Bahh bahh

... billboard sheep...

First practice

Yesterday was historic, as it was the day when I acquired sufficient proficiency in strumming the ukulele to make it (almost) through an entire song. I was duly accompanied by Shan, who didn't take long to pick up the two chords on his guitar. World dominance can't be far off!

Eloquent poverty

Last Friday was Earth Day and the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University came to give a talk. His story about visiting the pope with Bono was hilarious but the rest of his message wasn't.

Ammli

Hún Lára systir mín á afmæli í dag. Hún lengi lifi, húrra húrra húrra!!!

Back in the cottage

This morning I had a nap in my own bed in Ithaca, NY. The best boyfriend in the world picked me up at the airport after my red-eye flight from Hawaii. It's good to be home again.

Music

I thought maybe some of you needed some help to figure this ukulele thing out. I'm going to need a lot of help with it too! Do you think I'll have to wear the straw skirt at all times when playing it?

P.S. I've had the hiccups about a million times today. What's the deal here??

He'e nalu

In the interest of creating my own Hawaiian traditions, I went surfing, he'e nalu, on my last whole day, for the time being at least, in Hawaii. Two of the students came along, Katie who played the beach bum part and John, who played the surf bum part. We rented boards (long boards, 9 ft) and were in the water pretty much all morning. The long board was about a million times more maneuverable than the short board I used last year and although the bottom at Kahalu'u Beach Park, where we spent the day, was no less rocky than at Pine Trees, where Nona and I went surfing last year, it didn't really matter, because I didn't keep falling off the board. Very nice.

After a while of sitting on the boards and watching the locals ride one small wave after the other in to shore John and I decided we had to do something. He already knows how to do this stuff but I needed some assistance, especially since I was having a hard time paddling fast enough to catch the waves. So, John gave me a push and that way I was able to stand up on my board for the first time and ride like... half a second, maybe, before splashing into the water, and... wow, what a thrill! The next time I caught a wave I actually managed to stand an itty bit longer and might even have ridden the wave even further if this thing called the shore hadn't been in my way. Yes, I rode straight into the rocks on the shore and almost into a small church! The result: Numerous small scratches on my legs and arms, plus a 2-inch cut on my right foot. Haha, I'm a genius!

Anyway, here are some pictures that John and Katie took of me on the beach today:

Before:


After:

Blowin' in the wind

My fellow Icelanders: Do you remember how the wind sometimes blew so hard in Iceland that when you were a kid going to school you had to grab the nearest streetlamp to save yourself from being blown over the strait to Greenland? Do you remember how you spent countless days as a child watching the local rescue squad trying to save rooftops from being blown off the houses across the street? Do you remember how the window panes used to bulge with the force of the storm? Well, welcome to an early summer gust in Waimea town, Big Island of Hawaii.

I bought my first instrument ever today. It's a beautiful Hawaiian ukulele, and I can't wait to sit down and learn the ropes. Shan and I already scheduled our first gig at the local brewery pub next Friday. You think I'll learn to play this thing by then?

Fire in Wilmington

Something bad happened in Wilmington, Delaware, today. An apartment in the condo where Shan's mum lives caught fire and her apartment was directly in harm's way. Fortunately Charlotte wasn't in the apartment when the fire happened. I just hope the damage to her apartment wasn't severe.

A day in the life

I have not left the house. I had fruit and ice cream for dinner. I took a nap before noon. I watched The Lion King and Big this evening.

Tomorrow life as an adult resumes. Wake up at 6:30 am. OMG.

Has anyone got a billion bucks??

On Average, You Would Sell Out For

$1,123,950

At What Price Would You Sell Out?

Heimweh

I think the Germans got it absolutely right when it comes to being homesick. Their word for the feeling is the best.

The joy, the joy

Seen in the bathroom on my last visit there:

"STOP pissing on the floor!
I've stepped in it twice!
Ben and Dan"

It's hard not to piss on the floor when laughing so hard!


PS: Most of you might not be aware of the fact that while I'm in Hawai'i, I live in a house with 12 college students, two faculty members, their 4- and 8-year old daughters and a program assistant. This obviously complicates the task of finding out who pissed on the floor...

Mogglenska

Let me quote mbl.is's current news:

"Geir H. Haarde, formaður Sjálfstæðisflokksins og utanríkisráðherra, voirðisaukaskatti og vörugjöldum verði hægt að lækka verð á matvælum hér á landi frá og með næsta ári. Þetta kom fram í máli hans við setningu flokksráðs-, foi hans við setningu flokksráðs-, formanna- og frambjóðendafundar flokksins á Akureyri í dag."

Now, is that supposed to be Icelandic??

My first moblog!

On dinner and normalness

Appetizer: Tortilla chips w. guacamole, bits of fresh pineapple
Main course: Fried vegetables w. rice, salad, beer
Dessert: Tortilla chips w/o guacamole, chocolate-Macadamia nut icecream w. strawberries, tortilla chips

And now, may I go and vomit?

When we got in from the field today I tossed the car keys into the garbage. Then I spent the next half-hour looking for them and finally came to terms with the fact I'd have to go digging through the trash. Don't even try to tell me that I'm normal.

Oliana the scientist

Your Hawaiian Name is:

Oliana Kalea

What's your Hawaiian Name?

You Should Get a PhD in Science (like chemistry, math, or engineering)

You're both smart and innovative when it comes to ideas. Maybe you'll find a cure for cancer - or develop the latest underground drug.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

The best

I have the best boyfriend in the whole wide world. Period.

Naue aku naue la naue i ke hoa!

Not only did we practice taro farming and ginger extermination this weekend, we also learned a new chant in Hawaiian and saw up (pretty) close the state's tallest waterfall. Nicht schlecht, as the German in me would remark.

Now, in order to get into the valley one first has to drive to the famous Waipi'o Valley lookout, where the ground all of a sudden drops in front of you and this incredible vista opens up. The road down is every bit as precipitous as one would fear looking at the opposite side of the valley, in fact one Internet reference gives the grade as 25%!! Whether that is true or not I shan't say, but I do know that I've never seen a paved road as steep. In places it feels like you could put your arm out to the road in front of you and still be vertical. Some of us did an improvised triangulation of the grade, but since we haven't figured out how long Katie's sandals are the results are still pending.

On the way down we practiced a chant we were taught for the occasion, a chant where we ask our hosts a permission to enter their land. Hawaiian is a pretty language but a pretty tough one to learn for Indo-European ears, so it took a while before we were able to memorize the six lines required. Arriving at our accomodations we chanted until the locals were convinced that we really wanted to come see them (or until they'd had enough of our bad Hawaiian), and after the traditional greetings we immediately got ready for the loi, or taro fields. A short walk took us there and before long we were freeing taro plants of all sizes from the company of weeds, algal mats and snail eggs. Taro is grown in water in the valley and a real mudfight was a natural consequence of this fact. Not even the old-fart TA was exempt from the mudthrowing and now everyone in the course is getting a C- or worse. Or maybe not.

After a hard mudfight we hiked a little farther up along the stream to a great little swimming hole. Everyone donned their bathing suits and washed the mud off, but I'm a grad student and thus naturally never able to relax and stop working. Instead I pulled out my water-sampling equipment and secured a sample for my venerable Ph.D. thesis research.

It seems I was pretty tired going down into the valley, because after we came back from the loi/swimming hole I didn't do much besides sleep. First I took a nap under a large tree on the lawn, then I passed out on the couch while waiting for dinner. After dinner I managed to play cards for a little while but by 8:45 I was in my tent, watching the stars through the skylight and enjoying the soundscape of the valley, with insects all around, birds chirping in the trees and the surf roaring in the distance.

