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Day nineteen of the fourteen day George Orwell Tea Challenge. I have let this go on beyond the original fourteen days, partly because I did not drink too much tea while I was on holiday in Yorkshire and partly because -- as observed by my Beloved ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
frogcastle -- I started out following only one of Orwell's eleven golden rules. As the Tea Challenge has progressed, I have begun adopting more of his rules. By now, I believe that I am up to nine of the eleven rules:
#1) I have switched to Assam, an Indian tea, instead of my usual Earl Grey.
#2) I make my tea in small quantities -- one cup at a time -- using a ceramic mug. This is not a change but, rather, something I was doing before the tea challenge began.
#3) I warm the cup beforehand.
#4) I make my tea strong, as I believe that one teabag has enough leaves for more than one cup of tea. I may start using two teabags per cup, to ensure that it meets George's strength requirement. Again, this did not require any change from my usual behaviour.
#6) I bring the cup to the kettle and pour just as the water is boiling.
#7) I stir the tea after pouring it. Once more, this did not require change.
#8) I drink out of a tall cylindrical mug. This makes four points that I adhering to before beginning the tea challenge.
#10) I now add the water to the teabag before pouring the milk.
#11) Of course, since this was the original point of the tea challenge, I also have abstained from using sugar.
There are still two points that I am not observing:
#5) I am using teabags, not loose tea.
#9) I do not pour the cream off the milk. Indeed, I do not even know how to do such a thing!
At this point, I can say that I do not find the sugarless tea to be horrific. However, I still think that I will welcome the return to sugar once this challenge is over...
I am writing this entry just after the end of another handbell lesson and tower bell practice at St. Giles. Rather than go over everything that we did this week, I will just note new things that I have tried:
On handbells, I did at least two plain courses of Plain Bob Minor on each of the three parts (the 1 & 2 bells, the 3 & 4 bells, and the 5 & 6 bells). Although I had done each part before, switching between the parts was challenging to me. A plain course is what is listed on the left of the method diagram, and takes one through sixty of the 720 possible combinations of six bells. To ring the extent of all possible combinations, one adds something called a "bob" or a "single" to change the phase space to a different set of sixty combinations. Everything that I have rung so far, on both handbells and tower bells, involves only a plain course (i.e., no bobs or singles). Tonight, for the first time, we started adding two bobs to Plain Bob Minor. I am really pleased to be leaning this new (and vital) part of change ringing. The last thing we did, just for fun, was to ring Plain Hunt Doubles on handbells, which required some slight thought but went quite smoothly.
Last week, my handbell teacher mentioned that I was the fastest learning student that he has had in a long time. I take this to be high praise, especially in a town like Oxford where everyone is brilliant! Of course, praise last week led to nervousness this week, as I wanted to live up to the high compliment. Thankfully, this did not seem to detract from my performance.
On tower bells, I run Plain Hunt Triples on the #5 bell for the first time. The St. Giles tower has eight bells. A triples method only uses seven bells, so the tenor (i.e., the #8 bell) rings behind as a sort of metronome. I also rang the #5 bell for Plain Hunt Major, which uses all eight bells. This was slightly tricky, as all the bells were now in the hunt so there was no time keeper bell. I did okay, though, I think!
What's the deal with that "Day 3" marker in the subject line? Well, since it is late August, it is time for another round of the 100 Days of LJ project. For the past two years, I have started this project on August 25th and -- despite the lack of an announcement when I was on holiday -- this year is no different. Except that it is.
The first two times I did this, I tried to see how many days it would take me to make 100 daily posts. On the first go, it took 213 days; on the second I did much better, completing the project in 139 days -- a considerable improvement! To improve by the same margin this year, I would need to cram one hundred days into the space of sixty-five. Since I have not yet invented a time machine, I decided to do things a little differently this year.
This time around, the 100 Days of LJ project will last for only one hundred days. It began on August 25th -- Day 0 -- same as usual. It will end on December 3rd -- Day 100. This time, rather than see how long it takes me to write 100 days... we shall see how many of the first 100 days I end up writing. Hold onto your hats, gentle reader! Ya ain't seen nuthin' yet!
Since today is the penultimate working day of the month, I got paid. That is always nice, especially since we have very little savings in the form of pounds sterling. Well, my paycheck came with a bit of a surprise -- in the form of a 3% raise. Apparently, I have been bumped up one more notch on the payscale. Not sure why -- as the annual raises are supposed to happen in October, not August -- but nor am I complaining. With this raise, I am now earning 14% more than I was when I began working here seventeen months ago. That works out to a monthly raise of 0.82%, which is not terrible. If one converts to dollars, the raise from when I began here is more like 31.7%... but that is only because the dollar has fallen 13.4% against sterling since I moved to England. And that figure, while amusing, is misleading because all my UK expenses go up (in dollar value) along with my salary when the dollar falls. Still, when one considers that I took a paycut of 8% to accept this job -- and that the cost of living is much higher in the UK than in the US... well, every little bit really does help!
