Wednesday 13 July 2011

Day 2 Jog

3.5km, 250 calories burnt, overcast conditions, forgot my inhaler, looking forward to tomorrow, will try and ramp up to 4km.

Anoche, en mi clase de español

Anoche empecé mi nueva clase de español. En realidad, la clase comenzó la semana pasada pero yo estaba tan occupado y no lo pudo asistir. Hoy en día, tengo demasiado de trabajo. Otra vez. No sé si yo no puedo decir "no" o si soy terrible en el manejo del tiempo. Probablemente un poco de ambos.

Como sea, un chico vinó a la clase unos diez minutos de retraso. Llevaba ropa muy bonita y tenía unos zapatos muy caros. Pelo corto, barba recortada. Mi ‘gaydar’ fue ‘ding ding ding’. Pero eso es Londres, el lugar que inventaba  ‘metrosexual’. Seriamente, fue tan bonito ser heterosexual (y ¿por qué no hay una palabra mejor por 'straight' en español?  'Heterosexual' suena tan clinica, ¿no?)

Después de un rato, el profesor nos puso en grupos. Tuvimos que discutir algunas preguntas acerca de Ibiza, hablar de lo que sabíamos.

Nunca he estado en Ibiza. La chica en mi grupo, no ha estado allí tampoco. Sr. Guapo, por otra parte, dijo (en voz muy baja, parecía muy nervioso) << Si, he estado muchos veces.>> Y el más pequeño bolso se cayó de su boca a la derecha en el suelo, cayó junto a sus zapatos de diseñador. En cualquier idioma, gay es gay.

Quería preguntarle cómo se compara a Sitges, pero pensé que podría estar coqueteando (que probablemente lo era) — y, como he dicho, yo estaba allí para estudiar.

Parece que Sr. Zapatos no estaba la nivel corecto, y la maestra crea que él deba estar en uno nivel inferior que nuestra clase. Estoy triste. Parecía muy agradable. Y voy a echar de menos el bombón.

the daily swim 2

Storm. Thunder that made the windows shake. And rain, clonking straight down tubs of rain that leaked in through both bedroom windows and made a lake out of the drive in under 20 minutes. I'd have to swim down the street to get to the beach.

And then two hours later there was blue sky and by 7pm I was on the beach in sunshine though I had to wade and swim through a thick skim of leaves and weed and small sticks that the storm had thrown into the bay. One careless breath and I'd have swallowed enough fibre for a month.

If I can make it today, I can make it anyday. God, I sound like Frank!

Prelude to a memory


Today I wasn't lazy. I went for a little walk around my neighbourhood and decide to go to the local cemetery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunhill_Fields). I've edited it a bit on iPhoto (my first editing and I liked it! It's quite incredible what you can do on a computer those days.) Hope you guys like it. See you all tomorrow.

Day 2 of photo organizing...

Another day of spending an hour organizing photos. I love that I can spend time on this project because I am "required" to do it. Otherwise I would just put it off until bedtime, and then I'd be too tired, and just not do it and I'd get even farther behind. I'm not sure what I'm not doing that I should be doing instead of this, but it is probably cleaning the bathrooms or something else equally unappealing, so this kind of rocks.

Today, I managed to organize and caption all of May's best photographs. I'll do June's tomorrow. Then I'll work backward and try to do the months from June, 2010 up to December, 2010.

Mitzi G Burger wanted to see what is consuming all of my time, so here's a link to the Best (or most representative) of May, 2011.

Out of the gate - with a bump!

Despite - or perhaps because of - some unexpected logistical blips, my 30 day challenge is off to a wonderful start!

A thunderstorm trampled the local area on Monday night, knocking out power. And when i lose power? i lose internet and cable television. This afforded a distraction-free* Monday evening, with my daughter and i camped out in the living room – her bathed in the soothing light of her Kindle, and me squinting my way through the first chapter of “Packing for Mars” by the fluorescent glow of a camp lantern.

To bed early as well, since there wasn’t much else to do…and my head hurt from reading under the fluorescent light! But this was the 11th – a mere practice run for the start of the 30 Day Challenge!

Power was restored in the wee morning hours of the 12th, but still no cable or internet! The opportunities for distraction were again minimized. It was a hot, steamy summer afternoon, so i opted to do my reading poolside! Finished another chapter in about 35 minutes – the extra five minutes to compensate for the time spent swatting bugs, and dunking in the pool to cool off.

After a nice evening spent with my “Pub People”, i was home, and asleep, shortly after 11pm. The 0600 alarm didn’t hurt! Only one swat of the snooze button, and i was vertical by 0605! Not a bad start…

Attempting this post from my iPad, while camped out at a local coffee shop. Until internettivity is restored at the homestead, I may be a bit random here. But I'm in... I like the communal accountability!

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* Well, the nearly constant lightning show, and the sound of large tree branches cracking in the wind just outside the walls of the condo did create the occasional distraction…

Day 3 Mitzi G Burger By the Sea

I like the way this is going. The 30-day communards are pushing through the limit of a 2-day fad to achieve a 30-day habit, and beyond.

Just when the temperature dropped and my motivation slackened, almost imperceptibly, the will to achieve my full 30 got me up and moving.

On go the sneakers, on goes the beanie and off I go - back to the sea.

Last night on the evening news there were shots of a humpback whale spotted leaping into the air ("breaking the surface"), just a little ways out to sea from Kernel, the place at the far end of the bay where I walk.

While my stroll is a bit too shore-bound to see whales, I have been enjoying a dose of daily nature. Here are some cockatoos who were feasting on some seeds that dropped from nearby pine trees.

 

Since I saw the footage of yesterday's whale, I am quite curious about seeing more whales at sea. There are plenty of whale-watching cruises, because June and July mark the beginning of the whale season here in Sydney. Perhaps one day I will overcome my inane and inexplicable fear of "the freaky way that boats rock" in order to enjoy seeing whales in the wild?

I've decided to organize photos...

Well, I've worked on organizing my photos for an hour now (instead of the planned 30 minutes), and I've come to the conclusion that 30 minutes a day for 30 days is just not going to be enough.

Here's what I'm doing, in case you're wondering what could possibly take so long. I wrote a program that sorts my photographs into folders based on the date they were taken (year, month, day). That's all automatic, so it is easy. Then I go through all of the photos (about 2,000 per month) and choose the "Best" or at least "Most representative" ones and copy them into my Best directory (also sorted by year and month). Then I like to caption each one (I usually end up with around 100 per month), and then select the "Best of Best" from the "Best", and copy THOSE to my Best of Best directory.

I'm actually doing pretty well keeping up with the Best directory (but not captions), but the Best of Best is WAY out of date.

Pretty daunting.

Once I catch up with all of that, I want to actually DO something with the photos. Print some out for framing, create photo memory books for people, make slideshow DVDs for my kids' classes, etc. Really can't do all that in 30 minutes a day.

Day 1: Commence Meditatin'


I decided to use Sharon Salzberg's book "Real Happiness" since it's a 28-day program for beginning meditation. I figure I can wing it for the last two days, and bingo, 30. The book comes with a CD of some guided meditations, so I started with a 20 minute breathing meditation this afternoon. Surprisingly pleasant, and refreshing. It's only the first day, and I'm sure some challenging days await, but I'm excited to begin again tomorrow.