Sleep vs Life

I actually watched the sunrise today...And I realized that I havent seen many sunrises in my life. It wasnt a particularly beautiful sunrise...slightly yellow with grey clouds in the horizon. -Could have been much prettier...but it hit me that I spend way too much time sleeping. Don't get me wrong, I love to sleep. I love to dream (although I had a very unnerving dream this morning, which I hope never come true), but it really is such a waste. I am a biologist and ofcourse I do know that without sleep our bodies would fall apart and our minds would crash like my packard bell laptop tends to do, but still when you think about it, sleep is such a waste. Imagine all the things you could do if you didnt need any sleep.

The average adult human being needs 8-9 hours of sleep every night according to various studies. That is 2920 hours every year. If you live to be 75 years old, you will have spent 25 years sleeping! Apparently enough sleep every night adds years to your life, but is it really worth it? Lets say 8 hours a night adds 5 years to your life. No one really knows how much longer you will live with 8 hours sleep, but 5 years is a fair amount I should think. Now, if you instead of sleeping 8 hours every night, decided to sleep 6.5 hours, you would sleep about 20 years of your life (in a 75 years lifespan). Meaning; you will have saved up the 5 years you might have gained by sleeping 8 hours! So in reality, you will have an equal amount of time to experience life in. -Only with 6.5 hours you get more time on a daily basis, while 8 hours a night gives you extra time at age 75-80. I dont know...but more time right now seems like a better deal than waiting until Im so old I cant go anywhere. Besides, who knows if you actually get to be 75...a lot can happen in a lifetime *knock on wood*.

Ofcourse if everything was this black and white it would be an easy choice...unfortunately I do love to sleep...and find myself in a much happier mood if I have slept 8-9 hours opposed to 6-7 hours. -My boyfriend can confirm that...

I just wish I could get myself out of bed more often to watch the sunrise. It is an almost religious experience...

That damn sleep

Internationality

Not to worry, I am alive and well (if you were wondering).

The past week has been busy as hell...not that I know how hell is like...I mean, if its busy there or if its painfully slow...I will actually assume the latter...But I have hardly been home. Ive been home to sleep and eat..thats about it. My days have been occupied by Uni, and my evenings by the local theatre. I have spent 7 nights in the world of cinema thanks to an international film festival. It has been surprisingly tiresome...to such a degree that I have ditched uni today just to sleep and perhaps do a little shopping. That is my pathetic attempt of being reckless...but atleast I am trying. Anyway, I have watched some pretty amazing movies, and one in particular I would recommend for my friend Beat.

Ive updated the movie blog on my last week, you can read about it there if you will...now Im going outside to enjoy the sunshine. Fall and sunshine dont usually coincide in this part of the planet I call home.

Carpe diem and all that stuff.

Ode to Fall

Leaves

How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.
At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Twisting, turning through the air
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow.

by Elise N. Brady

Its not often we get to see the colors of fall around here...In fact, I cannot remember having seen yellow and red leaves since my year in New York City. Usually it starts raining in August/September and the temperature drops too quickly to give the leaves a chance to change color...they simply turn brown over night and fall off.

The good thing about that though, is that you really learn to appreciate it if you get a chance to experience it. -And the past couple of days have been great for just that. The combination of sun and crisp air along with yellow and orange leaves has done wonders for my mood. I cannot believe that it is actually fall. I am looking out the window of my study room at Uni right now and the beautiful garden outside is filled with yellow, orange and red colors. -And I cannot help but smile...Which when you think about it is pretty morbid, considering the fact that these colors are a result of dying organic matter. -Leaves which have spent all spring and summer working overtime producing sugar by photosyntesis so that the rest of the tree can survive winter.
Kamikaze leaves.
Respect.

In honor of fall I therefore decided to change the color of my hair to match the leaves.

I just wrote that because it sounds noble. The truth is that I made a deal with my hairdresser. (She made me an offer I couldnt refuse....) Since my hair can never hold on to color I dont see a point in spending lots of moolah on haircoloring, just to see it come off after a week. So I gave her free hands to color it however she wanted in exchange for a rather reasonable price.
So now my hair is red.
Its wild and I love it! I fit in perfectly with the leaves. Fall is my season.

