Devyn's Week, aka The Discovery of Christmas Dinner and Halloween Visits Heggen

HEIA!!!!

some interesting things to note. I found something that makes me giggle and at the same time make me feel slightly uncomfortable... can you see it?

no? well even if you can I'm going to show you a close up. (btw the pic above is of our porch)

Yep, you guessed right. that's christmas dinner... if I understood correctly it is ham and/or lamb and lamb ribs... And they were strung up over where my snowboard way lying until I decided to take it in out of the snow. It is resting against my wardrobe now... and no, no matter how many times I have checked Narnia still isn't letting me through there... :P

Any way! How was your tuesday devyn? Unsurprisingly I can remember... bugger. but I do remember that I got a very importnant and thrilling message from a fellow geek! the better of the local book stores had recieved an accidental order of Robert Jordan's and more recently Brandon Sanderson's 13th Wheel of Time book, Towers of Midnight! Due to this happy happy accident/message I immedialty sent Mum an email explaining that I could expidite my reading process by buying the book here instead of waiting for them to recive then mail it to me... I hope that the title of the email didn't make her worry, but I needed to know. (the title of the email was something like: I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION THAT REQUIRES A RESPONSE AS SOON AS YOU READ THIS EMAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) :D due to that email with hergiving her blessing I am now the proud owner of a wonderfull copy of the early sent book... thank you Tor publishing!

And now from page 188 a small quote that I find very humorous, though only my fellows will understand.

"Three days," Nyneave sain. "Three dayshe's been gone! The Last Battle loms, and the Dragon Reborn is missing." tee-hee! I can just picture her in my head, yanking on her looooong braid yelling something that starts with her usual insults and ends with "the bloody Dragon Reborn is MIA! I am going to box his ears when next I find him!!!" :D

you guys are lucky i didn't write Mat's letter out for you guys... but I dont think I could have stopped laughing long enough to actually type... ;D have I made you frustrated yet Jostein and Dad? I HAVE THE BOOK BEFORE YOU!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA and I should be done before the release date!!!!

okay, so obviously I have the book now. I practically ran to the book store during my free period on wednesday to buy it! well after I went to talk to Ulf, the advisor... He will tell me what all the higher-ups decided about my dropping or switching History classes on wednesday... fingers crossed! And I would have run to the book store, but the hill was too dang slippery/steep... I almost fell a couple of times walking very slowly... While at the book store I also got something that will require lots of work on my part, but really I will be happy if it is used... if not I will be kidnapping this gift and taking it with me to college... unless I get it for a present or something... I can't explain in more detail because the person who I am gifting it to reads this blog sometimes so... sorry!

I got back to school in time for me to work on the gift a little, then give up and read my book. Then I had math, so I decided that I should at least try to do the work... I tried and failed, so I started playing dino puzzle on my calculator so that it would appear that I was working. I don't think it worked since my math teacher came up behind me and looked over my shoulder to ask if everything was okay. I esd slightly abashed, so I turned the game off quickly, responding that yes everything way okay. then realized that we have a test coming up and I couldn't do the stupid thing we were being tested on... so I quickly revised my answer and asked for help.

Really, it's quite humorous, at one point we needed to use a function on my calculator, but neither of us knows how to use my type of calculator so we sat there pressing buttons hoping that one of them would work for what we wanted... eventually we found something along the lines of what we wanted, but not exactly... :P

Then I was free! I took a bus to Rimi to get another bus, and sole cola... the first bottle in 2 weeks I might add! I'm very proud of myself :] I stood and listened and mumbled the words to the Decemberists... they are addicting and their lyrics fit the gloomy clouds all too well... I did get talked at by a couple of little girls, and surprisingly i could understand what they asked me and some of what they said otherwise! I must be getting better at this norwegian thing :)

I got off the bus and walked back home with my neighbor and only fellow (in my age group) in this little neighborhood, Kristin. prounounced Christine. :) She invited me over to hang out and eat dinner, I accepted and took my back-pack home just to get rid of it and tell Karro where I was. :) It was really fun! We had a strange dish that neither of us seemed to be able to identify... and watched a japanese drama called Last Friends... She called dibs on Ruka... :P It was fun, and a bunch of the other younger girls kept popping in and out.

Thursday we had Operasjon Dagsverk. I got up and went to one of Karro's cousin's house. Her name is Marte, and she has 2 adorable children and her husband is really nice! I cleaned all the windows... or most of them. and supposedly they look like new now. Marte took Agnette (who will be 1 soon) out with her when she went training so I was left alone with the dog for a couple of hours. I got the windows cleaned in about an hour. so I read until Marte and Agnette came home! Oh, a note about the dog. when I got there origionally the dog wouldn't let me move without growling or barking at me, and if I even moved towards Aksel or Agnette she would do the same while putting herself infront of me. it took a while to convince her that I wasn't going to hurt her kids, then a little while more to convince her that I didn't need to be petting her the whole time I was there...

But, anyway. after Marte got home she gave some lunch to Agnette, and got some for herself. I had already eaten, so I talked with her and watched Agnette, whos facial expressions were darling. she seemed to have mixed feelings about the bread and jam... By the end of her meal I was she started putting a had against her cheek and looking like she was leaning on it without really doing so. Marte laughed when she realized that she was doing that because I was leaning against one of my hands! I hadn't realized I was doing so... it was cuuuute!

After lunch I decided that just cleaning the windows couldn't be enough to earn 350 kr. So I found another job washing the walls in the entrance so that they could be painted. :) after I was offered a weekly cleaning job, I will be going there every thursday so I can clean some of the house. the bathroom and the kitchen mostly. I will be getting 150 kr per hour! that should help me out :)

Then Marte drove me home in the hopes that Agnette would fall asleep (a trick my parents used on me too) and I got to hang out alone (except for the pain in the butt) for a while :) Over all a very nice day!

I was aprehensive about this morning. I woke up at 6 am as opposed to my normal 6:40 so that I could get ready for the last school day before Halloween!!!!! I wore my lolita dress that was supposed to arrive in time for prom but never did... I felt very cute, and many people complimented it! here's a pic of me and Silje!

She decided that she wanted to try on my apron thing! The pic cut off the "over-kill hat" as Mum called it, but you get the picture! please dont zoom in on my face, I have a double chin when I look down while I am smiling...

So, I was waiting for Bente to come in when I learned that she was not at school today! or at least, not coming to this class! I was thrilled, and even more so when Weronika and Silje decided that we should go to get Weronika breakfast! it was really funny, on the way out of the grocery store/department store restaurant I turned back to see why Weronika was taking so long only to see everybody sitting at the various tables around the place was staring at me. I looked at them figuring that they would stop and pretend that they hadn't been staring but to my surprise they didn't. It made me laugh!

as expected quite a bit of my dark chocolate got eaten, though I did get 1/3rd! Everybody really liked my outfit, and the horribly long fake nails that I had applied helped in disecting the shrimp in bio! ewww... shrimp. So all in all my self induced halloween was a sucesess, and on reccomendation of my bio teacher I will share this last pic before I go to Yngvild's birthday party!

yes, that's a shrimp's head.

Ha det bra! ha en fint helge!

Thank Goodness I'm a Geek... It Opens So Many Doors!

So, this post was going to be titled something very long that basically said "I've forgotten all of the titles I was going to use, and I couldn't decide which to use anyway so... FEEL MY PAIN!" But 2 hours later I have finally found a good title. YAY!!!

