Not Everything Is What It Looks Like

"There was this newlywed, young woman, who went to IKEA and bought a wardrobe. When she came home she immediately started to assemble the piece. Just as she finished the bus came along, and while passing the bus stop on the street outside, the wardrobe fell apart!

She reassembled the wardrobe, and the same thing happened again when the next bus came. She called IKEA, told them what happened, and they promised to send a guy to fix it.

He came, and managed to reassemble the wardrobe once more. But as soon as he'd done so, the bus came, and the whole thing fell apart again.

When this had happened twice, he decided to place himself inside the wardrobe in hope of understanding the course of events.

At same time the young womans husband came home. He was curious about the new furniture his wife had bought, and he entered the bedroom where the wardrobe was placed. Once he'd admired it from the outside, he opened the doors to have a look inside.

He stared at the guy from IKEA, who was standing in there saying:
-You probably won't believe me, but I'm actually waiting for the bus."

Thank you, Anna, for sending me this. Maybe I'll see you Friday then?

Dreamy Sleepyhead

I'm sitting in one of the computer rooms at the university, almost asleep. No one's here so I'm considering resting my head on the desk and take a quick nap. The university has some serious problems with the ventilation, and I know they're working on it, but clearly this room hasn't got their attention yet. My intentions her today quickly vanished like the dew on the windows, and I let my thoughts drift off with the vapour.

Through the windows I can hear the the worksmen talking, it's probably lunchtime, but the words make no sense, only a murmur. It doesn't matter anyway. When I look out, the only thing I see is the yellow building on the other side of the yard, and a thin stripe of cloudy sky over the roof. A magpie blithefully flutters by, and lands on the edge of the roof, where he so indifferently follows his nature. The once dark sill below him is now stained white after years of visits from this Pica pica and his friends. I then hear a plane, and very soon it's also visible in my frame. I place my mind inside the plane and travel further, imagine myself flying higher into the sky. We ascend above the cloud cover, and I float into a bright insentience.

Without warning I hit the ground. Still a bit drowsy I notice the lecturer is entering the door, and the break is over. The birds outside lift off and take to the sky again.

Objects In Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear

I have an ongoing debate with myself about the purpose of this blog. Why, how, when, and questions alike. The conclusion is most of the time that it has no specific purpose, it changes and evolves like I do. In a way it functions as an internal mirror, a place where I can look and see the inside of myself, and not the exterior version. Blogging keeps me sane. Or is it the writing itself?

That leeds me to another issue I have in this debate, whether I really do need to put my inner self out in the open? If it's only the actual writing that is vital, why publish online when a simple, old-fashioned, diary would do? I think there might be something significant here, 'cause I have never been writing a diary in my entire life, could never hold it up even if I tried to. (Last attempt was probably in seventh grade, writing some silly notes about silly boys and silly love. Pretty much like I do now, come to think of it.) What I really would like to look into then, is whether the avarage blogger ever kept an ordinary diary. And people who have been writing diaries from early on, are they now bloggers? Have a feeling they not necessarily are.

So there must be a certain aspect to blogging that makes us do it. Let's go back to the mirror again. Maybe it's an intentional angle to the mirror? Maybe there's something that makes us wanting other people to look into it as well? "Hey, can you see me?"

This is quite confusing for me, 'cause on the one hand I don't want any focus at all, I'm not the type you'd find in the middle of every event. On the other hand I very much like recognition and attention, as least as long as I'm not caught off guard. Perhaps that's one element of blogging that appeals? Every single word can be considered, evaluated, reconsidered, withdrawn, and so on. Right until I'm satisfied and press PUBLISH. And even then there's the EDIT possibility. Like no one ever is going to notice that I changed an "it's" to "her", in a post a originally wrote days, or even weeks ago...

All this make me wish I had another way of expressing myself that wasn't so direct. Or maybe I should just learn to keep my mouth shot? And another question -

Who wins and who loses when you're arguing with yourself? I? We? No one?

Who Else...

...but me, would spend an entire afternoon republishing every singel post in her blog? Well, not everyone, I have only worked my way through 50 of them so far. If I continue at this pace I just might be finished before my exams. And why all this trouble? If anyone hasn't guessed it yet, I'm a controlfreak. (In a sort of complicated, unorganized way.) I simply like systems that work.

And with this new Beta Blogger I can label my posts, and I think that's a nice feature. But the old posts won't go tagging themselves, so I have to do it. Yes, that's right. Have to. All 192 of them.

Beta Blogger

I'm trying out this betaversion of Blogger, and it looks promising, though it also seems like I'll have some fiddling left to do with the template. It turns out the script for the Flickr album isn't wellformed and therefor won't parse. Hate fiddling, but once you've started you'll just have to go on. Until the end. And it must be some reason for this as well, 'cause incidently this fiddling has very much to do with what's in this years curriculum; character and text encoding, SGML, XML, HTML,... What a boring post! Just had to write something to see how it looked. I'll probably delete it tomorrow...

Permanent Makeup

Studying is like treating your brain with L'Oréal. It deep cleanses, and peels away prejudice. It hydrates, nourishes, and makes you feel younger and fresher. A good education makes you vibrant and colorful. And best of all -

you're worth it!

What To Write About?

Writing is an odd thing. Some days you have to write, even if you don't particularly feel like it. Your lecturer is expecting it, and there's not much else to do but start the thing. Slowly, slowly, the text progresses and by Monday morning you're all done. Another assignment again might be very inspiring though, and the writing goes on both rapidly and fluently, as well as inspired.

Then there are days you just have to write, like there's a mysterious force driving you to the pen. No lecturer behind, no assignment. Only a sudden insight that has to be shared.