This all happened yesterday, Saturday. Today we hiked further into Waipi'o Valley and got invited, quite unexpectedly, to a Hawaiian lunch at the taro farm where we were volunteering. Very nice. The valley looks to mine eyes even more spectacular from inside than it does from the lookout at the top of the valley; the walls are over 700 m tall and so steep as to be almost vertical, yet completely covered with vegetation and with no landslide scars visible. In addition the walls are very close together, and the overall effect on the Nordic mind is the one of a glacial valley. Except that this one isn't. I have to admit that before coming to Hawaii, I spectacularly underestimated the natural beauty and cultural richness of the islands. They're bloody amazing!!!

Hawaiiana

Tomorrow the anthropologist in me should be happy. I'm tagging along with the students for a weekend trip to the Waipi'o Valley where they (and presumably me too) will engage in traditional taro farming. The forecast for the weekend is thus: mud, mud, mud, and more mud. Plus (a few) mosquitoes thrown in here and there and everywhere.

Soon I will have a degree in ion chromatograph repairs and troubleshooting. This thing has some issue with the 50th state. See last year's posts for recaps on its abysmal behaviour.

Ici, c'est moi

I couldn't have said this better myself:

You are a Self-Discoverer

You're not religious, but you've created your own kind of spirituality. Introspective and thoughtful, you tend to look inward for the divine. You are distrusting of all forms of organized religion. You especially dislike religious gurus and leaders, who you feel are charlatans.

What's Your Religious Philosophy?

Again, shamelessly stolen from Stína.

Back on the Big Island

It did stop raining, if only for two days, and I made it to the Waimea Canyon. But even if my wishes were granted, Gunnar Hrafn's wont be. That is of course only because I'm an evil person.

Friday was actually nice enough that I went to the beach for a little while, before having lunch at a ridiculous tourist trap claiming to be the nicest little restaurant this side of eternity. Afterwards I made my way to the airport in Lihue to pick up my pal Chris(-topher) who was going to help me with fieldwork in the canyon and surrounding areas. I hadn't seen Chris for a year and a half, but we first met at a conference in Chile in late 2004. By Friday I had been driving around Kaua'i by myself for five days and was showing alarming symptoms of losing my mind (if it hadn't been for "My Life", read by the author, I'd probably be tucked away in some asylum by now) so Chris' company was most welcome.

On Saturday we made our way into the Waimea Canyon and got an incredible lot of sampling done. Even if the heavens spared us rain on Friday and Saturday every little soil pore on the island was full of water and the rivers were still huge. We did make an honest attempt to ford the Waimea river in the canyon but I realized, one step into the river and with water up to my crotch, that it wouldn't be a good idea. Not that it mattered, all the tributaries that were bone-dry last year were raging torrents this time and I got more samples than I ever imagined.

We just made it out of the canyon before dark and soon thereafter the clouds started rolling in. During the night we had the most awesome thunderstorm I've ever been in, the lightnings lit up the cabin and the thunder rocked the ground. Torrential rain accompanied the storm and lasted uninterrupted until I left the island on Monday morning.

By now the biogeochemistry class has begun here on the Big Island and thereby also my official TA duties. Ten of the twelve students have already taken the one-semester long biogeo class that I TA-ed last semester, so I think I'll have a pretty easy time this year. Nice.

Here comes the rain again

I guess I made it over to the computer room during a lull in the rain. It was pouring when I returned to the B&B, when I showered (outside, in the loveliest shower ever known to (wo-)man) it stayed dry and now it's absolutely pouring again, like I've rarely seen it. Heavy rain has in fact been pounding on the islands for weeks now, causing landslides, floods and even a dam to break here on Kaua'i last week, killing several people.

Because of this, no hiking permits are being issued for the Kalalau Trail or Waimea Canyon. Ehemm... last year we hiked the Kalalau Trail without a permit, largely because we had no idea that one was needed until we got to the trailhead. Now, however, I don't think I'm going in, both because of the permit issue but mostly because of... the rain! I hiked the first 2 miles today, a popular dayhike, and the trail was both incredibly slick and muddy. This being the fine part of the trail, I shudder to think what the rest of it is like.

Hopefully it'll clear up by Friday. I'd hate to miss the hike into Waimea Canyon.

50

yes, 50 mosquito bites. Two even made it to my rear end *sigh*

Chasing water

First things first: I have a new nephew. His name is Bessi and he's as cute as any newborn baby I've ever seen. Well, unfortunately I haven't seen him yet but I got a picture of him in the mail. Congratulations, Teitur and Ingunn and Auður!!

Second things second: I finally made it to Hawaii. Miracles still happen.

Third things... whatever. My head is spinning as I write this on my laptop in the Cornell mansion in Waimea town. Today and yesterday I drove over 200 miles on all kinds of roads and made it all the way around the Big Island. See, it's been raining a lot in Hawaii recently and I was out hunting for water in streams that normally run bone-dry. (Think of the Big Island as Reykjanes. The rocks are like a sponge and it has to rain a LOT before the water starts running on the surface. And, if it rains that much, you're likely to get floods. This makes the life of a grad student looking for surface water on the island very... interesting). After racing past the streams I know to run even if it hasn't been raining cats and dogs for a week (there are those streams, but not too many and I have samples from most all of them already) I found one tiny stream running south of Hilo.

But the kale wasn't sopið even if I was in the spoon (or something to that effect). Before I could start sampling I ran into this biker with a flat tire, 200$ biking shoes and a 2000$ bike. He invited himself for a ride home in my van and me being a well-brought up girl I gave him the ride. I also took the front wheel off his bike because he couldn't do it himself. But he had a sheep in the front yard and was therefore forgiven. Well, he was already forgiven when he asked if Cornell was in Chicago. Hail the Safety Ivy! Who would ever ask if Harvard was in Chicago??

Back where I started, I parked the van in somebody's driveway and hiked the few yards to the stream. I had barely gotten my sampling stuff out of my sack when someone drove into the driveway, so skillfully blocked by yours sincerely. As I walked back to move the car, this someone came walking towards me: a heavily tattoed guy with burned teeth and in a bad mood. "Who do you think you are, trespassing on private property? I own this house, and the stream, and the house on the other side of the stream, and... oh, you're a scientist?". And after promising him that I wasn't going to drown myself in the river (not that anyone could have, the stream simply wasn't up to the task) and that I didn't have any open cuts through which I could contract the local deadly disease and that I wouldn't sue him in any case, he allowed me to sample his stream. He even allowed me to park in his yard. And, best of all, his dog quit barking at me.

After spending the night at a campground in Volcanoes National Park, I continued my quest for water. Trials and errors and long, winding backroads took me to Wood Valley on the flanks of Mauna Loa, where the maps promised a whole bunch of ephemereal streams. Alas, none were up. Ever the optimist, I sampled a puddle in one dry streambed but the pH-reading on it showed me that it was most likely rainwater. What the hell, I'll just sample it anyway. And I drove back to the park, cursing all this uncooperative water, and went for a hike in Kilauea Iki crater.

This crater dates back to 1959. Although the floor of it, a veritable ocean of smooth, black lava, is solid and cold now there is still a lot of heat in the ground underneath and steam rises everywhere from the ground. The sun was out when I started my hike along the crater rim but by the time I descended into the crater rain started falling and I hiked across the floor of the crater in howling wind and pouring rain. Just like home in Iceland. In fact, I learned about this crater in my petrology class back at the University of Iceland and I was really excited to finally stand in the middle of it. A thunderstorm came in as I crossed the crater floor and I scared myself imagining that the volcano was waking up from it's long sleep. The dramatic effect of the thunder was absolutely frightening

The afternoon saw more driving around in circles through pouring rain, looking for water that didn't want to flow. Before I knew it I was on the west coast driving back to Waimea. Night had fallen and then all of a sudden the road to Waimea is blocked by cops, closed because of flash flooding. Just what I needed! I shifted my course towards the village of Waikoloa, where the floodwaters rushed through town, and got a much-coveted sample of surface runoff from the west coast. Yay! Us geologists are so weird, aren't we?

