This is my new blogchalk:
Norway, Oslo, Norwegian, English, Robin, Female, 26-30, books.

Yesterday, I was told with great assurance that I am an angel. A little later I was chasticised for “floating” while doing the kata at karate practice.

Got to remember to keep those wings furled.

The urge to call him up, or better yet, just turn up at his doorstep asking for a hug, is almost overwhelming. It would be an unspeakably bad idea considering my continued state of indecision. So. Almost overwhelming. Will concentrate on doing useful tasks instead. Such as paying a couple of bills and updating the NMWL members list.

Then go to bed and hope for a friendly dream.

Voice on the stereo: Poor Rich Ones – Happy happy happy

You may be blithely uninterested, but here’s a report anyway.

Easter was good. Friday night (11th) was my birthday party at The Dubliner, and a lot of people showed up and it was very, very nice to see everyone. We did indeed end up going back to my place at the end, which was also very nice. I threw the remains of the party out at some point, I’m all in favour of late conversations but I’m also rather in favour of just a little sleep. As expected I woke up ridiculously early on Saturday, before eight, I think. However, I messed about the flat for a bit (washed the glasses from the night before and such) so by the time I got out it was almost lunchtime. Stopped by the library and met Linda there and we went for a wander and had lunch at Bagel & Juice. Saturday night? Uhm. Oh, that’s right, I already told you. I got restless and ended up drinking whisky at Bar & Cigar.

Sunday. I can’t remember what I did Sunday. Must have done something.

Monday I picked up Jane at the airport and we went rambling round town, doing a little bit of shopping. We then went down to the harbour and enjoyed the sunshine, and walked around Akershus Festning to end up at The Dubliner for dinner (and cider). V.g.

Tuesday, weather was still holding up and we decided to be tourists proper and took the ferry across to Bygdøy and saw the Viking ships (yes, actual viking ships, not just reproductions, kinda cool, huh?), Ra II and Kon Tiki and Nansen’s Fram. Following that we went home and made Meg’s Toucan Lasagne in preparation for the evening. Pia, Martin and Theresa&hubby turned up to eat it and to play the US version of TP. The guys won (we were playing teams of two), which must surely have been some mistake, but the company was good, so we didn’t really care.

Wednesday, Jane and I popped into town to do some last-minute shopping and then caught a ride with Martin up to Elverum (the poor boy was driving all the way to Trondheim and then “two hours left”), where we met up with my parents and drove to my grandparent’s.

Here followed a couple of days of way too much fresh air, sun and excercise (we went for walks and Jane took lots of pictures of hills, trees and snow, all novelties to her – I could contain my enthusiasm, though I had to admit it was pretty and that I probably shouldn’t be taking it for granted). The mandatory trip to Sweden on the Thursday meant I could stock up on a little Strongbow and I bought a fridge magnet: “Du får röra dammet, men var vänlig skriv inte i det.” (You may touch the dust, but please don’t write in it.) In Torsby we met Linda briefly to do a quick exchange of birthday presents, and lo and behold, she gave me another fridge magnet: “Inget går upp mot en god vän, undantaget en god vän med choklad.” (Nothing can compete with a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate.) Saturday was family party time, as my grandmother’s 80th birthday was Monday, lots of great aunts and uncles to deal with and, though very nice in its way, quite tiring.

On my insistence, we set off quite early on Sunday, Jane and I caught the bus back to Oslo from Elverum and manged to go for a walk in the evening which ended up in The Churchill. However, we still managed to get out and about for the planned walk from Maridalsvannet along Akerselva the next day. And now my shoulders are red. And in the evening I saw Jane off, as already recounted.

Og alle var enige om at det hadde vært en fin tur.

Voice on the stereo: Marli from The Fame Academy singing The Track of my Tears (yay, Fame Academy CD in the mailbox today from amazon)

The this or that “what is” edition:

1. Yummier: Chocolate ice cream or strawberry cheesecake?
Chocolate ice cream. Mmmm. Chocolate… (I can hear Homer Simpson going “Donuts” in my head when I say that. I am putting the exact same sentiment into the word chocolate.)

