Now I am just fed up with the house hunt, and am seriously planning to use my savings on whisky and trips abroad (to buy more whisky).

Flats are expensive - yes, I should have bought in 1992. But why are all the refurbishments so sloppily done? Fast and sloppy to earn more money. The walls are covered with plates of plaster instead of fixing up the walls, often the plates are rather badly cut and fitted with holes and crack. And in general all that the skirting is improperly done. In one flat they had just nailed one moulding on top of another without fitting them. And yes, that left a bent moulding and a crack a centimetre wide. Amazing.

If I pretend I have converted to Russian orthodoxy I will have time to celebrate Christmas. Even better if I converted to the Old Believers - I think they are skipped a calendar reform somewhere along the way and will not celebrate Christmas until mid-January. And that would fit me perfectly. Except that they don't celebrate Christmas the right way...

So, yeah, way too much too do still. And now my friends, whom I haven't seen all semester, are planning to meet me before Christmas. And there will be exchange of gifts (not bought yet), and drinking wine and squandering time that could be used to correct exams. Because that is so much fun!!

Now, whining aside - ummm... I had a original thought (well, more original than verb on the second place!and agreement between adjectives and nouns) the other day - but I forgot what it was. And I  don't quite know why I'm writing this. Probably to show the world taht I am not dead yet.

Do not promise to write article about subjects you don't know anything about, in periods you don't know anything about in genres you know shit about.

These are probably the hardest 30.000 characters I've ever written (in years).

Well, to cheer myself up, a quote from Smart bitches, trashy books:

Note: My dad also firmly believes that if you have unread books on your bedstand, you can't die. If that's the case, I'm going to live for damn ever. Psst- vampire romance writers: that's the secret to immortality. All those vampires? It's not the blood and the undeadness. They’re all members of a giant bookclub and they never finish their TBR pile. Hence they’re all 400 years old.

Obviously I'm not going to die either. I am no fan of romance novels, but they are really fun to read about.

Now, tea and another 90 minutes of writing.

First of all, it is time to hug your loved ones.
So, go hug.
I'm waiting. Have you hugged?
Last week the father of one of my flatmates died of a heart attack. He was rather old and had had an attack earlier also, but still it came as a shock. Also my flatmate only had her father as her focus in life, she's somewhat estranged from her mother and don't have any siblings, so everything falls on her, all the practicalities and twice the amount of grief.
I feel so for her, because I occasionally worry about when the same thing will happen to me. I hope it's a long long time until my mother dies, because, like her I don't have a particularly big family, no siblings or other parent. So in one way it was nice to spend my weekend in Utne, celebrating my uncle's 60th birthday with all my family. All 7 of us.
So, go hug your loved ones.

Besides that I'm way too busy. One million of classes in three different places, and I have an exam to make, and the other day I remembered that I need to write an essay for my Nordic literature class (so I can qualify to teach Norwegian to Norwegians too, not just the foreigners), and that is due on Friday, which is also the day of the funeral. So probably I'll have to write the essay on post-it notes on the bus or something, because I really don't have much time to actually do it - or at least time when my brain actually works, not like now, after 6 hours of teaching - in two different places. Sorry, not a night person.

And, I got a letter today that told me that my Greek classes would be starting again in October. They must be joking; they have not asked me whether I want to, nor have the opportunity to teach. I have neither. And I'm too tired to even be annoyed.

So, I'll be more scarce than usual. And now it's bedtime.

ETA: Hmmm, does the English in this entry feel more off than usual to you? Or is the German accent just inside my head?
ETA 2 And I forgot that I also am going to send in my paper from the conference to peer reviewing in two weeks. Because I've been working soooo hard on it.
ETA 3 Ooops, essay for the Nordic literature class is due Thursday at 16. Busy making things up.

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?

Oh no, I have to do my taxes, and all my papers are in a huge pile on my windowsill covered an inch of dust and ferociously guarded by woman-eating dust tigers. (And had seven different sources of income last year, so I have quite a lot of paperwork...)
ETA:And had seven different sources of income last year,
I didn't have seven different sources, I had ten. 10!! *gah*
Almost done though, just waiting for a confirmation of a number from one of my employers. ETA: Done!

