Here I am, back from an exiting road-trip with my mother.We planned on travelling north to Nordfjord, and then into the middle of Norway, and then down to Halsnøy were our family comes from. On our first day a thing broke on our car, can you spot it? (click pictures for bigger versions)( Under the cut )

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... )

So, my trip to Marrakesh. Unlike our trip to Istanbul we really didn't have much of an idea what we wanted to see and do. The tickets where bought mostly on whim. I wanted to listen to the storytellers at the Djemma el-Fna*, which I heard about a couple of years ago when I attended a course in storytelling. Hilde wanted to smoke waterpipe, and these were our plans at arrival.
*Djemma el-Fna, also known as Djemaa el Fna, or Jemma/Jami/Jeema/Jema/Jmma/Djmma/Djema el Fna. I follow the age-old Norwegian tradition by writing it the way I think it should be written based on how I pronounce it.
( Pictures ahoy! )

Happy birthday niora! I hope you got some cake eventually!

~*~
I've been feeling kind of downish and hasn't really had much energy lately. There is much I should have done, but just don't have any urge or energy to do it. Thankfully lectures will be starting again next week, and then I will have enough to do again. Speaking about work, I attended the yearly strategy seminar, which mainly to me meant a couple of days in a nice hotel and lots of free food.

Sunday 6th of January my mother and I attended the presentation of Draumkvedet in Fantoft stavechurch. Ever since the stavechurch was rebuilt after the charming mr. Vikernes (who was baptised Christian which I never will not find amusing) burnt it down, which would be the last ten years, the Draumkvedet has been sung on Epiphany. This is a (or as all long ballads and epics - several) mediaeval ballad about Olav Åsteson who falls asleep on Christmas eve, and wakes up on Epiphany. He goes to the church and tells about his dream about his trip through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and ends with a description of Judgement Day. All sung in a traditional Norwegian style, and in one of the most archaic dialects - the one from Telemark.

It is a strange feeling sitting there in this tiny, old-new church that still smells of fresh timber, listening to this ballad, There is no heating, so everybody are packed in lots of clothes and huddled under blankets, you can see the breathing, and the lightening is mostly candles.

The church:

( And since I brought the camera along - some more )

Well, one of my new years resolutions was to go to bed at a reasonable time, so bedtime it is! (Obviously I lied)

According to my devious contraption (with chocolate) for counting down to first day of not lectures/exams I only have 15 days left of horrible stress. Well, I feel slightly better now. After all I spent Thursday and Friday in bed. Well actually I had to go out around noon on Friday to go to Vinmonopolet and buy some wine, but aside from that I was either in bed or tottering around in comfort-clothes and watching telly and reading cookery books. Friday I woke up without a headache. It was wonderful - you know, like when they turn off the fan or air condition that you can't really hear, until they turn it off. Like that, only inside my head.

Saturday I was in a "utdrikningslag", a bachelor(ette) party. Which was fun. We tried curling, and it was great.

For the red team: Me


This was actually one of my more elegant landings. I don't quite have the balance, technique or thigh-strength to get from the crouching position and up to standing. Mostly I ended up on my knees or arse (all blue) or on one quite memorable account, flat on my back, so now I have a back pain, kind of sore and blue behind and knees and some sort of muscle sprain in my right thigh. Was it worth it? Hell, yeah - it was great fun! (The rest of the evening was quite memorable too, but that is not my story to tell.) Also, my team won.

Yesterday I didn't do much, except quietly whine to myself about pain! hurts! all over!

Today it was back to work, and panicking students. And I am presenting a paper Wednesday. Which I haven't written yet. And, probably some more stuff - but I have made a couple of decisions that will make things easier for me. After all I don't have to do everything perfectly, do I? *shoots inner voice that says "nothing less that perfection".*

I had planned today to write some of my presentation, but I teach from 10 to 18, and after that my brain just doesn't work, especially if I sit down and relax and have dinner. If I just keep going, just stuffing a slice of bread in my mouth while writing, I can do it. But it's not really worth it. (She admonishes herself sternly) I am not an Energizer Bunny. I don't think I can just buy a new set of batteries when these run out. All right, no more metaphors! More telly!

University started again this week. The city is running over with lost and/or half-drunk students very young people posing as first year students, but I'm sure they haven't finished kindergarten!

The downstairs neighbours have returned from their holiday, and they are having a party. Second time this week. And since the first law of neighbours is The neighbours always have bad taste in music, my teeth are on edge.

Tomorrow I'll be holding the first lecture of the semester, and I still haven't figured out what to wear. Except for the shoes, my new, expensive shoes <3 This year I plan on having a sound and light show on my first day, playing black metal and showing a slideshow of oil platforms and installations. That is what Norway is about, isn't it?

Every time I go up or down the stairs from my office at the faculty of Arts I see this big white wall


( But what is that sign? )

Gratulerer med dagen!
Happy constitution day!

I've just arrived home after a long day, I've taken off my bunad, and am currently lounging on my sofa, listening the the people still celebrating downtown. I am getting old, I can't celebrate like that any more. And my feet were killing me.

So, Klara's constitution day in random pictures (I'm not as cool as miss_nightowl who made a video from her 17. mai!)
( here )

The weather has been really April-like this last week, one day it's 20°C and sunshine and the next moment it's snowing, no raini..., no sunshine aga... rain..sleeting. But spring is most definitely here!


