Under 10 minutes for a Wednesday NYT crossword is really not bad at all. Particularly since I'm so goshdarned underslept. Ah, I get my sense of accomplishment anywhere I can.

Inauguration lecture title: "Why do some children behave like brats? About difficulties in the development of self-control."

JCzB: What do You mean "some"?
Me: What do You mean "children"?

I think, actually, that speeches are the written form in which I excel.

Also, as usual at this time of year I have to write a speech for the inauguration of the school year to give at the inauguration ceremony for the Psych Dept. This is typically the only part of the ceremony that is in English, so the WISP students invited to attend basically have to sit through a pile of gibberish to hear me. Everyone has been telling me to just use the speech I gave last year, or the year before, because frankly most of the listeners won't have heard it before. But I somehow can't morally accept that idea. I feel like I have put in some effort to reward their forbearance. So I have been waiting for inspiration to strike (which it usually does by about the day before the speech) me with a theme or a take-home message or a gimmick of some sort that I could riff on for a few minutes. And today, unbelievably, while I was waiting for DH to get from the train station to the hotel after a half-day of zipping around town to deliver goods and services to our elite marathoners, and taking them to dinner, and watching the Ethiopians go through their very methodical consumption rituals, and driving to the train station and not finding DH and calling the hotel numerous times and basically just stressing and getting dehydrated from it, while I was sitting there in the lobby deflating and waiting, I found a hook. And it has to do with marathons. And being Ethiopian. And eating rice before salad before chicken.

One thing I cannot get over my amusement of is people who write me emails asking where they can find some information that is actually contained in the email that they are responding to and is attached below the message they write. Oh, People.

Have I mentioned before that there are more Catholics in Poland than there are people who believe in God? Based on self-reports, of course. We have quite a few Catholics who do not believe in the Catholic God, or any other.

I was listening to the most recent episode of TAL on my run a few days ago. It was about frenemies. About people who one spends lots of time with but doesn't like, or people whom one considers friends and doesn't like, or people whom one *should* be close to but etc. I don't really have people like that in my life. I get out of relationships that contain any kind of meanness (unidirectional or bidirectional) in a real hurry, actually. It's funny-strange that so many people maintain them.

Admissions interviews, Day 4

Q. I think You've answered all of the questions we had. Do You have any questions for us?
A. Why the did the previous 2 people leave here terrified?

What I should have said then is, "The real question is, why aren't YOU terrified?"

Magnesium I have consumed

Ever since I started training with the PT I have been consuming magnesium supplements regularly. To avoid muscle cramps in places like my chin, thumbs, obliques, collarbone area, etc. I've tried various means of Mg intake. Here they are, in order of effectiveness:

1. Magnum Forte (300mg, fizzily dissolves in water, B6 added)
2. Orangey liquid Mg purchased in Nijmegen. Citrus flavoured, with potassium.
3. Liquid Mg+Ca that I bought in NY which has the consistency and appearance of thick white glue and tastes citrusy.
4. Un-coated pills (250mg) that I keep in the car for Mg emergencies.
5. Other fizzy Mg tablets, but only 100mg? You've got to be kidding!

You know You're in Poland when...

- people say "thank You" exiting the elevator; this is an interesting custom
- breathing is noticeably unpleasant
- parking is haphazard and insufficient
- I'm surrounded by family :)
- social status is strongly delineated by clothing
- people make demands on my time, demands, demands, demands
- even relevant information is shared reluctantly, if at all

I went to the Museum of the University of Tromso on Sunday. There was a new exhibit on evolution. The museum is sort of interactive so every so often there was a touchscreen that showed something or other and then allowed visitors to vote on a burning question related to the nearest display case such as 'Do you believe that apes and humans are descended from a common ancestor?' The first screen, however, was a language selection screen, on which visitors had to choose either Norwegian or English. So after one voted on a given question, one was shown the voting results for people who responded in Norwegian and English separately. For each of these questions, the English respondents gave less "liberal" answers than did the Norwegian ones. So, more English respondents thought we and apes are descended from a common ancestor than thought we are not, but fewer English respondents agreed than did Norwegian ones. A greater minority of English respondents than Norwegian respondents thought that farming should be given precedence over wild animals. The funniest question asked was "Do you think the pigeons in Tromso center should be persecuted?" The English and Norwegian respondents were similarly distributed on that.

