Dispatches from a happy Hullian

Bargaining meetings with the employer start tomorrow — two days of staking out our positions and interests and getting a feel for each other. All us on the bargaining team have been asked to do some brief introductions including what their constituency has been doing for the public in These Exceptional Times. As the Researcher rep... we're a real grab bag; it's been fun crafting a list for maximum entropy.

Heather and I decided to de-escalate out of romantic partnership in December. We're still planning to be in each other's lives in the long term, we enjoy each other's kids and still have a partner in common, but if things are a little weird, we're not in the same place at the same time as much or we're a little glum or emotional, that might be related.

The Ottawa marathon is less than 18 weeks away. I've been running with the work group and did a half in the snow a couple weeks ago, which might've been overdoing it a bit. Feeling better now (and have been doing 3-5km lunch runs in the interim) but next long run might be more like 15-16 km.

Andrea and I celebrated six years together on Sunday — we wandered the Ottawa Art Gallery and took a look at the Rideau Canal (no skating allowed yet) and had a nice supper at The Albion Rooms. Our server seemed to be holding down the whole place alone and had a bit of an anxious vibe, but the food was uniformly delicious. With everything that's happened over the past six years it's hard to say if six years feels accurate, but I know I'm still filled with delight in and admiration of her. We're safe harbours for each other and I hope we'll keep being that and more for each other for many years to come.

Work involves more tinkering with budgets and juggling tasks than I'd like, due to budget tightening, and there are still many rough patches in the return to the office — local management is showing some willingness to fix or roll back things that aren't working, though. I attended a Lean skills seminar last week and one of the things that struck me was the value of actually zeroing your task list from time to time. I'm not sure if I can manage that, but maybe a month where at the very least I don't re-migrate any tasks I migrated the previous month would be attainable.

Rands muses on something I've felt has been rattling around my memescape over the past couple of years… being from the memescape, it's not groundbreaking but it's what tweaked me to post.

It's been a bit of an autumn… a little over a week ago we lost a radical elderly Druid (never a Druid elder, she insisted that was a kind of tree). Her passing was a surprise to everyone and I can still hear her voice in my head when I think of her. Elizabeth made a list of little tributes to her including picking up trash, gardening over more lawn, being kind to animals and looking for meaning, and the one thing I can think of to add is chipping in a little extra to the food bank and to people facing oppression (most recently the Mi'kmaw fishers being terrorized in Nova Scotia).

We're also trying to wrap our heads around holiday plans, avoiding as much marginal risk increase as possible and still make it happen — gathering with who we can, distanced present drops and walks with others, Zoom and Canada Post with further flung people and cooking up a storm. We're going to make it happen. And whenever things are sufficiently normal we'll gather again with people we haven't gathered with in a while. Not being able to visit makes me miss people more.

Work is also pretty intense lately; there are urgent projects and personalities to wrangle; I'm feeling like I'm more in manager than statistician mode right now. My supervisor says I'm doing fine but I'm not always so sure.

I've been running regularly and keeping track on Strava (find me there under my real name if you're interested). Quantifying it motivates me — in these first few months I've gone from being able to sustain a run for under a kilometer to being able to do 10+ km at a moderate run or a mixed stagger for over 20km when I'm feeling really ambitious. My shirts fit better too, and it makes the neighborhood feel closer together feeling that more of it is reachable on foot.

The show at Mersey House was a success musically. We had a moderately full room of people who were really attentive, participated (thank you, volunteer last-minute Soundman Stu) and generally warm. The two openers, Kristen Murray and Krystele Leveque Liverpool is really pretty, as was the drive up: it looked like autumn, and once we were out of Halifax, it was dead simple (actually, Halifax wasn't too bad either, although Saint Margaret's Bay Road is a bit twisty).

Next stop: Truro and the Fair Trade Café (I think it has more adjectives in there, but how many fair trade cafés with Friday night music can there be in a small town?).

Programming a little distractedly for some contract work, trying to get a big PHP form done before drifting off to sleep. I don't think I'll go much past two AM, and progress, as always, will be in spurts. It's coming together, though.

The week's involved programming and planning this thing, some math, more thinking and talking, the last official class of TA-ing (although there'll be a make-up test this week, right before rottenfruit sings in the opera recital at Oscar Peterson (that's Wednesday night, 8 PM, $5 or free for students, by the way). Last Sunday was my third birthday celebration of the weekend: this time for obskura. I was pretty zonked, and mildly hypnotized by the movie, but enjoyed the people and the yummy bruschetta.

Next week, I'm presenting some stuff on the individual ergodic theorem, working on take-homes and preparing to set new directions for the summer's research. One of our high-powered programmers is leaving for work in Kitchener-Waterloo, so we've got to sort out baton-passing and wrap-up.

