Not much break in this break

Uff da, the past two days were brutal.  Two special events at the pool, and two 12-13 hour days for Ky.  Somebody's gotta do it.  Tomorrow (Thanksgiving) is my only day off for the week, and I cannot tell you how I am looking forward to sleeping after 3 days in a row of being up at 4 am.

All of the snow has melted since my last post.  You can only imagine my displeasure.  However, I will not let that get me down.  I'm compensating with a New Belgium winter brew I had never tried before, Snow Day.  I always loved their 2˚ Below, but I don't think they made it this year : /  Snow Day is quite good, however.

It's very dark, as winter ales tend to be, so slightly bitter at first, but it makes me feel warm inside.  The description reads:

"With 3 feet of powder closing the roads, a brewery is not a bad place to get snowed in.  Given the unanticipated hall pass of a snow day, our brewers decided to experiment.  Hmm...what about this dark caramel roasted Midnight Wheat braced with a serious load of Styrian Goldings, Centennial and Cascade hops? Shovel it in.  What a deliciously unexpected way to spend a SNOW DAY!"

I finally got to go ice skating this week (after many failed attempts last weekend) with Kate.  It was a little crowded and the ice was in dire need of a zamboni, but I say any time spent on the ice is time well-spent indeed.  I finally bought some guards for my skates, so now I can carry them around more easily and at least feel like I'm taking good care of the blades.

While in that area, I also stopped at a used bookstore.  These are dangerous places, because everything seems appealing, particularly when the store is having a 40% off retirement sale! I originally went in with the intention of buying some Charles Dickens, which I did, but also came across a few other treasures.  I bought some cute Danish books, and found a Chinese language instruction book from 1943.

I think this is something really special.  It still uses Giles Wade romanization, which is very old-fashioned and no longer the norm (for example, spelling 北京 "Peking" instead of "Beijing," 南京 "Nanking" instead of "Nanjing," 喜欢 "hsihuan" instead of "xihuan," and so forth).  It even reads the Chinese texts up-to-down, right-to-left, which is also quite old-fashioned.  Aside from the novelty of this book, it gives detailed explanations of grammar, and will certainly provide some useful practice.

Tomorrow night, I am house-sitting at a beautiful 100-year-old farm house out in the country, with a great dog to boot.  I'm glad it's only for one night, because I don't generally like sleeping at other people's places anymore, but I am looking forward to the quaint solitude in the time I do have there.

Thanksgiving break

Oh, it's finally time for a real holiday.  A holiday it may be, but I am staying in town and working throughout the week.  It is such a relief, though, to have this time to catch up on schoolwork, as well as work a full 40 hours before December (Christmas present time!)

I really am a lucky person.  I bought a plane ticket from Seattle to Palm Springs (via Portland, woo!) and back for the Christmas holiday, basically contingent on Andrew being able to drive me thither and whence.  However, since we are now broken up, that created a number of complications for me, vis-à-vis my travels.  Fortunately, I secured a ride to Seattle the weekend before and have a friend willing to put me up downtown until the day of my flight.  That will be a fun vacation in itself, as I will have the chance to connect with a bunch of friends and party on Capitol Hill.  Then my parents kindly bought me a plane ticket from Seattle to Pullman (which is generally inexpensive one-way), so I have a safe ride back, regardless of the weather.  Merry Christmas to me : )

I'm so over Thanksgiving.  I think I need to live in a country where it doesn't exist.  I had plans to dine with my Danish friend, Hannah, and her boyfriend & co.  The plans fell through, however, because her boyfriend needs to work, and I have to petsit that night anyway.  Now it is just going to be another meaningless day, as usual.  At least my dear friend Kate has decided to hold a delicious-sounding Thanksgiving brunch earlier in the day.

It snowed so much last week, and has been wonderfully brisk, freezing, invigorating temperatures lately. It looked so magical outside.  I'll post a picture of my yard.  Unfortunately, temperatures are rising a lot the rest of this week, so all of the beauty is going to melt away and it's just going to be wet grossness.  That is seriously the worst.  I would way rather it were 10-30˚ the next 4 months straight than anything in the gross, wet 40's.

Paradise, just a few days ago

In the know

I need to develop a better system where I can't miss class.  Oh, there's always a reason.  Of course there is always a reason.
• I was stuck at work
• I haven't eaten all day
• I fell asleep from studying all night & working since 5am
• I am more worried about homework for this other class, so I better skip and work on that instead
• and so on.
This might be understandable a couple of times, but not when it goes on at least once or twice a week.  I will admit work is taking precedent over school a lot, because I need to go to work and I need to be making more money.  But moreover, I am simply not utilizing the free time I do have effectively.  For example, instead of getting caught up on last week's Chinese homework, I am updating my blog.
However, as frustrated as I get with myself, I simply can't force myself to sit down and hammer through everything at once.  What can I do to solve this? Well, I really am going to work on Chinese after this post, so it's a start.  The funny thing is that in high school, I would have loved to have the opportunity to study Chinese and practice character writing, translating, reading, listening comprehension, etc.  Why not now, when that is a reality? I was never good with online homework though, regardless of the language or subject.  I can't keep track of what I've done and what I haven't done, because clicking some buttons on the computer is not as memorable as turning in a sheet of paper.  To clarify, the class is not online, just 90% of the homework is.