So If the rain comes later tonight and wash the leaves off the trees, atleast I got to experience fall this year...even if it was just for a couple of days (or a week if you count my hair).


Ive added some more photos in the photoblog.

Ai ai ai

-AAAAAAAAAtchoooo! *wipes snot off keyboard* Yuck! Gotta love the cold…It’s the same every year…one should think the human body which can adapt to upright walking, UV radiation and Hershey chocolate (an adaptation that is still a mystery to me), would be able to adapt to the abrupt change in weather that comes at this time of year. Every year, when the season changes from summer to fall, or winter to spring, I get a cold. I eat my C vitamins…I eat my fruits, I drink my water, clean…and I wash my hands whenever I’ve used the bathroom, public as well as private. And yet here I am…incapable of breathing through the nose, eyes swollen like I’ve cried non stop for 2 days, and a head that’s at least 4 pounds too heavy. It would be ok if my body could just decide which temperature to stick to. You find yourself sweating like you suddenly moved by teleportation to Sahara with your biggest winter jacket on, and decide to eat some ice cream (since you obviously feel a bit sorry for yourself…which by the way is perfectly ok as long as you don’t overdo it like men usually do) and then 10 minutes later you are freezing cold and long for that big winter jacket you left in the Sahara desert you just visited.

Stupid body.

Im still gonna eat ice cream though…

That is one of those things I can never really get enough of. Ice cream. Even after a 6 course dinner, I can usually find room for ice cream. Season doesn’t matter either. Winter, spring, summer, fall, there is always a season for ice cream. Perhaps that is why I now have a cold. Come to think of it, I had a bit more ice cream than I should have had last Saturday…Pistachio flavor to be exact…with chocolate sauce…the kind that hardens on the cold ice cream? You know it. *wipes nose*

Either way it doesn’t matter. The boyfriend had a cold a week or two ago, so the biologist in me claims that’s why I now find myself alone and sick…boys are selfish that way. Doesn’t matter how sick they are, they always want to lick your tonsils…but then again, girls are plain dumb for letting them. So there you go.

One dumb girl down with the cold.

-Atchoooo!

Boredom's a bitch

This summer has not been the greatest summer. The weather has been shitty...Ive had little to no free time, Ive had deadlines and guilt for not doing more. I am hoping that once the semester starts up again, I will be able to concentrate more and finish all the tasks I have on my list of "things to do".

As for right now, I should be writing an essay...and I will. But I was so bored I thought it was a great idea to play with my blog instead. Yesterday, I suddenly decided to vacuum my apartment and clean the filter on my air filtrator...the day before that I had more interest in cleaning my toilet and bathroom than to write an essay. So I guess you can say my apartment has never been cleaner...and an essay has never been shorter...

Anyways...I added a poll to my blog...you can find it over there ---->

Ive always enjoyed polls, now I get to make my own :D (look! a smiley!)

No..I should start my ass-ey

Weird stuff #2

I discovered another weird thing in the lab the other day. My first impression was "hash pipe", or bong if you will... Then I started wondering why on earth there was a hash pipe in the lab. The people who work in this lab doesnt exactly seem like hash smoking individuals. And, since there are no hole in the top where one would normally suck the fumes out, I realised that it could not in fact be a hash pipe...so then wuddeFok is it?




A very primitive bong? So primitive that it doesnt work? A fucked up vase? Art?
Beats me...

Weird stuff #1

As I was saying yesterday there are some weird things surrounding me in the lab...and I was kinda hoping someone could help me out here. I have been looking at this first thing for quite some time now, and I think Ive come to the conclusion that this must be some primitive form of a mixmaster...-Although it looks like it has been a little complicated to make...and Im thinking that today, being the 21st century and all...it would be a lot easier to just go out and buy a mixmaster...instead of making this thing. Must have taken a while too...there is a lot of components in this thing...mostly made of glass. The top thing looks like some kind of engine, and the glass bottle has a scary looking device inside it, which looks like something frightening surgeons would use...or perhaps its just a reverted propeller with blades from a blender...

Anyways...here's the pics..maybe you know what its used for.

An overview of the whole thing...its not too big, but too big to put in a bag.