With this surprise raise in August, I do find myself wondering if I will be receiving another one in October, when the usual annual increases occur.
frogcastle -- I started out following only one of Orwell's eleven golden rules. As the Tea Challenge has progressed, I have begun adopting more of his rules. By now, I believe that I am up to nine of the eleven rules:#1) I have switched to Assam, an Indian tea, instead of my usual Earl Grey.
#2) I make my tea in small quantities -- one cup at a time -- using a ceramic mug. This is not a change but, rather, something I was doing before the tea challenge began.
#3) I warm the cup beforehand.
#4) I make my tea strong, as I believe that one teabag has enough leaves for more than one cup of tea. I may start using two teabags per cup, to ensure that it meets George's strength requirement. Again, this did not require any change from my usual behaviour.
#6) I bring the cup to the kettle and pour just as the water is boiling.
#7) I stir the tea after pouring it. Once more, this did not require change.
#8) I drink out of a tall cylindrical mug. This makes four points that I adhering to before beginning the tea challenge.
#10) I now add the water to the teabag before pouring the milk.
#11) Of course, since this was the original point of the tea challenge, I also have abstained from using sugar.
There are still two points that I am not observing:
#5) I am using teabags, not loose tea.
#9) I do not pour the cream off the milk. Indeed, I do not even know how to do such a thing!
At this point, I can say that I do not find the sugarless tea to be horrific. However, I still think that I will welcome the return to sugar once this challenge is over...
I am writing this entry just after the end of another handbell lesson and tower bell practice at St. Giles. Rather than go over everything that we did this week, I will just note new things that I have tried:
On handbells, I did at least two plain courses of Plain Bob Minor on each of the three parts (the 1 & 2 bells, the 3 & 4 bells, and the 5 & 6 bells). Although I had done each part before, switching between the parts was challenging to me. A plain course is what is listed on the left of the method diagram, and takes one through sixty of the 720 possible combinations of six bells. To ring the extent of all possible combinations, one adds something called a "bob" or a "single" to change the phase space to a different set of sixty combinations. Everything that I have rung so far, on both handbells and tower bells, involves only a plain course (i.e., no bobs or singles). Tonight, for the first time, we started adding two bobs to Plain Bob Minor. I am really pleased to be leaning this new (and vital) part of change ringing. The last thing we did, just for fun, was to ring Plain Hunt Doubles on handbells, which required some slight thought but went quite smoothly.
Last week, my handbell teacher mentioned that I was the fastest learning student that he has had in a long time. I take this to be high praise, especially in a town like Oxford where everyone is brilliant! Of course, praise last week led to nervousness this week, as I wanted to live up to the high compliment. Thankfully, this did not seem to detract from my performance.
On tower bells, I run Plain Hunt Triples on the #5 bell for the first time. The St. Giles tower has eight bells. A triples method only uses seven bells, so the tenor (i.e., the #8 bell) rings behind as a sort of metronome. I also rang the #5 bell for Plain Hunt Major, which uses all eight bells. This was slightly tricky, as all the bells were now in the hunt so there was no time keeper bell. I did okay, though, I think!
What's the deal with that "Day 3" marker in the subject line? Well, since it is late August, it is time for another round of the 100 Days of LJ project. For the past two years, I have started this project on August 25th and -- despite the lack of an announcement when I was on holiday -- this year is no different. Except that it is.
The first two times I did this, I tried to see how many days it would take me to make 100 daily posts. On the first go, it took 213 days; on the second I did much better, completing the project in 139 days -- a considerable improvement! To improve by the same margin this year, I would need to cram one hundred days into the space of sixty-five. Since I have not yet invented a time machine, I decided to do things a little differently this year.
This time around, the 100 Days of LJ project will last for only one hundred days. It began on August 25th -- Day 0 -- same as usual. It will end on December 3rd -- Day 100. This time, rather than see how long it takes me to write 100 days... we shall see how many of the first 100 days I end up writing. Hold onto your hats, gentle reader! Ya ain't seen nuthin' yet!
Since today is the penultimate working day of the month, I got paid. That is always nice, especially since we have very little savings in the form of pounds sterling. Well, my paycheck came with a bit of a surprise -- in the form of a 3% raise. Apparently, I have been bumped up one more notch on the payscale. Not sure why -- as the annual raises are supposed to happen in October, not August -- but nor am I complaining. With this raise, I am now earning 14% more than I was when I began working here seventeen months ago. That works out to a monthly raise of 0.82%, which is not terrible. If one converts to dollars, the raise from when I began here is more like 31.7%... but that is only because the dollar has fallen 13.4% against sterling since I moved to England. And that figure, while amusing, is misleading because all my UK expenses go up (in dollar value) along with my salary when the dollar falls. Still, when one considers that I took a paycut of 8% to accept this job -- and that the cost of living is much higher in the UK than in the US... well, every little bit really does help!
