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An illustrated regular |
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Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Aaaaa-chooo!
It's rather warm here right now. The sky isn't clear or anything, it's just incredibly warm. But I know that it won't be for long - I happen to know that autumn is almost here.
How do I know? Well, I've got a cold. Despite the unusual heat (for me it's unusual, at least), my oversensitive nose can sense that autumn is near, and has taken this delightful opportunity to notify me and those around me by stuffing my nose and giving me a wee headache regularly. It's not so fun.
QotD: Hilary Faye: Roland, does Jesus still love me?
Roland: Probably not. -Saved! |
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Vous qui entrez ici, abandonnez tout espoir
I am nervous. I have a history essay due on Thursday, which is supposed to answer the question "How democratic was Britain in 1914?" The rest of the class wrote it last Thursday, in the period when I wasn't present, so I guess in a way I'm lucky, because no way could I have written it in less than an hour! But it's still hard. British political history from 1832 till 1979 isn't very interesting.
I don't really feel entitled to be complaining of this, because after all it was I who chose to take this course. I didn't realise what I was getting into then. I'm not sure if it's too late for me to drop out (which I am not considering, by the way-I finish what I start... usually), but I need to take at least four subjects, so I guess I'm stuck. I'm just gonna have to do my best and hope it's OK.
Oh, and one more thing while I'm on the subject of history: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have history for the last two periods. That is two effing hours!
The other subjects are better. We've been watching clips from Braveheart in Media, and we're supposed to looks for special things in every clip, e.g. the representation of the Scots or the English, the music, the types of shots etc. Today we watched the very last scenes from the movie, and were supposed to think about the lighting and how it contributes to the story and conveys meaning and that kind of stuff. Has anybody seen Braveheart? The last scene is so gross and sad that I couldn't even look when they were... uh, I won't spoil it for you if you plan on seeing it. I have it on DVD (I bought it when I had store credit for more than 8000 isk at Office 1 Superstore at home) and I've only watched about an hour of it. It's three hours, by the way. There was some show about William Wallace on BBC1 or 2 the other day, so I already knew how it ended, but still...
This is one of my two Media teachers (that's a bit weird pic of him). He's really nice and cool, as is Ms Conroy, the other teacher. But I think I like Mr Sulleyman just a little better.
Anyway. If you don't have anything better to do, here are some interesting websites to look at: 
Elizabeth Bathory - Die Blutgrafin ("For over a decade she perpetrated her acts of vampirism, mutilating and bleeding dry 650 maidens.")
www.pompogpragt.dk/
I found a free postcard with this URL in a cafe in Copenhagen.
Mum and Bjorgvin just bought this coffee machine for their birthdays from his mother (Mum will turn 40 on Saturday and Bjorgvin in November).
Nightienight!
QotD: "But what else could I expect from a bunch of low-rent no-account hoodlums like you?!? Hoodlums, yes, I mean you and your friends, your whole sex, trow 'em in the sea for all I care! Throw 'em in an' wait for the bubbles! Men, with your groping and spitting, all groin, no brain, three billion o' ya passin' around the same worn-out urge! Men! With your... sales!!!" -Buffy (in a play in Willow's dream in episode 4.22), Buffy the Vampire Slayer |
Monday, August 29, 2005
Lidl
Thanks to this supermarket, I now know what "super Geschmack Pepsi Light, ohne Zucker" tastes like. That is, in short, German Pepsi. It tastes just like regular. You see, Lidl is a supermarket chain that's all over Europe, and all the products there are, like, suuuper-cheap. Mum and Bjorgvin went there on Saturday and shopped for what would in Iceland (in Bonus, NB) have cost more than 10,000 isk. Guess what it cost in Lidl?
46 pounds. Seriously.
I bought a tube of hairgel there last week for less than a ound, but I didn't realise until I got home that it smells kind of like cologne. It works fine, but I'm not sure if I want to smell like a guy.
I talked to Mrs O'Brien, the Principal Teacher Music of JGHS, and also the conductor of the choirs. She's real nice and up-beat, and seemed real pleased that there were more people that wanted to join the Senior Vocal Group (namely, me). Well, so, in about three weeks practices will start, and it is very likely that in June 2006 I will go with the Senior Wind Band and the Senior Vocal Group on a concert trip to Belgium! I've never been to Belgium, and I'm already looking forward to it. This would be the third time that I go abroad with a choir.
