sore fingers, many parties, and quite a bit of exercise

seems i've lapsed again, and have some catching up to do.

been to several more yoga classes. yannick and i did make it to the crazy mario guy's class a week ago monday. it was alright, but a little strange; and he definitely did too much talking (descriptions are good, but not if it means getting a complete rest between every posture). also, the incense made my throat itchy. it's also a little sad that yoga is so "commercial" (for lack of a better term) here. yannick was mentioning that his shotokan (spelling? it's a form of karate) class is only like 20 francs a month for once a week, whereas these yoga classes are 20-30 francs per class. if i were a just a little less mature than i am, this is where i would invoke the "but it's not faiiiiir" argument.

tuesday the 30th was movienight slash going-away-party-for-jacob at markus's, and nidhi and dave came as well (they are phd students at cmu that are spending the next four months at epfl; nidhi is actually using the other desk in my office, since julien is in canada). katja brought me my backpack, which was much appreciated. it was a pretty big crowd, and a good time was definitely had, but i reminded myself the hard way why i generally play hard to get when offered alcohol (i usually politely decline for the first half of the evening, and then have a drink or two later). i made the mistake of accepting the first one that markus offered me as i came through the door, and by the time i left, i was really quite tipsy. not anywhere close to getting sick, but speaking a little louder than was necessary, and getting overly worked up about something i was describing in french such that i aparently invoked more "colorful metaphors" (explitives) than was expected of me. ha.

wednesday was our little end-of-the-summer twin peaks reunion. we had an excellent bbbq, and were enjoying swapping summer stories so much that we didn't end up seeing anything, but just chatting for the entire evening. it's good to have visitors again. i really like hosting. i don't know why, but it's fun for me.

thursday i went to the intermediate class at jean lechim's yoga studio, which was actually really good---this guy was easily in his 70s, and could have just as easily kicked my sorry little ass into the next country. his focus was more on precision in the postures, so the class had a much more isometric (rather than aerobic) feel to it, but it was still excellent. i hadn't realized how much i had slipped into letting myself cheat in the time that i've spent without a real teacher. he's also spent significant amounts of time studying with iyengar himself, which is cool. but he put more emphasis on the breathing and less on the props than the other iyengar studio i went to before, which was a very welcome change. not sure what i'll end up doing, since if i go regularly to the thursday evening class, i probably wouldn't be able to go to the movienights anymore, which would be sad. we'll see.

friday jim talked a bunch of us into going to an indian restaurant downtown, which was surprisingly both quite good and almost affordable (by swiss standards).

then saturday, yannick and i went back to yogaworks for our second class (since the second class is free), and that was definitely an aerobic workout. i was sweating like a pig. oh, and i don't plan on putting up with any more of his whining about how he's afraid of going to an intermediate class because he might fall over. :) true, he's probably not as flexible as i am, but it's quite clear that he's much stronger---i think he weathered the class better than i did. you know, it can really get annoying sometimes when people are so perfect that you can't even hate them for it... life must really be tough... [rolls eyes]

oh, and either the gods are mocking me, or i have the worst timing in the universe (or possibly both). he rented a room in an apartment with several other students and moved that weekend; i didn't even know he was looking, or i would have tried to talk him into splitting a place with me, like the arrangement that fell through with enno. this irritates me to no end, as i missed yet another opportunity... maybe third time's a charm? hopefully?

other than that, it was a pretty uneventful weekend, playing with my new toy (the guitar). my fingers hurt pretty bad still, but i'm trying to do it as much and as often as i can stand it, in an attempt to power through this phase until they heal. hopefully i'll be able to report back with success soon. sunday, i almost went on a hike by myself (since noone wanted to come with me), but then didn't get my act together soon enough to catch the train, so just went running instead. speaking of which, i'm doing a little better now; saturday i did 5km out, rested, and then 5km back, and on sunday it was more like 4 and 4, then tuesday i even did ~7km without resting in the middle.

monday florence and xavier (my non-insane neighbors) had me over for a "sicilian dinner" and pictures of their vacation, which was really really cool. and they gave me a whole bunch of stuff that they brought back (olives, sundried tomatoes, olive oil, a rock from etna, all sorts of stuff...). very tasty, and very fun.

last night, i showed "what's up doc?" to the twin peaks group, and we had lasagna with garlic bread and salad, and then we also made banana bread for desert, since i had some bananas which were passed the point where i enjoy eating them raw. good food, good conversations, good laughs, good times. :)

and here we are.

one of these times, i should do a quick overview of stuff happening at work, but that always seems less exciting (yeah, yeah, shut the hell up, i know the rest of the stuff isn't particularly exciting either, but it's better than work, and it's all i've got, so stick a sock in it, buster. [smirk]).