I haven't blogged in about two years now... don't know if anyone is going to see this on some feed/subscriber... but worth a shot.
In about 85 hours (< 4 days) I am leaving to start my mega-trip which starts my mega-fall. At this point you know that long-form blogging and I don't work so well together (I use far too much time on posts) so I will be micro-blog it... tweets from the account I made years ago and haven't used much and FB status updates.
The itinerary is something like:
Sep 2-12. Prague -> Linz -> Prague (meetings and workshop prep)
Sep -22. Vietnam -> Internal travel (meetings and workshops)
Sep 23-Oct 1. N.Italy (vacation with mom)
Oct -16. NSA#1 Malmö (first workshops of my new master program Nordic Sound Art)
That's the ~45 day first phase.
Then I have a two week out/back rhythm for a little while longer.
Oct 31-Nov13. NSA#2 Bergen (-> Trondheim -> Bergen)(might be flying back for the frisbee tournament we're putting together... all of my Bergen friends are frisbee folks anyway ... so it would be lonely in Bergen that weekend)
Nov 28-Dec11. NSA#3 København/Copenhagen
Some dates are approximate, but boiled down... I will be away from my home base more than 70 of the next ~100 days. And I still don't have a subletter/renter... back to cleaning/packing/planning.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
just bad at this
i didn't blog about summer or travels or
today i am just out out out of it
i am sick
went home after class ended at noonish
napped
awoken by a friend coming to borrow something
started doing math
got my head turned around a bit and somehow lost my understanding of time and the clock and came down here for a 1715 class
but it is only just now 1615
i guess i will just do some more math in this almost empty room
my weeks seem to follow a stress-on stress-off pattern
this is a a stress-on week
and we only got the cabin for one night this weekend
i don't even like the idea of a one night cabin trip
arrive
eat
whatever
sleep
wake up
eat breakfast
and already you have to think about leaving again
not even one true full day clear of life worry
nigh pointless
today i am just out out out of it
i am sick
went home after class ended at noonish
napped
awoken by a friend coming to borrow something
started doing math
got my head turned around a bit and somehow lost my understanding of time and the clock and came down here for a 1715 class
but it is only just now 1615
i guess i will just do some more math in this almost empty room
my weeks seem to follow a stress-on stress-off pattern
this is a a stress-on week
and we only got the cabin for one night this weekend
i don't even like the idea of a one night cabin trip
arrive
eat
whatever
sleep
wake up
eat breakfast
and already you have to think about leaving again
not even one true full day clear of life worry
nigh pointless
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
berlin third morning: first...
...white grapefruit juice since leaving the states 1.19E from Lidl
flea-purchased shirt that doesn't fit
i got to a point on the bike yesterday far beyond sweaty
to something like well-lubricated
i have been writing while out here
and my thoughts are all metered
percussive lyrical
(i am supposed to start to try to supply vocals for some mostly-metal project when i get back to trondheim)
berlin is like chicago without a downtown?
no tall buildings - broad squat - excuses of swamp
flat - wide streets - more green but very localized
i don't know where to...
i'm not in love (with this place)
cuz i don't know where to look?
flea-purchased shirt that doesn't fit
i got to a point on the bike yesterday far beyond sweaty
to something like well-lubricated
i have been writing while out here
and my thoughts are all metered
percussive lyrical
(i am supposed to start to try to supply vocals for some mostly-metal project when i get back to trondheim)
berlin is like chicago without a downtown?
no tall buildings - broad squat - excuses of swamp
flat - wide streets - more green but very localized
i don't know where to...
i'm not in love (with this place)
cuz i don't know where to look?