First in the news, straight from Devyn's mind (I'm sorry) is that unless I visit the computer man my computer will die a slow death... my charger seems to be broken. don't ask me how, but it is beeping incessintly and not seding power to my hungry machine... I think I will use my broken charger as an excuse to escape from utvekslingstudent norsk for a little bit... :) usually I ask if I can go get food, but it is so expensive at the little store across the street... sigh. I'm becoming a female version of dad, stingy and overly worried about funds... but I have random moments where I blow alot of money on random things (plushies being the most common thing, my giant totoro and Penicilin are the most recent... I dont regret it a bit :) ) so I guess not completely like dad...

Okay, how about I tell you about my rather uneventfull saturday? I actually got up before Pappa and Karro! I was moving by 7:30! I took my shower and got dressed in a pair of sweats and a shirt (one would hope huh? :P) and read my book and ate some bread and jam... a typicle (sp) breakfast. Then Mamma remembered that I had a package at the post office! So, we scampered down and picked it up, then stopped at Rimi to get pizza makings. We forgot something (flour) and stopped at another little grocery on our way home, and I wrestled with the tape completely encasing the box that held my precious nook. i finally got it open to find it sitting there encased in bubble wrap and yet more tape... this provedto be impossible to remove without sissors, so most of the way home I kept staring sadly down and the slightly exposed purple leather case... then when we got home I ran to help bring in and unpack the groceries so I could turn on my nook and finally finish Sense and Sensability and Sea Monsters (which isn't as good as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and start on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Then I found out that my dear parents had apparently not turned off my dear device, so I had to plug it in and wait for about a half an hour for it to get enought power to turn on. When that happened I excitedly tried to register it on Barns and Nobles... 5 times... then I realised the little cellphone bars that indicate 3G accesse were absent from the top of my screen... After waiting for who remembers how long I realized all the work that people went through was for naught... I was sent the wrong type of replacement. I sent 2 e-mails to dad, and waited until it was about 1 pm there, then realized that I had sent them to his work account, so I forwarded them to his home account and waited for another couple hours, by this time I was feeling very distressed that he was not responding, so I sent another e-mail explaining that I would really like a reply to my e-mail before we were schedualed to speak on sunday... it did run through my mind that maybe they were in Harpswell so maybe they were not aware that I had sent an e-mail... but I didn't really care, i was irrationally angry with him... I realized when I had calmed down (the next evening) that it was probably a full moon that night, which might account for my unstable mood swings...

It also probably didn't help that I tried to make a pizza and realized too late that I had put too much sauce on it... :P Then after I made sure not to put red peppers on half Karro still picked off the remaining veggies I had put on it. She also took off the cheese so she could eat it seperatly... I was slightly annoyed that she wouldn't even try it as I made it. :P

During the whole time that I was waiting for the failure replacement nook I played on my ipod with Karro and read manga when she wouldn't let me play too... Im not sure how that happened, but she managed to arrest my ipod from me and keep it for extended periods of time... *shakes head*

After that it was Sunday. I got up earlier than I would have on a normal weekend, because Karro had a Håndball tournament and we had to leave and 9. And there were pancakes... :D Mum says that she will send me maple syrup with my christmas package! I grabbed my nook, even though it cant connect to the internet almost everywhere, so I could read during the break between the first and second halfs of the game, and the game that took place the 2 games we were there for. I forgot my ipod though, so I had to listen to bad music while the teams were warming up. :P

I really enjoy watching håndball. I really wish there was a begginer's group for people my age, but there isn't. :(

Karro's team has only lost 1 game so far in the league, and there is only 1 team above them, they haven't lost yet. but then, they haven't faced Karro's team! *fist punched into air with overconfidence!*

Pappa drove Karro and me home, Mamma walked home with Kazan. Karro and I spent the day hanging out on my bed like we did the day before. it's kinda fun to hang out with her... though I could do without the badly drawn cactuses on my lower back... :) Then it was time for middag.

It was this semi-spicy soup that was a mix of cod soup and tomato soup... I tried it after being told I had to try it, but I didn't eat alot because I was meeting the AFS Harstad group in a couple hours. it was okay, better than cod tongues but not as good as fish dumplings and fish cakes. :) then we had vanilje ice cream (i cant remember how to spell vanilje in english, and I dotn feel like waiting for my browser to load another window... too slow) and apple cake! I only had a little bit of thatas well :)

I met Ole-Peter's girlfriend... if I remember correctly, her name is Ellen... though it's probably spelled Eilin... :/ she is ver nice, a quiet sort of person, or maybe that was the situation. Anyway, she gave me a ride to Peppes Pizza so I didn't have to a) walk to the bus stop and b) take the bus. A note on how dark it already is. This morning the sun didn't start coming up until almost 8. and it is getting dark at around 4 and is dark at 5... :/ I am apprehensive of "fall back" because that one hour change will mean that it doesn't start getting light until 9 and it unfortunatly it will start getting darker earlier anyway... so it will be night at 3 or soon there after. :@

It was really great to spend time with my fellow AFS-ers and some returnees as well! I arrived at the pizza place 10 min early, so I waited in the entry way until other people showed up. It turns out that Sebastian (the only guy in attendance) was already there, so I could have gone in and sat down, but the little while gave me some much appreciated alone time. I just listened to music and started to pull out my nook when Morgan and ... a returnee... arrived! It was fun to just hang out and talk about how things were going. It was really funny, at one point the question "so how's school going?" was asked. I answered with the usual, "good except for history." all the norwegians in attendance were slightly confused about that and asked "you don't like history?" then I informed them simply that "I have Bente." Immediatly there were looks of simpathy aimed at me, and I was washed with loud "Oh my god, I am soooo sorry!" and "that's horrible! Do you know her nick-name?" I am going to talk to my advisor tomorrow to drop the class. I am not going to put up with it.

Anyway, it was fun! we got 3 pizzas, and I requested that we get the spicyest pizza on the menu. The Knock-Out Chicken. :) I brought the remains home of that one and after sharing half a piece with Karro I told her of my plan to eat the rest for my tirsdag (tuesday) mattpakke! yum!

Then after I got home there was a frantic run for the upstairs computer. I tried frantically to get my headphones from my ipod to work, then realized that since they plug in with 1 cord and dont have seperate cords for the mic and the headphones they couldn't hear me but I could hear them. we managed to find a headset that had one working headphone and the mic worked, but only if you held it to your mouth and then began the struggle for the web-cam... we managed to get it to work, but the webcam was on auto focus, so it kept going in and out and focusing on things behind me.

It was really nice to see my family and hear them. Despite my previous mixed feelings about the meeting (I considered blogging about them, but then decided that it might make Mum say we should hold off until I was completely ready) I was and am glad that I did see them. I am also glad that I held off for 2 months as AFS suggests. I got to see my wonderful cat! I miss her sooooo much, and she misses me too, even though she will give me the silent treatment when I get back. She informes my family that she misses me by hogging their beds and being a general pest. :) she's sooo cute! I also saw Snip the beagle, she is obviously thinner and greyer... she is 9 i think now... such and old lady!

I would like to take a minute to let everybody know how proud of my brother I am. He is getting the 2nd highest grade in math available at our school! This is after years of him refusing to do math without eaither bribery, threats or hours including several breakdowns from him and our poor mother. I am glad that he is finding it easier to do math, and I hope he always gets better grades than I did in the subject (I always passed! Not to make it sound like I was a bad math student...). I am proud of you Gareth, and I might let you keep your Dr Horrible goggles because of it. :D

I got news that the house should be ready to be moved into in about a month! and (more importantly) the basement is water free and safe for the many many many boxes of books that have been moved from the pod into it! MY BOOKS ARE FREE!!!!! (not meaning anybody can take them mind... meaning they have escaped the depths of the pod) I also learned that there are large foxes (larger than normal foxes have any right to be) that walk around all over the place... it is decided, Thistle (my baby (cat)) is forever an indoor cat now. She is not going outside when she may get eaten by giant foxes. >:(

Dad got the message about my nook, and he will be calling the company when he wakes up and gets to work... I hope. Mum is busy busy busy with her studying. They are all realived that there is heat in the apartment now and that the hot water was turned on again. (understandable, but I still had to wonder if they really needed to turn the heat on yet... I am already used to the temp being between the 20-30's... so in my mind it seemed that since I am somewhere with a completely different temp pattern it couldn't be cold enough there for them to need the heat yet.)

