All the stuff

two pages from our book

What have I been doing the past two weeks?

I've been going to house viewing after house viewing, securing an actual house, finding house mates and new house mates when the previous house mates decided against the house, signing contracts and getting electricity contracts,

choosing photos, editing photos, editing texts, downloading programs, downloading files, uploading files, copying files, and designing and doing the layout and exporting an entire book of photography and text about the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. I wouldn't have had any content without my co-travellers, who have provided me with all the brilliant texts and beautiful and important images, but the layout part was mine.

I've also been working more, and then I moved to our new house on Wednesday and went to Oslo yesterday (Friday) for reasons you'll hear more of later.

In short: busy busy times with a computer which doesn't have the letter 'e', means no blogging from me. And I'm sorry if I sound complaining, because in reality I am very happy to have found a house to stay in with my friend Elise, and I am happy to have finished with the photography book from Nicaragua, which I am hoping will turn out all right at the printers (all fingers crossed).

Me and my best friend Andreas

Taken earlier today when he was slobbering all over my neck (photo: John Harald Johansen)

This week I've been getting my laptop back (in worse condition than when I sent it in for repair), working in kindergardens, looking for houses to rent with my friend, celebrating one friend's 24th and another's 25th birthday, as well as recelebrating my mum's 50th, and held a photo course at the Red Cross. Now my brother is visiting from Svalbard for the weekend, my sister and her children have just left, and we are about to watch The Sound of Music, seeing that it is a Sunday afternoon and there are no more QI reruns.

Sober October and all that

Me on October 31st, wearing my volunteer tshirt from Insomnia festival (at Tenerife), photo by Nina Haug Johansen

So how did it all go? Did I manage to finish October without breaking the rules of all my challenges? Actually, the supposedly most difficult one, eating fish every day, was the easiest one. Mostly thanks to my dad who is a pescetarian and eats fish fairly often anyway, and my mum and the rest of the family who are used to catering to different diets, but also my Northern grandmother who was married to a fisherman and has always lived off the natural resources around Tromsø, and my Southern grandmother who is a brilliant cook and sent me some wonderful recipes. 

I found it more difficult to wear only volunteer tshirts, because I found it hard to feel dressed up in them. I actually broke it once, while visiting my sister and going to a party with her and her fiancè, when I wore a pretty dress for the duration of two or three hours. I did only drink apple juice though, and the Sober October part of Sober October is, after all, the most important part.

What else? Oh, I forgot myself and put on a little perfume on October 5th. Other than that and the dress incident,  I think I managed rather nicely. I think next year I shall have to add an exercise challenge, because this is the one thing I've been really failing at all autumn long.

Another thing: Do I now feel extremely healthy and fresh and new? Not really. I probably am though, and my body has probably enjoyed the omega-three and a rest from alcohol.

So now, let's see if any of these practices stick with me or change me in any way.

Long story long

Hello,

I am here, after almost four weeks off the blog, not completely on purpose.

October 18^th, I was busy doing a lot of stuff at the same time, and as I was getting my kindergarden agency papers and drinking tea and logging on to where I track my working hours, when I spilled my tea all over my laptop. In my seriously-I-have-to-finish-logging-my-work-frenzy, I didn’t turn it off immediately, only threw a tea towel on it (how appropriate) and kept on writing. Aaaand then it started failing, refreshing the window every time I typed an ‘r’, creating a new window every time I typed an ‘n’ and so on. So I panicked a little, cried a little (you did know that Mac users have a reputation for getting ridiculously attached to their laptops? It’s actually a phenomenon) and resolved to take it to the Apple Store next day. Long story short, I kept going back and forth, between my house and the Apple Store, retrieving receipts and doing backups and all sorts before I managed to hand it in on the 25^th. Then they had to send it halfway through the country (to Trondheim) for repair. They’ve finally been looking at it, telling me that a) my battery is broken (which it has been the last four years) and b) they can’t replace my non-functioning keyboard because it’s too old (six years). Now I’m just waiting for them to send it all the way back to Tromsø before I will buy an external keyboard and start working on the layout for one of my Nicaragua-projects.

Of course, this is a bad excuse for not blogging. There are, after all, other computers. I have been blogging on my other blog though, and then I’ve also been to a Red Cross Youth Camp, been on holiday in Spain ten days (oh noes, poor me, I was too busy sleeping, going to the beach and reading to be blogging) and now I’ve just come home and have managed to borrow a Red Cross laptop.

So, hopefully, soon you'll get some updates on how Sober October went, and if I get my laptop back in working order you might even get some photographs.