond with this thing, which is so fresh it really appears fake to me. The bottom line is, it's time to travel. I've set my plans for the summer (July studying in Lisbon, and most of August travelling in the Sichuan region of China), but that's too long to wait. To anyone reading this, be prepared, I may show up on your doorstep at any time, ready to show off my first stamp in my new passport.

image credit: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Image:Gov-us_passport.jpg

This post is all about your blog...yes, yours

Whenever I look at your blog...yes, yours...oh, yes, and also yours...and of course yours, lots of questions come into my head. Mostly, I want to know how you can be so imaginative, insightful, and sometimes, just so plain cool. But that's not all I want to know. In fact I am very curious about every aspect of your amazing blog. So I have decided to share my curiosity with you, and ask all of the specific things that I wonder about, in hopes of finding out what makes your blog work the way it does. You can think of it, if you want, as a blog meme about your blog. To get it all started, I'll answer the questions for my blog as I ask them about yours.

1) Why and how did you start your blog? I had the thought of starting a blog for several months before I actually started it. What got me to finally do it was when my friend James started his, and I could then see how easy it was to start a blog on blogger, and how interesting his posts were. I'm not sure why I wanted to do it at first. Perhaps just to see if I could keep it going.

2) If you have a special 'nom de blog', how did you choose it? A long time ago, I made a lesson plan for examining the use of 'will' for predictions, based on fortune-telling. The build-up involved a bit of fake hype about how I put myself through college by foretelling the future, where I was known as Kimananda. Swami Kimananda. I would then produce my original business sign, to be used as material for one of the lesson activities. 'Swami Kimananda's House of Fortunes'; catchy slogan, 'The Swami is in'. I then used the sign to work under when giving tarot readings at the odd party or two. And, when it came time to get my first web-based e-mail address, all my original ideas for names being taken, I ended up choosing Kimananda. So, basically, something originally quite inconsequential has defined my internet identity, probably for life. I don't mind.

3) How did you come up with the name for your blog? Same as above, basically, except for the 's' at the end. The emphasis behind my blog 'house' is more on 'fortune' in the larger sense of good luck and blessings, rather than on individual 'fortunes' or fortunetelling. And of course I'm not really a Swami, so that had to go, also.

4) What things do you tend to blog about the most, and why? Like many, I suppose, I blog mostly about myself. Where I am, where I travel to, any events which happen. Occasionally, I'll do a meme or, less often, a quiz. My ideal is to find things in my life that will have some applicability to others. Sometimes I achieve that; other times, it's just me, me, me.

5) Are there subjects you'd like to blog about, but don't, and if so, what is stopping you? I'd like to have more visuals in my blog, but don't take the time to take more pictures, or to work on the quality of them. I'd like to look more at the outside world, but at this point in my life, I'm simply more inspired to write about the personal things.

6) How do you organize your blogroll/links? I used to have blog links in the order in which I found them. Then, I decided to play around with them, and put people who hadn't posted in a long time at the bottom. I was very unhappy with the result of this. But, I was equally unhappy with the idea of alphabetical order, or reverse alphabetical order, as both seemed somehow not balanced. My compromise solution, which I have now, and which is very workable, is my brother comes first (as of course he should), and then everyone else I link to in alphabetical order by blog name.

7) How do you feel about the design of your blog? Are there any changes you'd like to make to it? I've been quite dissatisfied with my blog layout for a long time. It's far too messy, and generally aesthetically unappealing. I'm working my way up to getting my own domain name, and will then probably re-design the whole thing with a different software package. However, I've been saying this for several months now, so don't hold your breath, or you will turn blue and then faint, and that's not healthy. I'll make it very clear and public when/if the move occurs.

8) How often do you post new entries on your blog? Would you like to post more (or less) often? I aim to post every other day or so, but that doesn't happen too often. Maybe once or twice a week is closer to the truth. So, I suppose I would like to post a bit more often.

9) How often do you read and/or comment on other blogs? How do you find new blogs to read? Anyone on my blog roll who uses a stat program knows my answer to this one already. I visit everyone I read compulsively whenever I'm in my blog, which is to say whenever I'm online, which can sometimes be a lot. I try to comment on anything I find interesting, and/or anything where I feel I have something to say. I like looking at blogs which are linked on blogs which I read already, but I find the 'next blog' button to be a procrastinator's best friend, and I've found some amazing stuff that way, too. Then too, I will often comment, but as a rule I don't comment just for the sake of it.

10) Have you done anything special to get others to read and/or comment on your blog? I don't think so. However, I of course am thrilled when someone I visit pays me a return visit, especially someone I've just found for the first time.

So, if this can be considered a meme, then if you're reading this, then consider yourself tagged! Please let me know if you take this one up. I am really, genuinely interested in hearing all about you and your blog!

How to find work if you're me

As many of you know, I'm an English teacher. I'm well trained, and have years of experience. I've never, never, never had problems getting work in my chosen profession in any country I've lived in. Until I moved to Denmark. The English teaching market here is not conducive to steady employment; there are dozens of tiny schools, none of which are able to commit to giving anything beyond freelance hours. I'm sure it's the same in lots of other places, actually; I've just always been lucky enough before to find a school which could give me the hours I wanted whenever I wanted for as long as I wanted. I am fully aware that those days are gone.

