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Higher education, hee-yas, and Hanukkah

Post 1

Lady Pennywhistle - Back with a vengeance! [for a certain, limited value of Vengeance; actual amounts of Vengeance may vary]

Yes yes, it's been ages. I know. smiley - erm 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? smiley - puff 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 smiley - geeky 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. smiley - erm 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 smiley - bleeping AWESOME! smiley - wow 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. smiley - smiley 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...


Higher education, hee-yas, and Hanukkah

Post 2

Amy Pawloski, aka 'paper lady'--'Mufflewhump'?!? click here to find out... (ACE)

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, hee-yas, and Hanukkah

Post 3

Prof Animal Chaos.C.E.O..err! C.E.Idiot of H2G2 Fools Guild (Official).... A recipient of S.F.L and S.S.J.A.D.D...plus...S.N.A.F.U.

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

Stay with Tae-Kwon-do smiley - hugsmiley - okit's smiley - magicfor many reasons


Higher education, hee-yas, and Hanukkah

Post 4

Lady Pennywhistle - Back with a vengeance! [for a certain, limited value of Vengeance; actual amounts of Vengeance may vary]

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

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


Higher education, hee-yas, and Hanukkah

Post 5

Prof Animal Chaos.C.E.O..err! C.E.Idiot of H2G2 Fools Guild (Official).... A recipient of S.F.L and S.S.J.A.D.D...plus...S.N.A.F.U.

it learns you discipline, control of the mind smiley - smileyand tunes up muscles you never know you hadsmiley - biggrin
I had to pack in because of a work movesmiley - sadface


Higher education, hee-yas, and Hanukkah

Post 6

Lady Pennywhistle - Back with a vengeance! [for a certain, limited value of Vengeance; actual amounts of Vengeance may vary]

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.


Higher education, hee-yas, and Hanukkah

Post 7

Prof Animal Chaos.C.E.O..err! C.E.Idiot of H2G2 Fools Guild (Official).... A recipient of S.F.L and S.S.J.A.D.D...plus...S.N.A.F.U.

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


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