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!

Four

I guess I'm down to one blog post per month (or less...it's March). 

Guess who's birthday it is! 

It's Morgan's birthday! I wish we were in Memphis to celebrate it with her. 

Also, it's Bobo's birthday. She is four today.

"Bon Anniversaire à Moi." 

(Not enjoying this birthday selfie)

Bobo got to celebrate her birthday with her favorite things: an extra long trip to the dog park (that photo is from a different day, but you get the picture) followed by an extra long nap and then a special doggie "cannoli" from the Village Tail. 

In other news, winter continues to be the worst.

Western has taken to dumping all the snow from the parking lots into the field between the music school and the gym. I tried to take a picture of it with my face in the foreground for scale but it doesn't really communicate how snowy it is. John said it looks like a scale model of the Alps and I said it looks more like the Aggro Crag. 

A couple of weeks ago we ventured to Indiana for the IU Graduate Theory Symposium. I gave a paper that I made out of various chunks of Chapter 4. It went better than I kind of expected. Successfully answering questions about my dissertation always gives me a lot of hope - it turns out, I know more about Rameau and 18th century French science than the average person. Or even the average music theorist.

We've been doing various things to take respite from the cold. Last night we met up with our friends GK and DK for some beer tasting. GK prepared this lovely fruit and cheese plate. Nothing like tropical fruit to help us feel like summer!

I got my hair trimmed today for the first time since the summer. I've decided to grow it out while I write my dissertation and then cut it off after I defend. I'll post some updates along the way. Maybe if it gets long enough I'll donate it afterward. That way something positive will come of my dissertation time either way...right? 

Going to the gym with John in the Winter is pretty great. He wears a lot of fun clothing combos. I think he was really happy on the inside that I took this photo.

A few weeks ago I went to Toronto with some members of the UWO Triathlon club to participate in the Hart House Indoor Triathlon. I'm still injured (long story for the next post...in, like, three months), but I was able to put together a relay with our spin instructor and her boyfriend. I handled the swim leg and it was really fun! The indoor tri deal was that you were given 15 minutes per event and they kept track of how far you went. I was able to complete 950 meters in the 15 minutes and I was really  happy with that. Having never done an event like that before, I decided to shoot for 800 meters and just see what happened. So 950 was pretty great! Here's a photo that one of my teammates grandma took. Those two on the left are Michelle and Mikaela, kindly cheering for me as I swam along the wall. 

I only have a few weeks until the Ontario Masters Provincial Championships in Windsor! I may have 4 of my 5 total chapters written by then! That would make me want to swim extra fast to celebrate. 

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 5: Barack Obombus

Yesterday was GYM CHRISTMAS Day 5: Spreading Yuletide Cheer. I brought two bags of Christmas candy for my students as a surprise treat on our last day of classes. I only have 10 students right now and on any given day only 4-5 show up. So at the end of class, I still had two fairly full bags of candy. Despite my efforts to disperse them at school (and the small handful of chocolate kisses I had for a pre-lunch snack), I still had two bags of candy when I went home.

John and I knew that we wanted to spend the evening eating the leftover candy and watching Game of Thrones (in season 2 and we're hooked!) but I wanted to do a fairly challenging work out. Otherwise I would have sat around all evening eating candy and feeling kind of belch. 

So I did as much as I could of the Iron Strength work out I've written about before. And bonus, I got to do it in my new Triathlon Club T-shirt that came in yesterday! As one of my teammates said, now everyone will know how legit I am.

I haven't attempted Iron Strength for several months because of my stress fracture. But since it is (hopefully!) on the wane, I wanted to give it a try. And, to my complete surprise, I did the best I ever have with this work out. I did ALL SIX SETS of 15 jump squats - what?! And my legs aren't even sore today. My upper body, of course, is pretty tired and sore now because I also did two sets of 15 pushups and 15 rows from plank (without the weights). I still can't do some of the tasks, like sit ups, etc, because of my motion sickness. But I'm really happy with what I could do. I guess swimming has made me stronger. It's the kind of thing I find surprising because, if the way my pants fit is any indication, I'm not exactly as thin as I was a year or two ago. But if I'm stronger, then I'll take it. My pants still fit well enough, after all. 

In addition to Christmas candy, John and I decided to make a drink that Mark and his former roommate, Jeff, christened the Barack Obombus. The story goes that Mark and Jeff, both theory grad students, briefly concocted a plan to open a bar named for the genus of the bumblebee, the Bombus. They began thinking up signature drinks for the bar, like the Bombus Rombus, the Irish Car Bombus, etc, and of course, the Barack Obombus. It's basically a White Russian but with chocolate milk instead of half and half.

If you were going to buy vodka, and there was a 750 ml bottle with a tiny bottle of Crown Royal, and one without, and they cost the same, wouldn't you buy the one with the Crown Royal? I mean, come on. It's American Girl sized! 

So if after a week of participating in Gym Christmas (or not) you would like a chocolately drink, I would like to further my gift of yuletide cheer by giving you the recipe for the Barack Obombus: 

1.5 oz Vodka

3/4 oz Kahlua

3/4 oz Chocolate Milk (or more to taste) (non-dairy chocolate milk would work just as well)

Ice

Combine and serve. Repeat as needed. Goes particularly well with Game of Thrones.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now: 

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

If I have time, I'll be back later today to report on whatever task I complete for Day 6. 

Happy Finals Week, everyone! 

November, 2013

I thought I'd take a break from telling you about my terrifying dreams to write a little recap of the past few weeks.

1. I've participated in a few Triathlon Club events, including this one where we walked around campus with bags of Hershey's HUGS and randomly handed them to people. We also took pictures along the way. 

I love the TriClub, even though I feel old enough to be everyone's mom. It's nice to get together with them outside of swim practice, since I never have my glasses on and everyone is wearing swim caps.

2. A couple of weeks ago we got a decent amount of snow and Bobo went NUTS over it. 

For some reason she really wanted to get it all over her face.

And she loved laying down in it, but she was always poised to strike.

3. I saw this random box of sweet potatoes in Talbot College. Its smiley face makes me so happy!

4. On Friday night we went to Gen Pop. Here's a picture of some music theory classmates of mine, breaking it down.

5. And then it snowed some more! We got almost 2 feet last night. 

Bobo is a tall dog and even she was in it up to her chest. We had to double up her sweater and her coat because it was only 18 F. when we got up this morning. She seems equally excited and perplexed by the snow. She doesn't know where to go to the bathroom, but she likes jumping in the snow like a porpoise. 

One more week until our Christmas decor goes up! I've resisted putting it up, even though our yard looks like Christmas Town from Nightmare Before Christmas. Instead, we're just listening to a bunch of Christmas music to get into the holiday spirit.

6. It's almost time for Gym Christmas! I'll post a lot more during it, and I have some specific goals in mind, but you can read the DJ's preliminary post here (<-- 12="" a="" baby="" bit="" but="" christmas:="" christmas="" complete="" cute="" different="" dj="" explanation="" for="" forthcoming="" gym="" here="" info="" is="" mommy-hood.="" more="" need="" of="" p="" photos="" reflecting="" s="" short="" tasks="" the="" there="" this="" to="" transition="" we="" year="">

You need not be a personal friend of the DJ to participate! Gym Christmas always adds greatly to my December.