This top thing looks really heavy...and kinda scary.


If you look closely, you can see the propeller thingy inside of it. I wonder if its supposed to go up and down...or just spin. -And what are those tubes on the top for? To stuff things into, I guess...but why so many? It could be some kind of instrument of torture.

On the backside of this thing, there is also an opening. -A glass tube where stuff can come out...brainmatter perhaps? Liquids of some sort? Smoothie?

I have no clue.

(PS, if you want an update on grandma, I'll put it in the filmblog)

Daily blurb

Ok, so I had decided not to write anything about labwork or algae or fungi or anything in the microbiology family and field, 'cause I realized that pretty much every entry Ive written the past couple of weeks, has been about just that. But that is normal, as I dont really have a life these days. The problem though is that once i logged onto this site, I got this intense urge of mentioning that once again am I in the lab, bored and tired of waiting for stuff to get ready. I have a lot of stuff to do, dont get me wrong, but often i have to wait 20 minutes or 2 hours between every time I can do it. Hence I spend much time infront of my computer. Or I spend time looking around or staring into the wall. I realized today while looking around that there are so many weird constructions and machines around here, which purpose I do not know. I think I will have to bring my camera tomorrow so that I can take pictures of them, and perhaps some of you can tell me (or guess) which purpose they have.

Moving on to something else. It is my grandmothers birthday this Saturday, so my sister and I decided to take her to the movies tonight, as a pre-birthday present. She has been a fan of Bruce Willis as long as I can remember (see previous post: "My granny and Bruce Willis", 2006), so we figured we'd take her to see Die Hard 4.0. I know Ive talked about it before, and I know you know that Ive seen it before...I am not even going to hide it. But I wanted to watch it again, in a better movie theater this time. Last time I got free tickets (yay!) but I was a bit disappointed by the choice of theater. I hadn't been to that theater in a while and although I am no expert in technical stuff, I actually reacted on the poor picture quality. So this time we are taking her to the newest theater in town. I think that will be a better one for her as well, as she is pretty short and the room is steeper in this one. Either way I am excited to see her reaction to it. Im pretty sure she will love it though.

The undead

-I am currently rotting away in a lab somewhere far north on the globe of Earth. If you find this message, please know that I tried my best. I tried so hard to focus. I tried with every cell in my body to get my cell cultures syncronized. I even searched for articles on the subject...But my lack of concentration prevented me from actually reading them. I cannot learn. I cannot focus. I feel a little hollow. Dead but not quite. I feel as if I could be part of "Planet Terror" (July 20th, yay!) but I fear I might be closer to this:

http://taxidermied.livejournal.com/

I want to play.

Just a little bored..thats all

I found one of my favorite comic book heroines in English! So now I can share with everyone!



If you click on the picture it gets larger...maybe you can actually read what it says...

Oh, and guess what? Die Hard 4.0/Live Free or Die Hard is out tomorrow! I got my tickets ofcourse. I simply cant remember the last time I was this jacked up about a movie!
*tries to cool down with a bucket of ice*
I'll probably gush (or rant) about it in the filmblog one of these days.

All work and no play

After 6 weeks of intense studying, I am finally done with my exams. Normally this would be the turning point where my life gets back on track. After 6 weeks of basically no contact with the outside world, my friends will finally hear from me again. - And thereby establish the fact that I am still alive. I have survived yet another exam season. I am 2 shades paler than usual, a few pounds heavier and my eyes are hidden behind large blue bags of epidermis. I’ve been here before. I know the drill.

Usually, this is when I slowly start adapting to normal life again. I begin venturing outside at a higher rate. –Gradually increasing the exposure of my skin to sunlight. It is with extreme caution these steps are conducted. Too high exposure too soon will only result in pain. -Both physically and psychologically. Many people in the past have become victims of their own excitement. The thrill of finally being free has resulted in tragedy for more than one. But I have the experience. I have learned from the mistakes of others.

I can see what you are thinking from the expression on your face. You are telling yourself that this is probably the very reason why I am indoors right now…writing this, instead of being outside enjoying the sunshine (which by the way is very rare in this city). It would not be an entirely wrong conclusion. It is a very likely one, based on the information I have given you so far.

