Wednesday, December 15, 2010

"My favorite time of day is to get up and eat leftovers from dinner, especially spicy food." ~ David Byrne

Today I was invited to dinner... it went something like this:
"Want to come to dinner?  It's The Last Supper." - Anniina
"Jesus's?!?!" - Vegard
"No! Kirstens!" - Anniina
"Well, now I don't know... Jesus's or Kirsten's... Of course! I'd love to come!" - Me

Kirsten is leaving for Christmas break tomorrow so she and Anniina had Thomas and I over to dinner tonight.  Annina leaves on Friday and surprisingly Thomas is staying here for Christmas! I hadn't heard that yet, it is kind of sad and lonely, but apparently Vegard and his wife Sigrid will be here also with their kids.  I am not leaving for Norrköping until Wednesday!  It was a delicious dinner of spinach risotto with chicken and some banana dessert cake! It was a great meal for a cold, cold day.  Now, I am home, sitting on my bed with my holiday count down candle burning (I have missed a few days!) and pleasantly full belly, kind of like a sleepy puppy.  

Today was a good day, I wasn't sure if it would be because I didn't sleep well and woke up late and confused.  There is nothing worse to the start of the day then waking up late and confused.  I was confused why I was so tired, what time it was, was the sun shining, did I have time for breakfast, how much did it snow last night, why did I have to pee soooooooo badly?!?!? It was weird.  I made to school in plenty of time and even managed to eat some breakfast!  But my brain didn't catch up for about an hour I think...

I was in the hot shop all day.  I worked in the morning alone blowing into a mold.  I asked Åke for a difficult mold that I haven't done before and he found me a bowl and an optic mold.  I was to blow into the optic mold, make some stripes into the glass then blow in the mold and twist them a little while I made a bowl.  It looked really pretty when he did it... my stripes didn't twist much really.  The furnace was super hot again today which made it super hard to gather enough glass to make the bowl a reasonable thickness and keep control of the glass!  It was super frustrating but I made a few good ones and did have to concentrate a lot.

In the afternoon I worked with Vegard.  We have realized that we do not like free production so much... we like to have an agenda and a plan to work with.  We like a new tasks to complete each day.  Today we decided we wanted to make these flat bottomed bowls that are kind of a cylinder, being wider then it is tall... just a few inches tall with very straight sides and a wide bottom.  We went to Åke and he was like "there is a mold for that" and we said no, we don't want a mold! So, he got Micke who also said there was a mold but then finally agreed to show us... apparently it is pretty tricky and much further along then things we are supposed to be trying.  He showed us once and then we started working.  We both made 2 really good ones,  not as big as Micke's but nice size.  It was amazingly hard to get them as wide as we wanted, but a nice challenge.  Vegard said "well, we better start thinking of what we want to make tomorrow since we have finished these!"  I don't think either of us thought it would be an exceptionally good day, or even a good day but were both pleased with our very good afternoon!

After school I borrowed a shovel from Stig-Allan and shoveled around the mail box.  The snow plow has buried it and we haven't gotten mail for maybe 2 weeks because the mail person can't get close enough to it with their car to reach out and put the mail in.  Which I feel is kind of lazy... they have to get out to walk it into many of the apartment buildings here, and they can't step out with ONE FOOT to reach ours?!?! The other day I asked Olaf (the grounds keeper for the school who has a snow blower to clear us a path to the mail box hoping that would enough but still no mail.  I got a HUGE snow shovel and started clearing enough room for a car to pull up and then away again around the mail box.  God, it was so hard!  Luckily the plow hasn't cleared the roads down to the road so I just dug down as far as the road was cleared.  I was nearly done then Kresten (the Dane who lives in the building) came along and helped me which was nice.  It sometimes seems like the people in the house don't really care about anything other then complaining, he was the only one who helped.  Oh well.  Now I am hoping that the mail box will be jammed packed tomorrow, but I am a little worried that we may have to go to the post office or Tempo to get a pile of mail that has been building up and they don't carry with them everyday.  Here is my, and Kresten's, completed clearing:
 So I decided after clearing all the snow that I didn't need to go the gym today... I did my cardio and upper body muscle training with all the snow! And, maybe it helped me "build character" haha!  
Gotta love Calvin and Hobbes!

Here is a picture of the pieces I made yesterday in the hot shop:
The vase has a nice squiggle to the neck, and the bowl has an out turned lip! I am pleased with both but I think I still have some work to go on the squiggle neck one.  

Now I am off to bed so I can wake up like a normal person tomorrow hopefully and have another successful day in the factory!  I can't believe it is Wednesday already!

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