We talked for over an hour and a half. closer to 2 hours actually. I didn't start crying until I started talking about the cards they had sent me and the letter grandma had sent... Then it was time to hang up, Mum is worried that I'm not getting enough sleep. That was really hard. It kinda surprised me, I thought the whole thing would be hard, and that I would have been ready to stop talking and try not to be home sick. But I was definitly not ready to stop talking with them, I felt like I could have chatted and teased them all night. It's really hard to turn of skype and realize that you cn't do that every day. The 6 hour time difference make it really hard to do anything like that, and you know that even though you are related and very much a part of each others' lives... you kinda aren't any more. You are over seas and have a new school that they know nothing but what you tell them about, you have a family that is letting you live with them even though you've probably never met them before. You have friends that they have never met, and you are learning a language they dont know.

It's kinda lonely if you think about it. I ended up bawling after I got of skype until my head hurt. I was so emotionally and because of that physically tired that I decided not journaling was excusable.

Which leads us to mandag.

Today I woke up and checked my e-mail like I always do. I don't know why, I don't usually have anything interesting in my inbox, and it makes me sad when I dont have any FB notifications... but I do. I was rewarded with an e-mail from mum today telling me she had posted pics of the house on er FB! She also posted a picture of Dad's exploded ipod and an unforgivable pic...

I also feed and clean my virtual fish and make sure I am not dying on Vampires Live! then I race to take a shower. I think the little sadness that I went to sleep with carried over today. I have been a little down, and I really miss cuddling with my parents on the couch as we watch a movie. I haven't watched a movie with my norwegain family yet, it is something that I associate with pizza and family time, so maybe I will suggest it.

My Norsk teacher is sick today (maybe tomorrow?!?!?!) so I only had 1 real class today. We had International Dag during the 3rd period, and thinking it was something like what happened at the language camp I attended about 3 years ago I was really excited. I was exxpecting music and games and food from around the world, sure it couldn't have been as extravagent as what happened at Concordia College Language Villages, but it was sure to be exciting!

Obviously I was wrong. Nope, I was presented with sitting in Kantina for an hour or so watching a powerpoint and PSA thing on poverty and child welfare in Brazil. Why? Because on thursday we are participating in Operasjon Dagsverk... it's a day where we have to work to get money to send to Brazil... Honestly they could do something so interesting and have a dance like we did at CBHS to raise money and awareness instead of having a BOOOORRRRIIIIINNNNG presentation... sigh.

After that I decided that I wouldn't wait until I was in the middle of class until I asked to go to get a new charger... It was a quick fix, and I informed the poor computer men that I had no intention of visiting them again any time soon. I was heading to the hall that we usually wait for Knut in when the younger computer guy (the one that does parcore) caught up to me to ask me if I play Magic. :D I told him I do, but it's been a while. He asked if I had a deck, but unfortuantly the deck I use is a) in the states and b) not actually mine, I borrow cards from my parents). He asked because he has a friend that he thinks is getting tired of playing against him and winning all the time. He said that his friend might have an extra deck that if I was interested playing I could use. I said I was definitly interested, and I am now asking that if "my" deck is unpacked and available can it be sent in the christmas package? :3

I am currently waiting (and hoping that he forgets) for Knut the exchange student norwegian teacher... If he doesn't appear then we are all going to leave, and I will go to byen to try and find the present I have in mind for G's christmas present. Also I think I need some postcards... so, in your drowzy state of mind (besides Mum who has probably been studying for the past 3 hours and is already at school) keep your fingers crossed! oh, never mind, he's here. But he needs to leave at 3, so I should have time to get down to the city!!!!

I am going to fill sand bags tonight. Each sand bag filled get 10 kroner for the håndball team! YAY!!! It willl be 6 o'clock when we get to this, so it will be dark. :/ thus I am posting this while I am at school. Oh, and I would like to thank my friend Werewolf for looking after G at school! You are so kind! *hugs*

ok, ha en fin dag! og en god uke!

Dolls have never been freakier... And I am missing tupperware

Heia!!!!!!

I am trying to make consious effort not to start every post with "so" but it's really difficult for me... :P

I am also shocked that Patricia found this... since I have only posted it on my american fb and on the AFS Norway website... oh wait, mystery solved! She's my friend on my american fb too!!! ahhh!!! *feels smart*

Okay! you all know what happened tuesday! since I wrote the latest post then... that makes my brain sigh in relief, remembering that far back is difficult for me. :D

WEDNESDAY!!!! It was good until Karro left to go to school, then the pain in my round rear end started howling and whining and trying to eat the bars of his kennel... Being a general annoyance really... >:( He woke me up, and I tried to ignore him, hoping he would quiet down if nobody went to see him, but contrary to my past experiences with dogs he kept mornfully howling andc chasing any chance of sleep away... :P I went down to get him to quiet down twice! then I managed to doze and read a little... then I got hungry... I got some breakfast (the normal bread and jam and maybe some brunost) and let him out. Kazan proceded to dump his entire bowl of water (which was an old neopolitan ice cream container filled to near the top), steal a mass of shoes and firewood and other random objects, and annoy me to near the point of hysterics... He is much more succsesful at annoying me than Karro, and every once in a while he even rivals G (my little brother just incase you forgot)... AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

It was a relief to put him back in his kennel so I could vaccuum and use swiffer like mop to wash my floor... then I relaxed and tried to annoy the pain until the others got home. It was nice to spend a day at home even if I didn't get all the sleep I wanted.

Thursday was the usual full day. Though I almost lost my Norsk/Religion class because they wern't (SUDDEN AND NECESSARY (sp)ANNOUNCEMENT!!! THE RADIO IS PLAYING "I Like to Move it Move it" PÅ NORSK!!! THE ONE FROM MADAGASCAR!!!!!!!! 8D ) in the normal room. Nope, we were in an auditorium near the bio room to finish Ghandi... I must thank the guys who showed up 5 min before class to see if anybody was there... they saved me from an absent... I even checked fronter to see if there was any room change!!!!

I learned that on monday I will be having a student-teacher confrence thing... it is only 15 min, and I am not quite sure what we're talking about, but it's cool! I also learned that on thurs we will be having the work day, where everybody (from the 3rd grade) will work all day instead of going to school so that we can earn 350 nkr to send to an aid organisation... personally I dont think this is nearly as fun as an aid dance... but whatever... :P And I learned that on friday we would get out of our first class 20 min early so that we could go to Kulturhuset to see a preformance... thus the title... but im getting there.

I suffered through history and came home, after making a quick stop to pick up something for Mum and Dad for christmas... I am still not sure what to get G, and my dears in the states in colleges you must e-mail me your how to send you something, but I'm sorry, I think the most you guys are getting is probably a postcard... I'll bring something back in my suitcase though, I promise! I also saw something that I really want to get for Grandma and Grandpa, but I'm not sure I am willing to spend that much money on it... and I dont think the store takes mastercard... only big cities seem to take it... which means nowhere i nord-norge... :P

Then I eventually woke up today! eventually because I have been getting resistant to waking up if I use the same alarm for too long, and I had changed it last night but obviously it wasn't quite the right noise to wake me up... :P But eventually I realized I wasn't dreaming and I really did need to wake up and so I started getting ready.

