Viss buus labi...

All will be well.

Walking along the Esplanade on my way to school this morning, I noticed how bright the sky had already become.
I still think I was remembering last Tuesday too much. On Tuesdays, I go along that way an hour earlier, when it's still dark. Still, days seem to be getting a bit longer.

It's not much yet, but I checked today… oh, boy, what a change:
Tomorrow, time of daylight will be 4 minutes longer than today,
in a week, we'll have 27 more minutes of daylight,
in two weeks, almost one more hour, and
in two months, four and a half more hours of daylight!

Still, weather-wise it's very strange, and not just because I don't know what Latvia should be like. Now, it tends to be quite cold, but hardly freezing, oftentimes almost balmy (especially having gotten used to the cold ;-).
On excursion last Saturday, (yes there are pictures, they will be up soon; maybe also some notes on it) our guide noticed tulip bulbs which were showing the first of their leaves. The cats and pigeons in the city are getting amorous, too.
Yet, February could still get darn cold…

There remains to be just too much to do, and I honestly can't quite decide how to go about things. I'd like to take more language classes this semester, but then I'd rather overdo it then do only a few (as always). And I definitely need to get some of my own work done, including for some courses…
Add to that the teaching, the time for endurance training… Maybe I should try to do much less. But then I wouldn't even get the number of credits / lectures I need for Campus Europae, and even if I can't tell if I'll ever finish that, I sure wouldn't want to destroy my chances for doing so when I can leave them intact.
Yet, I can't even tell where the next academic year will lead me. I hope, abroad again, and even further this time. I sure am applying for the relevant scholarships, and I know where I want to go. Still, you never know (hence, my not telling what I'm applying for, by the way).

In between...

... 2008 promises to be an interesting year, when I'll hopefully get quite a few interesting things done. To get there, some things need to get done right now, however, and much more as the year progresses. Both work-wise, and where applications are concerned. I only want to mention it right now, however, and not to go into any detail.

Right now, time-wise, the first semester in Latvia should be over where tests and the like are concerned. However, for me, it isn't quite so. And the second semester hasn't yet started. I already know the lectures which will be over (by and large), but I only know the times for a few of them.

Somehow, I have the feeling that I will feel I'm using my time better only when university courses start again, and I have seriously too much to do, not just rather too much.

Training so far this week:
1/21 - 00:33.43,0 - 5.44 km - 6'12 min/km - HR avg. 156 - TE 3.8
1/22 - 00:33.30,0 - 5.51 km - 6'05 min/km - HR avg. 153 - TE 3.6
1/25 - 01:18.00,0 - 11.9 km - 6'33 min/km - HR avg. 154 - TE 4.3

Thursday was too much to do and rain in the evening, so I decided to stay in.

Guess what? Friday I went out running and the rainy weather was just the same as Thursday evening, but I enjoyed it... and I ran a route leading over two bridges, running along the Daugava on two sides of the river. - Seeing it this way, the city sure has started to feel smaller and smaller ;-)

And, a note on training analysis... having the HRmax. be updated automatically (with the high heart rate I get during parkour training), the training effect values would be a level lower...

Week to 1/20

I hardly even noticed, but the cold pretty much disappeared.
I also hardly noticed how time was passing...

Some more exams at LU.
Or really, one presentation of a portfolio. In a course I considered not finishing because I was very conflicted about it, but in the end I finished, got a good grade, and got some good ideas out of it, to boot.
And, one case where the decision was that I still have to hand in one more essay (which I knew) and then would have my grade. No need for a final exam/essay... Sweet.

With the cold and all that, I did less training. I did get some books I'd been waiting for, and some in addition. And in the last few days of this last week, I therefore read three novels, something approaching a thousand pages... No wonder I didn't blog. (I was also teaching, writing on another work...)

Training:
01/16, running, 00:33.55, 5.29 km, 6'25 min/km, HR avg. 154, TE 3.5
01/19, parkour. 01:35.25, 165 HR avg., 4.3 TE
Parkour, even if compared to running, continues to strike me as being much closer to martial arts than to endurance training, it's rather anaerobic training. With the additional strength training, in particular. It's still great as cross-training; I certainly needed it...

Training 01/14/2008

Something like a cold is still around; today (01/15), I rather rested. I can't believe I'm, in parts (triceps, mainly) still sore from parkour training.

