::The Yellow Book::

An illustrated regular

About Me
name: Katrin
age: 21
location: Reykjavík, Iceland
nationality: Icelandic
msn: trinagunnars (at) hotmail (dot) com
reading: Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen. Old Arcadia, by Sir Philip Sidney.
listening to: My iPod
watching: Buffy DVDs, How I Met Your Mother and Gossssssip Girl
likes: sleep, Pepsi Max, YAs by Meg CabotTV and my late cat, Joakim
dislikes: Techno, mathfish  

   Blogs

             + Aldís María        
 
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+ Meg Cabot
  
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+ Dísa
  
+ Hrafnkell
  
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+ Kolbrun
  
+ Erla
  
+ Gulla
             
+ Anna Margrét     +Eduardo

 

      Other links

   + My blogger.com profile
  
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+ KatSpace
  
+ Poet Katrin
  
+ Gavin DeGraw
  
+ My Bible
  
+ Meg Cabot official website
  
+ See This Movie
  
+ He with whom I compare all persons of the opposite sex
  
+ Officially a fan
  
+ Ugla
  
  + My old high school
  
+ My old college
  
+ The Uni Choir
  
+ Uni Choir chat
  
+
  
+ The BOG
  
+ Reykjavík weather

 

   Credits

   Host- Blogger
  
Skin-Blogskins
   
Designer-Dawnwake

 

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Friday, March 31, 2006

The kitchen at 7 AM


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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 20:56:-

Pictures will be posted a.s.a.p.
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 16:32:-

Flooded

I woke up at 06:42 this morning at a crashing sound, followed by a flushing or a swooshing sound and then noisy dripping. I had not the slightest clue what could have happened, but since I heard that mom, BI and SUB were up and about, I got out of bed to see what was going on. Turns out the crashing was the sound of a large patch in the kitchen ceiling collapsing (well, it wasn't the ceiling per se which collapsed, but the plaster covering it), the flushing/swooshing was the sound of a lot of water swooshing down from the ceiling onto the kitchen floor, and the dripping was the noise made by the constant water flowing from the ceiling. Setting aside the fact that a flooded kitchen scattered with plaster debris, and a hole in the ceiling is never a good thing, this came at an especially bad time. Mom, BI and SUB were scheduled to drive to Glasgow at 08:00 to pick Matti up at the airport, who would be arriving at about half past ten. In light of the circumstances, BI went alone. Anyway. While BI called somebody about this (no idea who) I went upstairs to tell Mrs Fersch, the 92-year-old lady, who was fast a sleep, about what had happened and see how it looked on her side. She was shocked and had to sit down, poor think, although her kitchen was "just" flooded - no hole in the floor or anything. I stayed up there with her for about fifteen minutes I think, while she pressed this emergency button she had, which made the telephone automatically dial some emergency number. Her phone was in the kitchen, but on the other side of the 8 cm-deep puddle, so it was lucky that it was on speaker-phone. After only a short while, some woman answered with "Mrs Fersch? Are you alright?", and Mrs Fersch told her what had happened. Soon after that BI came upstairs to talk to Mrs Fersch, and I went downstairs to get dressed. It was clear that I wouldn't be going back to bed. Mom was dressing SUB, who was shaking with fear, shock or whatever her little soul was feeling then. At least she would not let go of mom, until she handed her over to me, and I held her while mom braved the kitchen in her big waterproof shoes to put buckets under the dripping water. While this went on, BI figured out that it was Mrs Fersch's washing machine which had broke and leaked, so he went down to the basement and turned off the water for the washing machine. Soon the flowing had decreased considerably, but 30 minutes after BI first called whatever company or whomever he called, called back to say they hadn't found anybody who could fix this! So no one came, and there wasn't really much need, since mom and BI were already mopping up the murky water and picking up the plaster debris off the kitchen floor, and mom was still doing that when I left for school at 08:18. I had planted SUB, who had barely let me put her down for more than a minute at a time for the past hour, on the couch in front of the TV, and there she sat with a blanked over her lap, riveted by Ice Age, which, by the way, she was watching for the 200th time. When I got home two and a half hours later, mom had cleaned the best as possible, but the stench of wet wood and what to me smelled like mildew, was still there. It's now slowly fading because a window has been opened. And needless to say, there's still a hole in the ceiling, and will probably be there for a few weeks, because it can't be fixed until it's completely dry.