I got to school and suffered through 70 min of historie... then I was cornered by the teacher so she could explain what we were supposed to do for HMWK... that meant that I lost my chance to bum a ride from one of my buddies/classmates... I ended up walking to Kulturhuset and Meeting Ole-Peter on my way. I informed him that we were having torsktunger for middag... After I waved enthusiastically at him... It was funny! My sociology teacher who was walking with another teacher (going to Kulturhuset) gave me a look that indicated slight humor and the thought that she thought that I am slightly odd. (oh, speaking of my sosiology teacher, the presentation that my group did got a 5 (out of 6)!!!!! But, she has decided that since I have such trouble with the language she will not grade me until after christmas into spring... cool huh! she also told my group tha tthey need to stop speaking norwegian to me because I am kjempe flink på norsk! :D)

I got to the play and it started out with 2 men coming out to operate one puppet that resembled the evil scientist from Nightmare Before Christmas, except he was starving and seemed to be a poet or play writer... im not sure... there was lots of intense music, begging and 3 other puppets... one was a bagman general... he really looked like one of those grain sacks, and our first introduction to him was when he stole the otehr puppet's bread... the next puppet was a manakin and the first puppet put a head on her (she had a little ball gown on) and decided to dance and court her... she was later raped by the first puppet because she didn't want to kiss him again... it kinda scarred me... "oh wow, there was doll rape..." was all I could think of for the rest of the play, thankfully there was only about 5 min left by that point... but before the doll rape there was another creepy typewriting doll, who had very dooming music to accompany him... I think he was supposed to be doll #1's editor... scary... Then I was free to go!!!!

I went to the bookstore to see if I could find a desperation gift for G (christmas now... birthday is all taken care of) but didn't find what I was looking for. then I went to the bus station and was talked at by an old man I learned later was drunk, who thought I was from Texas and then the Carribian... (I actually don't whish... much too hot :P) I mangaed to ignore him after a while by putting my earbuds in and reading... then after waiting an hour I caught a bus to the end of the road and walked home. It was nice to get home, especially after I checked the mail box!!!!! MY NOOK HAS BEEN SENT TO ME!!!!!!!!! I will have even more things to read now! And I will send you the code as soon as I retrieve it from the postoffice Dad. :)

I was in fear once Pappa and Mamma came home, because that meant that middag was imminent... AHHHHHHHH!!!! I had spotted the torsktunger on the counter thawing earlier in the morning, and Mamma said that I had to eat! But thankfully Pappa made fish sticks, so I was spared from the jiggly, breadcrumbed, fried horror that I was told was food... thanks Pappa! :) I cleaned up after supper! I managed to find homes for everything, though I am feeling slightly unsure of what to do with leftovers since there is no tupperware to be found...

OH! speaking of tupperware (and like items)! Everyday I make a matpakke for school, and today at the book store I found these really cute matpakke boxes! there were robots and sharks and other cool/cute designs! I had to hold myself back from buying one... :/ but they're so cute!!!

I have been told that I need to make my famose pizza tomorrow! yum! though I will be splitting some of the toppings because I dont like corn on my pizza (or in my salad or in my sandwhiches/wraps) and Karro doesn't like peppers (the non-spicy kind) or onion on her pizza. I think I can handle that! :D

Ok! I'm done! besides asking if anybody from CBHS is reading this... I want to know because if I start randomly asking questions about how it's going there and then realize at the end of the year that nobody there even knows this exists then I will feel really stupid... :)

HA DET BRA! Ha en god helg!

Nynorsk makes my life easier!

Not really but I will explain.

Heia by the way!

So! after my technical difficulties I decided that I should probably not stress myself out more and get some sleep. I am happy to say my lights were out at 11:00! So, I succeeded somwhat.

Mine helge... æ avslappet... I relaxed all weekend. it was nice. On saturday it was just Mamma and Ole-Peter and I at home. Karro and Pappa were in Lufoten (sp) for a handball tornament. I was oringionally going to go with them, but I didn't get to bed friday night until about 1:30 am sat... so I would have gotten only 6-ish hours of sleep, because sleeping in a car filled with chatty pre-teen girls would not have allowed for sleep even though I probably couldn't have understood much of what they said. oh well, it sounds like the weather was horrible and I wouldn't have been able to see much of the landscape, which was one of the main reasons for going. I do wish I had gone, Karro's team won all of their games!!! Yay!!!!

But I stayed at home with only a breif excursion to Rimi (a grocery store) to get pizza supplies. I made a wonderful pizza, after I scraped the dough off my fingers. It was funny, I was mixing it with my fingers and it was sticking to them, though not too badly, then Mamma saw that it was sticking and said "oh! it needs more water" I tried to tell her that more water would only make it stickier and it actually needed more flower, but she still added a cup or so of water... then I had to mix it in, which meant that it was like cement and I got a finger work out trying to seperate them from each other. After a little she saw that the stickyness had only gotten worse and acceded that maybe we did need flower... I made the bag all sticky trying to pour it in... it took a while for me to get all the dough off. :) But it morphed into a wonderful pizza! I used my skills of observation, from watching Dad and his pizza making skills, and put lots of spices into an otherwise spiceless sauce, covered it in cheese then decorated it with red peppers, mushrooms and spicy peppers on top then toasted it to perfection. Mamma said that I have to make it again without red peppers because without those Karro will love it! Not bad for my first solo (-ish, mamma helped me by buying the ingrediants and helping me get the dough together and the oven on...) pizza! and I didn't spill it on the floor taking it out of the oven (I did so once at home, all the toppings and cheese fell off the pizza as I tried to take it out, they landed on the floor and in the oven which created a mess and meant that I had to be taught by the parents when they got home how to take a pizza out... much to my humiliation)!!!! this constitues as a "Win!" in my book.

Mamma and I ended up watching IRobot until it ended at 1-1:30 in the morning sunday... it was really fun to see it, I have always seen the box and the commercials for it but never the movie, and it gave us something to do besides reading our seperate books.

After we woke up later sunday morning mamma made a close approximation of an "american breakfast" which means we make a pancake sanwhich with blueberries and/(maybe) bananas. no butter or syrup, but a little sugar to bring out the blueberries sweetness... hypothetically... I am missing my maple syrup... that and havens dark chocolate... I am saving the bat that Mum sent me until the last day of school before Halloween! That's the same day that I'll dress up for school in my lolita dress... I cant wait!

Then the plan was to hang out all day and maybe do a chore or two, and wait for Karro and Pappa to come home. Then as I was resigning myself to re-reading Twilight because there were very few other easy books in the house (aka written in english). I am trying to read a book på norsk, I think I mentioned it... but if not I borrowed it from Yngvild and it is called La Den Rette Komme Inn (let the right one in) and it was translated from swedish and is about a little vampire girl and a poor bullied boy. Ive seen the movie, so this is what I have devised about it. :D

Anyway, these plans (that meant i didn't have to change out of my pjs) were ruined with 1 phone call. well upon further inspection it was really 3 phone calls and 2 texts... but those texts and 2 of the phone calls were sent to my cell... which was in my coat pocket closed in my room... those phones were sent from my dear Yngvild! And I'm still trying to figure out how she got my home phone number... I am thinking STALKER!!!!!! D8

That's ok, I forgive her for stalking me ;D. SO, after I got on the phone and had the akward, "oh, you're actually talking on a phone to me... aahhhhh" moment I figured out that she was inviting me over to see a movie. the first thing that makes it okay that she stalked me is that the movie was one of my favorites. Howl's Moving Castle! BUT!!! it was in japanese with norwegian subs!!! because english was not an option. It's okay though! thankfully I was allowed to have the same movie held captive with me for an extended period of time, which meant that I could understand what was going on even though the languages were not my mother tongue. :D

Yngvild agreed with me when I started saying what the charecters said in english... or what the english subs said. I'll let you all in on a secret... I ABSOLUTLY, POSITIVLY HATE ANYTHING DUBBED!!!! I dont care if the story takes place in an english speaking country/world, if the origional art and voice actors are from different places I HAVE to watch it in the origional language... It REALLY AGGRVATES ME when I have to watch anime or cartoons or Miazake dubbed... It actually makes my body tense up and I get all hyper... I know this because my dear, lovely Mum and brother cant keep up with subs so they have to have movies dubbed... I have decided for my own health that I will not be watching mizake with them EVER AGAIN... for everybody's sanity. :D Anyway... That is the first thing.

