General update
Mar. 17th, 2019 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaSo, time for an update. I'm home with a slight sore throat, which I still have hopes of conquering before it turns into a full-on cold.
1) My current geeky pursuit is birdwatching. I usually focus on one kind of organism each year, and this year it's birds. I'm enjoying following all the new species that arrive with the spring, and yesterday I heard a rördrom (Great Bittern) for the first time! It sounds like someone blowing in a bottle.
2) My teaching has been going well. In the fall, I had a difficult group that wasn't really interested in math and gave me mostly bad evaluations, so I've been happy to teach a course that I know well (several variable calculus) and where the students appreciate me. I love the students on the teaching program, they are engaged and help each other and generally are great.
3) The housemate situation has ups and downs. The up: a while ago we asked one housemate to leave, which I posted about here. He moved out with minimal drama, and another guy has moved in who is working out wonderfully well! He's an engineer from Germany who has been involved in the environmental movement and the left movement in Germany, and also he climbs, so we have a lot in common. He's easy to get along with and interesting to talk with. \o/ The down: another person also moved into our small room who has not been working out as well. They are not great at intuiting social situations--for example, when they first moved in they tried to get close to my other long-time housemate and me by giving us presents and hugging us all the time, at which point we had to set boundaries. Which was awkward, and now they don't do that anymore but things are still awkward and we just don't click well. We'll see how it goes.
4) I have splurged on an expensive one-person tent. The tent I've had for twenty years is a three-person tent and annoyingly heavy when it's just me, and I do also have a hammock that I've used a lot, but it's good to have something to use when there are no trees or I just want to sleep on the ground. So I had to get new hiking boots anyway because the old ones were worn out, and my favorite outdoors store had a 1000 SEK discount when you bought something else at the same time as a tent. And they had this tent I've been pining for for a while, so I bought it and the hiking boots at the same time! I am now planning a solo hiking trip in the mountains (Kvikkjokk-Staloluokta-Sulitelma) which goes through a very botanically rich area. Looking forward to this so much.
5) I am planning a big party when I turn forty in May. The last time I had one was eleven years ago when I got my Ph D, and it was fun to bring together different groups of people from different parts of my life, and I will do that again (family, relatives, friends of the family, environmental activists, colleagues, syndicalists, and miscellaneous other friends). I have booked a good place where people who aren't from town can also sleep over, and I have sent out the invitations. This was a bit agonizing, because there's always that person which you feel you have to invite because they invited you to something and also they are friends with other people you have invited, but whom you would actually prefer not to invite, and that other person whom you think is cool and would like to invite, but maybe they would think it's weird because you don't actually know them that well. Augh.
Saving the organizational work for another update...
1) My current geeky pursuit is birdwatching. I usually focus on one kind of organism each year, and this year it's birds. I'm enjoying following all the new species that arrive with the spring, and yesterday I heard a rördrom (Great Bittern) for the first time! It sounds like someone blowing in a bottle.
2) My teaching has been going well. In the fall, I had a difficult group that wasn't really interested in math and gave me mostly bad evaluations, so I've been happy to teach a course that I know well (several variable calculus) and where the students appreciate me. I love the students on the teaching program, they are engaged and help each other and generally are great.
3) The housemate situation has ups and downs. The up: a while ago we asked one housemate to leave, which I posted about here. He moved out with minimal drama, and another guy has moved in who is working out wonderfully well! He's an engineer from Germany who has been involved in the environmental movement and the left movement in Germany, and also he climbs, so we have a lot in common. He's easy to get along with and interesting to talk with. \o/ The down: another person also moved into our small room who has not been working out as well. They are not great at intuiting social situations--for example, when they first moved in they tried to get close to my other long-time housemate and me by giving us presents and hugging us all the time, at which point we had to set boundaries. Which was awkward, and now they don't do that anymore but things are still awkward and we just don't click well. We'll see how it goes.
4) I have splurged on an expensive one-person tent. The tent I've had for twenty years is a three-person tent and annoyingly heavy when it's just me, and I do also have a hammock that I've used a lot, but it's good to have something to use when there are no trees or I just want to sleep on the ground. So I had to get new hiking boots anyway because the old ones were worn out, and my favorite outdoors store had a 1000 SEK discount when you bought something else at the same time as a tent. And they had this tent I've been pining for for a while, so I bought it and the hiking boots at the same time! I am now planning a solo hiking trip in the mountains (Kvikkjokk-Staloluokta-Sulitelma) which goes through a very botanically rich area. Looking forward to this so much.
5) I am planning a big party when I turn forty in May. The last time I had one was eleven years ago when I got my Ph D, and it was fun to bring together different groups of people from different parts of my life, and I will do that again (family, relatives, friends of the family, environmental activists, colleagues, syndicalists, and miscellaneous other friends). I have booked a good place where people who aren't from town can also sleep over, and I have sent out the invitations. This was a bit agonizing, because there's always that person which you feel you have to invite because they invited you to something and also they are friends with other people you have invited, but whom you would actually prefer not to invite, and that other person whom you think is cool and would like to invite, but maybe they would think it's weird because you don't actually know them that well. Augh.
Saving the organizational work for another update...
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 02:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 02:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 02:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 03:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 03:00 pm (UTC)My mother is an avid birder and gets a lot of pleasure out of everything she sees - I hope it's equally as interesting and joyful for you! She swears by eBird for her organization of her birds and knowing what she might be hearing.
So glad to hear about the teaching, too. Sometimes classes just don't gel, but it sounds like the current one does.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 06:20 pm (UTC)I don't know eBird, but there's a Swedish site (artportalen.se) where you can report not just birds, but any organisms you find. I use it to keep track of what I've seen and where, and the data is also used for scientific purposes.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 06:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 03:14 pm (UTC)I haven't had a real party in years, but as we're moving to our new house sometime next month (finally!) I'm looking forward to having a big one. I hope yours goes fabulously. (And PS if you want to come here and look at birds and/or go hiking with me, you are so invited!)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-18 02:21 pm (UTC)If I could teleport I would very happily come and visit you. : )
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 03:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-18 02:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-17 10:28 pm (UTC)3) I'm glad you did end up asking that guy to leave, and I'm glad it resolved with minimal drama. And it's excellent that you got one good replacement! Here's hoping the other one gets less awkward.
4) Yay for boots and new tent and solo hiking trip!
5) That sounds like a lot of fun, agonizing invitations aside.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-03-18 02:26 pm (UTC)