And I have to finish the exam for my students. Done! (well, I'll have to proof-read them tomorrow morning.) ETA: Done!

Is it to early for a drink yet? ETA: Done!


Do not want to be a grown up!

Thank you Nemi!

I have a huge backlog of emails and LJ comments, I should have scheduled an appointment at the doctor (left ovary is behaving oddly), called a million people about money, finished making the exam for the students, saved the world and written my Nobel prize winning novel.

But I just want to hide under my desk and eat chocolate.

ETA: Also the gel pad on my keyboard is making really strange noises. It must be a sign. I'll have to vacate the premises before it blows up. Which leaves me time for a cup of tea and a little chocolate before the lecture :)

Yesterday I bought a new pair of trousers. Jeans to be precise. And I haven't owned or worn jeans since eh, 1992 I think. Usually I wear black trousers of some kind, black corduroy, black cotton-mix, black linen. Basically - black trousers. To this I usually year a white t-shirt or tank top and a cardigan of come colour (blue, some other blue, green and blue are currently in vogue). Can you say boring? Can you also say teacher? Yeah, that's what I thought too. So I resolutely went and bought a pair of blue (dark blue of course) jeans. The annoying thing is taht most of my blue cardigans don't match with the blue of the jeans, so the mix and match possibilities isn't as varied as with black trousers.

And talking about cardigans, they just scream teacher!! Should I perhaps consider wearing something different once in a while? But what? And which colour? And which style?

Sigh, some days I just long for the easy days of the cemetery.

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?

The pictures from Vienna are up! The exciting story about the Ukrainian biker-babes will have to wait until tomorrow when I'm planning to postpone writing an essay for my didactics course. Which is due this Friday, not next Friday as I thought. I am great at this planning stuff!

Currently I am only postponing planning today's lecture entertainment. Reviewing is really boring to teach, but I can't come up with any fun things to do either. So since I'm incapable of being a good review teacher I have offered to hold three extra lectures (paid of course) next week for the "Oh, no I'm going to fail!"-crowd - which incidentally are going to be the ones that pass with flying colours.

And I applied for a job and forgot to send my cv, so they picked another one instead of me, even though I was qualified. Bugger.

Back from Vienna (eventually an update about that may mysteriously appear...), and life is more than usually busy.

The deadline to deliver the exams to printing is tomorrow, so I postponed proofreading them until after my lessons. And since I had been so stupid as to assign an essay for the students to write in my absence, I have 40 long(ish) essays to correct. And that at a faster pace than usual since we moved three of last weeks lessons to this week. And I needed to prepare those lessons,... and suddenly I remembered. The alarm goes off at 2200 unless somebody turns it off (then it goes off at 2400), and I have not turned off any alarms, and neither do I have any ideas how to do it.

So, should I make a run for it or should I spend the night in the office?
Nah, stupid question. My room looks like somebody emptied her suitcase all over the floor and kicked everything around for the fun of it. Of course I'll be staying here!

I suffer from the idea that everyone is incompetent today. Unfortunately that's me most of all

I spent almost two hours this morning trying to make an excercise to the student, but somone (not me) had been writing in the book where the exercise was so I had to erase that. After having ruined three of those tape white outers and getting tip-ex (blanco) in my hair(!) I gave up. There are limits to wasted time at work. At least it's better than surfing on porn sites during work time, right?

As I was messing around with this the cleaning lady came in and I rose from my workdesk to give her some space around my desk. "nono" she waved with her arms, no reason to get up. Hello, there is a reason to get up. If I don't move away from my desk you will not clean on, around and under it, and I am seriously worried that the dustbunny under there's going to chew off my toes one day. Please, clean under my desk!

Anyway, I have a meeting soon, I'd better prepare so this streak of incompetence doesn't continue. I'm busy showing my self from my best side since my contract ends at the end of tehyear and I'd really like to have a job next year too.

