Ocasionally present

You know what this means?

2008-11-05T04:40:07Z

I can finally tell people - again - that I love the US, without having to, or feeling like I have to, defend it, and that is so many kinds of heart-stoppingly lovely I have no words to describe it.

No words, at least, except for this: thank you.

This isn't at all what I meant to say. Huh.

2008-11-02T21:22:09Z

There is this Norwegian newspaper I read (semi-regularly, as we don't have a subscription any longer) and kind of love, Klassekampen (The Class Fight/Struggle, in the literal translation - yes, it's a socialist thing. And with the most amazing arts section for literature and everything. (very little music, unsurprisingly)), and they have a few of those random questions for random people-columns, and one of them includes the question "Do you love your country?" (actually, it'd be more like motherland? Fatherland? But, I don't know, I feel like that term might be less loaded in the Norwegian version than the English one? That's just me and my English as a third language-self, so whatever.)

And this one time, this one guy (I feel like I should use references like that in my exams too) answered, quite simply, "no." And I went "... whu?" Because it seems the sort of thing you can't just say. Except the more I thought about it, the more I agreed. I don't love my country (and that's ignoring the whole "Actually, I'm Sami" part of it, which of course means there isn't a country as such). I know I'm endlessly lucky to live here, I appreciate all the sensible social-democratic options we have available (I'm frigging in love, on a regular basis, with the fact that I pay 840 kroner a year for the right to an University-level education - that's maybe 130-ish dollars with the current exchange rate.) But I don't love it. I love bits of it, the pieces I call home, the parts that are mine in a way the entirety of the country will never be.

And that's OK (just like being a lumberjack), but what sort of throws me is the fact that I love the US. Well, the parts of it that I find worth loving - except I know enough to know that I can't just pick and choose, and so I've chosen to enjoy the good of it enough to cancel out so much of the bad. I burst into tears a week ago because I was suddenly hit with the realisation that there's an actual chance Obama could be president. I'm still fearful as anything that it won't happen, but there is a realistic chance. And, I guess, what I'm trying to get at, is that if he does, if it actually happens, I'll feel like it finally justifies my love (ignoring bloody Madonna), like I can point to that, after eight years of Bush, after eight years of saying "Well, yes, I know, but..." when people say "how can you possibly like the US?", I can point to that and say "because of this." Because he wouldn't be a perfect president, because we'll end up spending more time than can possibly be healthy wondering ifwhenhowwhere he'll be assassinated, but still. I care more about Obama winning than I have ever cared about a Norwegian election, and just saying that makes me terrified I'll jinx it, but I need to have it out there. I hope and if I was a praying person, I'd pray, and no matter what happens on Tuesday, I will cry and I will bawl and I'll know that I can't quite stop loving that stupid country no matter what, even if it isn't healthy for me.

oh man, I love him.

2008-08-13T15:28:32Z

51. When the mayor's press conference was over, I screamed. And my scream was immediately answered by thunder and lightning. My friend Aaron e-mailed me and said, "Can you believe it's fucking RAINING right now?" Distraught, wanting and needing my family's attention, I drove home. As I walked up the front steps, as I began to cry, as I touched the doorknob, it thundered so loudly that car alarms went off. Then, as I stepped into the house, closed the door behind me, and fell onto the floor and loudly wept, the wind blew open our back door. That's the power of grief.

52. I don't believe in magic. But I do believe in interpreting coincidence exactly the way you want to.

53. Do you know why Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.

55. A few folks, including one who writes for this paper, think I'm naive for my faith in and love for professional basketball. Well, I am a reservation Indian who has never once believed anything a white man in a suit has ever said to him. It is historically, politically, and culturally impossible for a reservation Indian to be naive.

Sixty-One Things I Learned During the Sonics Trial by Sherman Alexie

(I feel this is a good way to make myself sound perfectly sane)

2008-07-21T22:15:05Z

I am home alone (in the middle of nowhere), which must explain why I'm perfectly OK with the fly that keeps wandering around on my computer screen (uh, loneliness that is. Just you wait, in a moment or two I will start making bombs and sending them in the mail. of course, with the speed of the mail around here, I'd probably end up blowing up the post office or something). It's kind of cute, I like to think it enjoyed reading my flist with me.

Actually, the upper left corner of my computer would look totally awesome with a fly permanently stuck there. I should look into that.

oh dear

2007-10-01T23:05:17Z

Sometimes I just shouldn't be allowed to communicate with people at all.