However.

The use of “normally” and “usually” above has not been a coincidence…or a matter of trying to sound mysterious. There is nothing mysterious about me. You already know that. I have used these words on purpose. I am not sitting here because I am afraid of daylight like another vampire or nocturnal being. I am afraid it is because I am still a student. A being left out in most horror stories. Everyone has heard of the vampires and werewolves that come out at night and hunt you down. -Witches and monsters eating people, drinking blood for their own survival. Few have heard of the nocturnal student. A being that never sleeps. A being with eyes so dark you can hardly see them. I guess the reason for the lack of such stories lies in the very nature of the student. The student has no time to hunt you down or drink your blood. The student is on a deadline. The student has an exam to prepare for.

I am such a being. I may have completed my exams. But I am still on a deadline. You see, I am not only a student. I am a Master student. The deadliest of all students. Although deadly only to myself. To my social life. To my tan.

So I will leave you here. With encouragement to enjoy this summer. When you are laying on a beach somewhere, drinking smoothies and recuperating from 6 months of work or school. Think of the student. Think of a summer indoors.

Enjoy life.

Pow! (ouch) Pow! *Bangs her head in the table*

I am currently in the process of killing myself with words.

The weather outside my window is very Hawaii-like, and yet I am indoors...cramming for my next exam. The heat...Oh My Goodness! It is so hot I have to regularly whipe my textbook clean of the makeup that is dripping from my face. (If that doesnt sound sexy, nothing does...) I tried to study outdoors yesterday, but it was actually too hot. Now, if you live in Idaho and are called Beatnik, you can totally relate to this heat...but if you are called Linn or something to that extent (i think i just named all the norwegians who actually read this stuff from time to time...how sad is that number?) you cannot possibly understand this weather. I guess thats what global heating and greenhouse effect does to Norway...we get sun! Which is good...I mean sun is good...but not when its a result of something really bad. I mean...ice cream is good too...but you dont want the ice cream if getting it means you have to snatch it from some baby's hands...would you? (Actually, sometimes I would. Especially when seeing how some kids eat ice cream... it can be pretty gross...)

Anyways...I will have to get back to my books...just letting you know I am still alive...although Im not sure for how long...

~Ski

When time stands still

Today has been a long day.

Usually that is synonymous with a bad day. You can seldom have a long day without it also being bad…hence long is the definition of a bad day in this case. Usually in movies when someone asks the main character about their day, and he or she answers that it has been a “long day” the audience are immediately reminded of the previous hour of the movie which in most cases included at least 3 explosions, 5-20 deaths (depending on the type of action movie in question) and/or a social dramatic situation involving a character of the opposite sex to the main character.

So you are probably reading this thinking something bad happened to me today. Perhaps I blew something up or maybe someone died by gunfire in front of me…or possibly a fight with my boyfriend? If any of this had happened, I probably would have called it a long day…so you wouldn’t be totally off if you guessed such a thing. I do think I would have maybe called it an “awful” day though…if someone had been shot down in front of me. Maybe even a “tragic” day…or “sad”. “Long” doesn’t quite describe the sensation it would be to see someone being blown to pieces in front of your very eyes…not that I have ever seen that…*knock on wood* wouldn’t want to either…but Im just saying it. To clarify.

So…if nothing blew up…and no one got shot…and I didn’t fight with my boyfriend…why has it been a long day? I honestly cant tell you. I slept till noon…almost…which is the longest Ive slept in weeks and maybe months. I watched TV till about 3pm…3 hours which pretty much felt like at least 6. Then I went for a walk…I guess I might have been out a short hour…50 minutes perhaps? Felt longer…but it was only about 4pm when I got home. Ive watched 3,5 movies today, painted my toenails, eaten everything eatable in the apartment…probably gained a few pounds…and still its only 8.45 pm. Time have been standing still. Perhaps I got abducted by aliens. Ive heard time is supposed to stand still when that happens…but I doubt the aliens would have made me watch bad movies all day. I did get to watch one good one though. I re-watched “Lucky Number Slevin”. I had forgotten how much I enjoy that movie. The one-liners follow each other one after the other through the entire movie. It’s a definite “must see” if you haven’t already. Great film.

