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An illustrated regular |
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Friday, December 31, 2004
It´s a sad, sad world
I just want to express my sympathy for everyone who has lost someone in the floods in South-east Asia.
It is so sad! I think it´s about 130.000 people now that are dead! And seeing those videos of when the tsunamis hit Malaysia, Sumatra, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and many more (I think the tsunami hit about 30 countries), it´s so horrible! Whole towns wiped out in a matter of minutes! There are many videos of it on http://www.vg.no by the headline Amatørvideo.
And what is even more shocking, if that is possible, is that authorities in Thailand (allegedly) knew that there would be an earthquake an hour before it happened, and didn´t announce it until three hours after the tsunamis hit Thailand.
And only because they didn´t want to damage the tourism industry or something (I don´t know how to put it!), because that industry has been blossoming there these last years! And then the tsunamis hit all the hotels by the beaches that are most popular among tourists in Thailand (and more) and they are either completely ruined, or seriously damaged, and the people too! They died! Tens of thousands of them, only in Thailand! And to think that most of them could be alive now, if only the authorities had announced that there was danger so they could go further into the country or to higher places before the disasters happened!
Horrible!
Happy new year everyone!
QotD: "A wedding? I love weddings. Drinks all around." Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
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Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Christmas lights anyone?
Christmas was great. Dinner was tasty. Tree was beautiful. Midnight mass was Christmas-y. Chlothes were pretty. Gifts were good (especially the digital camera mom and Björgvin gave me). Sigrún Ugla, who usually goes to sleep around 8 pm, stayed up to open all of her presents (with a little bit of help from us) and then, after having a little taste of milk at church, she fell asleep during the midnight mass.
On Sunday I flew west (or, actually, north, we just always west though) to Ísafjörður, where my dad, and my whole family on his side lives. I´m going to spend New Year´s Eve there, and will go back home next Sunday.
Ísafjörður is a small town, only about 4000 people live there, and they all really get into the holidays, decorating every spot of their houses, both insides and outsides. And I mean every. Sure, the lights are all very pretty, but only last Sunday, and maybe earlier, too, there was a blackout. And I think I just might know the reason. I won´t say more, I´m sure ya´ll get the picture.
I´ll write more later. Please read this. It is so adorable!
QotD: "Stop blowing holes in my ship!" -Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
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Saturday, December 25, 2004
Me and Sigrún Ugla 30 minutes ago! |
Me when I was five months old. On the back of the real picture, it says: 'Is that what Meat Loaf looked like as a child?' or something like that. I don´t even know what Meat Loaf looks like, so I can´t say if it is or isnt´!
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Friday, December 24, 2004
'God bleth uth everyone!'
Yes, God bless us everyone! Who doesn´t remember that adorable little boy on crutches who said this immortal quote, (What was his name?) from Charles Dickens´ A Christmas Carol?
I said that I´d tell you about my relax-day. Well, it went pretty much like this: I woke up, read half a paragraph of Wuthering Heights, got out of bed, performed my morning rituals, watched TV, fought with my brother over TV remote control, won, watched more TV, helped mom and Björgvin put groceries in fridge and cabinets, ate dinner, watched more TV, went on-line, went to bed.
Fun, huh?
Well, at least my feet aren´t tired anymore, although my eyes are becoming more and more the shape of a square from watching so much TV. But it might be easier to put eye shadow on square shaped eyes.
Always Look On the Bright Side of Life, as I always say.
Anyway, time to iron those Christmas tablecloths for mom!
I wish you all a very merry Christmas, and enjoy your hung meat, ptarmigan, ham, lamb, or whatever it is that you´ll be eating for Christmas dinner!
QotD: "God bleth uth everyone!"
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Wednesday, December 22, 2004
OK, my little sister is officially the cutest baby ever!!!! Everybody agree? |
Sigrún Ugla´s first taste of mashed potatoes - obviously, she isn´t too excited about them! |
Matti Már, my halfbrother, and all his halfsisters. From left: Aldís María, Þorbjörg Edda (Úa) and Matti. I´m the one in the white sweater, and I´m holding. Sigrún Ugla. Please bear in mind that this is a dreadful picture of me - I do not photograph well. |
Mom and Sigrún Ugla when she was 5 months old. |
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Adeste fideles (O come, all ye faithful)
Adeste fideles, læti, triumphantes;
venite, venite in Bethlehem;
natum videte regem angelorum:
Venite adoremus, venite adoremus,
venite adoremus Dominum.
