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In my (slow) walk to Mordor I've reached the point where Sam & Frodo are descending the cliffs in Emyn Muil and the rope unties itself. It's nice when I reach memorable bits.

Today (15 mintues left) is Ada Lovelace Day and I FINALLY got to Ada Lovelace Day Live this year. I mean I got there with about 2 mintues to spare but that's still in time.

There were 7 speakers all hosted by the always wonderful Helen Arney and it was such a wonderful, joyous mix. We learned about deep sea creatures and a universal influenza vaccine and watched that Mentos & Coke experiment taken to another level plus some interesting fluid dynamics with the help of paper plans. We also had the eternal questions "could Jurassic Park be real" (spoiler: NO) and then we learned how deep learning can allow a computer to "recognise beauty". What else?OH Statistics <3 I do love a bit of statistics and we heard about the gender paygap and how the more chocolate your country eats the more likely you are to win a Nobel Prize (no but really).

So that was fun. And more of you should come next year, or look for an event nearer to you because they had 170 events in 16 countries this year and are still growing.

Today has basically been work (with my almost entirely female team) then Rainbows (the girls made mascots... several of which were giraffes for no reason I could really understand) and then Ada Lovelace Day Live. I am feeling very #ThisGirlCan right now.

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Do you think I can come up with an alliterative word meaning anxiety for every month this year? Because I'm slightly afraid it's going to be necessary until at least June (the current planned opening date for my museum).

Everyone at work is at the same level of panic- ie. we're all having anxiety dreams now- which obviously isn't good but does at least mean it's probably the appropriate level of nerves.

(I'm not joking about the anxiety dreams but I think there was no way we were getting this close to opening without a lot of nerves creeping in).

Outside work life is full but mostly going well? I've been keeping my walking up and I'm currently in the Mines of Moria, we've just got passed the "I have no memory of this place" junction and are heading towards Balin's tomb but it turns out these mines are HUGE.

From next month I'm going to be reading a book a month as part of the Emotions Book Club. All female authors most of whom I've never heard of which should be interesting! I ordered all the books secondhand with some Christmas money and the first 5 arrived today. Or rather the last 5 because of course February - April are the missing books.

Rainbows is hectic. 21 was maybe asking too much? But one leader has been on holiday and another two are possibly leaving/being flaky so from this week we have a possible new volunteer and I'm hoping we'll calm down again.

What else? Obviously I'm still being hopeless at reviews but so far this year I've been to two exhibitions- Harry Potter a History of Magic at the British Library (amazing and lots of books I wanted to explore further but far too many people) and Opera: Passion, Power & Politics at the V&A (very cool- you wear headphones and the appropriate music plays in each area, there were a few glitches but I really liked the concept). I also finally went on one of the V&A LGBTQ Tours which was really interesting- I'd guess there were around 100 people there and it sounds like that's normal They're different every time too so if I'm nearby I'd happily go on another one.

Oh and my theatre year has got off to a truly spectacular start with Hamilton and The Grinning Man ♥

And that is probably the State of the Sarah for the moment. Worried but coping? What's going on with everyone else this January?

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But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.

(I've reached th base of Weathertop in my walk to Rivendell and Samwise is reciting the Fall of Gil-galad)

Life continues to be crazy busy and I'm in the middle of the first of two 6 day weeks which are, of course, filling me with glee but I'm still waving not drowing and today I got to go see some amazing 3d printing including a 3d printed dress, prototype for a heart valve and a rubiks cube printed in one piece which really works! And they fed us curry too so that was a good evening.

Then I went Christian Aid collecting in the rain which was less fun than usual until I stumbled across a Rainbow family and got invited in for a sit down and chat (and to admire said Rainbow's zebra pyjamas <3)

So swings and roundabouts...

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This week is not being a great week. I mean the Rainbows were lovely and sanity saving as always (don't tell them that) and choir was good but basically this week has involved both a wake up call as to exactly how much work I have to do... well last week ideally and then added some more work on top of it and yesterday I actually reached that point of stress where I became slightly lightheaded which was fun.

And it's going to be okay. I'm starting to break tasks down and I think I've got a handle on the new thing but this week (and probably next week?) I think it's all just a bit much and so when I'm not doing work things (or other admin/responsible non-work things) I'm kind of crashing and maybe poking around on tumblr but not really managing to communicate and I'm sorry about that.

I will get a grip soon. Probably.

In the meantime enjoy this short story my Dad sent me: Coffee Break

ps. I have walked as far as Tom Bombadil's house in my Walk to Rivendell challenge which is quite pleasing.

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I decided I needed a bit of a push to get walking more this year and so I've sort of restarted the Walk to Rivendell challenge (well, the spreadsheet I'm using actually gives all the distances right to Mordor and then back to Bag End and to the Grey Havens!) Persoanlly I'm aiming to get to Rivendell this year which is really a very tiny mileage when compared to any of you who run (458) but I think it's realistic. I'm counting any walk I do that's more than a mile and that's at a relative speed (so walking to Tower Bridge counted but not the slow wandering around it).

Anyway today I got to the curve in the road where they have to hide from the Black Rider which might explain why I felt so funny the last five minutes of my walk home...

The more realistic explanation being it was SO COLD and I walked probably too fast because of that and then had a dizzy spell. It passed pretty quickly after I warmed up and had a cup of sugary tea though.

In other news at the start of this week I had an entirely empty weekend barring one service each on Saturday and Sunday and yet now I'm out three evenings in a row... all for good reasons but I suspect I may regret this. Not Sunday. I will never regret Cynthia Erivo <3

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One stressful ticket day down, one to go! If Angels in America tickets go half as smoothly as Hamilton ones I'll be impressed! And that's even bearing in mind I did spring for Advanced Membership at the NT this year.

