renate.nu

Lately I’ve been feeling the urge/need to blog in Norwegian. I can’t seem to choose a platform for it though – here, or elsewhere? And would anyone even READ my Norwegian blog? Not that that’s the most important part, but you know. It would be nice.

I decided to get a Wii Fit Plus for myself, to make myself feel better about how I hardly ever get my (fat) ass to the gym these days (I blame Tor, who has to take me there, because the bus takes for-frakking-ever). Anyway. What I’ve learned so far:

• I need to lose about 6 kgs. Thanks a lot, Nintendo.
• My trainer is a wuss. 20 jackknives and she gave up. TWENTY. You’re supposed to push me, woman! You’d better do 30 tomorrow.
• Yoga is better without pants on.

Also: My Wii Fit age is down from 35 (AHEM) to 24. Win! Win! Win!

My life is racing ahead of me. It’s crazy. I’d get into the details but I don’t really know what they are myself. It’s more of a general feeling.

And that’s when this song saves me.

I hum it to myself while exam paper assignments are handed out, to calm myself. It helps.

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.