06:30. Alarm. Last week I was waking up before the alarm. This week, not so much… o'well.
07:10. Coffee needs to either be made or in preparation. Today Greg actually was awake at this time too because he had an early class to teach. Even though he is not a morning person, it is still good to have a bit of extra time where we are both home and both awake.
07:40. Leave home. Get on bicycle. Cycle to the train station. You know in Super Mario Kart where you could race against the ghost of your own driving from the previous game? Sometimes I wish I had that so I could compare my pace from one day to the next. Some days I feel strong and feel like I am riding fast. Some days I feel like all the wind is against me, and there are all the cars in the way never leaving a gap big enough for me to cross at that one intersection. But then I get to the train station, and I seem to end up arriving within the same couple minutes every day.
08:00. Arrive at train station. Search for bicycle parking. I have an ideal row where I would park. It is primarily the ideal so that I can actually find my bike again in the evening when I return to town. After my first day of class I got back to Uppsala and spent a solid five minutes wandering through the bikes looking for my Elegance 3, so now I try really hard to make a strong mental note of where I park every day.
This photo is over two years old, but that is me on my bike and I don't think things have changed much.
08:09. Train departs. I usually spend my time on the train reading, taking notes, or talking with others from the school who might happen to be commuting on the same train as me. This morning I read six (!) pages from a book I am reading that is written in easy Swedish.
08:38. Arrive in Tobo. From here I take my second bike (owning two bicycles is a sure sign of riches, let me tell you) to the institute. This is just a quick seven-ish minutes, including unlocking and re-locking time.
09:00. Class starts! We have two teachers, but usually only one of them is leading the course each day, and they alternate days according to a schedule. Today was an unusual day though, because we had both teachers, and also a guest who was a former student of the class who came to observe and will be teaching us tomorrow. When I moved to Sweden two years ago and took a beginners' course in Swedish folk dance, he was one of my teachers. Today I told him that it will be good to have a lesson with him where I actually understand some of what he is saying. Such a novelty!
Today we did a lot of observing of our two teachers dancing together, and taking note of different things and discussing those things. Then two pairs worked together, with one pair dancing behind the teachers and trying to mimic them exactly, and the other pair observing and giving feedback about what looked the same and what maybe didn't, or how to try to make it look the same. All in all this amounted to more sitting than a typical day, but it was a really interesting way to explore some details in the dance.
10:40. Fika! Stina baked chocolate cake!
11:00. Back to dancing/observing/discussing.
12:25. We were having some good discussions and no one realized that lunch had started ten minutes prior. We kind of have these ridiculously good meals every day, but I don't want to talk it up too much or Greg will be jealous of how good I'm actually eating every day. Today we had salad, coleslaw, and bowtie pasta with sauce.
13:10. Back to dancing/observing/discussing.
15:00. Fika! Still some cake left. Plus we've had baby oranges lately, but combining them with coffee is a little unfortunate.
15:20. Back to dancing/observing/discussing.
16:15. Class ends. I stay and dance for a little bit more. I really really like dancing after class, but so far only a couple of my classmates are enthusiastic about more dancing after a day full of dancing.
16:30. Wash my hands. Change back into civilian clothes. Take bicycle to train.
16:49. Take the train back to Uppsala. There seemed to be some issues with the trains today, so ours was on the opposite track from normal, and the northbound train was super delayed, but luckily no delay in my train:) I spend the train ride home taking notes from the day. Actually I wasn't even able to finish taking my notes, so I'll have to continue that on my train tomorrow morning.
17:25. This train always seems to get in a bit late. Depart train. Locate bicycle. Ride home. (bicycling during commuting times is madness)
17:50. Get home. Start laundry. Make a list of four items to get from the grocery store. Check email, realise that Greg is probably going to be home any minute. Greg arrives. We go to the store and buy eleven items. (Our little shop next door has had kale for the past few days! I couldn't be more excited, so we express our gratitude by buying large quantities! Which only explains one of the seven additional items, but I'm done blogging about the details of my grocery shopping for today.)
18:15. Return home. Wash dishes. Make dinner. [Have dinner made for me.] Eat dinner while watching youtube videos of Dancing with the Stars clips.
And so here is a thing that is not at all related to my day-in-the-life. Why the heck do they keep making the stars on Dancing with the Stars dance a waltz to music that is in beats of 4 and not 3?!?!? This makes me so super incredibly angry. I just cannot even! Don't try to claim that you are teaching these people about dancing. Music & dance. Dance & music. If you want the two to go together, there needs to be a connection between the two. Dancing a dance that is designed in beats of 3 to music in beats of 4 makes ZERO sense. Rant Rant Rant. You are doing a BAD job of teaching non-dancers about dance, DWTS!
Anyhow. The rest of my evening has been fairly uneventful, mostly revolving around laundry. And DWTS anger, apparently. And blogging this super narrative! My favorite part is that I included just one photo that was taken over two years ago. Better luck next time. Thanks for reading along!
