potential warning sign of a future evil mastermind #11: the limp

what do you know, we're two weeks behind again...

the weekend of the 17-18th i let yannick talk me into going up sking for a half-day on saturday morning, before returning to marathon rehearsal weekend for the chorus. it was fun, and i'm very glad i went (also, it was nice to finally meet his girlfriend, stephanie, who still lives in lyon). however, as i didn't find out until later that day, i apparently torqued my left knee something fierce near the end when we were stuck on a sheet of ice. didn't notice anything at the time, but as soon as i stopped moving (well, and subsequently sat still for close to 5 hours) it locked up nice and tight such that when i finally went to stand up, i promptly fell over. and, of course, i've been doing a really shitty job of taking care of it (staying off of it), so it's still kinda sore at random times. mostly i probably shouldn't have gone to karate last week, but they already think i'm a loser, so i didn't want to give them any more excuses.

some new friendships are developing quite nicely with the aforementioned swiss-german kids i met in the choral group. it's kinda funny, though, i've been noticing that the vast majority of the people i've make friends with since i started college are all about ~20 years old when i meet them, give or take a little bit. in the beginning, they were mostly older than me (sharon & co., zack, nate), but within the standard margin of error. as i got towards the end of my undergrad career, they tended to be younger than me (jason, ed, the theatre crowd, joe), but again, nothing out of the ordinary. as i got closer to finishing at caltech, i noticed that i was meeting people younger than my sister (dave, doug, mike, dorota), and now it's starting to strike me as a wee bit odd that i was in the second grade before dominic and co. were even born... obviously, this is pretty much completely immaterial, and like usual i'm probably subconsiously filtering the data points to fit my odd-theory-du-jour, but it was just a random thought that struck me.

anyway, spent last week hobbling around on my bum knee, finally finished out the accounting for the last years stuff with the chorus, and bought a road bike (finally!). paid twice as much as i wanted to spend, but it was much more bike than i really need, so it was still less than it's probably worth, and therefore a pretty good deal. saturday i bought (very expensive [gulp]) shoes and cleats to go with the clipless pedals that are on it, but naturally as the whole week had been mind-blowingly gorgeous, a massive rainstorm blew in on friday night and stayed the whole weekend, so i haven't tried them yet. i also finally bowed to mounting pressure from the people at the karate class and went in search of a real gi (the unbelievably stupid looking suit-thing that they wear). unfortunately, i actually found one, which meant i felt obligated to buy it (since my primary excuse was gone), and it wasn't cheap either (like around ~$100).

saturday night teodora threw a going away party for herself before she goes back to bulgaria, and it was very well attended. so much so that i started feeling claustrophobic at times (no, i still haven't learned to be a party person yet). i hung around as long as i could, but at around one i was starting to nod off, so i excused myself. rumor has it they were still going strong when the sun came up on sunday... wow. nice people, but totally not my scene.

tried raph's new sunday morning ashtanga class with yannick, and then in the evening went up to his parents house with the wii and cooked dinner there and played around with him, his flatmate jen, and his sister marie-noelle. lots of fun. gotta get a tv that i can use it on at home. maybe.

which brings us to now, with me (in classic fasion) procrastinating at work, since i feel overwhelmed by all the crappy stuff i need to do. well, it wouldn't be so bad except that more than half of it is ill-defined (as per usual), meaning that i'm not even really sure what it is that i need to do... grr... okay, i should probably at least try to get back to it. god, am i going to be one happy camper when this whole phd mess is finally behind me...

when it snows, it white-outs

the ski season this year has been nothing if it hasn't been disappointing. we're in the goddam *swiss alps* and there's no fucking snow...

but karen, krister, godefroy, and i braved it up the mountain anyway on sunday, since there had been a little bit of snowfall near the end of last week. of course, we showed up only to find that now 3/4 of the lifts were closed due to wind, and most of what was open were the "ass-pullers" and "crossbows" (literal translations of the words they use to describe the two different types of t-bars). and i still maintain that any civilized person would laugh uproariously at the thought of going to some ass-backwards place where they still used t-bars... unbelievable.

but we were already there, so we gritted our collective teeth and charged up the mountain to claim it for our own. when we got to the top however, visibility was about 15ft maximum, and the enormity of my error began to sink in. even in the radius of sight, there was no contrast, and any contours in the snow were hence completely and utterly invisible. now, i'd like to think that i've gotten to the point where i can hold my own pretty decently on the snowboard, but it seems that much (if not all) of this is predicated on the fact that i **be able to see where i'm going and prepare for the terrain ahead.** as this was not the case, i was not doing well, and felt like a fucking idiot. add to this the fact that krister is apparently the kind of badass that likes to go off the trail into the middle of nowhere where it's deep and i sink, well, it didn't work so well. but somehow we ran into michael, and all had a very nice fondue together for lunch, and it started to clear a little bit after lunch. i tried my hardest to keep up, but still felt like i was probably holding them back. eh, whatever.