Hmm…it is now 8.53 pm. So I have killed about 15 minutes of time by writing this blog entry. Perhaps I should just go to bed…start tomorrow early and maybe get something out of the day. But I can pretty much bet my entire fortune (which isn’t very big Im afraid…) that tomorrow will race by like some secret force have stolen time from you just to mess with your head. “You got a long day yesterday, so today and tomorrow will go by quicker than you can say; hang on a sec!” I already know it. Life is too ironic. But you gotta love it.

Why I love Alanis

Thanks for the link, "dommeku"!

Finally some days off...

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Paperwork hell

I am a firm believer of violence towards administrators at university level,- and politicians. I think it should be allowed to slap them around a little…Action without an equal and opposite reaction. Newton go home. You are not wanted. The world would be a much better place without all the damn paperwork…For instance; if you wish to study abroad for a semester or two…something our dear politicians (I actually wrote “dead” as a typo there…I fixed it, but might as well have left it in there) encourage us to do, you have to first apply using a form that consists of a certain number of pages. If you get consent, you have to fill out an additional form to the school in question (at which you already have applied to once through your own university). If you get consent here as well, they send you a 3 pound envelope filled with different forms that need to be filled out. These forms include; a medical examination form from your doctor, a bank statement form from your bank (telling them you have money saved up), a government form telling the school in question that you will receive financial help, a vaccine form, a family history form, a personal interest form, an acceptance form from the embassy of the country you wish to go to, and so on…By the time you have filled out all the forms in question you are so damn tired of the country you wanted to go to in the first place you actually start doubting whether or not you wish to go…And our politicians shake their heads and call students lazy and uninterested. Who wants to go abroad if you have to complete 10 exams on personal matter before you can go?

Which brings us to the subject matter I actually wanted to talk about. The midterm exam. This completely and utterly unnecessary piece of paperwork that modern students are forced to fill out. – Within a time limit even. Somewhere someone decided that it was a great idea to split up exams so that hard working students have to go through two exams instead of one during a semester. I will admit that the idea might have been good initially. I am sure the point of it all was to give students two chances to show what they are good for instead of that one dreaded final exam at the end of the semester…The thought was probably good. But it doesn’t work. It gives us twice as much to do in half the usual time. I recently had one of these so called midterm exams, and the only midterm about it was the date of the event. 9 of 15 book chapters, including the laboratory course as curriculum…Can someone please tell me how half of 15 can become 9? Ive never been really good at math…but Im pretty sure 15 divided on 2 is not 9. –And how are you supposed to get any studying done for an exam that comes 4 days after you finished the “all-day”-lab part of the course?

I am not lazy, but I have started to become uninterested. My interest would however increase substantially if I could show my “gratitude” towards this paper-work happy person with a little slapping…or a kick or two…maybe an innocent shot in the leg?

Life has endless possibilities…too bad Im a follower of rules and regulations.

And yes, that completes the complaining for this month.

from www.spookyland.com

...

You have now reached Ski's corner.
I am currently out of the office...drowning in genetics.
Please leave a message, and I will get back to you as soon as I regain control of my life (or atleast figure out wuddefok a Tn5 is...).

BEEP!

Roman rocks

Stolen from spookyland.com

My new partner

So here he is (I choose to believe that it is a he...). This is the guy I will be working with for the next year and a half. I took his picture last week when he wasnt looking...I think he is shy. He doesnt know it yet, but I am going to torture him with toxic mold spores...I feel sorry for him. It wont be pleasant...but sometimes one has to suffer in the name of science, and I would rather it be him than me...(what a human-like selfish thing to say...although to my defence, I am already living with said toxic mold spores in my home...) His real name is Chlamydomonas reinhardtii...but I like him, and I think his name is too posh and snobby...so I will call him Roy Phillip, or just Roy.

So there you go. Roy? meet everyone...everyone? meet Roy.

The balloon guy

This is what met me in the door when I got home today. Made me smile.

I also found out that the local theater was showing 'Black Sheep' today. -The crazy trailer I posted a little while back. Also made me smile. They were gonna show it today, and only today... The movie looks so bad it has to be good, so I tried to get my boyfriend to go with me...and then I tried to get my friend JP to go with me...needless to say, they both rejected my enthusiastic approach to go see it. Bummer.