Yesterday, I did go out for a little run:
00:34.03,7 - 5.28 km

First time (ever? in a long time?) my Suunto t6 training watch went crazy on me:
I continued to see the heart rate and everything, but the HR was not recorded after the 18th. minute of the run. Very strange...

Secondly, perspectives.

The snow which seemed destined to stay is all gone but for some sorry remains. It almost feels like spring, but January and February are the coldest months.

Shortly ago, I met one of the French foreign students. He complained about the cold while I was wondering about the cozy temperatures - but then, he'd just been in Southern France, I'd been here during the minus 10 Celsius. All a question of perspective.

My coordinator for Campus Europae in Austria had asked me to give him some feedback on how things were going, and we found a similar situation with that:
My colleague seems to have said that it were a dangerous area we are in, for example, and that you even heard gunshots in the night.
I'm saying that it's supposed to be a dangerous area, but I've been going running and nothing has happened, as far as I know no one has been robbed, and as to the "gun shots," I rather wonder how many students really know what gun shots sound like. I may have heard some recently, but I also heard a lot of fireworks, heavy metal lids clanging shut in a single "baaam," backfiring cars,....

The list would go on, but I just want to say that:
I've come to understand a lot more of what cultural anthropology is looking for. It seems to really be (or have been, where studies are concerned) a good fit for me, as I seem to have a slight "defect" where I don't see things as normal when they are as they are done "back home," but just look around and see what's normal where I am finding myself, and take that as the standard.

Which is not to say that I wouldn't be myself, and speak out about problems, for example... Yet, I find it rather amusing that some seemed to have "accepted and adapted" more thoroughly: They described how shocked they were about people's friendliness in other countries, compared to the lack of friendliness of Latvians - and how they themselves didn't act as friendly as they used to. WTF?!
There are some problems, but the same as everywhere. It just depends on how you view it.
In fact, I think that Latvian inhabitants would have more reason to be less friendly than some others, for you can't even know whether Latvian or Russian would be better understood in any one situation (and what use is being friendly when it's not understood).
At the same time, I can remember hardly any truly unfriendly situation I was in, and quite a few nice ones. Maybe that's in part because I accept how it is, don't judge, but continue to behave as a well-educated, old school Austrian. (No, I don't kiss hands just to say hello. And that's only to be done indoors, anyway ;-)

For one: Training 01/13 - Parkour

The cold isn't winning, but strongly bio-rhythmic again: in the morning, it seems pretty bad, during the day it's all but gone, only to return towards bedtime.

So, I took a time-out again on 01/12, and finally went to "Parkour Academy" again for some cross-training yesterday. - And I should go there more often, since my work (writing) on parkour is coming along - but slowly - and this training is also anthropological field work.



Gosh, I hate it ;-)
I've been doing well with running, but nearly forgotten all about upper-body strength. For parkour, and doing parkour, you need quite a bit of that. So, I'm always pretty sore after such training. Still, it is running-related, and I think it may be one of the best forms of cross-training, and indeed of allround training (core strength, balance, flexibility - some of which usually get forgotten), one can get.
I'm thinking about writing a little piece on that, but it's not as if I didn't have enough to do, anyways...

It definitely is anaerobic, highly variant, training:
HR was between 80 and 190, average at 138, training effect 3.1.
And I forgot to turn on the HR recording, so the strength training in the first half is missing from these notes and calculations.

Running Music, and Training 01/10/08

01/10/2008: 01:10.43,5 - 9.95 km - 7'06 min/km - HR avg. 149 - TE 3.5
Indeed, a slight cold. It seems to be losing this time, though.
Temperatures are up above freezing again, and it feels like spring after the minus 10 Celsius we had. Took a different route today. It led me past the train station and the Central Market, and required quite a lot of walking in between...

---

I have a confession to make. Or something like that: I've come to be a running purist.

Recently, I thought back over my running "career" so far.

I started out barely able to run a kilometer or two without feeling that it were drudgery. I was simply out of shape where running was concerned, and probably went way too fast.
Among other things, I found that music helped. A heart rate monitor was a good choice, too…

Since I've become a more dedicated runner, maybe a real runner, I have started to think that you need music only as long as you are not a real runner.

To me, then, running has become a form of meditation: I need to be totally in the moment, yet forget that "I" even am, and let my self disappear into the very motion.
Music, therefore, is in the run. The music of running is only the feet on the pavement and the in-and-out of my breath, the rustle of leaves in the wind…

You need an IPod only if you need a combo placebo and rose-colored glasses. A placebo, because it helps you when you think that it does help, e.g. with motivation. And rose-colored glasses because it doesn't let you see that - oh my God, it's so exhausting but fortunately I'm distracted - you are indeed running, but makes you re-interpret it (as dance, as a game,...).

