-
Relaxation to the max
I went ahead and joined the beginner’s yoga class and it went really well. It’s a small class and the teacher was really good. She was really good and demonstrating moves and explaining how they work before we had a go at them. Most of them I already knew about but it was good to have better advice on how they are supposed to be done than I have in the past. And the video classes obviously miss out that component of being in a real class. As it turns out many of the moves were the same as what I’d been doing at the gym so I already had a bit more strength to handle the plank position and had an idea of what moves were coming up in the sun salutation. It ended with a nice relaxation and then it was done. Â One thing I have worked out is that my mat is just not going to cut in class. It’s old and it was cheap quality when I bought it and definitely doesn’t cushion enough for my knee. I was able to use a blanket the teacher provided to cushion a bit better but need a mat that provides better support and is not so slippery.
The Scientist and I went off to Mad Mex nearby for dinner and returned 1.5 hours late for tai chi. We only arrived a few minutes ahead of time but nobody was there yet. Our teacher does a sword class outside so I guess everyone just assumes a slightly late starting time and many are just straggling in at the last minute now. It mostly went well aside from me blacking out briefly while standing up too quickly in yoga once and getting a bit woozy in the tai chi for a little while. Not sure if that was due to donating plasma earlier or low bp or a bit of both.
I’m looking forward to next week’s yoga class and then eventually doing the regular class that runs before tai chi.
-
At long last, a new post!
Some days I feel I could write something every day but then the next day comes and I find it hard to write anything. I guess I’ve had quite a few days like that over the past month.
Life has gotten a bit busy recently. Last week I started a temporary/casual part-time job at a local university. It’s the same job I’ve done the past two years so it’s not really anything new, aside from some of the people involved. I’m working eighteen hours a week over three weekdays, which leave two days for other activities during the week. This work will only last a few weeks at most.
My other, less formal job has also had some changes. I was working casually for the disability services commission as a carer for a family friend for two to three hours a week. I’ve been doing it for about eight or nine years so it’s old hat to me. But the carer hours are now being handled by another organisation and my work will be more formalised. This means I have to have a police clearance and I have to fill out an employment application as if I were totally new to the job. Once it’s sorted out, I will be getting a small increase in pay with an official decrease in hours to just two per week. Also, the funds will be deposited directly to my bank account, which means there’s no chance of my charge taking the money and spending it elsewhere before I get there (as has happened a few times in the past).
I finished up two of the Coursera classes I started last month. The Science of Gastronomy was both easy and enjoyable. The worst part was getting through the lectures on video, which sometimes ran a bit longer than was really needed. One of the last assignments involved making sauces using varying amounts of salt and corn starch plus water and a flavoring. Curry powder was recommended but we didn’t have enough powder on hand. I used cumin powder instead, which was a mistake as it was not very nice on its own. There were six different solutions and our task was to work out which one had the most intense flavor in it and it was interesting to note the effects of the amounts of corn starch and salt on each mixture.
The Maps and Geospatial Revolution class was far more interesting than I ever expected it to be. The instructor was engaging and did fairly short lectures plus weekly mapping assignments. We had a final assignment that we had to submit for peer review  which involved making a map that tells some sort of story using online tools. I decided to make a story map of the photos I took when I went into Perth one day last month while my car was being serviced. I liked doing most of the assignment but had some technical difficulties with saving content as it would disappear from the page afterwards. I never worked that one out but found a work-around by changing the blurbs on my Flickr photos so that text would import and I didn’t have to do anything further in the web application. I wasn’t able to fix the titles of the photos used, though, so had to leave them with the numbering the application gave. It looked kind of strange but it was the best I could do within the limited time available. There was also a final exam I completed last night and managed to get 45+ out of 50 points on it…which was pretty good except I missed one that I should have gotten right.
I’m still enrolled in a Modern and Postmodern class which mainly is focused on philosphers in the modern and post modern eras. I really like the subject but got rather far behind while finishing up the other two classes and didn’t do the first essay assignment. I decided I would just audit this time and try to do the class again when it’s offered. At the moment, I’m toying with the idea of dropping it for now as I have other classes starting up soon and not enough time for all of it.
