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 Cabot, TV and my late cat, Joakim dislikes:Techno, math, fish
I had my 3rd blogging anniversary last Friday, and it totally passed me by! Yes, I have now been blogging for more than THREE freaking YEARS! Am I conscientious or WHAT? |
-: Trina
illustrated her blog at 00:28:-
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Single-mother-of-two
I now know what it's like to be a single mother. Of two children. No, I did not just give birth to twins. If I had, I probably would have given you, dearest readers, about 6 or 7, maybe even 8 months heads-up on it.
But yeah, I have experienced taking full care, 24/7 (actually, it was approximately 74 hours), of a 2 1/2-year-old and a 12-year-old. This last weekend, mom and BI went on a weekend get-away to York. Of all places. But they enjoyed it, which is the important thing, right?
Well, on Friday I picked Sigrun Ugla up from kindergarten at 13:00, and she did not complain (or even notice, I think!) that her parents were absent; she probably thought at first that they would be back by dinner, or after she went to bed, and that they'd at least be there when she woke up the next morning. I have, after all, babysitted for her before. But she did milk it! She made me sing her to sleep in the evening - I sang just about all the songs that I know by heart and remembered at that moment. And I do have a 2 cm-thick folder of sheet music of songs, most of which I still remember (I didn't actually dig up the music to create a repertoire; I'm just using this to clarify how much exactly I sang for her!). So Sigrun Ugla was puhretty happy about that... little vixen! But it's all good. I like singing for her. She never says anything, doesn't notice if I accidentally go off key, and is genuinely disappointed when I finish a song and especially when I get up to leave - "Katti synga meia" = Katrin syngja meira = Katrin sing more. I know she's only a toddler, but it does do stuff for the self-confidence!
Anyway. Matti behaved (mostly!!!) as he had promised mom - if he was going to try something, I just reminded him that for the whole weekend, I was his mother, I had power over him! One time he talked back at that; he said I couldn't be his mother (obviously I meant figuratively, not literally!) to which I replied that I do know it would be physically impossible for me to be his mother (I'm only 7 years older than him...), but it is true that not only once but twice people have thought I was his mother/the mother of a 12-year-old. And people mistake me for Sigrun Ugla's mother all the time. So I was perfect for the part!
The weekend went well, all in all; Sigrun Ugla gave us no trouble - even when she woke up on Saturday and Sunday morning an hour before I had set my alarm clock (she woke up at 8:30 AM), she didn't actually cry, but only complained a bit, and when I had released her from her crib prison, she peacefully wandered around the room, climbed in bed with me, read a little, while in between gently tugging at me saying "nakna! nakna!"=vakna!=wake up! But I persevered - I was waaaay too tired to get up, so the last 15-20 minutes I let her lay in bed with me and showed her photos on my mobile and iPod. Obviously I couldn't actually sleep, but it didn't involve me having to get out of bed, so I was cool with it. On Saturday we rented a couple of DVDs from our fave movie rental place, Alphabet Video & DVD on Marchmont Road, where they have an incredible collection of films and all that. And it's tiny! Very cosy, the staff are so friendly and helpful, and the atmosphere is nice there. You can find ANYTHING there. Even Icelandic films!
Anyway. On Saturday night after I had put Sigrun Ugla to sleep, Matti and I watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It was a strange but good movie, but imagine our surprise when in the very end of it we suddenly heard something familiar in the background music; we didn't recognise the song, but the language! It was Icelandic! So I looked up the soundtrack listings on the internet, and surely enough, there was a song by Sigur Ros! Seeing as how it was Sigur Ros, it was kind of hard to hear what exactly the singer was singing - if it did make any sense at all; they often do that, I've heard - but it was distinctly Icelandic, that's for sure.
So that was cool.
On Sunday I dragged the kids into town, and we went to the (German I think?) Christmas market on the Mound (or, to be exact, on the square between the museum and the East Princes Street Gardens, the name of which I've forgotten) and the Winter Wonderland thing in the East Princes Street Gardens. It was nice, going out like that as a family... Mein Gott! I've even acquired some parent-vocab! After one weekend! Well, anyway, we got a whole bag of pink candy floss and then Danish hot dogs - i.e. hot dogs with not only ketchup and mustard, which seems to be the only toppings the people here put on their hot dogs, but also with fried onion and remoulade! I didn't even know they had remoulade here! Maybe the Germans brought it with them. Come to think of it, they must have. I mean, as this is so good, why wouldn't hot dog salespeople have remoulade on the topping menu, if they had it here? It wouldn't make any sense.