Deum de Deo, lumen ad lumine,
gestant puellae viscera,
Deum verum, genitum non factum.
Venite etc.
En grege relicto, humiles ad cunas
vocati pastores appropearant:
Et nos ovanti gradu festinemus.
Venite etc.
Stella duce, Magi Christum adorantes,
aurum, thus, et myrrham dant munera.
Jesu infanti corda praebeamus:
Venite etc.
Æterni Parentis splendorem æternum
velatum sub carne videbimus:
Deum infantem, pannis involutum:
Venite etc.
Pro nobis egenum et foeno cubantem
piis foveamus amplexibus:
Sic nos amantem quis non redamaret?
Venite etc.
Cantet nunc 'Io' chorus angelorum;
cantet nunc aula caelestium,
Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo.
Venite etc.
Ergo qui natusdie hodierna.
Jesu, tibi sit gloria,
Patris aeterni Verbum caro factum.
Venite etc.
Such a beautiful song!
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Feet. Tired.
Last night was my school´s Christmas dance, but I didn´t get a ticket; there were at least 1000 tickets, but they sold out in 45 minutes, during lunch break, and I wasn´t fast enough out of class to get a ticket. So there I was, yesterday, laying in bed at 17:30, reading, thinking I´d just have to spend the night watching tv and maybe blog a little, while everyone I knew was out dancing. Sad, huh?
But then I got a phone call: Júlía Ara called me and asked if I needed a ticket; she had an extra one, and another girl had told her I needed it. So, at 21:00 I wasn´t watching tv, but getting ready to go to the before-party, and then to the dance! And ohmigosh, it was SO fun! But unfortunately, I had to leave at 1:30 am (the dance was till 2:30 am), because I´m epileptic and have to follow a certain routine, which means that I also have to be in bed by 2 am. But never mind that, I had a great time! Thank you Júlía Ara, you are my saviour! Thank you so much!
So. Having gone to bed at 2 am, I didn´t wake up until 13:30 (except for 3 minutes at 9:30 to take my meds). Then I took a shower, and right when I stepped out of it, my ex-stepsister called me, and asked if I wanted to go to the mall. Of course I said yes. At 14:25 I was there, and we walked around for about two hours and she bought a few Christmas presents, before we went home.
So, as you can imagine, my feet are very tired. The rest of me could run the 1000 metres around the Pond of Reykjavík, 2 laps, but my feet can´t. So tomorrow I´m going to stay inside all day, preferrably lie in bed and read Wuthering Heights. I´ve only read a couple of pages, and I want to at least read half of it before 2005.
Oh, and by the way; I got the results from the exams yesterday; 7,7 was my average! I got an 8 in Latin! I am so proud! All that studying really paid off!
Well, that´s enough for now. I´ll post again soon to tell you how my rest-day went, or if I could rest at all!
QotD: Jackie: “Grey is why prisoners are unhappy”
Hyde: “Really? I always thought it was the loss of freedom. And the unwanted man-love”
-That ´70s Show
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Sunday, December 19, 2004
Long time, no blog!
Yeah, what I said above.
So, I´ve decorated my room; santas and angels everywhere, and even two Christmas light series (can I say that? well, my fellow Icelanders, you know what I mean!). I´ve bought all the presents and my Christmas outfit (a really pretty green skirt and a b-e-a-utiful red spaghetti-strap top. I look very Christmas-y in that outfit), and all together, I spent approx. 14781 isk. (about $234.62). A lot, huh? But that´s not all. I also had to buy a new set of 3 X month contact lenses, and on Thursday I also went and got my hair dyed red. Actually, it´s not so different from the color I had before, only an itsy-bit redder. The hairdresser mixed two very natural-looking red colors, and my hair does look a little like natural red, but it´s still not quite as red as I wanted. But I´m happy with it! I´ll just go redder next time.
So, did you notice my new counter; countdown to Christmas? Cool, eh? It took me, say, about a half hour, at least, to find a good HTML with good instructions on how to configure it, you know, set the date I wanted to count down to (December 24th; the big day!), change the color, size and font of the letters. Then I took half an hour more finding the right place to put it, without everything else disappearing (and no, I did not cut the rest of the template HTML, it just disappeared all by itself). And I did a pretty good job, don´t you think?
