Life as Metaphor

i woke up thinking and speaking in Hebrew (to myself and G-d), as per usual, this is the first language i use every morning...

walked downstairs and spoke English with hubby, while he got ready for school... kissed him and swapped i-love-yous.... then spent the day listening to (and dutifully "conversing" with) the Pimsleur "Icelandic" CD playing on my computer, while i sewed one of my embroidery samplers... 

spent about 2 hrs. in the sewing and thinking/speaking Icelandic, but i took breaks (hitting the pause button!) and writing/reading English posts that used random Latin/Greek words (while talking to or about school)....

hubby came home from work, and i shut off the Icelandic CD... was back in full-English mode while we talked about our days (although i did point to myself and say: "ég er Bandarísk" and pointed at him and said "þú er Bandarískur!" ;)

have been mostly in English-mode for the rest of the day, except when i posted foto-compliments in a Greenland-group at Facebook (in Danish), and have been reading a botany book i have (written in German)...

so the tally is:
1 - Hebrew
2 - English
3 - Iceandic
4 & 5 - Greek, Latin
6 - Danish
7 - German

so i worked with / used 7 languages today, but as far as weird this is completely normal of most of the people i interact with, from other countries, EXCEPT for Americans... i wouldn't be surprised if this is very common to other English speaking countries... the only way that English speakers do work with other languages seems to be related to their being educated (giving them more use for Greek/Latin) and/or have contacts with a great amount of their communities (i.e. a New Yorker who does a lot of shopping in a local China Town, or an Australian who has Aborigine words in their English-dialect, etc.)

i bet that this has a lot to do with English being such a lingua-franca ... native speakers of English have much less peer pressure to learn other languages.....

such a waste.
shalom! - Ulla/e. & co.

finished/edited/uploaded the final paper to the prof in Toxicology (relief)..
peeked into new class of Risk Assessment and found out that it was the same teacher i had in the Environmental Law class (much angst)...
called my academic advisor and had him shuffle my classes a bit, so that i could take Microbiology instead (again, much relief)....

i have been able to do a half-hour of the waist-twisting every night, for a couple of weeks... i doubt i am losing much weight, but it has done wonders for both of my feet and my "balance" as i walk around the house... i actually plan to get another twister, to keep downstairs, and make it a habit to do this twisting both in the morning/afternoon as well as at night (before i go to bed)....

going to go rest for a bit, before bed.
shalom! - Ulla/e. & co.

 first off, need to record today's schoolwork: managed to finish the ch. 10 (read all 3 chapters that are due this week), and only posted to the class once.... i didn't get much sewing done (wanted to finish the reading).... 

as far as work-out, i had Tony bring my waist-twister thingy upstairs (it was too hot to do it downstairs today).... i started with 5 mins, the first day (to see how my body responded), did 10 mins on the second day and 15 mins tonight... so far so good, i don't have achy muscles from doing this but i definitely am getting a smidge of chemo-flashbacks from working these muscles... i am going to take it easy for at least the first week or so (speaking from experience, my body can't handle such a rush of those noxious chemicals)....

a little in-house news now:
Neima just started a local grammar school.... Juju felt that she had "settled" enough in this new neighborhood and might be able to get along with the kids (they have been playing with her at the playground, and Neima was able to meet a few girls in a group of girl-scouts)... of course we were all happy for her until her first day of class (that is when the house took on a creepy sound of silence)....

it was hardest on our Jonathan... he had morphed the guest room into his own bedroom/office and was doing most of his writing while Neima was sitting at a small desk that was against the south facing window..... sitting at her desk for hours, singing her songs or talking to herself, while Jonathan was trying to find the write words for his newspaper.... today he disappeared into his room, turning up a few hours later looking a bit sullen... he sat at high tea with us and finally said "i was so looking forward to that blasted singing to stop, but now Neima is gone...  the room is silent..... school sucks." ;)

she has also seen Jonathan playing his violin with Juju (on cello), and expressed interest in his teaching her... i (Juju) wish that i could convince Seamus and Wesley to learn to play instruments also, we would have a little orchestra in our home, except the men refuse (they swear to me that they are "all thumbs")... it might be because of horrible memories they have as children, and grouchy teachers... i will not give up (they WILL concur).....

time for rest now..
shalom! - Ulla/Juju & co.

 i had to over work a bit to compensate for losing so much work-time on monday... but all is well, i finished/uploaded week #2's paper, read *all* of chapter 6, and managed to post twice into the classroom....

