I was talking to my brother on MSN (yes, I know, we live in the same house, but it’s not like I can be bothered to walk downstairs just to tell him pointless stuff like this) about how installing The Sims 2 and all its expansion packs takes for-frakking-ever.

Me: The Sims 2 install ftl.

But then I got to thinking, about ftl. As you may or may not know, it’s a “common” abbreviation of “for the lose”, as opposed to “for the win”. Duh. BUT. Being so into Battlestar Galactica, I can’t help but think about FTL drives - as in “faster than light drives”. And imagine! If the installation of The Sims 2 ++ would really BE FTL. Then it wouldn’t just be ftl, it would also be ftw, as in “The Sims 2 FTL FTW!”

Yes? YES? I KNOW!

This post brought to you by Ibuprofen and Coke Zero. Be responsible, go to bed if you feel sick.

I just took a quiz about Harry Potter, and got 15/15 correct. The quizmaker named me an expert and “sorted” me into Gryffindor, whereas you’re sorted into Ravenclaw if you get between 9-12 points.

I am so offended right now.

I’ve been worrying the last, well, year or so. Two years. Or so. Maybe three. That I’ve stopped being FUN. And when I say “stopped being fun”, I actually mean “stopped going to parties”. Because I have. I don’t know. At one point I didn’t find it at all that entertaining anymore, so I just stopped going. And then I started studying again, so that started taking up all my spare time. But you know what? I can still be fun.

Granted, I only give myself to be fun, in the meaning “going out for drinks” when I’m not home, because then, you know, I have my excuse. I couldn’t study because I wasn’t home. I was out with coworkers. The wine was free. They were all there. And you know, serious studies show that if you socialise with your coworkers, not to mention your boss, you’re more likely to get promoted. So it’s all quite legit, you see.

And I know, that doesn’t sound like fun, does it? It sounds like FORCED fun, but I swear, it wasn’t. It was just pure, crazy fun. Or you know, not too crazy. I didn’t dance on any tables. Or on the floor, for that matter. I didn’t fall over, or down any stairs. I didn’t spill anything on myself, or on others. I didn’t say anything that I regretted later. I didn’t sing. I did:

• Have a few too many drinks.
• Stay up too late.
• Talk to Ian from Aberdeen. Apparently he’s been looking for me.
• Openly talk to one of my coworkers about how I was sort of threatened by her when she first started working with us.
• Talk to my department’s only ph.d. (except the dean, obviously he has a ph.d.) about the master’s thesis I want to do, and how I want to keep my options open for a ph.d. later. He was all for it, and didn’t hate my thesis proposal. Now if only my advisor will be as supporting, this might go places…
• Eventually make it back to my room.
• Get 4 hours of sleep before I had to get back up and endure 6 hours of group sessions, although I spent the first one chugging down water and not talking.
• NOT get too badly hung over. Wow. First time in years.

All in all, a very successful outing, and I really can’t wait to go out again. I’ve made somewhat loose plans with a friend, we just have to find a good time. And we better! ;)

First of all, the January goals and how I fared with those:

• Go to the gym once a week. - Yep! Except for that one week where I was in pain.
• Finish reading Leonardo to the Internet. - Nope. Two chapters left. I had to focus on other readings.
• Read one other book OR article pertaining to my studies. - Check! Two articles and almost one book - I’ve got 20 pages left, and plan on reading those tonight.
• Read one fiction novel. - Yes, I read the first part of the third book of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin.
• Make one dinner and one dessert from the recipes in Nigella Express. - Utter fail.
• Finish the redesign of Renate.nu. - Obviously, I didn’t do this.

On to the February goals!

• Finish reading Leonardo to the Internet.
• Do proper research for term paper #2.
• Make my way into a project at work, about making a process chart. It was my idea, and I want to see it through.
• Catch up on my class reading.
• Prepare notes for my master’s thesis proposal, to present to the professor I want as my counsellor.
• Go to the gym once a week.
• Replant some of the bamboo.

Ok then! Most of it is related to my studies, but that’s what’s keeping me occupied a lot these days, so it’s only natural.

I talked to my boss today about my possible plans for a master’s degree in history, and at first she just said that well, a master’s degree is always nice and handy. Then I told her the topic I’ve been thinking about for my thesis, and she was all for it. It’s not that her approval will be a decisive factor, but if I can get her behind me, then maybe I can get approval for paid time off to attend lectures, and that counts for a LOT. Right now, I go to lectures 4 hours a week, but that’s time I have to work extra later to make up for.

And the thing is, I might be able to start taking master level classes already this fall. I’m only missing one mandatory course to get my bachelor’s diploma (it’s silly - it’s one of the courses that you’re supposed to take during your first year of studying, I just chose not to). I’d originally planned on taking at least one more bachelor level class in history, to make my bachelor’s degree more uniform and not such a patchwork of different studies, but I don’t know. The thing is, I don’t have to, and if I get a master’s degree, no one’s going to care what courses I did for my bachelor’s. But then I had also originally planned on studying this spring plus the coming fall, and then take next spring off and just work. I don’t know. It might be dangerous to take time off, too, because that will just make it harder to get started again.