QotD: "The security system here is a guy named Rusty." - Warren, BtVS
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 15:30:-

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Weird with a beard

Recently I have been having an exceptionally weird feeling. I have been missing Danish. Not the subject - the language. Insanely weird, I know. As Andrew (from Buffy seasons 6+7) would say, weird with a beard. I never loved the subject at school, although it was one of my best - got a 9 on my final (brag brag) - but now I find myself missing not speaking, hearing at reading it five days a week. I may or may not have mentioned that SUB sometimes likes to watch Finding Nemo, which I bought on DVD in Denmark when I went there with the MR-choir last June. Of course we always watch it in English, but the other day, when I was feeling especially nostalgic about Danish, I watched the Danish-dubbed version with SUB. And it was brilliant. Soooo funny, and soooo nice to hear the language again. I think the next time I rent a DVD, I'll rent a Danish movie. Maybe I Kina spiser man hunde. Never seen that one, but I've heard it's funny. I've watched a lot of Danish films in the 6 years that I studied the language, but I think my favourite of all them has to be Den eneste ene. Funny, dramatic, romantic - all I wish for in a movie.

More weird with a beard. I swear, this is beyond ridiculous coincidences. Remember how I wrote that my German reading prelim included an interview with a girl named Katrin (my name) and the listening one was an interview with a guy named Matthias (my 11-year-old bro's name)? Well, on Friday we took a practice listening exam. This was an interview with a guy called Daniel. Which just happens to be the name of my other brother. I swear, if the next one is about a girl called Sigrun (my lil' sis's name), I will pass out with astonishment.

QotD: Faith: "Looks like the Hellmouth's officially out of business."
Giles: "There's another one in Cleveland, not to spoil the moment." - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 22:14:-

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Pretty dress


A few weeks ago, when I was searching for a dress to wear to mom and Bjorgvin's wedding, I came across this Jaeger dress. It's waaaay out of my price range, but since it's so pretty I just want to show you a picture of it. I then found a beautiful dress at John Lewis which I bought, though it was kind of expensive. I was just trying it on, just for the fun of it, because I didn't want to spend that much money on a dress, but then it fit perfectly. But I didn't buy it, because I wanted to show it to mom first, if maybe she didn't like it (I usually don't consult her when buying clothes - I stopped accepting help (except financial) when I was three, even though I didn't have any sense of style then. For years I coupled e.g. a flower-pattern sweater with pinstripe jeans. Horrid.) but this is her wedding, so I thought she should be allowed to veto if she hated it. So when I got home I googled and gogled till I couldn't google no more, but did not find a picture of the dress. I decided it was too expensive, anyway, and I'd just continue searching.But the following weekend, a sign from above, fate or whatever, led to my buying the dress after all. There was a picture of it on the fashion page in the design section of Scotsman Magazine. I showed it to mom, and she liked it, and said since I have so much money in the bank, I should just go for it. And the rest is history. This dress is the most expensive piece of clothing I have, and my favourite one, too. I'm also going to wear it to the Leaver's Ball on 29 June, but that's still three months away, and since I want to take as good care of the dress as possible, I folded it with the paper thing the clerk at John Lewis folded with it before she put it in the bag (why is it the more pricey stores are more careful with their goods?), and put it in the box the silk pyjamas from Jenners, which I got from Sigrun snr for Christmas, came in. So it won't get dusty like it probably would if it would just hang in the closet for three months.
I cut the picture out of the paper and glued it to a small piece of carton, and then I took a picture of it with my recently fixed digital camera. I'll post the picture here as soon as possible, so you all can bask in the beauty.