i also was able to do my push-ups/leg-lifts, and sewed a bit of my Moose :)
now i ready myself for bed (mahjong, screen-shots, etc.)
shalom! - Ulla/e. & co.

 i swear i am going to take just a half of a pill tomorrow... i feel fine on the half-pills, but this whole pill is knocking me out (i think)....
i will go back to half-pills for a few days and see if i feel any different...
today i was utterly useless with writing this week's paper, all i could do was sew....
i doubt i will be able to convince myself to do any leg work or push ups...

even now, i need to go rest...
shalom - Ulla/e. & co.

 managed to finish ch. 3, and posted twice to class (i'm managing to keep up with everyone)...

did the push-ups/leg-kicks, not the power walk....
and started to sew the evergreens...

a lovely productive day :)
shalom! - Juju.

 schoolwork today was mostly reading the ToxTutor that we have been assigned (at a NIH site)...
had to take a break when Tony found a TV channel that was playing "Doc Martin" (i nearly leapt from the couch)...

tonight i was excited to receive a note from a Researcher at RG, answering my question about the heterocyst of Anabeana that i had taken a foto of (on the microscope)... i have noticed a discoloration and wondered if it had something to do with the ionization of water that is adjacent to the heterocyst (unattached to the vegetative cells)... we both guess that this is a refraction of the light and the extra thick cell walls (and all that extra lipid)...

no constitutional or leg/arm exercises tonight.. i am trying to rotate the leg-thrust nights with my "walking"-days...
time to rest now.
shalom - Ulla/e. & co.

 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW IS OVER!!!!!!


i suspected i would get a C...
i prayed for a C+....
i got a B- ..... (baruch Hashem)

i am so relieved ... i spent today just sewing...  and trying to convince myself to shift my mind a bit, and get into a more scientific mode...
i am half looking forward to Toxicology and half dreading it (i am easy to freak out when studying about pollution)...

need to go rest now.
shalom - Ulla/e. & co.

 i started to post into the class (let's hope she gives me credit), tomorrow i am going to start making the final presentation...

i also have started to read the textbook on the next class (Environmental Toxicology); it is so ironic, to be reading much more advanced and complicated writings (i.e. human physiology, the metabolizing of chemical compounds, etc) is actually a bit comforting compared to just reading the history of laws/Acts/proposals...

i managed to also get a bit of walking in tonight, but did trip and fall (i'm okay, btw)...
i made Tony kiss me tonight, and promise that he will still love me if i get a C in the law-class... thank G-d, the class will be over SOON.
shalom - Ulla/e. & co.

constitutional: 1,565 steps. 

 first, of course, i need to talk about school.... i finished the second chapter that we are required to read next week (week #5, it will begin this coming Tuesday)... so i basically spent this Winter Break reading chapters 9 & 10, but no worries, i spread out the reading into little sections (much less stress), and you know me, i spent most of my time taking loooong "sewing breaks"....

about RG, i had posted last night about some old fotos i took almost exactly one year ago (it was 2017-01-13)... Tony had brought me a tiny piece of empty wasp's nest that he found in the backyard (attached to the wooden, unpainted fence).... when i was looking at the nest, under my microscope, i notice a very faint yellowish/orangish dusting; and when i zoomed in (increasing the magnification) i saw these gorgeous *tiny* orange colored sporangia and very light colored sporangiophores:








today 2 doctors of Botany saw my posting, and gave me links to an RG-site article, and asked a couple questions about what is visible under the microscope.... reading the article mentioned that there are Mucor nidicola sp. fungi that follow around the paper wasp; and apparently this is very possible to be the fungus i saw.... 

i went ahead and cleared the dining room table today, and tomorrow i am going to try and view the sample of the nest and see if i can find out any new information on the fungus.... okay, that's what's happening at the RG-site...

onto my other "pondering".... i feel really unsure if i should bother posting any more of my discussions about our in-house conversations/daily-diaries.... i used to go ahead and do this over at LJ, but that was "back in the day"; before the Russians bought LJ, before LJ was turned into a ghost-town (thanks to Facebook)... and back when my friends at LJ were actually friends of mine, but most of the people i am hooked up with via Dreamwidth are still "new" to me, and i am worried that they won't understand what i am writing, and i am also a little nervous that my writings can be taken and used in their own writings (esp. Slash-authors).... so i am still at one of those infamous cross-roads...

have to just think about it for a while..
shalom - Ulla/e. & co.