Second was the dinner! It was coconut chicken with pinapple! yum! I even got to help a little! I was in charge of cutting the pinapple into bite sized portions and dicing the garlic... I also had to slice the onion... Just a note to anybody who didn't work with me. I worked at Subway and for the almost year I was there I only sliced onions a few times... why you ask? well that would be because after slicing 7-10 onions the size of a grapefruit my eyes wouldn't stop streaming for a good hour or so. I was so sensative to them that if someone else sliced them while I was in the building I couldn't go into the backroom until about a half an hour later unless I closed my eyes... which is unadvisable... lots of different types of knives and random slippery spots.

Third was that she loaned me the best thing that anybody could loan me! 9 MORE BOOKS!!!!! 8D I am sooooo happy!!! I am almost done with the first one (the final empire by brandon sanderson ( <3>:D She says she is going to meet me at the airport and board the plane and threaten the piolet unless I give her books back... I told her I want to see that!

Then we come to Monday... I was a little sad about monday because all of the snow was washed away from all the rain, but my day got better! I actually enjoyed gym this time! I started out by warming up by doing my katas (martial arts forms (martial arts is the overall name for things like karate and kung fu for all you norwegains that read this)) it was nice to practice them again, but when I was in the middle of my highest level form from my first school I saw that I had an audience. Some of my peers came out of the other room to watch, then one of the guys came flying towards me in a rather bad flying side-kick. (bad because he pointed his toes and jumped)

They all wanted to know what type of martial arts I was doing, so I told them. They seemed to think it was cool that I could do things like that. It was really funny when the class president (guy who did flying kick) was trying to act all cool then I finished the kata which involved doing something that looks like it should have a katana involved (but really it is an option if someone grabs your wrist) a back roll and an elbow. it was really funny! then all the otehr girls that thad seen tried punching the mat on the wall. I guess I had some influence on them.

Then class started. We were supposed to be doing vollyball, but that involved doing warm ups... tag while dribbling and bangs in your eyes is really difficult. but at the end we had a game... and as I was suspecting I really stink at vollyball. I did manage to hit the ball over the net twice and I think I might have actually scored a point with one of those. but usually I would dive out of the way of the ball or watch as it went directly in the middle of me and one of my teammates. But it was really fun! And it really felt nice to shower after it. Also note that I am feeling more comfortable with the open shower. But it may help that I have not showered at the same time as anybody else in my class... they all seem to have the ability to go home and shower between classes so that might be why :)

Then I will tell you about today! I woke up and even at 7:45 it was really dark outside. and it was drizzling... I was kinda ehhh about the day, but then I got to school and discovered that since the 2nd graders didn't have school today for a test I didn't have sociology! it was very nice to just be able to read for an hour and a half. Also! My sosiology teacher, who came to tell Morgan (from New Zealand) and I that we didnt have class, while we were walking away from the classroom together she told me that I was very good in norwegain, and that my speaking in my groups presentation was great! and I really need to get my friends (in the 2nd grade) to speak only norwegian to me! So, just like at home, starting Nov 1st we will be switching over! OKAY JOSTEIN AND YNGVILD!!! That means you guys have to speak slower... without making me feel as if I am slow... :/

Then I went to Norsk, and after some nynorsk work I learned that I can just hang out at school tomorrow and enjoy myself because the 3rd grade will be having a test på nynorsk and since I cant understand it I am exempt! YAY!!!!! then we started a movie called Ghandi! which really makes me think about CBHS because it was just like one of the movies we would watch there... political uprising, massacers, imprisonment... really, just the same type :P But it was a good movie! and near the middle of that class it started snowing!!!!! there is now a thin coat covering everything! I am so happy! It didn't stop until a little while ago I think, so it went on for a good 4 hrs!

Though that did mean that I had to walk to the bus station and from the bus stop home without my gloves or hat... Because I forgot them... definitly no the day to do that... but there's snow!!!!! :D

and now I leave you for the week. I will write on friday, and I hope you guys are great too!

Ha det!!!!!

Technical difficulties! ARGH!!!!!!!!

Heia!!!!

I am Having some technical difficulties right now, so please excuse this post until tomorrow! I promised I would pay attention to Karro, and to myself that I would have my lights off and be in bed by 10:30... So I will post tomorrow I swear it!

"Hey, are you going back to the states anytime soon?" "uhhh... no" "Damn"

There is a funny reason for this quote, but as usual you will have to wait until it comes up in my description of my week!

SORRY!!! I tried to post yesterday, but due to my extreme desire to go to a movie night and the realization I was going to be late anyway... The reason it didn't post? Well, that is due to an honest accident that involved Yngvild e-mailing her sister using her own gmail account (with a birhtday/christmas wish list none the less) after I had begun. I didn't realize what had happened until after I had hit "Publish" and the site told me I needed to sign into my account... There was no going back after that... So I will try to replicate the post as much as possible, and still insert where Yngvild was speaking over my shoulder in response to what I wrote. In reflection (OH MY GOD CBHS HAS CORRUPTED ME!!!!) I guess I could have re-wrote the post... when we got to Jostein's he still didn't have supper ready... the lazy bum ;)

OKAY!!!!

Tuesday... I had to remember what went on on tuesday because in my memory what happened on tuesay i thought had happened on wednesday. Tuesday I had to wait until Yngvild and the others in that class that I was following got out of class. I didn't mind, but it did mean that I had to find something to do for that class. I ended up spending mos of that class talking to the computer guys because my screen was all pixliated (sp). They were very nice, the guy who took it said almost immediatly that "this is an interesting problem"... I sighed in response and they all looked at me as if did something completely out of the ordinary. I then informed them that when my Dad says that a computer problem is "interesting" it often means that it is not going to be a quick fix. they laughed and agreed that it was so. The nice one that woked on my computer (and appreciated my background which was a pic of dandylions) then asked my the question that can be viewed in the title. My response was "ummm... no... I dont go back until the end of June beggining of July..." he sighed and said "Damn." I immediatly started ragging on him about him wanting me to go back to the states because I was obviously too annoying, he assured me that it wasn't true. In fact he was just hoping that he could order the perfect pair of Parcore (sp) shoes and get me to send them over for him since they cannot be sent to Norway. I offered to ask my parents if they would mind having a pair of shoes sent to them and then having them sent to me so I can get them to him. He said that if they dont mind he would be very happy about that, then after I expressed an interested in parcore he offered to teach me... I am feeling a little overweight right now, and he said he was training with a group, so all in all I didn't really feel like being the akward american girl that has a slight weight problem slowing them down... Maybe when I am back to a semi-normal weight and can understand Norwegian better I will ask if they can teach me... but until then... Oh, I would also like to note that in the 1 (2?) emails that I have exchanged with Mum this week I dont think I mentioned the shoes... I was a little distracted by soemthing else... yes I will explain.