2. Better to watch on TV: Movies or sports?
Ah. Now. Let me see. Sports. I’ve heard of those. You mean you can watch them on tv? Without committing hara kiri out of utter boredom? I must say the thought had not occurred to me. Movies, ok? My answer is Movies.

3. A better web browser: MSIE or Netscape (or tell us your own favorite!)
I used to be a big Netscape fan. Now, for some reason, I seem to be using IE almost exclusively. Why? I have no clue. It’s not as if I think it’s any better, and I still hate Microsoft.

4. A better way to travel: Automobile or bus/train?
I don’t care as long as I don’t have to drive. On principle I’m in favour of bus/train as being more environmetally friendly, but I love riding in cars.

5. Your preferred camera: Digital or film?
Film. Slide film. I would rather like a proper digital camera, though, preferably an SLR that would go with the lenses I already have.

6. A Cooler Vehicle: Motorcycle or sports car?
It depends a bit on what sports car and who’s driving it (seeing as I don’t want to). I’d quite like an old MG and the right person to drive me around in it, but on the whole I’d go with motorcycle.

7. More fun: Video games or board games?
Trivial pursuit! So: board games.

8. Sexier: A perfect body or an intelligent mind?
Whose definition of perfect? The intelligent mind may need an acceptable body (minimum height, minimum – and maximum – weight, reasonably broad shoulders, nice eyes, uhm, I think that’s the easily definable ones) to go with it, but a perfect body (even if it’s to my own definition of perfect) in no way compensates for a pea-brain. I guess that answers your question?

9. A stinkier smell: Skunk or gasoline (petrol)?
Skunk. Petrol smells kinda nice.

10. Thought-provoking question of the week: What is more important to you: making a ton of money and being at the top of your field, or finding your soulmate and living a comfortable but not wealthy life?
The latter. Could he make himself apparent soon, please?

Whohoo! Going to Stockholm! Me and two of the girls from work are going on a girlie-weekend-out in May!

I’m in a very travelly mood at the moment. It must be because I saw Jane off at the airport yesterday and seeing people off at the airport just seems unnatural. Picking people up is ok, because you then have the visit to look forward to, but seeing people off – watching the other person going through security and having to turn back and go home to an empty flat makes me feel profoundly restless. On the way back home I started thinking “I wonder if I could gatecrash the Whisky Society group going to the Speyside Festival next week?” Unfortunately, the answer is no. No tickets to any of the arrangements, no room at the inn, and I don’t even want to know what the flights would have cost at this short a notice… Bugger. Besides, I have a meeting on the Monday/Tuesday which I know at least one person would be livid if I missed (“Look, ok, I know we really need this meeting and that it’s been put off several times, but I really just have to go to Scotland to drink whisky, ok?”) So, plan B. Stockholm. We’d been talking about it for a while, but I raised the subject again and we actually got the tickets booked (Ryanair, 1500 kroner for the lot of us, how do they do it?).

Which is good. I still want to go to Scotland, though. AND next week is May Day week, so I could take the Friday off and have a long weekend. And I do have quite a lot of frequent flyer points available, enough to get me to Great Britain. I wonder if Andreas is around? I wonder if the nice people at SAS can get me a points flight for that weekend? I suppose it is unlikely. Will have to check, though. Want to travel. The other option is trying to get a flight to Bergen, which would be very sensible as I need to finish a costume for my honourary nephew and doing a bit of measuring and fitting might not be a bad idea. Sensible and good, I’d get to see Janne and Konrad and Stian and my brother (though I just saw him I could do with seeing him again). But I want to go to Scotland. I’m going to start pouting in a minute.

The essential difference. Bah. Humbug. Or maybe not. Anyway, according to the Guardian my EQ score is 51, which is pretty much as expected, I guess. However, my SQ is 70, and I quote:

51-80 = You have a very high ability for analysing and exploring a system. On average women score about 24 and men score about 30. Three times as many people with Asberger Syndrome score in this range, compared to typical men, and almost no women score this high.

(Via CrincleCutz, where you can also find a definition of Asberger Syndrome.) Right. Ok, now I’m curious. How do you score? I suppose my EQ makes up for the potentially asocial aspects of AS, but still.

