Ringing In ...

The holidays are ringing in. I am going to take the day off tomorrow and spend it with my sweetie, just lazing around and getting into the mood. Holidays is a stressful time, so one might as well take an extra day to destress for the holidays! After that, family gatherings, then a New Year's trip to the mountains. Mmmm ...

The Definition of Christmas

What is it that makes a Christmas? In my opinion it is:
. Darkness
. Snow (for atmosphere)
. Smell of pine, cinnamon, cloves, apples, clementines
. A clean house, smelling of polish and teak oil
. Light decorations in every street
. Mulled wine or cider and ginger cookies
. A beautiful steak on the dinner table (but whether it is pork, fowl or game doesn't make a difference to me)
. Cheesy, old Christmas ballads
. Candles everywhere
. Church bells ringing at six o'clock
. Mass echoing under dinner
. Hot chocolate on Christmas morning and a good book to read

Nothing Ever Happens

Met with old friends the other day, where I was just thinking how everything somehow always stayed the same, with nothing eventful ever happening. Still, when you start digging into it, a number of landmarks have been made in the last few months:
. Miss I. met a man, gave her resignation, found a new job, started writing, got engaged, sold her studio appartment and bought a penthouse appartment with her husband to be.
. Mrs A. and her husband celebrated their twenty years together, and she took on PhD studies while her husband found a new passion in painting.
. Miss J. had a second baby, adopted a step child and changed appartments.
. Miss G. ended an unfulfilling relationship, finished a bachelor’s degree, started working full time, put her appartment on sale and bought a long dreamed of new appartment.
. Miss F. lost her job, found a new one, departed with her boyfriend (who left for overseas), learned to surf and rockclimb, got married to her boyfriend, applied for graduate studies and decided to go live abroad.
. Absent from our get-together, Miss K. having had three children in five years is now fighting cancer and we worry about her and her family.
. Miss A. moved with her family to Eastern Europe, moved back and completed her studies.

This is to name but a few. None (or only a rare few) of these events were on TV, but these are the events that fill up a lifetime, I guess, of our uneventful lifes …

Inside the Computer

I upgraded to an ADSL connection the other day. Nothing to write home about of course, but I did have to install a net card into my computer, which as everyone knows involves opening the box and manually "installing" the card in a rail on the motherboard. Something I don't normally do everyday, so it was kind of exciting, to take a peek inside and admire the insides of your faithful companion. Fascinating, in fact!

After some start-up difficulties (my router wasn’t correctly set and had to be taken back to the service provider and reprogrammed), I am now all set up and ready to multiply my presence in the web world.

To Do ...

A week ‘till Christmas, and the bulk of Christmas “to do”s completed:
. write Christmas cards
. stock up on candles
. finish the ceramics artwork with my niece
. finish the end of the year bookkeeping
. do Christmas cleaning (not clearing the storage room this year!)
. change the batteries in the fire detector
. finish all paperwork that needs to be shipped overseas
. go to medical examination (for my visa)
. bake leafbread
. meet with friends from high school
. decorate ginger cookies (has been scheduled)
. go to a Christmas buffet
. buy a Christmas tree (pondering on it, will decide this weekend)
. buy Christmas presents (only three left, but I already chose them)
. plan and decide on a Christmas menu
. give my car a Christmas car wash (will do it on the 22nd)
. buy fresh groceries (plan to do it on the morning of the 23d)

I have worked hard not to overdo anything this time. Also, feel kind of relaxed and peaceful.

Ah, the French System ...

French universities are notably different from other academic institutions I have known. I was just talking about it with my friend F last night. We studied in the same schools, encountered the same problems, thus are brothers in arms, sort of ...

For one thing, students in France don't have any contact with the professors. Professors just walk into the auditorium, perform their lecture, then leave. That’s all you ever see of them. Where I come from, professors go by their first name. A peer relation between a student and a professor is unfathomable in France.

Secondly, universities do not provide services to you. You should be thankful in the first place that they let you in, but don’t you dream of asking for something that does not conform with the standard curriculum, also: forget about ever obtaining souvenirs from your stay, like transcripts of exams passed, grades received, or certificates. These are only delivered sporadically, and only if it suits the institution involved.

The French are decades behind in computer matters. They will make you learn, theoretically, how one works; you can study Turing machines, formal languages and automation theory but you may have to wait until way into your doctoral studies before you actually get to see one. Computer, I mean. Last time I knew, Internet or computer access was not automatically provided to students. I had to fight, reason and bully my way to get a computer account when I was in my fifth year, and the terminals in use in the only open terminal facility (unventilated!) on campus were ten years old.

The same applies to the housing, actually. Buildings are put up, but not given any maintenance, like repainting, cleaning or whatsoever. In the highest ranked university of France, the staircases smell of urine. If the glass in a window breaks it won’t be replaced, no matter how cold it gets. If a student spills coffee on a his desk, the stain will still be there three years later, next to the dirty sketch he penciled in out of boredom.