Tomorrow I get the results from the exams. At first, there will be a short service in the Cathedral (not a big one, as the name suggests; it´s the oldest church in Reykjavík, and therefore it´s the Cathedral), and the MR Choir will sing three songs. We´re going to sing Psallite, unigenito (old hymn in Latin); Það aldin út er sprungið (one of the oldest, if not the oldest Icelandic Christmas hymn, and sooo beautiful); and Ó, helga nótt (O, Holy Night). I hate that I still have a cold. It´s not easy to sing beautifully (not that I´m a perfect singer) with a cold. I hope I´ll be a little bit better tomorrow *crosses fingers*.
Nightynight!
QotD: Hal: "How´d they get you to come back?"
Louanne: "They gave me candy and called me their light."
Hal: "Hehe. That´ll do it." -Dangerous Minds
The Icelandic Yule Lads:
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Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Plastic bag thief on the loose in MR!
Math exam this morning. I feel so stupid; the problems that I solved perfectly on the test that I got a 7.9 on (which was actually changed to 9.5, like everyone elses grades were raised, because the average was so low that the teacher felt compelled to raise the norm), were also on this exam, and I just looked at them blankly and had no idea what to do! Even though I sat at the dining room table for about 4 hours with my math books in front of me. But to be fair, I couldn´t, yes, couldn´t look at them; it was like they were poisoned or something.
So most of the time I just fiddled with my old confirmation candle, which I finally decided to burn down, and the Christmas calendar candle, and listened to the radio. RÚV, to be exact, the radio station that is more often than not called the Vapour, because it´s so boring. But there was an interview with Ómar Ragnarsson, an old man, who is most famous for his news reports and footage of natural catastrophies, like the many times when the volcanoes in Vatnajökull ('Water Glacier') erupted, or of destruction after earthquakes, or avalanches. He is also very known for playing the Icelandic Santa Claus called Gáttaþefur ('Gully Gawk'; here is a web page with the names of the Icelandic Santas), in the 60's and 70's. He made vinyl LPs with Christmas songs he wrote, which are now classics. That´s what this interview was about; how he 'became' Gáttaþefur, and all that.
Anyways, back to math!
So this exam wasn´t that easy, but I could still solve most of the problems. Whatever, moving on. After the exam, I came out of the classroom, and went to put on my parka, mittens and cap (we´re not allowed to take anything with us into the classroom except for the pencil case and calculator), when I noticed that they were all laying there on the chair where I had left my parka. What´s so strange about that, you ask? Well, you see; I had put my mittens and cap in a Hagkaup grocery bag, in which I had kept my pencil case and calculator on the way to school, and then put it inside my parka before I laid it on a chair.I ´m sure I did. So no wonder I was surprised to come out and see the bag gone! It´s not that big a deal; I mean, it was only a grocery bag with nothing in it except my mittens and cap, but why would anyone take it? So I started thinking. And a thought came to my mind, which really does seem likely; maybe one of my classmates is grocery bag-fetish? You know, like some people are shoefetish. What if there is someone in my class, ashamed and hiding (or maybe not?) this problem, but goes around stealing plastic bags from his or her fellow students? If I´m right, which I think I am, I urge you, whoever you are, to come forward and admit that you have a problem. That´s the first step of getting rid of a problem like this, right? Acknowledging that you do, indeed, have a problem. And there are support groups for everything!
We´re here for you, my grocery bag-fetish classmate!
Aren´t we?
I have to go to the mall with my little brother to help him buy Christmas presents. Also going redhead tomorrow. Tell you more about it later.
QotD: “OK. Now go make mommy nervous.” Lorelai, The Gilmore Girls
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Monday, December 13, 2004
Please read this!
Oh my goodness: I was just looking over the last few posts, and I noticed that on Monday December 6th, I accidentally did a little typo. I can´t believe I just noticed it first now. I was writing about how I tripped in the staircase, and I wrote that I had a huge bruise on my thiNG. Of course, I meant to write thiGH. I just hope that everyone who reads this knows that I am a girl, and don´t have what is usually referred to as thing, and even if I weren´t a girl and did have a thing, I would most certainly not write about it on my blog.
Just so we´re perfectly clear on this: I meant to say that I have a bruise on my thigh.
Thank you for reading this.
Oh, and by-the-by, I think I did rather well on that horrifying Latin exam today. I can barely believe it!
QotD: J: “You know Elvis is dead, right?”
