Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree... wie treu sind deine Glocken

Our Christmas tree, named Barry after a late friend of Shan's family, has been decorated:




Wouldn't you agree that Barry is the most splendid Christmas tree north of the Rio Grande?

Finally - no more finals

Jamms and jess kless, there will be no more finals this year. Aren't we all glad? Especially considering that there are only so many... so few days left of the year. I, for one, am.

But let's not talk to much about the finals. They are finally over and let's leave it at that.

Christmas is coming and this year it's coming with a vengeance. The other day, Shan and I and our friend Darren went Christmas tree shopping, looking for a small, well behaved conifer that would fit unobtrusively on the 1.5 square-foot table in our living room (in our apartment which is the size of a shoe-box, remember?). We drove away with a 10 foot (3ja metra) humongous tree that required the rearrangement of furniture in the livingroom (and we almost had to move in with the neighbours). The new family member (for the tree does remind me of some big, burly great granduncle I never had) now towers over the home and I have to say I like its presence a lot. Every time we come home these days it's like walking straight into a forest. That's good! I have to say that even if I didn't understand Shan's choice of tree one hundred percent at the time it was bought, I am most happy with his choice now.

The snow has arrived too and not a minute too early for my taste. The first few flakes fell around Thanksgiving, just in time to allow everyone travelling over that big travelling weekend to get caught somewhere on their way, either in a snow drift or behind an obnoxiously slow driver. That snow all melted away, though, and it wasn't until the morning of my flight to San Francisco that we got some more (which made me all but miss my flight out to the West Coast). By the time I got back to the East the snow was disappearing, but in the past week we have gotten about 5-10 inches more (that's 10-25 cm, for the Europeans in the crowd). This morning we then woke to a fanczy schmanzy Winter Wonderland and I nearly hopped my own height with joy. Because.... because.... because....

WE ARE GOING SKIING!!!!!!

Yay! (This is where all sensibility is thrown to the wind..). I got myself new skis early this summer, fantastic twin-tip Kahru telly-skis... and the über-fantastic Hammerhead-bindings (which Shan had the foresight to order for me - I can't think that far ahead) arrived last Monday and they have been mounted and we have the ski passes and YAY!!!! we are going skiing tomorrow!!! What more can a woman ask for?!?!?!

Klukk - fyrir langalöngu

1. Sjö hlutir sem ég ætla að gera áður en ég dey:

Fara aftur til Suðurskautslandsins
Eignast nokkra gríslinga
Fá mér doktorsgráðu
Fara til Papúa Nýju Gíneu og sjá Finisterre-fjöllin á Huonskaga
Sigla norður fyrir Ameríku gegnum Beringssund til Kyrrahafsins
Skrifa bók (bækur?)
Verða alveg rosalega góð að telemarka

2. Sjö hlutir sem ég get:

Endurtekið sömu sögurnar við mismunandi tækifæri alveg út í það óendanlega
Orðið alveg ofsalega pirruð út í virkjanasinna, hreintrúaða og nýfrjálshyggjusinna
Sagt ykkur hvar námuverkamennirnir í Longyearbyen spiluðu póker hérna í den
Múnað ísbjörn og komist upp með það
Montað mig af að hafa kunnað textana við öll helstu ABBA-lögin áður en ég byrjaði að læra ensku
Telemarkað
Talað á Karl-Blómkvist dulmáli

3. Sjö hlutir sem ég get ekki:

unnið jafnt og þétt
munað hverjum ég var búin að segja hvað
sparað peninga
komið hlutunum í verk nema þeir hafi átt að klárast í gær.
hreyft á mér eyrun, þaðan af síður nasavængina. Það er samt í vinnslu.
borðað smokkfisk
staðist freistinguna þegar Ópal-snafs er í boði

4. Sjö hlutir sem heilla mig við hitt kynið:

Húmor
Einlægni
Skapgóður
Barngóður
Finnst gaman að ferðast
Finnst gaman að læra erlend tungumál
Vill vinna að góðgerðarmálum


5. Sjö frægir sem heilla (ég fylgi fordæmi Eyju hér og nenni ekkert að vera að setja saman einhvern kjútíbjútí-lista):

Shan Modiuddin (hann verður áreiðanlega frægur einhvern daginn)
Bono (sem er víst búinn að keppa um athygli kærastunnar við hann Shan síðan sá síðarnefndi var 10 ára)
Edward Abbey

tjahh...


6. Sjö orð eða setningar sem ég segi oft:

Já Magnús, greinin er alveg að verða tilbúin
No, I haven't finished the grading yet
I'm tired
Ástin mín
Djöfulsins helvíts próf
Excuse me?
Ha?


7. Sjö hlutir sem ég sé einmitt núna:

haugar af vísindagreinum
frauðplastbakki með köldum kínverskum mat af Friðar-veitingahúsinu
þrír jarðfræðingar (í baksýnisspeglinum)
Einstein með pípu
myndir af afkvæmum vina minna
jökulurðir syðst á Kringilsárrana og Snæfell í baksýn
allar jarðfræðibækurnar sem ég á




Það eru allir löngu búnir með þetta, þannig að ég ætla ekki að klukka neinn. Og hana nú!

Oh my god...

Settu nafnið þitt í kommentakerfið og.....

1. Ég segi þér eitthvað handahófskennt um þig
2. Ég segi þér hvaða lag/mynd minnir mig á þig
3. Ég segi þér hvaða bragð minnir mig á þig
4. Ég segi þér eitthvað sem meikar bara sens fyrir mig og þig
5. Ég segi þér fyrstu ljósu minninguna mína af þér
6. Ég segi þér á hvaða dýr þú minnir mig á
7. Ég spyr þig að einhverju sem ég hef velt lengi fyrir mér um þig
8. Ef þú lest þetta þá verðuru að setja þetta á bloggið þitt..


P.S. Hafið í huga að ég er í prófum og öll afþreying er því vel þegin. Já, bókstaflega nauðsynleg.

After the AGU

Well well, time for a little update. Since the last post I have spent gazillion hours in front of the computer screen, had a mild nervous breakdown over the printing of my poster, been rescued by Vala in Pasadena, traveled to San Francisco, met a whole bunch of Icelanders, presented, overdosed on science, eaten loads of Asian food, burnt my shirt and made it back to Ithaca. Not bad, huh?

So, the conference went well. My poster session was on Wednesday and I did get some nice feedback on my work. I really had fun presenting my poster, not because the science is so fantastic (which it isn't) but because I never get a chance to talk about it here at Cornell, where the absence of any kind of group meetings or student seminars in my field is absolute and unrelenting.

While in San Francisco I read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. What a wonderful piece of literature. Recommended. And The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, by Mark Haddon, which I bought in Atlanta on the way back to Ithaca, is very promising indeed.

But idle reading will be relegated to the back burner for the next few days. Finals are coming up. Finals spinals. I hate finals. Did I mention that I hate finals? Hate finals, as in HATE finals. I hate finals. I also hate classes, I hate homework, I hate prelims. If there were any justice in this world, these would be my final finals, final classes. But they won't be and that makes me feel like biting my head off.