On Monday I woke up a half hour earlier than usually, so I'd have some time to make myself presentable before waking up Sigrun Ugla and getting her ready. Matti, the little angel, got up on time, all by himself as he'd promised, with no complaints at all. Good boy. I took Sigrun Ugla to kindergarten at 8, and she wasn't too happy about me leaving after I'd helped her take off her parka and hat; she didn't cry, but she made a serious frown. I hugged her, and then the nurse took her in her arms, and the last I saw of my sister before I went to school was this huge disappointed frown. So you can imagine how happy she was when I came to pick her up later that day! She came running and took her seat in her pushchair before I had even helped her put on her outdoor clothes! The nurse told me she'd been good but quiet. Which she often is. It's not like she can often get a word in edgeways at the dinner table in this family! She's like her father that way; silent and pensive.
I put her to sleep for her nap at about 2 PM, and mom and Bjorgvin came home while she was sleeping. The exact moment they entered the house I could suddenly feel this enormous tiredness pour over me - the pressure was off! I hadn't even realised that I was so exhausted! Though it was kinda nice that, according to Bjorgvin, Sigrun Ugla actually asked for me when he woke her up from her nap, I can honestly say that I am not going to have any kids of my own for at least 7-9 years. If I accidentally get pregnant, then too bad. Abortion is the answer. Because I have now had just a tiny taste of what it's like to be a mother, and I do not want to do that full-time until I am completely ready in all respects; first comes eduaction, then career, then money, a husband or a not-yet-husband somewhere along the way, and then children. Yes indeed. Having a baby sister at this age, it has given me valuable experience, both as a miniature preparation for when I have a kid of my own, but also as a warning...
OK, this is getting too long. I should save my writing venting for the King Lear essay I'm gonna have to continue writing in class tomorrow and Thursday (well, I did get the intro done today... 6-8 handwritten pages to go!). Not to mention the dissertation! Shite! *nervouscrazyeyes* I'll be a very busy bee (-slack! haha!) during the Christmas holidays in Iceland...
Good night everybody!
QotD: Steve Zissou: "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome." - The Lifa Aquatic with Steve Zissou(the film in a nutshell!)
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-: Trina
illustrated her blog at 23:58:-
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
My name is Jane
The spam thing hasn't worked... so far. FIFTEEN new messages in my visir.is inbox today, and ALL of them were spam. Oh well. I'll just have to wait and see.
My pal Rebekah accidentally called me Jane today. I like that name - and not just because it's the name of one of my fave authors (Jane Austen of course!). It just sounds... cool. Normal. I'd like to be normal. Have a normal name. Here, my name is not normal. It is a tounge-twister. In Iceland, you can bank on finding a Katrin or two in every workplace, and at least that many in each year in a single school. I wonder if I can get people to call me Jane? As, like, a nickname? I'll see what I can do.
Check this out. It's kinda cool! I can only say I wish I'd been there...
I feel like such a fool. For a while now... a long while... I have been receiving way more spam at my visir.is e-mail account than ever regular mail. And until tonight, I had not a clue as to how in the world my poor e-mail inbox came to become such a spam-magnet. But while I was cooking dinner tonight, I was listening to this podcast on my iPod (the Unofficial Gilmore Girls Podcast - strongly reccommend it to any GG-fan!), and one of the hosts of this podcast said something that caught my attention. He was talking about how he decided not to make their e-mail a link on their website, because he didn't want loads of spam. And then I realised. For months now, more than a year I think even, since the last time I changed my blog skin, I've had my visir.is e-mail a link on this blog (see: left side column). When I created it, I had no idea that it might attract any spam. I don't know if this is the main reason for all my spam, but I hope that now I've un-made the link it will slow down. Hope hope hope...
So. Tom and Katie finally did it. Yup, they're married now. I wonder if she's giving him a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat? Read this for a funny commentary on the wedding...
"Help! Someone PLEASE get me out of here!"
QotD: "April Burns: Please give me my stupid fucking turkey!" - Pieces of April (the only good movie I've seen Katie Holmes in!)
