Category: Little Voices archive entries

1. Under what circumstances is the deliberate taking of life ucceptable (sic.)?
I assume they mean “acceptable”, in which case the answer is “None”. The only qualification of that I can think of right now is in a case of immediate self-defence (you, or someone close to you being the subject of an unprovoked attack) if you can’t stop the attacker any other way (and in most cases only professionals would be able to deliberately unarm/maim rather than kill).

2. What is your worst habit?
Procrastination.

Something I’m not terribly good at, obviously, but you can’t help mulling them over, can you?

My father travels quite a lot in his work. Recently, I was discussing this with my mother (while he was away) and I said “But isn’t it nice to have the house to yourself occasionally?” but she said she didn’t really feel that way. I somehow think I would. Maybe I’m turning into a confirmed old bachelor(ette) or maybe it’s the introvert/extrovert thing rearing its head again, but I’m not sure that I could ever put up with having anyone around for 24 hours a day for long periods. I’ve talked about this necessity for being alone before, and I was thinking recently that having a husband who went away for periods allowing me to start missing him and then came back, but went away again before I would have time to get sick of always having him around would be ideal. Like my father used to do when he was commuting from Hamar to Oslo, he’d be home at weekends and once during the week. I think I could handle a husband like that. Not sure I could handle one that was at home every evening. Problem is, I suppose, that it wouldn’t quite work like that, as he’d be bound to be gone when I wanted him there and probably be there at times when I wanted him gone, unless I could make him come and go whenever I pleased, but that would not be so much wife/husband as mistress/slave, and I somehow don’t think I’d enjoy that, either. The other problem is if I had a husband who was away and we had kids I’d have to have the kids around all the time, which would hardly be ideal. Maybe I should aim to get a husband who can stay at home (I mean, he can go to work and all, but not travel much) and do all the travelling/commuting myself? Now there’s an idea.

Oh, just ignore me, I’m rambling.

Voice in my head: Avril Lavigne – Complicated

According to Donna, everybody’s doing it.

Your Brain Usage Profile

Auditory : 44%
Visual : 55%
Left : 60%
Right : 40%

Robin, you are somewhat left-hemisphere dominant and show a preference for visual learning, although not extreme in either characteristic. You probably tend to do most things in moderation, but not always.

Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to “catch up” with yourself.

Your tendency to be organized and logical and attend to details is reasonably well-established which should afford you success regardless of your chosen field of endeavor. You can “size up” situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to “lose touch” with the immediacy of the problem.

Your logical and methodical nature hamper you in this regard though in the long run it may work to your advantage since you “learn from experience” and can go through the process more rapidly on subsequent occasions.

You remain predominantly functional in your orientation and practical. Abstraction and theory are secondary to application. In keeping with this, you focus on details until they manifest themselves in a unique pattern and only then work with the “larger whole.”

With regards to your career choices, you have a mentality that would be good as a scientist, coach, athlete, design consultant, or an engineering technician. You can “see where you want to go” and even be able to “tell yourself,” but find that you are “fighting yourself” at the darndest times.

There has been excellent news, lately, on the plans to make a film out of Bridget Jones – The Edge of Reason. Renée Zellweger has agreed to do Bridget again, and thus have to put on some weight, and this has to be a good thing, as she’s been looking like a stick-insect lately, whereas in the first Bridget movie she looked quite lovely.

In this connection Colin Firth has obviously been asked about the whole thing, and I join India Knight in rejoicing at his answers:

I take comfort from the words of wise Colin Firth, who last week expressed his amazement at the idea that Renée Zellweger, his Bridget Jones co-star, should have been considered “fat” in the film. “Most guys I know prefer curves. She didn’t look fat to me as Bridget Jones – not at all. It didn’t even occur to me that she was in any way overweight.” Firth went on: “There’s all this self-torture thing going on. It’s not attractive, it’s not healthy, and it’s not sexy.” Hooray! Double helpings of doughnuts all round.

I might have to revise my opinion of the dear Mr. Firth, he’s always had a bit of a problem living up to his characters whenever I’ve seen him in interviews, but if he is going to say sensible things like that he might not be so boring after all.

Or should that be “More answers to questions”? The daily double…

1. Is there a song that’s so beautiful, it makes your heart break?
Well, I don’t think my heart is very easily breakable, actually, but “A Little Fall of Rain” from Les Mis makes me cry (though that’s as much because it’s so sad as because it’s beautiful).

2.What is your favorite song ever that you can relate to? Why?
One of my favourite songs ever is Beeg Gees’ You Win Again, but I’m not sure I can relate to that, actually. Tricky. Ok, how about, at the moment, Alanis Morissette’s 21 Things I Want in a Lover. Why? It’s pretty obvious, really, isn’t it?

It’s this or that again.

1. “The Munsters” or “The Addams Family”?
The Addams Family.

2. “The Sopranos” or the “Godfather” movies?
Haven’t seen either, but whereas I do want to see the Godfather movies, I don’t particularly want to see The Sopranos.

3. “The Jetsons” or “Lost in Space”?
The Jetsons – they’re funny.

4. “Superman” or “Batman” (either the TV shows or the movies)?
A man in black leather with a cool cape as opposed to a man who wears his underwear outside his other clothes? Uhm. Tough one…

5. “Sex & The City” or “Friends”?
Friends, I very rarely watch it anymore, it’s getting a bit pathetic, but I’ve never watched Sex & The City regularly, and I did use to watch Friends every week for a while.