For decades the French have kept to an educational system that doesn’t have a counterpart anywhere else in the non-francophone world, their diplomas of DEUG, licence, maitrise and DEA (to name but a few) having no equivalent outside of France. This in itself does not facilitate comparisons, but as if things weren’t hard enough they also have to keep a unique grading system, where grades are usually appointed by “mentions”: très bien, bien, assez bien, passable, … However, should the grades be numerical, they will be on the scale of 0 to 20. Nota bene, the grade 20 is never accorded. Actually, the grade 18 is hardly ever accorded. To tell the truth, grades above 14 are very rare and most students will always be accorded a mark between 8 and 12. Except in math where most of the grades will be in the range between 3 and 10. These grades may not look impressing when translated into the standard scale of 0 to 10 or 100, but the French believe that low grades will help motivate the students.

Finally, French students never talk about studying, but “working”. They are always “working”! Just as well, because once they get a position within the public system and start working, they probably won’t be doing that much work, really …

Paper Work

I have been spending so much time on paperwork lately. Each time I find myself immersed in it, seeing no way to get it done, I calm down reminding myself that I have known worse in France, back in time.

Why the French are so notorious for their bureaucracy is another question. They claim so to speak to have invented science and technology, the World Wide Web among others, but when it comes to putting them to use, they really drag their feet. I often even wonder if they know how to use computers, in general, and I think the worst official web pages I have come across (both in content and visual worth) are the French ones, should it be their governmental or academic institutions. And they plain outright just don't answer e-mail, nope! (Also, why should they, when an e-mail doesn't even have a stamp!?)

For five weeks now have I been working on having transcripts sent from the French universities I studied at in order to ship them again to the U.S. where I am now applying for entry. And I am getting nowhere at it, despite e-mail, snail mail, phone calls and lots of "Monsieur/Madame", "s'il-vous-plait"s and "Veuillez agréer ..."s, believe me. It's exasperating. On one side I have the French, demanding a lot of patience, ass licking and formalities, on the other the Americans favoring service, speed and efficiency. (Plus, the two nationalities hate each other, but that's another story ...)

But well, I have seen worse. I have applied for a French residence permit and been told that it could not be delivered unless I had a university inscription, while I couldn't complete my inscription at the university until I had my residence permit, thus being sent back and forth.

It even occurred to me this was some sort of a sick joke the French played on foreigners who came to dwell in their country. Then the key is to come stand in line at different venues, different counters, again and again and again, and again, with at least four copies of every possible document and a bunch of identity photos and postal stamps, until one day surprisingly they give you the paper and you are so relieved that you forgot you were ever annoyed by the hassle.

Sometimes of course unexpected problems can arise, like my third year in France, when the guy who stamped the residence permits died, so I had to be without one for seven months. And you learn just to take things as they come. But they have lots of cafés there too. And cheap, good wine. So that helps. Sort of.

Right now, right here, however, I have no cheap wine and no café terraces, so I'm really not in the mood for games. If only I thought they would read my blog, and then get things going for me, please ...

Manifesto

With my last record on uninspired blogging in mind, I have put down the following guidelines for myself:

1. Make a point of not being silent too long. A blogger should blog at least once each week, except on holidays. Blogs that stay the same for more than a week are depressing. Notice: If you haven’t had anything to say for a while, maybe that’s a sign you should get up and do something with your life.
2. Don’t nag about something unless you think you have a fresh, humorous angle on it.
3. Don’t be rude and don’t write things you wouldn’t be comfortable with someone reading.
4. Don’t talk about all too trivial things unless: they are descriptive, they should be shared (like naughty recipes), there’s something extraordinary about the commonness of them.
5. Don’t lie, but by all means, EXAGGERATE.
6. Don’t preach (this might be hard!).
7. Try to respect the six points here above.

Further things I am going to keep in mind: I promise to try to keep the background of my blogpage white, in any case not to display any horrible background pattern. I also promise not to put any stupid, mind-boggling animations into the page.

Bloggers Block

It’s kind of obvious that bloggers don’t always have much to say. That can be a problem, because the blog consists of what is blogged. Considering the number of bloggers, and the banality of most of our lifes and thoughts, bloggers block must be not such an uncommon phenomenom. I recently saw a good blog on means to combat bloggers' block. The blog was unfortunately not in English, but I’ll just steal the basic ideas and make them mine:

So, on the methods, the first and the most common approach is silence. When you don’t have anything to say then you simply don’t say anything. Even if it was for weeks. This is a common reaction and if it wasn’t the internet would surely be much more clogged up than it is with completely useless, uninformative information.

Number two is nagging. Then you nag and whine about everything that annoys, upsets, angers or frustrates you or in some way hampers your existence. You can also moan about the difficulties you’re having with blogging. I guess you will have to have something of a fresh angle ever to make this sound interesting though.

The third way is provocation. Then you put forward some provoking, unsubstantiated opinions or judgements, wait for people to pick up the thread and comment on your statements and then comment on the comments. That should keep you going for a while.

