Ikea and Harry Potter

It has been a very relaxing weekend! After a good night out on Friday, Kristin (one of three flatmates) and I went shopping at Ikea. There's an unwritten rule that on a Saturday afternoon Ikea is absolutely chock a block full, and despite the fact that we waited til 6pm there were plenty of people around looking for stuffed animals in the shape of lions, the occational witch-costume og wardrobes. We spent the evening at Ikea and barely made the last bus home to Oslo.

Today has been a very relaxing day, been watching Harry Potter and doing absolutely nothing. I probably should do my Spanish homework, got a 100 word essay to write (it is harder than it sounds!). Anyway, have a lovely Sunday, Sydney Swans are going to beat West Coast Eagle next week, which I am looking very much forward to! Just to explain for those who don't know who Barry Hall is: it would be like telling Ole Gunnar Solskjær he doesn't played for Man. U...

Cheers!

Go the swannies!!!

It is actually quite pathectic, but only hours before this photo was taken (I broke my right ankle and needed six screws and a plate in my foot for 18 months) me and a few friends were hanging around with the Swans players at Melbourne Cup back in 2003. I think I managed to call Barry Hall a lier and tell him there was no chance in the world he was playing for the Sydney Swans, and Adam Schneider actually visited me in my apartment (at 2am in the morning, I was in so much pain and told him to get out), but anyway, the Melbourne Cup 2003 was great fun, and made me start focusing on who actually played for the team I had been barracking for the past three years. So, when they last year won the Grand Final I was there supporting them (in a car, listening to the radio at a wedding reception in woob woob Victioria), and I am there now going nuts at work hoping for them to win! So despite siblings of Swans players partly being fault in my right foot's limited moveability, I wish them all the luck next week!!! You rock, guys!!

Cheers, Maria:)

Hohohoo...I feel like Santa

Not that I bring any cool gifts or anything, but I do a bit of interviewing for Speak (the student exchange organisation I worked for over summer). And I basically get to decide whether these kids I interview are fit for a year in the States. And if I think they can handle it they go, and if not they are stuck for two more years at a Norwegian high school that's falling apart from the inside, re-naming itself (my old high school just did), without actually improving anything materialistically, the class rooms are still sub zero during winter and the blackboards are broken in two... Anyway, I think it is really cool being invited into these peoples' homes and chatting with student and parent for an hour or two. And of course, I can highly reccomend a year overseas, so it's pretty easy to convince them.

To a whole different thing. Oslo is very dangerous!! I bikeride to work every morning, and they've just made a perfectly safe zebra-crossing into a potentially fatal roundabout. It's not making it much easier that I can't drive a car, and therefore don't know who to stop for or when to go. They've figured it out in Copenhagen, they've got hundreds of kilometres of biketracks, but Oslo is just an accident waiting to happen. So, wish me luck.

On a different note again, Kristin, my flatmate, just passed her, what can you call it, "hunting licence" (jegerprøven), and is now ready to shoot a moose or kangaroo or anything in her way and make a perfect stew on a cold autumn night... yeah...right...

Well, long day, hope everyone is well. All you, Aussies out there, what are you doing at the moment, give us an email:)

Cheers, Maria

Very important meetings...

I spent two hours in meetings today, which is a totally new concept to me, sitting around drinking coffee with your colleagues while getting paid for it and just discussing things to and fro about what goes on at work, and what can be done better.

I had an absolutely awesome weekend. The Friday was as mentioned pretty damn good, and I spent the whole day of Saturday and Sunday outside in the park (it was the last sunny weekend of the year in Norway, so it was well spent). The park is so close we are in login range of our wireless network, which is pretty cool:)

Other than that it is starting to pick up at work, which is great. The guys I work with are lovely, which makes it all that easier, but it is tough if you walk around with little stuff to do, so now that I'm getting into things it is a lot better.

We're considering a movie tonight, there are lots of good Norwegian movies around now, so if any of them get to Nova, run and see it! The Aussie movie Look Both Ways is on cinema here at the moment (a year after Australia), and it is getting good critics.

Anyway, have a good day! Cheers, M:)

Good night...

No, seriously, it was a good night. Now, however, have a good night...

;)

Crikey no more

Steve Irwin - killed by a fish. I can't believe it, at the same time it was the only reasonable way for a guy like him to go. However, it was way too soon at only 44 years of age, and my Australia-loving work colleagues and myself have all had a sad day, remembering his shows on Animal Planet and total, yet very entertaining, stupidity most of the time. Steve (as if I was a close friend) was what I believe is the true spirit of Australia, a bit silly, slightly reckless, yet laidback and with a profound love for everything and anything that has a heart and can grow in some way or another. My sister made fun of me six years ago when I applied to go to Australia on high school exchange, and said if I ended up with an accent like his it would be hilarious. Would I only be so honoured.

He was true blue - rest in peace, mate.

Habla español?

Si, claro! Quieres un tequila? Que? Dos? Un momento, señor. That's about as much Spanish I can remember from Guatemala, however, I've signed up for a Spanish course starting tomorrow (level 4 out of 8, I'm thinking I might be slightly out of my league). I'm impressed by my ex-boss Christine who did her master degree assignment in Spanish, that's a goal, for sure!

Work is allright, I think it might have hit me that I will have no vacation whatsoever until, like, next August or something, and it is kinda of freaking me out. The people at work are nice, by all means, I started working on the newsletter today which was pretty fun, and doing interviews and stuff is all good, but you know how it is, the thought of no holiday after three years of six months of holiday (seriously RMIT, what were you thinking, trying to educate people here??), but yeah, slightly depressing.

It makes me a bit happier to think about several of my friends have now applied to study through Culture Studies, which I think is kind of cool, because the programs look really good, and I might get to chat to them a bit more often (strictly business of course, but you know what I mean:)

I've just made a Grandiosa pizza more interesting by adding tomato and mushroom. STOP! Seriosly, even this blog is falling apart when I'm not doing anything interesting like travelling! Oh well... can always look at a map and see where I could go if I had time. Spain maybe. Si, claro...

Whatever.

I've signed the contract and...

"You've just signed away your life" And then my boss laughs and says it's ok, they won't work me too hard as long as I do everything I'm supposed to without them having to ask me to do it. It is kind of scary being full time employed for the first time! If anything goes as planned (which I have all intentions of) I am now situated in Oslo for the upcoming year, and probably longer. This is the city I've for the past five or so years have said I will never move to or live in, and now I'm right in the middle of it. I started my job at Kulturstudier (www.kulturstudier.com) and X-plore (www.x-plore.no) last Monday and I've had a good first week. There's a variety of tasks, but the fact that both companies want to take advantage of my journalism degree to the fullest is absolutely great, and I'm already writing stuff, which is cool! So now the plan is to become and expert on university exchange, volunteer work, work and travel and cool countries around the globe I can just hope I get to visit once.

It has now been 9 months since I left Australia, my longest break ever since I first arrived, and it is a bit tough. I went to a cycling class at my gym this morning and during the stretches they played the Qantas song, I was really missing it.

Anyway I hope everyone is doing allright! Write me an email if you wish, and take care!

Cheers, Maria