Bearshorty's musings

On the first day of the Olympics I always watch the most. It is Saturday too, which makes it easier. I did try to sample a few sports – some on TV and some on the Internet.

I also went rollerblading today for 40 minutes and I could pretend it was the Olympics.

My favorite and unexpected sport of the day was archery with men’s team competition. That was a lot of fun to watch.

( Sports I watched today: )

Today the weather was so nice and so summery that I just wanted to go rollerblading for the first time this year. My parents did not want to drive to the beach, they were too busy watching a movie so I walked to elementary school about 20 minutes away to try the parking lot there. That didn’t turn out to be practical since there was baseball and just not good surface so I did go one the nice paved sidewalk beside the school – even going down a hill at one point which made me nervous. I also rollerbladed home despite the ridiculous sidewalks. Yeah, the beach area is the best for this.

I watched “Swimsuit Issue” on Netflix. It is a Swedish movie Netflix recommended about a father and daughter story. I liked it; it was very sweet. That is why I don’t even miss having DVDs come to the house or rarely watch regular movies anymore. When I need a movie fix, I go for unusual on Netflix.

( Grimm S1E17 )

Happy Birthday, Yeva!

Friday is not my longest workday but it feels like it since I need to get up at 6:10 to carpool to University. I got an egg on a bagel sandwich and tea at Au Bon Pain and read the National Geographic for breakfast time and then took the bus to my teaching campus and set up there. I had a nice quiet hour and a bit before my morning office hours and I just sat in a café and worked on my RS Games fic.

Today is a rough draft day so I just basically handed out my worksheets and I then could work on grading their homework and looking over the first rough drafts. I need to comment on draft by Tuesday. And I had a student actually come to my afternoon office hours to work out logistics of her missing a week of class because she is going to India for a wedding. Oh, and it occurred to me today that I can actually fix the problem of students having that stupid space between paragraphs but turning on my laptop which I carry with me and showing it to students who still didn’t figure it out on rough drafts. I think I needed to explain it to one student three times since it is obviously so hard to remember which very logical buttons to press. Now I will have to do this in my other class too.

I capped my work day by heading to the main library and reading my Roman law textbook for an hour and a half. Roman family law and marriage law is my favorite part, I think. Very interesting.

After dinner, I got to go rollerblading. I had to stick to the parking lot since the beach road is still too sandy but I was just happy not to be sitting down.

This article made me all emotional today. How an astronaut saw 9/11 from space .

( Torchwood S4E10 )

Papa and I went to Brooklyn this morning to visit my grandparent. My grandmother always likes going down to the building yard/common area so she can show us off. After we got back home we went to the beach and I went rollerblading. So I had a very nice morning. The rest of the day wasn’t very exciting. I watched some “Battlestar Galactica” for next week’s Mark Watches posts and read.

( Ghost Story by Jim Butcher )

A few days ago Mama and my Aunt Vera, her sister, were talking on Skype (my Aunt lives in Minsk, Belarus where I was born). And my Aunt was telling us new information that she learned about Max, their grandfather. Max was first married to my great-grandmother and had one son, my grandfather. When my grandfather was young, before WWII, Max and my great-grandmother got divorced and then Max moved to Saratov in Russia while the rest of the family stayed in Minsk. In Saratov, he remarried and had another family with three other children. At the end of WWII, my grandfather went to Saratov to his father since all his family in Minsk was killed during the war. In Saratov, my grandfather met my grandmother Tanya who was evacuated there during the war and my Aunt and my mom were born there too. Only in 1960, did my grandparents and my Mom and my Aunt moved to Minsk where my grandfather always wanted to return. What my family didn’t really know was why Max moved to Saratov in the first place. It wasn’t easy to just pick up and move cities in Soviet Union. And why Saratov of all places? So it turns out that Max was a scribe and when someone from the synagogue in Minsk was moving to Saratov he needed to take a scribe with him and he offered Max a job as a scribe in a synagogue. I find this very interesting. My grandfather was a scribe during WWII too. I guess it runs in the family. Knowing languages too.

Rollerblading tonight was a bit of an obstacle course. There was a beach fair – lots of services were advertizing and a bouncy castle - so there was a sizable crowd walking slowly in the middle of the beach road I rollerblade on. So I had to get through it slowly there and back. But it was good to get out of the house.

“Never Let Me Go” As I thought, this movie is very sad but interesting sci-fi. I really need to read Kazuo Ishiguro – the movies based on his books are always sad and emotional but very human and often about missed opportunities. This movie was more about the time people are given in life. So I did like it but it was sad. I do adore Carey Mulligan.

An interesting article from The New York Times about the famine in Somalia. There was another article about the Western media and how it is not paying too much attention to it.

Test Your Vocabulary
My results I know as many words as the top average native English speaker which I think is pretty good. And since I’m a geek I looked up all the words I didn’t know in my Kindle dictionary.

I went rollerblading this morning which was a great way to start a day. Then I washed my hair and got ready for my day since Bear was coming over and we were going to be social today. Papa ordered Adele’s “21” along with Dresden files book so I listened to that while I got ready. I like it but I need to actually pay attention to lyrics in some of the later songs. I wore my red summer dress today which was a hit. (I was all red from dress, to glasses to handbag, phone and camera. My favorite color is actually blue but I have lots of things in red.)

Bear and I went to see “Cowboys & Aliens” The reviews were not good and I was not really in favor of seeing it but Bear really wanted to and I had free movie tickets so we went (with me registering my reluctance based on reviews). But I really enjoyed it. Maybe because I had low expectations but I liked the story and the action. And the actors. ( Cowboys & Aliens ) It was an enjoyable summer movie and we definitely had fun with it.

