i'll write more tomorrow (hopefully), but the biggest, bestest recent news is that i officially found out yesterday that i was awarded a pretty substantial scholarship by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (SSHRC). i was ALSO told that i would get to keep the money that UVic has already offered me. together, it's more than enough to cover my tuition, accommodation, food, and travel (including a few trips back home to edmonton) for the next year. PLUS... i think i'ma treat myself to a brand new bike with some of the leftover cash. i haven't picked one out yet, but i'm dreaming of having a super light road bike frame, about 10 speeds (leila recently scoped out victoria for me, and said that's how many speeds she would like on a bike if she lived there), hybrid-style tires, hybrid-style handlebars, and a back rack with panniers. i think that would pretty much cover all of my biking needs for commutes to school and possible weekend trips on paved trails. i guess i'll have to figure out if all those things are doable/practical/desirable. is there anything that you have or do not have on your bike that you wish you did (or didn't) have?

so... DC is awesome. it's better than i remembered it, and as you may recall, i had some pretty strong feelings for it when i left last time. but my experience this time is a LOT different. i'm living in a neighbourhood called friendship heights in the far northwest quadrant of DC. it's the furthest neighbourhood you can go in the NW before crossing DC's border into maryland. i'm working at a place that writes testing materials for second language assessment, and the project i'm working with has to do with developing an oral test for speakers of the lakota language. the lady i'm living with (i'm renting a room in her house) has very graciously offered to let me use her 21-speed bike for free while i'm living with her, which is AMAZING. i have been biking like crazy. seriously. i bike to and from work every day, which is a little over 25 kms, round trip. then, on the weekends, i usually bike around 40 kms (20 kms into downtown DC, along the georgetown branch bike path, and 20 kms back) every day. today i'm not going downtown, though, because i went on friday and yesterday, and i just want to stick around home and knit. so that equals around 175-200 kms a week! my thighs are hard proof of that. it feels really good to get out and see the city and use my body so much. however, using my body so much means i have to eat a lot more, so my pants are feeling a bit tight around the waist. eek. i've gotten pretty good at riding without my hands, a skill i had developed when i was young but lost during that period of 10 years or so when i wasn't biking. i've also developed a few bad habits, namely, listening to my ipod with earphones and eating tortilla chips out of my back basket. also, i've been finding that DC drivers are crazy/assholes. i almost got hit once when i woman was pulling out into an intersection (i had the right of way), and another time, i accidentally ended up on a parkway that i couldn't get off of, and so i was trying to pedal as fast as i could, but the drivers behind me still got agitated, and one lady leaned out her window and yelled "bitch!" at me as she passed me. yeesh. people sure don't like anyone slowing them down, even for a second.

other than biking, i spend a lot of time knitting. i'm finishing up yet another icelandic-style sweater for myself. i made a ton in the fall/winter (maybe 5? that feels like a ton), but they were all out of really bulky wool. i mostly prefer the look of the very first one i did, with much thinner yarn and smaller needles, so that's the kind that i'm making now. i'll post pictures when it's done. this one is taking a lot less time than that reddish one i made, because last fall i got really good at knitting without looking at what i'm doing. now i can go into a movie theatre and knit in the dark, which is a pretty handy skill.

every saturday, i've been going to the museum i used to intern at to visit my former coworkers there. man, i love that place.

i've been watching more movies than normal. i went to see greenberg, oscar-nominated animated shorts, and toe-to-toe (shot in DC!) at various nearby theatres; wayne's world at the rosslyn film festival (they'll be playing movies from the 90s every friday night all summer, on an outdoor inflatable screen, for free!); and i just watched the blind side on my computer. i've also gone through all the episodes of glee. i don't even like it all that much, but it's nice to have something familiar to watch.

my work has been... frustrating. everybody's pretty nice at my work, but a lot of what i am doing involves reading articles and writing abstracts and an introduction/description of methodology for an annotated bibliography and literature review. we're in an early part of the project, so this is sort of foundational work that needs to be done before they move on to the stuff that i am really interested in. the topic (aboriginal languages) is interesting to me, but when i agreed to the position, i guess i hadn't been under the impression that i would be doing so much academic writing for such little pay, and without much direction. i guess that's the way internships always are, though. i should know that by now. i'm really excited about the possibility of HOW this project could turn out, but i'm not entirely convinced that it will turn out the way i envision it. i mean, it's exciting to have an opportunity to actually put my native studies degree to use, and try to do things that have historically been done in a bad way, in a good way. i'm just grumpy because i'm so sick of writing. i hate writing. i would much rather be editing. (and yes, i know that this blog makes it seem like i would be a terrible editor. i'm not. i just write the way that i would talk on here.) once in a while, i get to do some editing, and i am a happy little clam.

it's mostly sunny here, and two weekends in a row i have gotten little sunburns. it's nice to be outside so much. i think this is the first summer than i have been outside so much.

hmm. what else. i've been taking advantage of the multitude of frozen yogurt places in DC. i've said it before, and i'll say it again: frozen yogurt is the new cupcake. so hip. so good. (there are lots of cupcake places in DC too, and luckily, my favourite one is in my new neighbourhood.) i would split yogurt places up into three categories: "normal" places (like dairy queen or yogen fruz) that sell standard frozen yogurt, sometimes with frozen fruits blended into the yogurt; european-style places (which serve tart/tangy yogurt - which is apparently european (?) - with a choice of fresh fruit or candy toppings, for a fixed price for each topping); and self-serve pay-by-weight places (which usually have between 6 and 20 different flavours of yogurt (vanilla, birthday cake, tiramisu, red velvet...), plus about 20 kinds of toppings to choose from (fresh fruit, oreo pieces, nuts, candy, fruit loops...)), which are pretty self-explanatory. the latter kind is my favourite, and luckily, there's a really good place that sells yogurt that way right in my neighbourhood. i like to load up on a bunch of different fruits with some vanilla yogurt.

on a related note, companies in DC sure know how to market to the hipster crowd:

(this is a "company bike" (like a company car, i guess - you can see the name on the frame) parked outside the company's salad/frozen yogurt place in dupont circle.)

that's enough detail for now, yeah?