My sin of choice is sloth. Well, choice and choice, it's the one I suffer from. When I do not have anything specific to fill my days with I don't do anything. There are lots of things I could do (write that article I have to write before September, start packing, cure aids, save the world etc, etc), but since I don't have to do them, there are no specific deadlines, I don't even get started. When I have something specific to do, i.e.. work, I have no problems jumping out of bed, feeling cheerful, refreshed and ready to start the day (well mostly). Now, I wake up at wake-up time 6.15 -since I am a morning person in my heart- and just stay in bed, napping, reading, napping. On a couple of occasions I didn't crawl out of bed until mid-afternoon. This constant oversleeping makes me lethargic and gives me a constant low grade headache.

I need something to organise my days, because I am hopeless at doing it myself. I know that that is one of the reasons why I had problems writing my thesis (combined with the absent supervisor and the fact that my two fellow students were decidedly introvert).

Also my computer has had problems lately, and I had to to things&tm; to it. And now I have no virus programme, and no Microsoft. Openoffice is probably all right, but why is it using to much memory?

In house-related news; Friday I met with the bank, and signed thousands of papers filled with words like "loan", "mortgage" "payment", "soul", "interest rate"... And at 5 pm today I am meeting with the house broker to sign the contract and stuff.

I am sure that this domesticity is what have made me have worrisome dreams lately, like tonight I dreamt I got pregnant with one of my former students (ew), and we were so happy (although we had this serious discussion that we had to stop with the orgies). We spent the rest of the dream expanding the flat to make room for the child. Because dreaming of painting and hammering is so fun! Well, at least we didn't get a dog, which dreamt the other night, a irish setter. And I don't like dogs! Although the exercise would do me good.

There is one thing I can not do, and that is to draw. I suck at it. I wish I could draw. I always fill my notebooks with horrible attempts at sketching. Since I am an avid writer - and even more so when I am travelling - I wish I could draw.

Anyhow - I have committed drawings. Several in fact, of myself. And I am going to inflict them on you. The background for this is davario's meme to draw oneself as a teenager. I spent several  hours last night looking at the various representations of selves. I was rather amused how many showed themselves as so much sleeker and trendier now than in their youths. Yes, being a teenager is a horrible thing, filled with angst and acne. But I bet a lot of them were way trendier stressed back then than now - it is just that who, who I ask, want to admit today that they found the late eighties fashion the coolest ever? Also a lot of girls stressed how their hair was much better now. There is nothing as bad as old fashion....

Or it may be that I am strangely unchanged. I haven't undergone a huge external change, I have shorter hair and slightly less acne*, but I still fit in some of the clothes I wore as a 16 year old. And I have worn scarfs and books most of my life...

* My mother tells me that it gets better after menopause...

( self portraits ugh... )

2007 is soon over and soon it will be a new year. Today I read through all my entries for 2007 - about 100 - and about 200 pages of occasionally legible scribblings in my handwritten diary and tried to think what happened this year.

According to this meme I had a great year:

You Had a Fantastic Year!

Compared to most years, last year was definitely great. Overall, you're living a much better life than you were twelve months ago. And nothing is a better mark of a good year. Here's to hoping next year is even better!

In some ways that is true, I have more money that I have ever had. Career-wise things are better, at least I have a full time contract, and I don't have to fret and worry about finding work.

On the other hand, work has been my all and everything this year. First (and in the middle), there wasn't enough of it. And then suddenly it was way too much. So, now I've learnt that. Next semester I will only teach on NHH, and do some freelance teaching and translating. Occasionally I plan to have time and energy to do something when I don't have to do anything.

Yes, there has been some good things about this year too, the trip to the Faroe Islands being the high point (*points to pictures*)

But now I'm mostly thinking about the year that is just around the corner, because there are some things I feel I will have to do,

2008. A plan.

• I need to get somewhere else to live. For the last year I have felt that I have outgrown sharing a flat. Too many people, too little space. And I really, really want my own kitchen. So I need to take my papers and talk to the nice(ha!) people in the bank, and start looking for a flat for me and my books.


• I need to start doing endurance training again. It's boring, but being out of breath is more annoying.


