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)