(Yes, I know: I'm obsessed)

QotD: Giles: "Let's not jump to conclusions."
Buffy: "I didn't jump. I took a tiny step and there conclusions were." -Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 13:35:-

Friday, March 24, 2006

http://www.stuffonmycat.com

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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 15:42:-

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Kewl

Watch these Webisodes - they're real funny. That Felicity Huffman sure is good!
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 23:56:-

Be KIND

German grammar has a quality about it. I don't know whether it's boring or soothing or calming, but for some reason I always get rather tired when I do some grammar practice. Often I only mean to rest my eyes for a couple of seconds, but then those couple of seconds turn into a few seconds and then into a dozen or 5, and I doze off for a couple of minutes every few minutes. This happened on Monday, but fortunately we had a substitute teacher who just sat at the desk correcting papers or whatever, because Ms Malcolm, my German teacher, wouldn't have let me get away with it (I don't think the substitute even noticed). It didn't really matter that much; I won't fall behind or anything, since I'm doing some extension material for Advanced Higher/university level, because the basic grammar my classmates are doing is too easy for me. So while they struggle with pronouns, cases and word order, I’m scribbling down practice sentences, converting them to the subjunctive II (which you Latin brains might know as coniunctivus II). It can actually get a bit hard, sometimes, so it's fortunate that my grammar book has answers at the back. It is, in fact, the same age as me (or older perhaps?) and Ms Malcolm used it to teach foreigners German in Germany or Austria years and years ago. There are no explanations in English, so it's fortunate that I know what it is because of equivalents in Icelandic and Latin. There! One year of Latin grammar is already helping me; I wouldn't have figured out right away what Konjunktiv II was if I didn't already know that it was obviously the same as the Latin word, so I knew that it was the same as vidtengingarhattur in Icelandic, and I learned about that way back in the 8th grade.
Gosh, it's so funny to listen to German spoken with an English/Scottish accent.
And speaking of funny Scottish. There's this one word that completely exceedes the average hilarity of Scottish words (no offence to Scots; this is just my observation as a non-Scot). It's skiving, which means cutting/skipping class/school.

Mr Swinburne, my History teacher, is a funny guy. Sort of a mixture of funny-haha and funny-back-away-slowly-and-avoid-eye-contact. He reminds me a little bit of Gudbjartur, the teacher who taight me Chemistry and Physics in my first year at MR, only a little bit saner. Today he told us that his rabbit, Crafty, died recently, and he showed us a picture of a rabbit on the back of a magazine which he said he kept there to remind him of Crafty. It sounds very much like it's just some made-up story, but with Mr Swinburne, you never know!

QotD: "I laugh in the face of danger! Then I hide until it goes away." - Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 21:54:-

Monday, March 20, 2006

Discovery

I can't believe that it took me such a long time to discover myspace.com. I mean, obviously I'd heard of the site before, but I hadn't really discovered it, you know? I've now discovered that it's a great place to discover music I've never heard before. For example, I discovered Mushman, and Eisley, both of which are rather good. Unfortunately, songs can't be downloaded from Eisley's site, probably because they've released an album, but Mushman haven't so there are four great songs ready for downloading. I've also further discovered Michelle Branch, whose song Goodbye to You I heard first on the episode Tabula Rasa in season 6 of Buffy, and loved, and thanks to a dear pirate friend I've got it on my iPod now.

Well, I'm keeping on discovering, and then I'm off to bed, all while not thinking of how I could have spent this weekend better...

QotD: Ben: "Two words, Susan: Gay disco."
Susan: "Do you want to expand on that?"
Ben: "Not really, no." - My Family
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 00:22:-

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Byte me

Yesterday I had this great experience. The experience of finally getting my very own computer, a laptop, in fact. I've always just got my mom's old computers when she herself upgraded, before. But now I have one all by myself. I paid about 40% of the price, and the rest was an early birthday present from mom and Bjorgvin. This is an official THANK YOU to them! My old computer had about 4-5 MBs left on the hard drive, so every time I wanted to add pictures and/or songs, I had to delete something. And of course it was incredibly slow. This new one... well, it's a whole other world, let me tell you. Not only do I have more space on the hard drive, the wireless connection is much better andstable, and obviously I can move the computer around the house - anywhere I want! And it doesn't take five+ minutes to turn it on and off. I am happy. This laptop, or Notebook as it's called, is Advent 7087, and it has Windows XP.