• Dinners need to be planned. Pasta or bread is not good for me.


• I have to become my usual morning self, and stop staying up late doing nothing.

Yeah.

I really suck at making small talk, for various reasons. Case in point:

A few days ago I met a girl who I used to play in band with from I was 10 until I was 19. She is a year younger than me so we used to hang out in the same group, even though we weren't friends as such - she rarely never invited me home and I never really cared. When I quitted the band, I kept in contact with some of my friends who again kept in contact with the girl in question, and ever so often I got updates about her, and met I met her on a couple of occasions.

So fast forward to last Friday when I popped into a jeweller to look at some earrings. I was leaning over the stands looking at simple gold studs when a woman - obviously one of the employees - came over to me asking if I wanted any help. I politely declined, not really looking up. But when she just kept standing there I looked at her, and of course it was my old band-mate.

The following conversation took place:

Me: Old band mate! How nice to see you!
Old band mate: Yes, you too!
Me: So, how are you?
OBM: Fine, and you?
Me: Fine. You work here now?
OBM: Yes, I've been working here for 3 months now.
Me: Oh.
OBM: Yeah.

Quiet.

OBM: So.
Me, nodding: Mmmm.
OBM: Are you looking for anything?
ME: Nah, just browsing.
OBM: Okay.

Pause, where I contemplate whether I should ask her how she was. Oh, I already know that. And what she was doing. Oh, I knew that too. I could ask her whether she still played, but decided that I really didn't care. So I said "goodbye", and "nice seeing you again" and got of the store as fast as possible.

This, even though a bit extreme is how all many of my conversations with people whom I don't have any obvious things in common with. As I said I suck at making small talk. Some people I have no problem talking to, asking questions, starting a conversation, but there are people - alot of people in fact, where I really have no idea what to say. Sometimes I don't care so much, I don't particularly want to start a conversation and know anything about the person. On the other hand, there are times that I really would like to start a conversation, but have no idea to say.

I have a friend who has this great gift of being able to making small talk to everybody. She has a way to make everybody feel interesting and can make everybody talk. I have watched her on several occasions, but I still have no idea how she does it. I wish I could do that. How do you talk to people you don't have anything obvious in common with?

I occasionally tell people that I lack ambition - I certainly lack focused direction, which I consider an integral part of ambition, or at least productive ambition. But on some accounts I realise that I do, in fact, have a smidgen of ambition.

Tomorrow and Friday I have my exam in Norwegian as a second language. Didactics Thursday and Second Language Acquisition Friday. The exam on Friday I'm not so worried about, I find second language acquisition interesting and have enjoyed using my students as research objects for the various theories. Didactics on the other hand I find horribly boring. Is not as much didactics as second language politics and what to do with pupils in elementary school or that don't know how to read and write, both with I find rather uninteresting. I am not interested in teaching in school, and I'm much to impatient (arrogant, compassionate) to do it anyway. Whereas I can see the use and for some the interest of learning this I can not summon any interest in the subject. Which is uncommon for me, usually everything is interesting on some level, but this - boring on all levels.

So, ambition. One of my problems this semester is that I've been way too busy. Unaccustomed as I am in having enough work, and money, I've been saying yes to all the work I've been offered. Since I'm mostly working evenings, I've only had one evening off during the whole week. So I haven't exactely been studying hard on my subjects - which is considered half a semester of studies. So was starting reading (not reveiwing, have yet to get through the books, well, start actually) for my exam the other day, and thinking this will never go well. Well I'll be content with a C. Then I went around trying to be content with my imaginary C, and the more I thought about it, the less content I became.

Then one of my colleagues, who's studying paedagogics came happily from her exam (which she'd read very little for), so happy with her - yes - C. My first thought? Happy with a C? But that's a bad grade! Now C isn't a bad grade, it's an average grade, but for me; it's a bad grade. So I have some ambition I thought:Useless grade ambition.

On the other hand, when I discussed this with my colleague, we both agreed that I didn't deserve a B, I haven't read for a B (or an A), much like I never read for the good grades I got in school, but I'm used to them. I'm bright, but lazy, always second in class, first was waaay too much work.

