Seeing pictures posted by the new volunteers in Ciudad de los Niños makes me sad. That is all.

mood: sad

1. Today I've been in a relationship for 1 month.
2. I have a boyfriend who managed to get better than top of the scale in his oral biology test today. Teacher's comment: "If there was a mark higher than 6, he would have it in his hand right now. That was almost too good. He should be studying this in university." PROUD!
3. I have finished the first layer of paint in my soon-to-be new room.
4. I had my last lessons in Bio and Chemistry today. Exam period ON.

mood: cold tags: christopher, exams, school

I just overslept. My train left at 08:41, and I woke up at 09:05. Classes start at 10:05, and it takes me an hour to get to school, and that's from the moment my train leaves, which would've been 09:41 a.m.

My classes end at 12:30 today (it's the last week of almost all my subjects and some of my subjects have already ended, Maths included), and I would not have made it to school before my second class, which starts at 10:30 a.m.

So what do I do?

I stay home to paint my new room and make lasagna for Ida, who has glandular fever and is coming over at 5.

mood: stressed

Time to update!

My Spanish exam on Friday went really well. So well, in fact, that I was immediately struck by an unsettling feeling of "it can't have been that easy, I must have misunderstood it". However, when I came home Friday afternoon I had received an envelope full of previous exam papers to practice for my next Spanish exam (I have to take one more this spring, this time level 3), and I realised that maybe my Spanish is good enough to easily pass high school level Spanish in Norway. Oh well.

Anyway. I spent Friday night with the boyfriend. I'm still getting used to saying that, but fact is we've been together for 3 weeks already. It feels strange, but really good as well. We don't have that much time together, but with one night free every week we somehow make it work. It's still all new and exciting.

Other than that I have not got much else to say. I've almost finished 1 year worth of school, exams are coming up and I'm stressed out about it, but hanging in there. How are you, flist?

All be envious, I have my first exam tomorrow. I am not freaking out because of the actual exam, but because I've no clue about how to get there. I'm supposed to get to the Salvation Army's offices in Oslo, during rush hour, and I have no idea where to even begin. Less worried about the actual Spanish, as I'm allowed a dictionary and my brain. However, this marks the beginning of something - exam period 2009. I've gone through one year of chemistry, one year of biology, one year of maths, one year of Spanish, one year of Geography... all in 2.5 months.

I have five exams, all but the one tomorrow are oral ones. I will resurface the 17th of December.

For me, it's a bit of both. I enjoy my week, it's filled with learning and good friends and interesting challenges. However, as I spend about 8-9 hours every day in school and another 5 hours doing homework afterwards during the week, I don't have much time during the week to do things I want to do (other than the occational cafe visit between classes, these are much appreciated!). Plus, I have no time to spend with Christopher during the week other than the occational biology class or when we meet in the corridors. The weekends are my opportunities to catch up on school work, but also to spend a well-deserved evening with the boyfriend. And, to have the occational deep conversation with my cancer-ridden mother, or to actually see my dad. And to soothe my bad conscience for not having been to the gym during the week by going to the gym, or to drown said bad conscience in chocolate. Or both.

What I dread most about school and/ or work? I dread my exams (first one's on Friday, written Spanish), obviously. I am also constantly worried that I'll fall behind and fail completely and not be able to become a doctor after all. When it comes to work I dread all those middle-aged oldtimers that forget my name between every time I show up. They know so much, and they are all so unwilling to work with younger, happier people than themselves. Unfortunately, every weekend shift/ evening shift means I'll have to work together with them, as many of the tough patients require two people, and most times there are only two people available in my work area - me and one other, weary, grumpy oldtimer. Fortunately, pay day makes up for it.

tags: school, weekends, work, writer's block

The first snow has fallen in Kolbotn, Norway! I am so incredibly giddy about this! I love winter!

mood: bouncy

Christopher met a lot of my family members last night. He is the first person I've ever dated to meet my family. He'd met my dad once before, when my dad came to pick me up in Oslo because I'd missed the train. Handshake and proper introductions.
Yesterday Christopher met Thomas and my mother. We were going to have our film night with "American Psycho" and "Littlefoot", but before we could sit down and enjoy a Chinese and Christian Bale as a psycho newyorker (ok, maybe that was just me who enjoyed that), we had to drive to my aunt's house. My cousin Lea had her 12th birthday party yesterday, Halloween-themed. So my aunt had asked me, Thomas and Christopher if we would come to her house dressed up to scare the living daylights out of the guests. And so we did.







It was so funny. The girls screamed like only 12-yearold girls can, and Christopher was officially introduced to said 12-yearold girls afterwards as "Lea's cousin's boyfriend". Afterwards we spent the night eating Chinese food and watching films. Perfect way to spend a Friday night, in my humble opinion.

I do, however, think my corpse bride outfit was cooler. :-p

mood: cheerful

Christopher got tickets, so now we're going to Trondheim for a weekend, looking for the faculty of biology/ faculty of medicine, and he's going to help me study for my Spanish exam (he's half Spanish and speaks it fluently). I was not looking forward to Trondheim, but now it looks to be a really interesting weekend!