Either way, here’s what I should do (later in the year, when I’ve had more time to think):

• Talk to the institute to figure out how I’d need to plan the degree when doing it part time.
• Talk to the professor I want as an advisor for my thesis, and see if he thinks my idea is any good at all.
• Figure out if work will “sponsor” me.

I was doing some research for my term paper, and did a google search on toys/games from the 50s and 60s. I didn’t find what I needed, but I did find a report written by young children, with such gems as these (freely translated from Norwegian):

“Toys are a great advantage to thousands of children.”

“If you’re playing that a cat is in love with a turtle, you look happy. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.”

“Toys and movies and so on are so popular that my guess is they will last throughout the entire history.”

“This is a Nintendo. It’s a game machine that they used about 20-30 years ago.”

“Nintendo has many games to the different kinds of Nintendo, but the older the Nintendo, the older the graphics.”

Also, under the chapter on toys from the 50s and 60s there’s a picture of a hippie van.

So the other night, I had a very vivid dream that the house (with me in it, obviously) was being attacked by Decepticons.

Decepticons. Attacking my house.

I was halfway out the bedroom door, my robe barely on, before I realised that hey, aren’t you being silly? Because Decepticons? They wouldn’t bother skulking around outside your bedroom window before attacking. They’d just crush the house, with you in it.

Silly.

…but as it is, I am considering a master’s degree in history. Yes! Last semester I would say almost every day how yeah, I’d get a master’s degree, but NOT in history, no siree, not EVAH. But now, I kinda want to. I’ve even got some possible thesis subjects on my mind.

This whole change came because of one thing: I moved on from the lower level history-of-everything classes, on to the more specialised ones, where you don’t have to know EVERYTHING within a given time period (seriously, antiquity AND the middle ages? Those are a lot of years to cover.), but rather delve more deeply into a subject (more or less) of your own choosing. Obviously you have to pick from the available classes, but we have a pretty diverse group of classes to choose from. I went with history of work and daily life (HWDL), and history of technology (HT). So far, work and daily life is the best. Really. The professor is so nice, and the group is small. This is also true for history of technology, but I don’t know, for now I just feel more connected to HWDL. Our term paper subject is also a good one: Write a historically angled text about changes that have happened in a field concerning one or more groups of people, as related to work and/or daily life. Meaning? Write about almost anything, as long as it’s well researched and well written. AWE-SOME. I’m probably writing mine about the changes in work and daily life for women over the span of two generations - the first generation being my grandmother’s, the second being my mom’s. We have to find the majority of our literature/other sources from outside the course books, and he mentioned interviews as being one of the possible sources. So I’m going to interview my mom, about her life as a girl and more or less up to now, and about my grandmother’s life. I do wish my grandmother was still alive so that I could interview her directly, but that’s life. Also, my mom said that had grandma still been alive now, her memories would probably have been rather jumbled anyway.

The term paper for history of technology has yet to be given out, but apparently they’re not looking for run of the mill, straight outta the books, this-is-what-I-think-my-professor-wants-to-hear kind of stuff, but rather a more daring paper where we speak our own minds about whatever the topic is, and throw out thoughts and ideas that might seem far fetched. Both professors have specified that they don’t want us to just KNOW the facts and recite what’s been written by others, but that we think, and form our own thoughts, and as long as we can back them up with good arguments - based on our readings, and/or other sources - we can’t go much wrong. I love this. I love it when there is no right and wrong, where I can just let my thoughts spin a web of their own. It’s what I excel at. I’m so much better at that than with spewing out years and names and causes of wars. I like thinking. I like speculating. I like arguing points that the standard history books won’t, because it might take up a whole chapter just to explain it all.

This semester is going to be great. I can’t wait!

In Baudrillard, for example, an analysis based on the production of goods gives way to one based on the exposure and critique of the production of meaning, for instance the ’simulation’ and ‘hyperreality’ that characterize sustaining fictions of the ‘real’ within modern culture. -Patrick Joyce in “Class”

I’ve read it about ten times now, written it two times, and I still fail to grasp the meaning of it. Maybe tomorrow. Now, I will take a non-curriculum book with me to bed - my bedmate (besides the husband, obviously) for the last week or so has been George R. R. Martin’s “A Clash of Kings”, and it’s marvelous. Never too tired for some good fantasy.

So I have this thing that’s on my mind a lot. More or less every day. And I sort of want to blog about it, but then I’m not sure that I want to put it out there. Not because I’m worried about it for my own sake, but rather because of what it might mean for someone else. And could I be any more vague? I’m sorry, but this blogging dilemma is also on my mind a lot. It all comes down to, I guess, the fine line between sharing and sharing too much, although most people wouldn’t count this as too much - on the contrary, several people have blogs dedicated only to this topic.

I want this to be an honest blog, I really do. But this topic, it’s a little scary, it’s complicated, and like I said, involves more people than just me.

…yeah, I didn’t get any wiser either.