Nothing much to say really

I have not written nor posted anything since february last year. Now; some do this and their lives have been full of moving houses, births and new jobs and whatnot and it is easy to understand that words had to be saved for real life stuff.

This is what I have done since then:

•  Mediated between my parents' big bruiser of a cat and the neighbours' slightly smaller, but far more tenatious cat. This involves a lot of swearing, and depending on the weather sometimes a lot of clothes must come on. Then it is to locate them; this part is fairly easy as there is a lot of noise. Then to locate a rake or a shovel and try to intimidate the intruder into leaving. (My size is apparently not enough. Neither is clapping hands. And no; I never acctually touch the cat with the tool in question.)

• Sitting on the commuter bus to Oslo. Again, And again. 

•  Made less then awsome xmas cakes. 

•  Broke my foot just as last summer's heatwave hit Oslo and spent two weeks on the sofa, in 30 deg C, bored to tears. (Good thing: no cast. That would have been horrible. As it was I was just sweaty, grumpy and exhausted. Imagine ichy on top of that...)

•  Started studying clinical nutrition. There is one exam per semester, so I survive. Not very elegantly: exam prep involves tears, desperation, vomiting and insomnia. But then it is done. No 5-exams-in-two-weeks bullshit. Since it is a five year masters, I'll graduate before turning 40. Go me!

•  Completed pepper panic saga.

•  Discovered grunge/alt rock 20 years after the fact. What was I listening to in the nineties? I remember Enya, Boheme and Enigma. Lots of classical music and that my friends loved Blur and Smashing Pumpkins. 

•  become hooked on one-note lists. 

•  done laundry

•  eaten lots of chocolate chip cookies

Give me sunshine

        According to those who count these things (the public meteorologist) we had 7 hours 19 minutes with sun in January, spread over four days. February looks to be even worse. So now I am craving sun and colors. I have a bright yellow raincoat, blue and purple knitted hat, and pink lipstick. More is more when it is February and one should be staying by the fireplace with tea and homemade bananabread in colourful pj's. Alas, I have to work.
       

Same procedure as every year, James

So, that went fast.

I could do with another week in bed reading, as this spring will be hard between work and studying for exams in May. But finally I begin to feel fit for fight. I have had a couple of days where just the thought of what will come made me hide under the blanket, wimpering.

I wish you all courage, laughter and kindness!

Hugs

Where my titles for the new year come from:
Dinner for one

Almost fall

Eventually I did finish the scarf.. and time flew by and it is the end of august and there is work and studying and proyects and me hauling butt to performances: Sleeping Beauty with the National Ballet, Some contemp dance at Dansens Hus, Blur and Tame Impala at Øyafestivalen (it was soooo good I get shivers to this day) and today I walked down to the church in town to listen to an ensamble called Barokkanerne. It was brilliant, and afterwards I tried to pinpoint what it is with baroque and earlier music that hits my I-Likey-spot. I feel like dancing and it is organic and the sound of wooden instruments.. They did Spring (Vivaldi) with strings, flute and Hurdy-Gurdy and there was so much going on. The usual cd-versions now feel sanitized, sterile. I sort of need to digest it and put words to the images in my head and the dance I was doing in my head as I sat there listening..

Knitting

 Current project, and it's taking forever and a day, because my mom wants two loose loops around her neck, and I am knitting with 3mm needles..

Finished project: Lovely Alpaca Wool from "Du Store Alpakka". It is really cool to drive and suddenly do a double take because instead of the usual sheep along the roads, I spot Alpacas.

Sugar in the morning!

A new year! A new beginning! And I can almost hear King Theodens speech there on the hill before Minas Tirith, although I'm not going to scream death.

I saw the Hobbit in 3D and got the extended LOTR for christmas, and had a Tolkien fest. And now the waiting begins and mentally preparing myself for Thorins death in about a year and half. Sight.

I wish you all a balanced new year!

Smart rat

This little rat has taken a liking to the bird feeder: food and safety in the same place!

Stuff I am going to miss

• Alhambra beer
• Pepperidge farm chocolate chip cookies
• Jamon serrano
• Coffe
• Tomatoes
• Calanda yellow peaches
• Jotas
• Zaragoza
• Sunlight
• Bying wine in the supermarked
• Farmacy on every corner
• Affordable organic chicken
• Camper stores
• El Corte Ingles
• La Siesta
• Saludos españoles
• Homemade flan

It is weird to be home, mostly because I have to remind myself that it is "for good" as in the next few years. 