So, hello useless ambition, couldn't you show up on more useful places?

I have just finished marking the first test I've given to my students. No very big surprises; A couple of the quiet and very foreign students (from not-German speaking countries) did better than expected and the Germans did unsurprisingly well. Syntax seems to be problematic to most of them (I didn't even know we had problematic syntax before I started to studying Norwegian as a Second Language), and we need to practise listening comprehension. A lot. Well, that'll keep us entertained for the next weeks then.

Enough about other people, and more about me.

I got this horrible feeling of inadequacy this morning. In the paper was a story of an old classmate who's done something useful: Saving the world, finding a cure for aids while working in an war-raged and abandoned hospital in Sudan saving millions while writing her Ph.D and rearing seven children. And then I started thinking about my friends, the close ones and I started feeling like horrible failure. I'm what? 31, I have a short term job, and for the first time in my life a vaguely relevant, to my education and interests, job. I live in a flat I share with a couple of other losers. Most of my friends have really cool jobs, and even though they might be short term there are huge companies (or governments) lining up outside their (owned) flats to hire them saving the world and curing cancer. While paying them a lot of money. And if they're not headhunted they have three degrees, two children and a really cool job.

Sometimes I wonder why they are my friends at all. But then, I guess I'm fun to be around, even though I can be pompous and talk about memememe and whatever IIIII might be interested in just now. And I never remember anyone's birthday or ask about how their children are doing or things like that.

I think I'd hated me if I'd have to be my friend.

Huh. I hadn't planned on whining about this, I had planned on whining about how busy I'll be the next couple of weeks. I'll save that for later then.

I love getting up in the early(ish) Sunday morning and enjoying the peace and quiet. Now in this shared flat peace and quiet in the morning is usually not a big problem since I'm usually the first one to rise whenever I rise - my flatmates as the student stereotypes they are are a bunch of night owls, I'm not, and starting work at 7am has made waking up around 6 normal. All this to say, as they say in the blues riffs I woke up this morning. I woke up this morning an d looked out through my window and the sunlit street below.

I love the early Sunday mornings and the quiet Sunday streets I though. In English.

Then I started to castigate myself for thinking in English and translated the sentence into Norwegian;
Jeg elsker søndags morgener og de stille søndagsgatene. Nope, didn't sound right.
Jeg elsker søndags morgener og de tomme søndagsgatene (Which translates to "I love Sunday mornings and the empty Sunday streets"). Hmm, better. Or keeping the "quiet": Jeg elsker sånne søndagsmorgener og søndagsstille gater ("I love such Sunday mornings and Sunday-quiet streets"). So I spent the rest of my breakfast trying to make sense of the difference between "quiet" and "empty" and which I liked the most, why I seemed to prefer "empty" in Norwegian (unless I restructured the whole sentence) and "quiet" in English. So, poll time.

Poll #770814 The streets of Bergen + early Sunday morning
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Are the streets...

Do you ever think about things like this?

Tickybox!

So, when I had worried about that I started to worry about my upcoming job-interview as a teacher of Norwegian as a second language (horror!) So I started practising my teacher voice. Since these are mostly beginners I will need to speak some sort of standard-ish bokmål which is not my usual Bergensdialect (three genders! hv- instead of k-! Although there is no way I'll stop using my velar r's, I tend to roll too much to sound natural.) But the funny thing is the pitch. When I speak my normal dialect I have a fairly deep speaking voice. "Pretend-bokmål" makes me rise my pitch by a third. Same happens when i speak Greek, voice go up with almost a fifth (I shudder at the thought of how high I would go speaking Japanese...). Speaking English only makes me rise my voice slightly, a second or a third, depending which accent I end up using (I don't have an English accent, I pick up accents, it's annoying in an amusing way. Unless I offend someone by thinking I'm making fun of their accents. Yes, it happens, Italians have such fun accents...).

Yes, I spent the rest of my morning speaking the various languages, having lots of fun with how my voice sounds like. It's not like I haven't thought of this before, but I still think it's fun. And this, naturally, leads to more polling.

Poll #770815 The sound of language
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you pitch the various languages you speak differently?

Another tickybox!

