Leap Day Overachieving

First, let me wish you all a happy and healthy Leap Day. A day which, on the one hand is just another day, but on the other hand, is really special.

A day for us to wish it was our birthday...I think it would be cool to be turning 10 today!
A day for women to propose to their men (I'm not necessarily planning to propose, but it's an interesting thought!)
A day for flouting convention, and posting on the Blog365 day of rest (well, I can't be following all the rules totally to the letter, that would be boring).

I declare it a day of celebrating, as a symbol of regularity and of rarity. A day to go out and feast, or otherwise commemorate. And then to flog convention by blogging about what you did.

*Photo credit: http://www.brassdragon.biz/*

No time to blog today

Earlier today, for the first time ever, when I poke and prod in the right places, she sometimes moves and kicks back. Really, that has to take top priority, I'm sure you'll agree. Think baby massage, done on-site (in a manner of speaking). I truly think that I could spend all day doing this (though it hasn't yet actually kept me from, for example, going to work, or eating, or sleeping).

At some point several months ago, after reading far too much about all stages of pregnancy, until it all became unbearably repetitive, I bemoaned to my brother that with pregnancy, I'd finally found something that I couldn't just read about, but that I would actually have to experience. At that point, not much was happening, and experiencing didn't seem so attractive (My brother's advice? 'Then write.' Very insightful advice giver, my bro). But now, I'm beginning to find this whole experiencing thing to be really worthwhile, seductive. Makes me want to go on to experience other things, next. Any suggestions? Other than the obvious one of experiencing the baby (I'm very much looking forward to that one).

One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days, which never seem to end? Where you leave for work early in the morning, and don't come back until 14 hours later. If you have, then you have my sympathy, and if you haven't, then you have my envy.

Have you ever had one of those days where you find that you can no longer bear to see your own reflection, because you are so enormously, gigantically, hugely big in comparison to what you normally look like? If you have, then congratulations, you must be pregnant, and if you haven't, then you have my envy.

Have you ever had one of those days where life is so full of possibility, but you cannot imagine taking advantage of any of it, because your days never seem to end, and you know everything will change soon anyway, and all the possibilities will become other possibilities?

Not that any of this will necessarily be true for me, tomorrow, but it just seems relevant to ask today.

Those who can't do, teach?

A minor event that's gotten me thinking, and then taking 15 minutes or so of that thinking to blog about. So that I can feel both deep and shallow at the same time...

In my pregnancy yoga class today, we were guided into doing something that involved standing with our feet pretty close together (not touching, but almost)...and then bending over and letting our upper bodies relax. As we all did this, and I (and the others who are due relatively soon) all seemed to emit sounds of discomfort at the same time, the teacher suddenly said, 'wait a minute, I forgot...you all have bumps! Of course you can't do this with your feet so close together, you have bumps!' Now, seeing that this is a pregnancy yoga class, you'd think it would be obvious. Actually it was quite amusing. The yoga teacher did then talk about preparing classes by trying out the yoga moves with a football underneath her shirt, which seems pretty sensible to me, but not perhaps the ideal way to go about it.

Which has gotten me thinking about jobs that you can do without having direct life experience of what it is you're working with. Take me for example. I've been teaching English as a foreign language for many, many years (I'd give the exact number, but it's too scary to do the math...well over a decade, I'll admit to that much). For the first couple years, I was firmly monolingual. Not that I'd never studied a foreign language, but just that I'd never gotten to where I could do anything in any of them. Actually, the number of languages that I've studied is really quite impressive, but the number that I can actually use in a meaningful way? Two. Which corresponds directly to the number of countries where I have lived in in which the main language of that country is not English.

The question is, is it so vital to have 'lived' the job you do? There must be single marriage counselors out there, for example. I am undecided about this. Am I a better teacher now that I'm trilingual rather than monolingual? I am a better teacher, to be sure, just because I have done it for longer, and developed more confidence and greater skill. I'd like to think that the languages help, but I couldn't say that they're necessary. And I really like my yoga teacher, and don't feel that she would be better if she had given birth before...but of course if she experiences pregnancy later, then her teaching may well become more nuanced as a result.

What is your opinion? And are you in a job which can serve as an example of what it is I'm on about here? Or better yet, a counter example?

The restaurant beyond the end of the universe

From the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. As delineated by Douglas Adams.

It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian 'chinanto/mnigs' which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan 'tzjin-anthony-ks' which kill cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.

