Oh, and...

Clearly I won't be able to go to all of these things every week, but here's what I'm considering choosing from when the summer arrives and it's time to build my schedule.

  • Tuesday 6:15-7:45pm Bottom Heavy Funk (hip hop) at Velocity
  • Tuesday 8:30pm-9:30pm Experienced Blues class at Velocity
  • Tuesday 9pm-12:30am Burn Blue Open Community Blues Dance at Velocity
  • Thursday 9pm-12:00am Back Alley Blues at UW
  • Friday 10:30-noon Beginning Modern at Velocity
  • Friday 9pm-1am Blues Underground (1st and 3rd Fridays) at Savoy Swing
  • Sunday 10-11:30am Dance Church (body awareness) at Velocity
  • Sunday 2-4pm contact improv jams at Velocity

The early-morning schedule may need to be amended for Blues dance, since I (reluctantly) admit my body does best when I don't wildly vary my sleep/wake times. We'll see. I'm noting this for future reference but not worrying about pinning anything down until I show up here in June. Improvisation Mel!

I'm trying to gradually move towards the work/life balance that I want to have longer-term, which means developing good routines for the "work" part to replace my current "um, I'll work... constantly! until everything gets done! BWAHAHAHAHA!" strategy. My ideal Seattle research schedule involves an early-morning wakeup and workout followed by a trip to UW to crank on research early in the morning. If I'm able to find a way to make the 4-mile trek to Guama's apartment for lunch, that's awesome. Either way, I want to be out of researchin' in the early afternoon (maybe I'll give myself one later day for meetings in exchange for taking off Friday mornings for dance class?) to roam the city, chill with friends and family, go dancing, do projects with my cousins, or whatever else I decide to do.

I want my work life to be short, intense, and productive -- I'm going to get more done in 5 hours a day than I usually get done in 10, or at least that's the idea. And I want my family-life to be rich and awesome since I'll have so many aunts and cousins (and a Guama!) living nearby and I plan to see them and cook and eat and do things with them (I might teach a little programming class to 8ee and Kei and so forth). And I want my learning-life to happen but be focused on learning one or two things really really well instead of trying to do 10 at once, so I will have to make choices eventually, but right now I'm in exploring-options mode.

Spring is looking awesome. Surprisingly, the more I cut from my schedule and the more I focus it, the happier I become. I think there's a transition between "I need to schedule everything in because I don't know people here and need to make myself meet them in structured ways!" to "ok, I have a sense of what's up and who's here, and want to leave breathing space to do spontaneous things with them!" -- a good indication I'm building roots and settling in and such.

Seattle has been good so far; I've been catching up on a little sleep each night, getting up early to do a bit of work on the signal processing for audiologists class Farrah and I are teaching in the spring (that syllabus, as of this writing, is terribly rough with all sorts of bugs and stands there as a strawman that needs to be revised -- I would not even call it a syllabus yet), and I'll be shifting to Changemakers work for Thursday/Friday morning and oh my gosh FOCUS IS AWESOME.

My dad arrives tonight with my thick jacket (I decided to wear my thin one here, and then it snowed 12 hours later). Mark comes Friday. Other family members trickle in during the week after. Barby and Bea are already here, and last night Guama was over for dinner, and hurrah for being surrounded by the buzz of people but still having my own room to sleep in and hide away in when I want some quiet space to think or work or catch up on overdue letters to friends (Tank, I am finally replying to your July 2011 postcard from New Zealand). I've been everywhere in Bellevue trying to find shoes to replace my worn-out Merrells -- this will be my new pair of "wear everywhere, all the time, every day!" shoes, and they last about a year before I bust through the soles from daily walking -- but shoes for tiny Mel-feet are unfortunately hard to find. MUST QUEST MORE! GOES TO SEATTLE NEXT!

Actually, I'm going to go down to the basement with Megan and Mindy and Micah. Killing time with people you enjoy being with? Good stuff. It's good to be home.