holidays!

How incredibly accurate...
Here's a Christmas greeting to all my faithful readers... ;)

Christmas day bike ride in the sunset (Onsala).

From the mouths of children...

Just had lunch after having helped out with some caroling at a mission downtown. One of my friends brought her two young boys, which was a lot of fun. While eating and talking, the 4 year old asked me where my mom is. I told him she is far away, in another country. "But..", he said, a bit upset about this thought, "You're just a baby!!!". Yup. Something to remember if I feel old any time soon!
I also got birdsitters for the hobbits, a family that has 14 birds already. Sweet. Just a few days to go now, and right NOW I have to finish a report. I am so intenesly annoyed with that report. It took me months to figure out how to do what I needed to do, and in the end it was just a week's worth of work. Grrr. Soon to be but a memory though, in 5 days I'm off. Also time to buy some milk and make an äggost for the faculty Christmas potluck tomorrow. Yum.

Monday...

2 weeks left. PILES of labreports to grade. Papers to write, masses to model, birdseeds to buy. -18 outside, sunny and pretty. Need clean apartment. TAing tonight (expect gangrene in my feet after that, eek). Life is good... :) (well except for the possibility of future footlessness of course).

Recent dreams: 2 nights ago, I dreamt I was part of the Lost team. Some alterations from the original series occured though. For instance, we got off the island, and ended up in some unknown city (!). We ate food at a restaurant. Some of the crew were friends from my church (Kevin, etc). I realised that someone wanted to kill me (noone in the crew; as opposed to the actual tv-series, they were all very nice and cooperating) by elaborate means - trying to kidnap me while we were being guided around some castle, trying to run me over while I was walking down a street. The reason to the killings was that I in fact was a secret agent. I got my instructions, soon after the second attempt on my life. Q (which usually is M, although called Q in this dream, and it was actually brother Mears...) provided me with a pair of turqoise boots, high-heeled, inside which I had secret hiding places for messages. They were also never-fail boots for kicking any person wanting to kill me. I was supposed to go to a certain party (the kind where lots of gamblers and mafia-people meet), sneak in, rendez-vous with some person, get a secret message, kick down any killer, and report to Q. I also found myself wearing this amazingly turquoise full-length ballroom dress. All prospects of being able to perform this task without being noticed too much, were kind of minimized at that point. But that didn't matter. Those boots were just to die for. Sadly I woke up before anything else happened.

Last night was more obscure - medieval times, travelling down to a lake, and the village there. Sleeping at a taverna a la Lord of the rings, everyone crammed into one big room (men on one side of the fireplace, women on the other). Meeting with some people (the taverna owner, plus a prince of some sort) and making up elaborate plans for the following days tournament games. Secretly, since there of course were crooks involved one way or another as well. And then the telephone rang and woke me up.

Who needs books? Only sad part is I never get to see what happens next!

4 weeks...

Where's the emission of my galaxy?? Either I'm really bad at cleaning, or there's just nothing there... so all of you who have waited for so long - the wait is not over yet.

Winnipeg is still snowless. sweet. and fairly warm. (+6 today). I am happy. busy but happy.

intermediate november update

No, I didn't stay down for long, just a little while. One can be pretty hard on oneself. Things are just too good to be annoyed, that would be a waste of precious time. And after weeks of cloudiness, I've seen the sun two days in a row! With strong winds from south, it's actually rather pleasant just now (i.e. just above zero). I might even take out my bike later!

Most common state: Rotting away in the office. Feeling hunger. Was jsut about to wander my way through the not-so-uplifting catacombs towards some place with food (or edible substance at least), when some faculty came with a brick of fruit and juices to starving grad students. Sweet.

Good things now: Making a new Aeggost again tonight, 5 weeks till D-day (dec 19), so need find birdwatcher before then, christmas concert practicing (funfun!), dancing (took a break in October, but missed it a LOT), work going forwards, and TA-ed a class this morning for a lab about galaxies. A very nice reminder on why I am doing what I do. Galaxies are just SO COOL. I don't know how to emphasize that enough, and people don't seem to realise it, but seriously! Is there anything cooler? Us being here observing them is rather awesome too... But just LOOK at one... (NGC 2903, one of the cuties I am working on, here in optical, with a Hubble image overlaid). It instills the same feeling as flying.


Annoying thing for the moment: Where did I put my calculator?

Up and down

Urgh. After having had an awesome up for a while (the climax being flying in darkness, using the stars for navigation, after a sushi meal and a dance class, on saturday evening), I decided to go dooown this afternoon. Well, it wasn't a conscious decision, I was happily preparing the lecture I was going to give in my advisor's absence (she had to leave for the airport), when I realised rather abruptly that the lecture didn't start at 2.30 as I by some odd reason had assumed the entire time (last one I did started 1.30...), but yeah, 1.30. By then it was 1:50, so it was no use rushing over. Oh, I felt so bad... I was looking forward to it a lot, and now the students wouldn't have all the info they needed. So, in short, feeling pretty much like a loser right now. On the good side of it, this will definitely never happen again, and I get to work a bit on how to not dig myself deep into regret about something I can't do anything about (or, rather, do everything I can about it, and then leave it). Anyways. First snow came a few days ago, and yesterday was halloween. Saw Shaun of the Dead, an awesome film.

Typical

My advisor is going on a worktrip, and a few days ago she realised her flight left one day too early. So she asked me if I could do her lectures that day. That would be fun! ... had I not all of a sudden gotten this nasty bug and am now sitting with a terrible throat and slight fever. Half of the lectures are prepared, but I can't rest, because then I just start anguishing about them. Siiigh. Usually I'd just stay home when feeling like this (and it's my pet peeve when people don't!), but when teaching you kind of have to go. TAing this morning went fine though, even though I felt like garbage when I woke up.

dadadadaaaaaa

Just came home from a concert - winnipeg symphony orchestra played Beethoven's 2nd symphony. I've never seen such an energetic conductor, at least not with that kind of personality. He made me laugh right out, and members of the orchestra had a hard time keeping from smiling too. Awesomeness. What's even better is that they are continuing playing B's symphonies, one after the other. I missed the first one, but I will definitely not miss the Eroica (3), and not 5,6,7 either. Somehow I ended up getting 5 stuck in my head afterwards thanks to my musiclistening companion. Good day, despite having to invigilate 2 mid-terms (watching poor students sweat through a test in 50 minutes - I could feel the tnesion, and ended up with a nasty headache already a few minutes into the first one. My advisor laughed at me, knowing my terror about exams). (And for all who worried in my behalf, the meeting yesterday went well, (as it usually does when I'm nervous about it)).

This weekend it's thanksgiving. This means I can eat as much pumpkin pie as I want. yes. There are some excellent things about living in the western hemisphere, and one of them is pumpkin pie. Did I mention that we have an amazing autumn btw? It's WARM (around 20) and the trees are in all colours, not only yellow this year, and it's gorgeous.

