End of March Roundup

Who's got two thumbs and wrote two blog posts in the month of March? This gal!

Again, all I have in me is a list of things that have happened this month. I intend to write soon about swimming in the Masters Provincial Championships, but you know, promises, promises.


1. It's still Winter...kind of. 



Some of us are more fazed by it than others.

It helps if you have a warm nest next to the heating vent.

I'm now supposed to be going for "fitness walks" in order to strengthen my foot for physical therapy. Last weekend BoBo and I headed to Springbank for a wintery walk. It was cold but we made it 2 miles!

BoBo still doesn't really get selfies.

2. John and I tried out a new cafe in town - Edgar and Joe's Cafe -  located inside the Goodwill local headquarters, adjacent to an actual Goodwill store in the same building. It was a pleasant place to study with lots of space, natural light, and free wifi. We'll definitely be back. Also, if you're London: breakfast all day.

3. Another one of my Interlochen classmates is getting famous. Allie X (or, my classmate formerly known as Allie Hughes) lives in Toronto and also, now, L.A. She released a couple of singles and I think they're  pretty fun! You can listen to them here. I should dig up some old photos from us in our Halloween costumes in junior year of high school. 

4. The Triathlon Club had a girls' night a couple weeks ago. It was wild - WILD, I tell you! Actually it involved dinner at Mongolian Grill and then froyo. At the froyo place I found this board game: 

I regret so much that we didn't play it. Also, it turns out that all those ladies train so much that by 8:30 we were all too tired to do anything else so we went home to go to bed. In all seriousness, I love that there are so many fit and strong ladies in the TriClub. The executive board is almost all badass chicks.

5. We also had the Triathlon Club end of the year banquet last week. There were elections for next year's board, a fun side show, and pad thai! And, I won the (female) swimming award! I was so touched by this. My coach, Alex, has made an enormous difference in my swimming this. And so has my lane-mate, Dan. I've gotten faster just by trying to keep up with him!

6. Please enjoy these promotional videos for Calgary ("Hello Calgary!") and, separately, Ontario ("There's no place like this!"). "This is Ontario, Y'all!" That made me laugh so hard. I heard about the Calgary one on This American Life and it immediately made me think of the Ontario commercial. It also makes me think of the time Fort Wayne commissioned of those new town mottos. They came up with this: "Fort Wayne - Still Room for Dreams."

7. A few weeks ago I joined a group called Barley's Angels, a group for women who are beer enthusiasts. I attended a group event at Brewhaven where we made two different kinds of beer and learned about the beer making process. I loved it! As a music theorist with a composition background, I'm very accustomed to male-dominated environments and I often feel comfortable in them. But it was nice to have an all-women group that was led by a women who knows a lot about beer. There was no mansplaining to endure. My friend, Grace (below), introduced me to the group. Brewhaving also seems like a neat place. It's out of my price range to go there as an individual but as a group it was pretty great. It also convinced me that I would never want to make beer at home. WAY too many variables and it's too easy to contaminate something and screw it all up. But I enjoyed going through the process with their equipment and expertise!

Here's Grace stirring the malts in our brown bitter.

The tank from above. The grains are in those bags hanging from the side. The malt and syrop are in the center/strainer looking thing.

In one of the storage rooms they had this cool medieval print of a monk making beer.

We finished the day with a canning demo. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the canning day, but I'm going to pick up my beer soon. I'm looking forward to trying it!

 8. I'm one chapter away from a complete draft (though early draft) of my dissertation. Here's Rameau's signature. I think it looks a bit like a bird looking through a hoop, if you look at it just right.  I've been outlining it like mad and editing chapter 1. I'm still not sure if I can defend in the summer or the fall, but I it will become clear in a couple of months (or rather, it has to, if I'm going to defend in the summer).

The temperature highs are supposed to be above 30F all this week! Fingers crossed that Spring is actually coming!

2014

Hey there, blog. I took a not so little break during Christmas and I've been dragging my feet when it comes to blogging. And basically for no good reason. I finished Gym Christmas with a swimming work out that never made it onto the blog and then I enjoyed several days in a row where I barely touched my computer.

Christmas at my parents' in Indiana was great, as usual. I spent a lot of time with Mr. Tobes and a lot of time doing nothing. But because of the timeline for SMT submissions,  I also spent a bunch of time editing a conference paper and an abstract that were both due in early January.

Other highlights: Mom took us to an IU game!

BoBo decided that my parents' fireplace is her favorite spot in the world. 

My mom graciously offered to help out with some dental bills I had in the fall, so I got a crown for Christmas! Not wanting John to feel left out, she got him a paper crown, shown here. 

She also got us this large bottle of tequila and we had margarita Christmas once again. Never gets old.

Dave and Carla came to town for the day. Naturally, we began with a visit to the Spoon, then a walk around campus, and finally, board games with fancy beer at the house.

John's grandpa came to visit and at the end of his trip, we took him back to catch the bus in Indianapolis. Mom suggested we take in a museum and have lunch at Three Sisters in Broad Ripple. We had a nice time visiting Indy with Mom. It made all three of us want to go back again (to the NCAA Hall of Champions, perhaps?). Here's John modeling his "I <3 actual="" christmas="" for="" got="" he="" hot="" p="" sauce.="" shirt="" some="" sriracha="" that="" with="">

Nearer to the end of break, we rang in the New Year with Mark and friends, including Amanda. She was dressed the sparkliest so she descended the stairs at midnight, in place of a glittery ball in Times Square. 