Then I went to Yngvild's house! It was fun, I met her mother and brother (who's names escape me.... again.) and ate some really good food... cant remember what it was called, but the jam you ate with the meat was really tasty! then Yngvild, Yngvild's bror (Y.B.) and I went over to one of their friend's houses because he was home alone for a while and wanted company. His name is Tobias (I remembered! :D ) and Jostein was there too! As well as my contact family brother (or 1 out of 3 of my contact brothers) who's name will take me some more time to remember and even more after that to learn how to spell, I do remember that it starts with a "B" though... So that is how I will refer to him.

It was fun! We ate Grandiosa (NOT Lørdags Pizza... *sigh*) and played in the ball pit on the second floor. Also I tried to use Tobias's wand TV remote... I am determined to buy one now... even though I dont know how to use it still... Oh, we also watched Youtube videos and a couple Potter Puppet Pal videos. :) It is now getting so that I can start singing "Snape, Snape, Severus Snape" and have people join in with me with almost everybody I hang out with. I think this constitutes as a win.

Then I caught the bus back to sentrum in time to catch the last bus towards home... Which required I wait out in the cold and snowy parking lot for 30-45 min... brrrr... Then I pretty much ran home, because even though the road is pretty well lit the woods are really dark and you cant see very far off the road... So my flight instincts kick in because you never know when a moose is going to step into the road or one of the unknown little critters is going to chase you... that is what I am more nervous of... really birds are the worst... they get startled so esaly then they thrash around in the bushes with their wings... it's freaky! BUT nothing jumped me, and my feet didn't freeze all the way through! Note to all, when in Nord Norge and it is snowing in the middle of October Converse are not the smartest type of shoe to wear at 10:30 at night.

That leads us into Wednesday. It was fine, I had Bio and that is usually pretty fun. They had taken regular eggs and put them into a solution to remove the shells while leaving the membrane intact, which left us with a waterballoon like egg that we proceded to try and dye with coloring and water. fun :) then there was a free period then math. which makes me slightly sad, since I dont really know anybody in that class and I really miss the wonderful Mr. Nichols... :/ Though my current math teacher kinda reminds me of Ms. Weigle, even their voices sound similar... Pretty odd... After school I went home, and relaxed. fun!

THURSDAY!!!! requires lots of loud and threatening music... I had a pretty good day until History ruined it all... I learned that I had a test on friday, and it was on the first three chapters... which meant that I was completely screwed... I tried to use the book's website and translate it, but that meant that I could read some of it, and the rest was nonsenseacle (sp) Norwegian/english gibberish... ugh...

I also went over to Morgana's house that night, after going to the post office only to find that my Nook has been stuck in Oslo because they want to make sure that I am not a terrorist and that the device is not a weapon of mass destruction that I am intent on using on the mini-town of Harstad, Norway... ugh... Mamma sent a message to Oslo saying that I do not have a person # and that the package is an electronic reader so can they please send it to us and not back home? Pappa also tried to call the police station to find out if my visa got through, they were closed but he is going to call again on monday. hoping for good news then.

But Morgana's was fun! I met the newest addition to the Harstad AFS student the sweet Thai girl Aom! That is just a nick name, since none of use can actually pronounce her (or any of the Thai students' names) correctly. So, yeah... anyway... we played Uno and had Thai food then we went to Kulturehuset so they could see a show and so I could be picked up so I could go home and try to study... :P I was exhausted and depressed that my history teacher completely misunderstood that I do not want to be treated as a fluent norwegain student, but rather a student of norwegian, and hopefully learning the subject is a sideaffect of learning the language... SHE COMPLETELY MISUNDERSTANDS AND DOESNT LET ME TALK SO THAT I CAN CLARIFY!!!!! AND THE LIKELYHOOD OF ME GETTING OUT OF THAT CLASS IS AROUND NULL!!!!! it makes me want to cry... I am really unhappy with that class and it is a mandatory class... ugh... I will try to persevere.

Friday, I believe that I completely bombed the test in history... but i DID MY BEST! so... who cares... maybe AFS does, but I am trying to understand... oohhhh... ja...

anyway! I had a full day after that, my friends in sociology tried to kill me by reading på norsk first in a presentation on cheating... (this is where Yngvild started to tell me that I got the easiest part since I didn't have to read any of the results of the surveys we handed out... I still think that making me read at all was cruel) But I managed not to die, so that was good... and we got out of class early, so that was nice. Then I had Bio and we looked at our dyed eggs and took pics of them... Im not quite sure what else we were doing... so... yeah...

I got out fo school then! I walked down to the street to the bus stop only to find out after a while that I was at the wrong stop. Then I managed to find the right stop and tried not to cause a trafic accident... Heggen and a little of Hastad has been exposed to THE TUTU OF WONDER!!!!! I was worried that there would ne accidents because so many drivers were driving at high speeds and kept turning their heads to try to get a better look at it... Then, I managed to get the bus and relax a little bit, not enough because I got more and more tense with every bus stop that passed. Even with all of my worrying I almost missed my stop! I had to ask the busdriver to open the doors, but he was really nice so that was ok. :)

I found my way to Yngvild's house and was greated with a wonderful raspberry/walnut brownie and Guild Wars. I am not as good at that game as I am at WOW. (Here Yngvild informed me that she was much worse when she first started. I then reminded her that she didn't have someone to do all the hard stuff for her, and half of the missions... She disagreed that she did half of the stuff.) Then after she got ready and I attempted to blog we went to Jostien's house for a movie night. >:D

Okay, for those of you who dont know Jostien (and because I know he reads this and thus I want to agrivate him >:D ) He is slightly taller than me, uses more time on his hair than me and usually knows more about makeup and clothes than I do... this and his frequent flamboyant hand gestures (not nearly as flamboyant as one of the AFS Italian guys I know or my dear friend Erynn's) which all lead Yngvild and I to decide that he needs to meet my friend Levi from the states :) We have been trying to get him to admit he like guys, and no matter how he denys it he always does things that just makes us not believe him even more... such as groping Tobias and not as a joke... :D So, guess how Yngvild and I entertained ourselves that night? Also all the boys are like this, but we rated Jostein as #1 in being the most girly/gay... I cant wait 'til next week!

I dont remember what movie we watched, but it was a cute cartoon about a cycalist (sp) repairman who's ex-apprentise became a racecar driver and challenged anybody to race. The ex-apprentise had stolen a design, so the master decided to engage in a compatition thanks to his side kick who I think was a penguin. It was really fun! though I didn't go to bed until about 1am Saturday.

And thus I leave you. The movie with Will Smith fighting robots is on, and it is Sunday here... hope you guys have a good evening!

Vi snakkes!

Is it too early to sing snowing songs?

That is my question for the day, especially as I sit shivering... but first my weekend.

I slept alot on saturday, but still managed to go to tante Berit's birthday party! It was fun, I got to see alot of the family in such a small space... still can't compare to the family gatherings at Harpswell, but they are trying! There were a bunch of little kids running around, I was definitly the ackward aged one there, everybody was either 12 and under or over 25... sigh. But I got to try and talk with the parents, and there was the most adorable baby there :) I didn't really get to hold her, she was tired when I got a chance... so a little whiny, but still, some of the plumpest cheeks you have ever seen!

There was lots of cake, and potato salad (with apple bits too) and all of the adults (or the majority) had wine, and later on cognac. Onkel Arne offered me some cognac, but Mamma informed him that I do not drink. *phew* The only down side to the majority of the adults drinking was that Norways drinking and driving laws are very strick, so I almost had to walk home. It was 10pm when I learned this, and the rain was actually slush, so I really didn't feel like walking home. Thankfully Anita and her husband gave me a ride home since we are neighbors. :)

On Sunday I definitly slept most of the day. I was woken up for breakfast and middag and managed to stay awake until about 11, (the soloist was on :) ) then I crashed again. We had almost american pancakes for breakfast and lamb, potatoes, and broccoli for middag! for the first time since I have arrived I have not eaten potatoes when they were provided, I love broccoli!