Cleaning and inverting

ARGH!!! *throws monitor out of window*. Well, fantasizing about it gives same amount of satisfaction, but not having to deal with after effects. I am sure UofM would be less than cooperative about it, since they are most of the time anyways. (no, I'd never throw my little donated monitor away)

Reason to my mild amount of frustration is that I am trying to create an image out of radio data. This is probably a very simple process, if you have done it before. It's the first time for me though. The more I work on it, the more I learn, so that is good. Problem is that all the extra knowledge is still not enough for making it work. Perhaps I'm running out of patience after having worked on it continously (well, almost) for 8 hours so far today. Which is really nothing, so I don't think I'm entitled to complaining just yet.

Tomorrow I'm going to a banquet. Free food is nice.

But, the reason to why I started writing is this: Tomorrow is Thursday. Thursday is day of meeting with advisor. I cannot believe it's already been a week since my last meeting, for which I felt exactly the same as I do now (what have I been working on? where are my results? WHY are there no results? did I get abducted by a UFO without noticing it? Gaaaah, I'll not be able to get out of there alive! Please let me get abducted by a UFO!) And this despite the fact that my advisor is one of the kindest and awesomest advisors one could probably have. I guess, when you're in the middle of something, it's hard to have results ready. This is what I really don't like about being a grad student though - almost always having this feeling of being chased, never accomplishing anything worthwhile. The few occasions when you do accomplish something are heavenly. But could they not come more often?

So, I guess this rant indicates I'm not having a good research day today. next time I write, I intend it to be a VERY good research day. Everything else is quite good though. Weather is awesome, getting paid on friday (YES!!!), wonderful people around me everywhere, birds at home, life could only be better if work gave more results. Yesterday was the first TA-session of the year, which was totally awesome. My little students learnt how to classify stars by looking at their spectra.

Well, I guess step 1 would be to stop ranting here and go back to Miriad (the reduction software) and its tasks. By the end of this day, I want to be able to see a GALAXY from my data and not just concentric rings in every direction. Grmbl.

Yey for monitors in laundry rooms!

Aaaaah! For the first time since I got home, I can use my computer... I went to do laundry, and noticed that there was a little monitor left on the table where people tend to leave things they think someone else might be interested in. And interested I was, indeed... So I carried it up to my apartment, connected it, and LO AND BEHOLD, I can use my laptop again (the laptop screen stopped working when I got back).

Happy.

Grrr...

Wednesday evening. Research not working at ALL right now, stupid software doesn't do as it is supposed to. Yes medears, I am back, in ye olde Winnipeg. Since a week. It feels like much longer for some reason. Well, after I landed last monday these things happened: My laptop screen died. My bike got a huge chunk of glass in the tyre (one night on the airport floor in Stansted leaving its tracks (no, not for the bike, for my spelling)). Bike is fixed, laptop not. Hence no new nice photos to brighten up your day. Oh, I also wake up with a nasty soar throat every morning, accompanied by irritatingly humble sneezing (i.e. not sick enough to justify staying at home (esp not without a computer..!), but enough to not feel like biking to school these last few days of ability-to-bike-ness before winter hits us. Autumn has arrived... It actually feels totally ok. Plans on visiting the caribbean in february might have something to do with that, but I think I also am fairly happy about most situations right now. Except for the computer situation of course. And the monetary situation a while longer (my usual successful ignoring of the university administration is on a hold right now, due to school fee payments and the resultant echoing void I stare at when checking my bank account. A new astronomy phd student started here, fresh from calgary, and to my enjoyment, she shares all my sentiments about the university administration. So its not only spoiled swedish students who think it's natural to have a phone in their office and enough money to live, etc, etc. Ha!)

But in OCTOBER, I'll have as much sushi as I can eat...

Just about to fly...

Aaaargh! I have to PACK! Somehow not only the amount of baggage doubled, also the size of the suitcase did. But, I am packing the small suitcase inside the bigger one (since air canada broke it, and I need to take it back to get reimbursed and it's not mine. Grmbl). I wonder if the people who screen it are going to be suspicious?

The afternoon ended nicely in the backyard, playing badminton with brothers and father, in soft sunlight filtered by the trees, among frogs and huge mushrooms.

Yes, pack, need do, now. I'm getting less and less fond of that. I wonder what is going to happen to the bag THIS time... But first mum's lamb steak dinner.

travel, lack of jetlag and home

I tried out an experiment - tried to find the cheapest fare possible for going home. Thus I ended up having to fly with three different companies. Could be risky, but it worked out quite nicely. So, an early august morning, I left warm and cosy Winnipeg, for my little adventure, destination Sweden.
Air Canada obviously had to rip off the back part of my (borrowed) suitcase, but that made me content, because at least I wouldn't lose the luggage after that (statistically). Descending to Toronto, we went through the most amazing cloud formations I've ever seen, which also let me know what I had forgotten to pack - batteries for my camera... Bought ridiculously expensive batteries at the airport, and flew on to Montreal. Now, with the perspective of London, Montreal indeed had incorporated some peculiar measures of fightig the terror threat. At least in London, you're allowed to buy tax free after security. In Montreal, all travellers to London were denied entry to the tax free part of the airport (kind of boring when having a 6 hours layover). So instead I investigated a magazine store for a while. As in Winnipeg, all the drink vending machines were closed, and fridges with bottles were locked. 5 meters away, there was a Second Cup (café), and bottles of juices and pops were happily being sold. I fail to see the logic behind this... We were also forbidden to bring any kinds of creams, make up, chap sticks etc onboard. One would assume that an airport would have enough control on what is being sold after security, but apparently not. London, on the other hand, seemed more logical, after security you were allowed to buy and bring stuff. I guess that's because you're leaving, but still...???

ANYWAYS. Landed in London Gatwick at 4 in the morning after only 5 h 45 min flight. that was pretty impressive. We must have had a nice tailwind. Trying to sleep in the early morning hours at the airport was fairly impossible (got half an hour) so instead we (another phd student heading to an earth-worm conference in Poland with same amount of layover as myself) took a train downtown. And this is when I started to realise how expensive London is. HUVALIGEN! We did the warpspeed version of London sighseeing, in a few hours, and managed to cram in most of the most londonish things. Having gotten rid of the luggage at a station (eeexpeeensiiive, gah..) we got a day pass for the busses, and boarded a red "doubledecker", sat in the top front and had an awesome time. Here's the list of what we managed to visit/do:

- St Paul's Cathedral (not inside, ?9 fee for visiting a church?)
- Sandwich purchase for lunch and eating of this at Trafalgar square (in awesome sunligt - I've never seen London in sun before!!)
- White Hall, in perfect time for the change of guards
- 10 Downing Street
- Big Ben and Houses of parliament
- St James park, down the Royal Mall
- Buckingham Palace
- Green park and some memorial place I don't know the name of
- Hyde Park, including half an hour nap on the lawn(!)
- Marble Arch, Speakers Corner,
- Bus down Oxford street
- British Museum (5 minutes!, my goal was to see the Rosetta Stone, since they were renovating when I was there 10 years ago, and I then missed it - as a bonus we also got to see an Easter island statue.)
- Bus back to Liverpool station, luggage, and train (gaaah! my poor thin visa card!) to Stansted. By then it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Not too bad. Felt somewhat dizzy.

