h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes yes, it's been ages. I know. And I've pretty much lost hope of ever catching up with backlog (I mean, I'm sorta trying, but after a month of people doing a journal-per-day? I end up just skipping a lot of stuff).

Still need to finish sorting out my UK pictures and posting them on Fotki, which I hope I'll get to, at some point.

Anyway, updates, divided the subjects mentioned in that off aliterative title:

Higher education - taking some courses this year, for my PhD. French and a research student seminar sorta thing, and next semester there'll be one that I'm rather looking forward to, on the Divine Comedy and the book of Arda Viraf (Zoroastrian work describing a journey to the afterlife). Yes, it's very y of me to be excited about that, but it might fit well, with some of the research I'm considering doing, and in general I just think it should be neat.
Although I have been considering taking a break from the PhD, and finding a way to go live in Seattle for a couple of years. Mostly because of those annoying, cliched - but unfortunately based on fact - 'I'm not getting any younger' reasons. We'll see. Nothing concrete planned yet.

Hee-yas - another course I started this year is taekwondo. There's a place not far from me specialising in martial arts classes for women, and I've been thinking of doing some sort of martial arts class, both for the exercise (although not _just_ exercise, otherwise I'd just do kickboxing or something boring like that) and for the more general benefits, like poise and self-confidence and stuff.
And taekwondo is ing AWESOME! I just love it. It's very energetic, with lots of high-kicks and sparring, and I just end every lesson with a feeling of 'Wow, that was so much fun!'. I really think it's doing me good.

And finally, Hanukkah - well, it shows that I was planning to write this journal way earlier; Hanukkah is almost over. This year, because of the Hanukkah-meets-Thanksgiving thing, me and a friend who's also very much into cooking and trying stuff in the kitchen decided to do a Hanukkagiving meal for some friends, combining food from both holidays (we had things like fried turkey breast cutlets, and donuts with cranberry jam, and so on). It went well. There's been some farntic (and some not-so-frantic) cooking beforehand, we had a bunch of friends over and ate a lot, all the usual holiday stuff. And I found out that pumpkin pie, despite my initial suspicion of the concept, is absolutely delicious.
But now I better finish up, here, because I need to be getting ready for the other great Hanukkah tradition (as of the last few years) - Me'orot Con! It's a small, one-day geek-con in Jerusalem, concentrating on science and scifi. Like most Israeli cons, it's more content-oriented than a lot of what you see in, say, the US; most of it, especially in a small one like Me'orot, is the talks given by various members of the geek community (including some of my friends) about the subjects close to their heart. It's great.

So, off I go! I hope I won't take months to come back this time. Still got all that backlog to take care of, after all...

If you do end up moving to Seattle, either I've got to head up that way, or you and Nuke will have to head down here. Or both, and meet around Salemish... *mutters vaguely map-related things*

Higher education - at 5ft 3ins, I always hoped I could get thatbut! I did reach yellow belt in Tae-Kwon-do

Stay with Tae-Kwon-do it's for many reasons

Amy, I definitely need to get down to California one of these days. And it would be great to have a chance to meet/

Prof - Didn't know you did taekwando! It really is great, isn't it?

it learns you discipline, control of the mind and tunes up muscles you never know you had
I had to pack in because of a work move

Yeah, I think these are great things about matial arts, in general.

Before I settled on taekwondo I also tried one lesson of kung fu - that was great, too, but in a very different way. Felt like more precise work, a bit more dance-like. Very interesting. But I loved the high-energy feel of taekwondo, so eventually went for that.

If (when?) I move, I definitely intend to find another studio so I can keep practising.

Tae-Kwon-do is on the school curriculum in Korea and every kid that leaves school (at 16yrs ??) is a black belt, minimum