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-: Trina
illustrated her blog at 20:36:-
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Razzmatazz
From now on I will always laugh, giggle, or at least smile a bit, when I hear and/or say that word. Razzmatazz. And razzle-dazzle. It's such a funny word... ROFLMAO!!! According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary: razzmatazz: noun (informal) a lot of noisy exciting activity that is intended to attract people's attention.
QotD: Kevin McAllister: "Bless this highly nutririous microwaveable maccaroni and cheese dinner, and the people who sold it on sale. Amen." - Home Alone |
Yes, I have a created a schedule for my German homework (well, partly), so I'll be sure to finish Tonio Kroeger before the Christmas holidays, as I have promised Ms Malcolm I'll do. Atleast two pages a day. That's all. It really isn't a long book - more of a novella - and at first... for the first few weeks, I mean... it seemed a lot; a whole book in turn-of-the-century classic German? Oof. But it's really not that hard. Two pages a day goes all the way. Heehee, I rhymed!
The English dissertation work, however... a bit harder. In order to finish taking notes from both books and start writing before Christmas, I need to finish Persuasion next Sunday... that's 200 pages... you do the math! And then two weeks for Sense & Sensibility, which is 300+ pages. I don't know if I'm going to make it. But thankfully, I've got until the beginning of January to finish. So at least I'll have something to do while I'm spending these weeks in Isafjordur!
That's all I can think of to write tonight. Going back to watching Ghost. Patrick Swayze... gross, I know, but mmmmm. It's also kinda funny that I can now see that my mother had the same haircut in 1990 as Demi Moore did in Ghost! My mother was the girl who had her hair cut the way a celebrity did in a movie. My mother. I know! I can't believe it either!
QotD: Oda Mae Brown: "Why don't you go haunt a house? Rattle some chains or something." - Ghost
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-: Trina
illustrated her blog at 21:01:-
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Don't let the bed bugs bite
I didn't get much sleep last night. Not because I went so late to bed (which I did not!), but because of the intense and vivid REM dreaming. I had one dream, then some deep sleep, then another dream, and then I woke up with a start, and totally shattered.
I think the fact that both dreams were kind of dramatic and film-like is a testament to how much TV and films I watch.
The first dream was like a deaytime soap opera; in fact, it had one character from Neighbours and a similar plotline. Because I had that dream first I remember less of it. Anyway; there was a boy. A very pregnant boy. With dark hair, which is important to how the story goes. He had a girlfriend - played by none other than Janae Timmins/Hoyland of Neighbours (the 16-year-old who married Boyd Hoyland not long ago). She was a blond - aslo important to the story. Anyway: Janae was all excited about the babay and was always talking about how nice it would be to have it and how cute and pretty it would be. But one time, when the boy had had enough of her talking about the little blue-eyed and blonde (like her!) baby and just couldn't hold it in anymore, he yelled at her: "Yeah, it'll be wonderful, but the baby will have dark hair, DAMMIT, dark hair!!!" This opened Janae's eyes; she read between the lines and realised the truth: it wasn't her baby, it was his ex's, who had dark hair! This made Janae cry and run away, feeling betrayed.
That's the last I remember.
The next dream was like a horror film, seriously. I was actually a character in this dream, as opposed to just a member of the audience like in the first one. It went like this: I got a new job (I don't remember if there even was a job descriprion!) at a health spa/law firm combo, where my cousin Sandra also happened to work as a lawyer. My first day I came in, and the receptionist at the front desk and a couple of the staff were standing really excited and hyper, in front of the door to the first pool/spa room at the front. I asked what was going on, and they were like "Are you kidding? She's here! In her room! (for this was a private room belonging to...)" And I was all "Who?" "Katie Melua! She's in her room! Be careful! Be quiet!" So I carefully anf quitely tiptoed past the door and into the main hall. There I met my cousin. Some time passes, and all of a sudden I'm lying in a bed with white sheets - still at the office/spa - and I'm covered in these really gross bloody wounds and sores from which pus is flowing. It looks like there are invisible bugs biting at my fkesh, and moving the sores. I sit up and look around - and see that the few other people who are left there are in the same situation. And just as grossed out. We try to tend to each other's wounds, cleaning them and stuff, but with every healed wound the invisible bugs make two new ones. Yuck. We realise it's a lost battle, and give up and try to figure something else out. Except for the few of us, the place is abandoned. It looks kinda wet. I try to call somebody on my mobile, but I don't remember what I said, and it didn't help. Some time passes. Suddenly everything is fine - I don't know how that happened - and I walk out, and as I go through the foyer, Katie Melua comes out of her room, oblivoius to all that has just gone on, and asks "Aren't we going inside?" And I say calmly: "There are bugs in there."