The fourth method is banality. Then you blog about any trivial incident of your day, down to brushing your teeth and what you had for breakfast. Just as exciting as a school assignment.

Method number five is lies. Just lie that something interesting happened to you. It doesn’t need to be plausible, actually the more outrageous, the better. What a crazy idea. But funny, right?

Lacking in Writing Skills!

I got my GRE scores, and was somewhat disappointed, in particular seeing the score for the analytical writing section, which qualifies me as one who "provides competent analysis of complex ideas; develops and supports main points with relevant reasons and/or examples; is adequately organized; conveys meaning with reasonable clarity; demonstrates satisfactory control of sentence structure and language usage but may have some errors that affect clarity."

And I thought lack of clarity was part of my mysterious charm! But seriously, this just has me wonder whether the graders are at all smart enough to read subtle texts like the one mine most certainly was.

This is probably the last time I am going to spend 1h15m non-stop, handwriting text with a pencil. Also it was probably the first time in over ten years I had to do that. And it hurts! By now, our hands are much better adapted to a keyboard. Writing with a pencil, especially for a long duration, takes tremendous effort and coordination. Am I glad at least that we are past the age when texts had to be carved into stone …

Otherwise, last time I wrote a paper in English (for academic purposes) was during my second year in highschool. Something like 20 years ago. As far as I can remember the subject was either “All my sons” by Arthur Miller or “Brave new world” by Aldous Huxley. I was probably not too fervent about these subjects at the time. Nor was I passionate about the subjects of my GRE test, one of which was on an airline company’s measures to educate their staff, the other on the importance of university students taking courses outside their field. Honestly, I have zero insight into the first subject, fair insight into the second but very mixed feelings about it and no affirmative stand.

But that’s no excuse to score just a 4.0 on your GRE test. Damn it! Did I just blow it?

And a more serious question: Am I simply too old by now to measure up to academic standards? Have my golden days passed me?

Thirty-Something Singleton Lost

It's a pity that they should do so little justice to the character of the lovable thirty-something single female in the sequel to the original film on Bridget Jones, The Edge of Reason that now is in the movie theatres. In the first part we learned to like that endearing Bridget whose shortcomings were basically to be thirty and single, and well …, a little chubby, hopelessly romantic, a bit gauche, and to smoke too much. Who could not identify at least with some of her quirks and some of her mishaps? I sure could. And even when we affectionately laughed at her, the joke wasn’t on her, but on our judgemental, competitive society that most of the time doesn’t value the treasures to be found in Bridget’s ingenuity and candor. At the end of the story also Bridget came out as the winner, having beaten the odds, overcome misfortunes and found her too-good-to-be-true Mr. Right. And again we identified with her.

Unfortunately, in the sequel to Bridget’s “adventures” she has become completely inane, brainless and vulgar. Oh, maybe that’s all there is to thirty-something single females. Because truly there must be a reason why she didn’t settle down yet! And we wind up feeling so sorry for her perfect boyfriend that we almost feel like calling up the human rights watch to get him out of this relationship from hell. Now, so much for the character of Bridget Jones. Otherwise, the movie has a few funny bits, but the story is completely worthless. There’s a formulaic rerun of the gigs from the first movie, most of which try to outdo the previous versions. It wears a bit on your patience. I got my best laughs from the first fifteen minutes of the movie, then I started thinking: Oh, no, not again …

But I still believe there must be a lovable Bridget out there somewhere. Maybe Darcy will find her third time around …

My Past in Boxes

I have for various reasons been going through old documents and papers that I have stored up in boxes either because I assumed I might need them later, or for reference, or because they bring up fond memories, or because I knew they would have comical value some day. I'm a collector by nature, of course, and when you have had things stolen from you once you tend to hang on to what is left, but I've really been trying hard to get rid of stuff, and to prove that, I can fit my whole past now into about four boxes. That is, personal items without practical value.

The boxes are now old enough to constitute a real treasure chest to me, in that each time I take a peak into them I discover some things I wasn't aware of any more, that I didn't know about or had forgotten, sometimes that turn out to have tremendous value for me, sometimes just enough for a good laugh.

Among my recent findings were:
. My vaccination certificates.
. Photos of my old self.
. School records.
. Letters from people I had forgotten about.
. Drawings by myself.

And among the most surprising things I learned from my findings were:
. Back then I used to have time on my hands to undertake extensive private letter writing, and since the advent of the internet I have hundreds of pages of them.
. Apparently, I've had more boyfriends than I thought (though only one at a time), but I probably had more fun thinking and writing about them than spending time with them.
. I used to make these quite decent drawings with pen or pencil, even if I now find myself completely devoid of artistic skill.
. Apparently, I had seriously been considering doctoral studies in Complex Analysis or Algebraic Geometry.
. A long time ago I had taken a number of classes on really tough subjects I now know nothing about, like arithmetic convolutions, quadratic forms, algebraic extensions, reciprocity, formal languages and grammatical systems, metric spaces and multiple integrals, residual methods, operators and reduced forms, fondamental group and classification of surfaces, ... and done quite well at them, amazingly enough.

