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

Wed, Feb 4th: exhaustion...
09:09 PM GMT [link] [No Comments]

It's only 9 PM but I've brushed my teeth and am quite ready to go to bed :P I was so exhausted after work today, it felt brutal to have to walk all the way home o_O I made thai food for dinner - I'm trying to learn to cook some more dishes, it's actually one of my New Year's resolutions from LAST year, haha. This dish is actually very simple, it's chicken fried up with some garlic and vegetables and mango and coconut chili sauce, served with rice. It's nice to put fresh coriander on top but unfortunately I didn't have any more left. I'm not very good at getting the rice right, it's always too watery or too dry and sticking to the bottom of the caserole xP So I've wished for a rice cooker for my birthday next week, hopefully I'll get one, if not I'll just buy one myself..

I started reading a new book today: The forgotten garden, by Kate Morton. I really like it so far! Well written, mysterious and touching.

Okay, that's all about my "exiting" day, I'm off to dreamland..

Sun, Feb 1st: hello...? anybody there..? xD
01:24 PM GMT [link] [1 Comment]

mood: lazy

Wow.. what a dusty old site! *cough* I haven't been here for AGES! I have not forgotten this place but I've been too lazy to do anything about it.. Recently I renewed the hosting for another year, so I though it's ABOUT TIME I start doing something with this place again! Before Christmas I was actually working on a new winter-themed layout, but then something really bad happened.. here's the story:

On Friday December 12th, I took the bus directly after work to spend the weekend at my parents' house. On Saturday, December 13th, in the morning, my cell phone had a flat battery and as usual I had forgotten to bring my charger. Then my dad got a phone call from a friend of mine who was really upset and wanted to know if I was with them. When I talked to her, it turned out that when she hadn't been able to reach me on my cell she'd become so worried about me, because she'd seen on the news that there'd been a big fire in the building where I live and 6 people had died. I was shocked because I hadn't watched the news yet and didn't know anything about it. When I turned on the TV, I saw images of my building with people sitting in the windows waiting to be rescued, and fire and smoke coming out of the windows. I was incredibly happy that I'd decided to leave the night before!! The fire had started in the middle of the night, and 6 people who had tried to escape had died.

When I got back to Oslo, everyone who lived in the building was eventually allowed back into the building (it's still there, but the stairwell is very damaged by fire and there's smoke damage everywhere in the corridors and bathrooms) in the company of police officers. To my HUGE relief my apartment was okay, except that everything smelled strongly of smoke of course. I have been able to bring out a few things from there, but no more than I could carry, and now the insurance people (thank goodness I had insurance) have removed all my things and sent them somewhere to be cleaned.

So.. here I am, living in an apartment hotel (the owners of my building also own hotels, so we're allowed to stay here paying our normal rent, and the insurance covers the rest of the bill), which is okay but I do miss my things! Of course I've been so lucky - I wasn't there during the fire, I didn't know any of those who died (although I feel sad for them of course), and my room and my things are okay. But it'll be up to 4 months until the building is restored and we can move back. I have very few material belongings right now - luckily I have my laptop but I don't have a mouse which makes it too hard to work on new layouts (the touchpad drives me crazy O_O). And I really don't want to buy new things when I already have them - when I get everything back I don't need 2 of everything :P Well at least I can watch DVDs on my laptop - I've lots of boxes of TV series to watch (my own and borrowed ones), and I've ordered the new KAT-TUN live DVD which should arrive soon :3

Tue, Sep 2nd: 1 week left..
09:17 PM GMT [link] [1 Comment]

mood: stuffed ^^;

I feel so full I can hardly move... I went to eat pizza with my coworkers today after a staff meeting. Had icecream for dessert ^_^ This day has in short been pretty crazy - I was just so busy and I had two meetings to go to, and two of my coworkers had to go home because they were sick, so I was really stressed out. Nobody can stress out like Vivi can... There's just so much to do, and of course I'm quite a perfectionist, so it's difficult to get all my tasks done properly while at the same time being bombarded with questions and requests from customers. I'm always busy but now it's just one week left until my vacation, so of course there's a ton of things I HAVE to do now before I leave :P In less than one week now I'll be on the plane on my way to Japan... I AM a bit nervous, but it's not so bad since I've been to the doctor and gotten some little pills against my overwhelming fear of flying long-distance. Also I've been reading my Rough Guide and checked out some internet sites and planned many things I want to do when I get there. I'm also bringing some books and the first season of Star Trek : TNG on DVD - I'll be there for 4 weeks and it's after all my vacation, so I'm going to relax too!! Of course I plan to do a lot of shopping, so I found this site very helpful - gave me some ideas of new shopping malls to visit. I've been to EST only once before, but I'll definitely go back there - thankfully, the site assures me that even though the mall "targets women from teens to the late twenties, more sophisticated women are welcomed, too". Lol.. sophisticated ^^; HEP Five and Nanba Walk are some of my favorites, so I'll definitely go there again too. I've found a reasonably priced apartment type hotel to stay at, so I'll have my own tiny apartment with unit bath (bathtub! :D) and mini kitchen - I hope it's not too shabby. So basically, I still think maybe I overdid it a bit when I decided to stay there for 4 weeks, but I'm pretty excited about leaving anyways :)