And then I woke up.
The funny thing about the first dream is that the basic plotline is kinda the same as one of the many in Neighbours; *SPOILER* Dylan thinks Sky is pregnant with his baby, but really it's his brother Scott's, with whom she slept with once after she and Dylan broke up. However, the only ones that know this aside from Sky are Karl and Susan.
The second dream? Well, I've been listening a lot to Katie Melua lately, and just a couple of days ago I talked to Sandra on MSN Messenger. Also yesterday Elle Robinson talked about going to a health spa with Dylan - who is now her boyfriend - and last week I watched this documentary on TV about what makes the perfect scary movie. So who says dreams have nothing to do with what you experience and are in touch with in real life?
I've been a lazy blogger lately. For that I apologize, but it's not like there's been any public demand so far, so my regret doesn't go deep. Nothing personal, people. I simply don't feel wanted, that's all.
Nah, just kidding.
Anyway. I had this totally cool post all planned out, a cool title and all, but I've forgotten it all. All I remember is that I thought it was going to be cool. That's all.
So instead of a nice tale, I'm going to write down a few funny things (well, I guess some are only funny if you were there and got the context, but a couple are good one-liners!). I hope none of the people I am quoting who just might come across this will be offended that I'm posting this for anybody to see, but just in case, I'll just keep out the names, k?
1st: On Halloween last week I went to this thing called Sahmuinn (pronounced sow-en) Fire Festival, which I can't really be bothered to explain right now, but you can read about it on the Beltane Fire Society's website. Anyway. I was downtown, and there was this procession from the Castle esplanade to The Mound, and it was, in some places, kinda crowded. As I was walking, I suddenly heard this girl behind me say with a thick American accent: "I would not be happy if I were a dog." Naturally this I found interesting and, erm, random, until I noticed this guy walking through the crowd, his dog trailing behind him. I have to admit, I felt sorry for the dog, too.
2nd: Sometime last week, a few of us were walking, and SH was eating something. I didn't quite catch what she said, but that sentence was right away followed by "I sounded like a fat person when I said that!" That drew out a chuckle or two, along with some "what?"s.
3rd: I have no problem mentioning the name of the person who said this; Ms McArthur, my registration teacher. Basically, she was talking about what we were going to raise money for, and she had suggested that we buy a goat for a family in Africa - through Oxfam, obviously. Oxfam has this thing where you can donate money which buys e.g. a goat for a family, or a donkey, or perhaps textbooks or a desk for a school; something charity-like like that. The 1st years in my class were really excited about the goat, but last week Ms McArthur felt forced to tell us about the other options as well: "I don't want you disappointed if they've run out of goats."
4th: KP overheard a bit of a conversation about how some people think Wales is close to Scotland and that people from Wales live in Scotland. Funnily, she misunderstood it a little bit: "Whales live in Scotland? Dolphins live in Scotland!"
5th: AB was unsuccessfully trying to explain some psychological concept, or perhaps it was some news in the paper about a research or something? Don't remember - wasn't really paying close attention. Anyway; he tried to make it more understandable to the female brain: "It's like... How often do you look in the mirror?"
Well, that's enough of funny real life quotes for now. I'll keep collecting, and perhaps I might post some of them here. But for the last laugh, here's the Quote of the Day.
QotD: Cordelia: "Why is it always virgin women who have to do the sacrificing?" Wesley: "For purity, I suppose."
Cordelia: "This has nothing to do with purity. This is all about dominance, buddy. You can bet if someone ordered a male body part for religious sacrifice, the world would be atheist (snaps fingers) like that!" - Angel
The spam thing hasn't worked... so far. FIFTEEN new messages in my visir.is inbox today, and ALL of them were spam. Oh well. I'll just have to wait and see. 
From now on I will always laugh, giggle, or at least smile a bit, when I hear and/or say that word. Razzmatazz. And razzle-dazzle. It's such a funny word... ROFLMAO!!!