I have also joined facebook. People have been nagging me to get one, and now I have one, it's here. I can't quite remember who was telling me to get one of these though, and I haven't quite figured out what to use it for.

Also, today I have ordered my tickets for Istanbul Konstantinopolis Byzantium Miklagard.
And I've bought a new leather shoulder bag for 1650 kroner, more than half a month's rent. Yep, I just got paid.

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.

Well, in case you're wondering I'm postponing the boring review (or was it read for the first time?) for my own exam. Second language didactics is is amazingly boring, but that is a whien for another time, now it's time for for me to recap my trip to Vienna.

As you know, I went with my choir to participate in the Schubert choir competition.

We arrived late Wednesday evening, so we got some time to spent walking around Vienna.( Here be pictures! Strangely many of them strangely fuzzy. I blame it upon the cold and the misty weather. )

Somebody was having a slightly too loud and really pointless discussion outside my office door earlier today. And I started again, to ponder whether there always is some amount of workplace friction, or I perhaps is thin skinned. I don't like quarrelling and infighting. Why can't people even try to get along? and if they don't get along, being rude really doesn't help.

So I planned on making a poll there and then, but they were really loud, so instead I went out and spent lots of money on clothes. So, hours later - because I think I will ponder this later too - here's the poll:

Poll #857540 Work place woes
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Is there always intrigues, quarreling and backstabbing going on at a normal workplace?

What's the best way to cope with the intrigues, backstabbing and such?

Am I thin-skinned?

Who is wrong?

Anything you want to add?

And after some retail therapy and a couple of hours of entertaining teaching, I come home to freshly baked chocolate cake. Sharing a flat is really all right sometimes.

Teaching (also, autumn cleaning, choir weekend, my cousin visiting and all the other normal everyday crises like leakages and exploding lamps) is keeping me busy. So to keep you, or rather, me, entertained I give you a quick tour of my work place;


( The faculty of Arts was built in the sixties. )

A strange huge shining ball of yellow has appeared day after day hanging in the sky, confounding the inhabitants of Bergen. Too much sunshine, too little sleet. I worry that we will use our allotted 35 days of sunshine before summer even arrives, and that June will be as piss poor (and pour) as last year. But we have to be a bit happy about spring, the sun isn't just shining, but also warming and the spring flowers has braved the chill and the snow and cheering me up on my walks. (although next time I'm going to take a picture of them I will try not to cast a shadow over them while taking the photo.) And since it's springtime they called me from the cemetery asking me if I wanted to work there this summer too, which size in shoes and boots do I use? I will probably end up with the dead this year too if nothing else comes my way, perhaps it is time to get a real job? Nah.

In other news, these last few days I have come to realise that I must stop talking about writing. And about What's wrong with science fiction™. Since I have now gotten one e-mail inviting me to enter a short story contest and two offers to join a creative writing / critique circle. And what have I written? Diddlysquat*. Either I must stop talking or I must start writing, and I'm not quite sure which is most difficult. I am still a master of postponing though. Today for instance I have a seminary at 12 (will start to prepare soon) and tomorrow I will have about 15 exams to grade. Therefore I can not do anything now. Yeah, sure.

ETA: Do not go to the theatre today!

_____
*Why is diddlysquat not in the dictionary when cybersquatting is. The first is more common than the latter isn't it? At least where I am concerned.

I'm leaving for the country to celebrate Christmas with my family, I'll be back on the 27th or something

And since I spent yesterday afternoon running around experimenting with my camera I bring you some pictures of our Christmas tree which is floating in the middle of Lille Lungegårsvann just to bring up the Christmas cheer.





A couple more in the gallery, This is a picture of the same lake in the summer.

Have a Merry Christmas everybody!

Tomorrow will be my last day (for now??!?) at the cemetery. Weather-wise it has been a pretty shitty summer and I am now looking forward to put away the Real National Costume of Bergen, full raingear. To celebrate this occasion here are some pictures of me in the costume, taken at 710 am. If they'd been taken later I'd have a running nose and smears of mud all over my face.

( Do you like rain? Come to Bergen! )

Aaand now, bed time!

Last week was supposed to be the first week of my holiday unemployedness, so, even though I went to work my brain -and occasionally the body- was all in holiday mood. Nothing happened, nothing was done. On top of that we've had lots of problems with our broadband. We'd decided to change ISP and after a lot of chaos we had three routers, one from the old ISP, one from the new and one which we don't know why we have, but no life in the broadband. Great fun. So I watched season one of MacGyver that Per, the newish flatmate, bought and read a lot.

This week everything is much better. Nice co-worker H is back at work, I have lots of plans for the week; My Latin reading group is starting up again tomorrow - reading De senectute, Thursday there's a concert with Kaizers Orchestra and I'm having Friday off. Also, the sun is shining, something it hasn't done to much of this summer, so now I'm going to put on a warm jacket, get the ice cream I bought earlier and go out on the balcony and enjoy the sunset.



(And on the subject of pictures, some time ago I posted some pictures of an sudden new flatmate I found in my sittingroom over at found_objects , if you would like a peek into my house.)