Whatever, my monday mission:

1. Now that the weather (in America, that is) is getting nice and warm, what have you been looking forward to doing the most?
The weather is nice and warm here, too. In fact, it’s almost too nice and warm. What have I been looking forward to? Barbeques. Someone please invite me for one?

2. On Easter, I had to run around all day visiting family. It turned what was supposed to be a special day and turned me into one big stress-ball. Do you enjoy spending time with your family (parents, siblings, etc.) or do you prefer to see them now and then?
My parents and brother, yes. The rest of the lot, I can contain my enthusiasm. It’s nice to see them, but not for too long in one go…

3. Did your parents play along with the whole “Easter Bunny” legend? Did you eventually figure it out or did someone tell you? How did that make you feel?
It’s not something we do (or did) in Norway. They probably wouldn’t have anyway, they never played along with the Santa Claus thing.

4. This isn’t necessarily a religious question (although it certainly can be if you’d like), but what does “Easter” mean to you personally?
Time off. Very secular. But then I do also believe in the whole “Died on the cross for our sins” and “And on the third day…” schebang, so, not so secular after all…

5. When I was a kid, we didn’t have plastic Easter Eggs (except for those that came with Mom’s L’eggs pantyhose), so we always hid real eggs. One Easter I remember I threw away a broken egg in my bedroom trash can and it took me weeks before I realized why my room smelled like something died in there. Do you have any funny or memorable Easter stories?
No. I still have the egg (plastic) I got for my fifth birthday, though. It was kept and refilled every Easter until I moved away from home. Now, unfortunately, I have to fill it myself if I want something in it.

6. I currently watch way, way too many TV shows. In fact, I feel some relief that some are being cancelled or are ending because I just can’t give any of them up. Is there anything you do too much of and just can’t stop?
Eat chocolate. Drink coffee. Procrastinate.

7. Long ago, I took a leadership seminar. At one point the leader gave his philosphy on life: the three things that matter most in life are “your family, your religion and your job, and what they mean to you.” Would you agree? What are the three things that matter most in life?
I agree, sort of. The only qualification I’d add is change it to “Family and friends”. Oh, and books. Books are important. I suppose you could call it “Art” rather than books, but it’s important.

I’ve found a way to beat my parents at Trivial Pursuit: Play the US edition and get this question for the green (Sports and Leisure) pie: What sport has games that may last three days and has breaks for tea? Just playing the US edition seems to work quite well, as they have problems understanding the questions, it’s something about the way they are phrased, but I need to get the green pie to win and, let me tell you, “Jo DiMaggio” is not actually the correct answer to all the baseball questions.

Aside: I’m more nearly convinced that I might be in love when he’s not around. Is that good or bad? I certainly seem to spend an disproportional amount of time thinking about him. So if you’ve seen me over Easter and I’ve seemed to be largely absent, that is why. Nevermind. Back to the here and now:

Jane and I are in the middle of watching Bridget Jones. We went for a walk last night and somehow ended up in The Churchill, so by the time we got back our plans for seeing the film were a bit hampered by the amount of alchohol consumed combined with the fact that, as mentioned earlier, we’ve both been exhausted by ten every night and it was now closer to midnight. So. We’ll have to try to see the rest today. Mr. Darcy was just gearing up to be dishy (no pun intended) in the kitchen helping with the blue soup, and we don’t want to miss that.

Prior to that, though, we are planning to get some fresh polluted air. The weather is still amazing (it was still 18 degrees out when we went out after eight yesterday evening, it looks like we’ll have the same sort of temperatures today), there is a possibility that this is the Norwegian summer this year (I’ve known summer to come in May and stay for two weeks and then degenerate into something resembling autumn for the rest of June, July and August, but April is quite extreme, even for Norway) so it’s best to enjoy it while it lasts. Besides, it’s back to work tomorrow. So we’re going to attempt to get a bus up to where the Akerselva starts at Maridalsvannet and walk along the river for as far as we can be bothered. It should be quite good.

Voice in my head: I woke up with Ainsley singing Don’t Get Me Wrong in my head, and he hasn’t stopped yet, despite VH1 being on in the background.