After 11 hours of school today, I returned home tired at heart to watch the Royal Tenenbaums and eat brownies. Haven’t seen the movie in years, so it was about time I re-watched it. It is really too funny. Too good to be anything but awesome. And absolutely a cult classic. Personally (like my most people) I am a big fan of Richie & Margot. Weird, strange, peculiar, fascinating, cool, and almost perfect. Very perfect. If you haven’t seen it yet, shame on you ! If you have, watch it again !
Richie: I wrote a suicide note. Chas: You did? Richie: Yeah, right after I regained conciousness. Chas: Well what does it say? Is it dark? Richie: Of course it’s dark, it’s a suicide note. Chas: Can I read it? Richie: No. Chas: Well could you at least summarize it for us?
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With less than a week left until Super Bowl is here, football is a big topic anywhere and everywhere right now. On Sunday we drove out to Aloha Stadium to watch the annual Pro Bowl, an All-Star event where the best players from the two football conferences in the US battle for money (and to entertain the fans). The whole thing is televised and shown across the country, which meant that the game included an opening music act with Hot Chelle Rae, dance shows, fireworks, flames, military show and whatnot. Wild chanting of “U-S-A”, Bud light, popcorn and OK (bit too safe) football were the key words for this day.
I was browsing through the comment section on a debate on CNN revolving around whether or not “President Obama [has] lived up to his Nobel Peace Prize?“, when I suddenly remembered one trait that I have come to discover in a lot of Americans (not all, but too many) that I really cannot stand. And that is the fact that they without hesitation;
a) think that all Europeans are one homogenous group who’s beliefs and political systems are identical, and
b) think they can use Europeans to underline their arguments without anyone noticing the inaccuracy of the statement (like this woman who stated that: “Obama can say he’s changing the world all he wants, but in London and in Holland he’s a joke. The conversation in the pubs are that we put up a black president that was doomed to fail by his policies so that.. cont.”).
I am fully aware of the fact that it works the other way around, a lot of people in Europe generalize Americans to the point of stupidity, but since I am not American (and tend to think that I am less judgemental towards Americans as one identical group of people) I will focus on the American side of this problem.
The worst kind are the ones who’ve been on vacation to Europe and thinks that that automatically grants them a diploma in Understanding the European Culture and Ideology. They act like the worst Bezzerwizzer, throwing around sentences starting with things like “When I was in Barcelona…” and “If you talk to the people at the coffee shops in Copenhagen like I did..”, followed by their own presumptions about how these Europeans might think and feel about a topic.
It’s embarrassing to listen to, and the way European countries are presented (even in serious media) makes me wonder why we aren’t more offended, and why the people pretend to take us seriously at all. Hippies, communists, damned socialists, Then again, I find comfort in the fact that not all Americans think like this, that there are thousands of well-read, well-educated or just plain smart people that know better.
And by the way, woman-at-CNN-forum: While you might have met some person in a bar somewhere that talked about how Obama is a joke, Obama has traditionally met more support in Europe than he has in the US.
My mum just sent me a woolen Hermès-scarf last week, which comes in handy when you want to keep your throat nice and warm and anti-infected at all times. That and woolen socks are my constant companions today, which feels off considering that it is roughly 26 degrees outside, but fever really does not recognize any temperature or continent. I’ve been better, then worse, then better again and today is just a bit of both. So I’ve spent the day doing things I really enjoy doing while doing things I don’t enjoy doing:
- Ate an apple for breakfast on the lanai, watching the sun rise and the city wake up because I couldn’t sleep anymore.
- Listened to my favorite music with the volume boosted to the maximum level while cleaning my room and sorting through homework I do not want to do.
- Lunched at Duke’s delicious buffet, trying and failing to eat everything. Caesar salad, mahi mahi covered in creamy sauce, cherry tomatoes, potato salad, red onions, cucumber, pine nuts, and a plate filled with mango, grapes, Satsuma oranges and pine apple. *My tummy hurts*
- Fallen asleep on the floor in the middle of the day, recollecting last nights adventures.
- Read two chapters of a book I think I might possibly love, while thinking that right now I just want to read another book in the recent addictive series that give me nothing but short-term entertainment.
- Made myself a large cup of ginger tea to heal my sore throat and drank it while sitting half-asleep listening to Nouvelle Vague.
Sometimes the not so enjoyable things are only an invitation to do something nice to yourself after all. Still not finished with my tea, or my Nouvelle Vague-listening, or my sore throat-ness. But in a couple of hours I’ll grab a couple of pizzas, some beer and possibly my camera and head over to my friends in the building next door to celebrate their new apartment.
The beautiful (and very talented) Linnea Dale has just released her newest single, and I can’t really say anything other than the fact that I am so happy she’s finally back … and that I love her new song. The music video is rad as well.