What can be made of this fact? It exists in total isolation. As far as any theory of structural linguistics is concerned it is right off the graph, and yet it persists. Old structural linguists get very angry when young structural linguists go on about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to something of profound inportance, and end up becoming old structural linguists before their time, getting very angry with the young ones. Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.

From the restaurant beyond the end of the universe. As experienced by Thor, in (actual reconstructed) conversation with a server in a cafe/bar/pancake restaurant in Amsterdam:

Server: Can I get you anything to drink?
Thor: Yes, I'd like a gin and tonic.
Server: (looking a bit confused) A what?
Thor: A gin and tonic.
Server: Oh, a gin.
Thor: Yes. And tonic.
Server: (looking more confused) Gin and...?
Thor: Tonic.
Server: (looking a slight bit alarmed) Oh. I'm not sure we have that.
Thor: Well...maybe I'll just have a beer then.

39x365 #12: Boy sitting next to me in geometry

You seemed nice enough. Only when you signed my yearbook did I realize that you clearly thought I was something special. I was too young to be interested, but flattered. I never noticed you outside of geometry class ever.

39x365 #11: Barney

When I was a child, you would follow me everywhere. One day, I decided to ignore you, to see what would happen. You were concerned, then upset, then seemed to lose interest in me. This I found quite traumatic.

Apple for the teacher

There are some days, quite regular days, where it occurs to me that I really am a teacher. That after however many years of being in classrooms, something has become an integral part of me.

There are other days, not so many in this case, where it occurs to me that everyone is a teacher. And of course a student. That we are all together, and interacting together, so that we may teach, and so we may learn.

To that end, please take an apple. You deserve it, and they're very good.

Life after the internet? Or without the internet?

Once, to make a point which I no longer remember, I asked a class to envisage the world after the internet. The world is forever in a state of change, technology is always being replaced and renewed, so what thing or things would we be using to do what we do today on the internet? I've set the same question to other groups since then, and now I'm asking you.

And I realize that it's an unanswerable question, insofar as anyone tackling this issue has first to come up with a specific and workable definition of what the internet actually is. My own thoughts would be that because the internet does seem to be remarkably fluid entity, it will be changing, and is changing, while still being seen as the same by those who use it. But at some point, there could well be something really, totally, obviously different that comes along and takes over, at which point, my powers of prognosis melt down. But what do you envision?

On a related note, the above photo comes from here, and asks a somewhat related question, namely could there be an internet-free day, where no one on the planet used the internet. On a general level, then it could all become quite complicated, and once again would require a good amount of defining terms first...would it include intranets, to give just one obvious example? On an individual level, I think that to some extent it could work, but only to the extent that, for example, there can be (and is) a regularly occurring music-free day. Which is to say, that it's a nice idea, but just because it exists doesn't mean that everyone knows about it, or that all who know about it would follow it. I'd certainly consider turning off my number one addiction for a day, as much as it's feasible and possible to do so...though probably not until after finishing Blog365! Would you consider such a radical act? Could you survive an internet-free day?

Just a simple suggestion

Something I would recommend to anyone: pick a time in your life when you have no reason or need to find a job, or another job than the one you already have. Then, find a job which it would be cool to have anyway, apply for it, and then go on a job interview.

You won't need to worry about how to impress the company, because the stakes are not unrealistically high. You can just answer honestly and be yourself. In this case, it was a preliminary 'getting to know you' type of affair, and I had a great time not disguising any of my weaknesses, and conversely, doing my very best to play up my strengths. It was great fun.

And the best part of all is that it would actually be cool to get the job. It's a really interesting one. This is equal to the fact that whether I get the job or not, I'll be going on leave at the same time anyway. I know it sounds a bit kooky, but I highly recommend it.

39x365 #10: Steven the rocking horse

A keynote of my childhood since infancy, every part of you has been broken, then fixed. Now in darkness, you will soon leave your shed and immigrate to Denmark, to play an equally important role for the next generation.

True bliss...

...is when you can't make it for dinner because of work, but arrive after dinner to find that the host has cooked for you anyway, and heats it up for you. And it's delicious.

And then, just when it seems it can't get any better, you get dessert.

6 things, or better late than never

A long time ago, I came up with this post, in preparation to doing this meme (for which I was tagged by the inimitable Devil Mood). Then, I forgot all about the meme. Silly me.

So, according to the rules, I'm supposed to:

- Link to the person that tagged you.
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Because I'm increasingly obsessed (and because that's what the photos in the previous post referred to), the theme is babies. Both preparation for babies and metaphoric babies.