With this surprise raise in August, I do find myself wondering if I will be receiving another one in October, when the usual annual increases occur.
Tags:
- bells,
- frogcastle,
- lj meta,
- numbers,
- tea
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From:
no subject
Tea comes in many different grades, mostly relating to how crushed and fragmented the dried leaves are. Basically, the grades range from whole leaves to what is virtually powder. Many tea aficionados believe that the more fragmented the tea leaf, the poorer the quality of the tea, because more surface area means more volatiles can be exposed to air and evaporate and so forth.
Typically, tea bags are made from "fannings" or "dust", which is just about the lowest grade of tea. It's basically what the name says it is -- the dust that's left over after sorting the good leaves out of the pile.
The tea I prefer is Chinese gunpowder green tea. It consists of whole leaves of green tea that are rolled up into little pellets. When exposed to water, they expand and unroll to revert to leaf-shaped....leaves. It is much better than bagged tea.
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*gets a bit nostalgic, remembering childhood milk, delivered to the doorstep in the early hours, that came in narrow glass bottles with the cream floating on top* Not that you had to worry about pouring the cream off, as the birds used to peck through the foil lids and eat most of it before you woke up....
From:
no subject
Wow, that's a cool memory... especially about the birds poking through to eat the cream!
Totally off topic, I am planning to be at Poly Day in London next month. See you there?
Oh, and by the way, I love that icon!
From:
no subject
In general, loose tea is of a much higher quality. Also, when you pour the water directly onto the tea leaves themselves, instead of using bags, you get more of the nuances of flavor. I discovered this while working at a little tea shop in Princeton during my days living there. There were over 100 tea varieties, and they could be mixed and match to create new teas.
If you have not yet tried loose tea by December(which I do hope you do by then)I will make certain to indoctrinate you to the ways.
On another note, I think I have found my brain...maybe. ;-)
On yet a different note, sorry I never got to ping you about a phone call. My week got a little crazy. Perhaps next week?
On yet one more note...C#. (Don't worry, I won't exhaust this one to the point of using every note I can. Although this does bring up one of my favorite trivia questions of all time: how many notes in Western notation are there when not repeating notes of the same pitch but different names? How many are there when using all the different names?)
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I might well join you in said tea-marathon in the dining room: say on Saturday night perhaps, when the world is yet new and young and happy, and the white lights are shining across the tables?
On the other hand, I may well yet come up with a breakfast serenade to the tea drinkers this year (if I can get a word in edgewise during the parade of announcements).
Perhaps a proper tea-ceremony in the Bone Room? Yeah....
Cheers and all,
M. Yakaiatxani, the psudonymous priestess of Caffeina
[proudly doing her best to dance nekkid by candlelight while NOT getting hypothermia]
From:
no subject
I seem to remember that someone performed a complete, authentic Japanese tea ceremony at one of these get-togethers, which I was forced to miss, for reasons I've forgotten now. But I don't think that's quite what
(And I'd love to be at risk of hypothermia... it's still way too bloody hot for me!)
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Lady bless,
M. the quiet traditionalist (whatever the heck that means these days).
From:
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May I add you to my LiveJournal "friends" list? (Feel free to reciprocate, of course.)
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It is clear that we know each other... and I think that I know who you are. You usually spend Saturday in the little annex off of the dining hall, yes?
However did you find me here? Well, no matter how, welcome!
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If you think you know who I am, well, let's say that I'm the British one, who spends a lot of time sacked out in the bunkhouses but does spend Saturdays in the little annexe room.
I found you via this chain of connexions: kingofthewho>resourceress>chesscatt>thine own self
I have been working in just about an antipodean location from yours, am seriously considering emigrating there, figure I can get by okay there (actually, probably would live better there than I would down in the Biblical Republic of Gilead).
Are you coming over in October? Hope so...
M. the incoherent one
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Typo or joke?
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Re: Typo or joke?
It was a typo, I'm afraid... and fixed now that you have caught it.
For the record, Limehouse is an area in East London. It used to be a poor and run-down area with lots of dock work going on... but it has recently been gentrified into a high-priced residential area, way out of the means of the people who once worked there. If you care, you can read the Wikipedia article about it here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limehouse).
Our friends D&J, who moved from the States three months before we did, lived there for their first year in London. At the time, J's employer was partially subsidizing[*] their housing so they could afford a very nice two bedroom flat directly on the water of the Limehouse basin... even though the rent was a staggering £375/week (about $3000/month by last year's exchange rate). It was a great flat and we enjoyed visiting them there... though they had to move in January to a cheaper place.
Thanks to Google Images, I found some pictures of the Limehouse area here (http://river-lea.co.uk/2000s/limehouse/limehouse01.html). See the ones that have four identical apartment buildings in them? D&J lived in the second of those four buildings.
Bet this was more than ya expected when you pointed out my simple and innocent typo, huh? *grin*
Love ya!
[*] I'm not sure, but I think that the phrase "partially subsidizing" may be redundant.
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