::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  

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+ See This Movie
  
+ He with whom I compare all persons of the opposite sex
  
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+
  
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Designer-Dawnwake

 

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Monday, September 29, 2008

The Dream

This is what I want to do after I finish my BA-degree:
Study this
and
work there. I think it would be easy for me to get a job there, because my current employer owns 51% of the company. It'd be a nice deal.


QotD: Sabrina: "You're in a chat room again pretending to be a woman, aren't you?"
Salem: "I like the attention." - Sabrina the Teenage Witch
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 23:21:-

Beat

Allen Ginsberg was a queer personage. In more ways than one. I think I'll probably write my final essay for the Beat poets course about him. It's supposed to be 8-10 pages (albeit with double line spacing, first time ever I say THANK GOD FOR MLA REGULATIONS!), and there is a lot that can be said about that man. I'm especially intrigued by his lunatic mother. I'll probably write two or even more paragraphs about her. Of the Beats that I've "studied" so far - the so-called Beat triumvirate Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs, I think Ginsberg is the only true Beat. Apparently, Kerouac was seriously influenced by Thomas Wolfe and didn't even like the Beat label. Burroughs, well, he was older than the other two and a sort of a mentor for them, but in my opinion he was just too old when the whole Beat "phenomena" erupted, and also, he was RICH. OK, he had rich parents, but he got a huge allowance from them even after he moved away from home, to NYC, so much money that he didn't really have to work. I think a true Beat had to actually be beat.
I don't really "get" Ginsberg's poem Howl, but that's what research is for! And I'm deffo gonna find something more MLA-friendly sources than Wikipedia (even though the teachers actually directed us to the Howl Wikipedia page! Amateurs... don't tell them I wrote that!).
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 22:19:-

Friday, September 26, 2008

Apparently I have not grown since I was 12

Because the swimming costume that my grandmother bought me when I was 12 (I still remember when she took me to the sports shop to buy it for me!) still fits me perfectly. Albeit a little tight while dry, it will stretch when it gets wet. Today I will be going to the swimming pool for the first time in actual years. A little bit nervous - not sure if I still know how to swim, though the swimming costume still fits - but I'm sure at least sitting in the hot tub during this freaky autumn/winter weather will be nice.

Oh, and read the poem below, and try and figure out the question I've put at the bottom. If you really know me, you won't even have to read the poem, though. But do it anyway, because it's beautiful.
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 15:52:-

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Patterns, by Amy Lowell

Do not scroll down looking for something original - read this poem!!!

I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.

My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade

Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,

And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.
I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon --
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?


Beautiful poem isn't it? I've been doing an assignment on it for Literary Analysis, and the more often I read it, the more I like it. Also, every time it gets more... (you finish this sentence!)
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 22:23:-

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Notebook

I love notebooks. I also like to write. But not as much as I like the notebooks that I write in. I like them so much that I have my nightstand drawer full of empty notebooks, just waiting to be filled with inspired thoughts and stories about my eventful life. They'll have to wait a bit longer, though. The oldest one was bought in... 2005. Or 2004. Not sure. The last time I wrote an entry in my Moleskine diary was April 2nd - and it wasn't actually that inspired, just half a page written in all caps, some angry comment about wanting to punch MasterCard. Apparently I was annoyed... I don't actually remember what it was all about, though.

I just counted; I have 11 notebooks in my nightsand drawer, and I have more in a cupboard somewhere. I have actually written a little bit in most of them, and a couple of poems in one or two, as well. I haven't felt poetic in actual years, but the notebook's there, waiting for me!

It is not just me who keeps buying those books. Most of them are gifts, from friends, relatives, friends of relatives, who are all convinced I write so much that I just can't keep up with getting hold of my own notebooks. I don't tell them that I'm not really using those gifts, because I actually like getting them!

Here's a photo of my latest one, which I bought today JUST because it was on 50% discount at Eymundsson. The photo looks a bit strange (like Emily!) because the cover is actually a bit shiny, some faux-leather or sth. Very cool. And the cats' outlines are pink string stitches.












p.s. I hate the the TAB-key doesn't work in this!!
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 14:11:-

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Bad girl dotdotdot

This has been my lazy week. -End. Both Saturday and Sunday spent headache-y, empty-stomached, dizzy, and general lack of/too much sleep, spending HOURS trying to read the same two chapters that I have to finish before 8:20 tomorrow morning, but always nodding off after half a paragraph. Which isn't strange, actually, as I usually sit in my bed reading, and if I'm home alone I sit in mum's La-Z-Boy chair - an awesome place to sit and read, where I've actually made good progress before, but it is also ideal for a nap. And in addition to that, the book I've been trying to read is not very interesting.