Ah, well. 'Tis time to paying my bed a visit. Nightienight!
QotD: Faith: "Looks like the Hellmouth's officially closed for business."
Giles: "There's another one in Cleveland - not to spoil the moment (sic)" -Buffy the Vampire Slayer |
Sunday, August 28, 2005
"Give me something to siiing about"
I'm sitting here by my old computer on the my desk in front of my window (notice how I use the word my, even though none of the above are really mine), looking over the Meadows Croquet Club field, tapping away on the noisy-but-comfy-sounding keyboard. Ewan McGregor is singing Elton John's "Your Song" from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack. Ahhh, his voice is so brilliant.
That brings me to today's post title, which is a line from one of Buffy Anne Summers' songs from the musical episode of Buffy, "Once More, With Feeling." I just finished watching it - for the third time - right before dinner. It's such a good episode. Those actors really are something. "Walk Through the Fire" gives me goosebumps. And it is soooooo funny when Anya is singing about bunnies:
Bunnies aren't just cute
Like everybody supposes
They've got them hoppy legs
And twitchy little noses
And what's with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies! Bunnies!
It must be bunnies!
Anya's fright of bunnies is hilarious.
I'm kind of starting to miss the choir. Gillespie's doesn't have any choir that's all-year-round, like e.g. MR, only one that is assembled a couple of months before Christmas, to then have a concert on Christmas Day (or sometime around that). I was a bit dissappointed when I heard that, because I've been in a choir since I was 11 (exept the schoolyear '99-'00, but let's not bother about semantics), and I think it wouldn't be good for my mental health to just stop that so suddenly. Or at all, really. But then I found out that there's something called the Senior Vocal Group, which, as I understand it, a small choir for seniors. Well, I'm a senior, so I'm going to try and get a hold of the teacher that conducts it and ask if I could join. My registration teacher told us that there would be a meeting of the Senior Vocal Group during break on Thursday, but I couldn't make it then because I was on a field trip at the cinema with my Media class.
That day at the cinema was a part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (gosh, there are festivals all around - The Fringe, EIFF, Book Festival...), and kids from Media classes in schools all around Edinburgh were there. At ten AM, there was a screening of the American indie film Thumbsucker, which is supposed to be a little like Donnie Darko - about a really messed-up kid - personally I think Donnie Darko was a hundred times better, but this one wasn't too bad, though. After that, some lecturer in Visual Communication at Edinburgh College of Art did a presentation "on key codes and conventions of Media Studies in relation to the film." It was actually really interesting. After lunch, the director and producer of the English indie/Dogme film Gypo took us through the process of pre-production, production and post-production "within the industry," which was also very interesting. I've wondered about what pre- and post-productions are about (I've seen the terms on imdb.com, but never really known what they mean), and now I'm totally in the know. (To be in the know= Scottish for to know/understand.) I've never considered going for a career in the film industry, and now, after finding out about how, well, crazy it is, I don't believe I'll change my mind. It's not that I'm afraid of a challenge, but I'm just not really that interested in making movies. I looove watching them, though, but then again who doesn't?
After Jan Dunn and Elaine Wickham's lecture, there was a screening on three short films made this year with Scottish Arts Council funding by SKAMM (Scottish Kids Are Making Movies), a young people's film production company based at Filmhouse in Edinburgh for 13-18 year-olds. They were OK, considering that they were made by kids aged 16-18. I barely understood half of the first one, which was a documentary, the second was a real "Artsy"-type documentary, a little better than the first one, and the third and last one was a silent Western, actually quite good. After the screening of those short films, there was a discussion with five of the kids and a woman called Shiona Wood, who's in charge of this SKAMM. Most of the kids were really artsy-type, and I bet anyone who passed one or two of them on the street would instantly know that they were into film-making.
Well then, I guess this should be enough for tiday. Buh-bye!
QotD: "It's just, clearly our number is a retro pastiche that's never going to be a breakaway pop hit." -Anya, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (episode 6.07) |
Monday, August 22, 2005
Perfume
I'm reading Perfume: The Story of a Murderer for English right now. It's my "Personal Study" book, which means that I'm the only one (I think) reading it, I just read it by myself at home, and when I'm done I'll do some "tasks" on it. I read it in Icelandic a few years ago, and it's creepy and good. When I saw it on the list of books that I could choose from, I knew that I had to pick that. Either that or Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney, which I've wanted to read since I saw a reference to it on CSI:NY a few months ago. Unfortunately the library didn't have it.
