This one is for niora A floorplan of 221B Baker Street, via Strange maps

Slightly decompressed now, after some therapeutic teaching. And having contemplated and recounted the strange story about my mother and her idea that I wanted to move to the suburbs to everyone and their grandmothers. According to all the people who've been listening to my whining today (thank you!), it may have something to do with the fact that she lives about 10 minutes walk away.

And I am wondering how people in India are able to do yoga. It's 20°C outside, and I even the thought of doing yoga is repulsing (but it's yoga-practise day today...)

The first chick has hatched for the oyster catchers living on top of the science building at the University of Bergen - just across the street from my house.

Have a look at them at tjeldcam - (Tjeld is the Norwegian name for oyster catcher.)

Cuuuute!

Am I the only one who thinks about Cthulhu (or some other Lovecraftian story) when I read about this?

Lately my dreams has been very meta-dreamy, or whatever I may call it. What I mean is that I am on some level conscious that it's dream, and make little notes to myself through the course of the dream (I make notes to myself all the time in the waking life - usually this means that I repeat loud to myself whatever I'm supposed to remember). In this dream I had just moved into a new shared flat. One of the first things that happened was that one of my flatmates proposed to me, with the uglies ring I've ever seen, when I turned him down he tried to make me have sex with him in exchange for clothes from his wardrobe of 50s and 60s designer dresses, in size mummimamma no less. Now, I'm not that into clothes, but I made a note to myself to tell my flatmate Sigrid that I'd had a dream she would have liked - seeing that she loves clothes. And then the dream continued...

Also I have figured out why teachers liked to assign group assignments, it is no work for them (me) at all! It is almost boring!

Conference is over and let me tell you, my networking skills are really bad (or quite possibly the guys I needed to network with are morons). And there was the usual talking behind the back, some people even came to me, asking to verify (or what you can call it) that the World changing discovery of Whatever was just a pointless exercise. Of course that only makes me wonder what they are saying about me behind my back.

Now, well, to get this horrible taste of 1700 out of my brain I have collected, totally by incident, a handful of Classics-links.

First there is the blog of Mary Beard, A don's life. My supervisor is a huge Mary Beard groupie, so she was just ecstatic when she told me about this. It's even syndicated here on LJ in a_dons_life, not in full though (I have never quite understood why some feeds are in full text and some only a few lines.

Also there is Fear and fury among the marbles. A BBC story telling about the metopes and colouring and stuff. Whenever I read about this I am reminded the time when my archaeology class was ordered to lie down on the cold, cold marble floor, because the metopes weren't supposed to be seen at eye level!

And they have found another ancient shipwreck on the coast of Albania. Makes me wonder how many ships went down, and how dangerous it really was sailing around in the ancient Mediterranean.

And then, just a picture of these Converse shoes wonderfully decorated in red-figure vase style. Give me a pair of these and even I could contemplate wearing Converses.

I felt an uncanny urge to be annoyed at this article in Wired: Slap in the Facebook: It's Time for Social Networks to Open Up

They obviously do't get it, or perhaps I don't get what they think I should use my Facebook for, I don't think that whatever I write on my Facebook will make me famous, for that I have this Livejournal.

Facebook is a closed (well, theoretically) system, unlike LJ and the average blogging system, you can easily lock and limit content, but unlike LJ it can not be an open forum for everybody to see, since you have to be a member to browse any of the users.

I use my Facebook regularly, although in counting in time, not so much, and a lot less than LJ. I rarely spend more than a couple minutes there at a time. Mostly I use it to keep in touch with my RL-friends, messaging them, writing on their walls, commenting on posted items and notes. And the friends that I communicate the most with is the friends that I usually meet face to face with at one or several times during the week. Many of my FB-friends are people I also text a lot with, and if I know the person I'm trying to contact is somewhere near a computer at the time, I send a message on Facebook instead of texting the person, since it's free and as easy. Comments and messaging can be a continuation of a conversation we had earlier, I can message a link, or remind them of plans we've made. It can also spark new conversations that we continue face to face next time we meet, occasionally by email or text messages. Unlike this open journal I keep here, I'm not particularly interested in a wide readership.

Now in one way I like Facebook, it's easy to find old schoolmates and other people I had forgotten. But the best thing? It is a horrible social system. After adding someone there is no reason to interact with the person in question ever again. Yes, I know I can do that here too, but on Facebook it is even better. For one thing the RSS feed, comparable to the f-list, cuts long notes after a couple of lines,making totally skipable. And you can't go backwards on the feed, so the boring notes of the boring people you didn't talk to high school - whoops!- disappears. Furthermore since the happenings on the communities don't show up on the RSS-feed there is no reason to check them anyway, and debate often gets fragmented. Even more so since the debate can start in a message and continue on the wall and vice versa. And let me say that LJ's threading of comments is one of my favourite features here.

Amusingly I got this link through Facebook and commented shortly on it there. Then I started writing this here while having the same argument, in Norwegian, on Facebook. Which led to me discovering another shortcoming on Facebook, the character limit on comments is rather short. I usually feel that I have problems writing things down, making stuff long enough, but Facebook everything I write is tl;dr.

All right, off to bed. Leaving for Drammen at 0758 tomorrow morning. Back Sunday.

I suck at packing. But I have packed almost everything I think I can possibly need, which probably means that I've forgotten something vital - whatever that might be.

In other news I feel the urge to link to this article by Deborah Tannen.