Cold Feet

I now think I understand what people are talking about when they speak of marriage jitters. For the last few days it’s been as if the world was falling on my head. Is it only me, or have people been particularily pushy, demanding, impatient, intolerant, lacking understanding, hurried and obnoxious for the last few days. I feel as if I should be reflecting on the commitment I’m about to undertake but there is simply no time to give it a thought. I feel I should have taken the time needed to prepare for the event, prepare for receiving my guests, prepare for looking pretty for my love, prepare my state of mind for this big step I’m about to take, but this time it is just not an option. “Just go with the flow ...” (and hope it won’t show, you’re not ready to go ... Uh, what if he said no?)

I could have sworn the whole universe was working against me. Even the weather’s been stormy and freezing, meaning that I instantly have to prepare my car for the winter, and that it’s almost life threatening to be out running errands ... Work is all of a sudden crazy, my colleagues pester me about all the stuff they could so easily do themselves but won’t because they are so used to me doing it. Then, I worry about money because of unforeseen expenses and the organisations I’m running are losing sponsors and grants. (Why does money have to be an issue in this world anyway!) Then I get a very undeserved ticket on my car because the Fulbright lady has me delayed when I’m running errands. The old lady at the district commissioner’s doesn’t understand anything when I go there to hand in papers. Then this awful cold sore on my lips (that I don’t know how to deal with because I never get them). (Oh, and by the way, did I mention the fact that I’ve gotten fat too!) Then my internet connection isn’t working at all, forcing me to run extra errands, of course. Then I lose my car keys when I’m trying to make it to work early. Then, the next day, my car runs out of batteries. Ayeh, is it any wonder that on top of this I don’t find time to prepare for my test this weekend ...

So, stress, stress and then yet more stress. Why do people ever go through with this at all? Or why should I, for that matter. Hmm, well, because tomorrow I’m gonna be with my sweetie and he’s gonna make everything so right, at least for a while. And it will all be worth it.

Morning Glory

Early mornings are so great. They have this special feel to them. It’s almost like time standing still for a while.

I know that waking up in the morning isn’t always the most fun thing you do. (Still, waking up next to the one you love isn’t such a bad reminder of how great life is, right?) But once you are up, you have the best hour of the day ahead of you. That is, if you take your time. There should be a rule stating that nobody can have you speed for the first hour after you wake up. Then, what do you do? You enjoy a good shower, you carefully dress, you have a nice coffee and/or breakfast, you read the morning paper, and then you step outside, into the day. And this is the only time of the day where you are not under pressure, not feeling as if you should be doing something else.

Early mornings are quiet, peaceful, serene, … Do you remember early paper rounds from your childhood? Being up and out before everybody. The world is so calm it makes you think of heaven, the sun gleaming at you, the stillness such that you feel detached from the three dimensions of the matter.

To my dismay, not everybody seems to share my opinion that mornings should be taken advantage of. As a demonstration of this it’s almost impossible to find a café open before lunch. Which is a tragedy, because mornings are exactly the time where you would like to sit in a café and ponder. Luckily, mom still found a couple of those. (She has a nose for places that open early.) And I stole a moment and had coffee with her before I went to work this morning. Best thing I did with my day!

The Five Classes of Bloggers

I can see five kinds of bloggers out there:
The geeks. I don’t read those pages, ‘cause they tend to look very confusing, have lots of features on them, graphics, tag boards, chat rooms, online computer games. Visibly, for guys who live on the internet and don’t account for much else.

The historians. I sometimes bookmark those if I come across a good one. These are people who are passionate about society and politics, internal and international, and are compelled to share their opinions and views with the citizens of the web. Most of them upgrade their web pages regularly, because by definition they always have something to say. The headlines of the day provide them eternally with subjects.

The moms. Family oriented pages! They report on their children, write often with the same passion as the historians, only their world is the home. Most of them seem to be housewives, or at least on maternity leave for the time being, also most of them seem to have infants, and the infant then often has a web page of his/her own.

The students. Into this category fall possibly a few sub categories, depending on what the bloggers put the emphasis: There are those who just left their homes (or not) for college, and recount the student life, the classes, the papers to write, the exams, the friends, and not least: the parties. There are also the ones who are studying abroad and give reports to their family and friends through their blog. Also, I would put into the same category newly graduates, who may have just started their first job, because the blogs seem to resemble the former, only jobs and exciting/ frustrating/ promising careers now replace what used to be school.

The philosophers. The essence of blogging: They seem to blog first of all for themselves. I guess the purpose is not necessarily to have readers but to have an arena to ponder, muse and rant, depending. Among the ones I’ve seen, those I find worth reading usually seem to be of a certain age – I would say at least thirty-something, and actually sometimes middle aged … Some are poetic, compelling, touching and some might even classify as literature.