Oh, some other time, then.
(O dear, I just realised that I wrote about Perfume in my last entry! Gosh, how embarrassing!)
Last week I found out that there are two other Icelanders that just started James Gillespie's High School; a girl in first year and a boy in third year. I've met neither of them , but I heard of them from others. I'd like to meet them - speak Icelandic to somebody other than my family. It's always happening to me now that I see somebody at school, and I get this extremely strong deja-vu feeling, like I've seen them before, at home to be exact, though I know there's no possibility of that. But still, many of them remind me of people from my old schools. Another strange thing (strange for me, at least), is that the kids at JGHS are 12-18 years old, 18 being the oldest, I'm pretty sure. So I'm one of the oldest, though I don't feel like it - I guess I don't have that superiority feeling that the older pupils at most schools have, probably because I'm too new to feel like I belong there (yet). And the 12-year-olds....... man, that is weird. They're so short, and so small, and so young! It's strange walking around school behind little children. I haven't gone to school with 12-year-olds since I was 12 myself! And that was 6 years ago! It feels like ages ago. And now I'm going to school with kids that many years younger than me? In MR, the biggest age difference is 4-5 years between the oldest and youngest, occasionally 6, and Hagaskoli was just 8th, 9th and 10th grade, so the age difference was only 3 years tops. This is a whoooole new thing for me! I also don't know how old the kids in my classes are. Of course, they're all 16 or 17, but I don't know which. They're all in fifth or sixth year. Some kids I can totally tell that they're 16 or even 15, but most are a complete mystery. One more thing before I go to sleep. You know how I said above that many of the kids remind me of Icelanders? Well, there's one who reminds me of another person, but not an Icelander though. There's this guy in my Media/Drama class (I've yet to figure out the difference between that and just Media, besides that there's another teacher, since I've only been to one class and we just did the same thing as in Media. 
Hopefully I'll find out tomorrow.) who bears an uncanny resemblance
to Patrick Fugit in White Oleander, only a bit younger. It's simply uncanny, I tell you.
Bonam noctem!
QotD: Joe: [to Sugar] "The ship is in ship-shape shape." -Some Like It Hot |
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Schoolgirl without a uniform
The dress code at James Gillespie's High School is very simple: Unacceptable clothes are e.g. crop tops, visible underwear, spikes on dog collars or wrists, certain types of piercing (in "inappropriate places") racist/sexist/ageist slogans etc, chains hanging in a dangerous fashion, advertising for drugs, alcohol, swearing, over revealing clothes, football tops and excessive make-up.Well, then I guess I don't have anything to wear.Hah, just kidding! But everything else is allowed, only not sth that might be offensive to other pupils and/or teachers. No compulsory shirts, ties, skirts, blazers, like in most other schools in Britain. I got lucky - I don't know if I could bear wearing the same outfit to school every single day. But then again, everybody else would be wearing it too, so... Anyway. School started at 8:30 on Wednesday. My guidance counsellor found a girl, Jude, to show me around the school and where my classes are and all that, which was good because the school is so big it's like a maze. Jude's really nice, and she introduced me to all her friends, who are also very nice. I don't remember all of their names, just Lindsay, Sarah and Agnes, who is Danish, but she moved from Denmark when she was 7, so I might speak more Danish than she...English was first, and almost straight away the teacher, Mr. MacLennan, told us that we'd be starting reading The Great Gatsby in class. All the other pupils in the class had picked some other book from a list to read during the summer holiday, which we are supposed to read and study by ourselves, and now and then we'll have to do some assignment on it, so the teacher can make sure that we're actually reading it, and then some time before Christmas, we'll write an essay on it. So. It was the first day and I was already behind. I talked to Mr. MacLennan after class and he told me to go to the library and talk to the librarian about finding an appropriate book for me to read, and on Thursday I did that and chose the book Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind. I actually read that book in Icelandic a few years ago, when I was in Hagaskoli, so it was a wise choice for me, as I already know it. Anyway. Next was double Media. I've never studied Media before (because there wasn't any Media class at my old school actually), but all the other pupils in my class had, so I felt a bit stupid, because I don't know anything about that subject. What we've mostly been doing now is watching short clips from Scottish films and then sort of analysing them, like say what discourse it follows (the discourse of tartanry, Kaleyard or urban discourse) and find examples of that in them. Mostly just stuff like that so far.After Media I had German. When