And Stansted was no fun airport. But landing in Säve (not regular airport) was even worse. We ended up in some farmhouse, and had to dive for the luggage in the carts they so unceremoniously had stuffed all the bags. Who cared, I was HOME. My father and middle brother came to pick me up, in Ye Olde Volkswagen Van, and then we picked up brother #3 at the student home, and my "lazy" days were ready to start. Now, due to all the walking around london, I woke up the next morning at 8, no problem at all (Alyssa, you should be proud of me!). Apparently all the sunlight had rebooted the brain, and no jetlag was noticeable. I was amazed.
Home... :) Last photo taken last friday, when one of my goals (swimming in the ocean) was accomplished.

weather again

Third rain (I think) of the summer just occurred. And has still not ended. Since it was my plan to cycle to the university the rest of the week, I'm still confined to home. It has been raining and thundering since at least 6 this morning (that's when I woke up by it), I even had to close the window because it was just too loud. Now the head hurts and I am considering just doing everything from home today. Don't know if I should. The birds would certainly like it. Work now, and when it's dried up, I'll take the bike. Or bus if drying takes too long.


Last saturday a tornado went by, just 80 km north of winnipeg. I saw the trail of it on the way to the beach on monday, where it had crossed the highway. Thick and awesome forest, even fairly high, and all of a sudden an area where the trees were bent down like sticks, or just removed, and only the poor trunks were left. The tornado went over a camp ground and ruined quite a bit, killed a person and injured lots. That saturday we also had some really intense weather, with lots of thunder and lightning in the city. Tornados are very interesting... I have never seen anyone before, except for the cartoon version when Mickey Mouse is conducting William Tell (truly awesome cartoon, made me start listening to Rossini), so actually being in a place where there apparently are 15 tornados a year on average, is quite exotic. I'd like to actually see one, but probably not while I'm doing it... (The 2nd picture shows the end scene from the cartoon, when Donald, who's been tormenting Mickey's performance, playing his flute, reveals the 45th flute hidden in his outfit).


Anyways, now that I'm becoming such an expert in uploading photos, I have to add yet another one: On civic holiday (monday of first weekend of august) I ended up at the sand cliffs of lake Winnipeg. A perfect place, with perfect weather and perfect company.

work, walking and weather

Life is calm. Work is intense. For every thing I try to do, there's a problem. I manage to override the problem, but sometimes I wonder if my solutions are good ones or if I'm just applying some kind of patch which is hiding not only what appears to be the problem, but also the murky cave of Disaster and Ickyness that harbours the actual causes to the problems...? Sooner or later they'll show their ugly faces, I assume, and I'd rather it'd be sooner than in a few years from now, while facing the defense. In other words: The velocity field of the galaxy I just managed to extract in yet another way (using gaussian fitting), couldn't be used to calculate the rotation curve, because the units were totally wrong. Now it finally can. But while working on this, I did a most daring thing. I needed some chocolate, so I went and bought a Hershey's special dark. My experience with Hershey's has so far been far from plesant. The substance they produce is an abomination and shouldn't be allowed to be called chocolate (and for anyone who disagrees, lucky you, you just haven't been introduced to the real stuff yet). It tastes more like one of the grosser ones of Bertie Bott's all-flavoured beans (not sardine, the second worst). With one exception, the peanut butter cups are actually fairly agreeable. However, with enough cocoa (>50%) apparently not even Hershey can fail. It's certainly not Cote d'Or, but it stifles the worst cravings.
But, my foot inflammation that I acquired on thursday last week (by doing nothing else than walking normally - Grr! 3rd time during less than a year that my left foot has issues. Broken, sprained and now inflamed) let me know that it was still there during the walk.
Today it is grey, and this morning, I was actually heavily rained upon, for the first time this summer. It's about the 3rd rainfall for the entire summer, so it was fairly nice. The clouds are actually lowering the temperature with about 10 degrees, so it's 25 outside right now. :)

The birds are finding their way around the apartment now, but I really need to build a tree for them. Pippin is happy to jump up on my finger whenever she is lost or uncomfortable, and is totally adorable. Merry is still cautious, but gives the awesomest concerts, and his flying skills are getting better and better.

Time to get back to my galaxies. Funny telephone conversation the other day, while at work, the owners of my building called:
Anonymous Caller: "Hi this is Galaxy Management here"
Me, interrupted from working hard on preparing NGC 2903 and NGC 4096 for matlab runs: "...aahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA hihi, hoho.,!" (etc)
Confused Person: "Why are you laughing?"
Moi, realising after a while that this is not Hildy actually trying to be funny (where would I ever get that notion from though?), nor someone I had emailed previously asking stuff about yet another galaxy: "Uuuuhm. I don't know!" (also starting to feel rather dumb)
--Profound Silence--
Person believing she's talking to the biggest moron: "so, this is about your rent.... "
And then I remembered that the place I address my rent cheques to wears the rather hybris (how make that word into an adjective?) -ized name Galaxy Management. hehe. I quickly explained what I was working on, but whatever. :)

Merry and Pippin

Let me present to you: Merry and Pippin!
  
Verdict is given - I tested out the names on the budgies last night, and they blinked at me affirmatively for Merry and Pippin. Which would be the nicknames for Montgomery and Pequenita. So, there I have the Star Trek connection after all (Montgomery Scott aka Scotty), and Pippin is actually swedish for 'the birdie', which is gender neutral, so I definitely think it can be used for a female bird. Then we have the French king, Pippin the small/little (Pepin le bref), son of Charlemagne unless I am mistaken (will check shortly) who lived in the 700's, and Pippin is definitely small! Which, with the spanish spelling of Geoffs invented portuguese, is also what Pequenita means (feminine diminutive form of pequeno)! Merry is a very merry bird indeed, so in all, I think my birds chose the right names.

I would hereby like to thank all the contributors of names. There has been a wide variety on themes from stars to pirates to star trek to mexican food to flying related names to patriotic winnipegian names. See comments of Chirp for a few. Romy and Sofia both thought of LoTR-names, so I think I owe them at least half a dinner each. Sofia was also rather persistent about the Star Trek theme, which I really liked myself. Scotty and Seven was a close-up in the competition. Christine's suggestions should get some kind of honourable mention for their originality, and my parents ideas are supersweet as always... David's flying related ones were as well really close and kept to the preferred two-syllable structure. And then we have Jack's pirate suggestions Guybrush Threepwood and Gunpowder Gertie which just deserve to be mentioned... It might get to be their superhero alter egos. Then I got quite a few other suggestions in verbal form, which I thus of course can't remember, from Jonathan and Geoff and others (and, me deep apologies if I forgot anyone now...)

