martinemonster

And now I've gotten a cold. I'm snifling around in my apartment feeling sorry for myself with a tummy bloated up to a faux 3-months pregnancy due to the cheesecake I had yesterday, so worth it a headache, general tiredness and a sore troath. So unfair!

(the smart thing would probably be to take today off so I'd be bored out of my mind by tomorrow and therefore probably more inclined to study, but I'm forcefeeding myself Scale and Scope - the dynamics of industrial capitalism" instead. I figure I can probably get through a bunch of pages even though I'm all mushy on the inside. Wish me luck!)

Yesterday was my first full day of preparing for my exam in the history of Western Economic History (which is looming in my immediate future). It went excellent. 140pages read and understood. I felt positively on top of everything.

Today, however, I overslept. Then, I started reading articles like Richard Tilly's "German Banking 1850-1914" with lovely sentences like:

According to the "Mean-Variance"-theory, wealthholders with a given risk-yield preference (conventionally expressed as α) will reach equilibrium by fulfilling the conditions expressed in the following equation: and then follows a 28 character equation which I can't even find the symbols to replicate here, including 3 different Greek letters and Lagrange mulitpliers and what not else.

Thank you world. So far I've gotten through 30 pages. *sigh*

It's eight o'clock over here in Norway and I'm already up and studying. This would so not have happened during winter, but now that spring is here with sun and light mornings I feel like I've slept in if I sleep till 7.30. Okay, so I'm not dressed and I haven't had my coffee yet, but I am reading this blasted file I'll have to return by 10.30.

Have a lovely day everyone!

Do you remember being taught history in school? Now, I only had Norwegian history for 10 years instead of 12, seeing as I transferred to an international school which focused on European, rather than Norwegian modern history, but unless I´m very much mistaken, there was a lot of important stuff left out of my curriculum.

Did you for instance know that the Vikings enjoyed same sex relations?

Or did your teacher or curriculum state anything about the results of Norwegian development aid, or question the views of Norway as a promoter of peace in the world?

Or, most importantly, did you learn that from 1935-1977, more than 44 000 sterilisations were carried out in Norway, and only about half of them were done on condoning patients?

I didn´t learn any of this in high school. The reason I know it now is because I study history at university level. I think it´s time to be more controversial when deciding the curriculum of Norwegian history classes. People should be aware. Or am I wrong? Were you taught this in school? Was I the only one who missed those classes?

And to you people from other countries: Do you ever wonder what might have been left out of your curriculums?

I've been fairly busy these past few weeks and haven't really checked my flist or posted anything. But I'm back now! The new year is here and I'm exited. I'm getting a new computer, I'm selling the old one (if anyone is interested in my lovely HP Pavilion just let me know, I basically just want to sell it to get rid of it so it'll be really cheap!) and I'm getting back to my studies.

To be quite honest I have to ease my way in to it because I'm not used to this student living thing. So far I've gotten a few panic attacks thinking of how broke I'm gonna be, tried to figure out what my curriculum is and worked my way up to making a plan for how I'm actually going to manage to write a book in a year. Oh, and I've contacted my tutors and asked to meet them so they can point the way for me.

In other news, I've gained weight during Christmas (damn you pinnekjøtt! damned you to heck!), but I'm not worrying. You see, I've started a new workout program which is kick-ass and which will hopefully make me so incredibly strong, fast and bouncy that people will mistake me for Rhona Mitra

Anyways, here is my meme stolen from Guri who took it from Aina:

( It's all about me. Me me me )

I'm back, comfortably behind my computer with a pile of sources stacked next to me an a comically large cup of coffee placed a safe distance away from the previously mentioned sources. And I can't focus. I look at them and try to go through them but every time I start I get this panicked feeling in my tummy and something tells me there's just no use. I have no methodological stand point for my research so why the hell am I reading these books now? Then I try to tell myself that I'm reading them to get the overview of the material at hand, and that I'll get to the method part as soon at I can talk to my tutor at the university. But it doesn't help. I still can't focus.

I've now done what I always love doing in these cases:

Airfare to San Francisco: 969 dollars
Airfare to New York: 950 dollars
Airfare to Sacramento: 1206 dollars
Airfare to Dallas: 1200 dollars
Airfare to Barcelona: 160 dollars
Airfare to Madrid: 160 dollars
Airfare to Tokyo: 950 dollars
Airfare to Glasgow: 160 dollars

Shall we run away anyone?

First day here at the national library in Oslo. And it is awesome! I'm reading old newspapers, and taking notes. So far it's going rather slowly, and I think I might be reading too much and not focusing enough on the fact that I'm supposed to look for opinions on and reactions to the Marshall plan and not anything with the US in it, but I'm sure I'm gonna be able to work faster once I've had a bit of training. The important part is that this is fun!

On another note, I think we should all be allowed to bring drinks in here. I know, I know, my clumsiness and old newspapers on microfilm is already a lethal combo, and adding drinks to the mixture would just be tempting fate, but I'm really really thirsty and don't want to have to go 3 floors down to get my bottled water, then walk up again only to be thirsty in another 30 minutes.

Anyways, back to work!

I'm back in Oslo and am trying to get everything ready before classes start next week. This is officially the end of my trying not to do too much at once. I tried that last year and it didn't make me happy, so now, I'm going to be super busy and just expect to still be able to do complete all my exams with greatness.

The reasons I'm super busy:

1. I'm studying full-time.
2. I got a job. That's right! I'm officially what we Norwegians call a vit.ass. (scientific assistant) for my history professor. Basically, it means I have to do all the crap he doesn't have time for before a conferance in Vienna in May, but it still means money, contacts and that I'm working with historical materials. I'm very excited!
3. I've joined the cultural committee for the student body. They organize large debates and cultural gatherings. So far I haven't done much there, but this semester's first meeting is tomorrow.
4. I'm arranging a larp for (hopefully) at least 60 players this summer.
5. I'm going to work in the Knutepunkt (large larp convention) committee for KP09 in Oslo.
6. I'm going to KP08 in Finland and am submitting a larp to the conference.
7. I'm doing some writing.
8. I'm going to get in shape and work out 3 times a week.
9. I'm going to keep all my social commitments.

Doing these 9 things at once probably means I'll have a tight schedule this semester, as this week has shown (I've had meetings every day this week and next week is already beginning to fill up). hopefully I won't be too stressed out, and will just enjoy being really busy again. I remember loving it, so I'll probably continue to do so now (or, you know, get really stressed out, sick and probably die).

OMG I thought I'd never say this, but it's hard trying to focus on this sodding project assessment thing. I have to have the second draft done today so I can send it to my tutors, but I cannot seem to muster any enthusiasm for it whatsoever. Instead I'm doing the age-old exercise of hitting the refresh button repeatedly, hoping someone will be commenting on my posts...I'm bored.

This icon is called "WTF"