But it helps to know the balloon guy will be waiting for me in the hall tomorrow early. Its odd how the little things can cheer you up sometimes.

Gotta love balloon stores!

The one about the weather and stuff...

Its peculiar how the weather can affect your mood. I would actually go as far as to say its down right weird. We (and this is not a wild exaggeration…believe it or not) actually had 85 days on a row with rain here in Bergen this winter. You can only imagine the kind of mood the brave people of our city was fighting after so many days wearing raincoats and hiding under umbrellas. You try going shopping when everyone around you pokes you with their umbrellas and spend 5 minutes yelling at you for taking the last pair of rubber boots on the shelf. An entire city of premenstrual people. Longing desperately for one minute of sunshine.

85 days on a row with rain…2 more days and we would have beaten the record for the country (which some other city holds). But of course just as the competition instincts of our city’s population started to fire up, and we all got excited about maybe breaking the record (despite being tired of wearing raincoats), the sun popped out from behind the 85 days long cloudy sheet it had been hiding behind. Now the good thing about people from Bergen is that no matter how long it has been raining…no matter how long the weather has been bad, we forget it as soon as we see the sun. One or two days of sunny weather is enough to erase the memories of poor weather. Although no one has actually dared to say this out loud, I am pretty sure the sun saved more than one weather depressed suicidal person that day. The ironic part of it all though, is that we got one day (-One whole day) without any precipitation before it started up again. As if the weather Gods decided we weren’t fit to hold the record, and decided to fvck (<- for some of my special friends) with us just to make us frustrated and more suicidal.

After the one whole beautiful sunny day, heavens gates opened up again and bathed us in more water. However this time it came down as soft, beautiful snow. I cannot remember the last time I saw the city covered in snow, but the sight was enough to shift my mood from depressed “Im-so-sick-of-rain-and-wind”- sulk to “I-cannot-believe-the-world-can-be-this-beautiful”-ecstasy. I don’t really think I was aware of how moody I had been, until I saw the snow and felt a weird sense of happiness and being high. I guess you can say people get high on “snow” all the time…but Im referring to natures snow. Water in a solid state.

Anyways, I spent a couple of days hiking and trying not to break any legs on the icy pavements. I enjoyed it too. Then of course it started to rain again. And it has rained ever since…

The Most Dangerous Animal In The World

Ive known it for some time...There has always been something creepy about sheep...the way they stare at you...without looking away. Im just glad I finally got it confirmed. I am not insane after all.

Twothousandandseven

2007…I could have sworn it was 1998 just a little while ago…I have such a hard time believing that the 1990s happened 7 years ago! 7 years! How can it possibly be 7 years since we entered the new millennium? I remember 7 years ago on New Years Eve…It was raining cats and dogs outside…and we (my friends and I) took the bus into the city to watch the fireworks…which I believe a hired Japanese fireworks expert was going to launch…(or was that for the constitution day? I cant remember…). That was 7 years ago. I was only 18…

It is 12 years (!!!) since one of my favorite movies, 12 monkeys, was released. I remember watching that one twice at the theater…I had to explain it to my friends ‘cause they didn’t get it. And it is now 7 years since I graduated from High School…and I am still not done with my education. One bachelor degree in 7 years…makes me sound very lazy doesn’t it? I guess to my defense I can say I spent one of those years abroad…and the rest of them testing out different branches within science…ecology, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, molecular biology, microbiology…etc etc. So its not like Ive been sitting at home scratching my ass. But it is time I finish up. And I have started the process. This coming year I am going to start my thesis on toxic mold. So at least I am moving in the right direction study wise.

On a personal level I am optimistic. I am starting the new year as opposite of single, which feels great. -Nothing like a boyfriend to make an otherwise pessimistic individual optimistic. My best friend (who has been hiding in England) is back in the country for good (I hope), with no plans of eloping as far as I know. My other best friend just got a raise and starts the new year with more to play around with (proud of you).

I have a part time job and an apartment with a great location. I think it will be a good year. I hope it will be a good year.

Time will tell.