Merry and Pippin had their first flight yesterday, and they are very skilled. The first time they were however happy to jump up on my arm to be carried back to their home after a having ended up in the kitchen. In the evening however they didn't really feel like going to sleep, so it took a bit of persuasion. Pippin has no problem to be carried around perched on my finger, as long as she doesn't lose Merry out of sight, then she takes off and flies back to him. And Merry is not really interested at all in being carried around, he's too much of an explorer. But with one bird on each hand, it works well. They are then very well-behaved and jumps into the cage (the Shire) with a merry chirp.

Ok, back to work.

Chirp!

Life is complete. I mean as in nothing more to wish for. Everything is back to how it should be. A real pirate cannot be parrotless. This one has been so for more than 2 years. As of today, this has been taken care of. Romy took me to a very nice petstore, where they don't clip the wings of the birds. Stamp of approval. They keep them in cages and not in aquariums. Keep them away from disturbing elements (such as people etc). Nice store in other words. And there I met several kindred spirits. And brought two of them with me home. I didn't intend to... Possibly one. But the one I chose, was such a happy little fellow, and I knew it would make him really sad to leave. But then a little yellow budgie-girl from the same cage started playing with my fingers, and shooed away any other bird who came by to do the same out of curiosity. My heart melted like chocolate exposed to the winnipegian sun (which would be fast). The result was that I came home with two budgies. They glared at me for a bit before I left them alone to get used to there surroundings, but seemed to like me a bit too. Then the anguish came. Am I crazy? But it lasted only for a little while. 3 more years here require the presence of birds. Besides, I did some research before, and it doesn't seem to be impossible to bring them with me home or wherever I go after this. (yes, I will do a big photo post in a while... :) Meanwhile: I need names! So, until Sunday, a competition will be held. Winner will, apart from the glory, receive a superb dinner in company of birds and moi-meme. Pretty nice company in other words... ;) Swedes are also welcome to participate, but dinner will then occur in early september, with other birds present.

ARR!

Jubilation! Yesterday I went with a bunch of friends to the opening of Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Enjoying having a good time, we made sure to be in good time for standing in line (well, it was a substantial group of 17), with the appropriate attire. It is interesting when you go to the foodcourt washrooms to change, noticing people's glances, first feeling like a total geek, esp when remembering my age. But since I don't enjoy feeling weird, I changed my feelings into those of the happy and proud geek who enjoys brightening up someone's day a bit even if it might be in a scornful way for oneself, and immediately everything felt good again.

Anyways, what an awesome film experience. I was in heaven, it was exactly my kind of film, in all categories.

Today is saturday, and I'm sitting at home for a bit before heading out. It is very warm in my apartment, so it might soon be necessary to buy a fan.

Taste experience of the day: Yoghurt with cloudberry (hjortron) jam and fresh strawberries and cornflakes.

Ojojoj...

All you can eat - sushi sounded like a good idea at first. But now I am too full to think... The sushi was ok, but I think my standards have gotten a little higher after the amazing sushi I had in calgary and albuquerque. Or perhaps I just got too full too soon.
I am getting used to being home, loving the weather, and having a really nice time. Work is good, although today I learnt that my last proposal got rejected. RATS (and other eloquent expressions of choice). It stunned me for a bit. I wonder if I shouldn't give up that project and go totally for radio astronomy from now on. But it would be so annoying just giving up on this project, considering how much time I have put into it! Well, I have one more idea... and my advisor probably has a few too. But why oh why couldn't it have been accepted..? It was so awesome! argh.

But it's impossible to stay sad when it's 25+ degrees every day, sunshine, wonderful friends around, birds, clouds, thunderstorms, a now useable river walk (all the spring mud is dug away or being overgrown with plants), dancing, amazing sunsets etc..

A day at the VLA

Yesterday turned out to be one of those amazing days which will put a smile on your face that can't be erased. And to show why, I am even posting some photos! We went to the VLA area, all 150 or so astronomers, packed into 3 buses. It was a fairly long trip, through the desert, up and up, (barely noticeable other than through loss of hearing), to a level of 2200 metres. I don't know why a telescope is such a beautiful thing - but it is. When reaching VLA, I glanced backwards, and there was an immense amount of cameras in position. We were divided into small groups, and went on a a tour, which felt really vip. Very Large Array is an array of 27 25-m telescopes, that can be moved into different configurations on railtracks. The only radio telescopes I've seen before are the Onsala 25 and 20 m antennas, so seeing that many of them at the same time was really neat.

 

Isn't it pretty... :) It was a gorgeous day, not too hot due to altitude, but the sun was strong.

 
  

We actually climbed up onto one of the antennas! My knees were shaking due to vertigo, but it made it all just so much extra exciting. Sitting there in the dish was a surreal experience, very very amazing... I'll describe this better in a webalbum to come - for now, this is all I can say: wow. WOW! YEY! YEEHAA! :)

Being hot

Sacre bleu!
So, I came down with the Montreal (aka Montezuma's revenge, etc), plus some bug creating a fever competing strongly with the outside temperature. Zut. I managed to attend the lectures this morning I really didn't want to miss, but the afternoon seems more ok to skip, so in a few seconds I'll try to sleep this away. Fever dreams are intriguing. Last night I dreamt that we were to have a talent show at the summer school, and I was to participate in some wrestling (is that a talent?), which, in the dream, I was really good at (who stole my brain?). Luckily, it didn't happen, due to all the fever, I had to cancel it all. Then I entered an elevator, apparently with the love of my life (nope, don't remember any features, only that he was tall. Rats.) Then the elevator, equipped with windows, malfunctioned. In real life, that would mean that it would stop, and nothing happen (I think). In my dreams (and I have frequent elevator malfunction dreams), it means that it skips your floor, accelerates, stops in the middle, accelerates down, to some unknown basement, surviving that, it now accelerates sideways, then up, up, up, (and I notice with some amusement, while desperately trying out different button combinations to make it stop, to make the alarm go on, or the phone to work, that this building had far more floors than it looked like from the outside). Usually around floor 100 or so, it just shoots out of the elevator shaft, and then, luckily, I wake up, before it hits the ground.

It's 32 outside. zzz.

Albuquerque!

2nd day in Albuqurque, after a full day of lectures on radioastronomy, correlators, polarization, etc... Going for dinner soon, which is a very good thing, since I am very hungry.

I had only 2 days inbetween coming home from Calgary-conferences, before leaving ultra early again on the monday (thanks for the ride, Angelo!!!). Had time for practicing landings, reviving plants and doing laundry, and that was about it. I was actually not even in the mood to leave. But after a long nap in minneapolis, and while heading south, I looked out of the airplane window and studied the desert-y landscape, and realized how amazing my life is. New place, new sites, new people... and no camera to document it with! (due to a certain lack of smartness last week, when wanting to change the format of my photos, but that's another story).