Slowly getting back on my feet, as school and health is getting started in the right direction. The last couple of days have been spent alternating between school, books and TV (or TV on the computer), in other words: my social life has been non-existent. But then again, you need to have those periods once in a while to appreciate the greatness of interaction with other human beings.
One (of the many) things I’ve been watching is BBC’s Laughter Therapy. There is really nothing quite like British humor, dry wit is my wit to booth, etc. Someone posted a video of Steve Hughes under one of the articles about “Moccamann-saken” where he talks about being offended, and it’s just hilarious. He also has a beautiful (and very in-your-face) speech about common sense. And then you’ve got the man himself, Michael McIntyre talking about self-combusting appliances, ryanair and nice vacations. Plus my favorite: Dara O’Briain (who takes great pleasure in making fun of his audience). So if you feel like laughing, check it out!
A little tonsillitis-hiatus while I am trying to avoid being sick for two weeks. I am obviously over-sensitivt to the stuff. Luckily we have a lot of C-vitamin containing liquids on this island, so I’m hoping a vitamin C overdose will help kill this things before I get really sick. I am also sleeping, and staying warm even thought I have a fever and feel like jumping in the ocean every third second.
It’s weird how much things from the homeland matters to you when you live on the other side of the world. A little piece of Norway in Hawaii, courtesy of Malin. Chocolate hearts, two 200 gr milk-chocolate bars, diet Mountain Dew and Terkel i Knipe was how I spent my Friday evening. The simple things are often the best things in life.
Today was that day at the beginning of every semester were you have to get everything that you’ve been pushing away and delayed for forever, done. Bus card, validate student card, order books, set up an appointment with the academic advisor, try (once again) to make the people at the Apple store understand what is wrong with your phone and fix it, buy all the necessities of a normal household, visit the bank to transfer money, etcetera etcetera. Add the fact that I might possibly, in theory, be slightly hung-over, and by that I mean over-sensitive to loud noises and weird smells, and you’ve got yourselves the best darn day I’ve experienced in the last three weeks (notice the sarcasm there).
Solution: Put on a brave face, sunglasses, a new-ish dress and add a large cup of black coffee to the equation and you get through it. Somehow.
The kind UPS man showed up in the end, ten minutes after I had given up on him. Ten minutes after the sun had set and I was half-way out the door to celebrate a birthday on a balcony with cheesecake and red wine. But then he stood there, right outside my house with a parcel just for me. And now it’s mine. A 15mm fisheye lens from Sigma. Ready for me to explore the world in a 180 degrees. Oh I’m in love. The weather today is a bit too grey for my taste, but here are some test shots I took earlier today:
To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
- Pi Patel on agnostics.
I started reading this books a couple of years back, but for some reason or another (probably school and the presence of other fun novels I just had to read) I never finished it. Picked up a copy the last time I stepped by Barnes&Noble and the last two days have been devoted to the story of the religious Piscine Molitor Patel, known as Pi to avoid the unfortunate slip of tongue that turns Piscine into Pissing and ordinary children into vicious bullies. As the son of a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India, Pi lives a life most children would envy, but that all comes to an abrupt end when he is the victim of a shipwreck. The accident leaves him, an orangoutang, a hyena, a zebra and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker the soul survivors in a small life boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“Just beyond the ticket booth Father had painted on a wall in bright red letters the question: DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO? An arrow pointed to a small curtain. There were so many eager, curious hands that pulled at the curtain that we had to replace it regularly. Behind it was a mirror.”
The novel itself does not devote a lot of time to the whole aspect of survival, the main themes of this fascinating story (“that will make you believe in God”) are spirituality, religion and animal psychology. An obligatory addition to your average “must read”-list.
Waiting for a belated Christmas present today, which will arrive by way of some nice UPS-person if all goes according to plan. This gift might be my ultimate favorite out of all the things Santa (and other kind people, including my parents) left under the tree back in December. More on that later – hopefully.
It is still roughly ten days till my semester starts, but the island is beginning to come back to life – student style – so I am finally starting to feel un-apathetic again. About high time. Celebrating by listening to the gloriously hippie-esque tones of Jefferson Airplane and eating left-over pizza. The small things in life. <3
Dia Frampton is my newest musical obsession, her debut album RED has been on repeat on my Spotify for the last three weeks, and her songs are just so damned addictive. Personal favorites at the moment are “The Broken Ones” and “Don’t Kick The Chair”. Youtube them !
This blog belongs to Maren, a 23-year-old quasi-intellectual girl from Kristiansand, Norway. She has got a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Oslo, and is now living in Honolulu, Hawaii where she is working on a MA in Communication at Hawaii Pacific University. She likes books. [more?]
In 2004 I started to write down what books I read in order to keep track of them all. Since 2006 I have gathered them here instead of in my notebook and they serve as a reminder of how I should read more and compete to beat my old “record”. You can find the complete list here.