After the movie we went to the Chinese place (with has Thai food too) and ordered enough food for six people because I volunteered to bring food for our visit with Marianna. Some of Adama’s friends were visiting too and I really didn’t want Marianna to worry about food at all since she is so busy with the baby. We got mango chicken, beef with spring beans, drunken noodles, chicken and broccoli, chicken and eggplant and beef with vegetables and steamed dumplings. We also got some brown and white rice. Lots of food.

Marianna also made a salad and baked fish and her friend Ayana brought cupcakes that she made herself (she bakes and makes cakes as extra income). And we just hang out and ate and talked and it was very nice. I held Galya for a little while – I never held a baby younger than seven month before so it was new for me. At the end of the night we even sat Bear down so he could hold the baby since he never did before. She liked it. She wasn’t too fussy today; I think Galya liked at the attention. She will be two month next week already. Today was a very nice evening and day in general.

Torchwood in Ten minutes: S4E4 After Elton review

I have not been posting for the last couple of weeks mostly because I got too busy/distracted. I did take notes as usual and I will slowly post those days but I will not put them on reading pages so as not to clog the reading pages up, unless these was anything interesting. Last few weeks have been mostly uneventful, though.

( Harry Potter movie )

Bear and I had a great date with the movie and then going rollerblading together. I like just sitting on the bench at the end of the route before heading back, looking at the ocean and just chatting. We capped the date by going to have Indian at our usual restaurant and it was delicious as always.

After Elton continues with their hilarious Torchwood: Miracle Day recaps.

Happy Birthday, Bear!

Bear is being a bit grumpy about his birthday so I was calling him all day with the mission to make it a fun birthday. I told him that instead of one day of celebrating he is getting a week.

For me, the day is pretty ordinary which is fine. I don’t like that I can’t just drive myself to the beach to go rollerblading and have to rely on other people who while they promised to take me this summer so I could exercise usually need to be persuaded. But I did get to go today. And today apparently was my one day a year where I fall on my bum. There are speed bumps on the beach road (I don’t know why, it is not like there are cars there) and, while I’m ok with smaller ones, there is one big one I always try to avoid by going around. Well today I overbalanced in going around and fell nicely. I did fall properly and in the sitting position but I did pull my right arm just a bit and it is never that pleasant to fall. These things happen and I just kept rollerblading, of course. As long as I don’t break anything.

( SYTYCD Top 20 Perform )

It’s 22 of May and the weather thinks its early April or something. Yesterday we had some inkling of the summer weather – I even put on my ankle bracelet that I wear in the summer – but today it was back to depressing skies, cold wind and a jacket. Can it stop raining/being gloomy and start being actual summer.

Bear and I had a nice quiet Sunday today. We went to the Indian place for their awesome lunch buffet and went rollerblading too. It was a bit chilly but I really just wanted to go, I miss roller blading by the beach. My legs were all tired after half an hour; I need to train myself again. Then we went to the frozen yogurt place – another one near my house and got a nice mix of flavors. I liked the mango one since it was nice and tart.

We are thinking of seeing the new Pirates movie but since I can barely remember the last two, we decided to rewatch the first three before heading to the movie theater. So first Pirate movie tonight. I was cross stitching during some of it but it was just as awesome as I remember. This movie came out the summer I taught my first class and my roommate drove us to the movie theater as the celebration for the end of class. We decided to see it but were really not expecting the awesomeness. Watching it this time made me really appreciate Norrington. I always liked him but more in the later movies; it was fun to really like him here.

Papa left his kindle at home when he left for vacation yesterday so that I can read “Hunger Games” while he is travelling. I re-read the first chapter and read the second one and I did not want to put it down. This hasn’t happened for a while with a book. I have a feeling I will read it quickly. It will be my reward next week for writing my dissertation during the day.

Cross-stitch: backstitch for the book and a little for middle bear.

I finished my cross stitch project this morning. Finally. I took me a while for this one. I don’t know when I’m going to start a next one. I’m not up on a big project yet. But I’m very much amused at this one.

( my cross stitch project )


This afternoon I got tired of sitting down and figured I should go for a walk. The weather in this corner of the world was fabulous today. Sunny and in the 60s with nice crispy warm fall air. But, as I was leaving, I saw Kid and her brother getting on their bikes and David, their dad, getting ready to leave. They were going to the beach to bike and run. (there is a great scenic path along the beach) So I asked if they minded if I would come with them so I could rollerblade. I thought they might be going by car but they were going to walk/run/bike there and pick up David’s nephew and niece too. By car, it is about 5 minutes to the beach, while walking there is a brisk half-hour. But on a day like today, I figured why not. I really needed to exercise. And I ran into my parents on the way there and they wanted to come to the beach later too, so I knew I would just walk there, then rollerblade and then I can get into my parent’s car. And it was fabulous. I ended up walking at a good pace for 35 minutes and then rollerblading for another hour. Mama joined us later with her bicycle too (Papa just walks). So at the end, I rode her bike around the parking lot a bit too. My legs are tired but this was a nice excursion.

“Dorian Gray” 2009 movie with Ben Barnes, Colin Firth and Rebecca Hall. I never read the book, but based on the book plot summary, the movie changes many things but does keep with the spirit of philosophical questions asked. So it was a successful adaptation despite the plot changes. It was a good movie; I rather liked it. It was fun to see Colin Firth as the devil-type character, tempting Dorian to live only for pleasure and for the moment. Good acting and cinematography. A little too blue in hue to show drama and all, but a nice movie.

I'm playing the song "They" by Jem on the loop this evening. The refrain is just stuck in my head.