(although, to my defence, trying to write a message that states "Hi, I totally have a crush on you, but I know I shouldn't, and I know you just broke up with someone and that has to suck and I wish there was something I could do for you, but, you know, generally you make me smile whenever I look at you, and I like that a lot, and I kind of want to tell you but I don't know how, so instead I'll just ramble" without actually saying any of those things - except for the ramble-part - is sort of really hard. But yet I couldn't stop myself from doing it. My brain is dumb)

I like posting the occasional entry so people know I actually exist.

forever and ever!

2007-09-18T15:29:40Z

I'm going to go back to this entry whenever I need to cheer myself up.

just a bit worried.

2006-12-04T23:11:13Z

I've applied for a job (as the editor in chief of our student newspaper) and the jobinterview is on Friday, which is also when I have to hand in a 15-20 page exam essay on border poetics. I'm equal parts terrified and terrified. (And I'll be a hermit for a week if I don't get the job. Except that I can't, because we're having the student newspaper Christmas party on Saturday. They're deciding on who gets the job on Friday, almost right after the interviews, so at least I won't have to wait for ages before finding out. You know it's no good when that's the most reassuring thing you can tell yourself.)

han e ikke helt min type, siden han e type.

2006-10-24T23:43:57Z

Today I learned that it's more fun to discuss women we like instead of Derrida. (I did however finally kinda understand that whole trancendental signifier/metaphysical assumptions thing, so it's one small step down the path of enlightenment) It's also really hard to describe just what you like in a woman, especially when the frames of reference don't match up. (not my fault they haven't heard of Hilma Nikolaisen. Or Anne Hathaway. But Eliza Dushku got an "oh yeah"-nod.) And there's something nicely symmetrical about the fact that one of us had never been unhappily in love, while two of us have never been happily in love. (English is weird for not really having a word for it other than love. There should be something bigger than a crush, but smaller than love.) Thankfully the married guy was in the minority. (I also found out what his wife's name is, which means she'll no longer have to be referred to solely as the wife)

And I don't know what it is about this t-shirt, but it makes my boobs look amazing. (no, I won't show you:>)

(and when the unmarried guy listed the things he likes in a woman I damn near went "hey, you love me!" 'cause practically all of them seemed to fit:D)

none of this is meant to make sense.

2006-10-20T22:14:20Z

I got to listen to people speak Japanese, which was fun, especially since it sort of reminded me of Finnish and/or Sami (since most people would claim they're practically the same. Most people, of course, being stupid), something about the musicality and such. Also, I've heard people use the word "anoo" (or however it's spelled) and it's just the cutest thing ever. As far as random words to fill in your dialogue goes, that one is far nicer than a lot of other options.

I also got to butt heads, literally, with a random drunk guy, which I didn't even remember until several days after it happened. Just another point in favour of the theory that I don't need to drink in order to act drunk, I just have to hang around with drunk people for long enough.

In the local newspapers¹ section for stupidity someone complained that there was too much homosexual pda going on. And it's not like straight people kiss one another in public all the time. And then someone complained that the local football (that's soccer) team was discriminating against Sami players, and then I didn't actually bang my head into a wall, mostly because I was sitting by the window and was afraid I'd crush both it and my own head. And I kinda like my favourite coffeeshop as is.

Who knew rockettothesky would be the sort of music to perfectly fit my mood at the moment? (I did, it's good with the disjointed, and that's pretty much summed up this semester for me. Disjointed and stupid. But I realised that I have learning difficulties, of a particularly obscure kind, so now I just have to find a way to fix it.)

¹I'm vaguely certain there should be an apostrophe somewhere in that word, but apostrophes are one of the few things in English grammar I just cannot get my head around.

I've never read the book, but still.

2006-09-30T01:40:35Z

I, um, just understood what the title Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? means.

One day I will stop being amazed at my own ability to forget that while 1&1 does equal 2, 2&2 will also equal 4.

(In very different news, a lady from the Seattle Times e-mailed me to ask about coffee drinking habits in Norway, and my coffee drinking habits. Which in itself is wonderfully absurd (and one more reason to the list of things that make me love blogging, but the fact that I wrote a ten paragraph e-mail in reply is even more absurd. Who knew I had so many thoughts on coffee?)

gnyargh.