The problem is that, since I don't have much practice at pounding the pavement looking for work, I'm also not very good at it. I'd rather do just about anything than write cover letters. And I like being able to concentrate on studying, studying Danish, and, of course, blogging. So, the issue is purely my own. If schools want me, then they should just call me out of the blue and offer me work. I shouldn't have to actually go and look for it. Yes, with that attitude, it's no wonder that I'm not getting enough hours. Especially since, when I have applied for things here, I have generally gotten a lot of interviews, and then job offers. Making it a question of motivation. Because belief that I will stumble upon teaching isn't generally enough by itself.

Except, a few hours ago, I received a phone call from a school offering me work. A school that I actually interviewed with in October or November, but wasn't able to do the work they offered me then for scheduling reasons. I had seen that they have put ads out again, and had actually thought about sending them an e-mail...but hadn't, and probably wouldn't have. They need a teacher to start on Monday. Freelance of course, not too many hours, but that kind of thing tends to lead to other things. And they have upped the money they're offering, and will pay for me to take a taxi to the lessons. I've never gotten taxi money before, ever. It's quite exciting in an 'I'm poor enough so that taking a taxi in Denmark is exciting to me' way. Of course I said yes (I said yes even before the taxi part, actually). And I'm feeling very motivated about the class itself.

So, the question is, does this mean that I'm really not a deadbeat who can't be asked to look for more work to help her financially suffering boyfriend who has to pay more than his share of the bills because his girlfriend is a deadbeat? Might I be inspired to go forth and find more schools to give me work, 2 hours here, 2 hours there, until my schedule is fully booked? So that I soon have nothing to write about in this blog except about course material that I have used, and funny things that my students have said? (My answers: I'm not sure. I hope so. I certainly hope not!)

The mystery of blogging, for me

The internet vs. procrastination. Is it really a contest, this one? The internet is an addiction, and the time I spend surfing is often time that I could be spending doing something more fun, or more useful, or more meaningful, or more something else which is better for me. Except when it isn't a waste of time. The mystic power of the net has also enabled me to keep to one thing which I have never successfully been able to do consistently before off-line. Writing.

Specifically, I've always kept diaries or journals, ever since I can remember. Ever since I knew what a diary was. Or rather, I have always started them, kept them for a few days, maybe a week or so, and then given them up. I have the remains of a lot of them somewhere. The first few pages torn from a variety of different notebooks, of different shapes, sizes, colors. The longest stretches are from times when I've travelled alone...not having a steady conversation companion, my journal becomes that companion. But I've never been able to keep it going. When I started this blog, I predicted that it would last about a month, or less, and then I'd just never get around to posting anything else, and that would be that. However, that doesn't seem to be happening. When there's a gap (like in December/January due to school commitments), I look forward to getting back into it, and then I do. And I can't quite figure out why. But I have theories, of course:

1) Having readers. This is the obvious reason. I can remember the thrill of my first comment. And especially the thrill of my first comment from someone I'd never met. And I like the idea of having 'regulars' (and of course it's nice to be a regular for others as well). But, it's double-edged. Once I started getting comments, I went through a phase where I would get a bit down if I didn't get any comments. It was like the 8th grade all over again, and wanting to be one of the popular people. And I don't feel that is enough by itself to keep me coming back for more.

2) Having an audience. This is not the same as having readers. Generally, the key unifying feature of all non-academic writing I've done is that no one ever reads it. Here, it's public, which of course changes everything. Although I don't think about it too overtly, I do assume that anyone can and does read what I write in my blog. Both my parents read it (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!). My brother reads it (Hi Bro!). Some very good friends read it. I don't think my bosses read it, but they could do. I don't think any of my students, former or current, read it, but they could do. This steers my thinking quite a bit. Though I'm still clearly me in these posts, I'm me the writer, rather than me the diary keeper. Or diary not-keeper, to be more precise. Just as well really, as me the diary keeper has never written long enough to really develop much of a style.

3) Being part of a community. After a while, circles are clearly formed, and some visitors become virtual friends. At this stage in my life, when none of my closest friends are anywhere near me geographically, maybe I have more of a need for this. But I don't think so. One thing that I didn't expect, but should have, is that I am just as bad at corresponding off-blog with people I know through blogging as I am at corresponding in general...those old friends who are reading this now, you're doing it because it's the only way to hear about what I'm doing, isn't it? This is of course a rhetorical question.

4) Being on the internet. As Thor said to me just now, 'you're addicted. If you could clean the house on the internet, you'd do it'. He does have a definite point, but there must be more to it than that (I hope).

5) Presentation. I didn't know anything about HTML when I set up the blog, and know very little about it now, but have had great fun playing with my template. When I feel the blog is too ugly (like now, for instance), I can find ways to change it. The image needs content, and the content needs image. Maybe it's the whole package which attracts me and holds my interest.

The overall results of my theorizing are inconclusive, which is perhaps the way it should be. Blogging is a mystery, but if it keeps me writing, then I'm not complaining.