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
loyalty, beauty, additional injury at the hands of douchetards, douchebag doctors and self-care
sometimes i start blog posts in my head but that is not a good storage place.
i am retiring my beloved brown corduroy cut-off shorts.
they have served me well for a long long (long) time. first as full length pants and then duh. i replaced the zipper when it lost too many teeth. i replaced the metal button with a little clasp when the material weakened so much that it just pulled right out. that clasp broke recently. if i hold it up i can see light through almost the whole garment save the pockets. it has a big rip right near the bottom of the right pocket (a window to that day's underwear selection). it has a beautiful little splotch of purple paint that pictures can't seem to capture correctly. i will cannibalize the zipper and i expect that most of the viable material will come back as functional patches for something else.
PURPLE
i was preparing some food the other day. dug into the basket of onions on top of the fridge and pulled out, among others, this beauty. the color was so intense and it was so alive that i didn't have the heart to chop it up. so it is sharing a pot on my desk pile with a little barely-living emaciated tiny palm-relative thing. reaching green towards the sun. mmm. i didn't not truly plant the onion for fear of displacing/hurting the little guy, but it is reaching down on it's own from it's spot on top of the bit of soil and setting in some rootlets. i will take some more pictures of it as it finds its fate. i am sure it will continue to grow quickly in this crazy light we have.
i played disc golf for the second time last thursday. the first time was with normal discs with peter berdovsky in some woods in maybe arlington some time last year. we threw at rocks and trees and picnic tables. this time was with norwegians with fancy heavy compact (~8.5" diameter) rubbery discs -- each dude carried between fifteen and twenty discs that all hook or slice or roll in different ways -- aiming at ground-planted fancy-dancy metal baskets with chain catches.
these discs fly really strangely and even though most of the guys looked super-pro with their array of colorful discs lined up in their specially designed disc-golf bags (where are the caddies people?) they still didn't really seem to have such awesome control. any of the discs takes a good while to get used to - so yeah i am not sure that having just one disc was really such a disadvantage for a first real attempt. some other douche that also joined up just that day was throwing some practice throws before we really started. he decided to throw in my direction and decided to wait to shout "heads up" until just milliseconds before the disc actually hit me... in the head. thanks douchetard. anyway. whatever. it is almost healed. but it seems like i loose blood every time i try a new disc thing or new disc place. or. i am just an injury magnet.
i went to the doctor today (yesterday). i talked just a bit about my depression and got a scrip - *SNAP!* then i started to talk about my joint pain and he all but told me by tone and level of attentiveness "hurry up. i don't really want to talk to you any more." he ordered some blood tests for arthritis (i didn't know it was blood detectable), told me that depressed people often complain of aches and pains, prescribed another pill for joint pain (which i am not jumping straight into) and tried to shuffle me off. excuse me while i swear - but fuck you dickhead. i know that the depression is to blame for a lot and i AM looking to my mental betterment to iron and even out some of my smaller aches and pains, but i also know that there is something trauma-caused and legitimately wrong with my left ankle and my right knee and something seriously wrong with my achilles. i tried to get him to look at my right heel/achilles and he said something like "yeah okay, if we can do it quickly." - if he was going to use an adverb in that sentence it should have been "thoroughly" -- he suggested that i just need more exercise but didn't want to listen long enough for me to say "look my knees hurt just walking down the stairs sometimes. my achilles tightens up after just a few minutes on my feet." i can't just GO BE MORE ACTIVE. he basically just said "you should probably go do some stuff." without really helping me figure out what exercises might be helpful for the specific pains i have. whatever douche. i have to go back next week to follow up on the beginnings of the 28 day box of Zoloft™-®-©-whatevs that i have in my hands (okay it is in my backpack) and if i have to sit there until he listens to me then i will sit there.