Tomorrow it better be raining still because I'm going out to sample some more. Monday I'm off to Kaua'i, the closest place I've ever been to Heaven on this Earth. This island is the oldest of the large Hawaiian islands and it's absolutely amazingly beautiful. I'll be there for a week sampling rivers and hiking, first along the Kalalau trail (by myself) and then in the Waimea Canyon (with a field assistant). As I said in a previous post, life does suck when one is a geologist. Right?

Still bound

but not because of storms this time:

"When do I need to get up to catch my flight?" thought the woman to herself as she was setting the alarm clock. "It leaves at 8 am so I need to be at the airport at 7 am, getting there takes a little over an hour so I need to get up at... 5:30 am. Damn, CTB doesn't open until 6 am so I'll have to do the trip without coffee."

Next thing this woman knows, her alarm goes off. As she hits the snooze button she takes a quick look at the display and jumps screaming out of bed. 6:30 am, and she's missing the flight.

How 5:30 in my head translates into 6:30 in my fingers I do not know. I wonder if they have medicine for this? If there is such a thing as flight-missing syndrome, I may well be the first diagnosed patient.

Storm-bound

Still in good ol'Ithaca. Storms upended everything in Chicago (and many other places) so my flight out of Syracuse was delayed by a lot so I would have missed my connections to Hawaii. Chicago isn't my idea of a nice mid-week getaway, therefore I am sitting at my desk right now instead of in a cramped airplane/-port seat. Can't say I'm terribly upset about that. The lad at the airport was kind enough to even check me in for tomorrow's flights so now all I'll have to do is swing by and wave him graciously as I deliver my bags. Oh, the glamour, the glamour. The downside, of course, is that this will take place at 7 am tomorrow morning, a most ungodly time and one at which I've never managed to look particularly glamorous.

Another odyssey

My second trip to Hawaii is coming up. Next Monday, 9:55 am local time, I'm flying out of Syracuse, heading for the Pacific... oh yeah. Just like last year, I'm going there to conduct field work for my research (collecting water from rivers and groundwater wells on the Big Island and Kaua'i) and to TA (which isn't strictly a verb since it stands for "Teaching Assistant") my advisor's class, Intro to the biogeochemistry of Hawaii. The major difference this time is that I won't be gone for almost two months but only 5 weeks. That's so much better.

The third odyssey: Philippines in December/January. Am currently pumping out grant applications to fund that fieldwork.

Being a geologist sucks, doesn't it?

You're Clementine! You're very fun and creative

and have a very magnetic personality, but you

might be projecting an image to the world

without even really knowhing who you are.


Which Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Snow snow

The heavens have dumped over 2 inches of fluffy snow on us today so the only humane thing to do this evening is to go skiing. Sounds like everyone is going and it should be fun!

From another front: today I totally f***ed up more than half of the samples that I've been preparing for isotope analysis for the last three days. Not very clever of me and entirely avoidable. The good thing about it, of course, is that now I can spend even MORE time in the clean lab, wearing a hairnet and safety goggles. Yay!!

Eldgamalt alveg

en ekki verra fyrir því: Álversþynnka.

Ekkert álver á Norðurlandi

Enn meira umhverfisverndarplögg:

Mótmælum stóriðju á Norðurlandi.

Snow!!

Even if Ithaca is pretty grey these days, Vermont has allegedly been getting dumped with snow in those last few days. That's why Shan and I decided to dump everything we're doing and go skiing in Vermont over the weekend. Habblaha. Live well and prosper.

Another useless test

You scored as Bomb. Your death will be by bombing. You will probably be an innocent bystander, not doing anything wrong and not a person who was targeted at, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bomb 93% Natural Causes 60% Posion 47% Suicide 40% Disappear 40% Disease 40% Gunshot 33% Cut Throat 33% Accident 33% Suffocated 33% Stabbed 27% Eaten 7% Drowning 0% How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com

Well, I'm glad that I most likely will not be eaten and that I most likely will not drown. A cut throat doesn't sound too charming either.

Birthday blog for my sheep-loyal readers

Why can't we have birthday more than once a year?? The treatment I got yesterday, which in case you didn't know was my birthday, was extraordinary.

First of all, I got my co-habitator's approval of sleeping in, which means I showed up at work around noon. This was after I had brunch from the nearby bagel shop, brought to me by said co-habitator. At work I got plenty of happy birthday wishes and eager to make them all come true, I left work before putting in my due 8 hours. Shame on me! A huge flower bouquet was waiting for me in the car as Shan came to pick me up and the three of us took off to Syracuse and the Dinosaur BBQ without further delay. After dinner in our favorite Christian biker joint (which was full to the brim last night, as presumably always) we then raced the clock back to Ithaca and Madeline's, where my favorite molten chocolate cake is to be had.

Sehr schön, ja. And thanks for all the good wishes,

your oldfart Herdis

My first times and my last time

Ran my first road race the other day. Much to my surprise I came in nr. 535 out of 729 runners, not too bad altogether. At least I got to the post-race chili pots before about 200 other people did!

Later that day I raced my left ski down a bumpy hill for the first time. Just a few seconds later I went looking for my right ski in the woods for the first time too. That time will also be the last time I go skiing without having any leashes to keep my skis attached to my foot. I will not run the risk of having them successfully decide to take off on their own again.

Johari - Nohari

Try this:

my positive side
NB: I changed the URL so that the Icelandic letters shouldn't be an issue anymore.

added on Feb. 16th:
and try this too (if you're brave):

my negative side

Deluxe Firechief and his friends

All hail to Eyja for making my day (or night, as it is well past midnight here). I'm so relieved to see that little children aren't the only ones who can enjoy wearing Ladybug or Deluxe Firechief or Tall Green Turtle rainboots. Now I'm hoping that Mr. Taxman will have some monies for me... plísplísplís...

More on this...

In a similar vein: The bishop of Iceland made a controversial statement about the civil rights of gays a few weeks ago. Should we allow our concern for the bishop's feelings to outlaw any kind of discussion about gay people's rights to religious marriage?

As far as I know, gays having any kind of civil rights will offend fundamentalist Christians, be they in Iceland or elsewhere. If these people came forward with vandalism against reporters who write on gay rights or artists who include gay people in their artwork, would we Icelanders be willing to succumb to the violence and make gay people and their lives a taboo in order not to offend a particular religion?

Peaceful demonstrations and dialogue are not religious bullying. Death threats and acts of violence are. By giving in to religious bullying we are only asking for an escalation of the problem. I think that this is the road down which we are headed if we go with the claims that publishing these cartoons was wrong. In a society with free speech, you have to accept the fact that at some point you are going to get offended. You might not like everything that you see and hear, but you do not have the right to prevent people from expressing their believes and ideas. If one group comes forward and bullies the rest of society into following their particular rules, we won't have to wait long until another one does so, and then another and another. Where will multiculturalism be then?

Respect or bullyism?

Now I didn't really get up to speed on the prophet-cartoon issue until yesterday. That's what working on a Ph.D. (and spending all your time on weather.com, hoping and praying and begging and almost crying for snow) does to you. But I'm glad I finally did get up to speed on this, because it's a most interesting issue. And a somewhat frightening too.

I just read a lengthy discussion on my friend Stína's blog about the cartoons. Before I knew the word of it, I had posted a blog-size comment on her last post. Assuming that Stína won't sue me for copyright infringements, I'm reproducing (most of) the comment here:

"I am totally commited to the idea of respecting other people's beliefs and values, and I have to assume that the people around me are willing to do the same. I do not accept that fear for one's life for speaking one's mind is an unavoidable cost of living in such a society. I'm not talking about libel here. I'm talking about the right to utter your mind without having to fear for a mob to take your life.