I am still going to the gym most days but it’s probably more like five days a week than the six I was doing when I started out. Even at the beginning I had no illusions that I’d be able to stick to a six day schedule and had the goal of going at least three or four days a week . I did manage to stick to that schedule for most of the first ten months but have slipped a bit over the last six weeks or so. My current favorite exercise routines are the fusion video classes that combine yoga and pilates. Mostly it’s been yoga and a very tiny bit of pilates if any. At least in the classes I’ve tried. There is a class that is all pilates but I haven’t tried it yet. I haven’t done much yoga in about ten years when I last took a class. I had taken a class of the Kripalu yoga style while in Halifax, NS while we lived there for a year and when I came home there wasn’t a class nearby that interested me. The classes at the gym are rather fitness oriented so tend to focus a lot on the exercise for exercise sake. But I’ve found I’m really enjoying the yoga parts so try to do at least part of a yoga class after my other exercise each day. All of the classes seem to do quite a bit of the plank poses which would have been really challenging for me in the past but are now getting easier for me.
All the yoga workouts have interested me in doing a proper yoga class again. And it just happens that there is a yoga class that runs before our tai chi class on Tuesdays. Â I’ve signed up for a short beginner series as a refresher then may try out the regular classes that finish just before our tai chi class. Hopefully this will leave me quite relaxed on Tuesday nights. :D
Meanwhile I am now donating plasma on a two-weekly basis, mostly on a Tuesday…making for rather busy Tuesdays on alternating weeks lately.
-
Challenging the anxiety
Game Fanatic has been fairly desperate to find ways to make some new friends for a while now. He has had some issues in the past that I think he’s finally willing to overcome, or at least compromise on. But the finding of the friends has been a difficult part since he’s not engaged regularly in work or schooling right now. In fact, he’s been mostly isolated in the past few years and only recently has been engaged in any sort of social interaction via old friends from the homeschooling community, mine and his. This hasn’t been particularly regular but it’s been something and he’s found he has improved on subsequent visits. His recent attendance at the Supernova convention was meant to help find avenues for friendship but it was simply too crowded to accomplish much of anything aside from going around to the different stalls and looking at the cosplay creativity of other convention goers.
What he did do was pick up a flyer for a local Japanese anime fan group that interested him. Even though he’s had the flyer a few weeks, he didn’t gather up courage to go until this weekend. The group has screenings of anime series and movies on all but the first Saturday night of the month. On the last Saturday it seems they have a social gathering in the afternoon before the screenings. The viewing sessions do come at a cost but the social group is free. Game Fanatic asked to go early in the afternoon so we headed out about the time they were due to start and arrived half an hour later. We found a mostly empty space with a couple people hanging around. It seems this weekend wasn’t a good one for joining in the first time due to another event nearby and the fact it’s winter here. I talked to a couple of the guys there and it was suggested that we come back a little later and see if there is more of a crowd.
We went away and came back an hour later. We were optimistic to find the parking lot nearly full but it seems those were people attending other events in the center as only a couple others had joined the group we were there to see. This included an older woman with a sewing machine, which seemed rather odd to me. I will point out that GF was in quite a panic from the start and was silent through the brief chats I had with most of the others that we came across there. I finally got him to sit down with me at one of the tables set up for the afternoon and he was shaking from nerves. Fortunately he calmed down after we’d been there for a little while. I chatted a bit with the sewing machine woman, who was having some trouble with the machine. She went away after a while to take that machine home and retrieve another one, I think. The few others came and went but mostly left us alone. They weren’t unfriendly but they weren’t terribly inviting either. I suspect this crowd, being rather geeky, doesn’t have a notion of helping other join in. So we were just sitting there most of the time. I had a couple of things in my purse to occupy myself but GF just sat there the entire time. I talked to him a bit and kept asking him if he wanted to stay or go. It was still quite a while until the evening activities would be set up and I was bored and I suspect he was too (aside from nerves). Â Eventually I made the decision that we would leave so I said our goodbyes and said we would come back some other time. Then we came home.