I am skipping my first day in Bjørknes College. I feel like I'm skiving, but I'm actually kind of sick. My doctor's appointment is not until Monday, but it is my hips that hurt when I walk, sit down, get up, etc. People generally seem to be of the opinion that it's my pelvis that's fucked up, but I don't know. Generally not feeling too physically good today, so I'm spending today catching up in all my subjects instead of going to Geography class (my only subject today). That, and I'm buying new shoes and having lunch with my mum.

No news on my mother's condition, really, other than that her wound is starting to close and looks really good. Now we're just hoping that it heals inside as well, and now just the actual skin. If it doesn't, they might have to remove the entire breast. I hope they won't. Further therapy (chemy, radiation) won't start until everything is well on its way to healing. It was supposed to start this coming Friday, but because of the complications they won't.

Right, I'm going shopping/lunching. Have a good day everyone!

mood: productive

Yesterday I met with the shadowside of public transport in Oslo.

I came out of biology group ready to go and meet Vigdis (Aber-Vigdis) in a restaurant in Majorstuen called Yaya's. I hadn't seen Vigdis since last summer before I went to Peru, so I was looking forward to see her again. She's only recently moved back to Oslo with her English boyfriend Ben, and they now live in Tøyen (part of Oslo). Anyway. Gudrun and Nicolas, two fourths of our biology group, had left already, but Christopher and I had stayed behind in the school cantine waiting for 4:30 p.m., as that's when I had to leave to meet Vigdis. We walked out of the building and over towards the light rail stop... To make a long story short, I missed the light rail. Decided I could not wait for the next one, as it was 15 minutes away (little did I know at this point that it wouldn't turn up at all as the light rail system broke down a few moments later). Christopher offered to walk me to Majorstuen, and then go back and get his scooter at a later time. He lives in Majorstuen (part of Oslo). And so we walked to Majorstuen, which was a 15 minute exploration of Oslo.
As we walked past the light rail station in Majorstuen, Vigdis phoned me and said she was stuck in another part of Oslo due to said power outtake. I had to make my way to Yaya's on my own, but it was easy to find, just down one street, then turn left, halfway down another street, turn left by Westside, past a Kiwi, down a back alley to the right and there it would be.

By the time I got to Yaya's, we were already much too late for our reservation, but fortunately the staff were nice and let us have our table, because obviously the power outtake hadn't affected only us, but half the staff as well, who started their shift at 5 p.m. So I sat down with a diet coke in what looked like a bamboo hut on a beach (Yaya's is a Thai restaurant that is built like a beach in Thailand, with little bamboo huts in which you sit. All the props in the restaurant are actually from Thailand, including the plates, music, uniforms etc) while listening to tropic rain that "fell" on my "bamboo hut roof". It was very cool, and after a while Vigdis turned up and we chatted for way too long about this and that and everything and their grandmother, and it was like having a piece of Aberystwyth in Thailand in Oslo. Food was exceptional as well, so if you're ever in Oslo, you should go to Yaya's.

Tonight is Mulholland Drive night, I'm going to Christopher's in Majorstuen to watch it on DVD. If I watch this film and don't understand it, I will have to jump from 10 metres in a water park in Oslo. If I do understand it, Christopher will have to run the distance between Oslo S (start of the main street Karl Johansgate in Oslo) to Nationaltheatret (the other end of Karl Johansgate) ten times (it's 13 miles). So far I think I'm in deep, as the film looks senseless. But we'll see. I will let you know whether I have to stand at the top of a dive tower in a bikini while Christopher stands behind me making sure I jump next summer.

Tomorrow at 9 a.m. is my laboratory course in biology, which means that I have to go to school in order to sort a bunch of insects that we collectred during the field trip we had in September. Weekends aren't weekends anymore! On the bright side, I come home to dinner at my grandma's, then my cousin's birthday party at 4 o'clock, which means... Cake! :-)

mood: cold

Only because I know how much I missed Cleo when I lived in Wales/ Peru. :-)

I just finished an amazing book. By calling it amazing, I mean that it was a book that had it all; humour that made me laugh out loud, and single sentences that triggered something in me that made be bawl my eyes out; political references that made me angry, and in the end, a deep frustration because these wonderful characters couldn't just live in peace and happiness. To quote another reader who wrote a review of the book on Amazon.com:

'A mystery story, a fairy tale, a love story (actually several love stories), a passion for literature, a treatise on politics, a bawdy tale, with love, hate, courage, intrigue, loss of innocence, humor, cowardice, villainy, cruelty, compassion, regret, murder, incest, redemption, and more. Add to this delicious mixture characters who come alive, and whose thoughts and feelings you will feel deeply.'

For your enjoyment, here's half of the first chapter.