Ok, Mr. Roberts' intention is to teach the reader things that are important to know if you're studying literature and such, but it sometimes feels kinda useless, when I'm reading about things I already know. Things that I've already written essays about, listened to numerous teachers talk about, and things that I should think are common knowledge, at least among people who have at some point during their school years - even in primary/high school - studied English, literature, or Icelandic, should have heard many a time. Like, who doesn't know the difference between a simile and a metaphor? The man has republished this book ELEVEN times, talk about being a perfectionist! Well, not as much of a perfectionist as e.g. effing Walt Whitman rewriting his epic-length ego poem Song of Myself - which I personally don't think is poetic at all, looks like a diary in free verse, kind of pretentious - around 6 times throughout his lifetime. Biggest egocentric pre-Paris Hilton.
Anyway. I'm just glad Literary Analysis is a 6-week intensive course, and after October 13th I will be done with it. La-Z-Grl.

Even though this weekend wasn't very productive study-wise, I don't have any regrets. The reasons for daytime-laziness made it worth it. And besides, I spent the last two weekends doing nothing but reading (save for one game of bowling...), so one weekend of next-to-none reading should be OK. Give myself a teeny tiny break. I'll be better next weekend!

QotD: Dick Solomon: "Guns don't kill people, physics kills people." - 3rd Rock From the Sun
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 22:37:-

Interesting

http://ruv.is/heim/frettir/frett/store64/item227360/
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 18:10:-

Sunday, September 07, 2008

The world in a haze

Some of you may know that I don't exactly have 20/20 vision. Since I was nine years old I have had to wear glasses, and my sight has gradually been growing worse since, though the process has slowed down a bit in the past few years. When I was younger I had to get new glasses regularly, almost every year, but now it's every 3 years or so. I think.

Though I don't actually wear my glasses very often now. I've been using contacts every day since I was 16, and let me tell you it is SO much better than wearing glasses! I can actually see when it rains, and I also don't have to turn my head as much in order to look sideways, up or down.

However, I don't sleep wearing my contacts, so I have to use the glasses in the mornings and evenings when I wake up and go to sleep. Sometimes I like to play this little game when I wake up and can barely see my nightstand right next to my bed. I call it "Guess what that hazy shade over there is." Because sometimes things that aren't supposed to be on the floor "accidentally" end up there, or I don't remember what I left propped up against the laundry basket, or, even more fun, I look in the wall mirror from a side angle (from my bed, i.e.) and have no idea what things that are mirrored there are. It usually takes me a while to figure this out, because apart from the fact that these things are merely differently coloured shapes to me, I have just woken up and usually I'm not that perceptive in that newly-awakened state. The "of course!" and "how could I not realise that?" don't come until I put on my glasses.

As you can see, life with myopia is a constant surprise!
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 16:21:-

Monday, September 01, 2008

Back to school

Now that the colleges have had their "back to school" craziness (as I witnessed and experienced at the shop where I worked this summer), it's finally time for the university classes to start (well, mine at least - some started last week). Although the university bookshop claims to be "busy" at the beginning of term, I've never seen it as busy as at Griffill (my shop). OK, so during college back to school week, it is crazier there than ANYWHERE else. Except maybe Bónus supermarket on a Friday, 30 minutes before closing, and the London H&M flagship store the day Stella McCartney opened her new line of clothing. But apart from that, I don't think a lot of shops ever get as busy as this one. Apparently Eymundson bookshop considers 4+ people queuing at the register "busy". In Griffill, the definition of "busy" is when the queue actually extends from the register to the stock room door. I think that is 20-30 metres. THAT is "busy". Also, "busy" is when it takes you ten minutes to get through the shop, e.g. the 15 or so metres from the entrance to the stock room door, because you are being stopped by so many customers who have questions (most of the time they are standing right in front of the book they're looking for, by the way. People are blind). THAT is "busy". "Busy" is also when it takes you at least 30 minutes after closing to get all the customers out of the shop.
Anyway. Today was my first day back at uni. I had three lectures, all very interesting, though they were mostly just introductions to the courses. But I am looking forward to all of them, they're all literature courses, and touch on many of the same things (e.g. genre) but still different. I'm taking Literary Analysis, which basically explains itself. Analysing literature. It's a 6-week intensive course, so there will only be essays, no final exam. Then there's British Literature II, which is English lit from the Middle Ages through the Pre-Romantics. The last lecture of the day was the Beat Poets, which also explains itself - basically the counter-culture and literature of the so-called Beats, beginning in the 1950s. Then on Wednesday there will be the first lecture of Renaissance Prose.
So in short, this term I am studying literature from the 6th to 20th century! All very interesting. Also, I'm kinda glad that I'll only have two finals in December... Even though that means more essays during the term. But hey, this is university. I kinda felt like I was missing something, or being cheated out of something, only having to do 3 and 5 essays last year!
Oddly enough, Tuesdays are my days off. So tomorrow I'm gonna go get a haircut and clean the bathroom, which will be my weekly chore at home. This is gonna be a weird term!

QotD: Sandy: [about his mother talking about him] "If you're happy, you're not working hard enough." - The OC
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-: Trina illustrated her blog at 22:34:-

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