It's been almost 2 months!

My oh my, can you believe it's been over 2 months since my last *real* post here? (the Hey Soul Sister and F--k Me Ray Bradbury ones were mostly filler). Poor poor poor neglected Life after Work!

Although... I might be needing to rebrand this blog since in theory I'll no longer be a jobless bum starting next summer... in case you're not following me on Twitter or friends with me on Facebook, let me share with you the biggest change in my life right now: I am training to be a Massage Therapist!!



Classes started in late August, and right now it's midterm exam season, which has me freaked out not because of the exams per se but because that means we're already halfway thru the first of two semesters... that means I'm already 25% through the program! A little scary :p

There are only 5 of us in the class: it's smaller than the organizers hoped, but it's great for us since we benefit from the much more personalised interaction, whether student/student or student/instructor.

We're learning Anatomy & Physiology ("the human body and how it works"), Pathology ("things that go wrong in the body"), and Kinesiology ("the body in motion") in addition to the actual hands-on practice: so far we've done Swedish Massage, Chair Massage, and are halfway through Sports Massage modalities. We are totally struggling with one topic in particular, one that's deemed a gone-case "necessary evil" that just can't be taught in an interesting manner: I think the defeatist mindset isn't helping!!



The course has had more than its share of hiccups, though: we *are* the guinea pig batch, however, so some of it is to be expected. Sadly, we lost the bestest instructor ever (don't ask), though, and his replacements (yes, plural) fall way short. Such a pity. Hopefully things'll get better over time..?!

My Springfield tweeps & pals have been benefitting from my kneading (haha) to practice on a variety of body types :) I'm supposed to practice keeping my full-body massages to an hour, but that timing tends to go out the window because I'd rather my intention be to help/heal rather than "to squeeze it all into an hour", y'know?



Borrowing one of the massage tables from class for use at home has been quite the pain, though: "portable" my a$$! Just because it folds and fits into a carry case doesn't mean it isn't heavy, bulky and friggin awkward to lug up/down stairs or fit in/out the car! So today I'm taking the plunge and buying a table of my own (probably this one: Earthlite Avalon XD Portable Massage Table Package .. free shipping from amazon!!): a decent table costs a pretty penny, but it should easily pay for itself once I am licensed and can charge for massages!

I've also been spending a small fortune on creams/lotions to use for the massage:

• There's an "all-natural Herbal Muscle Rub" by Afterthought Farms [available Saturdays & Wednesdays at the Farmers Market], $10 for 2-2.5 oz. It's really strong (the camphor!), could be a touch creamier, I tend to use a lot of it at a time.
• Then there's the Zum Rub brand of salves/balms, available at Food Fantasies for $8 for 2.5oz. I really liked the understated scent of the clove-mint one, but when I ran out it was no longer on the shelves :( So I bought tea tree-citrus instead: it too has a mild understated smell, and glides on nicely.

But compare those prices with $32/32oz or $10/8oz for the stuff we use in class! Yikes! Sorry local businesses but I think I'll be buying the much cheaper ones off of the 'net/catalogs: even with added shipping charges it still comes out way cheaper!

Hope this update helps to tide y'all over somewhat... I will continue to blog, no doubt about that, but just know that it's going to be rather erratic! So if you haven't already, how about subscribing? :)

Cheers!

Photo credit:
massage by grietgriet from morguefile.com
skeletal system via wikipedia

My latest ear- (and eye-) worm!

[warning: the video and song are NSFW!]

For the longest time, I've loved fantasy books, but hated fantasy movies, because the special effects were so cheesy. Then LOTR came and changed everything. Now fantasy movies are a dime a dozen, and all too many are low of story and high on special effects (*cough*StarWarsEpI-IIi*cough*). At the same time, I enjoyed what could be considered sci-fi movies, but never really did get into the books. ... but I *do* know the name Ray Bradbury.

And after listening to and watching this video over and over and over and over again...



... I might want to pick up a book or three from this list :) I *have* listened to an unfortunately abridged audiobook of Fahrenheit 451: does that count for anything? :p

In the meantime, I have yet to hit the hay (it's now 11:30am... I stumbled upon this song over 2 hours ago, when I made the mistake of checking twitter before turning in for the day... it's all Neil Gaiman's fault!!) because I keep listening to this song over and over and over... if Rachel Bloom ever makes an MP3 available, it is getting downloaded faster than you can say F--k me, Ray Bradbury!!

Music Monday: Hey Soul Sister

There is something just *so* infectious about this song: hit play, and tell me if you can stop at just one listen :)



The song is Hey Soul Sister by the group Train.

Every time the "Hey hey, hey hey hey hey" and the plinking of the (banjo?) come on the radio I just *have* to turn it up and (try to) sing along (I am rather ashamed to admit I've yet to wrap my head around all the lyrics... getting old lah...)

Speaking of lyrics, you can find them here.



Enjoy!

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. Rules are simple. Leave ONLY the actual post link here and grab the code below and place it at your blog entry. You can grab this code at LadyJava's Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

Musical Interlude: The Rasmus

I know I know, I've not continued with my Cat Tales ... I will, I will... but in the meantime I thought I'd share something that's got me kinda irritated at myself ... You see, back during a difficult time in my life, I was vacationing in Switzerland and happened to be in a place (NOT my grandmother's obviously, LoL!) that had not just a tv, but cable, and I had MTV on ... There were four songs songs/videos that were played over and over and over...