Then I guess there may be a certain flow: students may turn into geeks, or geeks grow up to become normal students, students may eventually turn into moms (that’s life), moms into philosophers, philosophers into historians …

Chivalry in the 21st Century

I recently read with amusement the blog of a young woman who derided the habit of European men to have ladies exit the elevator before them. Funny that this should be upsetting!

I have had the chance to grow up in a relatively non-discriminatory society. Here, women are prone of course to accept lower remuneration for their work than men and to carry main responsibility for the home … , but otherwise men and women are considered equals. Pretty sound and healthy. At the same time the consensus has become that practices that defy symmetry between the sexes, including all expressions of male chivalry, are outdated. What a pity!

Because I have also had the chance to experience the old fashioned European courtesy manners, and even if it took a while for them to grow on me, I now find them delightful. Frankly, what woman would object to having a guy show her some reverence and respect for her feminity? Should she in any way feel threatened if a man was to show her how conscious he was of her womanhood? Or patronized? Or put down? Or disregarded? Or made fun of? By all means, no. Enjoy it, girls! Especially if it’s becoming so rare …

There are a few gestures that I always appreciate, even if I will admit that they are not necessarily crucial:

• If a man opens a door for me, especially when I’m all dressed up, and even more flattering will be to get an admirative look as well.
  
• If a man stands up to greet me or salute me, when I enter or leave a place, instead of sitting like a potato-bag giving me at most a slight nod. The former somehow makes me feel important (and I wonder why …)
  
• If a man, at a bar or a party, offers to fetch the drinks (even if I’m paying). In particular, I don’t find it very ladylike to have to fight my way to a counter to get a drink to hold. If a man can spare me that experience, I’ll be grateful.
  
• If a man has me precede him into a room, into a restaurant, or into a row of seats. Or even out of the elevator, since we were talking of it. Also, if there’s a crowd, I think I’d rather have the man follow me, than to try to keep up with him or see him evaporate into the crowd.

There are those I find a little irrelevant, although occasionally they might be cute:

• When a guy wants to pull out the chair for me.
  
• When a guy insists to hold the car door for me at all times.
  
• When a guy wants to hold the umbrella for me (especially if it’s awkward, because it might be raining to hard, or hardly raining at all, or because the guy is so short that he keeps poking my face with it …)

Then there are those examples of lack of courtesy that I abhor:

• When a man slams a door in my face, as if I was ‘see-through’. Especially if the door is heavy and/or my hands are full.
  
• When the man sitting next to me at a dinner table is handed a course and instead of passing it on puts it out of reach for me. (“Come on, do you really want me to beg?”)
  
• Also, at the dinner table, when I have the bad fortune of sitting next to a man who pours his glass all the time, but never offers to pour mine, even if it’s empty.
  
• When a guy I only know moderately asks me out and then doesn’t offer to pay, even if I was planning on paying my share. Or worse, takes off to the bathroom and leaves me with the check when the check is brought. Or begs me to excuse himself for having left his wallet at home.
  
• When somebody comes up to me to offer something or ask something, and a man interrupts or cuts me short.
  
• When a man pretends to want to help me into my coat but then drops it before I can grab it.

In brief, I am bound to resent anything that prevents me from acting like a lady or puts me out of my ease. Not because I don’t value my independence or the equality of rights, or because I don’t share feminist opinions, but simply because life is so much more pleasant when everybody aims to please. Most of the time it doesn’t cost much, so why discount it ?

Photo Hosting

I have been looking into the things one can add to a web log to make it more sophisticated. It’s clear to me that in due time this page will have to contain regular upgrades to new photos. So I have been looking for appropriate sites for (preferrably free, or at least cheap) hosting of photos. I had an old account with WebShots, other photo hosting sites I looked at are VillagePhotos, ShutterFly (essentially for prints, not quality displays) and SmugMug, and VillagePhotos actually looks convenient for small scale private photo hosting. The latest one I came across was flickR, with more features than I have had time to familiarize myself with yet.

But, I would be most thankful for any advice. Any!

Math Champions

So, I got my five minutes of fame with Fields medalist Timothy Gowers on Friday. Actually a bit more than five minutes. At the same time I was appalled by the fact that media showed minimal interest in the visit of a world famous mathematician. Would they have shunned a Nobel prize winner in literature, economics, or medicine? I doubt it. What makes one think that a mathematician of the highest abilities would have any less to say? Especially when it is question of such an eloquent and philosophical speaker as our Tim Gowers? I mean, have you journalists given it a thought where we would be today without mathematics? We would be living in the Stone Age, that’s where we would be! And I bet you wouldn’t be very comfortable with that. For starters, you would have to part with your cell phone, and how would you fancy that … ! So, what’s the deal? Were you afraid you wouldn’t understand? Or, that you wouldn’t know which questions to ask? Because, as mathematicians know, that’s kind of the most important part, isn’t it.

