watch out. takras.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and takras signs on houses.

These are, indeed, some of my favorite things.

Tak means roof. Ras means avalanche. Put them together: RoofAvalanche. Watch out.

There are two things that I witness a lot here in Tromsø.
The first is takras victims.....people walking innocently down the street, minding their own business, and suddenly getting hit from above by snow sliding off a rooftop. The snow moves so slowly, which makes it even funnier when someone gets nailed.
The second is people who fall. The most common reason for people taking a spill is because of the ice. I bet I see at least five people wipe out every day. Most people seem to be pretty used to it, so they just pick themselves up, wipe off their coats, and keep going. The other reason for people falling is that they are drunk....and trying to walk on ice. I feel much less sorry for these people, but their reaction is even better. Sometimes they just lie there. And sometimes they try to get up real quickly, which just makes it even worse. Living at the bottom of the best hill in town has its definite advantages.

Takras. Pass deg.

who you callin' lazy?

1. Didn't leave apartment on Thursday. Once on Friday.
2. Walked out to get mail on Saturday.
3. Walked from front door of apartment building to waiting car and from bus stop back to apartment building on Sunday.
4. Walked from CPS building to Anthropology building. And back. On Monday.
5. Walked downstairs to ICA to buy grocieries. Walked home (downhill) from choir on Tuesday.
6. Walked from apartment to Solid and back again on Wednesday. Ate two cinnamon buns.

I have gotten A LOT of exercise the last six days.
Hanne is trying to talk me into walking home from the uni today. Uhm, hello. That would require sweating and being outside for longer than six and a half minutes.
I have to say, though, that we have had the most beautiful stretch of sunny days. Not a cloud in the sky all week long. It's like the weather gods knew we had an exam to write this week. (Jerks.)

blue house / white car

rock and roll mcdonalds

I had almost forgotten Wesley Willis when all of a sudden, without warning, from somewhere between my liver and pancreas I started singing Rock and Roll McDonalds this morning. Please. Someone send me my Casio.


McDonalds is the place to rock
It is a restaurant where they buy food to eat
It is a good place to listen to the music
People flock here to get down to the rock music

Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds

McDonalds will make you fat
They serve Big Macs
They serve Quarter-Pounders
They will put pounds on you

Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds

McDonalds hamburgers are the worst
They are worse than Burger King
A Big Mac has 26 grams of fat
A Quarter-Pounder has 28 grams of fat

Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds
Rock and Roll McDonalds

Wheaties, breakfast of champions

reading and writing and other boring things

My posts are pretty sparse lately. This is because I am preparing for my final exam of the year. We get it handed out tomorrow and then we have two weeks to write, and then two more weeks to prepare for the oral exam. Personally, I just want it all to be over so I can go to Sweden. Patience, Rachel. Patience. On the bright side, our apartment looks great. And my tomato soup tasted pretty good today.
But anyway, I apologize in advance for not posting much. I promise to get back at it, though. And exam time usually means that we all get extra loopy and bizarre-o, so I'm sure some hilarious things will happen shortly.

Peace out.

more than a feeling

Why don't I listen to Boston first thing every morning?

It is a beautiful day in Tromsø. Yesterday Vibeke (newest roommate) and I cleaned the apartment and set up some of the Ikea furniture. And when I say "set up" I mean "carried the boxes from the hall to the living room and watched Vibeke's friends Stian and Markus put it all together." I fanned myself and ate some grapes.
Here's a picture of my clean room. Actually, this picture was taken in December, but that's ok. It looks pretty much the same. And yes, I put the open books on my bed to make it look like I read all the time.

The road rug is from Espen. He might be too old for it, but I'm not. Just gotta get me some cars.

conan in finland

Scott just showed me one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I'm sure some of you saw it when it aired on NBC, but if not, find it on the internet and download it. Right away.
So Conan O'Brien decides to go to Finland for five days to make a show. Apparently he gets lots of fan mail from Finnish people telling him he looks like their President...their female president. I won't go into detail here because it is so hilarious you just have to see it for yourself. While watching it I got this really strange feeling....I was in some bizarre way homesick for the U.S. and Finland at the same time, even though the only time I have ever been in Finland was to buy cheap meat.

Oh Suomi.

with me legs stretched out in front of me

- referring to a subconscious (or not) typo in the previous post -

"Ahhh yes. With me legs stretched out in front of me, and me bottle of rum by me side, me boat jerked back and forth on the rugged waves. Arggg."

And speaking of seeing with me "good eye" and talkin' like Cap'n Billy, I'm pretty sure I was a pirate in a previous life. I don't really think it was a coincidence that I had to wear an eye patch for two years of my childhood, which subsequently meant that I had to be a pirate for Halloween. I was a menacing two-foot tall, blindingly blonde, bowl-cut pirate with a painted-on mustache and a gold clip-on earing. I feared nobody.
And nobody feared me.