So, I've come to think. Or not?

Thinking of an IPod's earplugs as a kind of horse's blinkers for runners, preventing them from seeing that they are actually running, it's all the more interesting to note how you can, all the same, fall into the trap of judging others completely by your own limited vision.

I have my strong opinion - I even started to think that the HR monitor should not be checked too much (except it's rather important in my case), and certainly shouldn't tell you too much (go slower, go faster, no - too much)…
Yet, all those things are or can be tools, and it depends on how you use them or whether you need or want to use them.
I can, for example, sympathize with the argument that you can also listen to or hear audiobooks and the like on your IPod, multitasking between exercise and education. I don't think it's a good choice, at least not anymore, but it's every individual's choice.

I also want to brave, and in fact have come to love, "bad" weather and hate the very idea of running on a treadmill. That's just my personal approach, however (and if we got -20C, I'd probably be on the next treadmill nonetheless).

Making generalizations and judgments is sort of fun (in a me/us-versus-them way), but also pretty stupid in the end:
Generalizing, imagining what's your reason, I can't really tell how you feel about what you're doing, why you are or aren't running with music, that provided by your IPod, or that of your own running.

Links:

• "Attack of the Zombie Runners" on runnersworld.com, a very strong opinion against the IPod-runner crowd
• "They’re Playing My Song. Time to Work Out." NYTimes article on the motivational power of music for exercising

Back to school, it's been for me

Second term started with a little bang: All timetables are changed.

Of course, it's not a problem right now (well, yesterday I had to leave at seven to make it in time, which wasn't all that great); in February, when I need to get my own schedule at university organized, too, I might ask for some more changes myself.

At university, my own first exams went well, but some organizational issues are in a state of confusion - I found out only now that I was registered for a course I had been told I could not register for (and therefore, of course, didn't do anything for), and I can't tell - nor find out, so far - what course code my teaching practice course has, or what's required to hand in?!

I recently noticed a few more things about teaching:

Teaching may be more of a challenge here rather than in Austria, as you have a wide range of student skills. After all, Latvia has a common school (Gesamtschule), not a segregation of students into different types of school (not such a strong one, anyways) based on their academic aptitude.
In Austria, recent arguments against a common school revolve around this issue - with students of a wider range of skills, you couldn't effectively deal with all of them. And I'm saying it that way on purpose, "deal with," because I'm coming to see that it's a matter of, well, taking the challenge or wanting things to go easy without having to do too much for it...
Pupils learn differently, have different levels of skill in different subjects, and are of various learning types, anyways. So, it's a challenge for the teacher to teach effectively, more so when students skill levels differ more, but not impossible.

If you really thought that students had to be at the same level and of the same skills to be taught effectively, then our Austrian Gymnasium (academically-oriented high school) would need to separate students the way the Hauptschule (general high school) does. [There you get different "Leistungsgruppen," e.g. English, Maths for students who are very good, mediocre, or pretty bad in that subject.]

If you want to be an effective teacher, you actually need to teach for reality, not imaginary students. The reality is that there are always different levels of knowledge, different levels of skill, and different learning types…

Language accents continue to be an interesting issue.
My pronunciation of English (that, of all the languages I have some idea of) has the most noticeable Austrian/German accent (not nearly as bad as Schwarzenegger's - or so I've been told and certainly hope, but he's a well-known example of where that can lead).

So, I wouldn't want to teach total beginners. Should I have children, were they to grow up in a non-German speaking country, they'd probably have a "father language" different from their "mother language" because I'd talk to them in German.In many private language schools, I wouldn't be hired to teach English because they usually want native speakers. Even though, aside from pronunciation, there is no reason they'd be better teachers of the language than non-native speakers at that level. But it goes deeper…

For English language teaching and communication practice in general, a "non-native" accent may be an asset:

Just consider that English is nowadays (in the scientific community) talked of as "Englishes."
There is barely a singular English when it comes to writing (just check native speakers' writing in online texts); in language practice, there are distinct differences between different regions even within the English-speaking countries. A New York taxi driver sounds different from a high society girl; a Texan from a New Englander; a Brit from an Ozi - and you also have English(es) in South Africa and India.
Yet, English students commonly don't want to talk because of their accents!