The English respondents are clearly tourists. The type of tourist that comes to Tromso is an affluent kind of tourist. Maybe someone who is a little less concerned about the rights of the natural environment to flourish with as little human interference as possible. Funny.

I never really thought about categorizing people this way before M said it about himself this summer, but once he had I emphatically came to feel that I'm a view kind of person. I completely dig having a view. And that's an understatement because I can't phrase it strongly enough. It's not, as M said, really a matter of taking advantage of what the view shows (spending time in the park out the window, or swimming in the lake, or climbing the mountain, or even looking out so much). It's more a matter of having prospects. Knowing that I have the space to expand should the need arise. It's good for my mental comfort. It's one of those aspects of the physical environment (like clean air) that turns out to be crucial to my positive state of mind but I don't really notice it until I'm in it and I realize that I've been feeling not quite right all this time (like, months) because it hasn't been around. And I've felt constrained even though nothing is actually constraining me. I wonder if everyone is like this, actually.

W piątek jak weszłam na tą górę to słuchałam Pana Wołodyjowskiego w wykonaniu Janusza Gajosa, wgranego przez Jerzego dla Basi na iPoda, którym pogardziła. Anyway, ja tego nigdy nie czytałam w szkole i mam pewne przemyślenia.

1. To jest kurde okrutnie długa książka! Wlecze się w nieskończoność! Przez 10 godzin przesłuchałam 1/3, czyli do chwili, kiedy p. Wołodyjo się zszedł z Baśką! Niby finał a to dopiero 1/3!! Nie można było po prostu zacząć drugiej książki wtedy? Tom 2?

2. Janusz Gajos mistrz.

3. Michał to piękne imię.

4. Nonstop gadają o Bogu. I o Chrześciaństwie. No wonder ten naród jest taki nastawiony na kościół skoro jedno z podstawowych dzieł literackich, które się czyta w szkołach i cytuje jako arcydzieło narodowe, nonstop nawiązuje do Boga. Kurde. Tam nic się nie dzieje bez Boga, modlitwy, groźby Kary Boskiej. It is POLITICAL and thus PERNICIOUS. This is not Jane Austen.

5. Baśka == dziecko. To jest wzorzec kobiety, na który lecą polscy mężczyźni. Nierozsądna, rozemocjonowana, "spontaniczna" czyli bezrefleksyna, uparta, a to pozwala mężczyznom być dorosłymi, rozsądnymi, opiekuńczymi. Sama jest totalnym dzieckiem, które się rozpieszcza ale z którym nie można się komunikować na poziomie intelektu. Można się za to porzygać.

6. Nie ma tam też innej kobiety, która a) miałaby charakter i b) byłaby ciekawa pod jakimkolwiek względem poza rumieńcami. Np. Krzysia -- o niej nie wiemy nic poza tym jak pan Wołodyjo na nią reaguje, praktycznie. Jest totalnie generycznym obiektem płci żeńskiej. Tak samo jak Ewa jakjejtam. Nie to co mężczyźni w tej bajce.

7. Krzysia też ładne imię.

8. Adam też.

9. Nie wiem czy bym przeczytała to w całości, nawet gdyby było zadaną lekturą. Natomiast na słuchowisko przy długich spacerach po górach daje rade.

Pewnie więcej dopiszę jak przebrnę przez te prze-nudne opisy przeszłych militarnych dokonań, jakie rozpoczynają to co nazywam "Tom 2" tego dzieła.

10. Jest mnóstwo słownictwa, którego nie znam a które mniej więcej kumam z lekcji rosyjskiego, hiszpańskiego, a nawet norweskiego.

11. Dobrze jest tego słuchać, nie czytać, bo można tune in and out as the plot advances/grzęźnie.

So, just in case the news doesn't reach You through the other internetz, I'm now an aunt to the lovely little Zosia and Basia P. I mean, I have been for the last 35 weeks or so but now they are OUT IN THE WORLD! And I've heard* they look a lot like me!!!**

Wow, I'm a little preoccupied. How am I going to get the next 10 days of work done.

* trust me to be in arctic norway when this happens, honestly

** as in, ADORABLE!!

Today I was reading someone's profile on a dating site and it said "message me if you want to know more" which I totally misread as "massage me if you want to know more" and I immediately wanted to steal that to put on my profile but then I chickened out. And anyway it wouldn't be stealing.