So, it is party time again, folks!

[wiseheart]

Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.

This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.

Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)

So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!

Soledad, in excited expectation




Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.

Enjoy!

Comments

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

We are quite spread-out it seems, with a fair bit of variation in different types of homes.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's not always very convenient! Most of the rooms in the old parts of the house are quite small, very low ceilinged and, in the half-timbered bit, very draughty (despite huge amounts of building work trying to plug all the holes). Luckily the kitchen is in the modern part and is large, so that is quite convenient. I do like having a large kitchen, not particularly to cook in but as a social room.

We are moving either this year or early next year, having already bought our next house. Not looking forward to all the hassle of the move one little bit.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

At least instant tea seems to mostly have gone away! I never quite understood the point of that; while making proper coffee does require special equipment, it is quite possible to make a decent cup of tea straight in the drinking container...

Not being a coffee drinker myself, I usually keep some instant 'coffee' in the house for recipes that require coffee and to offer to guests (notably Mum, who as I mentioned does like it). I did usually offer it to my friend K paraphrasing Douglas Adams as "a substance almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee".

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Does the dance of the over 400 comments!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Even with the four week, feeding-and-chucking-a-lot-away thing, my dough didn't rise a lot or very quickly. The recipe book said that was to be expected though, and I did quite like the result. So I would encourage you to give it another try and would love to hear about how you get on with it.

[sammydragoncat]

Past 400 comments!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I've never seen instant tea -- I don't think it really took on in the UK. The tea bag in mug method is pretty easy, even for a lazy tea-maker like me.

I have made instant for the builders; I don't think they liked it when I made them espresso! And my sister-in-law much prefers cafetiere coffee; she's very polite but she dilutes my espresso about 50:50 with water then adds a lot of milk. I can't recall when I last drank instant myself; more than 25 years ago I think!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I had that problem, too, and I hate throwing away food, which is why I stopped buying them. I have mostly been satisfying my pineapple cravings with not-from-concentrate pineapple juice, which tastes properly like pineapple, unlike the concentrated stuff which is often just sickly sweet.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Does the dance of the over 400 comments!

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

There is always tomorrow! It is one of the great things about time. ;-)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Throwing away food always seems like a crime, though we do it all too often.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately eventually the weather will get too frosty to plant things -- but it seems very mild at the moment.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I took German, too, for the last three years before university, and then at university for a year; I can actually speak and understand some German, and definitely read it, but I feel it would be a great embarrassment if I didn't with that background, since for my university course we had to read a different German work of fiction each week of the academic year! It also helps that I already know two Germanic languages -- Swedish and (at least in theory) English -- so that often enough I can understand things in German without actually ever having learnt the word.

The extra problem with trying to learn Chinese, apart from it being such a different language both in type and script, is of course that you would have to choose which dialect you wanted to learn; I understand from my Chinese colleagues that the different dialects are wildly different and knowing one does not lead to understanding others.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Solid State Physics, specifically magnetism, to our level three students. It does help that magnetic materials is what I have been doing research in for the last decade and a half, so the material at least is quite familiar to me. On the other hand, sometimes there is such a thing as being too familiar with a subject, so that you have forgotten that some of the more fundamental bits aren't actually obvious to the students...

We used to have 8am lectures when I was a student; I really pity the poor lecturer who had to give them! My students are a nice bunch, and a good number of them were actually already in the lecture theatre at quarter to nine -- on Friday morning! That meant I got to have a bit of a chat with them, and some of them asked me some questions, which is always a nice feeling, when you can answer them...

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Hi there! I see all the party animals are already here :)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

We are indeed! It seems we are now at 414 comments (so this should be 415, if nobody else has beaten me to it).

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Oh good, I like a nice long house party!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I used to work with a lot of (Swiss)-German speakers but their English so far surpassed my German we always spoke in English. German & English don't feel particularly similar to me, though I know many words have common roots. I gather from those who learned Spanish at my school that it's possible to guess many of the words from the French.

I understood that written Chinese was dialect independent?

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We've been hard at it for days now! How goes it with you?

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

Are you moving far? Or is it mostly to get a different house? I do hate moving! My new colleagues were quite surprised at my determination to buy a house to move into for when I started my new job here in Belfast a year and a half ago, suggesting I could rent somewhere for six months or a year, to work out where I really wanted to live. I was having none of it! Partly that was because I was fed-up of living in rented accommodation, but also I really didn't want to move again...

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Finally coming up for air! I've been running a mini bang and jeez, admin is like another job. But we've started posting now so I'm free as a bird--relatively at least :)

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

With a very good margin -- my browser says 420 as I am typing this! *joins in dance*

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It's good to teach something that feels well within your comfort zone, even if sometimes it's hard to think down to the level of the students. What are level three students?

We never had 8am lectures, but I did have some 8am supervisions, which was a pain because I also had several 7pm ones... Beng in organised classes from 8am till 8pm with only a brief break for lunch and dinner was not my idea of heaven! 9am lectures on Saturday were also a pain. I'm not sure when one was expected to get essays done.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

I am usually far more ambitious about what cooking I will actually do in a week, when I do the grocery shopping, than what actually happens, which does lead to very sad food wastage. I do believe in ignoring 'best before dates' though, and using my own judgement about whether food is still OK to eat, so I don't throw out as much as I might.. Still far too much, though.

[solanpolarn.livejournal.com]

'Level 3 students' is what Queen's University Belfast calls what most other universities call 'third year students'; technically though the terms are not entirely synonymous, because our students are allowed to take one 'level 3' course in their fourth year...