Fun fact: on azlyrics.com, there are thirteen artists (rappers, I daresay) whose stage names start with Lil'.

I have been told that I should not blog about this, but for the sake of the whole blogworld, I just must. You all deserve a good laugh. My mother wrote a blog post today, in which she included that she had finished her essay on the Edinburgh Dungeon. Like an avid blogger, she also included a link to the Edinburgh Dungeon's website. But being still only a newbie, she simply wrote the address from memory, instead of opening the website and then copy+paste-ing the address, just in case there were any spelling mistakes or the likes. That is exactly what happened to dear mommy. She only realised her mistake after my grandmother, her mother, commented that she was shocked at this - roughly translated: "What ever is in that dungeon! You should know what came up on my computer when I opened the link on your site! No, I will not print this here." Surprised at this comment, mom clicked the link herself.
Turns out it was the address to some porn site! (For your protection, I will not post the link here. I haven't looked at it myself; I just took mom's word for it.) What an embarrassing thing - that grandma was the first one to notice the mistake! She was so shocked, and she called my aunt in panic, thinking the site was stuck on her computer or something!
I hope you had a good laugh (I certainly had a huge laughing fit), because I wrote this without my mother's permission. Sorry mom!

Well, enough for tonigt. Must save some of my ideas for later.

QotD: "Everyone dies. Not everyone really lives." - William Wallace, Braveheart
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 22:37:-

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Have a blether

My very first day in a Scottish high school I learned a bunch of new words. One of them I was especially amused by, because it resembles an Icelandic word, and has the same meaning. That would be the verb "to blether" which means to chat or talk about nothing special, the same as the verb "ad bladra" in Icelandic. Yes, I was amused, and still am, when the teacher says when there are only a few minutes left of a lesson: "Have a blether."

As those of you know who have ever been to Scotland or have seen Taggart, Rebus or any Scottish show/movie, or the typical Scottish character in other shows/movies, the typical Sottish accent can sometimes be hard to understand. Of course there are many different dialects, most of which are fairly understandable to a non-Scot. When I first came here, I often had a bit of trouble understanding e.g. people on the news or even the newscasters themselves (I thought people in that position should be very ariculate?), but now I find that it is easier for me to understand that stereotypical Scottish accent (like Willie on The Simpsons :) ) than some English people (always with the "vv" instead of "th"). I just realised that last Saturday, when I was watching the pre-Eurovision competition here, that is, when six different acts from all over the UK were competing to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest in May. Strangely but understandably, a 30-something "rapper" Daz Sampson with 20-something girls in red and blue school uniforms singing back-ups and dancing on school desks, won. The song is called "Teenage Life" (hence the school uniforms) and is OK (of the six songs which competed, there were only two that it was totally obvious could come first. The other one was sung by shiny-suit-wearing Antony Costa of Blue), somewhat reminiscent of Jay-Z's Hard Knock Life. Anyways. Back to the accent. There was a telephone- and text vote, and the country was divided into five or six parts, Scotland one of them. Then there were presenters in a city from each part, who announced the results from those parts, much like in the Eurovision Song Contest itself. The woman who presented the results from the voting in Scotland was from Glasgow, and surprisingly I found it easier to understand her than some of the other presenters, especially the Welsh one, but that's not really surprising (!). Obviously I did understand them all, but sometimes I did have to pay more attention to what they were saying.

I don't know if any of you who watched Buffy back in the day remember Principal Schneider, the principal of Sunnydale High seasons 1-3, before he was eaten by the Mayor, who had just been transformed into a giant snake demon. I just noticed a couple of days when I was looking for a word in my German dictionary that the word "Schneider" means tailor. I don't know if it's just a coincidence that the principal was called that, or if it has any hidden meaning. Any ideas?