But well, I guess I shouldn’t torture myself with this. At least I was there. And the meeting was probably on pair, or almost, with the day I met Andrew Wiles and had the opportunity to say a few very unintelligible words to him before I discomposed myself by asking his autograph on a new dollar bill. Or the day I had lunch with Paul Erdös (see The Man Who Loved Only Numbers) and my professor in this little Vietnamese restaurant by Boulevard Raspail, where surprisingly enough the conversation quickly turned from mathematics to table tennis ...

A Different Kind of Hero

I’m waiting to go to a lecture this afternoon and I suddenly realize I’m feeling jitters. Why? Well, because we are having Fields medalist Tim Gowers come up here give this talk. That’s so exciting to me, as exciting as it would be for a football fan to meet with David Beckham, for a militant to spend a moment with Hilary Clinton, for a flamenco fan to see Joaquín Cortés on stage, for a pop music addict to meet Björk – no, maybe not, let’s say Chris Martin, singer of Coldplay (or am I still far off?), … , for an upcoming writer to converse with José Saramago.

What/who are our ‘role models’ anyway? One of my big heroes when I was younger used to be Mahatma Gandhi, for the concept of ‘civil disobedience’. I also used to have Albert Einstein´s picture above my bed, on whatever grounds that was. As for our heroes, past and present, I guess I’d choose the ones that strive for peace, but who are they then - meaning, among those who didn’t get killed yet? After that I’d probably want to show my admiration for the people who furnished us with all the elements of comfort we’ve grown so accustomed to. (Yet sometimes with big impairments to our environment …) Then those that make my life better by creating beauty all around me. And of course my mom, for turning out an almost normal person in me. Will be back later with my heroes …

Phrases I Hate

• Something terrible just happened.
  
• I have bad news for you, ...
  
• There is something I have to tell you.
  
• You ain’t gonna like it, but ...
  
• If it's of any consolation to you, ...
  
• It’s not you, it’s me.
  
• I don’t know what I think.
  
• It’s not what you said, but the way you said it.
  
• As you like.
  
• If you have to do it ...

Sea, Sex and Sun OR Chill, Quiver and Cold

All summer long, my man has been indulging in the sea (but no sex!) and sun of California, while I have been lucky enough to enjoy a few cool, pleasant days up here by the artic circle. All the same, I can sincerily assert that I haven’t felt any envy. He can sweat all he wants, he can swim all he wants, he can tan all he wants. He may even eat ice cream all he wants, what do I care. I’ve had my pretty view out of my office window while working away, and I have had those nice sunday mornings on my veranda. Unfortunately, that’s all over now. Only a week ago we had a storm that blew a roof of a house, we had landslides cut roads off, we got rain for two weeks in a row and the wind has been howling outside my window. Not exactly cozy. While down in California, they go about as normal. It’s probably only a matter of time until it will become feasible enough. I am even going to be willing to admit it ...

Is Blog Graphomania ...

... Nuisance of the Internet Age OR Active Democracy?

I had a long conversation with ‘my better half’ last night about the blogging frenzy. He claims, or at least vaguely hopes, that self acclaimed political bloggers will eventually become a force to be reckoned with. That the internet itself may become an arena for independent political candidates. That bloggers will put pressure on politicians, by doing what journalists should normally do, that is: fact checking and rectifying when politicians make false statements, furnishing thorough information - delving into issues by doing historical and background research, voicing people’s opinions – especially when they are in contradiction with those of the people in power. It is a fact that journalists often fail to do this because this kind of journalism doesn’t always sell newspapers and/or commercials, and may disturb the governing forces.

But will the bloggers do the job? That is the question I ask myself. Because on the contrary, the internet already carries so many voices and so much irrelevant personal material, that I wonder if it’s not going to submerge the more valuable writings. Already, every other person wants to tell his/her life story on the internet, despite the fact that it will probably not be of interest except for at most the 10-20 persons that surround that blogger. We are by and large suffering, if not from pure narcissism, then at least from a severe case of ‘graphomania’.

One of my favourite authors, Milan Kundera, first in his novel ‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting’ and later in the essay ‘The Art of the Novel’, denounced graphomania, way before its outburst on the internet. He says graphomania is a compulsion "to express oneself," regardless of whether this expression serves any practical function. According to Kundera “Graphomania … takes on the proportions of a mass epidemic whenever society develops to the point where it can provide three basic conditions: 1. a high enough degree of general well-being to enable people to devote their energies to useless activities; 2. an advanced state of social atomisation and the resultant general feeling of the isolation of the individual; 3. a radical absence of significant social change in the internal development of the nation. (in this connection [he finds it] symptomatic that in France, a country where nothing really happens, the percentage of writers is twenty one times higher than in Israel)”. It is probably safe to say that with the Internet we have reached the ‘Age of Graphomania’. But again, according to Kundera, “mass graphomania itself reinvents and aggravates the feeling of general isolation. The invention of printing originally promoted mutual understanding. In the era of graphomania the writing of books has the opposite effect: everyone surrounds himself with his own writings as with a wall of mirrors cutting off all voices from without …”.