And funny enough, like today, my fingers still itching after last nights writing, and I want to go on. ('Cause you were right, Toril - I couldn't stop. Too much to say when I first got going, and too small a frame.) But the paper, as modest as it is, is finished, and I don't know what to write about. I could write about Sardinia, that would under most circumstances be an obvious choice. But I don't think so, writing cheerful holiday reports is not my style. I probably have to stick what I do best, and being critical that is. (Don't forget that it's not the critique that is negative, only your personal perception of it.) I'd love to see "Patchwork Girl" fall apart at her seams.

(227 words of nothing)

Sunset In Alghero

Amazing Sardinia

This was just going to be an experiment, wanted to see if I could post a few pics to Flickr straight here from an Internetcafe in Alghero, Sardinia. But silly me brought the wrong cable, have to try another day. Or maybe not, I actually do have better things to do than sit at this cafe all day. Honestly, this was just half an hour while waiting for the rest to get ready for a night out.

I'll love it here, Sardinia i magnificent. I've been around in the world, but I don't think I've ever been so sure I would like to revisit a place like this time. Do you want to come with me?

Airport

Couldn't resist the temptation. I came across a Sidewalk Express and gladly paid 2 euro to connect to the online world. This won't be happening much later on though, this is just killing time waiting for the rest of the bunch to show up. Have a nice week, and I'll se you soon.

By the way: Thanks Toril for driving me home...

Sea And Sardinia

How I love when everything makes sense, even though it might be a temporary illusion. I'll enjoy it while it lasts. Tomorrow I'll be going away for a week, 'cause I have a fantastic mother who decided to treat her children with a holiday. Her children are now almost grown up at 40, 45 and 50, but we're doing our very best to stay young in mind. I think we're quite successful at that as well. Anyway, we're going to Sardinia, and I thought I'd post to the blog just once more before I'll leave.

As usual I have some ideas, or some sort of inspiration, on how and what about to write, but nothing is ever set from the beginning. Strange things and coincidenses happen all time, and are fantastic sources for my ponderings. This day has given me a few already, but the clue is to connect them all; ideas, thoughts, everyday events and peculiar incidents. If I'm able to do that, and moreover, put it in writing, I get this tremendous good feeling - ah, it fits!

So, searching the web for a suitable picture to accompany my Sardiniapost I came across this one, ready with the quote and everything:



It turns out D.H. Lawrence and his wife spent a week or so on Sardinia, and he then wrote a travelbook - Sea and Sardinia. The quote from this book hit me like a sudden wind, whirling up some forgotten desires. Liked that. "...Strong and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many years of complete forgetfulness..." Yeah, really liked that.

Lost myself there for a moment, almost forgot what I was about to do here, and so there won't be a smart and effective closure to this post as I intended. Sardinia next! A week of relaxation, and expectations, nice food and wine, and long walks and talks in warm evenings. And let there be music; if nothing else, always the music.

The Good Citizen

When you're living in a society together, at least you should try your best to get along with other people. That's kind of basic, you do your bit, and everything works fine. And then, if you would want to extend your contributions you could engage yourself in those less fortunate, giving your time and money to help out.

Me? Am I doing anything? Well, I have for a few years now been doing some volunteer work as a support person, or milieu practitioner, for boys with minor behavior problems. Quite an inspiring job, though lousy paid. (Volunteer, duh!) I'm more than willing to share my insight and wisdom to help them finding their path through life; and it's so rewarding when I know I made a difference, making them realize something important about themselves. However, it's utterly frustrating watching them doing the same mistakes over and over again. You would think that they should have learned by the time they turned 45.

Priceless?

Do you have any idea how much it'll cost to have a charming man running down the street after you, calling your name? Mentioned it before, but again, I was caught speeding last week, and yesterday I got a letter from the polic-department where they kindly asked me to send a copy of my license, if I had one, otherwise they would pursue criminal proceedings against me. I knew it wasn't as alarming as it sounded, I was quite sure my Swedish license would do just fine. I was simply not in their records, that's all.

Anyways, instead of paying for a papercopy at the library, I thought I'd rather pay the Police Headquarters a visit in person. Behind the counter I found two nice officers, nothing but forthcoming and helpful, and I explained the matter to them. They got my license, copied it and told me they would pass it forward to the right place. Already when I left the building I thought about how charming they'd been and almost thought it was worth the speeding ticket. Suddenly I heard someone call my name, I turned around, and there came one of the officers running towards me. Was he going to arrest me? Tell me what a naughty girl I've been? Maybe handcuff me, take me into the interrogation room, and play bad cop for the rest of the day...

No, wait, that must be someone elses fantasy, I would have settled for a dinnerinvitation. But no, he only had a trivial question about some figures on my Swedish license. I explained and continued my walk to the University. Was this little flirt really worth 2900,- Norwegian Kronor? i.e. 446,57 Us dollars, or 235,14 British pounds, or 51 858,87 Japaneese yen, or 22 498,06 Philippine pesos, or 96 281,54 Hungarian forints, or...

Diversion

Last night I finished, if not exactly to my satisfaction, my latest project, and it will hopefully work sufficiently until I have more time to look at it. Last year during the webdesign-course here at the university I made a website for a friend of mine. As gallery owners and alikes constantly asks for his webadress, we thought it was about time to get his own domain. Fancy indeed, and I feel a strong pressure to fulfill the expactations. As long as this was sort of a studentproject, I could hide beneath that, but from now on there's just me. A disclaimer maybe, on the site itself?

Now I have to dash, got business to do at the policestation. I didn't loose my license, and accordingly to their records I don't even have one. I do, but it's Swedish, and it has worked perfectly fine for all these years. Better go down and show it to them...

And maybe a quick coffe, Toril, while I'm downtown?