Well, Audrey Hepburn awaits me. Toodles.

QotD: Benjy: "Are you gonna do any more acting, Mr. Monk?"
Adrian Monk: "Anything is possible, Benjy. Except that." - Monk
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 21:32:-

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Of daring and Teletubbies on LSD

My aunt Audur Lilja has dared me to name four things of various types. So here goes.

4 jobs I have had:
1. "Gardener" etc. for the "Work School" in Reykjavik
2. Fish fileting and related at HB Grandi Fish Factory in Reykjavik
3. Babysitting kids for various families
4. One night in 2003 or 2004 I helped with pulling together copies of Frettabladid one night when the machine which usually does that was broken. My ex-stepdad, who also happens to be Matti's father, coaxed me into doing this, as he works there

4 films I can watch again and again:
1. Saved!: If you've ever read this blog before, you should know by now that of course this one is at the top of my list.
2. Eulogy: A comedy as black as can be, and accordingly funny. 3. Les Choristes: Simply beautiful in all respects, especially the language (French=beauty), but mostly the music. 96 minutes of goosebumps - the good kind.
4. A Hard Day's Night: The Beatles: Need I say more? Actually, I haven't watched it in a while. I think it's maybe about time I buy the DVD (I've only got a battered VHS copy which my dad gave me, and came out sometime in the last century.)

4 places I have lived in:
1. Isafjordur, Iceland
2. Braedraborgarstigur 22 & 24A, Westside (Vesturbaer), Reykjavik, Iceland
3. Hallveigarstigur 6A, Thingholt/City centre, Reykjavik, Iceland
4. (xx) Leven Terrace, Bruntsfield, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

4 television programmes I like: (why only four? there are so many!)
1. Uh, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: same as with Saved!; how many times has the QotD been from Buffy? Probably about 75-80% of the time. I love this show. Did I mention that I bought the fourth season box set on DVD last Friday? Well, I did. Brilliant. Much better than just having the latter half on VHS, recorded from PoppTiVi back in 2002
2. Neighbours: I love the Australian accent and phrases (good on ya mate! muck/stuff up...), and there's always something juicy going on on Ramsay Street! And no matter when you start watching regularly, you can easily pick up what's happened after seeing just a couple of episodes. I missed an entire year when I moved here, and it took me no time to catch up - I didn't even have to go online to read old recaps!
3. ER: County General - if I were in Chicago and got in an accident, I would totally prefer to be treated there, to witness all the drama (and when Morris is concerned: comedy; you can always count on him for a little comic relief) etc. And it's the same as with Neighbours - it doesn't really matter in the long run, if you miss a season.
4. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation & NY: It's both admirable and intimidating how intelligent those characters are. Half the time I've got no idea what they're talking about, but nevertheless I'm glued to the screen when they're on.

4 websites I visit daily besides blogs:
1. IMDB.com - my bible (see link)
2. Meg Cabot Book Club - always gotta know what's going on at good old MCBC
3. The Future - see if there's anything interesting going on back in MR - even though it's been almost a year since I went there, I still feel like an MR-student deep in my heart. When I watched the short about MR on Gettu betur last week, my heart swelled with pride and I thought: "This is my old school!"
4. Allpoetry.com - the narcissist in me wants to see if anybody's commented on any of my poems, although it doesn't happen often, due to my lack of networking by commenting on other poets' poetry. Most recently Laurelleaf interpreted my poem Not Snow in a much deeper way than I could; the preferrend reading was just literal - not snow - but I like Laurelleaf's analysis so much better, it makes me come out as a total deep thinker. Which I'm not, really.

4 dishes I like:
1. Various chicken dishes. Just love those fuzzy little baby poultry.
2. Lamb a la Grandma Haddy
3. Cauliflower soup
4. Svidh (Icelandic dish - boiled sheep's head, delicious)

4 places I've vacationed in:
1. Norway (2X, including once when I was 1 or 2)
2. Denmark (3x)
3. France
4. Scotland (OK, so I live there now, but I came here during the summer holidays and I did lots of tourist stuff with the family)

4 places I'd rather be right now:
1. I'd love to be in New York City. Never been there before, but I daresay it's a "happening place" - and I've been told I'd like it
2. Iceland - starting to get a little homesick! Not that I don't like it here, because I do, it's just... there's no place like home! Of course, this is home, too.
3. France - I'd always love to be there. It's been almost 8 years since I was there last, and I didn't really fully appreciate it the way I could have.
4. Dunno. That's all.