Not that I don’t understand the impulse of writing. I myself have reflected on the reasons I have for carefully storing and classing my personal mail, as well as my old diaries. What are my intentions with these writings? Am I going to spend my old age reading through those? Or am I wistfully preparing for someone to stumble upon them once I ‘am gone’. And Kundera described it even better: “For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words.”

What will be classical when?

A prediction I made ten years ago partly came true last night. Before I explain it, let’s go back ten years: At the time I had just begun to carry interest in recent art music or contemporary music. I was deep into 20th century music, but my knowledge of it still barely covered but the first half of the century and I was quite inept as far as the music of the 90s went. I only slightly knew some music by Alfred Schnittke and Einojuhani Rautavaara, as well as having come across the hits of Henryk Gorecki and Arvo Pärt and indirectly the film music of Zbigniew Preisner. I still had some sort of a premonition that I probably was missing out on something. But when I bought tickets to the symphony that night, for a concert starring Gidon Kremer as solist, I had no idea where this was going to lead me in musical findings later on. On the program was this ‘fresh from the oven’ violin concerto of John Adams. I had never even heard of a composer John Adams before, as common as the name may sound. But I had a great view of Gidon Kremer as he started to play and as he played the music cast a spell on me. “So this is what they are doing nowadays, them composers”, I thought. “Oh, my oh my, I will have to get me some more of that. For sure.” The music was somehow familiar, yet so fresh and so different. I found the first movement intriguing and interesting, the second movement mesmerizing and the third movement rousing and exciting. My heart pounded and at times I even had to fight tears that sprang to my eyes. This was ‘good stuff’. I later purchased a recording of this concerto (as soon as it was out, that is, the performance I had heard had actually been a ‘premiere’ on the European continent) and when I did it only confirmed me in my belief that this work would end up a classic of the 20th century. Now, hearing Laila Josefowicz’s rendering of it in concert last night (ten years later) gives me credit again. Her performance was fiery, passionate and engaged. The reception fervent and enthusiastic. I hope to be able to witness the same thing in ten years again. This concerto has come to stay!

Flat

I only have so much time left now to attend to my appartment before I might have to part with it. I have been meaning to renovate my bathroom for a while and if I get hold of a reliable plumber I’ll want to change the toilet and the sink and fix a couple of radiators, one in my bathroom, one in my study. Since I don’t have any money to do this anyway, I might as well fix an appointment with my cousin as well and see if he will be willing to paint my windows that are so long due. I might even be tempted to use him for some further paintwork in my kitchen, my bedroom and on my balcony.

Sounds a little silly to be improving my flat just to leave it in good shape. I’m going to miss it. Not because it’s so modern, or because it’s so spacious, or because it’s so elegantly furnished, or because I spend so much time in the garden, but because it feels good, because it’s warm and cozy, because it’s cute, because the kitchen is homely, because the bathroom is tiny, because of the light that enters it at different angles, from bright morning sun to pink sunset, because of my funny little closets and the mysterious attic, because of the fresco in the bedroom that my nephews fascinate in, because of the shiny tiles in the kitchen and the dark parquet on the living room, because of my little terrace where I can take breakfast in summer, because of the beautiful, majestic laburnum under my balcony, because I can see the stars and the northern lights straight up through my roof windows, because it’s in such a nice house on such a pretty street, because it’s at the top of the world, because I can see roof tops, the ocean, mountains and glacier out my window, including Bláfjöll, Esja and Snæfellsjökull, because the wind makes spooky sounds under the roof in a storm, because everything I need is within walking distance, because I know my way home to it.

Actually, I probably never ever want to leave it, now that I think of it.

Pros and Cons of Living

I have been writing about pros and cons. There are always bound to be pros and cons. I know that. But which outweigh the others? Or do they even out? Writing up a few of each, this week and last week, the funny thing was that the pros came flowing out of my head. For each of the options I was writing about. It was much harder to come up with cons. Again, for each of the options I was writing about.

I’m a perpetual nostalgic. There is no such thing as a change that doesn’t engender regrets of some sort. Or a choice that doesn’t imply an exclusion. There just happen to be a lot of ‘either or’s in life. And one thing is sticking to your choice, another is coming to terms with the fact that you’re not likely to ever find out what would have been, had your choice been different …

Time has three dimensions. The trick is to live harmoniously and simultaneously in your present, past and future. I claim my right to indulge in reminiscence, recollections, remembrances. I also claim my right to think ahead and put order into parts of my life before they come to me …

Pros and Cons of Living in San Diego - part II

TEN CONS:

• It’s sooo far away from home. Traveling between the two is both long and expensive.
  
• The job market is tough, and I might have to accept being without a job for a little while, whereas here I have one. Also, it’s a different lifestyle there, where employees are for instances not granted five weeks vacation per year or nine months maternity leaves …
  
• It doesn’t feel like a secure place but a rather insecure one. Human rights are losing ground, foreign policy is not winning America any friends and war times might be imminent.
  