I just love it when you walk out of the airplane, and get a quick sense of the outside temperature and smell just when entering the tube-walkway (does it have a name?). 35 degrees of desert heat - now we're talking! I wasn't picked up at the airport as was previously announced, so instead I grabbed the luggage and took a bus to the campus of university of new mexico. It brought with it the excitement of travelling.

Some impressions:
- Sizes (people, pop, amounts of sugar in everything you might want to eat etc. I always forget, and it's always somewhat baffling...)
- Auto-mode on everything (ARGH! Why, oh why?? esp airport "restrooms". Stupid sensor stupid notices every movement, and FLUSHES when you least expect.. (well, you get the picture). One of my most major pet peeves. Then you try to magically wiggle some soap out of "automatic" soap dispenser, and almost taking off, waving your arms in front of the stupid tap. I don't get it. There are no automatic toilet doors anyhow, so why the stupid flush?).
- ID's. Apparently you can't be served at a bar unless you have american ID. French didn't work, nor swedish driving licences (there's another swede here too, a friend from Onsala!), OR, believe it or not, swedish passport. !?! Not that I care, in my case, of course, but that was the alltimehigh of stupidity... You can enter the US with the passport, but not use it as ID. (well, to be honest, some places do accept it. But only the passports, nothing else.)
- Customs! On the other hand, believe it or not, the US customs were totally nice and civilised towards me this time! First time, I think. Perhaps because I was being rather grumpy, rolling my eyes when they scolded me for not having taken off my belt while going through the metal detector? Anyways, it was really refreshing for a change.
- Temperature! YEEHAA! It's 35 degrees! Or was, right when I wrote that and finished it halfsentence, and now, at 22:35, it's 32. I haven't had this kind of heat since Italy 2003, and I LOVE it.
- Bugs. Apparently I was quite lucky with the room - it's the "coldest" one, it's one of the few with functioning internet connection, and it's not supplied with big 2/3 cockroach sized bugs who crawl along the wall in bugwarpspeed, as in one of the other rooms with sauna temp.
- camera: I bought a new camera today (hooray for low dollar value and tax). Photos from my precious will be online soon. On friday and saturday we go to Soccorro, and VLA, so I assume there will be some nice ones.

And, talks. Some people are magical, and can make you listen for 80 minutes continuously to a talk about polarization, while having fun and learning, while for others, all your energy is taken up by following the talk, and none is left for actually understanding, even thought the topic is simpler.

But, most of all, again, the warmth. Common sight during break outside the lecture building (or: how to pinpoint the scandinavians in the crowd): everyone is sitting/standing in the shade of the huge pine trees (the campus area is amazing!), except for the two swedes, standing facing the sun, leaning backwards a bit to increase the solar exposed area as much as possible, with goofy smiles on their faces, trying to save as much as possible for darker times to come.

The slowest computer in the universe...!

No, it's not my laptop actually, but the computer (or something disguised as one) I'm sitting in front of in the business calss lounge of air canada at calgary airport. I ended up here after having volunteered to give up my place on my flight, since they were out of seats due to some plane malfunction somewhere... And, yeah, I get a pretty nice discount on my next flight due to that. Although, I also have to wait for about 6 hours till my next flight... fun . Luckily htere's a huge amount of food around, so I'm not starving. At all. As usual, during this week, then. I better go on some bikerides as soon as I get home.
I am quite tired after these 2 conferences, but on Monday, I leave again, for New Mexico and the synthesis workshop. Early. Indescribably early. Ok, enough of this grinding of cogwheels (I can't even see the text I am typing) - with some luck it might even be saved...

Calgary report

My run of weird luck seems to be over now, which is nice..! Right now I actually have some extra time, after 3 days of conference activities. I'm in Calgary, enjoying 2 conferences in a row, first CASCA, and then AAS. The weather is nice, although not as nice as Winnipeg, and there's just too much food. They had the banquet early, already yesterday, and I stuffed myself with Salmon with saffron sauce, vegetables and looked suspiciously at the skewer with giant prawns and scallops. Since I can eat scallops when I eat sushi, I tried it out, and it wasn't too bad. Pretty much tofu consistency with mild ocean taste (it was cooked). The prawn on the other hand... I ate one, but no. Then there was dessert, chocolate decadence. Promising name. Well, despite being rather full at this time, I ate almost all of the 2 elusively thin pieces of incredibly massive chocolate cake (the first few pieces tasted divinely). Somehow I couldn't stop eating it even though I had had more than enough after just a few bits. So then I enjoyed about en hour of feeling puffed up as a marshmallowman, but massive as the previously eaten chocolate cake. Greenfaced. One can only eat too much of sushi and still feel fairly ok.

And the rest of the conference? Well, it's very nice. Some superb talks, some somewhat less intriguing ones (or perhaps I was just tired...), some very interesting conversations with people whose faces I never new before, only their names. The socializing is awesome at theses events. But most of all I have been anguishing about my research, and with lots of newfound inspiration, I actually can't wait to get home and WORK, like crazy!! I just have to get up with some good plan on how to make that urge last till I get back home...

Kraa kraa (tales of the olyckskorp)

Despite a series of, I hope, statistically anomalous events, I managed to hand in my poster for printing in the very last second. This Monday actually turned out be really miraculous! As opposed to the weekend (the following is what I wrote on sunday, but couldn't send because the internet connection went down):

"After having struggled for a few weeks with my data and the production of a rotation curve with this dutch software I am working on, I finally solved all the problems, just in the knick of time on friday (i.e. leaving me exactly enough time to create the graph, finish the poster and get it printed before leaving on wednesday). So, jumping on clouds of joy, I went for lunch. When I came back, the computer system was down. The home server had decided that was the best time to enter a coma, effectively preventing me from getting any work whatsoever done. Baffled at this just more than amazingly untimely event, I took the expressbus home, to recreate my poster from scratch on my laptop instead, and just hope I'd be able to reach the files and the software later that day. Got stuck on Pembina for an hour on the bus due to construction work. Gnashing teeth now, I finally got home, recreated the poster, and went to dance - nothing else to do really!

Next morning, after a rather intense thunderstorm, I woke up to a powerless apartment. I had also forgotten I was going to go flying with two friends, and I heard someone call my name from down the street, since the buzzer wasn't working. Some fire had killed all the power in half of Winnipeg. Well, now I definitely couldn't work on anything, so I went flying, even more astonished at the development of my getting-ready-for-conference-situation. Luckily, my bad luck didn't reach the airport, and we went for two nice flights. Coming home, I massively needed my bath, so red river coloured liquid came out of the taps. I stared at it a bit, in my intense yuckyness (think having danced all of previous night and 28 degrees heat outside temperature and intense humidity). The power got back after 6 hours (!) and the water turned clear after some time as well. Nice. Came to school after having conferred with sysadmin, because I couldn't reach my computer remotely. And after 2 hours of tweaking and rebooting, I actually could log in as root and reach my files. But I couldn't run the software!!! Again I found myself staring at my situation (well, the monitor) in disbelief, and tried to drown my worries in the saturday dance class and an excellent visit to Fude. The Pickerel was as amazing as ever, and the chocolate sauce chicken defintely got my stamp of approval. As did the mango spritzer (see Jonathan's blog for further description.