2006-09-15T17:19:52Z

I have a new favourite acronym, I made it up just now!
IRHA, or IRFHA if you're feeling very angry.

Yeah, that is I Really (Fucking) Hate Acronyms. Though I usually manage to dismangle them enough to see what they mean.

points for trying.

2006-09-15T06:53:37Z

OH WELL, MUSTN'T GRUMBLE.

fuckfuckfuckcrapshitfuck

oh. animals.

2006-08-30T15:57:46Z

My father: While I was outside barbequing, two girls came over and asked if we wanted a kitten or two. Because if no one took them in, they'd have to be put down.
(we can't have pets due to allergies and travelling and etc)
Me: You should have asked if we could've just borrowed one for a bit, so we could pet it and play with it for a bit, and then they could put it down.

i'll be all educated and shit.

2006-08-17T22:11:05Z

Heee! I am now an approved student at my MA of (almost) choice.
And, um, I ended up registering for 60 points worth of classes, which means that if I change my mind around a bit (doubtful, but possible), I could finish off all of that in one measly semester and spend a year and a half writing. [Take that three-week-man!] I'm kind of giddy now:>

Today my mental age is five. Maybe six.

2006-05-24T17:41:40Z

I'd totally do this in my other journal, but I promised I'd go see the movie with my friend tomorrow and I don't want her to know I went by myself today (the things I do to avoid studying for my exam), so:
Eeeeeeeeee! X3!
So much awesome!

Also, I got myself a new CD-shelf (and 'cause it was the last one in the store, I won't even have to put it together, woo!), and it's a different colour from the other two I have (which are also not the same colour, I should stop buying CD's), but still, no more boxes of CD's all over the floor, yay! In addition, I got nine CD's I'd ordered from CDbaby.com, and they are so awesome, 'cause the CD's cost 100 dollars (it was my birthday present to myself), but they put the price on the customs form to 30 dollars, so I didn't have to pay tax (stupid Norwegian customs system), and right now I mostly just want to jump up and down for a bit before passing out in my bed. I think I'll do that:>

Man, I don't know.

2006-04-18T22:38:01Z

I'll be the post-traditionalist in your post-colonialism?
(which is silly, 'cause I'm not traditionalist in the senses one would assume. And post-colonialism doesn't apply. And A doesn't equal B (which kinda blew my mind, but I'm willing to listen to people smarter than me.)

Maybe being in a minority group - regardless of which minority it might be - makes you more open towards understanding how other minority groups feel? Because to say there is no connection and you can't see any resemblance at all seems kind of heavy-handed. (I lost the word I was looking for. Three languages and I'm incapable of communicating solely in one of them at a time) [To clarify, or attempt to, there was discussion of whether or not a Northern Sami could understand a Maori better than your general white person. Based in (indigenous) theory and all. The smart people I was listening to¹ thought that you can take just about any theory at all and apply it to your situation if it fits, and just because a theory is based around some other ~~pretentious~~ indigenous group does not make it more or less suited than any random French theorist (everyone likes Ricoeur (sp?)).]

But then again, expecting one minority to be accepting of another minority is a bloody waste of time, so that seems optimistic. However, I suppose a person who belongs to some minority and/or oppressed group of people and who is also more open towards theoretical stuff and all is more likely to be accepting. I'd use myself as an example, but then I've come to realise I'm so open-minded my brain is likely to pour out. Not that I mind, but I think other people might.

I've no idea where, if anywhere, I was going with that, I just felt a sudden need to write it down.

(Quote my friend: "Poor Siri, you're triple-oppressed. Not only are you female and Sami, you're a lesbian too!")

¹When I grow up I want to be able to drink two bottles of wine (a person!) and still know what I'm talking about too!

In addition, a 15 year old gay boy told me I'm cute. I feel old.

2006-04-04T22:54:01Z

Yesterday I handed in the worst paper I have ever written. It ended with "and this is why I find it so fascinating to study religion." I might as well have brought along a shiny apple.
Today I read an article in the newspaper that violated Godwin's law in the very first sentence.
Tomorrow I have a 'date' with my homophobic editor. Because I am obviously the biggest masochist in the world. (Or because he's a nice guy and I kind of want to go on thinking that.)
On Sunday I get to cuddle with a four month old baby. I'm afraid I'll cry. I've bought her two Neil Gaiman books (Coraline and Wolves in the Walls) on the grounds that you can never start a nice literary addiction too early. (And seeing how my psychology-studying friend convinced me that homosexuality comes from nurture, I shall spend every available moment whispering "when you grow up you'll want to kiss girls" in her ear. 'Cause that'll totally work.)

groan.