stopped off at karen's house on the way back home and had a nice little dinner. her house really is fabulous, i can't say that enough.

a night on the town: is it a blue moon again already?

recently, i've been waking up in the morning with back pain and no idea why. the only reasonable thing i can think of is that the mattress might theoretically be starting to sag (it is a three year old futon mattress), but it doesn't really look or feel any different; certainly not enough to justify such a drastic bifurcation (the change came quite suddenly about a week and a half ago). so yeah, puzzling. kinda hope it stops soon.

friday afternoon, we tried to organize what yannick has been calling an "el cheapo" yoga session with our little group, but the only people who ended up coming were karen and i. we had a good practice, and i even started to feel my hips open up a little bit with my increased frequency of practicing (i think i got four sessions in last week), which was encouraging. afterwards, we picked up a couple of pizzas, brought them back to my apartment, and had a nice little dinner with maurice. later, karen and i joined alex and his friend magnus (visiting from spain) for a drink, and eventually even krister showed up. a 'progressive party' of three establishments later, i was dragging myself into bed at about 4am. it was fun, but i'm really glad it only happens very rarely. i must be getting old.

saturday was hence cut short, for obvious reasons including the fact that i didn't get up until nearly 10:30, and was pretty much a lazy lounge around my room day. though i did make a trek out to obi (the 'home depot' sort of store here) with three goals in mind, and failed miserably at all three of them. i wanted:

1. baking soda in a package bigger than an artificial sugar packet (you know, like a real arm and hammer box). of course they had no idea what i was talking about, and suggested that i go back to the grocery store and buy the sugar packets. coming up with a half cup of the stuff for treating a slow drain using sugar packet sized servings sounds utterly ridiculous.

2. a protective plastic briefcase-like box filled with puzzle foam for making a carrying case for the wii. i'm dead certain that the boxes nikolaus keeps the alices in and various other similar things that we have here around the lab all came from obi, but again, the sales people i talked to all claimed they had never seen or sold such a thing.

3. a small lamp, so i can read in bed without needing the overhead light on. they had a bunch of cheap-ass (and cheaper looking) plastic desk lamps that were not terribly inspiring. so i looked with the real light fixtures, and found a set of really ridiculously gaudy hanging glass globes. the set as a whole was quite terrifying, but i kinda liked the smallest one which was leveled off on the bottom to sit on the ground, thinking i would put it on my bedside stand thingy. it was a bit on the spendy side (~$30), but it was made of real glass and had a nice wispy swirly kind of pattern blown into it, and looked kinda nice and different, so i flagged down a flunkie and asked them if i could buy one. ten minutes later, he comes back and tells me that they hadn't been delivered on schedule, and wouldn't be for at least two more weeks.

and so, i went back home empty handed.

key lime sublime

sunday we still had the leftover limes from spicy night mexico, and they weren't getting any younger or jucier, so i made a key lime pie. and, if i do say so myself, i did a fucking good job of it, too. my pie crusts are always pretty good, but occasionally they come out perfect, and when they do, watch out! this one was perfect. (yes, i'm proud of myself, let me have my moment and just deal with it.) naturally, we're ignoring for the moment the simple-yet-obvious fact that such a pie is not even remotely on my diet. yeah, gotta do something about that; this diet has been making little if any progress yet.

oh, and on the subject of bizarre mood swings again, another ridiculous anecdote (at least it's a good one). at thursday's choral rehearsal, it ended up that i was sitting near a couple of the 'popular kids,' as i tend to think of them, but i suppose all that really means is that i'm mildly jealous of their charisma. anyway, as per usual, i started to get a little antsy after a couple hours, and went to crack my back to realign it (crossing my legs to brace my elbow against so as to induce an extreme twist/extension; very effective, and occasionally surprising to someone who's never heard that many pops at once before). what *i* didn't expect, though, was that they would try to imitate me. (mimicry is indeed a very effective---and for me, unexpected--- form of flattery.) and we all got a brief chuckle out of their realization that it wasn't quite as straightforward as it looked, and even that they weren't quite flexible enough to do exactly what i had done. a few minutes later, i assumed a half-lotus sit on my chair, and they followed suit again, or at least attempted to, with amusing results, until just settling on an indian-sit compromise. after we had all had our little giggle about that, i playfully mentioned that i didn't think i had ever had this much influence, and when the response came back (even though obviously just joking) that they "would follow me anywhere," well, let's just say that moment ranks up there amoung the most pleasant i've had in recent memory.

there was fondue and settlers at fabius's place saturday night, and friday we took the wii up to the 4th floor conference room again (the one with the fantastic rear-projector and sound system). unfortunately, i still haven't found a solution for using it at home yet, but i'm hoping this will take care of itself sometime soon. and i'd prefer that the solution which presents itself not be for me to buy one of these abominable flat monstrosities that cost the equivalent of two new cars... unfortunately it seems that these are all anyone is selling anymore, though...