• Clocks by Coldplay - never liked it, much to Kosh's dismay, LoL!
  
• Some dance number by some european rapper or dj - I really liked it, surprising myself b/c that music's not really my style (obviously I didn't like it enough to remember it tho, despite having the CD b/c my brother actually went out of his way to hunt it down, LoL!)
• Heyya by OutKast - somehow the song didn't click with me then, but I remember the "shake it like a polaroid picture" part of the vid! Love the song now, can't help but sway and sing along, right?
  
• In the Shadows by The Rasmus - there was something about this song that so resonated with me, I know I pretty much stopped whatever I was doing whenever this song came on, and just let it wash over me ...

... so here's the irritating thing ... a pal posted this video on FB:



but it's not the version I remember ... I think the bank heist storyline would have detracted from the song, frankly, so I'm glad Swiss/European MTV wasn't playing that version ... wanting to refresh my memory for the version I DID know, I looked around for the other version ... turns out there are THREE versions. That bank heist one is known as the Bandit version, and was their first, Finnish video.

Next came the Crow version:


Hmmmm.... not quite familiar (wouldn't I have remembered the feathers growing out their arms?), so I moved on to the third one, the Mirror version:



TOTALLY unfamiliar. I'm sure I would have remembered the overlapping timelines and Take On Me similarity of being pulled into an alternate world.

So I guess I did watch the Crow version. I'm just a bit disconcerted about not remembering it better. Like I said, this song totally resonated with me at the time. I also love music videos, although by this time (2003) I hardly saw any anymore. Having totally loved In The Shadows, I went ahead and bought The Rasmus' Dead Letters album, which had In the Shadows, and TWO other majorly-talking-to-me songs: In My Life and Time to Burn.

Enjoy! And have a gr8 weekend!

Cat Tweets: the recent cat saga (Part One)

About a month ago, followers on twitter and friends on facebook were treated to rants, whines and frustration surrounding the naranek cat...

For example:

... that's right: the cat was having major pee issues again ... before I left for my 3-week trip to Malaysia/Singapore, she had already been having issues, but due to the small volume of pee per 'accident' we figured it was a UTI... brought her to the vet who took our word for it because they couldn't extract anything from her bladder to test! We had trouble getting her to consume the liver-flavored antibiotic pills, so we decided to halve her dry food and see if she would then eat the 'spiked' canned food.

Combine the food deprivation with the upside-down schedule due to Dr Kosh's vampiric hours and resulting lack of attention given to the cat, and the medical condition transformed into a behavioral one. By the time I got back, she was peeing in the bathroom (but not in her box) on a regular basis. Like, daily.

Then she expanded her horizons to the kitchen: right by the kitchen/back door... and...

... yes, she peed IN one of her food bowls (we had a few interim bowls lying around, because one of the fixes suggested is to put her food where she tends to pee... ummmm, didn't *quite* work for her!!). ... and then, horror of horrors...

(fyi a month later and I *still* haven't found a replacement!!)

Limiting the cat to just the bathroom -- and allowing her out only if she was with one of us / under supervision -- would limit the damage she could inflict on us .... but hubby wasn't keen on 'punishing' the cat... then...


Kosh and I were mega stressed-out by all this... and this didn't help either:



... have things gone back to normal now? Stay tuned, I'll tell you more in Part Two!

looking for four-leaf clovers by Archimedes' twin circles

Thanks to karl for some blog fodder during my dry spell! This time around it's the Album Cover Meme! Here's mine:

(good thing I don't do art / design album covers for a living, eh?)

I've seen this meme before and had tried it, but couldn't in good conscience use an image that was all rights reserved... and this time around it was the same but I SO wanted to do this, so I fudged rule #3 and kept hitting refresh until the third photo on the page was something I could use. Pity, because the first image was SO appropriate... oh well!!

Wanna play along? Here are the rules:
1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random”
or click en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
[Mine = Archimedes' twin circles]

2 – Go to “Random quotations”
or click http://www.randomquotes.org/
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
[Mine = looking for four-leaf clovers]

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
[Image used: "GT2 RS - Explored # 131 -" by Lucian Bickerton via a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license]

4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.


Participating? Drop me a link in the comments and I'll be happy to drop by and see what you came up with!! :)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

What's this Phrase?

I saw this on Patricia's Subjective Soup blog and decided not just to take a crack at it, but to publish my effort too :)

1. 26 L. of the A.
2. 88 P. K.
3. 18 H. on a G. C.
4. 4 Q. in a G.
5. 13 S. on the A. F.
6. 7 W. of the W.
7. 24 H. in a D.
8. 9 D. in a S. S. N.

9. 99 R. B.

I have easily identified 6 out of 8 so far, while the first two still have me stumped for the moment (will provide answers in the comments below)... and in case you were keeping track, #9 is one I added on myself. Kinda lame, I know :p

If you are also playing along, drop by the comments with a link to your post, k?

Have a great weekend!