Why did the editor of the "scum"-newspaper Jyllandsposten (btw, why did the "scum" ever enter the discussion here? You need an Order of Merit to be allowed to open your mouth in public?) post the cartoons in the first place? Bea says (and I can't get a link to the comment) it was to provoke. Wikipedia says it was in response to reports from a writer who couldn't get an artist to decorate a children book about the prophet. Now, why would a whole dozen of artists refuse an offer to decorate a book like that? For fear they might be killed by (am I allowed to call them?) extremists, for having depicted Mohammad. If this is correct, that Danish cartoon artists fear taking on an assignment to decorate a childrens' book for fear of being killed, then there is something seriously wrong.

Let's look at this from another angle. Let's think about... birth control. Is it right to have old, white, heterosexual right-wing Christian males decide for all the women in the United States, and further afield for that matter, whether they be educated about birth control use? We're talking about not offending someone's religious beliefs here. The Christian right believes that using birth control is a sin and is doing frighteningly well in imposing its view on women not only in the US, but also in African countries that need UN (i.e., US) assistance to deal with HIV. Treating African HIV spread with abstinence, because the funding agency has the power to impose its religious beliefs over the recipients of the aid? Give me a break here!

In my mind, the issue of the Danish cartoons and of birth control in the US and Africa are different sides of the same coin. Call it freedom of speech, call it freedom of religion, call it the freedom to maintain your convictions and dignity and not being bullied into giving them up."

In addition, I would like to put a link here to zombietime's collection of depictions of Mohammed through history. Looks like Jyllandsposten wasn't the first to publish drawings of the prophet at all. Scroll all the way down the page for some modern low-profile cartoons of Mohammed, but first make sure you read the intro at the top of the page.

The Culture Corner

We saw this brilliant guy performing yesterday. Very wonderful.

More cheese

Following up on the conversation about my last post: Gräddost. Or, as Bryan puts it:

"Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it - there's nothin' I want more
Ya know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

There's no love - like your love
And no other - could give more love
There's nowhere - unless you're there
All the time - all the way"

Amen.

Red and cheese and 24

Now what could be better to round off a season of 24 than a glass of red and Brauðostur on the side?

We at Seneca Winter Resort have during the last week been obsessed with Jack Bauer, his imbecile cutie-pie daughter Kim, the radiating George Mason and the rest of the gang trying to a) start WWIII and b) stop WWIII. Today alone, we watched 6 shows. We're insane.

Bragging rights

I'm a bit late in telling you, but last Monday I earned serious bragging rights. A small bird in Iceland alerted me to the fact and it's about time you got to know. Here goes. For the time being the item giving me the bragging rights is at the very top of the page. Latecomers to this post might have to scroll down a little bit as other prophets earn their bragging rights in the future.

In the absence of anything interesting to say,

I'm sharing this with you:

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Herdis2002!

1. In a pinch, the skin from a shark can be used as herdis2002!
2. People used to believe that dressing their male children as herdis2002 would protect them from evil spirits.
3. Baskin Robbins once made herdis2002 flavoured ice cream.
4. A rhinoceros horn is made from compacted herdis2002.
5. Neil Armstrong first stepped on herdis2002 with his left foot!
6. Herdis2002 is black with white stripes, not white with black stripes!
7. If you don't get out of bed on the same side you got in, you will have herdis2002 for the rest of the day.
8. Herdis2002 has four noses.
9. It can take herdis2002 several days to move just through one tree.
10. Herdis2002 can turn her stomach inside out.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Shamlessly stolen from kristiv.

Tagged - again

Four jobs I´ve had in my life:
Snowmobile guide (skikkelig harry!)
Tourist guide on innumerable Golden Circles and Blue Lagoon trips
TA for a bizarre assortment of classes at Cornell
Some ennui in a fish factory in Ísafjörður when I was 14

Four movies I could watch over and over (and have!):
Oklahoma (ehemm... I think I already did enough of that)
The black fingernail - a severly overlooked "Carry On" gem
Kill Bill, both parts
Finding Nemo

Four places you have lived:
Reykjavík
Garðabær (thoroughly not recommended)
Longyearbyen (thoroughly recommended - for those who are harry at heart)
La Paz

Four TV shows you love to watch:
(*are there four TV shows out there??)
Sex and the City
Frontline on NPR - only available to me on the laptop but still darn good
Any science show, such as The Elegant Universe
Any and all British crime series

Four places you have been on vacation:
Burlington, VT
Montreal, QC
Portland, OR
Na Pali Coast, HI (ok, so I took some watersamples there, but it was still a vacation...)

Four websites I visit daily:
mbl.is
Stína
Erna
The Aerospace Engineer

Four of my favourite foods:
dried mango
tex-mex chicken soup
whole-wheat pasta with pretty much anything (except for minced beef, holy Jesus!)
chocolate (and don't try to tell me it isn't food, ok?)

Four places I would rather be right now:
On the pink couch
Skiing, maybe at Jackson Hole
I wouldn't mind taking all my papers and stuff to a rustic little cabin in the middle of nowhere (i.e. backcountry, choked in snow) and sit there reading and drinking hot chocolate
In Reykjavík listening to my sister Lára's stories from New Zealand

Four bloggers I am tagging:
Lára (you need to get your blog going again, sister!)
The Aerospace Engineer (idem)
Erna (such a wonderfully rapid response last time, thanks!)
Gönzó

Gem of the week

is here. Keep in mind though, when you click on the link, that mine is a geologist's blog.

Word of the week

comes from Þórdís' site: Smérkúkur. Segi það og skrifa, smérkúkur. Múahahahahahahaha, this has kept me sniggering and/or in fits of laughter since I read the post. Loosely translated... well, I'm not sure I'm up to the task here. Stína, Erna, anyone, any suggestions?

Glæsilegt!!

Það er gaman að lifa þegar góðir hlutir gerast. Og ekki skemmir fyrir að hlutaðeigandi skuli loksins taka hintinu.

Sælir náttúruunnendur!

úr pósthólfinu mínu í dag:

"Náttúruvaktin beinir þeim tillmælum til allra náttúruunnenda að þeir fjölmenni við Ráðhús Reykjavíkur klukkan 14 á morgun, þriðjudag, þegar Ólafur F. Magnússon borgarfulltrúi leggur fram tillögu sína í borgarstjórn um verndun Þjórsárvera. Á sama tíma verður stuðningsstaða við Ráðhúsið til sýna tillögunni samstöðu og hvetja borgarfulltrúa til að virða þá ómetanlegu gersemi sem Þjórsárver eru með því að greiða tillögunni atkvæði sitt.

Nú er lag, möguleiki á að þrýsta á verndun Þjórsárvera og stækkun friðlandsins. Mætum og hvetjum stjórn borgarinnar til að nýta eignaraðild sína í Landsvirkjun til verndar Þjórsárverum og varðveita þannig þjóðargersemi, svæði sem á ekki sinn líka um veröld víða, um ókomna tíð.



Lifi Þjórsárver

Náttúruvaktin"

Boatbuilding and other pastimes

Finally, finally (i.e. loksins, loksins!)! At the suggestion of my lovely cohabitator we are ganging up with some friend with the aim of - ratatata - building our own boat!! A sketch is shown here. Isn't it a splendid boat? Smár en knár, that's the motto here.