Today I had an interesting (COLD&WET) day. School was it's usual sleepy boring, until in the middle of Norsk I looked outthe window and saw that it was snowing! It made my day until I remembered that I had to make up the running test that I thought I had avoided... Then I realised something else that was just as important... My stomach rumbled and when I went to get my matpakke I remembered I hadn't put it in my bag! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!

Thankfully I have some $ now, so I got a yogurt to tide me over until I could go get something more satsifactory. then I made my way up to Folkeparken to run. It was very difficult, because while te snow wasn't really sticking it was cold enough to turn into slush... :P It soaked my shoes, and my rain coat is now soaked thorugh as well. But even though it was cold enough to make me buckle over coughing, and I gained a minute on my time (23:17 total) I survived, and that's what counts!

After gym I managed to get back down to the lockerrooms, only to find that the guys were allowed into the girl's locker room since they had split the gym into two rooms... kinda reminds my of the great space. So, I had to take all my clothes into the shower with me so I could get changed. Thankfully there is a door between the changing room and the showers. :)

SO, after I got warmer and changed into dry-er clothes I went to try to find the other AFS students for our utvekslingstudent norsk. which all in all is very boring for me. I help the lærer translate when he is having problems and try to explain to the others when they dont quite understand. I managed to escape to the store across the street from school to get some hot coco and pølse so that I didn't starve.

Then I went to try and get a ride home from Mamma and Pappa. I was glad that it was cold then, I would have missed my ride if I hadn't decided to go make sure Mamma was still there. She had the car today, so if I hadn't gone to check she would have driven off without me.

The snow stopped for a little while we were hurrying to go get Pappa, and the sun was so pretty over the mountains. I tried to get a picture, but they didn't turn out right. The light was a rosy pink and it made the snow so bright! I will try to find a good pictureon my camera for the next post, but no promises!

I saw where Pappa works, and on out way home Mamma decided that it was time to stop for yarn so that she can knit me a sweater! It is going to be a blue-purple color with beige snowflake fairisle around the neck! so pretty! when it is finished and in use I will make sure to get a pic. the yarn is alpaca so it will be very warm :) YAY!!!

We had leftovers for supper! more broccoli! and ice cream (sorry I forgot to metion that), even though I was feeling it was too cold for that. but we have hershy's caramel sauce, so i heated some of that up to drizzle over it. yum! :)

Okay, I guess I should explain the title a little more. I have decided that there will be good/enough snow to go snowboarding starting in November and it will last until March. :) The snow has been late because of climate change, it didn't come last year until Febuary, but this year it will be like I am picturing. I am not sure if my picturing it is going to help, but I am trying! and, so, i think that maybe my "in November we will have good snow!" has been mixing up the weather, since the snow has kinda stuck, but it should melt tomorrow. :/

okay, I cant keep my eyes open, nor think cohesivly enough for people to understand what I have written. :)

Ha det!!!

Rain rain go away, come again another day...

HEIA!!!!

So, I have learned that some of my friends from Heggen have been reading this... weird huh? guess I can't talk about them so much anymore... (not that I have now that I think about it :) ) sigh.

So, how has my week been. Pretty good actually! I have been a little tired, but I also havn't been getting to sleep at a reasonable hour these past couple nights. Thanks to my friends and my creative side! But I will get to that later.

So, it is officially fall here! Though I am missing the bright red trees, there is alot of extreme yellow! see!

This is one of the pine trees that are in the front yard. It is soooo bright! like a beacon, except that every other tree looks like that.

Tuesday I only had 1 class! My Norsk/Religion teacher is in India... Well, actually I didn't have 1 class, I pretened to have 1 class while really I followed my buddies from Sosiology around and annoyed them. They have been requesting that I distract them. :D I am very happy to oblige.

I ended up walking home from Heggen, after walking to Sentrum and checking bus times. So I actually did more walking than people might think. It took about an hour and a half to get home, but I still got home before the soonest bus left the station. It was a nice walk even though my bag was really heavy.

Wednesday I almost missed Biology, but thankfully my teacher came to the school because she forgot some dye for slides. She saw me waiting alone outside the classroom and re-directed me to class, which was in a place in the city called Newtonromet. A place where I was reminded of my little brother. why you may ask?

G had a team of other boys had a team that competed in a compatition call FLL or the First Lego Legue. They had to desing a robot and program it to run a course like the one in the picture. They also have to research a envioronmental problem and create a skit to present their knowledge and something that can fix it... if I remember correctly. They also have to have a team T-Shirt and name. His team's name was the Lego Jedi's, and they got 1st place 2 times in a row. Unfortunatly the years that they won Maine wasn't going to the Nationals... :/ Oh well, my little brother is kinda cool... just don't tell him I wrote this.

So, also at Newtonromet we made slides of various types of cells and used a really annoying camera and computer program to take pics of them. I feel really bad for the girl that was paired up with me by the teacher since we have to do a presentation på norsk... oh no.

So after that (lots of fun, i love using microscopes, and it was nice to use dyes for slides again... I was a little out of practice.) I went back to school and to the room I was supposed to have math and sat there and waited for my class to show up until someone came into the room to tell me that they needed it... after that I went to one of the sitting places and waited for Morgana (girl from Italy) to get out of class so we could go to the tech guys to figure out why she didn't have all her classrooms on the school website thing (called fronter) and why I couldn't log on and when I did why I didn't have any classes on it. So we got that figured out and came back home. She stayed and we played chinese checkers and made waffles. It was really fun, so now it is my turn to go visit her soon :)

Yesterday I had a full-ish day. All of my classes were teacherless, and that made my day pretty relaxing. I really enjoyed trying to write my story and reading manga and watching anime. :) then at the end of the day one of my sosiology friends Yngvild (who reads this... hi! *waves*) came over for a visit. We did not have waffles :( but we did have reigndeer soup! we hung out and she killed my ipod playing games... kinda like another person in this house *Looking at Karro* and I gave her the links to some of my favorite mangas, and watched some TV... the time flew by, then her mom came to get her. I have been told that I need to go visit er family too... apparently they have heard alot about me... 8/

Today, I had math. And they were in the right room! So, I took notes and then came home to finish the drawing that I have been working on since Tuesday. The drawing is of my rendition of the Rod of Hermes, which is the doctor's symbol in the US. One of my dear sisters Ve gave me the idea of getting a spine tattooed up my spine, so I decided that since I want to be a doctor of sorts I will wait until I graduate medical school to get the tattoo. (Karro just farted and she told me not to write it, so obviously I must interupt this post to note it) SO, I had a brain wave and decided to try my hand at sketching it. I actually finished it today after I got home from school, so I am feeling very proud of myself! Vær så god!

Cool huh! Sorry it's so light, it's in pencil. I am going to try to ink it soon. then I'm going to put it on my wall and any future wall I have to remind me that I have something to aim for. So I am going to start saving for that as well!

So tomorrow I have a birthday party to attend for Tante Berit. That should be interesting. I am going to go to bed early tonight, try to make up some lost hours, and I will enjoy myself this weekend. OH! I forgot! I have finally started to take action against my history teacher, it does mean that I have to talk with her and a rådgiver on monday, but I am hoping the rådgiver and teacher I am supposed to talk to if I have problems will be able to protect me from her evil overly make-uped face with its ever present glare... scary. Hopefully I can get out of that class.

OH! there is a ghost movie on at 23:30! maybe I wont be going to bed at a good hour... :/ oh well, it's the weekend.

okay... I am going to enjoy being at home. You lazy bums, I bet you only got up maybe 4-5 hours ago! I've been up for too many. Actually I am going to see Karro's club, probably going to come back soon though. Fun Fun FUN!!! Ha Det!!!