In other news, work is going very well.  The weekend before last, I got one of many e-mails from Karen (the Aquatics Director), chastising me about something I did wrong, due to a communication failure between the two of us.  It was the last straw.  I replied with some apology and explanation, but the more I thought about it, something snapped.  I put my coat on, got in my Jeep, and drove over to the Aquatic Center, where I knew she would be just finishing up a class.  I closed the office door, sat down, and said, "We need to talk."
Essentially, I explained to her how she was making me feel, always berating me with criticism and cutting me down in front of the other staff and managers.  I said it needed to stop.  She did not realize the extent to which she had been doing this.  I kept it calm, reassuring her I was not attacking her nor trying to make her feel indignant.  We explained our recent frustrations with one another and came to the conclusion that most of it could have been avoided if we had a better relationship and communicated with each other more.  It was also apparent that she is having a very difficult home life right now for reasons she could not disclose, which makes sense why the added stress and irritation I had been contributing were responded to so harshly.  I still think she was behaving inappropriately and making me feel disrespected and unhappy in the workplace, but I also see now ways in which I had also acted inappropriately.
In the end, I am so very grateful I got up the guts to confront her, and I think she is too.  It really dispelled the tensions and hard feelings we'd harbored against one another, and now I am more conscious of the repercussions of my own actions.  As a result, we have a lot better relationship and communication.
Don't tell anybody, but I kind of like my job.

Sleigh bells ring

Yesterday was the first real snow.  It was a bit snowy the night before, simply because the cold was so intense, but nothing stuck.  Yesterday we got fluffy blankets : )

Sadly, the temperatures are too high, so it's already gone today.  More is expected later in the week, but I have a feeling it's going to be too wet & warm for anything real.  Maybe by Friday.  I just need to move to Canada or Minnesota (although they are not having that cold of weather now either).

I also wanted to share a sweet comic from Calvin & Hobbes that I fell in love with last year, so I have it saved on my computer.

This is what I want : )

Reflection

When I was 11:
I was dating Gina Bertuzzi.
I wanted to be a writer.
I loved Pokémon and reading books.
My best friends were John Folstrom and Brian Perri.
I was afraid of one day turning 18 and having to take care of myself, because I wanted to be a kid forever.
I lived in Bonsall, California.

When I was 15:
I was dating Heather Andersen.
I wanted to be an actor.
I loved languages, culture, Asia, and Japan in particular.
My best friends were Randi Andersen and Jessica Low.
I was afraid of being ordinary.
I lived in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

When I was 17:
I was single.
I wanted to be a Foreign Service Officer.
I loved languages, culture, Europe, clothes, and being popular.
My best friends (at different points) were Alexander Mose, Sarah Schauer, Marki Dinsmore, and Natasha Fisher.
I was afraid of not being loved.
I lived in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Now that I am 22:
I am single (for the first time in forever).
I want to be an FBI Language Specialist.
I love languages, culture, winter sports, my parents, and traveling.
My best friends are Cheryl Kamolz, Alexander Mose, and Ann Hoag.
I am afraid of not having enough money to get to where I need to be.
I live in Pullman, Washington.

Things that make me happy

- hot chai tea lattés
- cozy winter coats that make me feel like I'm from Copenhagen
- scarves that keep my neck warm
- pumpkin pie
- National Public Radio (NPR)
- classical music
- when I can sit and just read with no obligations
- really foggy days
- speaking Danish
- warm-scented candles
- getting the best score in class
- when classes are canceled
- when everything at work goes just right
- having an entire day off
- waking up fresh on an early morning
- swimming
- talking to my mom
- imagining people's reaction upon receiving mail from me
- receiving mail myself
- Audrey Hepburn
- Ann Hoag
- Baker
- learning to bake
- ice skating!
- when Andrew speaks Danish (and well, I might add)
- the smell of bonfires in the distance
- Scandinavian culture

the buds of winter

It's easy to tell that winter will be upon us soon, here in the Northwest.  To my understanding, parts of the country, such as Colorado and the Northeast, have already received a fair deal of snowstorms.  It's forecasted to snow here as well, though I would be tremendously surprised if anything stuck.  High today is 48˚ though, which is pretty chilly.  I'm totally welcoming to it, except that my house just becomes so cold inside, particularly the downstairs where my bedroom is.  I intend to buy a space heater so that I can control my own temperature this winter.  I keep saying that and not actually doing it.  Hopefully it is not too expensive.

Well, I did not succumb to any form of food poisoning after eating my delicious pumpkin bread, nor did any of the number of people with whom I shared it.  I shall probably make some more this weekend.  It goes so quickly when you're generous! I usually take a few slices to work to share with co-workers or water aerobics students, and then that's one loaf down already.  The next gets dealt up among myself and visiting friends or roommates.  Anyway, my mom's recipe ended up being 10x better than the original I tried, as was reflected on everyone's face after their first bite.  That's a nice feeling : )

Things are going a bit better at work lately.  Mary and I are going to work together on created the next swim session, so it will get done twice as quickly.  Karen was also very nice today.  A few things happened where I had done everything totally correctly and she was the one who fudged things up, so it was nice not to be at all to blame.
During my first two years of working at the Aquatic Center, I never wanted to teach swim lessons.  The hours are too inflexible and I've never been particularly big on children.  As I am now the Swim Lessons Coordinator, I have been teaching lessons this entire semester.  Sometimes it's very frustrating and I find myself getting aggravated when kids can't perform one of my drills correctly because they did not listen to directions or when one of them is arguing with me that they can't do something, when I saw them do it the week before.  I'm not especially fond of my Tuesday/Thursday evening group (although next week is my last week with them, so that's ok) but I have taught the same group of kids 2 sessions in a row now on Monday/Wednesday mornings.  I've watched them grow and helped them develop to that next step.  I know each of their strengths and weaknesses.  There are kids in this world who are excellent backstrokers or can swim front crawl with perfect bilateral side-breathing because I taught it to them.  Ultimately, the feeling is very gratifying.