I will credit Game Fanatic highly for being so determined to stick it out. If I’d felt there would be any positive outcome I’d have stayed much longer but it seemed to me a fruitless venture on this particular day. I made sure he understands that we won’t give up and we will keep trying until it works. Not only do we have to have the right environment but GF also needs to be able to engage in the situation to some degree. I suspect that will take a few attempts just on its own so I hope his determination continues.
We found another possible social avenue when I discovered a new games shop has opened somewhat locally. It’s not close to home but it’s in the area so we take what we can get. At least it’s not in the city proper like the one other games shop here. Anyway, this new place has regularly scheduled events most days of the week. Thursday night is devoted to board games and they have several available to play but the option to bring your own too. We drove down on Thursday afternoon to have a look at the place and it seems nice enough as a venue for games. Their selection of games for sale isn’t very big right now but they have only been open a few months. There were only a few people in the stores, mostly older guys playing some card game…perhaps Magic the Gathering or something of that ilk. Since today’s adventure didn’t come out very well I am encouraging Game Fanatic to try out the games night. We may well have to go two or three times before he is comfortable there but it doesn’t hurt to keep trying and this is the sort of activity where he’s most likely to find like-minded people.
We ended up buying a couple of games while at his shop even though they cost more than we’d pay at our online supplier. If the service and community work out to be good here, it will be worth the investment, I think.
-
Good Tuesday
Tuesday was a pretty good day. It warmed up and I stopped feeling cold all the time. My aches and pains subsided quite a bit too. A friend I’ve not seen in a long time came to visit. I even allowed her into the house because I knew she wouldn’t judge me by my house like some people would. We had a really good chat then went off to Sushi Master for lunch. As it turns out they have half price main meals on Tuesdays so we splurged and had bento box meals and they were quite good. We were both full by the time we left and neither of us finished our food. By this time it was late afternoon so my friend left before peak hour traffic became too bad. So far so good…
In the evening, the Scientist and I got to finally join the advanced tai chi class. After last term ended and I’d finished my level six moves, I was quite excited about this. A few days before the class I got a bit nervous about it. In the beginner class, we had warm up exercises, work on an 18 move set called shibashi, and walking practice before going into the week’s lessons. In the advanced class we’ve already learned all the moves in the tai chi set so I didn’t know what to expect during the lesson part.
We left early that night to get a bite to eat before class. As I was still full from lunch, I skipped dinner and just had a gelato for dessert. We still had almost two hours to kill for before class so we went to a nearby shopping centre and wandered around a bit, bought a couple things from the grocery store and then exhausted that location. Most of the stores closed before we got there so it was like walking in an empty mall most of the time. We moved on to the actual venue and arrived about an hour before class time. Rain had begun to fall at some point and started getting quite heavy about the time we parked there. There’s a yoga class that meets before this class so we sat in the car in the rain and watched a bit of what was happening there until it was too difficult to see much.
We finally went inside about fifteen minutes before class and got settled in. We became reacquainted with a few people we’d not seen for a while and finally the class started. It started much the same as beginner class with a warm up. Then we started working on the second version of the shiboshi. This was a really nice set of moves, much better than those in the first set. And those are quite nice on their own. But these are more involved and move your body much more which added to the experience. Afterwards we all worked through the entire tai chi set and I managed to stay pretty close to the right moves throughout. Funnily enough I had a bit of a blip during the level five moves, which were the ones I found easiest to learn. I think I just lost concentration and that threw me off a bit. I have been practicing more these days and it definitely is showing through. The rest of the class was focused on breathing, which is the special topic for this term. This has been the area I’ve had trouble with along the way due to just trying to learn all the moves. It seems to be an ideal focus for me this term anyway. Afterwards it was the end of class and we finished with the usual lotus set of moves to finish off.
I was nervous for no good reason because it was all even better than I was expecting it to be. Next week we will forgo the eating out part and just leave a lot later in the evening. I’m looking forward to the future lessons.