OH! I FORGOT!!!!!! 8D

Sorry! In my less than capable mental state last night I forgot to say two things...

1) Nord Norge as been exposed to my tutu of wonder... and the discovery on my part is that Portland and CBHS is much more open about loving it. I didn't get any random people saying they liked it, but I did get some looks. :) Especially from the little girls in the candy store... I have rarely seen such wide eyes. :)

2) I found in one of the University book stores my favorite microbe plushies!!!! They have some new ones, my favorites are West Nile Virus and Yogurt. Yogurt reminds me of peoples memories of me freshman year... aka the girl who talked to and was crazy over her yogurt 8) here is the link so you can see all of them... great for christmas presents! (for me anyway) http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/6708/images/

Okay, when I have more to say I will try to say it... if anybody has any questions feel free to message me... I keep getting pumped for information via e-mail from my Mum, so I tend to forget to put it on my blog... :D

okay, back to staring blankely at my peers while they talk about cheating in schools and how to gather data about it... It kinda seems to me that CBHS will befollowing mearound 'til the end of my days... so many circles and projects... :/ :P

ha det!

$6 in 6 weeks contiued... aka a real post :)

HEIA ALLE!!!

SO!!! after m abrupt and not well thought out attempt at a post last friday I made a mad dash to the car that brought me to the hytte, without my shoes on, my journal and socks clutched under my sweatshirt and back pack... quite humorous really.

Now I will try to explain what happend during my vacation. On wednesday I woke up some time during the night with one of my random and not welcomed fevers. I took some medicine (good idea and thanks Mum :) ) and went back to sleep. My fever had broken when I woke up, but I still felt really bad, so after some more medicine and a nice warm shower I got ready to go to the farm. I have learned to have more respect for people that have to do that for a living, it was alot harder than I imagined it would be... so many rocks... This year was really bad for potatoes. The winter was really cold and the summer was too rainy, so very few itsy-bitsy potatoes... :( As I expected Thursday I was almost completely better, still a little sleepy, but able to focus on something other than my drippy nose and head ache. That's when I found $6 in my coat pockets, exciting, huh? Well, I thought so until my comerades in potato plucking asked me "Ka e det? Ka finner du?" ("Hva er det? Hva finner du" på bokmål) and I remembered that 6 USD is not helpful here... seeing that it can barely get me a soda... :( A soda here is usually 20-26 kroner... you do the math. One little bottle of soda costs about $6 here... silly customers thinking that Subway's sodas are over priced... :P

So, after being told that I am "Kjempa flott!" at taking rocks and sod out of the mix of mini poataoes... so maybe I can get an extra helping this winter even though the harvest was so bad.

Friday I hung around the house... alone... all day... :/ I was fine for most of the morning, but I thought I had was going to help Mamma get lunch for the handball skole. But they didn't need me. So, I spent the day watching anime and reading manga like any good geek child should do on their day off. The Tante Eilin, Mamma and I went to the hytte. We had a good supper and just managed to get there in time for the sun to go down. the dark comes really early now, it was dark here today at 6 o'clock... I'm not sure what Im going to do when day light savings comes around... so dark so early...

Karro and Pappa came to the hytte in the late afternoon on saturday. Kazan needed to stay inside so her wouldn't disturbe the road work, so since Tante Eilin's favorite berries are in season now and she has a picking fetish... I am almost serious here... I was the one elected to hang out with him all day... which meant quite a few solitare games and naps in the sun. :)

Sunday I went hiking to one of the near by moutains with a family that's oldest daughter is in France with AFS. It was fun, even though we couldn't find the trail most of the way up and some of the way down... :/ But now my name is listed in a little orange book that is safe in a tupperware container in a cool stone tower at the peak. then, we had some snacks and came back down. Middag was waiting for Karro and I, oh and a note when you try to translate 'middag' it will come up 'mid day' which tends to indicate that this is lunch, but that is not the case, 'middag' is supper here. lunsj is lunch. :) Okay, enought of the norwegian lesson. We had laks for dinner, and I actually like it here :0 much to my surprise, after years of having Mum stink up the house with her attempts of cooking it I thought that it would be beyond me. But it's actually pretty good! Then after that we came home. I took a much welcomed shower and got ready for today.

and now, drumroll please, I will tell you about my TOTALLY AWESOME, FANTASTICK day. :D

I got up at 5:20 so that I could be ready to leave the house by 6:30 to catch the ferry to Tromsø! I got to skip school and the all dreaded running test, to go shopping and re-meet the Dean of Skogfjorden, Tove Dhal! It was very pleasent, and I am saying this because it really was, not because she asked me to send her the link to my blog. Cross my heart hope to die. And I am glad that I had the oppertunity (sp)!

Tromsø will always hold a special place in mty hear. Not only because it has the same population size as my beloved Portland, and what as far as I can tell is the only Sushi restaurant in norther Norway, but also because my Mum accidently used her enormous mental powers to will me there because of a calender which had a picture of that city for my birthday month and her forgetfullness that I actually wanted to be placed in or near Trondheim... a slight difference there... one being in the middle of Norway, the other very close to the top... lol.

OH!!!!!! I am so excited to send G's (G= my little brother i USA) birthday present! I found the most PERFECT thing! I am so proud of myself, but I am still going to get him the other thing I planned on getting him to, since they are both so cheap :) I cannot wait to see his face when he opens them! even though he want be nearly as openly excited as I hope he will be... sigh... what a downer, he takes after Dad when it comes to things that are not mechanical or legos... :P

I also met a tattoo artist who lived in Maine for a while! (No, no tattoos, nor piercings, you can release that breath you were holding Mum/Dad) She lived in Windham, which we both found kinda humorous since we are basically from the same area and are both in Norther Norway now. She had candy apple red hair too, so that made her even cooler :)

So, now I am at home, and as soon as I can figure out a way to get Karro off my bed and ipod I think I will try something relativly new called sleeping. Since it is just about 4 where you you all are you still have some time to read this and envy my abilty at reading the "Let's start expanding the love of the game 'Magic the Gathering'" posters and shopping with no money. HAHAHAHA!!! BASK IN MY FATIGUED ANT SLIGHTLY RUNNY NOSED GLORY!!!!! And have a good laugh at my expence... Mamma and Tante Berit did already tonight... lets just say Saltkjøtt and whatever that barly-potato thing was were not my favorite things to eat. they laughed at me because when asked if I liked them I shrugged and made a non-commital grunt with an obviously very distastful exspression... I am guessing that that meal will be put on the, "make if we really have nothing else" list, or "make if we really want to make Devyn squirm" list.

Okay, I'm rambling now. Karro went to bed. I should make a mat pakke *garbled plans to make tomorrow morning easier for myself* ... natta! :D

Well, that's funny... $6 at the end of 6 weeks...

HEIA!!!!!!

So, gotta talk fast, I'm going with Mamma and Tante Eilin to the Hytta in about a half an hour. Oh, and the pain in my butt Kazan... :)

So, this week was kinda slower paced than the previous weeks thanks to høstfeire... which I am about 99% sure I didn't spell correctly. It is basically 3 days set aside for students to help with the potato harvest... lol. really, sometimes Norway reminds me of Maine more than I thought could be possible :) . So, that's what I did. Wednesday and Thursday, and I guess I am "kjempa flink!" at it... very good for you non-norwegian speakers. Well except for that wednesday I was trying to recover from one of the random night fevers I get... sigh... all better the next day :)

Today I hung out at home alone all day. Karro and Pappa were at handball skole, and I think Mamma was aiding... so it was pretty relaxing... a little lonely though...

I have to go! they are waiting for me!!! Sorry, i'll talk more on monday!!!

Ha det!