Come home in one piece after some more dancing at the Empire, albeit somewhat sleepy, I woke up Sunday morning, missed the bus to church which was early (things back to normal in other words), biked there instead while trying to keep the skirt from getting too close to the wheels (didn't have time to change and was an optimist, still). The sky was getting darker and darker, and darker, and when I got there, (before the skies opened over my head) my skirt decided to get stuck in the breaks. Growl. A massive thunderstorm then happened, with neverending thunder and some nice lightning. Time for sunday school. Time for Theresa to attach the dot over the i in topic "getting prepared for conference": I was going to give a quick review on some chapters, and rising up to stand in front of the class, I somehow tripped over myself while walking out inbetween benches and sprained the foot. Same one I broke half a year ago btw. It is now provided with an extra ankle, in a nice purplish/blue shade. And on Wednesday I'm leaving for Calgary. So I got to renew the "friendship" with one of the crutches I had hidden in the depths of my closet.

What next now? Just bring it on. Oh, the network connection went down. Figures. And I still need to create the graph for the poster before handing it in to the printer place tomorrow. Burning finger on frying pan while frying crepes? Check. I better go to sleep..."

But, come Monday, and early at work, and the sun is shining on Theresa again! :) Everything got dome. Now I am going to go home and make a pie.

Before...

This is before I'm done with the poster (I should have ended up in publishing instead of research, making a poster is as always easy and super fun). Right now I need: a thorough back massage, a non-analytical rotation curve of NGC 3556, a new bar of chocolate (at least 75%), a mass model of the mass distribution of NGC 2903 or 4096, a ticket for X-men 3 tonight, and a hug would be nice... I did get, this morning, 2 packages of Anthon Berg marsipanbröd, and a bag of hiprose soup in a package from my mom (these items are quite the globe trotters, since they travelled here in March for my birthday, stayed at the post office for 2 weeks (during which time I had no access to my mailbox, because I had lost my keys), and travelled home again 1 day before I ambushed the mailman in our building and persuaded him to give me my mail) (hiprose soup is, for the non-aware readers of this post, one of my favourite beverages, but sadly among the list of essential stuff I cannot get my hands on here)!

The Winnipeg May of 2006 has, weatherwise, turned out to be rather awesome. It's been rather warm, and yesterday I was biking around downtown in 28 degrees heat. Workwise it has been somewhat frustrating (and still is). In a week from now however, I will be in Calgary, followed by New Mexico, enjoying all the good sides of being in this occupation (brain overloading at conferences and workshops!). So I anticipate next report to come from there.

Go Finland, Sweden, moths, masers and worms!

I didn't miss the ESC! I placed myself comfortably in the comfy chair, laptop on lap, and listened to the swedish radio broadcast (apparently there was a webcast as well, which I should have understood, but the radio was fun too). Despite my dad's objections I do think the right song won.. :) It was a historical ESC. Although Bosnia was really nice too. And why didn't Norway get more points? (Sweden-Canada hockey semi finals at same time btw! Sometimes I do miss a tv... (5-4))

The evening was finished nicely by watching the massively qualitative japanese Godzilla (2004-version (?)). My goodness. I think I need to see it again. It has inummerable memorable scenes. The giant moth is my hero. You have a huge dinosaur lookalike, breathing blue maser fire (or something like that, masers are mentioned frequently in this film), fighting three-headed and other monsters, and you send a giant colourful moth two the aid. And Minilla (mini-zilla) saves the day in the end. Sweet. I am not even going mention all the other wonder moments, it's a must-see.

I haven't written for ages, but it seems like there's not much to report. 1.5 weeks left before conference, and the poster is taking shape. Layout-wise. What's going IN there is still being worked on. I'm not sure my heart can take that kind of pressure for too long time. Relief of said pressure consists of dancing (or rather, changes the location and applies it to sore toe instead). I have turned into a dance addict.
My brother has fixed up an internet phone at home, so now they can call me for free!
The winnipegian weather has been very springy, not too cold at all (not too warm either, which is a pity), and now is the time of the attack of the tree-worms. Walk under a tree, and you will be provided with at least three rather cute mini worms, luckily easy to spot in their amazing green-ness, that hang down from the trees in long, long threads. I think they turn into moths later on, but I'm not sure. I've never seen this spring phenomenon anywhere else than in Winnipeg.

Calm before storm

It's one of those evenings when I decided I cannot work any longer (the database I needed data from doesn't work either), and have a few minutes extra before the next bus comes. I could of course work on the talk I'll have to prepare for friday. Or study up on the procedure I have to work on tomorrow until I grow dead tired of it. No. Way past that point. Working until I tire of something would generally not take me anywhere... :)

The end of this month will be very nice (i.e. as soon as the poster I will create is handed in to be printed), but the time until then have potential of getting really stressful. What needs to be done is creating said poster as well as the info that is to be put onto it. It doesn't help that it's May, with friends who want to go out biking with me, and awesome weather (the sudden drop in temperature below zero a few days ago was, despite people's complaints, nothing but a blessing in disguise; all mosquitos that were most probably about to appear, froze to death).

Time to go!

ESC

For every year I am gone from home, one thing gets harder and harder to miss: The Eurovision Song Contest. This contest is one of the major events of the year - all from the national contests finding the song to represent us (the right one obviously never wins. Except for -88 of course, "Stad i ljus" was my absolute favourite. Although it scored rather mediocre in the european contest), to the evening of the actual event. And the thrill of the counting of votes, always in English and French, out of tradition these days, I assume. I hope they never stop doing the French part. It would remove the very soul of the event if they did.

This year I started searching around to see if there is any way I can witness the ESC, or at least get to know some of the songs. And lo and behold, the official site actually lets you listen to excerpts of the songs. So I spent a while last night going through them all, and then by "other means" getting hold of a few of the full songs, that were particularly interesting.

Particularly interesting eurovision songs need not be the very best ones. For me, it's mainly the most typical ones, the ones sticking to tradition, the ones trying as much as they can NOT to stick to tradition, the ones totally climbing outside of the frame, etc. I think I liked Norway quite a lot (haven't heard the enitire one yet though), England is cute, and Finland, wohow! Hard Rock Hallelujah is the title, and I'm not sure the ESC has seen anything like it before. I like it, very very much. Sweden is very typical this year. However, I don't understand why the sound of a squeaking door in the beginning of every word has to be added, in the english version of the song, that is. It wasn't there in the swedish version! (a la Britney Spears, I thought it had grown out of fashion, but apparently I've been away too long from the euro-tradition - it's there in a lot of the songs). I have yet to discover the oh so wonderful keychanges in the songs though. Please let me know if you find any.

