Thu, Mar 19th: news
08:54 PM GMT [link] [1 Comment]

やった！！！ Today I received my IELTS results.. I got a score of 8.5 (9.0 is the best possible score)! :D I got a 9.0 in the listening section, 8.5 in the reading section, 9.0 in the writing section and 7.0 (oops) in the speaking section.. So even though I did really bad at the speaking part, I got a good average - better than I had expected! yay, yay, yay :DDD Now, I'm not entirely sure what exactly I'll use these results for - I have been thinking vaguely about applying for a university abroad, or applying for some new jobs, but I haven't really decided anything yet.

Some more disturbing news - yesterday the police arrested a Norwegian man in his 40s and charged him with arson. It turns out that the fire in my building (where 6 people died) was indeed caused by an arsonist :(

Wed, Mar 18th: food :3
07:46 PM GMT [link] [1 Comment]

I'm continuing my explorations of the wonderful, new (to me) world of cooking, and bought a new book today - Chinese food made easy. I really want to try to deep-fry something.. kind of scary, though! I'm really glad I got a rice cooker for my birthday - it makes it SO easy to make rice, and if I don't eat all the rice I've made right away, I can save it for the next day to make a dish with fried rice :9

I survived the IELTS test and am now anxiously awaiting the results.. I felt that the listening part went quite well, and the reading part was okay too, except a couple of questions where I really felt that several of the answers could be the correct one. The writing part went much better than I had feared - the topics weren't as hard as they could have been, so I guess I was lucky! I was writing and writing like a maniac and my hands were all sweaty - it was so stressful because we had to finish the writing section in just 60 minutes. First, I had to compare and explain the differences between two pictures - one was a drawing of an area from the year 2000, one was a drawing of the area the way it looked now and with the plans for new buildings to come. Then I had to write an essay on the topic "Is reading better for children than playing computer games and watching TV?" :P The speaking part of the test was on the next day. It went really, really bad. I was so nervous I could hardly remember my own name (oral exams just do that to me!) And I got some really hard questions too! I had to talk about a law in my country that I liked. Law!! I wouldn't really have known what to say if I could say it in Norwegian T_T Anyways.. I can only hope that I did the reading, listening and writing part well enough to get a good average. The results should arrive by mail very soon..

I don't think I mentioned this, but I finished reading The Forgotten Garden. I loved it - it was so full of mysteries, and dark stories from the past. A well-written, easy-to-read, entertaining page-turner :) Now I'm reading The Seance by John Harwood...

And lastly, here are my most recent clothes purchases.. hehe. Black bubble shorts and a blue-green wool jacket :3



PS: Thanks for stopping by, Amber and Kuromi! :) I think I remember your sites, Kuromi - you had an Ojamajo Doremi site, is that right? Do you have any websites now..?

Wed, Feb 11th: In English, please
08:52 PM GMT [link] [2 Comments]

I am now a student again! Well.. haha.. maybe not really, but I'm planning on taking the IELTS test. It would be useful to have some kind of proof that I know English, both when applying for jobs and even schools (if I should feel like applying for.. something). So I bought an IELTS study book and a book of advanced grammar. The grammar book is a bit difficult - I can do the exercises because I can usually hear which option is the correct one, but the theory is a little troublesome to wrap my head around :P The Reading part is always the easiest for me, and the Listening is usually okay too, but the Writing section can be a little tricky.. and the Speaking part is definitely the hardest. I really can't speak English. I stumble over the pronunciation and my intonation is just too.. Norwegian.

I'm going home to visit my parents' this weekend, but I'm not sure how I'll survive 2 hours on the bus without my mp3 player which broke a week ago. I was listening to music when I suddenly heard a scratching sound and the player just died.. I'm trying to get in touch with the online store that I bought it from, but it ain't easy :P OH misery! I bought the new Lily Allen CD today and had to listen to it on the computer. I don't like CDs - I only bought it because I had some gift receipts from the record shop. I prefer downloading (and PAYING for it of course~) and storing the music on my computer; it makes my life more clutter-free. Physical CDs, in my eyes, are clutter - bad quality, CO2 emitting plastic clutter, haha :P