6. “The Wizard of Oz” or the “Harry Potter” movies?
Harry if I have to choose.

7. “The Simpsons” or “King of the Hill”?
The Simpsons, definitely. I never could get into King of the Hill.

8. “Grease” or “Saturday Night Fever”?
Grease. Saturday Night Fever is way too depressing.

9. Old prime-time soaps: “Dallas” or “Dynasty”?
Never seen either.

10. Not very thought-provoking this week…do you prefer TV shows or movies?
Movies, on the whole, though tv-shows have the benefit of being short and therefore more adapted to a busy schedule (which is why I haven’t watched a movie for ages).

Could someone please explain to me what possible point there could be to pantyliners…

Ok, any guys out there might not want to read the rest of this – it’s on a “too much information” kind of level. I just need to rant.
Read More

I’ve just realised that the “talking to me” bit of this blog’s headline is somewhat inaccurate, as they don’t actually talk, do they? They effing sing, that’s what. Not content to have driven me to the point of distraction yesterday, J-Lo and LL handed the baton to Åge Aleksandersen who’s been singing “Ungen spring i mot mæ, kjem så lett som i dans” and so on in my head since some time last evening. Aaargh.

And then I get to work and some inconsiderate sod is whistling “Do-re-mi”, which is a particularly gruesome Norwegian Eurovision entry, by Jan Teigen, famous (or notorious) for being the first person ever to receive 0 points all together in the international final (though not for that song). Come to think of it, all his entries (he’s been sent to the final more times than I care to remember) are particularly gruesome. I do not want him in my head singing any of them.

In case you hadn’t noticed: There’s now a snazzy set of links to the archived Little Voices posts by category down the bottom of the menu on the right. Not sure all the categories make sense, but there you are. There’s a similar list in the Currently Reading section, categorised by author. In case it comes in handy.

One of the things I am really good at is bullshitting. I mean I’m really good at giving the impression that I’m talking sense and fact when I’m seriously just making it up as I go along and really have very little idea of what I am talking about. Maybe this is a better candidate for my “pet sin” than anything else, I am, at least, a little dubious as to the wisdom of telling the world about this, as a lot of people might start wondering whether to take me seriously in future, and my employer might start wondering whether I really deserve the salary I’m getting (regarding the latter: just consider how useful this ability to spout utter nonsense that sounds like sense is in a customer-facing situation. It means I can give the impression of having all the answers just off the cuff and buy myself time to actually go off and check before comitting myself to anything one way or the other. Believe me, I’ve been doing this for all of my life, I know what I am talking about).

Let me give you an example of how this works: I tend to know a little about most things. I also know a lot about choice subjects (whisky and Jane Austen are two that spring to mind), but not necessarily the most useful ones. So I babble. At school I had a tendency to have a good grasp on history as “story”. I.e. I knew why things happened, what the consequences were of this that and the other and generally in which order they happened, too. However, I did not have any grasp whatsoever on dates and names. My brain just doesn’t pick them up easily and I couldn’t be bothered to work much at memorising them. So I got very, very good at writing essays without mentioning a single name or date, with sentences constructed in such a way that this omission seemed entirely natural and that obvioulsy I knew these facts and could have put them on paper if I wanted, but that I considered them to be too blindingly obvious to bother writing them down. With the result that I consistently got decent grades, not top marks, as for that I would have actually needed to include some names and dates, but not as bad as I probably deserved. And when, for once, I had sat down before a test and really learnt the relevant dates and names (the test was on the unified Germany – all I remember now is “late 19th C.” and Bismarck – actually, I didn’t remember Bismarck, I had to go look the name up just now – given time I probably would have remembered – I do most days – but I couldn’t be bothered to wait) and put as many of them as I possibly could into the essay and was rewarded by an excellent grade and the unforgettable comment from my teacher “This is what I have been waiting for, Robin. I mean, I know you always know all these facts, but normally you don’t manage to put them down on paper.” Yeah, right.

Anyway, Saturday night I found myself spouting bullshit again. I was at this party and somehow or other one of the guys found out that I worked with computers and wanted to have a long, involved discussion with me about OSs and such. Well, you know, always happy to oblige and all that. Just as I was admonishing myself (though silently, of course): “Where did all that come from? You know you have no idea what you are talking about, really, don’t you? Then why do you keep talking nonsense?” he started complimenting me on being really smart. Ok, so it was late and all, but still. The funny thing, of course, is that as compliments go it wasn’t very successful as, despite me mumbling some form of “Thanks”, a more accurate description of my thoughts at the time would be something like “You really fell for that bullshit? You poor sucker.” (Uhm, if you’re reading this, I apologise. If it’s any comfort, you’re not alone, I don’t think very highly of other people’s intelligence as a rule. I’m an arrogant bitch, really, you see. My outward sweetness – what little there is of it – is all a front.) It was quite an interesting discussion for a late night party conversation topic, though. (Geek, me? Whatever gave you that idea?) In fact it was a pretty good party, and a pretty late one, too, I got to bed at some point between 4 and 5 in the morning, but that’s beside the point.

Voice in mye head: Åge Aleksandersen – Eldorado