Have to do something to increase the traffic on my site. Think it might be a good strategy to put some obscene words in here and there - at least some people have come into my site after looking for odd things at Google. Like this chap (or chick) who was looking for "girls + swimsuits + cigarettes". I'm all flattered, but in my heart I doubt my blog was what he/she was looking for...

Arctic braindeath continues. Thank God for the written word and air mail, otherwise I would have eaten my brain in a stew by now. Dad got the fabolous idea of giving me an "introductory" subscription to Newsweek (as if I need any introduction to that magazine, it having been an integral part of the toilet-scape of my home since time began), so every week now I'll get it delivered to me here in the high north. Have already got the first issue, for July 1st, and now know a lot more than I did before about the hell of being a doctor at the trauma ward in a Jerusalem hospital, internal squabbles in Indonesia and Havana's old houses. Yumm, it feels good. I mean, sea ice distribution and last weeks cruise ARE important, but. Have also been reading Barry Lopez's "Arctic Dreams", it's bloody brilliant. Except for the chapter on the narwhale, which I dodn't relate to at all. Skipped it. Have to read you guys some excerpts from the book sometime soon.

Sometime soon might be a far way off, though. It looks like I might end up working a lot more than I thought first. Good, and bad. Money money money, but no spare time. Might just find myself returning home to Iceland as a burned-out wreck, with millions (yeah, right!!) in my pockets. One should be careful about getting too fond of money, a wise colleague of mine told me the other day. Should I take his advice?

But when money just stumbles into your pocket you don't have to be careful. Rather overcome with joy. Like I was two days ago when I opened the e-mail with "summerschool" in the subject line. A week earlier I wrote to a contact person at the Nordic Volcanological Institute in Iceland, enquiring about a summer school about the environmental effects of large volcanic eruptions on the Northern Hemisphere to be held there in late August/early September. Most of all, I wanted to know if I was too late to apply for a grant to attend the school, and how I should apply for it. Hehe, I didn't even have to apply!! Just got an answer, saying that I have got the grant! Iha! This means that I quit working up here about a week earlier than planned, and spend 10 days indulging in volcanoes and volcanology back home in Iceland, meeting loads of new people and maybe even some that may be able to help me with my M.S.. Cool!!