Feeling a bit whomped with work and school of late. I'll get what I can get done done, and try to do enough sanity maintenance in there too. Going to Ottawa Friday night can't come soon enough. Travel Scrabble, talk and "reasonably priced snacks" on the train are calling to me.

I've been putting in some time helping out with a paper on shape grammars as design tools, marking, and not doing quite enough problem sets. Tonight, babysitting a roast in the oven (some people I know do turkeys, I have beef from home to keep me up all night), and alternating procrastinating with stuff I need to be doing.

The weekend involved a bunch of communal time with rottenfruit: Saturday Dim Sum with her and my folks, gaming with her and the usual suspects, and on Sunday we went to monthly Scrabble as thrown by feygele (in nifty rainbow kippah) and vierge_en_trop (who made said nifty rainbow kippah). Saw the kippah in question through a basement window today at Concordia, debated pressing my nose up against the glass and gesturing "hi", but I was late and the head under it looked to be concentrating on something deep. I had fun, and got some stuff done — not as much as I should have, but there was progress. Today was long, and isn't over.

I think I'm slowly growing up.

This is going to be a crazy day.

Like much of LJLand, my comment notification e-mails are hit-and-miss, but I'm watching my recent posts' comment counts. Nonetheless, my direct e-mail is more reliable if you want to get my attention fast.</maintenance>

I'm kind of floating above the bits and pieces I have left to do this term... I guess if I put in a few hours each day, they'll be in good shape for the due dates, or at least the last crunch will be less crunchy. I'm a little stressed, but perhaps a bit too happy to care.

Packed books for a really interesting professor this morning, who dresses as casually as my dad (which is pretty casually), eats vegetarian at the Potato and bikes 8km to work most days. Fortunately he's just moving to the new, unified math offices downtown, although I'm sure he could retire if he wanted to. I should poke my head by his (new) office again.

I actually dreamed about packing books last night before getting up and going to pack books.

I don't know if this is going to be a brilliant semester, and I should be worrying about money and grades and stuff, but I'm surrounded by good people, learning interesting stuff and eating pretty well. All good things. This weekend should be nice, with geekery, music and food. And some measure theory and programming, if I know what's good for me.

Look, it's a squirrel!

Yesterday was work, computer-configuring, tutorial, birthday dinner, more computer-configuring, sleep.

Spent the morning hunting papers for geometry, then went down to loupdebois' place with rottenfruit, for his birthday open house. Helped him enjoy his birthday gift from my sister and me (Soul Calibur III), drank some coffee, kicked around, read a Terry Pratchett picture book, saw some Kids in the Hall, and came home.

Then moonlightjoy called, asking whether I had a plunger. Fortunately, I did. Went by with it (she did the work, not wanting outside eyes to see her toilet in that condition), and stuck around for popcorn and beer. Now, I'm back here, sorting out stuff for a run at programming, or studying, or problem sets, or something.

This may be my last entry from my current computer — my supervisor's acquired a new laptop and has decided to pass his on to me, and mine is tripping on down to loupdebois sometime in the near future... the "new" machine is actually the same vintage as my current one, but whereas I got the basic model, my supervisor's is the tricked-out one with a somewhat faster chip and much more space.

Went out to the country with rottenfruit Saturday night, arrived very tired to supper with my folks, my sister and her boyfriend (who we hadn't met before). I think we both pretty much approve... almost as soon as my mom was alone with us she had a mini-debriefing session to get our opinions. It's not much of a stretch to presume that way back in March there was a similar debriefing right after Elizabeth and I were on the bus. It was a nice wander out, and a good change of pace. Lots of talking, plenty of rest, some dreamlike moments and even some required reading.

I think that cold that I've been dodging since the beginning of the semester just thwacked me. Buy your tissue futures now. This week'll be a little lighter, but still with a couple of freelance appointments -- and that's only what's arranged ahead. Still, if I'm smart I'll be careful to sleep and eat well.

( due to loupdebois [and thanks to dzuunmod for chopping #8], stuff will happen if you comment )

(and on chickcurious's open invitation, found through dzuunmod)

Five ways I de-stress:

1. Bicycle or walk. Anywhere. Best done in bad weather (either sweltering or overcast/damp).
2. Read something unrelated to whatever's stressing me (ever wonder where a bunch of my extensive store of useless knowledge comes from?).
3. Ramble to someone. Preferably over a hot beverage and/or stretched out somewhere comfortable.
4. Cook something. Without a recipe.
5. Take a hot shower. Emerge pink, tingly and clean.

I'll join in the not-tagging revolution here, but if this inspires you, go ahead.