About a month ago I badmouthed the Teletubbies a bit. I feel it is time to revisit the topic. Despite the dullness of the Teletubbies - "Tinky Winky and Dipsy were very busy. They were making footprints." I rest my case. - Sigrun Ugla persists in loving them, or as she calls them, "Laa-Laa Poh." I try not to let her watch TV all day, but sometimes she will just not get off my back, in which case the simplest way to calm her down is just heed to Her Majesty's orders and put on the bloody Teletubbies DVD. I think that the creators of Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Poh must have been on something when they came up with the idea. I mean - some asexual creatures with an inbuilt television screen on their belly, which turns automatically on when some weird windmill-thingy on the bump (I will not dignify it with the word "hill", it's so small) where they live spins, spreading small, pastel-pink flashy stars all around it, and the same picture comes up on the screen. It looks like the Teletubbies are tripping or something. Some people see pink elephants walking in the walls, some people see cartoon birdies circling over their head, some people see pastel-pink stars spinning on their belly. I'm just sayin'. When the Teletubbies were aired first, everybody was all worried that Tinky Winky is purple, has the chosen toy of a red handbag but has a male voice, so people thought he was gay and therefore a bad influence on the toddlers who watched the show. Let's not forget the name, which is... weird, homo- or heterosexual. Those naggers didn't stop to think the Teletubbies are supposed to be (as far as I know) asexual. But how come nobody was upset that the Teletubbies act like they are on acid half the show? Don't drugs have worse influence on kids than gay-looking teddy bears? OK, so there isn't exactly any "instructional drug use" or any mentioning of it (God forbid the Tubbies should even form a whole sentence, let alone talk about popping acid).
Yeah, I know. This theory is just as ridiculous as the one of Tinky Winky being gay. Well, almost.

Take a look at this.

More later,
much love,
Trina.

QotD: "We destroyed the mall? I fought on the wrong side." -Dawn (after the final battle), Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 20:35:-

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Catching Z's at the wrong time

Today I had Media Studies in 3rd period. We were supposed to start watching the documentary we'll be studying for the next few weeks: Bowling for Columbine! I watched it a couple of years ago, and I really liked it. I think I am a fan of Michael Moore in general; he is a very persuasive documentary-maker and I agree with all the points he has made in the documentaries by him that I've seen - Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 (although I was a bit offended by that bit about Iceland being on the list of the willing nations for the war in Iraq; it was just the Prime Minister who decided it and when the film came out we had been removed from this list. But not when it was made, which is a pity. Now everybody who's seen the film thinks Iceland is a total Bush-sucker, when we are really the opposite!) and the TV-series The Awful Truth.
Unfortunately somebody had nicked Ms Conroy's copy of the documentary, so we had no choice but to talk instead. This is one of the things I like about Media Studies; if sometimes we happen to digress from the topic we're discussing or supposed to be doing, it's not such a big deal. Ms Conroy and Mr Sulleyman are so relaxed, and they are actually my favourite teachers (out of the 5-6 that I have). Today we started by talking about Michael Moore, which led to a discussion about America and racism. It was quite an interesting chat. Ms Conroy shared with us a couple of anecdotes from her childhood. One was that when she was in P2/P3, there was an Asian kid in her class. All the kids just called him Paki, (which if you don't know, is an offensive term for Pakistani people) but they didn't realise what it meant, including Ms Conroy. They just thought his name was Paki. They were of course only 6-8, and kids that age don't really know what racism is. But the shocking thing is that nobody, not the teachers and not their parents, corrected them! So they just kept on calling him Paki for years, without knowing that it was an insult. Ms Conroy said that she didn't even know his name, or doesn't remember it. This is a good example of how much racism there was here, and apparently there's still a lot today. But like Ms Conroy said, JGHS is sort of a sheltered place, so we don't really realise how common racism is.