I got into the classroom and Jude had told the teacher who I was, Ms Malcolm, the teacher, came smiling to me and said "Hi, I'm Ms Malcolm. I know all about you!". So she'd apparently been told about me... There are four or five new students in my German class, so Ms Malcolm gave us some stuff for us to catch up with the others, because they'd already started the curriculum for this school year before the holidays. I don't remember anything that happened after the first 15 minutes of the class. Why? Because one moment, I was sitting at my desk listening to the teacher like a good girl, and the next thing I know I'm lying o the floor with a woman, that I soon found out was the school nurse, sitting next to me, and some other man who I didn't think to ask who was, standing there too. I was very dizzy and distoriented and had no idea what had happened. After a few minutes I realised that I'd had a seizure. Great way to start a new school, huh? Have a seizure the very first day. But hey, look at the bright side; at least German was my last class that day, so I didn't miss anything. I just felt dizzy and nauseous for the rest of the day, that's all. I was all better the next day. Only now I have to wait yet another year before I can start learning how to drive, and then another one before I can get my licence. Ah well. I guess life isn't all daisies and lollipops. My last classes on Thursday was double history. Oh yay. I chose history because I really am interested in it. But whoa, I have never learned any of the history that they're teaching in my year. I have loads to catch up. We get this thick pink stack of photocopies stapled together, and it's a whole book! It's called Changing Britain 1850s-1979: The Development of democracy and social welfare. Oh goodie, I hope it's not too hard. Since I'm only taking 4 subjects, I've got a lot of free periods. I've got two free periods on Mondays, no class in 1st period on Tuesday, on Wednesdays I'm done at one PM, on Thursdays I've got one free period, and on Friday I've only got two classes and am done at 11 AM!!! I would say that's nice. Well, it's getting a little late. I guess I must go rest; I've got to study tomorrow, and then there's of course that Pipefest 2005 
in Holyrood Park.
Nightie night!
QotD: Giles: "I'm not supposed to have a private life?"
Buffy: "No. Because you're very, very old and it's gross." -Buffy The Vampire Slayer |
Monday, August 15, 2005
Back online and bitchin'!
OK, not so much bitchin' as... "kittnish." (If there are any Buffy-fans reading this, they'll understand :))
Anyway. That BT finally connected our phone and DSL today. Our new number is 0----. Nah, just kidding.
So. We still haven't got our stuff; apparently there was some stalling (?) at the customs in Immingham (the city in England to which the ship sailed), but now we've been told that our 70-something boxes should arrive on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Wednesday is my first day of school (got to know that for sure today, yay!), so I might not be able to use my Superman-like strengt to help carry the boxes up the three flights of stairs to our apartment (actually, it's on the first floor (what in Iceland would be called 2nd floor though), but the staircase is in sort of a circle, you know. According to the school newsletter which I got, along with some other papers, last week, the schoolday Mon.-Thur. will be from 8:30-15:35, but 8:30-12:00 on Friday. I now love Fridays more than ever, but I might be going a little Garfield on the Mondays.
I bought a TV on Saturday. I wanted to get one with a VCR combined to it, but then Bjorgvin spotted a TV-DVD combination at Woolworths. I went to take a look at it, and my-oh-my, I knew it had to be mine. Why? Because it only cost 79,99 pounds. I am not even kidding. In Iceland, you can buy a good DVD player (and maybe one DVD disc to go with it) for that amount of money. This one is also a TV. It's so cool. Of course I had to buy something to go with my beautiful new 14" TV-DVD combi, so I bought the final season of Buffy, too. In Iceland, one season set costs as much as two here. I'd say this was a good bargain. Don't regret it the least bit. Sometime I might even go on a splurge and buy seson 3, which is the only one I haven't seen.
We've got 5 channels, BBC, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Five, but there aren't any good shows, that I know of, there, but an occasional OK film. Just as well I guess, because I expect I'll have a lot more homework this year than ever, even though I'm only taking four subjects (German, History, Media and English. There was a little mess-up with the English, because all the English courses were full, but they managed to straighten it out, probably on account of how I was supposed to have got into their system in June, when they were organising their pupils' courses and all that, but the papers that mum had sent them hadn't even been printed out! The guidance counsellors that we talked to felt awful about it - mum had been in an e-mail correnspondence with people at the school since February, so they did indeed have enough time to put me on their list. Anyway, those are bygones now (Ally McBeal, anyone?); it's all good now, and I'll be starting school at 8:30 on Wednesday).