1) Preparation: I have finally found my pregnancy craving. Milk. I prefer skim, or better yet, mainly skim milk with just a splash or two of chocolate milk mixed in. I don't really put enough in to add too much chocolate flavor, but it gives a bit of interest anyway, and a slightly richer color. The craving comes and goes, but has been a relative constant for a few weeks now. This would go with the first photo in that other post.

2) Metaphoric: There is so much going on in my life at the moment, which I don't blog about. For example, Tristino, my PhD proposal in training/quasi-metaphorical baby. Working on a proposal is like running a marathon through hip-high mud. I'm not sure how far I'm getting, but it seems to be coming together despite all my distractions and procrastinations. All I need to do is to get my research idea, a very abbreviated literature review, a project timeline, and a short reference list together...in no more than 5 A4 pages. In February. I'm being cautiously optimistic that I will actually achieve this. This would go with the second photo, of the bound dissertations.

3) Preparation: I have been hearing about women in about the same stage of pregnancy as I am who have had their babies already. This is far too early to be having a baby, but the babies seem to be surviving (though not without a stretch in intensive care). This is reassuring (if I gave birth now, she'd most likely survive) and frightening (there are people who give birth really really early) at the same time.

4) Metaphoric: Questions which I should be thinking about and researching, but instead I am blogging: What is everyday life, and how does internet use intersect with that? How is the internet like a city, and how is it different? How far can such metaphors be practically applied in research, and what kind of methodology would be useful for exploring such questions? How can I effectively explore any of this in 5 A4 pages?

5) Preparation: I now know why pregnant women bump into things, spill food on themselves while eating, get soaking wet while washing the dishes. It's all body image, and delusion. Because, while I know on a theoretical level that I'm bigger, I don't feel any bigger. By which I mean, if I stretch my arms out away from my body, close my eyes, and think of how I look, it's clear to me that I'm the same size that I've always been. But of course, I'm really not. Which means that I am starting to bump into things...let's just say that I now reach wherever it is that I'm going a split second before I expect to. The other day, I caught sight of myself in the reflective glass in a picture frame, and though, 'That can't be me. I look pregnant or something!' Evidence given in the photo for this post.

6) More preparation: I had some ideas in mind when I posted the three photos in that earlier post, but now, I can't remember why I posted the photo of the moses basket. Probably I was making a list of things I need to buy. Really, there's not that much that one needs to buy for a baby, leaving me with a much shorter list than I expected. Poor, poor, minimalist baby. But really, I keep looking at suggested shopping lists, and considering all of them, and really, there's not so much that is really needed.

So, who to tag? I'm tagging people from whom I haven't seen any new posts in a while, and I'm only tagging three, as a lot of those I read have done this, or something similar before, in several cases, more than once. Just because I know all three in real life doesn't make me miss their on-line presence any less. This means you, FourLegged, KB, and Gondul.

My last meal revisited

Last Sunday, when I was pondering my last meal, and for some reason not choosing what would actually be my last meal, but instead what my last meal would be assuming that I was under all dietary restriction brought about by being pregnant, and thus not able to eat my preferred last meal, I completely overlooked breakfast.

You may have to read that last sentence over a time or two to really understand what it is I'm trying to say here, or you could just read the executive summary: I forgot breakfast. And what is more comforting, and thus better able to serve as a last meal, than a good breakfast? I am appalled and slightly mortified at the omission.

So, to try and make amends, I hereby present breakfast. Pancakes...I hadn't had pancakes in ages, but my personal chef was willing to revisit this basic culinary art. And inspired by this post, peanut butter hot chocolate.

I just hope that the thought of all that food will distract you from the actual content of this post.

39x365 #9: Erick

I thought you were the coolest. Later, you were my first broken heart, but neither the last nor the biggest. I can’t imagine what I saw in you, but there must have been something appealing to a 17-year old.

Hay, everybody! Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm not sure how I feel about Valentine's Day...but really, any excuse for a bad pun. And any excuse to give and receive presents. It's just like weekiversary a day early. I found these Valentine sweethearts on the island of Møn. It looks to me like they're at the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

10 things that are worrying me at the moment

In no particular order:

1) Gaining weight. As in, 'does this top make my belly look big?' And yes, I know, every top makes my belly look big.

2) Not gaining weight. As in 'does this belly make my baby look small?'

3) Heartburn. It will only get worse. So far, I've only thrown up once...but I worry that number will increase. A lot.

4) Baby moving. Shouldn't she be stronger by now? Isn't she supposed to be getting direct blows to vital organs? Wedging hands and feet in between ribs?