... posting ... continuing tomorrow ... or the next day ...
i am retiring my beloved brown corduroy cut-off shorts.
they have served me well for a long long (long) time. first as full length pants and then duh. i replaced the zipper when it lost too many teeth. i replaced the metal button with a little clasp when the material weakened so much that it just pulled right out. that clasp broke recently. if i hold it up i can see light through almost the whole garment save the pockets. it has a big rip right near the bottom of the right pocket (a window to that day's underwear selection). it has a beautiful little splotch of purple paint that pictures can't seem to capture correctly. i will cannibalize the zipper and i expect that most of the viable material will come back as functional patches for something else.PURPLE
i was preparing some food the other day. dug into the basket of onions on top of the fridge and pulled out, among others, this beauty. the color was so intense and it was so alive that i didn't have the heart to chop it up. so it is sharing a pot on my desk pile with a little barely-living emaciated tiny palm-relative thing. reaching green towards the sun. mmm. i didn't not truly plant the onion for fear of displacing/hurting the little guy, but it is reaching down on it's own from it's spot on top of the bit of soil and setting in some rootlets. i will take some more pictures of it as it finds its fate. i am sure it will continue to grow quickly in this crazy light we have.i played disc golf for the second time last thursday. the first time was with normal discs with peter berdovsky in some woods in maybe arlington some time last year. we threw at rocks and trees and picnic tables. this time was with norwegians with fancy heavy compact (~8.5" diameter) rubbery discs -- each dude carried between fifteen and twenty discs that all hook or slice or roll in different ways -- aiming at ground-planted fancy-dancy metal baskets with chain catches.
these discs fly really strangely and even though most of the guys looked super-pro with their array of colorful discs lined up in their specially designed disc-golf bags (where are the caddies people?) they still didn't really seem to have such awesome control. any of the discs takes a good while to get used to - so yeah i am not sure that having just one disc was really such a disadvantage for a first real attempt. some other douche that also joined up just that day was throwing some practice throws before we really started. he decided to throw in my direction and decided to wait to shout "heads up" until just milliseconds before the disc actually hit me... in the head. thanks douchetard. anyway. whatever. it is almost healed. but it seems like i loose blood every time i try a new disc thing or new disc place. or. i am just an injury magnet.
i went to the doctor today (yesterday). i talked just a bit about my depression and got a scrip - *SNAP!* then i started to talk about my joint pain and he all but told me by tone and level of attentiveness "hurry up. i don't really want to talk to you any more." he ordered some blood tests for arthritis (i didn't know it was blood detectable), told me that depressed people often complain of aches and pains, prescribed another pill for joint pain (which i am not jumping straight into) and tried to shuffle me off. excuse me while i swear - but fuck you dickhead. i know that the depression is to blame for a lot and i AM looking to my mental betterment to iron and even out some of my smaller aches and pains, but i also know that there is something trauma-caused and legitimately wrong with my left ankle and my right knee and something seriously wrong with my achilles. i tried to get him to look at my right heel/achilles and he said something like "yeah okay, if we can do it quickly." - if he was going to use an adverb in that sentence it should have been "thoroughly" -- he suggested that i just need more exercise but didn't want to listen long enough for me to say "look my knees hurt just walking down the stairs sometimes. my achilles tightens up after just a few minutes on my feet." i can't just GO BE MORE ACTIVE. he basically just said "you should probably go do some stuff." without really helping me figure out what exercises might be helpful for the specific pains i have. whatever douche. i have to go back next week to follow up on the beginnings of the 28 day box of Zoloft™-®-©-whatevs that i have in my hands (okay it is in my backpack) and if i have to sit there until he listens to me then i will sit there.
... posting ... continuing tomorrow ... or the next day ...
Sunday, May 25, 2008
whatever and whatever
WHITE NIGHTS
They don't say "White Nights" here - but it's in my head because a Russian classmate keeps saying it. All the same it doesn't get dark here any more. It goes just beyond the point of pretty sunset colors holds there dusky and murky for a while and then comes back to colors. It is really easy to lose track of time sitting here looking out my window. I can't say I love all this light but the plants sure do. I can see one sod roof from my sitting spot here - it is kind of brownish but the wind is blowing the grass in little ripples. Yeah - and still almost a month left until June 21st. I will try to take a picture at the midpoint between sunset and sunrise on that longest day.
BLUE TUBE (Blue the way the British at least used to use it.)