The annual Snee Graduate Research Symposium was held today. That's when we students get to put together a 10-minute talk about our research, or attempts at research, and present it to anyone who wants to listen. We also feed all those in attendance, and that's why I missed all the talks in the morning (I started making the soup I had volunteered to make at midnight, reasoning that putting it off until the morning and therefore having to wake up at 7 am was an absolute impossibility for me. Thus I didn't get much sleep until 5:30, when the soup was ready and I could jump out of bed to toss the pot into the fridge. Which meant that I slept like a baby until 10:30 am. I deeply apologize.) Anyways, I gave my talk and I hear that I did pretty well. Which of course makes me happy, because I think that it's fun. It may be nerve-wrecking, but it's also a lot of fun.

Looks like my Hawaii-fieldwork might get pushed back about a month. That's good.

Ok, I couldn't contain myself:

Your Social Dysfunction: Schizotypal You display social deficits and oddities of thinking. Your perception and communication are similar to those of a schizophrenic.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com Please note that we aren't, nor do we claim to be, psychologists. This quiz is for fun and entertainment only. Try not to freak out about your results.

Yo man!

I can't believe it's been over a week - yes, over a WEEK - since I last posted anything to this site. I guess I could have posted the results of the test I took the other day (which social dysfunction are you) but they didn't exactly lend themselves to be published. My poor shrink, if he only knew...

As usually, I could be very busy but I'm withstanding the temptation. A grad student symposium is coming up this Friday and I'll be giving a talk. Not a single slide is ready, not even the title slide. Usually I'm pretty good at making title slides and sometimes I get them done as much as 3 days in advance. Alas, not this time. My next field season in Hawaii is also coming up and I haven't even bought the plane ticket yet. Let alone started acid-washing the sample bottles, since the bottles are still in the warehouse from where I have to buy them. Efforts are under way, though, to vacuum out the other sample bottles, so I haven't been completely idle. If, that is, sending an email and then browsing online scientific supplies stores counts as not being completely idle.

A major event happened in my home the other day. Shan, my lovely cohabitator, bought a guitar, just like he has wanted to do for years. It's a beautiful guitar. I have to say that our home has become significantly more cultural since the advent of the instrument and I'm enjoying every evening serenade I get.

Well, I'll save you more gibberish until next time. Lifið heil!

Happy New Year!

What a fabulously fantastic vacation! Shan and I took off after Christmas and returned, tired and happy and sore-legged (at least me), on New Years Eve. Mad River Glen, Burlington, Lake Champlain, Montreal, Mont Tremblant. Fantastique.

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.

Thanksgiving and a conference

So, it's been a while. No blogging for almost a week, and the only reason I'm blogging right now is that my elevation model of the Big Island of Hawai'i is large enough that projecting it into new coordinates takes forever (16% done) and I have some breathing space in the meantime. Doing a semester's worth of research and image processing in a week and not even knowing if I'll be able to put together a poster for the AGU conference in San Francisco next week is certainly not recommendable (34% done).

Anyway. Stop the whining. (37% done) Thanksgiving was a resounding success in my quarters. Shan and I invited some people over to our house, including Shan's mom (who lives in Delaware and flew in from Philadelphia on Wednesday) (46% done), Markus and Doro (who just moved from Iceland to Red Hook, Duchess County, NY, a place even more god's forsaken than Hella and Hvolsvollur combined), Darren and Terry from the aerospace gang, Armann and Asa, (59% done) Jose (or Joey, a first year geology grad student from Puerto Rico who was seeing his first snow ever around that time), and the newest family in the group, Veronica, Ryan and their baby boy Brady (74% done) and his aunt (Ryan's sister) Cherry, who lives in Hollywood and regularly brushes shoulders with the rich and famous.

Note how I said "some" in the preceding paragraph, referring to the number of people we invited to our house. Now, keep in mind that our apartment is the size of a shoe box (and the kitchen is the size of a CD cover) and you'll realize that we were stretching the (90% done) limit of what our apartment can accomodate without exploding. The party wasn't supposed to exceed 8 people... but actually, I'm glad it did. We all had such a good time, everyone left totally stuffed and (I guess) very grateful for having such nice friends as me and Shan ;) The turkeys (yes, we made two) were delicious and the absolute winner of the evening, I have to say, was the pumpking mushroom soup that Shan cooked out of the collective memory of himself and his mom.

Uups, 100% done. Talk to you later, if only to tell you about the fantastic sage stuffing and the wonderful blackberry-infused gravy. It's good to have alliances in cold Iceland when cooking Thanksgiving dinner in the Empire State!

Gladiator

You scored as Maximus. After his family was murdered by the evil emperor Commodus, the great Roman general Maximus went into hiding to avoid Commodus's assassins. He became a gladiator, hoping to dominate the colosseum in order to one day get the chance of killing Commodus. Maximus is valiant, courageous, and dedicated. He wants nothing more than the chance to avenge his family, but his temper often gets the better of him. Maximus 67% Indiana Jones 63% Batman, the Dark Knight 58% El Zorro 58% William Wallace 58% The Amazing Spider-Man 54% Lara Croft 50% The Terminator 46% Neo, the "One" 38% James Bond, Agent 007 38% Captain Jack Sparrow 33% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Does this mean I'm as hot as Russell Crowe??

Celebrations

Well, there was more to yesterday's celebrations than a cinnamon bun.

You see, after work my darling co-habitator invited me for a romantic dinner at one of the town's nicest restaurants, The Willow. It was excellent, and the red wine was probably the best I've ever had. Since the restaurant didn't have any decadent chocolate dessert on offer, we went for an ice cream sundae at Ithaca's own Purity ice cream shop afterwards. It was getting late by that time so we just managed to get the sundaes before being kicked out by the staff, eager to go partying. Us two old farts took that as a sign that it was time to go home, and we rounded off the evening with a movie, slouching on the couch. An altogether seriously nice evening.

Tonight, Shan is headed for another night on the town. Our friend Alex is celebrating his thirtieth birthday in NYC and given the fun we all had when Eric celebrated his thirtieth a few weeks ago, I'm sure this will be a night to remember. I am staying in Ithaca, though, making up for some of the time that I spent away from my desk when I went to Iceland for grandma's funeral. Fun fun fun!

Yay!!

Now, of course I should be spending those precious minutes it takes to write this post on doing homework, which is due in exactly 70 minutes. But this is too important:

The paper on Helgafell, my first real paper, got accepted for publication. !!!!!!!!!.

I think I'll have to live up to my promises in a comment on a previous post and go to CTB and get a cinnamon bun to celebrate.

Íslandsvinir á Grænuborg, dropadeild:

Af mbl.is:

„... Ber þar helst að nefna Quentin Tarantino sem skemmti sér vel hér á landi í tæpa viku. Fullyrti hann að þetta væri langskemmtilegasta hátíð sem hann hefur nokkru sinni heimsótt..."

Þetta finnst mér sko fyndið. Og þetta líka:

"Gaman er frá því að segja að allir erlendu gestir hátíðarinnar voru yfir sig hrifnir af landi og þjóð..."

Ég meina, hefur nokkurn tímann komið til Íslands sú manneskja sem ekki var yfir sig hrifin af landi og þjóð?


P.S. Takk fyrir ábendinguna, Hildigunnur. Dropadeild er miklu flottara ;)

Done!

Yay! The revision of my paper had quite a difficult birth here in Magnus's office this afternoon, but it finally made it through. All greek symbols that aren't supposed to be there have been reverted to TNR, all the greek symbols that WERE supposed to be there but weren't have been reclaimed, all the figures that were too big and/or truncated have been fixed, everything has been uploaded, a pdf has been built for my approval (three times...) and now I have finally approved of it (after not approving of it two times and having to re-upload a bunch of crap).

This had to be an occasion to celebrate. If not with a kleina, soggy with cold coffee, as I have been doing until now, then for sure at dad and Sigga's house for dinner and then later to Oliver to see some long-lost friends. Yay!!!