Mainly because last year on my course in Pernaja I discussed talking and social interaction quite a lot. I may not be from Nre York, but I can easily recongnise myself in this quote

New Yorkers seem to think the best thing two people can do is talk. Silence is okay when you’re watching a movie (though it might be better punctuated by clever asides), or when you’re asleep (collecting dreams to tell when you awake), but when two or more people find themselves together, it’s better to talk. That’s how we show we’re being friendly. And that’s why we like to talk to strangers—especially if we won’t be with them long, such as in an elevator or on a bank line. This often makes non-New Yorkers think we’re trying to start something more than a conversation.

And like the New Yorkers in the article I have been considered dominating or, simply noisy.

Also; Ray Bradbury? Please shut up. This is why I don't like authors talking about their own works after they have finished (again, a long entry about authorial intent and why I don't think it matters that much, has disappeared here.)

Well, time for some beauty sleep, so I can let my subconscious decide which book to bring.

The abstract is finished and has been sent! And a whole day too early! Now I can relax on my laurels... no wait... do I actually have to write the paper now?

Well, I have deep things to say, but they will have to wait (indefinitely?). So I will link to this blog post about the last handwritten newspaper. Every newspaper is a a work of art one captions says. Makes me wish I could read it.

For some reason Time have visited Pingvin, one of the places I occasionally go for a drink - the whisky is cheap there. But why just that place? Huh, the world is strange.

And, hello, I'm back from my Eatster holiday, yes, there was food. I also caught a 5 day cold, and I'm currently on day 4, runny nose and coughing, but finding someone to teach my class today is more work than actually teaching it myself, hopefully the students are feeling talkative today, because I sure don't!

Also my head is filled with thinky stuff, but I'll leave that until after my class which starts in 17 minutes.

I'm gotten some kind of tendinitis in my shoulder. A side effect of being a teacher and writing too much on the blackboard I'm told. Also our washing machine has swallowed its last sock, after flooding the washing room a couple of times and then refusing to pump water at all. We're getting a new one on Tuesday, and I'm out of socks and down to my last pair of underwear. So - shall I go without socks and underwear to work tomorrow? We're going to talk about clothes, and perhaps it's my turn to talk about my underwear habits?

Also, I have to link to this blog entry where the story in Lost is compared to the comic Moomin's Desert Island .

I must admit that I haven't watched much of Lost. I watched the first couple of episodes, but could get into it. To me it seemed obvious that we'd never actually get anywhere, and I couldn't suspend disbelief to accept the supernatural things happening. But Moomin rocks. Which you probably know I think :) Also in my head Moominpappa at Sea and To the Lighthouse is more or less the same book.

I love chocolate covered coffee beans, it's a bad, bad habit. I also am unable to eat just one, I stuff myself with the whole packet immediately after opening, and since those pesky beans only come in bags of 100 or 200 grams the following sugar- and caffeine chock is usually instant. And bad. I've learnt the hard way that I can't eat them in the evening since a long night of artificial wakefulness and pounding heart is sure to follow. So when my friend returned from Italy the other week she brought me a bag of such evil beans. For the longest time I managed to forget about the bag, until well, about 15 minutes ago. So here I am, hands shaking, heart pounding and swearing at myself.

Before I start my on my writing for today I'll just post a couple of links that I've had open in the tabs for a couple of days, more crocheting links! Last time I talked about my crocheting I complained that I my attempts at hats turned up like a hyperbolic plane. Now I've found a pattern for a hat - a Gollum hat! I'm not quite sure whether it's quite "me" though. The creator of the hat also have some awesome-scary patterns on her blog monster crochet.

And Neil Gaiman is writing about a graveyard!

And no, I really do not need a cup of coffee to relax!

Earlier today niora linked to these emperors over on youtube. I've had the same video as the start-page on my browser for a couple of days, because a laugh is a great way to start the day.

And now, the question, mostly for the Norwegians or with enough knowledge of Norwegian music (in Norwegian). I'm making a selection of Norwegian music of my Norwegian class and I'd like some ideas what to present. It has to be Norwegian music, and if it has lyrics, those has to be in Norwegian too. So, pimp your favourite Norwegian song/music (all genres).

And I promised niora that'd I'd write on my paper until it was time to go to yoga-class, but really it was so booooring! Gender in Antigone? Blah.

1. LINKDUMP
A propos bodies; This is what a amazingly well preserved body looks like: Ancient mummy found in Mongolia. .

Also I'm happy to see that my hobby has uses besides making new curtains for my mother's kitchen window. Crocheting geometry. The hyperbolic plane reminds me of how my attempt at free-crocheting a beret ended.

2. LIFEDUMP
I didn't get my contract at the university renewed. But that ARG! girl I, I!, recommended to the institute did. So now I only have about 40% at NHH (which is the business school), and a couple of hours a month teaching Latin. Damn. And I was getting so used to all the nice, nice money.

But to cheer myself up I am attaching a couple of photos of my new office at NHH.
It's not big, but it's mine!


And certainly not an office with a view.

All right, must give the link to this before I forget

Bad FOTR captions

The captioning in this bootleg is so bad that I had to share it with everyone. These are the better "bad" captions, with comments. These are captions that show a definite misunderstanding of the story, character, or plots, or have such a "wonderful" turn of phrase they must be shared.

The dressing and undressing of men;

Put clothes on a Roman Soldier (that underwear looks uncomfortable)
Dress up Flavius (doesn't work with Opera)

Just plain silly, undress Remus Lupin (something strange with his underwear too.)
Undressable Lupin

Undressable Mummimamma? Not yet.