I miss the library at MR, Ithaka, a bit. The JGHS library is all right; there are big tables and it's OK to chat quietly (sometimes not so quietly, though, until the librarian shushes.) but the book collection isn't that big and if you really need to get into your studies, this is not always the most quiet place. Ithaka, however, has a big room, old with a high intimidating ceiling, especially for studying. Last time I was there, the tables were aligned two and two together, and you could hear a needle drop. I always got a little nervous when I had to get up, because the chair scraping against the floor always made such a loud noise and I didn't want to disrupt the others' studying. Oh, I miss that.

Speaking of missing. Last Monday I missed ER, and was particularly bummed because this seemed like a good episode; according to The Scotsman TV-guide, there was a plane crash and the staff at the Cook County General Hospital's ER had to treat the victims. Pity to miss that. But I was kind of more angry at myself for the reason why I missed it. How, you ask? I slept through it. ER always starts at 10 PM on Channel 4 on Monday nights, and at 9 PM I decided to watch this episode of Extraordinary People called The Real Rain Man. I lay in bed to be more comfortable, and I dozed off a couple of times. The last time I didn't wake up until at five past eleven. And what's more, I thought I had slept for more than 12 hours. I sure felt like it; it was apparently in deep sleep. It is so annoying when this happens; when I accidentally fall asleep during the day or in the evening, before I plan on going to bed, and I only sleep for a short time but think it was much longer, or worse, the other way around.

QotD: "That's me favourite shirt! That's me only shirt!" -Kendra, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 19:48:-

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

When Bummer T. Jones III met Joy

Last prelim today! Yay! I had Media Studies this morning and then unseen analysis for the same subject after lunch. Unseen analysis means that we watch a short clip from a "text" (don't ask me why they call it "text"), in this case the title sequence from a news show that was broadcast last night, which we haven't seen before. We are supposed to take notes, and then write an essay about it, and include as much as possible. I though I did all right; I wrote two sides of an A4, which is actually a lot because my handwriting is so tiny. When I got home, however, I realised that I should have written a lot more on categories (or anything) and backed some stuff up more. I bet I'll get good marks for technical and cultural codes, though. (I just love throwing around media jargon which nobody understands!) I managed to finish both essays we had to write this morning, and got two hours to do it; the Media department apparently doesn't follow the English and History departments' policy of allowing ridiculously short time (80-90 minutes) to write to essays. I bet they do that just to terrorize pupils into studying so hard that they can actually fit both essays into this tiny time slot. Anyways. It was such an coincidence (or not?) that I had actually prepared pretty well for the exact two questions which I chose, so I wasn't nervous or anything when I started writing. I know I won't get an A, but I am pretty sure I didn't fail, and am expecting at least a C, perhaps even a B! The unseen analysis might drag my grade down a little. Either way, I'll be cool with it, because they're just prelims and they don't matter. Heh. Joy, that this is all over. Granted, I still have German oral exam, History Paper 2 and Extended History Essay to sit before Easter, but hey, I've finished my first "big" (or at least "stressing") examinations at JGHS.
I had German prelims yesterday and on Monday; listening & writing yesterday and reading & writing on Monday. There was a funny coincidence in the reading part; it included an interview with a German girl called Katrin Schmidt. Naturally I smiled when I saw that I would be answering questions about my namesake. But an even more obscure coincidence occurred in the listening part yesterday; before we started listening to the interview, we got to look over the questions. You can only imagine my surprise when I saw that the interview was with a guy called Matthias! I actually laughed out loud when I saw that. But just a little laugh. In case you don't know/remember, my little brother's name is Matthias. How often does it happen that there's an exam which includes interviews with people of the same names as a person sitting the exam and her (or his) sibling? Probably never, I tell you!
I sat the English prelim last week. There were two essays to be written. There were five or six sections of essay questions, two of which we were supposed to choose a question from. My class had prepared to write essays about prose (The Great Gatsby) and poetry. The other sections were, if I remember correctly, play, non-fiction, or TV-drama/film. I was pretty surprised when I saw the last section. I did not know that TV-drama/film was a part of the English syllabus here. Maybe it is in some schools. I thought this was a part of Media Studies. I don't remember all the questions, but I do remember that I could have totally written an essay to answer a couple of them, both about "texts" we've studied at school, and ones that I've seen at home. There was one question which went something like this: "Choose a TV-drama/film which relies heavily on special effects and show how they affect the text/help the narrative/whatever with an example (or two?) from the text." Hello. Can anybody shout Buffy?!? The TV-drama (OK, so it's also horror/sci-fi, but it's totally dramatic, with a few comedic comments or events in between, usually supplied by Xander, Anya, or Andrew in the last season) Buffy the Vampire Slayer relies heavily on special effects - uh, dusting of vampires, various superpowers of demons, for instance - and I, being Buffy fan number 2, so totally could have written a long essay about the use and importance of special effects in Buffy. A great example could have been the big finale - episode 7.22, Chosen, when (cue highlighting:) the whole of Sunnydale collapsed into the Hellmouth, right after 30 or so newly-chosen slayers had dusted Turok-Hans (a.k.a. Neanderthal-/Uber-vamps) left and right, on a liedge right above the Hellmouth, beneath Sunnydale High. And Buffy jumping between buildings to catch up with the bus fleeing town, just as the houses collapsed only inches behind her. This episode did certainly rely heavily on special effects.