5) Baby not moving. Hey, where are you?! Are you O.K.?!

6) Clothes. My clothes will do for the time being, but my child, who I might point out has not yet been born, already has way more outfits than I do. When you look at the proof in the photo, please consider that this does not include her equally large (and growing) collection of knitted items, compliments of Farmor*.

7) Gestational diabetes. I haven't heard anything about my test for this, and I'd imagine that no news is good news. But for various reasons, this has long been the complication that I least want to get.

8) Loss of brain mass. People keep telling me about how my brain is actually getting smaller because of the pregnancy, as much as 8% smaller. I'm not sure I can afford to lose that much of my brain.

9) Maybe at some point having to go on bedrest. Cause if there's anything that would get me desperate to leave the house, it would be not being able to leave the house.

10) Sleep. For how long will I usually be able to sleep through the night? When, after going from 'pregnant' to 'mom' will I ever sleep again?

Oh, and by the way, worries aside, everything seems to be going quite well!

*Farmor. In English, paternal grandmother; literal translation, 'father mother'. So, Thor's mom.

***10:30ish update to #3: Make that twice. All I can say is, yick!***

39x365 #8: Jacob

About as close as we know to a celebrity, a songwriter of two Dansk Melodi Grand Prix winners. One of your lyrical protagonists wants to 'do the thing that lovers do'. Which leads nicely to ironic speculation and list-making.

Trivia, maybe not so trivial

Well, after a weekend spent doing a lot of socializing, with occasional forays into answering questions (really, I was not nearly as focused as I would have liked to have been), it's all over for another year. We didn't get into the top 3 as we had hoped, but did make it to 4th. Which is still pretty good.

Otherwise, I'm not sure if I'm more tired than normal because of the weekend, or if I'm getting just generally more fatigue from my slowly-growing bulk. I am equally unsure if I'm feeling off because I spent the weekend nibbling junk food, or because I had lots of junk food followed by fasting. In both cases, it's probably a bit of both.

Which is to say, there's not much of a post today. But I had fun applying a black and white filter to this photo. This is trivia in action. It's more action-packed in real life.

My last meal

Not really, but I get to take a glucose test tomorrow morning, and am not to eat or drink anything, not even water, after, oh, less than half an hour from now. It's not so much fasting; I'll be able to eat after the test is over, in about 12 hours. So, why do I feel that I must find something really special to eat as I will never eat again? It's not really my last meal, just my last for today.

But as I feel that way, I suppose I should find something. I'm not really feeling very hungry, and will most likely end up with some fruit and lots of water. If it were really my last meal, I'd probably go for something more elaborate, multi-course, simple yet decadent, maybe something Szechuan? What about you?

39x365 #7: Liv

You possess a dry Minnesotan wit, an amazingly broad knowledge of practically everything, and a deep appreciation for comfort food and celebrity gossip. Despite these many qualities, you will mainly be remembered for introducing me to the trivia weekend.

Sleep is overrated

Agenda for the weekend: all trivia all the time. Last year, our team (we're the Danish wing, the rest are in the trivia area of Minnesota) came in 5th. This year, we're all aiming for a top 3. See more here.

Where to go from here?

A long-standing issue in my life is just an idea, specifically that, once one has made a decision, or chosen a path, then all other paths become blocked off. Along with being a sure recipe for commitment phobia, this idea keeps me in constant search for whichever path might be one which will allow me to also chose other paths. Does that make any sense at all? Perhaps not.

The deal now is that, soon I will have a period of total break from my current reality, communitas time, where I will transition into motherhood. And then, after that transition, I will be able to go on to do, well, anything I'd like really. But what would I like? I realize that I have lots of time to ponder this, but also that the more I dream now, the more I can do to make it all a reality over the next year or so.

If it were you, with a year of transition, what would you want to transition to? And for that matter, what would you do during the year? The wilder, the better. As I hear your dreams, I will also be crystallizing my own possibilities, to be shared when they're a little more fully-formed.

My toothmeat is bleeding.

According to Thor (who has decided that he will stay next to me and watch me until I am in this way nagged into going to bed), I cannot say that my toothmeat is bleeding. But I just did, in writing even. And it's true. My toothmeat is bleeding. A symptom of pregnancy apparently.