We have all visited YouTube. Dramatic chipmunk. Star wars kid. That "Leave Britney alone!" freak-out kid. All that stuff.
The little thumbnails that YouTube automatically generates when someone uploads a video come from the center frames of that video. The titles, descriptions and duh video content are all user generated. So... if you want to disseminate information that people normally avoid, disguise it as stuff that people often seek out, PORN. People (should) know that YouTube does not allow nudity or anything otherwise too offensive, but apparently they don't and the attention span of someone who thinks they are going to get to see free nekkidness is pretty surprising. If you have a five minute video on your theories about the 9/11 (fishy is fishy right?) just stick a provocative frame in the middle, give it a skanky title and description and you have an instant viewership.
Looking around I see a video (I swear I am not exposing you to porn) on abolishing the senate with like 60 million views and 3,500+ comments. There is also some DUCKROLL phenomenon getting mixed in with the political and random stuff -- it's a duck with wheels. Forget I mentioned it... more I was going to write but Abdul needed some kitchen-sitting and why am I sitting in here anyway. Going outside now.
They don't say "White Nights" here - but it's in my head because a Russian classmate keeps saying it. All the same it doesn't get dark here any more. It goes just beyond the point of pretty sunset colors holds there dusky and murky for a while and then comes back to colors. It is really easy to lose track of time sitting here looking out my window. I can't say I love all this light but the plants sure do. I can see one sod roof from my sitting spot here - it is kind of brownish but the wind is blowing the grass in little ripples. Yeah - and still almost a month left until June 21st. I will try to take a picture at the midpoint between sunset and sunrise on that longest day.
BLUE TUBE (Blue the way the British at least used to use it.)
We have all visited YouTube. Dramatic chipmunk. Star wars kid. That "Leave Britney alone!" freak-out kid. All that stuff.
The little thumbnails that YouTube automatically generates when someone uploads a video come from the center frames of that video. The titles, descriptions and duh video content are all user generated. So... if you want to disseminate information that people normally avoid, disguise it as stuff that people often seek out, PORN. People (should) know that YouTube does not allow nudity or anything otherwise too offensive, but apparently they don't and the attention span of someone who thinks they are going to get to see free nekkidness is pretty surprising. If you have a five minute video on your theories about the 9/11 (fishy is fishy right?) just stick a provocative frame in the middle, give it a skanky title and description and you have an instant viewership.
Looking around I see a video (I swear I am not exposing you to porn) on abolishing the senate with like 60 million views and 3,500+ comments. There is also some DUCKROLL phenomenon getting mixed in with the political and random stuff -- it's a duck with wheels. Forget I mentioned it... more I was going to write but Abdul needed some kitchen-sitting and why am I sitting in here anyway. Going outside now.
"I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
I finished my year with a muntlig (oral) exam on Thursday.
I have to wait three weeks for results (written and oral) but I may have managed an A without really trying. If so, that's two for the last two -- calc II UMassB AUG06 -- but I had to work on that one a little.
Anyway ...finished and wanted to get away. The last weekend here for a few people I know. My friend (An)Toni(a) and I got up really early to stand in line for cabin reservations on WED. morning. We weren't early enough and didn't get the cabin we wanted but got another one that would be tight and cozy but further away. Three of us were supposed to go on Friday afternoon. Another three to five to come on Saturday afternoon and just Toni and I were going to stay over Sunday night and come back Monday some time.
Toni and I spent a good amount of time Friday morning preparing a few days worth of lunch -- a major egg and potato salad: small farm strong eggs bought that morning from the gas station, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, red pepper, lentil sprouts, onion, leek, garlic, light mayonnaise, bunch of spices -- all in a strong plastic bag to massage-mix while we hiked the two+ hours from the bus stop to the cabin. She left and I spent another hour or so making dinner (with intentional leftovers) for Friday night -- again a big veggie hash-up -- fried and spiced differently with some beef patties on the side. Pretty much all of the vegetables I had left in the house.