-
Aches and pains post
As I posted last night, our chilly weather has returned and I’ve noticed I am now plagued with aches and pains in a way I’ve never had before. In the past I would ache at times but mostly have managed without medication. This year I have found I have needed pain medication on many more occasions than ever before. I have started using Voltaren gel on my hands pretty regularly. This morning I was woken, possibly for the first time, with pain in my hands and feet. I’m not sure if this is osteoarthritis or pain related to my autoimmune issues but whatever it is is definitely on the increase. I need to see my gp shortly so will discuss over the counter medications that will be most effective for me.
Back in February, I got a letter from the immunologist I was seeing privately to tell me that he is no longer working with private patients. I asked for a referral to a new doctor at that time but put off making further enquiries until winter as I wasn’t due for a new appointment until this month. This has backfired on me since the new doctor works privately on a few Saturdays a month and is booked out for months in advance. I did get an appointment but not until December. It will be interesting to see if there are changes in my autoimmune issues when I finally get in again. I haven’t had blood tests done in over two years so will surely need new ones, especially as I was being monitored for autoimmune liver disease due to the type of ANA I have.
-
MOOC obsessed
A local homeschooling connection posted a link to Coursera, which hosts a number of massive open online  courses, on Facebook a while back. I had a look at it at the time and forgot about it for a long while. A few days ago she posted again about how she and her daughter were doing this course on the science of gastronomy and describing what it was like so far. I went back to look and was so hooked that I signed up for the course right away even though it was hours until the first assignments were due to be finished. Even the Scientist got hooked and joined me watching the video lectures and doing the assignments that night. There are four more weeks worth of classes ahead and I look forward to doing those weeks.
I perused over course offerings there and discovered a class called Maps and the Geospatial Revolution. I thought perhaps this would be of interest to Lego Lover and he did find the concept of interest. I signed up for that one and I am doing the course myself but will use the course materials to work with Lego Lover. This is the kind of ideal stuff to use with him for our homeschooling program. If I am taking the course, I can use the information and adapt to his needs without any requirement that he be directly involved. So far Lego Lover hasn’t been involved in any way but I must admit the course is turning out to be quite interesting to me by itself. I’m looking forward to his involvement with what I am doing and if he opts out at any point, I can carry on without him.
There are a bunch of other courses that I found interesting, many which I could use with Lego Lover, and many for my own enjoyment. Further research shows a number of these MOOCs are out there with varying levels of involvement required. It makes me want to lots of courses so it’s a matter of restraint on overdoing things. I’ve added a course on modern and contemporary American poetry for later this year. I’ve not been that interested in poetry but though this might be a gateway if it works out well. If not, at least I tried it out.
-
Crochet
Since my last post, I’ve started up my crochet hobby again with mixed results. As often happens, I started a new big project and I can just hope I finish it before winter ends. I started making a new afghan in a sort of zigzag pattern based on something I found online. I was able to get it started more quickly than usual and have now managed about twelve or thirteen rows, I think. But I have had to pull out entire rows due to my inability to find mistakes that have messed up the pattern. Still, it’s a fairly simple pattern and I’ve been doing this while watching the cricket on tv. Well, I was watching until I decided I needed a break and moved back to my computer. I’m not a cricket fan but watched quite a lot with the Scientist during the last match and have carried on into the first day of the current match.
Meanwhile, I tried to start a new pair of fingerless gloves tonight and just found it too difficult. My fingers were too cold and the yarn was just a bit too fine and the hook too small to manipulate. Funnily enough they did warm up when I started working again on the afghan but now are chilled again. I am debating whether to stick with the current yarn or switch to something a bit more bulky. My plan was to use a finer yarn and crochet small so that it kept me warmer. But I might need to work on it during the day a bit more to get much accomplished. I think I need gloves to keep my fingers warm to crochet. :D
-
Cold
It’s late Monday night and it’s cold. That is, it’s cold by local standards. We don’t have central heat at our house so it’s generally chilly through nights during the winter and sometimes it’s chilly during the day. It was 11C in our bedroom when I finally dragged myself out of bed this morning. Our room is at the front of the house and tends to be a lot cooler than the back of the house. The living room, which is the next room, was almost two degrees warmer and the back of the house a bit more warmer still. I opened up the curtains and let the sun shine in this morning and it made me feel so much better. Nothing like solar heat to keep you going. :) Rain is expected tomorrow so there’s a good chance we’ll have a bit of reprieve from the chill although the addition of the damp might cancel out the effects of higher temperatures. That’s only if we actually get the rain, of course.