Daroca

Spent a morning in Daroca. A village well worth a visit!

El Pilar by night

Basilica de Pilar with the Belen in front. Doing the tour in the Belen is one of those things I'll always do next year and never do..

Infinite Jest

How does one try to describe this monster of 978 pages + 96 pages of dense footnotes..

I begun reading it without too much hope that I would like it, as I had not enjoyed so much his collection of fiction Oblivion, compared to my utter facination with his essey collections. So I thought: Yeah, I'll read a couple of chapters and go to sleep.

Famous last words.

It is grotesque. It is violent. It is depressing. It is funny. It is absurd. It is heartwarming.

I think a reader would either hate it or love it.

Adding to all this it has lots of storylines that goes nowhere, things untold and jumps in time.. 

It is that time of the year again

And for once I had to remind myself it is December with the capital D and not december: a month like any other.

But the advent star is up, xmas music is on the ipod and christmas cards have been located and..

I am moving back home to Norway.

Cause the exam fobia won this round and I had to drop out of uni here in Zaragoza.

And I spent about a month and a half in bed with books rarely leaving my room; (showering and changing bedsheets weekly), eating not so much: depression but without the D. Because I could. It might have made more sense financially to go home and start working right away, but I look at it as a well deserved mental holiday from the world. So there.

Went to an exposition today:  Nacho Bolea's  "Mikado".

Bought xmas presents for my god children and for a friend.

I applied for a job on sunday, as an english and spanish teacher...

Have a good December!

Dance Tribute to the Art of Football

Choreography: Jo Strømgren (premiere in 1997)
Location: Scene 2, the Opera House, Oslo
Time: Saturday 28th, 19:00

If I had to describe it with one word I'd probably end up with Entertaining, something often lacking in football, (AND contemporary dance) especially in the spanish league where the players tend to stop the game every now and then to take a breather lying down in the grass? freshen up on the spray tan? Looking good on tv? I sort of liked the sport before, but many years of La Liga has killed that.

• 4 good dancers
• lots of football movements: both the useful ones and the silly ones
• lots of testosterone and ball scratching
• the quiet, the unhinged, the naive and the beautiful
• nuditiy AS PART OF THE STORY!!!! YES!! NOT primarily for the effect! A first, I belive, in a looong time. 
• manging to combine grace and brutality
• music in the habitual mix of classical and tecno
• the first few minutes I was not sure if the one female dancer was that or just a young boy/man. 
• lots of laughs
• was there a reference to "Pas de Quatre"? I think so. The ballett nerd in me finds that soo cool, and soo appropiate. The biggest Divas today are in football after all.
• The dance secuences are so fluid both in choreography and in execution.   

The piece does what it says and merges football and dance, for Your Entertainment! But some of the "cheaper" laughs could be exchanged for some more interesting football-moves-experimentation? I thought it lacked some depth.

We are never content, are we? 


This is possibly the least helpful description of a performance I have ever written, but in a sense fitting to the piece. Funny, well executed, but not memorable as far as the dancing goes. 

Put your red shoes on

These are possibly the least practical shoes I have ever bought, but they called out to me with their glittery Dorothy vibe and I could not resist. They are just so much FUN! I have not been able to use them out on the street yet, but the time will come.

I'm still here, only not

• May and June flew by and I have no idea where they went
• I like my e-reader
• It has been too darn hot, but right now it's ok
• Have looked up Epidemiologia private teachers on internet too get moral boost and butt kicks in august
• Bought crazy red Wizard of Oz shoes 
• Going to Barcelona for a couple of days
• Have new nice bikini
• Freya fell out a window. No injury. 
• Going home to norway soon. It is really hard to pack light. 

So finally I got my act together and did a course in Kyudo: japanese bow and arrow. It was really cool! It was so japanese, in the way every movement must be precise and perfect, the hand just so, the legs at a certain distance: movements calm and controlled, more focus on the preparation than hitting dead center...And at the same time my brain was going: "This is sooo cool! Just like Robin Hood!"

It was an intensive course, 5 hours, and we got to shoot twice, and our instructor informed us that normally you spend months perfecting ever one of the 8 movements before actually shooting off an arrow. My Robin-Hood-wannabe-part finds that annoying. But the perfectionist part of me understands that completely. It got a bit meditative, and it requires conciousness of every piece of the body. I LIKE!

