Beyond science
Why some people call me Ola [ɔla]
In Poland, Aleksandra becomes Ola [ɔla], and as a phonetician I can’t quite leave that alone. Polish has six vowels, [a ɛ i ɨ u ɔ], written <a e i y u o>. Alicja turns into Ala, Elżbieta into Ela, Urszula into Ula, so by that logic I should be Ala too. The reason I’m not is language contact: forms like Ola came into Polish under Eastern Slavic influence, the same pull that gave us Oleksy from Aleksy and Olbracht from Albrecht, as the PWN language clinic explains.
Where I’ve been
Four places that shaped who I am.
On the move
Most of my limits, I’ve come to think, live in my head, and long rides on the bike are how I move them around a bit. They also stop me from taking myself too seriously. It’s hard to feel important when you realize you’re mostly meat and bones moving through the universe.
I do ride in races, but not for the podium. I ride for myself, and for the friends I ride with. The one I’m proudest of is the 2024 Wanoga: 350 km in 36 hours, 55 minutes and 36 seconds.
Mostly, though, the bike is where I go to clear my head. During a month in Nijmegen in 2023, I racked up 600 km after work without really meaning to. I don’t ride for the numbers: no 10,000 km per year to chase. I ride when I have time because it gives me space rather than pressure. I love the forest best, but I also commute by bike in rain, wind and snow, which one of my chains can confirm: I never picked up the habit of cleaning it daily, and it rusted badly over the winter (note to self: use oil instead of wax in the winter!).
Lately I’ve started training at the gym too. It resets my head even further, and it adds a kind of structure the bike doesn’t have. It’s a new challenge to focus on steady growth rather than skip the steps and move ahead too quickly. That can literally hurt!
Elsewhere