I am too lazy to write about the Thorrablot on Saturday: if you're interested and Icelandic, read about it here, but if you're not Icelandic read about it here. Unfortunately the batteries died on my stupid caera (even though I had just changed them), so I don't have any pictures, but I'm sure Gunnella won't mind if I tell you that you can find a few pictures in her web-photoalbum.

Well, I have written about the Joy of having finished the prelims, but let me tell you about Bummer T. Jones III. I thought that prelim leave would last the whole two weeks after the February holiday, and since my last was today, I assumed I would have Thursday and Friday off. Which really overjoyed me. However, only yesterday I found out that there aren't any prelims tomorrow and on Friday, so school starts again tomorrow!!! Which is nothing but a bummer. But I'm at least glad that I was told this, because if not, I would have skipped school for two days without knowing it, and that wouldn't have been good at all! In fact, it would have soiled my so far sterile-white attendance record. So hello to school at 8:30 AM tomorrow morning. Instead of sitcom morning on Channel 4. Looks like I won't be watching early morning Friends, Just Shoot Me, Will & Grace and Frasier until Easter holidays. Not that it's such a huge loss.

On Friday I have decided to go to the St. James (Shopping) Centre, which houses the largest department store in the UK, John Lewis. Isn't it weird that I have lived here for almost 7 months and only just found out about this huge mall right at the end of Princes Street? I knew the relatively tiny Princes Mall couldn't be the only mall here. I should just take a random bus sometime and take a tour of Edinburgh; I have never done that, and it's such a small part of the city that I'm familiar with. St. James Centre is on the corner on Princes Street and Leith Street, which is past Waverley Bridge. I rarely walk taht far; when I go shopping on Princes Street, I usually turn around on the corner of Waverley Bridge or cross it to walk another way home. Hence my never finding out about John Lewis. Which I think is a shame, because I was starting to think there is not enough variety of shops in this city. I was getting bored of just browsing H&M, Next, Zara and Debenhams on Princes Street for clothes. And of course Waterstones, Virgin Megastore and HMV. But that's it. Perhaps an odd small interesting shop on the Bridges, George Street or Bruntsfield Place.
Anyways. Desperate Housewives are waiting.
Oh, and by the way: I sure would appreciate comments from you anonymous readers who only leave your marks on my counter. It is pathetic that in the last couple of weeks my mother is the only one who has commented.

QotD: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." - Rick, Casablanca
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 20:35:-

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