English versions: A few years ago, to my great dismay, they decided to change the rules of the language of the song. Previously, every country had to sing in their own language. Which, some claimed, gave unfair bias towards English speaking countries. I'm sceptical. It was only Ireland that always won, England and Malta were pretty much in the middle anyhows. I loved being able to hear all the different languages. Even Danish has its charm when being sung ;)

So now, instead, they are doing something that's even worse, in my opinion - they mix the languages. Argh. I am not sure why I find that so repulsive, but I do. It's not right. One thing that IS rather cool though, is the explosion of participating countries, making it necessary to score high in order to be able to enter next year. Reason to this is of course all the "new" eastern european countries. And we still have Israel and Turkey, which was always a bit funny to me. Well, I guess Turkey technically has a a tiny part that is part of Europe.

On another note, I have cats again. My advisor has very late habits, and so do her cats, I noticed. They kept waking me up all night. In the morning, when I by some miracle woke up pretty early despite having had to run up all night and figure out what the strange noises came from, they were sound asleep on my bed, one cat by my feet, and the other next to my pillow. They seem to like my apartment as much as I do, and the usually fairly shy and cautious Alex has turned into a cuddle ball.

EWW! It is snowing.

Våffeljärn!

I'm extensively tired right now, despite an unexpectedly long night due to having forgotten to turn on the alarm. Too tired to write down all the splendid ideas I just had. Too bad, come back another day.

Except for trying to follow this guy's wise advice today, I managed to accomplish something else: I bought a new waffle maker. It's funny how a waffle maker is such a huge part of my wellbeing and personality, that ever since my old one exploded (yes, it actually did! I've never seen so huge sparks before!), I've felt somewhat lost. Reason - the kind I want barely exists anymore! I can't use my amazing recipe on the huge belgian bread looka-like waffle makers that seem to be the only ones to buy these days. The one I got is actually a bit different as well, but I just tested it, and the result is fantatic. I only need more excuses for making waffles, so come over any time. Bring some milk and whipping cream.

And it's friday evening, so I am not even going to pretend to work right now, but go dancing. Hopefully that will make tiredness disappear...

how many days are you?

How old are you in days? I just had my 11000th birthday last Sunday, on Easter! And I didn't even know. Oh well, I celebrated it nicely anyhow with pannkakor and an awesome walk in the 24 degree weather and sunshine. Now, my 12000th birthday will be on Jan 10, 2009, so I have decided that will be the day I defend my thesis.

Yes, I am procrastinating right now. Thanks for pointing it out. Signing off. Now... (at least I didn't calculate it manually, as I did a few year ago, when I was a wee girl of only about 7000 days old)

Glad Påsk!

I learnt that the word Easter apparently comes from the Norse goddess Eastra, while Påsk (and pacque etc) comes from hebrew pasach, that means passing by. The reason to why bunnies provide you with eggs (made of chocolate), is a bit more obscure I think. This easter weekend provided me with a fair amount of joyousness - I moved to a new apartment! It is my very first own apartment. It's in an old character building, with hardwood floors, windows in every room, to 3 directions. A bay window to the south in the living room, and lots of light. I think I was really lucky because the rent is low, even though it's in a really nice area, just by the river and the Legislature, a bit on the side, so it's really silent. And it's on the second floor. So far the only negative thing has been that I keep poking out the electrical chord to my alarm clock with my head when I sleep... I should move it anyhow, so I don't fall back into the habit of snoozing too long (no, there's no risk of getting electricuted). A few wonderful friends helped me out with the move, and it was so much fun! The weather also turned amazing - above 20, going up to 24 on Sunday. Btw. How much stuff is it possible to collect in 2 years, after having started from scratch? Quite astonishing actually. I tried to think like Sofia and managed to free myself from a few probably super unnecessary possessions. The genes from the maternal side are strong though, and it's a fight each time.

Now, I have roughly 1 month to create some science to present at conferences. And prepare a talk and a meeting with advisory committee. So I think I'll concentrate on that for a while.

Planetary nebulae in the halo of edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4945

That's the title of what I just managed to submit to ESO, 1.5 hours left till the actual deadline. I was probably lucky that nothing horrible (well, that I couldn't handle in the end) happened. After 18 hours of constant work, after having realised yesterday that my perception on the time of the deadline was quite wrong (noon in europe is 4 o'clock in the morning here. Only during this week btw, since there's one week lag in the change to summertime. That wasn't my mistake though, somehow I managed to turn the time around totally). My sweet advisor made sure I'd take a taxi home instead of sleeping in the office, and I guess it's a good plan. YAWN!
Just a few hours ago, I thought it wouldn't work. See, there's a limited amount of large enough Galactic planetary nebulae around. Especially on the southern hemisphere. I found none, after many hours of search. I almost gave up, and tried to figure out a plan B. Then, trying again, after having had to TA for two hours in the planetarium (which, for the record, is leaking water - I was working on the abstract for the proposal instead of answering my students questions, and water dropped down on the red screen. Yeeah) just to make sure, I generated a new list of possible targets, choose those that were designated NGC, and looked at the first one. And that was the one. That was my miracle of the day. Or the month even. It was so perfect in every sense, that I still cannot believe it (NGC1360 - and my cool galaxy that I want to observe is NGC 4945).

Here's the question for anyone who might know/want to elaborate: W H Y can one never be a bit early in finishing something? Why do I always end up being out in the very last minute? It's 2:45 right now, so I guess it's not really terrible. Still...

I need yet another miracle though - for the proposal to get accepted. I hope I didn't use up my miracle quota for a while now...

New direction in life (?)

After having spent a braindead evening in the office, I decided to try out a new career. So far so good... ;)

*chomp*

This is pretty much what my evening was like, btw:

Toques, cats and blueberries

I just wrote a blog-entry-sized comment to my own story... The legend of the hatboy continues (check the 2 last comments).

In other news, it's still spring (around 0), my knee started hurting inexplicably (first signs of old age?), and thou shouldst always be honest. Explanation: I was catsitting and had 2 cats for a week in my apartment, where (at least bigger) pets are not allowed. Obviously that's when a quarterly inspection would occur (and since my mailbox key is still gone, I didn't see the notice of this in my mail). Obviously my landlady is scared of cats. And Stella is a pretty impressive fella, sizewise. My caretakers luckily turned nice again once I explained the situation. But I felt fairly stupid. Same feeling as when I was a kid, being forbidden by mum to eat blueberries at the camping site, and totally denied her accusation that I had done it anyways (if you don't get the picture, imagine how someone who stuffed themselves with blueberries appear). Baaa.

What is it about smells and music that can trigger memories so strongly that you more or less travel in time, btw?

The first day of spring!