Yes, yes, I will stop postponing writing my article now...

I have been watching ^dkbaptism of the new Danish prince, ^picChristian Valdemar Henri John, because yes, I am a monarchist, I love royal pomp. Anyway, did you know that when I was younger I wanted to become a (what's the correct word for a clergywoman in the Norwegian state church?) parson, this despite the fact that I have never been a religious person. I find religion interesting, both historically and psychologically, but I am not a religious person. Although I hesitate to call myself an atheist, that is probably the closest word for it, but as my very religious friend Karolaki said once, I am one of the most religious non-believers he's met. Anyway, at the time I was finishing school and wondering what to do afterwards I had decided upon three choices:

- Continue to study music: Which I decided not to do since there aren't much room for professional tubaists in Norway, and I didn't want to teach children.
- Start university, eventually taking my post graduate degree in history: Well, I was sucked into classics before even starting history...
- Start studying theology (and Greek and Latin!)

The problem was, as I realised when talking to the vicar in our church, was that I wanted to become a practitioning clergywoman, not a theorist, a theologian. Why? Well, I wanted to talk in church on Sundays, being the biggest besserwisser in the parish. Also I wanted to learn history, Greek and Latin, and theology nicely incorporated that. Of course, that was that pesky idea that you had to have a calling to become clergy. Which I didn't and still haven't, I don't even believe.I'd still like to have a job where I could have weekly lectures - I like talking about things. And I love psalms! After some discussions I decided that if I'd lived in the Middle Ages or thereabout (and had been a man!), I could have become a priest. In our modern times I could not, furthermore I disagreed, and still disagree, with the church on many points. I am still a member of the church though, mainly because there are some jobs teaching Latin/Greek open only to members of a religious community.

But every time I hear some clergyman preaching I am a bit envious, it could have been me. Well, good thing it isn't - I really don't have the compassion for parish work.

As I was going home from yoga class last night I suddenly realised how I've always lived on a street with almost straight north-south axis. The reason I suddenly thought of this was that I could see how Orion was standing on top of my house. This brought back memories the first cold winter evenings when I was a girl, the first cold spell of the winter when we brought outside our sleighs to sleigh on the hills that was still covered with more grass than snow, Orion twinkling over our house. This thought in my head I had to check the maps, even in Athens, even in Hudderfield, even in London I lived on a street with a north-south alignment. I can't remember seeing stars in neither Athens or London though, but that is hardly surprising. I used to call Orion the Winter-warrior because I could only see him during the winter, making up long stories about his travels around the world.

Aside from that I am busy finishing my article, deadline is in five (four and a half, now) hours. My supervisor-in-spe sent me a link to an application form and I got this horrid feeling in my stomach. Do I really want to go back into academia? I have started talking tentatively about it to my friends and they are less than surprised and more than supportive. But of course, we've all been waiting for this to happen. or I guess you are the only one who didn't realise that. I on the other side have my doubts.Yes, I'd like a job, even if it is just for three-four years at first, and frankly I am not to worried about my abilities, I am worried about my focus and ambition. Or to be correct lack of focus and ambition.

All my life I have just sailed by on my good abilities; I have a good memory and a good brain. Aside from compulsory written assignments -which I did on the bus to school - I never did any homework until I started university. I used to read through my books the first day of school and that's it, I always got good grades, not the best, usually second or third, since being the best meant that I had to work and I saw no reason why I should do that. So I coasted through, cheerful and well liked, with an ego the size of a small African country. The same happened what I started my music studies: I was promising. I was good, but I realised if I wanted to be the best, even among the best I had to sacrifice a lot of my other interests, I could not take days off whenever I wanted, couldn't afford to slip at all. It didn't appeal the least to me. I have no focus whatsoever.

I am a scatterbrain, there is always something else, somewhere else I can learn. Or at least it has been up till now, but I fear that time is running out, I can't spend my time flitting form one interest to another like I have. Alongside this lack of focus I have a very strong need for security, I want a place to call my own with room for my ever-growing collection of books and cds and I want economic security to be able to buy those books.