( The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. )

mood: calm tags: books

( Books, books, books... )

I went to a book market the other day, and came home with... a number of books that is far from being proportional to the number of books I will be able to read this decade. However, they were really cheap, 10 NOK per book (one sixth of a bus ticket to Oslo, for example). What was even better - I found a lot of books that I either heard of and didn't have time to read, or that I read in English and didn't fully grasp because Medieval English was far from my strong side.

Ten points for each title you can manage to guess (and that excludes every Norwegian-speaking reader of this LiveJournal). ;-)

I officially have an autumn "holiday". I always thought this was a holiday, but as it turns out it's not a holiday at all, but rather a chance for us students to catch up on all the work that we haven't had time to digest, and for us workers to work up some money to get through the Christmas season. Luckily I have found that I have time to do everything nowadays. My weekend will be spent in work, my Monday will be spent at Gudrun's attempting to conquer the Physics tasks, Tuesday will be spent in school with my Biology group struggling with cell division and transportation within plants and human respiration systems. Wednesday and Thursday I work again, and then hopefully I'll have time to go to the cinema with Christopher at some point during the week, to see Inglorious Basterds. My mother is going in for her operation on 1st of October. Sure got enough to keep me busy, and that's a good thing.

So, flist, how are you?

mood: calm

Got paid! Was some kind of mishap between work and the place that actually pays me. Financially, everything's good! :-)

Look, I've become blog material!

The blog belongs to my new friend Gudrun, with whom I take all my classes (with the exeption of Geography, which no one in their right mind takes along with science subjects). Gudrun has just come back from one week with swine flu, and it was good to have her back!

So, my job just decided not to pay me this month. So that's about £2,000 less in my account, £2,000 less for the bills I've got coming in and one more thing to do on an already busy schedule. If I hadn't needed the job, I would fucking quit.

Aliens. I am not egocentric enough to believe that we're alone in space, but I do cock an eyebrow at people who actually believe they've seen what we call "aliens". I don't believe the alien infiltration theories. If aliens had visited earth, why would they want to hide? They'd be vastly more intelligent than us anyway, and wouldn't be afraid to show themselves. But to answer the question, neither. I am totally up for a discussion about whether aliens exist or not, and I generally don't put people in bonkers or visionary categories. I'm an alien agnostic.

Now, onto the real update, in which I have to say... You guys called my years in Aber 'Angst in Aber'. I suspect that his year, this journal is now facing a period that is going to be totally 'angst in Oslo - on micro level'. I'm taking five damn hard subjects this year, and one easy one that still takes up space in my timetable. Studying English Lit in Aber is starting to look like kindergarden. I worry about amino acids on a daily level. I dream of how I'm going to do my biology exam. I watch cell biology animations for Friday night entertainment. I can't relax unless I've done my Maths homework. My heart is bouncing around in my chest like a speed-induced squirrel every time I even think about what's coming up next year, for exams. This year looks to be friggin' crazy.

I have absolutely no news from outside of the little world that is Bjørknes. I have no social life, unless you count going to the gym or chatting with random people on the train. Inside the little world of Bjørknes, I can tell you that I now am in several groups (kollokvies), study groups, in which we study together. Yesterday I had a successful study session with a boy called Christopher (who is half Spanish and who speaks the language fluently and offered me to speak Spanish with me for me to maintain my semifluency) and a girl called Cathrine who hadn't read anything. I volunteerily stayed in school until 4:30 p.m. even though my classes were over at 1:30 (my shortest day).

Anyway. I need breakfast!

mood: bouncy tags: writer's block

It's 12:16 a.m. I still haven't started my Maths homework. It's not because I've been all play and no work. It's because I've been doing biology for 5 friggin' hours.

mood: exhausted

The field trip was cold, interesting, windy, cold, wet, sociable... did I mention it was cold? There were three stations. In one we had to capture insects and maggots and drown them in alcohol, for our biology collection. Station 2 was to go for a walk and observe what kind of vegetation we could find around the lake. Station 3 was to go paddling in a cano, and use special instruments to get samples from the bottom of the lake. All in all quite a cool Saturday afternoon, and I got to know lots of people. :-)

Went straight from Oslo to my cousin's 9th birthday party, in which my aunt had dressed up as a cow. My aunt is crazy, but in a cool way. Gave me a great laugh anyway. I am tempted to put the pics on FB, but she might not be too happy about that...

Came home, and there was this huge box with a plastic bag on top of it waiting for me in my room. It was a new printer. Sometimes my parents know just what I need. It's been frustrating me for a while that I can't print anything. I came home from Peru and my printer had suddenly vanished from my room. Turns out my dad had tried to use it, and it only printed half the page. He took it to the shop to get it repaired, and they told him it'd be cheaper to buy a new one. So, no printer for me. Until now. I still haven't installed it yet, but I can't wait! It'll be a good gadget to have, seeing as half of the syllabus in biology is online.

It's 9:05 p.m. on a Saturday, and not only am I home, I'm exhausted and contemplating doing my Chemistry homework. Life of the party I am...

location: Kolbotn, Norway mood: exhausted