Yesterday

My grandma's funeral yesterday was so beautiful. My long-time friend Hallveig sang and that's when I started crying so much that I became one unruly mess and needed to lean over to my mum to get a kleenex to wipe my face. The ceremony in the cemetary was beautiful too, but cold and snowy. The family had arranged for a wake to be held at a hotel in town, it was so good to see how everyone was on their best behaviour (my family, like every other family that I know of, people sometimes hold grudges) and it was really good to see all my relatives from my mother's side in one room, for the first time in many years. If only the occasion had been more joyful.

Pistillinn hans Guðmundar Andra

á blaðsíðu 16 í Fréttablaðinu í dag er nokkuð góður.

Life in the hectic lane

Well, time for a little update. I am going to Iceland tomorrow on the evening flight from Boston, landing in Keflavík in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Am looking forward to seeing my family and friends, I have to say.

Things have been kind of hectic here due to this sudden trip. Right now I am working hard to get as much work as possible out of the way before I leave, since I won't be able to do much while in Iceland. I do have a meeting with Magnús lined up on Friday, though, we're going to smooth out the last flaws in our revised paper and get it in to the publisher. I will be very glad when that is done. As in, VERY glad.

Shan and I spent hours in the mall yesterday getting Christmas presents for everyone in Iceland and Denmark. As usually, I totally lost it in the children's section and wanted to buy the entire store for my nephews and his. He had to drag me out, I'm afraid :) Am very glad that the X-mas shopping has now been taken care of (as opposed to it being done two days before X-mas as usually). Think I might make a habit out of this.

Also gained a new holiday this year, when I celebrated Halloween in my own home for the first time. One of my students, appaled to hear that I'd never carved a pumpkin, gave me a big one, with instructions and all! Shan and I carved it on Monday night, the result can be seen here.

Amma mín og heimferð

Hún Oddný amma mín dó á fimmtudaginn var. Hún var búin að vera veik lengi og búin að þjást mikið og ég vona að hún hafi verið fegin að fá að fara.

Jarðarförin verður í næstu viku og ég ætla að fara heim til að vera viðstödd. Nánari fréttir síðar.

Sjór

Nú er vinnuvikan aftur byrjuð og ekki seinna vænna. Mín bíður neflilega það stórskemmtilega viðfangsefni (ehemm...) að búa til sjó í dag. Nemendur mínir eru að fara að sulla í tilraunastofunni á morgun og til þess þurfa þeir gervi-sjó. Ætli ég láti ekki duga að búa til eins og 2-3 lítra, held það verði að duga.

Annars allt bara í edilon. Á föstudaginn var blásið til spontan matarveislu heima hjá okkur Shan og í gær keyrðum við aftur alla leið til Syracuse til að fá okkur Dinosaur BBQ og kaupa ný gleraugu fyrir Shan. Eins og sjá má snýst líf okkar þessa dagana um fátt annað en mat og vinnuna. Vinna sofa borða vinna sofa borða...

As promised

Originally uploaded by herdis2002.

Here it is, a picture from the good old days :) We're on the top of Mt. Bláhnjúkur, in Landmannalaugar, at the start of our hike to Þórsmörk.

Click on the picture to go to the flickr-site. Then click on the "next"-link under the small pictures to the right of the main picture to see, you guessed right, the next one! If you choose "view as slideshow", flickr shows my pictures in the wrong order. I'm not sure why, but I guess that has something to do with how I uploaded them. Anyway, the other method works just fine.

Happy birthday!!

It's Shan's birthday. Yay, hurray! Many happy returns!

To celebrate, I'm posting a picture from the good old days when we were still different ages:

later: Make that "I'm going to post a picture from... once I've figured out how to do it in blogger. The idiot-proof generic method isn't working out for yours truly". Will go to some nice restaurant with my beloved one in the meantime.

Helgin

var agalega fín. Allir nemendur (nema framhaldsnemendur) voru í haustfríi (sem lýkur í fyrramálið) og við Shan tókum lífinu með ró. Reyndar unnum við bæði á laugardaginn en sunnudagurinn fór allur í leti og ómennsku. Ekki einasta sváfum við út heldur fórum við í bíltúr til smábæjarins Watkins Glen þar sem við fengum okkur göngutúr í gilinu sem bærinn er kenndur við. Eftir á vorum við orðin eitthvað svöng og ákváðum að skutlast til Skaneatles-bæjar (þar sem hr. og frú Clinton finnst víst gaman að spássera um á frídögum) en við komumst aldrei svo langt; Stonecat Café varð á vegi okkar og við fórum þangað inn og enduðum í heljarinnar kvöldverði og kósílegheitum.

Í gær var afkastasemin ekki minni, við unnum samtals í 3 klukkustundir og fórum svo í verslunarleiðangur til gettóborgarinnar Syracuse, þar sem eina lifandi fólkið sem maður sér er a) lögga, b) í Carousel Mall eða c) mótorhjólagæi/-gella á Dinosaur BBQ. Ég styrkti lókal efnahaginn í Gap og H&M og eftir á tókst okkur að villast í mið-gettóinu í leit að BBQ-pleisinu. Langi ykkur í alminnilegt BBQ skuliði ekkert vera að hafa fyrir því að fara e-ð suðureftir til Jesúshopparanna, bara skella sér á Dinosaur í gettóinu.

Nei nei,

engin þörf á nýju kommentakerfi heldur bara þörf á smá tiltekt. Þetta ætti að vera komið í lag, sérstakar þakkir til Ernunnar minnar í NYC.

Nýtt kommentakerfi

Eins og glöggir lesendur (i.e. glöggi lesandinn) taka eftir þá eru nú tveir möguleikar í boði fyrir komment á þessum eðalbloggi. Ég er orðin svo gríðarlega leið á að bíða endalaust eftir að þessi blessaða klinkfamilía (hvað svo sem það nú er) hlaðist inn í tölvuna mína þegar ég opna blogginn minn að ég ætla að henda henni út. Ég samt tími ekki að gera það alveg strax því gömlu kommentin frá ykkur ylja mér nú enn um hjartarætur. Þið hins vegar eigið alveg endilega að setja nýju kommentin inn á nýja kerfið (i.e., blogger-kerfið, ekki haloscan).

Mange tak

Letibloggari

Hier wird nicht viel gebloggt. No, this is a lazy blogsite.

Þetta er nú búin að vera skrautleg vika síðan á föstudaginn var. Maplewood-ríjúníon (jamms, ég er orðin svo gömul í hettunni hér í Amríku að ég er farin að taka þátt í ríjúníonum) stóð yfir frá föstudagseftirmiðdegi fram á sunnudag. Þátttakendur voru 2/4 íbúa E5 veturinn 2003-2004 (Leticiu var sárt saknað), i.e. Deepti og undirrituð, og sú þriðja af okkur fjórum, Tulika, var líka í bænum og setti mark sitt á samkunduna mestallan tímann, jafnvel þegar hún sjálf var hvergi nærri. Við Deepti skemmtum okkur á endanum vel saman, Tulika skemmti sér vel við að elta e-n mann á röndum og þögla vinkonan þeirra beggja vissi ekki hvað hún átti af sér að gera - þetta var nokkuð taugatrekkjandi meðan á stóð og næstum því bráðfyndið í retróspekt, en ég held ég mæti ekki á svona samkundu aftur á næstunni.

Nú, svo kom í vikunni kona sem grad stúdentarnir hér við Cornell buðu hingað sem árlegum gestafyrirlesara. Þessi kona er mikil þungavigtarmanneskja í fornloftslags- og fornhaffræðum og nokkuð umdeild og ég var alveg hoppandi ánægð með að fá hana hingað í heimsókn. Til stóð að lesa e-ar greinar eftir hana og keppinautana áður en hún kæmi en það hafðist náttúrulega ekki... en fyrirlestrarnir sem hún hélt voru spennandi og ég sat alveg á sætisbrúninni af spenningi að heyra meira. Hlakka mikið til að lesa næstu greinina hennar sem hún ætlar að fara að skrifa núna á næstu dögum, hún sagði okkur neflilega frá nýjustu uppgötvununum sínum og þær voru sko ekki lítið spennandi.