• The culture may be a little flat and homogenous down there, but well, that is for me to find out …
  
• It’s a big city with all that entails: traffic jams, difficult to get things done, high cost of living, …
  
• The time difference with home (8 hours in winter) makes contact with friends and family discommodious.
  
• They don’t get any winter there, no snow, no cozy, pitch dark days, no atmospheric Christmas season.
  
• I’ll miss the water, the fish, the lamb, … from home.
  
• I won’t see my nephews and experience their pranks.
  
• I’ll have to change my ways and rethink my situation as to whether/how long to keep my lovely, cozy appartment, give up my car for half its worth, etc …

Pros and Cons of Living in San Diego - part I

TEN PROS:

• Christian’s there.
  
• The area houses a lot of Software and Biotechnology companies and could therefore have interesting jobs in store.
  
• There are many fascinating places to visit around there.
  
• It’s pretty, there’s the ocean, and the mountains and the city itself is clean and well kept.
  
• There’s a very pleasant climate and I’ll be able to wear a summer dress and walk feet naked all year round, picnic and barbecue, practice lots of outdoor activities ...
  
• I’ll be able to try all sorts of new hobbies there, like surfing, climbing, biking, sailing ...
  
• People will come to visit me ALL the time, once I’m living abroad!
  
• Many things are cheaper down there, like gas, eating out, ...
  
• I’ll get a chance to brush up my english, and maybe eventually go back to school.
  
• It’s gonna be interesting to try experiencing America and american society from within.

Pros and Cons of Living in Elf Land - part II

TEN CONS:

• It’s small. I’m not sure why exactly that’s a bad thing, but it is, believe me.
  
• The weather can be so boring, in particular the wind and the rain that sometimes limit one’s enthousiasm for outdoor activities.
  
• The object of my affection is far and away, and not likely to make this location his place of choice for a while.
  
• It’s expensive: so many things are way more expensive than they need or should be. In particular traveling, ... and groceries, more precisely fruits and vegetables.
  
• It’s isolated, meaning that I can’t exactly take my car and drive into the adventure to meet new lands and new cultures.
  
• The job opportunities are limited. There are only so many companies around and then they will always be of limited size with limited resources and limited opportunities.
  
• We don’t honestly get a real summer here. Bright nights, yes, but warm summer nights when you can put on a light summer dress and sandals, no!
  
• There is a certain lack of privacy here. Not because it’s so crowded but on the contrary we are so few. Everybody knows everybody, or almost. You don’t need to be a celebrity for people to think they can form themselves an opinion on you without even having met you.
  
• Up here we kind of lack the perspective of a person that may think he/she understands ‘the big world’. We have a very naive view of the state of the world, of politics and history. One might be able to argument that in order to gain this ‘understanding of the big world’ it might be necessary to experience living abroad.
  
• Having wine with dinner here is a luxury: First of all, you can only buy it in the State’s Monopoly liquor stores that have restricted distribution and opening hours. Secondly, a bottle of wine is outrageously expensive, the cheapest wines cost probably around ten times as much as they do in France. Not to speak of restaurants where prices are ridiculous.

Pros and Cons of Living in Elf Land - part I

TEN PROS:

• The support of my family: everyone’s within reach and I can alway count on them. It is also incredibly fun to watch my nephews as they grow up.
  
• The society is small and human, quiet and clean. It makes me feel safe. And it’s easy to get things done, because helpfulness, flexibility and tolerance are inherent.
  
• The quality of life is good. The air is clean, the food is good, the comfort level is high and human rights are held in respect.
  
• It’s easy for me to prove my worth, when looking for a job for example. I have lots of contacts and references.
  
• I’m at home in traditions and culture. It’s my culture, I understand it and am emotionally attached to it. I have the insight required to take fully part in it and I love all the wonderful quirks of it.
  
• The landscapes in this country are so beautiful, the colours are quite amazing, so pure and striking. And the light, the hues and the scenery are ever changing.
  
• The distances here are manageable. It’s easy to get out of town for a change of atmosphere and to do stuff like camping, hiking, or hanging out in a little hut somewhere secluded. Also, I can hop on a plane and be in Europe within three hours, if I feel like spending a weekend in an old city on the continent.
  
• There is some kind of a diversity born from the fact that, this being a small country we look upon the outside world a lot. From this springs also a certain precious openmindedness. As a result, I don’t feel isolated but informed. On a different scale, all kinds of entertainment, art and performances are available to me in a much bigger degree than if I was living in a big city, because they are reachable and affordable.
  
• The climate is temperate, has a lot of variety but no extremes. Then I mean that it’s never too hot and it’s never too cold (you may think it is but then you’re probably just not properly dressed). The seasons range from mild summers where the sun doesn’t go down to (again) mild winters, dark and lush, with the occasional snow fall. Oh, and Christmas to crown it, with its plethora of lights.
  
• The water: Could I live without the fresh, clean water I drink from the tap, without the water around us from which we draw all this delicious seafood and the hot water from the natural springs that provides us with heating for our homes and with these great swimming pools and hot pots?