Will work for food

I made a deal with dad yesterday. I had basically felt like a spineless, lazy worm (well, worms are spineless by definition, aren't they?) for a long time and I was pondering what to do about it.

I have managed to get up in the mornings reasonably early this week after I came up with the plan to have another alarm go off ten minutes after the first one. The trick being that the second alarm is my cell phone, which I place as far away from the bed as possible. That way I actually have to get up to shut the beeping menace... And when I get up, I won't go back to bed again. Funny, how easily I can trick myself. :)

The deal then? Well. Last night I was sitting in my livingroom, watching a tv-show about (fictional) unsolved murders. My thoughts were wandering during the commercial breaks and of course I ended up thinking about the discussion I had with dad last Sunday. It was a DISCUSSION with somewhat loud capital letters here and there, concerning my thesis and more particularly it not advancing a whole lot lately. I felt like dad really hit a sore spot with the speech. I had felt miserable about not being able to do anything for quite some while (despite all my promises and better sense) and when dad pointed it out once more, I felt pretty awful and depressed. What could I do to motivate myself?

That was when I thought of it. I have to make a deal with dad. I have to come up with an artificial deadline I have to keep. So I sent a message to dad to suggest that I'd deliver a first draft of the background chapter a week from this Sunday. Then I'd like him to read it through and give me feedback on it. I immediately got a message back saying "It's a deal. A bag of groceries and some feedback for every piece of text delivered." I could've cried (and I think I even did cry a bit - I'm such a soddin' cry-baby at times...) I was so glad of his extra support. I've always known my parents support me in everything I do, but I guess I was just a bit emotional about the extra "carrot" part of the deal. So now I'm literally working for food. :) I'll keep you all informed how I'm doing... I wrote about half a page today, whee! Not much, but it's a real re-start.

Today I told my dance students in Lieto that this is the last spring I'll be teaching them. They looked appropriately disappointed and were asking in miserable voices "But who's going to teach us then?". I steeled my heart and said I would try to find someone to teach them after me, but at least I would recommend good teachers in Turku. So, after seven more weeks (next week is the winter vacation) I'll be done with that. Can't wait, even though for example today's classes went great and I really think the students were learning - which isn't always the case, unfortunately.

It's so nice to see the ladies dance one of my own choreographies, though. I'm not a very experienced choreographer and I think I tend to make the dances a bit too demanding at times. But this time I feel like I've gotten closer to the actual level of the students' skills (yay!).

It doesn't seize to amaze me that someone actually learns something from my babbles, as I'm sure I'm not the most well-articulated dance teacher there is. It's really funny how left and right can be such difficult terms (I usually end up waving my arm and shouting "that direction! one-two-three-four...") and how counting to the inevitable four or maybe even six or eight can sometimes be a mission honestly impossible. "Left, no right, two-three-what-the-?-where-am-I-going-which-foot-next-what's-the-count-oh-dear-lord" is not an uncommon sort of a line for me. I really feel for the students. And yet they seem to learn, step by step, drop-kick by drop-kick. Isn't that something? :)

Still, I'm going to quit teaching. I need the time for myself and my other projects. Which there are plenty of, no doubt.

Oh, if you're in the Turku area and can get a hold of Turun Sanomat on Monday, look for the tiny article I'm in. I, Tytti and two other fellow sf-fans were interviewed for an article about (get this) the office space we rent from the Turku University Students Association. "So how does this office represent your activities?" Well, lessee. There are huge loads of sf-literature (SF Society's library), quite a bunch of anime movies (the video library of the Turku Anime Society) and whatnot. I suppose we read and watch movies? :) No, honestly, the chap interviewing us was nice enough. I've met a whole lot of journalistic morons and this one wasn't one of them, phew. I just can't help being a wee bit worried when I'm interviewed for anything - how garbled will the message be this time? Especially when we don't get to proof-read the text beforehand. We'll see on Monday. :)