Nú er svo haustfríið að byrja og því náttúrulega við hæfi fyrir sólina, sem er búin að skína látlaust á okkur hér í Íþöku síðan í maí, að láta í minni pokann fyrir rigningunni. Ég er bara ánægð með það, enda búin að fá nóg af sól og hitasvækju fyrir næstu 3 árin.

Konur - leggjum niður störf

Ég var að finna þetta í pósthólfinu mínu. Ef einhver ykkar er til í að taka með aukapott fyrir mig þá væri það vel þegið:

"Jafnrétti núna! Nú gefst kjörið tækifæri til að taka þátt í að skapa kvennasögu Íslands og láta til sín taka í baráttunni fyrir jafnrétti því hinn 24. október næstkomandi verður kvennafrídagurinn endurvakinn en þá eru liðin 30 ár frá kvennafríinu 1975.

Konur eru hvattar til að leggja niður störf klukkan 14:08 en þá hafa þær unnið fyrir launum sínum, ef litið er til munar á atvinnutekjum karla og kvenna sem eru 64,15% af launum karla. Samkvæmt þessu eru konur búnar að vinna fyrir sínum launum, eftir fimm tíma og átta mínútur (miðað er við vinnudag kl. 9-17).

Kröfuganga verður farin frá Skólavörðuholti, niður Skólavörðustíg og að Ingólfstorgi. Mæting á Skólavörðuholti kl. 15. Yfirskrift göngunnar er ,,Konur höfum hátt" og eru konur hvattar til að taka með sér eldhúsáhöld, svo sem potta og járnsleifar eða ásláttarhljóðfæri til að framkalla hávaða. Hugmyndin er sú að konur hafa verið hljóðar of lengi og nú er kominn tími til að við látum í okkur heyra og krefjumst jafnréttis núna! Til að kröfugangan verði litrík og áhrifamikil, er fólk eindregið hvatt til að mæta með kröfuspjöld, fána og hvaðeina. Á Ingólfstorgi verður baráttufundur kl. 16, þar sem haldnar verða stuttar barátturæður og flutt menningardagskrá.

Markmið kvennafrísins er það sama og fyrir 30 árum, að sýna fram á verðmæti vinnuframlags kvenna fyrir íslenskt efnahagslíf. Hvergi í heiminum er atvinnuþátttaka kvenna jafnmikil og hér á landi. Þau samtök sem eiga aðild að því að undirbúa viðburði til að minnast merkisviðburða í sögu íslenskra kvenna á þessu ári eru: Femínistafélag Íslands, Kvenfélagasamband Íslands, Kvennakirkjan, Kvenréttindafélag Íslands, Kvennasögusafn Íslands, Rannsóknastofa í kvenna- og kynjafræðum við Háskóla Íslands, Samtök kvenna af erlendum uppruna á Íslandi, Samtök um kvennaathvarf, Stígamót og UNIFEM á Íslandi. Kvennafundurinn á Þingvöllum 19. júní var afrakstur þessa samstarfs. Heildarsamtök launamanna koma einnig að undirbúningi kvennafrídagsins 24. október. Þau eru: ASÍ, BHM, BSRB og KÍ.

Femínistafélag Íslands"

Í kjölfar játningarinnar:

HVAR ER GULLNA HLIÐIÐ MITT???

Kolefni og leiðindi

Jeremías minn hvað ég get verið leiðinleg á stundum... tók út síðasta póst. Og ekki orð um það meir.

Skemmtilegra (alla vega fyrir mig) að segja frá því að núna í eftirmiðdaginn fór ég á fyrirlestur um geislakolefnisklukkuna, þ.e. aldursgreiningar með geislavirku kolefni. Svo sem eldgamalt lummutoppik fyrir flesta jarðfræðinga - oder nicht. Undanfarin ár hefur vísindafólk neflilega verið að sjá alls konar óreglu í kerfinu og mikil vinna hefur farið í að reyna að komast að því hvað er í gangi. Er helmingunartíminn rangur? Stoppar klukkan stundum? Hvað er eiginleg málið með styrk jarðsegulsviðsins? Og svo framvegis. Þetta var alveg merkilega spennandi fyrirlestur og gaman að heyra svona tíðindi beint frá fólkinu sem er að búa þau til.

Hjésús!

Haldiði ekki að mér hafi verið að áskotnast DVD-diskur frá almannatengsladeild Mormóna-kirkjunnar í Saltvatnsborg. Ég er alveg agalega ánægð með þetta og hlakka heil reiðinnar ósköp til að horfa á diskinn. Við Shan verðum bara að muna að verða okkur úti um nitroglýserín-töflur áður en við stingum disknum í tækið, annars gæti farið illa.

Kláraði Under the Banner of Heaven um daginn. Viðbjóður skviðbjóður (ofsatrúarfólkið) og mikið undrast ég að bráðgáfað fólk skuli hafa keypt og kaupi enn þessa speki hans Joe Smiths (mainstream Mormónarnir). En það er nú svosum bara ég, sem trúi ekki á neitt sem dýrkað verður í kirkju og undir instrúksum annars fólks.

Glacial surge

A tremendously cool series of pictures was just brought to my attention. Go to UNIS and click the link for Paulabreen (Paula's Glacier).

Nostalgia by numbers

Stolen from Stína:

1. Go into your LJ’s /blogs archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

In hurricanes past, this is it:

"It was simply a great trek, the scenery wonderful and the weather too, but it was quite hard."*

Now, this could apply to any number of treks that I've done. In an ideal world, it would apply to every single trek that I've done and, more importantly, that I will ever do. The "quite hard" parts of treks are usually those who become most pleasant in retrospect... as was indeed the case for that particular trek. Aaahhh, the joys of bushwacking on steep hills. Aaahhhh, the joys of descending endless and impossibly steep gravel slopes. I'd go back to Cerro Castillo any time.


*(In terms of sampling techniques (I just came from statistics class), this one seems to give an amazingly good estimate of the mean!)

There's no such thing as a free lunch...

... but what about a free dinner?

Hentist inn á búrrító-búlluna Viva rétt fyrir lokun í gærkvöldi, aðframkomin af hungri eftir langan dag í vinnunni. Þegar ég ætlaði að borga var mér sagt að ég væri "all set". Ég hváði því nr. eitt, ég heyri varla hálfa heyrn og nr. tvö, af því ég bara skildi ekki hvað konan átti við. "It's on me", segir hún. Ég bara, já halló, eru allar þjónustustelpur í Íþöku lesbíur oder was?? "Awesome," segi ég og spyr, so, how much? Nei, þetta var víst fúlasta alvara. Pleisið að splæsa á mig búrrító með grilluðum kjúkling af því ég er svo góður kúnni. Held ég verði að hætta að bölva þeim fyrir að búa ekki til (ghrafn, taktu nú eftir:) jafngóða búrrítóa og La Veracruzana í Northampton, MA. Segi bara í staðinn: Lifi Viva!!

Sigur Rós í Toronto

Undirrituð býður til sölu tvo (geta orðið þrír) miða á Sigur Rósar-tónleika í Toronto á mánudaginn kemur. Skítbillegt, ca. 30 dollarar stykkið. Sjóið alveg magnað hef ég heyrt. Að ekki sé minnst á hvað ökuferðin upp eftir er víst stórskemmtileg. Allir að skella sér (nema ég af því ég þarf að kenna...). Sei sei já.