Meanwhile, my hands, and more specifically my fingers, are suffering more from the effects of cold this year. I’ve had symptoms of Raynaud’s disease (or syndrome or phenomenon ) for several years but it’s been fairly manageable or been of relatively short duration. This year, my circulation has been pretty poor in my hands and feet. Raynaud’s is characterised by up to three color changes to your fingers/toes/extremities caused by constriction of the blood vessels. In the past I’ve had two colors, white and red, but had never seen blue until quite recently. It was triggered when I took an almost icy cucumber from the refrigerator to cut up recently and I saw my fingers go a sort of purplish-blue. I couldn’t say for sure if my toes have gone blue before because I usually try to keep them well-covered at this time of year. Currently that means warm and fuzzy bed socks plus slippers. My toes are still cold despite the layers. I need to either buy or make some gloves for my hands. I crocheted some fingerless gloves a few years ago but they are a bit too big and chunky and don’t do a great job. I had another pair that was better but those seem to have gotten lost at some point. Perhaps it’s time to find a pattern and choose a nice soft yarn and make new ones.
I did manage to warm up for a little while today when I had to go into Perth to drop my camera off for a warranty repair. I had used our relatively new gps to help me find this place but got something of a run around. It initially sent tried sending me to a northern suburb even though I put Perth as the suburb. I realised it was off the track and tried to adjust the location and it wouldn’t let me choose Brisbane Street. It did relent and allow Brisbane Place so I went with it. I figured it would get me within the vicinity at the very least. This side street ended up being about three blocks from my destination. I parked on one of the back streets to get free parking and walked the three blocks and was quite warm by the time I arrived there. The walk back kept me quite comfortable so that I was close to being overheated in the relatively lightweight hoodie I was wearing. I remained for most of the rest of the afternoon. It was only when I returned home in the evening from the gym that I felt chilled again. Fortunately I know it’s not just me because the guys are all commenting on the coldness too.
-
Proud
Game Fanatic made his parents pretty proud this weekend when he attended the Supernova Pop culture show. Over the past few years, he’s been fairly isolated and had limited friendships due to his various anxiety, ocd and asd sort of issues. I added in the asd even though his diagnosis of autism is not official just yet. It’s just that it’s now his traits are so much more obvious than in the past so it seems worthy of inclusion. Going out in public to crowded places has always been a struggle for GF so when he announced his interest in attending Supernova months ago, we didn’t really think it would end up happening. Closer to time, there were questions about going along with other people we know but that didn’t work out for various reasons. He still wanted to go so the Scientist accompanied him to the show last Sunday. Apparently it was really crowded with many rude show-goers pushing their way around the venue. The Scientist told me later that GF started following him around until he said that GF need to take the lead and the Scientist would follow him. This wouldn’t necessarily work every time but it did on this occasion. Game Fanatic did go around to the things that interested him, including a panel by Mad Men, a company that distributes most of the anime titles here in Australia. He took charge of what he wanted to do and just got on with it. I have long known that when Game Fanatic sets his mind to something, he can overcome many of the obstacles and this is a prime example. The main objective in going to this show was so that GF could socialise but that didn’t really happen as it was just too crowded there. But GF did pick up information on a local anime group that meets so perhaps this will be a means develop more of a social circle for him. I hope he takes the same determination into the next social challenge he meets. Well done, Game Fanatic!
-
A beginner no more
Last night marked the last of my days as a beginner in tai chi. I have now completed six levels, which means I have learned 108 moves. I must admit to feeling quite pleased and proud of myself since it has been quite a challenge for me over the last couple of years. The last two terms have gone pretty well and I have far more confidence than I had in any of the earlier levels. I still find I have difficulty with some parts of the tai chi set, particularly those moves in level four. But I am getting better with time and now that I’ve learned the moves, I can concentrate on refining my skills. The Scientist finished two terms ago and has been helping out in the beginner class while waiting for me to catch up. So our new adventure starts in a few weeks, on a different night of the week and at a later hour. Should be fun!