Which is to say, I am growing quite fond of this over-literal language that I have been learning for the past few years. Some words which I especially like:

Danish word literally translated/real English translation

breast wart (this is one of the classic examples)/nipple

dust sucker (this is the other classic example)/vacuum cleaner

and of course toothmeat/gums

And don't get me started on farting. By which I mean the Danish word 'fart', which of course means 'speed'. Which is not really so funny...but all the compounds using it are. Like:

fart pilot/cruise control

hyperfart/warp drive (as in the first Star Wars, where Han Solo takes the Millenium Falcon into 'hyper-fart'

fart stripes/racing stripes (as found on the sides of racing cars)

fart control/an area of road with speed measuring devices

Now, if I could think of more, I'd have an excuse to stay up. Not having any more, I'll just end here and 'go look at covers' (English real translation, go to bed).

Politics

No really, politics. It suddenly hit me today, that it's Super Tuesday, and I've let myself become distracted from the most exciting primary season that I can remember. Alas, it's not practical to stay awake until 5am when the California polls close*. But how exciting it will be to have some results waiting for me when I awake.

*Yes, the California polls. Because this is the only one that really counts. Which means nothing, except that I am clearly a Californian. Oh, and photo credit, http://www.theliberaloc.com/2008/02/03/breaking-field-poll-shows-huge-gains-by-obama-in-ca/.

The joy (not) of paperwork

I hate paperwork. No, I really, really hate it, with a flaming, burning passion. But apparently, as a freelancer, if I want to get even sort of proper maternity leave (and I believe that is something that I would like), I have to fill out tons of it. And I'm not even doing it all by myself (Thor is doing loads, and knows what I need to do and fill out)...if I had to figure it out on my own, well, I don't honestly think I could do it.

*Photo credit: http://www.montag.it/theratrace/archives/2007/05/23/overflow/.*

Hip, hip, hurra!

I don't go to museums enough anymore. Or do enough to find out about the artists and groups of artists that most intrigue me. For example, P. S. Krøyer. I once had to suffer through an 'easy-reading' book about his erstwhile wife, Marie Krøyer. The book was the suffering part (it was part of studying for one of the many exams one has to go through in order to show that one is learning Danish, and was really quite tedious), but the silver lining was that these people led interesting lives (in the case of Marie, it included a torrid affair; in the case of P. S., well, he was basically insane.) And produced attention-getting art.

The painting above is, of course, Hip, hip, hurra! and is normally housed in Gothenburg. But for now, it's closer to me, in Arken. With many other paintings from the 'Skagen painters'. I'd say come to the Copenhagen area to see it, though maybe not on a Sunday afternoon, as the place was packed (only this part of the museum; the other exhibits were conspicuously empty).

And the winner is...

Devil Mood has been kind enough to bestow upon this corner of cyberspace an award. I like the idea of awards, but even more, I like the idea that I can then pass the award to others. So, here are some of the sites which I most enjoy. Really, I could come up with many more than just the 5 that I get to give 'officially'. But I'll restrict myself to just a select few. I haven't used any particular criteria, though I have tried to not give the award to those who've already gotten it, and sadly, I feel the need to avoid giving awards to anyone who hasn't posted anything in months and months. Which cuts out a lot of cool sites.

1) Creampuff Revolution: Roro has style, she has wit, and she can really, really write. About anything. And should write, about anything, so that I can read and enjoy it.

2) Novel Nymph: She can turn a single line into an interesting post. Or more than a single line, either way. And she has blogged about peanut butter hot chocolate, for which I am grateful.

3) Plastic Alligator: Erin is quite simply, cool. She makes the everyday interesting.

4) Bastard of Art and Commerce: He combines the everyday with a very dry sense of the absurd. And whenever he writes about the web, I find ideas for my thesis, which is a great added bonus.

5) Mapping the Marvelous: The model I'll follow if I ever get around to starting a research blog. Marion is working in a fascinating field, and it shows in every post.

Taking a potshot at the target of targeted marketing

Almost every time I log into my e-mail account, I see the same ad, a single line promising '5 Tips to Lose Belly Fat', hyperlinked to a site which is poetically named www.BellyFlabIsUgly.com. Yes, the ad assures me, 'Stop making this 1 mistake & you'll finally lose your ugly belly fat!'

And every time I see this ad, I have different thoughts about it. The one mistake? Would that be, just maybe, getting pregnant? And do I really need '5 Tips'? I was under the impression that all I really need to do is to wait (as) patiently (as possible) until May, whereupon I will experience amazing weight loss, especially of 'belly fat'. Though, as I think about it, I really am finding it hard to see my belly as fat, or as anything but beautiful.

Really, there must be a better way to match these things up, even if it ends up being not quite so amusing.