Also, females on my f-list. When did you take your pap smear test last? Two days ago another of my friends got diagnosed with cervical cancer. She's scheduled for operation on Monday. Yeah.

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.

I hadn't but finished marking those Latin exams, before starting the next project - making Norwegian exams for my students. One'd think I should make an exam before marking it - but I seem to be working on a shattered timeline here.

Thankfully I'm not alone in coming up with texts and questions and such. Currently I'm pondering what we shall give them as essay question - they have to write a short essay in Norwegian. Since it's just a introductory level course they don't know have much vocabulary - I think somewhere in the course-description it says that they should have a working vocabulary of about 1000 words, so that limits the subjectmatters. So far I have a cartoon thingie and two boring generic questions we've been talking about in class, but I want to give them something fun (but challenging) too. Hrm. Bet none of them reads this, but I better not talk too loud about it anyway.

So, was I going to saying thing smart? Probably, but I've forgotten what. Bought two pairs of striped stockings and a black corderoy skirt today. Makes me look very teachery (is that even a word?), to bad I've cut my hair so I can't put it in a bun.

ETA: And now they have started ringing me again, complaining that they failed their Latin exams. Hrrrumph.

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've felt under the weather all week. Considering the fact that the weather has been rain and temperatures between 10 and 15 °C I guess that you can guess that I've felt edgy, short-tempered, tired, grumpy and generally not nice to be around. Usually the first thing I've said when I come to work is Can I go home and watch Buffy now?

Yesterday was worse than ever since person in charge of all the cemeteries in Bergen was coming to talk to us during lunch - and even with the added lure of strawberries (in season now!) - I was less than positive. I hate working lunches, I prefer to eat my food in the relative peace of my own voice, rather than listening to facts that I already know about my workplace. Most of the morning I'd had a heated debate in my own head about reclaiming words in a feminist context. Yes, I disagreed with myself, if most of the fight didn't happen inside my head I'd started yelling and throwing things. I did throw some things though, and after I'd uprooted two bushes (which was what I was supposed to do - really - I only did it with more gusto than usually:) I came to the conclusion that I needed to
a) go home and write angry articles (Good idea, to bad I can't leave work whenever I want)
b) go for a run (And I HATE running)
c) get laid (With whom?)

Instead I snipped at my co-workers and glowered for the first twenty minutes of lunch until Irene had pinched my ear several times (saying that it was the pressure point for relaxing and happy thoughts or such) and pried me with enough strawberries (yum, strawberries!) till I was getting sociable. And for some reason -after a throwaway comment about wanting to write the great Norwegian novel) the bossboss found me interesting enough to ask whether I could be interested in doing some research and (ghost)writing for the head office on a freelance basis. Despite the fact that I was grumpy and quite possibly rude.

But now it's weekend and the sun is shining and I am at home trying to start writing an article I promised my supervisor. Yay...

MEDICAL NOTE:
Buffosis is the clinical term for the urge to stay at home and watch Buffy rather than go to work and be a productive member of society.

Have had a ungood couple of weeks, with one of my rounds of apathy. I have had absolutely no interest in anything, just want to sleep or read things that don't nudge my brain, just medicate myself on masses and masses of words streaming past my brain, not having to care about anything or anyone letting fictional persons do the caring for me.

It would certainly have been better if this last week hadn't been my week off, because now I have spent my precious week off, with good weather too, in bed - or occasionally on the sofa - reading, napping, doing nothing. It's annoying, but since I had absolutely no obligations and a lot of my friends was away this week, I wasn't even forced to kick myself out of bed to go to work or be social and that other stuff that usually makes the apathy pass faster.

I thank God/genetics/brain chemistry/my mental health/upbringing/whomever/whatever that I only gets these total-apathy attacks (can apathy attack? isn't that against its nature?) once a year.

And now my room really needs to be cleaned, my plants needs to be repotted, friends, family and business associates need to be called/emailed/texted and I need to eat something that isn't a sandwich.