Cara de Mimbre

Coreography and performing: Jordi Vilaseca in Teatro de la Estación The leaflet explains that it is supposed to be a personal journey through past experiences, showing how we all can become strong and resilient against the adversities we meet every day.

Modern dance makes me think, but on the downside, when I think, I get distracted in my own head and miss out on stuff that happens on the stage. So too this time. Is this supposed to happen? I have the idea that contemporary art is much about the viewer participating, thinking, reflecting, but part of me wants to be so caught up in what I see that the thinking happens later, when I get home. The next day..That it moves me, not only intelectually.

The piece is easy to like I think, and the 50 min? 45? passed quickly. One dancer on stage the whole time, he enters nude, with a big straw basket at his hip, carried in a very female way, like women would carry a laundery basket. The movements are slow and sinous; ever muscle seen in the back and neck.

 A second part with underpants on, movements are frantic, nervous, repetitive, hesitant followed by moments of calm.

Then with a old-lady night camisole on, tottering around like on high heals, like an past middelaged miniskirted lady at 6 in the morning walking home after too many drinks. There is something so very lonely about that image.

The dress is used as a screen for proyected words and recorded voices speak sentences and words about nervousness, valor..here I drifted off somewhere in my head. Again.

Then the dancer put on pants and a jersey and at some point start dancing with the basket, or maybe better described: the basket leads the movements, and the dancer hold on to it. Then comes the scene I liked the best where he fights with himself until putting the basket over his head. The expressions on his face were those of me going to an exam: fear, determination, the feverish wish of being anywhere else, doubt...

Then a series of calm poses a la Vouge, sitting on the floor. It was good to smile after the tense moment before.

Then he put on a jacket and lowered several baskets from the cieling, some with light, and played with them for a while, before lying down as the lights faded out, to the sound of a heartbeat.

The music was alternating between classical/quiet and electronic/hectic. The movements are familiar, both the dance moves that are traditional with a strong classical base, and the contemp stuff. The human-daily-life movements are fragile and spot on: this dancer even manages to move like Mr Bean at times.

Does the description match what I saw? I think so. But I also think the coreograper could have gone further, taken more risks, maybe experimenting more with some of the movements, feelings..It felt a bit safe at times, and the theatre is small: At a distance of 3 metres to the dancer I sort of expect to be blown away by the presence on the stage. Maybe my brain gets in the way.
    

sospiro

I wanted to go home sometimes this spring, but it looks next to imposible, as the cabal of cat-sitter+ exams+ being able to skip classes is turning out to be dificult/impossible. I am looking at the calender again and again, and surprise! No 4 day window appears by magic. Sight.

At the moment it looks like I won't go home until mid july after exams. there might be time last week of may, but only if I spend most of my time home studying, and there will probably be exam then as well but I will not know until possibly the beginning of may. I hate not knowing, not being able to plan ahead. Also the plane tickets gets a bit expensive when you by them so close to departure date.

What I am going to do is japanese archery: they do a newbe course on a saturday in may, and I am going to sign up on monday. I love the bow and arrow: robin hood was a childhood crush.

Semana Santa

I always get goose bumps when I hear the rolling, continuos drumming, the shrill notes of trumpets and feel the solemnity that sorrounds the easter prosessions. (Not so cool if you have to move around the city center in a car at 2100, nor if you have to get up early the next morning and have 250 drummers outside your window at 2300 giving their best..) I like easter in Zaragoza

I actually found the energy to take a picture

I made food today. You know, cooking and cutting and stirring. No microwaves got involved. Yeah! Cooking! I can feel my stomach giving thanks to the universe for finally recieving something homemade with lots of fiber and little salt.

Dinners (comidas) this week has been all about heating up shop bought tortilla de patata, pasta with mozzarella (like mac&cheese only with ravioli and mozzarella), food from En Embullicion that bust my budget (but sooo good) and a trip to McDonalds. No cooking in other words, because of an exam on friday and classes 14-15 that I'll have next week too.

In reality I'm almost on a Norwegian scedule as far as eating go, but since luch-hour is a mythical creature at my uni, getting ready to cook at 1600 after little to no food since 0730 is not a happy moment.

So today I made risotto Provenzale and have enough to freeze portions and eat later this week.

The black dog is hiding under the bed. Stay there, please doggy?