I packed my bag full: annoyingly puffy sleeping bag, some card games, headlamp, toothbrush (yup), extra this-and-that and all the other junk. Laced my boots up nice and tight. Caught the local bus down to the center. Got off the bus and crossed a large street to meet a friend. Realized in time that we had to walk another block and a half or so to the pick-up for the commute/distance bus. In that block and a half my ankle freaked out.
I tweaked it in Oslo back in April at Norwegian Mesterskap ultimate. I then went to København and played the WCU outdoor tournament for three days. My knees proved the limiting factor there. My ankle felt fine for a month and then Wednesday night started to ache a little inside my rubber dumpstering boot. I got home, got the boots off and it at least felt better. I thought maybe I could still do the trip and hike the hike if I got into the big boots Ethan sent me but nope. If anything I think that I cinched them up too tight and that contributed to the breakdown.
So standing there minutes from getting on the bus I had to just say goodbye to my friends. I had to unpack my bag on the sidewalk and dig out the dinner. Had to get back on the local bus and just come back up here to this room I sit in all the time (and am sitting in now). So -- no fun, no food, some pain, and I won't get to see a couple of those guys again (not folks I am so close with so that is actually not the worst of it). Mostly I just really needed to get out of here for a little while.
I found other stuff to do and it has been as okay a weekend as any. Just not as good as if I had gotten out of here for a while. So. Now I have one more reason to actually go to the doctor.
I have to wait three weeks for results (written and oral) but I may have managed an A without really trying. If so, that's two for the last two -- calc II UMassB AUG06 -- but I had to work on that one a little.
Anyway ...finished and wanted to get away. The last weekend here for a few people I know. My friend (An)Toni(a) and I got up really early to stand in line for cabin reservations on WED. morning. We weren't early enough and didn't get the cabin we wanted but got another one that would be tight and cozy but further away. Three of us were supposed to go on Friday afternoon. Another three to five to come on Saturday afternoon and just Toni and I were going to stay over Sunday night and come back Monday some time.
Toni and I spent a good amount of time Friday morning preparing a few days worth of lunch -- a major egg and potato salad: small farm strong eggs bought that morning from the gas station, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, red pepper, lentil sprouts, onion, leek, garlic, light mayonnaise, bunch of spices -- all in a strong plastic bag to massage-mix while we hiked the two+ hours from the bus stop to the cabin. She left and I spent another hour or so making dinner (with intentional leftovers) for Friday night -- again a big veggie hash-up -- fried and spiced differently with some beef patties on the side. Pretty much all of the vegetables I had left in the house.
I packed my bag full: annoyingly puffy sleeping bag, some card games, headlamp, toothbrush (yup), extra this-and-that and all the other junk. Laced my boots up nice and tight. Caught the local bus down to the center. Got off the bus and crossed a large street to meet a friend. Realized in time that we had to walk another block and a half or so to the pick-up for the commute/distance bus. In that block and a half my ankle freaked out.
I tweaked it in Oslo back in April at Norwegian Mesterskap ultimate. I then went to København and played the WCU outdoor tournament for three days. My knees proved the limiting factor there. My ankle felt fine for a month and then Wednesday night started to ache a little inside my rubber dumpstering boot. I got home, got the boots off and it at least felt better. I thought maybe I could still do the trip and hike the hike if I got into the big boots Ethan sent me but nope. If anything I think that I cinched them up too tight and that contributed to the breakdown.
So standing there minutes from getting on the bus I had to just say goodbye to my friends. I had to unpack my bag on the sidewalk and dig out the dinner. Had to get back on the local bus and just come back up here to this room I sit in all the time (and am sitting in now). So -- no fun, no food, some pain, and I won't get to see a couple of those guys again (not folks I am so close with so that is actually not the worst of it). Mostly I just really needed to get out of here for a little while.
I found other stuff to do and it has been as okay a weekend as any. Just not as good as if I had gotten out of here for a while. So. Now I have one more reason to actually go to the doctor.
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