Walk the plank, you dirty scoundrel.

if I move, I might lose it

It used to be that if we wanted to steal wireless internet from somewhere in our building, we had to open the front door of our apartment and sit in the doorway. Which was especially crappy when it was minus 80 degrees. But here I am, lounging lazily on our living room couch, with me legs stretched out on the coffee table, writing my project proposal, when I notice out of the corner of my good eye that the little wireless connection icon is happily blinking "light blue" "dark blue" "light blue" "dark blue." Wait a minute. Since when do we have an automatic connection in the middle of our living room??? To prove it, I had to write this post. But I have to be very careful not to move too much, or the connection might disappear. Careful.....careful.....and "publish post."

here I am

I'm back. My friend Anne was visiting this weekend...which was hilarious and fun, as usual. I saw two good movies: Crash and Walk the Line. I got to see Tungtvann play at Kaos for free - (Anne used to work there.) I walked along Stakkevollveien in the bright sunshine. I had one of the laziest Sundays of my life. And I bought some guitar picks for Scott. Precisely 38 kroner. All in all, a most excellent weekend.
Now I begin the process of writing my project proposal so that I can get some research money. I don't really want to do this, but it will feel really good just to have it done. So here I go...........

cheryl, raise your hand

I am skipping lecture today.
Am I proud of myself? No.
Do I feel bad? No way.
It is, afterall, MPCT's favorite lecturer....the one, the only: Ram Roy, the critical realist!!! All the way from England! And he brought Cheryl with him again.
The only thing I really remember from the ten hours of lecture we had last semester was the mind-boggling critical realist point he made by asking his assistent/water bottle refiller Cheryl to raise her hand. ("Cheryl, raise your hand.") To which Cheryl responded by - holy crap - raising her hand! It was a miracle!

I leave the critical realism to my fellow students and take care of the critical scepticism myself.

Peace out, folks.

expulsion

Hi Marit. I thought I'd offer a public apology for almost getting you expelled from law school. Sorry about the "coffee-nose-pants" incident and the "people staring at you" incident. Det var ikke meningen. But after 24 years you should realize that the things I think are hilarious are the same things you think are hilarious. So really, watching that sheepdog music video in the library was a pretty ridiculous idea.



Love.

sheep dogs

TV Tromsø - the local daughter-channel of TV Norge - produces this show called "Dyreliv" ("Animal Life"). First of all, I LOVE watching TV Tromsø because it is a constant reminder of the fact that I live above the Arctic Circle. On "Dyreliv" yesterday, they were featuring sheepdogs. At one point during the show, they basically morphed into a sheepdog music video featuring the song "Axel F" - the instrumental hit from Beverly Hills Cop. This was perhaps the greatest thing I have ever seen on television.
AND...
you can even watch this episode by going to http://www.nordlys.no/tvtromso/ and then clicking on the little white box with the red stripe across the top that says TV Tromsø - it is to the left of the words "Velg sending i menyen til venstre." And then you click on the "Dyreliv 6. mars" episode.
Unfortunately, the music video isn't until the very end of the ten-minute long sheepdog segment. In my opinion, however, it is well worth the wait.

I also stumbled upon the children's albums "St. Elmo's Pacifier" and "Full Metal Diaper" by the CribRock label while surfing the web today. I'm not even sure what I can say about that.

anna laura ute i naturen

These pictures are taken on Kvaløya...less than 15 minutes from Tromsø sentrum. Isn't that amazing? It was a very blue day. Did you notice that the reindeer in the picture above has a white nose and only one horn? It was the greatest thing I had ever seen!

anna laura på fest

Anna Laura - a friend and co-worker from Skogfjorden - came to visit Tromsø this weekend.
We had a blast! It was a jam-packed weekend...full of bright sunshine, beautiful car trips to Kvaløy with Tove, good food, fun people, dancing at Driv, ice-skating, and reindeer. Both alive and not-so-alive.

everybody was kung fu fighting

A friend of mine here in Tromso is a Kung Fu expert, so I went to watch him do a demo this afternoon. It was pretty amazing. I mean, how can people train their bodies like that, and maintain such grace while....well, while fighting? I haven't decided if I am going to join his club yet, but I am tempted. I think I might need something like that...a little martial arts action never hurt anyone. Except all those dudes who tried to fight Jackie Chan in Rush Hour II. Poor suckers. They totally knew he was in the movie when they auditioned.

Other than that, I am about to take bus 20 for the fourth time today. And then I am gonna drink some juice and draw a picture.