But it all comes down to I lack the belief in my own will and focus to pursue a successful academic career. I would very much like to have an office and be paid to read books (which are paid for too!) and throw off an article or two, I love to learn and I love to teach, but I am sadly conscious of the fact that there are bad, dark days where nothing moves ahead, students are morons and articles and books are just towering walls of horror and I am not sure I have the focus and will to focus to get past them. Nor am I sure I have the ambition to get there, it's so easy to just let it slide by.

Today's Friday Five is about films, and one of the questions is Casting: who would play you, members of your family, friends, etc?. Now that has been one of Marit and mine long time pick up lines. I'm not quite sure how it started, but we've been thinking about the film about our lives almost since we met in 1995. So every once in a while, when we paint the town red, we pick up men in drowes with the line, So, who's going to play you in the film about our life?

Catherine Zeta-Jones is going to play me (ever since I saw her in The Darling Buds of May) and Pamela Anderson is going to play Marit.

None of us are quite sure what the film is going to be about, but there will be much eating, drinking and band rehearsals, (Marit plays the clarinet). And Larmonien's somewhat lugubrious cd will be the soundtrack.

If you wonder, the line is great for jump-starting a conversation, but I have a packet of condoms with an expiry date, wanna help me use them? is still the surest bet.

I awoke this morning with my mind circling around an unwanted memory. It was from the summer 1992. It was the first year my summer holiday hadn't been packed with happenings from start till end, I was still too young to have a proper job, so I'd gotten a job to house & bird-sit. The house was great, but in the middle of nowhere with almost no buses, and I was to young to drive.

Later it has seemed to me that I spent something like four months lonely in that house, but I know for a fact that it was only four days.

That was the time of my first depression, but I didn't know that at that time. I've never felt so abandoned in my whole life.

It was high summer outside, and I spent a fair amount outside, but never saw another person but once. A woman my mother's age. She talked to me, a few words, asked me a question. I remember I had to bite back my tears afterward, I was not alone in the world after all.

I still can't remember a thing of what happened the remaining eight weeks of that summer holiday.

But I realised then that I hate to be alone. Really, really hate it.

Later, when starting university people went away to cottages on the tundra and houses in the country to read or write undisturbed, whereas I never even considered it, knowing I'd go crazy within twenty seconds.

Sometimes I watch my fellow students, they all seems to be able to be alone; go away, work undisturbed without the need for human contact I have. Sometimes I'm jealous of what I call their single-mindedness, that often seems to lead to academic excellence. But more often I consider my craving for people saner. For me, at least.

@ Computer room UiB

People always want to make up status for the soon to be past year, as for myself I can only say one thing;

This year has been the most unproductive, useless year I've experienced in my 27 1/2 year long life.

Thank you.

I shall not elaborate further.

No seriously, nothing has happened, and I haven't "happened" anything either. Blah, it'll be good to see it gone. Due to this soon to be non existent year (in my mind at least) I have actually made some new year's resolutions, actually, it's the same one in two different aspects;
1 - I'll be more ambitious
2 - I'll be more competitive

I'm famously known for my total lack of ambition, I had to re-take my psych-profile in the Army because they didn't believe that I'd actually scored "0" on the part about competitiveness. I love playing games, but I don't care if I win or lose, playing is the fun part. It's also the reason I dislike all sports except the aestetically pleasing ones like men's gymnastics & martial arts (and sumo wrestling ;p).

Anyway, I am now about to enter the world of ambition, except I haven't a clue of what to do / think / say /act ....
Think I need a "Ambition for Dummies".

(I'm a scatterbrain)

I dislike New Years Eve, just like you, I just want to stay at home, and sleep, but my friends keep nagging me, "you can't stay home alone on New Years Eve! We're having a party! You have to come! We're picking you up at eight!" It's nice to know they care, really - it is, but I'm not really in a partying mood, and I don't like fireworks or cigars (I like champagne though) and the thought of standing outside in too much wet snow (all of it came down after ten this morning) in too thin clothes watching drunk people trying to blow their hands off.

All right, this is just plain depressing...


Have a lovely New Years Eve!!

I'm feeling vaguely depressed today, more vague than depressed, not my usual sense of self, or perhaps just to much self. Don't know.

( melancholic murmurings )