We're going to Glasgow tomorrow. We're going to some science museum or sth like that, which my 132 IQ almost-geek almost 11-year-old brother is just dying to go to. I say almost-geek because he isn't really a geek at school, but at home, maaan, he reads this science magazine called Lifandi Visindi (sort of like National Geographic) until it's got holes in it, and then he really feels compelled to tell us ALL about it at the dinnertable. It can get pretty annoying, but I've learned to put myself on 'in-through-one-ear-out-the-other' mode when he starts one of his "did you know that blablabla bugs do blablabla when blablabla... you know, the Aztecs did this and that, but the Mayas did that and this... in WW2, the good guys used blablabla but in WW1 the bad guys used blablabla... yadayadayada"-speeches. He's a nice kid - sometimes - but he's annoying - most of the time. But I love him, after all he is my brother. *He ain't heav-y, he's my broth-er.* I think I might even miss him after he's gone back to Iceland. He won't be living here in Scotland with us the next year; his father insists that "it's not a good idea to take him to another country, out of school, to a new school blablabla just now, because he's too young," which I personally think is bullsh*t - he's totally ready, he would make new friends and get used to speaking English all the time - he's surprisingly good at it, for a 10-year-old. It's all those computer games and television. He'll move in with us next year, but until then he'll only visit when he's on holiday. Since he's not gonna go to school, he won't have any friends, so the only thing he has to do is stay inside and play on the computer or his PlayStation2. Now is that healthy for a kid?
Anyway. It'll be a change not to have him around to annoy me, us, but I might miss him once in a while. Like I already said, he is my lil' bro.
One thing I'm also gonna miss - or am missing already; Joakim, my loving but grumpy 13-year-old limping cat. Oh, it was nice to have him laying on my un-made bed with his dirty paws, chasing him around the house to feed him so-called great-taste-for-kitties medicine that he hated, washing off his fleas, stroking him and getting a nice piece of fur as a souvenir... ah, good times. But seriously, I do miss him.
One more thing. When we first got to our apartment, the air smelled weird. Mum said it was malt-smell. There must be a brewery close by. It isn't very good, but thankfully it doesn't always smell like that, usually it's just nice grassy smell from the Meadows: 
Well well, it's getting late, and I must watch a Buffy epi or two before I go to bed. TTFN!
(Ta-ta for now.)
QotD: "Making sex is like a Chinese dinner: It ain't over 'til you both get your cookies." Old Man Dunphy, Outside Providence 
The red dot is where I live
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Monday, August 08, 2005
'Ello there!
I'm sitting in an internet cafe (we don't have the internet, let alone a computer, at home yet) a street away from my new home, after almost five hours of walking up and down Princes Street and The Royal Mile. The first round I looked for an ATM, found ONE, which very petulantly refused to take my card, so I walked on, and finally found an ATM on North Bridge, which is on the other side of Princes Street. I estimate that it took me almost an hour just to find an ATM.
But enough of that. As I might have mentioned a few times before, we moved on Wednesday, August 3rd. After waking up at 4:15 AM, we took a taxi, a plane, a taxi, a train and a taxi to 15 Leven Terrace, whither we got at around 2:30 PM local time. The apartment bathroom, although I already knew that. I might post a picture of my room or my amazing view (we don't have any back/front yard, but right across the street, over which my bedroom window looks, there is a huge park called the Meadows. There's a croquet club field right across our house (which is actually an apartment building-for the first time in my life I live in one!)). I'm not going to go into any more details, as I don't think you're very interested, nor have I a lot of time.
Since coming here, we've visited Edinburgh Castle ("wicked") and seen some exhibition called Our Dynamic Earth (pronounced "erth" :)). We've also walked around the city centre a few times (OK, every day, me at least). I've bought two DVDs and the whole 6th season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD (I couldn't help myself...), a skirt and sandals which I only bought because it's so warm outside (the sandals gave me blisters in less than 30 minutes, so I had to buy band-aids at Boots to put on my foot and put my old shoes back on), four books, for which I paid only 26 pounds (though I have yet to find Meg Cabot's latest; All-American Girl 2) and 6 postcards.
Well, my time is running up, I promise I'll write more as soon as I get the net at home!
QotD: none. can't find one in such a short time. |
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