2005-12-15T00:32:48Z

I got a B. On my social anthropology paper. I am, well, strangely disappointed. I was hoping for either an A or a D, and in case I got the latter, I was all prepared to argue a lot. But now I got a B, which means I did good (and did, in fact, write the sort of paper the teacher wanted, I was uncertain about that, seeing how I wrote the paper I wanted to write), but not good enough for an A. And considering the fact that this is a class I should have gotten a default A on, it bugs me a bit. However, that is not important, because I am on holiday and am not thinking of such petty things. (I spent 800 kroner on books, and only one of seven books was for myself, I'm all sorts of proud. Though I suppose the fact that said book combined three books of poetry, of which I already own two, makes it a bit less impressive. Then again, it did include bonus ~~tracks~~ poems. It's like a greatest hits, in a way)

Also watched King Kong. It's the first time I have seen a movie in which the entire audience has groaned out loud, a few times even. It was fun:> Well, the non-groany parts at least.

And I am most definitely updating here because I suffer from lj-guilt. Oh well.

I am awake! Though not for long.

2005-12-13T17:14:20Z

I had a dream that was so complicated I woke up tired. Good going brain. I do now know what my life would be like if it was a soap opera though, so it's all good.

I bought nearly all my Christmas presents today. Including one for myself (only one! I am so proud; I usually end up with as many presents for myself as I do for others.), Songs: Ohia's Impala. Which brings my total of Songs: Ohia CD's to four. It is such perfect winter music, I explained to a friend of mine that it makes me half want a girlfriend, half hope I never end up in a relationship at all.

Got my brother a box set of fifty horror films, he keeps asking me if I have any, I keep telling him I don't watch scary movies, so I figure this'll shut him up. He'll probably complain about the fact that some/most (?) of them are in black and white, and old, and with horrible special effects or something. Such a whiner.

The weather is cold with icky wet snow and all the stores were warm, so I've been spending most of the day either freezing or flaming, and then when I got home I shoveled the driveway as well (SO HEAVY! Such a clear conscience now:D), so now I'm just about ready to pass out. Was considering going to see a movie, but the thought of moving at all is not very tempting.

Hmm.

2005-10-11T22:35:13Z

I suppose it's not a good sign that I want to sleep all the time?
And I suppose it doesn't get any better that when I'm not sleeping I want to drink?
However, I feel all grown-up and stuff when I ignore the cravings. Though I suppose I should sleep less and write more of my papers, which reduces the grown-up factor a bit.

I'm not entirely certain why I felt like updating. Hi!
(and for clarity's sake, I don't think I'm depressed, just under the weather (which has been rain, rain and, surprise!, more rain. Three days of no rain at all, in the past two-three months), and possibly growing mold)

Yay, alcohol!

2004-10-29T22:35:19Z

I did just what I promised I would and went out with a friend and had drinks.
One mojito (why is it that when I'm finally old enough to drink them they become cool? If the world doesn't stop doing this to me soon, I might have to file a complaint. (I've been lusting after mojitos since I was 14, 'cause of Hemningway and lime and sugar and odd combinations)) and one raspberry fizz. Yum.
Next time I'm having a strawberry daquiri and something with mango in it.

Lit. theory kills my brain.

2004-10-25T16:29:34Z

I want to know what Cleanth (I'll never know how to spell it, it keeps escaping me) Brooks' parents were thinking. Though he was born in 1906, so I guess that explains it. For that matter, I want to know what Brooks himself was thinking, preferably without Wordsworth being used as an example. But I'm demanding a lot. My paraphrased short version is; Irony is everywhere, so there! Which is unhelpful to the max.

But then I don't expect this paper to make sense either, so it's all good.

make it a hurricane before I go insane..

2004-10-23T22:31:17Z

Next weekend, I'm going out and buying a drink.
Because stating that in a journal no one reads is a surefire way of making sure I will.
Maybe already on Friday, if someone is willing to accompany me. Will have to ask.

And my lord, could there be more moods on this thing? I love it!

am officially boring.

2004-10-22T08:55:37Z

My journal looked so sad sitting there with not even an update. So this is an update.
And I am really at one with the procrastination right now.