And since then, lots of other mundane but good things have happened. I will deliver the current 2014 highlights in a conveniently lazy list format. 

1. I decided to join the whole TriClub (rather than just the swimming) with the hopes of being able to run at some point in the next few months. I now think the expectation of running so soon was unrealistic (a topic for another time), but I'm really enjoying the rest of the club. I can go to spin class on Monday and Friday, swim three days a week like before, plus they also do strength training and a mystery workout on Wednesday. I don't typically make it to all that, but it's nice to have so many structured work outs available. Also, I'm having so much success with massage therapy that I really haven't had one of my motion sickness episodes in a while, and spin class doesn't make me motion sick! 

It turns out, triathlon club members get up VERY EARLY, so I'm still trying to get adjusted to that. But I think that it's actually going to help me graduate. I get up early for the work out and then I'm up.  I get in 2-3 hours of solid dissertation time before lunch, or a solid single hour before I teach. It's pretty awesome. Of course, I also fall asleep around 9:30 every night. 

I'm going to an indoor triathlon in Toronto in a couple of weeks to swim as part of a relay and I hope to post about what that's like. In general, it is so nice to have a group of people to spend time with who have no idea who Rameau is. 

2. Speaking of Rameau, a week or so ago, I went to Tallahassee, FL to talk about Rameau. I presented a chunk of Chapter 4 at their Forum, a conference run by grad students. Even though it was "cold" for Tallahassee, it was nice to get a break from our weather and enjoy some 50 degree days. I also go to catch up with Little Gillian, a former UWO student who's now ABD (time flies!) at Florida State. 

Side note: I have two friends named Gillian/Djillian/Jillian. I met them both at Western, neither of them goes here now, and both have attended FSU. Both currently live in Florida. Yet I don't think they've ever met. This is not the premise of a riddle. 

I also get to present "Rameau and Friends/Frenemies"* at the IU student conference during "spring" break. I'm lucky to have gotten on two fairly economical conferences - one where I could stay with a friend, and one in my parents' town. 

3. And speaking of my dissertation, I actually felt really good coming back to school and starting 2014 because THIS IS GOING TO BE THE YEAR: I am going to finish this dissertation, come hell or high water. My current plan is to defend late in the summer, or, if everyone important is still out of town, in the early fall. Of course, I'm meeting with my advisor this week and he may put the ki-bosh on all of that. Still, I've got a lot of stuff written and I feel good about the progress I've made. I've also learned that writing and presenting conference papers on my dissertation topic is, on the one hand, more efficient than on unrelated topics, but ultimately still a time suck. After the IU conference, I'm done for the school year. 

4. While stuck on the tarmac on the plane coming back from FL, I read most of Rachel Dratch's book, A Girl Walks into a Bar. And it's great! If you liked Bossypants by Tina Fey, or Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me? by Mindy Kahling, you will probably enjoy this book. Parts of it made me laugh out loud and others were simply touching and clever. I highly recommend it. Have you read anything by a woman comic lately? If so, please send me the title! Also, when is Amy Poehler going to write her own hilarious and brilliant memoir? All the cool ladies are doing it!

4. It's cold here, like it is everywhere else, apparently. Western canceled class on Day #2 of the semester and I think they vowed never to do it again. But, you know, it's Canada. It's colder than in previous years, but enduring the cold winter is a point of national pride, so they don't complain the same way Americans do. They seem especially excited about the cold because of the upcoming Winter Olympics. If you have a few minutes to kill, check out #WeAreWinter on the twitters. You'll see what I mean.

5. I signed up for the Ontario Masters Provincial Championships swim meet in March. There's no minimum qualifying time and it's in Windsor (about 2 hours away), so woohoo! I'm doing the 50M, 100M, and 400M Freestyle (400! What am I thinking!!), and the 100 IM. It's so exciting to have an actual event to train for. I'm sure I'll post here about the weekend in Windsor after it happens.

And with that, it's 9:30. I've been up since 5:15! Time for bed!

If you're reading this, then I hope your Near Year has been great so far!

*Not the real title. In case you're curious, the real title was, "Rameau, Voltaire, Castel, and Public Image in Enlightenment Music Theory."

Gym Christmas Day 10

Gym Christmas Day 10!

Work out: 4 mile run at Springbank Park. I left my watch at home and vowed to stretch during the run if my foot hurt. This was the first really wintery run of the season, and I was glad to have my phone on me in case I slipped. And since I had my phone, I've included some photos of Springbank, my favorite running route.

GYMGO: I crossed off another Grab Bag day. If I work out with someone else, then I'll have another GYMGO soon. I know you're relieved.

Thing I've eaten today: I just had my post-run snack, a serving of cottage cheese. I try to make sure I only eat it after a run or work out. Otherwise I'd eat it constantly.

Before I get to the Springbank photos, here's what I did this morning: made some graphs of Rameau's fundamental bass. My paper is due on Friday, and since I don't have access to Finale, I had to make some figures by hand. I don't own a protractor (surprise), so I used this old can of tuna snack mix to draw some circles. Do you like to draw tedious but relatively simple graphs? Then a career in music theory might just be for you!

Back to running...This is at the start of the route. 

I've mapped out many a distance from this yield sign. It's a great place to start out-and-back runs.

This is almost 2 miles from the yield sign. The route includes asphalt and some dirt trail. It's my favorite place in London.