After that I have a list about as long as my arm of other things I want to see but getting the potentially expensive things fixed first seemed wise!

In other news I applied for my job (but permanently) last week and unofficially have been shortlisted (obviously) but clearly at least one other person applied because no interviews for a fortnight so PLENTY of time for panicking in. Not that I am panicking. (I am).

Tomorrow I'm going to go and learn about Conflict Management followed by an afternoon of volunteers and an (early) evening of Rainbows so plenty of time to put my skills into action :-P

We have 21 Rainbows this term which is the most we've ever had so it's going to be an interesting term.

What else is happening in my world? I'm already failing at my "walk to work at least one day a week" challenge for the year although it's not technically my fault- I need a car for meetings/getting to the store/going to Harry Potter World (omg HP World on Wednesday!) every day except today and it was so horrible and wet today PLUS I had a lot to carry in so... failed at week two (well week three I guess only I was off most of last week). Still as it is an involuntary failure I'm not beating myself up too much. (I am).

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Just realised DW doesn't have a thing like scrapbook so let's try this linking from my Google account (we shall see)

Last day of the holidays /o\ though to be fair I have precisely 5 days of work and then I'm off for another 4. I'm using up leave and I though I'd wait till the schools go back! Any recs for exhibitions etc. to see whilst I'm off gratefully received.

Anyway we made the most of the last day, after seeing my aunt off to the station, by going for a walk in our local "forest". I mean it will be a forest in 10 years or so but most of the trees are pretty little still. There is however a "build your own den" section in the actual forest which is pretty cool.

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I considered making some New Year's Resolutions this year but then I realised the ones I was considering were so generic they're not really measurable (do more exercise, eat better, attempt to actually be organised) and that way madness lies because if I can't be perfect why bother :-P Still I think I'm going to attempt to keep a note of how far I've walked as a spur to do more and I've started (gently) going round my room and attempting to declutter a bit so we'll see how those go.

And now it's time for sleep even though my body is very much awake because obviously I trashed my sleep patterns (LOL what sleep pattern) over the holidays.

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Today I did two things I've taken a very long time to do!

1) I finally found a Yoga class and actually WENT. I'm still not 100% sure what I thought. About ten minutes in I felt so self conscious and stiff and awkward I was nearly in tears but then I calmed down a bit and did a lot better in the second half of the class. I was truly rubbish and concentrating on my breathing and/or focussing on my centre because my brain is constantly like this old XKCD.

I think I'll go back? And this time I'll try not to hide at the back because quite a few of my problems came from just not being able to hear :-P

Mondays might become the day of ALL the exercise (walk to & from work which is a bit over 4 miles + yoga) to counteract the fact that the working day is full of ALL the meetings.

2) I finally finished reading Umberto Eco's The Infinity of Lists ♥ I think I started it in about February 2015? And it's absolutely a dip in and out of book because it's in sections based on different types of lists and there are explanations by Eco followed by paintings and sculpture and poems and prose and bits of novels and bits of the bible and all kinds of things and I LOVED it.

If you're at all the sort of person who enjoys classifying stuff or listing things or seeing how language can be used to do five contradictory things at once I think you'd love this book. I wanted to quote a bit here but seeing as it's all quotes that seems hard. It's also given me half a dozen new books for my to read pile and I think if I went back there would be more.

There are lists of things and lists of places and there are catalogues and collections and treasures and there are Dadaist lists and lists of chaotic enumeration and lists that define a subject and lists of lists of lists right down to lists of infinities.

Honestly I loved this book so much and when Umberto Eco died earlier this year I had this weird feeling of wanting to never finish the book so that I could be lost in conversation with him forever. Then I remembered that there are so many of his books I still haven't read, in fact I've already got his Book of Legendary Lands waiting for me, and it's probably time for one of my periodic rereads of both The Name of the Rose & Foucault's Pendulum (for very different reasons- Rose because I love it and it's familiar, Foucault because it's still a mystery to me and each time I understand a little more).

So I've done very well and feeding my mind and body today :D Everything else went out the window a bit but there are only so many hours in the day!

After having a slight panic attack yesterday when I looked at TfL and realised all the routes I'd normally take to Wilton's Music Hall were screwed and THEN realising I could just walk from London Bridge I'm wondering whether I ought to try and walk more in London.

After all most places I go (ie. the West End) are within walking distance of one of more FCC stations and if I only had to buy a return then I'd be saving money (not a lot but every penny counts right).

Of course I then had the realisation that this plan will only really work WHEN THEY START RUNNING TRAINS PAST 10 O'CLOCK AGAIN *sighs* I mean that has to happene eventually right? They can't carry on stopping either side of London every evening & weekend FOREVER (don't answer that).

Anyway it was a nice walk and it's been ages since I've walked across London Bridge, I'm normally much further east along the river, so that was fun.

*stops rambling about methods of transport*

I might try and write something about last night eventually but 1) mostly I just want to write epic odes to the beauty of Iolanthe all in capslock which is maybe not very interesting to read and 2) seiyaharris has our copy of the programme sheet (they were 1 between 2) so I will inevitably get a name wrong. Still I'll have a go in a bit.

But I WILL say that at some point I'm going to be encouraging people to go and see Patience either at the Union Theatre or (if it transfers) at Wilton's and even if you didn't listen to me about Iolanthe you should listen to me about this!

Also you should all just go to Wilton's Music Hall at some point anyway because it's beautiful and desperately in need of money & audiences or else it will actually fall down.

I have my first shield on the Walk to Rivendell. 25 miles already, I'm surprised how much I walk in a normal day (well seeing as I walk to and from work).

Added unexpected bonus is that due to the walking and the sunny weather I almost have a tan :D