There, having a teacher whose accent isn't perfect may be helpful rather than problematic.
It's still possible to correct the more egregious problems (and besides, if others had a perfect accent, they seem incapable of teaching it to others… students I've heard so far aren't all that good; and, I have heard a lot of complaints or sympathy, but also never found anybody who had effective ideas for improving my own pronunciation.)
And when the teacher doesn't always sound perfect, the students may be more open to talking rather than refusing to talk because they couldn't speak perfectly.

Training 01/08/2008

Slightly sore throat, probably a beginning cold;
temperatures are a bit higher again (just below freezing), we had some slight snow once more.

01/08: 00:47.59 - 6.93 km - 6'55 min/km - HR avg. 154 - TE 3.6

Training 01/06/2008

Felt quite like home, sometimes, in winter:
Quite cold, windy, but in such a way you sometimes don't notice, sometimes notice strongly; light snow in the morning added to the snow cover that was already there, wind builds slight snow drifts.
Beautiful hearing the fresh cold snow crunch moaningly under the feet, seeing where people have passed, and where the own track is a new one.

01:15.00 - 11.61 km - avg. 6'28 min/km - HR avg. 159 - TE 4.4

Valuing 2008 (100th post!?)

See, it was time for New Year's Resolutions, everybody's going crazy about them… and already, they are all but forgotten. That's one of the reasons I don't participate in that kind of thing.

I do make decisions to change habits I consider not-so-good (or return to former habits I consider better), though, and 2008 I need to make a break.
A break out of this stalemate of being a researcher and educator by education and intent, but seemingly not getting ahead in this area.

(That I am also working, by necessity, as and on becoming a teacher is not such a problem, but it adds to the oddity: it's meant to help me get on with my life, which is in sustainability / "green culture" research and education.)

So,

• I have returned to getting up at 5:30. (Recently, it used to be 6:00; so it's not such a great change. Interestingly, it seems to be better than that. I will have to see whether it will make me too sleepy in the bus or during lectures when I don't go to bed early enough, though.)
• Then, I have a bowl of matcha (which I started drinking first thing in the morning last year already), and
• I sit down to get on with some of my writing before other chores kick in (hopefully, or making it so).

And, I aim for getting three areas of work into every day…

• writing, as I'm working on some publications;
• training, running or otherwise (I'm still forgetting about stretching, strength training, ninjutsu / ToShinDo - which would be martial arts I began studying when I was 15); and
• language learning.

In 2008, I'll turn 30.
So, even I can't escape thinking about my life so far and what I want to do with the rest of it (provided there's much of a rest: Typically, there should be at least as long a rest; statistically, quite a bit more than that. I'm very aware of its frailty, though…).

Therefore, it is a good point in time at which to realize that there is a problem to the many admonitions that we had only one life (as far as we know with certainty):

They tell you only to live - or maybe to enjoy - your life.

What they should (also) tell you, however, is that you have to risk this one life to follow your dreams - as far as they are not just wacky: I want to get rich and famous without doing anything for it, for example, is not a "dream," it's a delusion.

I want to learn this and that language and have experience living in this or that country is a different issue.
A dream such as that should not be so difficult to realize, and is something you can work on. If you don't work on it, and fail because of that, it's something you'll probably always regret.
That's why it's necessary to risk your life following that sort of idea, even if others should shake their heads, wondering why you can't just relax and let it all slide.

Something on the side:
According to blogger's statistics, this is post #100 on this blog.

Excursion Photos, and Cooking

Pictures taken during the recent excursion into the countryside are here.

More, maybe less creative, cooking:


Sweet potatoes and salmon in marinade of soy, lime, and chilli.


Sweet potatoes and zucchini with Italian herbs


Pan pizza with salami and feta.
That's one thing that's been taking its while to get good: "baking" pizza in a pan.
Making only a little dough, putting it over low heat, it works pretty well; fresh-made pizza dough is really simple: flour, yeast, some olive oil, some more water - but it's a matter of practice to figure out how much of what you need and how you put those ingredients together to get it just right. I couldn't put it up like a recipe...

Training note

Went running. Not so long because it's cold, but while the sun was still out.