K: “No, Elvis is not dead. He just went home.” MIB
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Sunday, December 12, 2004
You have GOT to click on this, and turn up the volume on your computer!
Go on, I dare you!
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Oh rats!
When I woke up today, the first word that came to my mind was rats. Ok, maybe not, but something like that . I thought about the Latin exam tomorrow, and I think the word rats would best describe what I was feeling. Of course I have decided not to flunk this exam; au contraire, mon frère. I am going to do great.
I am. Seriously.
I am.
I have to!
Anyways. I studied all day. Which wasn´t really that long, because I got out of bed at about, say, 13:32. And the reason?
At 9:00 my mom came into my room to tell me to stop snoozing my alarm clock. I´ve got so used to snoozing, that I do it in my sleep. Anyways; when mom came into my room, she said that it stank so much that coming into it was like walking into a wall. So, being my mom, she went straight to the window and opened it, not realising that the freezing cold air, that she insisted needed to come into my room, would certainly not help me getting better from that ever-so-annoying cold. And it got so cold in my room that I daren´t crawl out of bed, lest I would freeze to death. (oh! that was so fun to write).
Then I sort of fell asleep again; sort of, because I had these obnoxious dreams.
I dreamt I was in a real hurry somewhere (my subconciousness telling me that I needed to hurry waking up to study for that awful exam???), and it was somehow a question of life and death that I get to that place (what place?) in time (subconciousness showing me how scared I am of that Latin exam?), even though I knew I was waaay too late (too late for me to learn all those verbs by heart?).
So, as you can see, I didn´t get that much sleep.
I am so glad that the exam doesn´t start until 13:30, so I can continue learning all these stupid sentences for at least 3 1/2 hours tomorrow morning.
-Cur equos in prato non ducebat, puer?-
-Ira furor brevis est.-
-Nostri hostem proelio equestri superare non potuerunt.-
-Nocte Ulixes oculum sude praeusta et fervida percussit.-
-Consul exercitui praeerat; equites et in dextro et in sinistro cornu collocavit.-
And at last, a simple sentence, which I think everybody should know what means:
-Islandia insula est.-
QotD: "I´m going to D.C. this weekend to kill my mother," -Igby, Igby Goes Down
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Friday, December 10, 2004
Sneeze your nose of... literally
Danish today. Ridiculously easy. I will be so surprised if I get a grade lower than 8.
Latin on Monday. I get goosebumps when I think about it, I´m so scared!
But hey, look on the bright side: only three exams left!
Cozy-night tonight; every other Friday evening I watch a video with my bro, mom and Björgvin. Tonight we saw Catch That Kid, but only because we didn´t find anything better. It´s a re-make of a Danish movie from 2002; Klatretøsen, which I saw in Danish class I in 10th grade in Hagaskóli. I was surprised to see that the movie was almost exactly the same as the original! I admire that, usually non-American movies that are sold to some big Hollywood film company are altered so much that you don´t even know what movie it was made after.
I finally went to the doctor on Wednesday, having been coughing almost constantly for about three weeks. He gave me a prescription for a stronger cough mixture, which is specially made in only one pharmacy. So I had to take the bus all the way to Hlemmur (ok, not so far from where I live, but it was cold outside and...), and walk for quite a while from there, because the pharmacy was a little further than I thought. Ironically, that walk in the freezing wind gave me a cold. You see, I didn´t have a cold before, I just coughed. But now, I don´t cough so much, but sneeze instead.
Welcome to the Icelandic Winter.
Bruise keeps changing colors. I showed it to my mom, and she thinks it looks like a map of either America or Australia. What with all the different colors and all.
QotD: Seth: “What about... text messaging! Hah! Like a black berry, think about it: that feels very hip, it feels edgy, it feels 21st century!”
Ryan: “Kinda cold.”
Seth: “Mittens required, yes.” -The O.C.
p.s. check out the new link: make-a-flake! make your own snowflake!
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Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Untitled
Biology today. Don´t wanna talk about it.
I don´t think I´ll flunk, I might eveb scrape a 6. I hope. *crosses fingers*
My bruise doesn´t hurt anymore, not much anyway, but it´s still changing colors.
It looks like the United Colors of Benetton.
Off to study for Icelandic.
QotD: “I liked you so much better when you had no sense of humor,” Seth, The O.C.