..that was yesterday. When heading to the bus to go to the university, I realised that the ground was fairly bare and that biking was possible. It also had turned much warmer! Spring was in the air... yeah, even what could have been a nice, albeit somewhat massive and neverending spring precipitation started falling in the afternoon. But even though it was warm, it was still below zero, and the biking possibilities turned back to nil. In my mind it's spring though, 25 cm of new snow (on top of the old compacted 0,4 meters) or no. Oh well, throwing snowballs is hilarious.

What else? Life is good, by no other apparent reason than that it is :) Lots to do, but mainly fun stuff. VLT proposal (yey!), research (that is actually getting somewhere, yey!) and LTS en masse. I also have cats for a week now, which is highly interesting. Cats are the essence of coolness. but annoying plant eaters too. And does it help to place the yummiest plants in question on top of the highest bookshelves? Certainly not. The built-in spring that cats seem to have instead of spinal column makes even these somewhat chubby cats into super-power mammals. In the evening however, when watching a Lost episode before bedtime, at least one cat jumps up in my knee, purring wildly, puts his paws on either side of my neck and shows that all hard words and attempts of planteating preventing discipline are tenderly forgiven. Miao.

The tale of the fluffy green-yellow-purple hat

Yey! It's time for another bus-story (see here (June 16 2005) for previous story)

I was going home from downtown a Wednesday evening (this particular evening in fact)... I missed my dance class due to having looked at an apartment for too long, which pretty much turned out to be my dream apartment. Although can't get it, because it was immediate possession and I have two more months on my old... At least now I know what I'll be looking for.

It was a chilly February evening. Clear but humid -17. My feet are still like ice. I sat down on a half-empty seat on southbound 55, next to a person speaking some other language with a mom or something similar. It's funny how some people seem to need 1.5 seats in order to sit comfortably, so that you can only sit on the very edge of the outer seat.

I'm in the stage now that I can read on the bus without getting seasick (a very rare and wonderful stage), so I fished up my current book (actually one of L.M. Montgomery's Emily books - I've never read it in English before, and I'm noticing that the swedish translator had skipped many chunks in the translation, so it's a wonderful experience to re-read it again for the umpteenth time). Then I looked back at the person in the seat on the side in front of me, whom I had noticed when I entered the bus. The synapses between my eyes and part of brain that registers things had apparently had a siesta, because not until now had I processed the info and realised that he was somewhat different from the other passengers.

A young man, perhaps 18 years old was sitting there. He looked a bit tired and never
met anyone's eyes. The most eye catching thing about him were his hats. Not one, two, or three but four of them were piled on top of his head. He wore some kind of pilot's hat, black in colour, in the first layer, then a brown toque, then a cap. On top of it all he wore the most amazing hat: it was striped in three bright colours, green, yellow and purple, in some kind of furry feathery plush, in a stylishly rounded model. The hat alone would have been a sight, but on top of three others, it had a life of its own. I was in awe. Secretly of course, I didn't want to make the boy feel uncomfortable. On the outside I took on the same calm and undisturbed attitude as most winnipegian passengers usually possess and pretended to read on about Emily's adventures.

Furthermore our friend was wearing black pants with the waist on mid-thigh. Underneath he wore black and silverwhite sports-shorts. The shirt-coat he had underneath his two outer jackets had lots of scarves hanging out of the breastpocket, turning my thoughts to magicians. His left hand wore a blue bicycle glove, while his right one was adorned by two rings with huge rectangular rocks, and a watch, also rectangular, with a wide golden wristband. This was however worn over his hand, just beneath where his fingers ended, instead of the more traditional location over the wrist.

His also wore his round Harry Potter glasses a bit crooked over his nose, pretty far down on the tip, which was sticking out from underneath the tower of hats. Now, his appearance was not at all the one of a homeless person. He was neat and tidy, and the shoes were definitely new, even with tags still attached. I was playing with the thought of asking him about the outfit, mainly because I admired it so. But embracing my "svensson"-heritage (=average swede, with all of what that means), I never dared. Most people ignored him, I only saw one other girl glancing at his general direction twice, but keeping a straight face. I just love how winnipeggian bus-travellers can see anything without letting a muscle declare what thoughts go through their minds. But most of all I admire this young boy. He made what would otherwise have been another dull bus ride into a colourful experience, reminding me to notice the lives of other people and by that even so more my own. I get happy and feel very much alive when things just a little bit out of the ordinary occur, like this. I only for my life hope that the boy was happy too. It was hard to say with his winnipegian expressionless look. Unless he kept his expressions in his outfit. The top hat alone was definitely a happy hat.

Perhaps I should talk to my cellphone provider who told me I was "eligible for an upgrade" (of all stupid things...!!!) when I checked what I could do now that two years have passed and my slave contract is finally up, and get a phone with a camera...

In other news... Well, there are none. I got well from my cold, although I suspect I have to carry around the national reserve of phlegm in the unknown depths of my nose quite a while longer. I tend to forget it, and start blowing my nose at a restaurant, only to realise after a while that people might not appreciate the sound of trumpets under water at quite that high dB's while enjoying there bubble teas (authentic scenario from earlier this evening). The research is still as annoyingly elusive, keeping the immediate answers just out of reach. I am not amused.

Edit: Swenglish, so much swenglish. Still! bah, I'll keep it. Perhaps some swenglish is actual english.

Trying out Hello!

It seems to work out pretty neatly!

My brother Ben sent me this one on hello - it's Cassie, the cutest and most amazing dog in the world, studying an incredibly winterish Sweden. So I just forwarded it.

Indecisiveness and atschoooi-ness

I just installed this nice little program called hello, with which you simply can share photos with everyone else who has it without having to resize etc, and can upload photos to your blogspot-blog. So I might abandon lunicrax.livejournal.com a little while to try out this one.

Today... I watched an Egyptian film at the IMAX with two good friends. Very very nice, it made me remember lots of details from my Egypt trip about 6 years ago. Then we had some delicious lunch. In a timespan of about 3 seconds I got attacked by a vicious migraine, and had to go home immediately. The busride was far from comfortable, and well home the only other option than beheading myself was to sleep. Now it's almost gone, just lurking behind an ear, leaving room for an extra malicious COLD. I had it coming I suppose, I don't think I've been sick for about a year (not counting broken feet and migraines now and then). Well, this gives me time to do laundry and bake some bread.

Meg went back to Calgary today, and next time I'll see her will be in Sydney, about half a year from now. She gave me a lonely planet book on Australia and New Zealand for a farewell present, as inspiration. So there's no return. I simply have to go. And nothing makes me happier right now, it's been 7 years since I was there, so it is about time. And then I can meet two of my very best friends again. Back to life of NOT eating out, porridge diet and saving again. The priorities are set. Now, let's see how this looks, so I can try out that hello-program as well...

Edit: A few moments later - I guess one can get carried away with the settings and the photoshop smudgetool.. :)