00:42.08,0 - 7.12 km - 5.55 min/km - HR avg. 161 - TE 4.1

Running tights, insulator top as baselayer and windstopper top as outer layer, plus gloves, beanie and facemask were still sufficient; the cold does, however, make me run faster and my heart follow - though not badly at all.
Only after getting back, I found that the weather info said it was currently -11 degrees Celsius… it will be getting warmer, though: Up to top temperatures of minus 3C. That might feel like spring (and it should snow again…).

Otra skolotaju ekskursija

A second / another teachers' excursion.

Started early, went out into the country to Gulbene, towards Aluksne on a small-gauge (?) / regional train. Actually, which I hadn't known, we went to get into the forest there, where there were some Christmas / New Year/ winter-related games. That's something I'm so not into, and because I didn't know we'd be outside quite so much, I wasn't dressed quite warm enough.

Nonetheless, it offered relaxation, and some interesting observations:

• The countryside is nothing if not depopulated. Or getting there? Or not?
  You can find old buildings caving in after neglect, old buildings obviously still in use, as well as new construction… where things are going down or looking up again doesn't seem predictable. Forests abound, agriculture still seems pretty small-scale: This might be a boon, since (or: if) it could be changed towards organic agriculture and connected to markets which pay a premium for that….
  
• Latvians really do seem to be into nature worship, divination of the future, and such rather un-Christian ideas… it's so well known that Latvia was just about the last country in Europe to be Christianized that I'm careful with whether it's to be believed. There does seem to be something to this idea, though ;-)
  
• The train station of Gulbene was an eye-opener: The area is rather a backwater (the next stops on the small train were rather like those I know from back home, from the stations around the Neusiedler See: a hut and a sign), but this station is big and representative. Apparently, it would be (and have been) the rail route between Poland and St. Petersburg...
  
• Food was pretty nice again: Down-to-earth, it would fit into Austrian rural restaurants all the same (although, on second thought, the quality seemed rather better but the portion size too small for that); in the forest, sausages were also grilled. Again not quite my thing, but with the cold, the body's "food intelligence" kicks in: Gimme fat, I'll burn it…
  
• On the other hand, one rest stop offered a "toilet" of the hole-in-the-ground variety, the likes of which I hadn't even seen in China (and there were many "squatter"-type toilets, and some not-so-great ones, there).
  
• Oh yes: And the starry sky we got in the night (well, when it was completely dark: starting at 4:30 pm, basically) was spectacular. Out in the country, there is so little light pollution…

Pictures to follow.

Training 01/02/2008

Snowed lightly in the morning; judging by the forecast, the temps will remain below freezing.

150 days to go to Stockholm Marathon!

01/02: 01:40.14,0 - 15.49 km - 6.28 min/km - HR avg. 156 - TE 4.3

Living More Sustainably: Background and Beginnings

"The (green) life challenge" is to live more sustainably and show how you are doing that,
finally not just preaching to the masses in the abstract, but "walking the talk."

Immediately, the perspective shifts:
Small changes are (well, may be) easy, but are not enough if you are really dedicated; conditions are different for different people, …
and my current situation may not be the best case. It is rather reminiscent of a critique which argued that the most sustainable lifestyle (in Germany, and not counting homeless people) may be that of a pensioner who has to pinch every penny. Such a person wouldn't consume much, after all.
Still, it is instructive not just to try to provide good ideas for others, but to do it yourself first.

At present, I'm living as an exchange student in Latvia, at a university dormitory (as readers of my blog would know). Since the beginning of December, I have a room to myself.
This is a first point to consider: shared rooms would mean less resource use? Maybe, but really the rooms are there (and heated, for example) anyways, so this doesn't make a difference. Saving on energy for heating is something I also couldn't do much about: There's central heating, the radiators are set as they are. Although, on closer thought: Mine is as it is, and it seems quite alright to me. I have seen that others bought additional electric heaters...

Electricity use, I also don't and can't know - and still, there's something:.
I could change the lighting, but it wouldn't be worth the trouble. Most of the time I only use one desk lamp and a LED reading lamp (powered either by batteries - which system I don't use often, - or via USB), anyways.
There sure is a lot less energy needs than at home, for a notebook computer and my old subnotebook are all the appliances there are: that's communication, entertainment, work...

My main expenses are for food (always an issue with many aspects, especially when it comes to green, and good, living!), books (which I'd prefer not to get any fewer of … I'm a book person), and things such as sports equipment and clothing, and DVDs (expenses for which I'd actually like to decrease a lot).

So, these "living more sustainably" entries may not be all that instructive in my own case… or they may be, since even such circumstances make for many things to think about. We'll see.