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Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Bruise news
I finished Jane Eyre today! Yay! I might have mentioned it before, but I started reading it in May. But now I´m finally done with it! I have to say it wasn´t as marvellous as I expected it to be (if it were, I´d have finished it by the 1st of June), but the last hundred pages were good. Actually, I liked it best after Jane had left Thornfield. Mr. Rochester gave me the creeps.
My bruise still hurts very much. It´s not only purple anymore, but also red, green, and a little brown. It has also got bigger; it used to be one big one and one smaller one right below, but now those have connected and are one huge one. It sort of reminds me of the blister I got when I burned the sole of my foot in the sumer of '02; at first, there were two small ones, and as the minutes went by, they got bigger and bigger until they connected and covered the entire sole of my foot. Gosh, that was disgusting. Not to mention very painful.
Nightynight!
QotD: “Here to help. Wanna live,” Anya, BtVS
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Monday, December 06, 2004
Another anniversary!
As some of you might know, I am epileptic. But today, it´s a whole year since I had my last seizure! Yay! I´m still taking my meds, but if I´m seizure-free for two-three years, I can stop taking them. I sincerely hope that the seizure I had a year ago was my last one. Of course it´s not really a big deal for me, because I pass out and am unconcious while having a seizure. So it´s only upsetting for the person who sees it, and the only thing I feel are sore muscles afterwards, and maybe a bruise or two if I hit my head while falling. Here´s an exsample of a seizure:
In January 2002 I had a seizure when I had just woken up (it usually happens early in the morning) and was in the bathroom putting on make-up. When I came to I was on the floor with a severe bruise on my forehead because I hit the brink of the table by the sink, and then the floor, which was tiled. Then I puked, went into my room and collapsed on my bed. There I lay, practically unconsious for a couple of hours, until my mom came home. After calling the hospital, we went there to get a head scan. It wasn´t until I saw myself in a mirror there that I noticed I had a large smudge of mascara on my cheek. But I was kinda 'out of it' and didn´t really care. Anyways. Then, a few weeks later I went to get an EEG. That´s kind of... unpleasant. Some woman, usually middle-aged and cranky, fastens electrodes on to your head with this disgusting cream that is really hard to get out of your hair, and then you´re suppsed to lie on some bench in a dark room while the woman is in another room and watches the EEG, which looks sort of like a lie detector or a seismograph, and then switches the lights in the room you´re in really fast, and watches the effects it has on the EEG. When you´re done, which is after about 20-30 minutes, the woman takes the electrodes off your head and 'washes' your hair. Not really well. You have to wash your hair at least two times after you get home to get that sticky cream out of it. A few weeks later you call the doctor, who says everything is normal.
So that about sums up what happens after an epileptic seizure.
Yesterday, when I was walking down the stairs, I tripped. I slid down the last four steps. I slid on my right thigh, and it hurt like hell. Now I have a HUGE bruise on my thing, really creepy-looking and purple. It looks like a bruise you would see in CSI: Crime Scene Investigaiton, on the body of a murder victim that was brutally beaten to death. And not only that; it also hurts a LOT when I touch it, and maybe accidentally sit down the wrong way, and I feel it everytime I walk.
Oh, and I also had an English exam today. It went well, but it was a lot longer than I expected.
Nightynight!
QotD: "Not nice to mess with Mother Nature," -Piper, Charmed.
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Friday, December 03, 2004
You better like this last post; I went through hell trying to fix the f****** HTML at least five times. Finally I decided just to skip the HTML and write that quiz down myself. Why I didn´t figure that out sooner I don´t know. *grits teeth in deep frustration*
Enjoy.
I mean it. ENJOY!
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How to make a Katrín
I took this little quiz; What personality elements make up your Personality cocktail? Here are the results:
How to make a Katrín
Ingredients:
3 parts friendliness
3 parts courage
3 parts beauty
Method:
Stir together in a glass tumbler with a salted rim. Add a little curiousity if desired!
I also tried it with my MCBC sn, Aikatarina, and the results were a little bit different:
How to make a Aikatarina
Ingredients:
3 parts jealousy
3 parts crazyness
3 parts instinct
Method:
Blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Add a little cocktail umbrella and a dash of sadness.
I think we can all agree, wheher you know me or not, that this is not my personality. Crazyness? I am the most predictable person ever to walk the face of the earth. Jealousy? Who am I supposed to be jealous of? Who has something I don´t have and want really really bad? Well, you got me there.
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