In memoriam

Nú er ég að verða búin með hann Eirík. Eiríkur var stríðsfákur mikill, ekinn tæpar 170 þúsund mílur og orðinn nokkuð aldurhniginn, þ.e. 18 ára gamall. Til að halda kappanum á götunni þurfti að leggja í viðgerðir upp á eina 900 dollara og reyndist það samdóma álit álitsbærra manna að ekki borgaði sig að leggja út í slíka fjárfestingu. Var kappanum því ekið nú í eftirmiðdaginn á partasölu í bænum sem keypti garminn af mér. Þar voru númeraplöturnar teknar af og mér heitið því að ekki yrði þessi elska nú tekin í sundur heldur yrði hann settur beint undir pressuna miklu. Blessaður kallinn.

Það er nú ekki alveg við hæfi að segja frá þessu en ég stórgræddi á þessum viðskiptum. Sjáiði til, ég fékk 18 dollara fyrir bílinn. Það hljómar nú ekki mikið, en ég keypti hann á einn dal og þannig græddi ég 17-falda kaupupphæðina! Eins og gefur að skilja bauð ég honum Shan mínum (sem var aðstoðarbílstjóri og almenn moralsk støtte á þessari erfiðu ferð) að koma í erfisdrykkju á kostnað hins látna. Splæst var í beyglur og allt sem við á að eta og nú sit ég hér við skrifborðið mitt og sporðrenni síðustu bitunum. Takk fyrir mig, Eiríkur!

I have been tagged

and am, according to Stina's wishes, to post five random things about myself:

1. I have never wanted to become a hair-dresser.

2. When we were children, my brother and I spent parts of two summers in a camp for children run by the Franciscan nuns in the small town of Stykkisholmur. Not that we were Catholics (or pious at all), I guess it was a way of allowing us kids to spend a part of our summers away from the city and all that a city stands for. I can still remember the place pretty well and I can't say I miss it. But occasionally being the altargirl at Sunday sermon was kind of nice, if only because the incense smelled good, it was fun to throw more water than strictly necessary at the annoying kids, and the priest usually gave us some goodies in his office afterwards (I know what you are all thinking here... but hey,, they can't all be like that!).

3. After my parents' divorce when I was 8 or 9 years old, I moved around like crazy. We'd typically live at a place for up to a year, then find some other place that was allegedly better. Sometimes the only difference would be on which side of the street the house was located. When the house had been stripped of everything, I would invariably put a little note somewhere, say in a crack between the floorboards, telling whomever would find it that I had lived there. I wonder if any of those were ever found... I mean, how well can a 10-year old hide things??

4. The moving-around legacy of my youth and teens has stayed with me. I've lived in Bolivia, Norway and the United States and I still get a little uneasy when thinking of settling somewhere (in a cute little house with a garden??). You could call me a nomad or a wandering spirit. Or maybe, an escapist?

5. For reasons I'm not going into in any detail here, I like the music of Salin hans Jons mins. This is a confession that could alienate some friends. To those, I say: Bear with me. It's been hard for me too ;)

If I got this game right, I should tag someone too. Hmmm... let's see. Erna, but I doubt she'll have time. Shan, maybe I can persuade him. Raggi (if he's not up in the mountains chasing a cairn ;)). Lara systir, because she's the funniest person alive. I think I'll let those four suffice.

Það hafðist

Eins og venjulega er undirrituð á síðustu stundu með allt saman. Mér tókst með naumindum að koma ágripinu um verkefnið mitt hér við Cornell inn á ráðstefnuna - en vegna tæknilegra örðugleika (les. seinagangs í fatti) náði Helgafellið ekki inn. Hann Hugh er að vinna í því, enda ótækt að missa af svona tækifæri til að halda erindi á ráðstefnu.

Meira síðar.

Nýr í bloggheimum

Það er kominn nýr linkur hér til hliðar - og af því þetta er aðalmaðurinn sem er farinn að blogga fær hann fyrsta sætið á listanum. Vona þér sé sama, Lára mín :)

Óhófið

Berist ykkur til eyrna fréttir þess efnis að ég hafi drepist úr lyfjamisnotkun getiði allavega huggað ykkur við að ég var bara á slímlosandi.

En svona í alvöru, hvað ætli maður (eða kona) þurfi eiginlega að taka mikið af guaifenesíni til að fá eitrunareinkenni? Eða, ef ég má umorða þetta, hvað þarf maður eiginlega að taka mikið af þessu sulli til að þetta virki??

Gjéðbjélaða vikan

Skilafresturinn fyrir ágrip á haustráðstefnu bandarísku jarðeðlisfræðisamtakanna rennur út á fimmtudagskvöldið kemur. Ég, ever the optimist (eða þannig), ætla að skila inn TVEIMUR ágripum; öðru um verkefnið mitt hér og hinu um Helgafellið mitt gamla. So far hef ég klárað hvorugt ágripið og í raun varla byrjað á því fyrrnefnda.

Ofan á þetta bætast svo fastir liðir eins og venjulega, þ.e. tímasókn, heimaverkefni, skrifstofutímar fyrir nemendur og sörf á netinu og svona. Spurning um að finna tíma til að anda... eða til að skrifa ágripin. Og til hliðar við fasta liði og hjáverkin, stunda rannsóknirnar fyrir ágrip eitt. Kannski ágætt að vera byrjuð á þeim. Ég er neflilega búin að komast að því að það er mjög auðvelt að eyða heilu sumri í það eitt að greina an- og katjónir í 50 sýnum af vatni, án þess að einu sinni byrja að spá í hvað allar þessar tölur þýði. Ég held samt það sé ekki nóg að birta bara endalausar töflur í doktorsritgerðinni heldur verði maður að hafa reynt að finna út hvað allar þessar tölur þýða...

Perspektív (og gleðifréttir) vikunnar: Hann Shan er orðinn föðurbróðir glænýs og spengilegs lítils gæja í Eugene í Oregon. Til hamingju með það!

Á þekjunni

Hvernig er hægt að opna iTunes-ið í tölvunni og setja Cranberries á og fatta þegar fimmta lagið er að verða búið að það er ekki kveikt á hátölurunum??

Bartý Partý

hér í Seneca Resorts í kvöld. Allir að mæta. Engin afsökun tekin gild, bara rífa sig upp af rassinum og mæta!

(Yfirlýstur tilgangur partýsins er að halda upp á þrítugsafmælið hans Terry vinar okkar, það gleymdist neflilega á sínum tíma öllum hlutaðeigandi til ævarandi skammar. Þar að auki ætla ég mér nú líka að skála fyrir karli föður mínum, það vill svo skemmtilega til að hann á afmæli á morgun. Mjög hentugt, og góð nýting á veislu :))

Drukkur dagsins:

Appelsínusafi með aldinkjöti, blandaður til helminga með læm-sódavatni. Namminamm.

Á sunnudagsmorgni

Trúi þeir sem trúa vilja, en ég er búin að vera á fótum síðan hálfsjö í morgun.

Hann Shan er neflilega að keppa í hjólreiðum í Binghamton þessa stundina og þurfti að leggja af stað klukkan sex. Þegar enginn var til að hlýja mér lengur þýddi lítið að liggja í bælinu svo ég skreið framúr og náði að lesa fyrstu 20 síðurnar í 70 síðna doðrants-grein um efnaveðrun á Íslandi yfir morgunmatnum. Datt svo ofan í NYT sunnudagsblaðið (eða blöðin, sendingin inniheldur jú aðalblaðið, ein 5 eða 6 fylgiblöð og tvenn tímarit) en náði að rífa mig upp úr því og byrja að vinna. Sem var jú tilgangurinn með því að fara svona óguðlega snemma á fætur á sunnudagsmorgni.

En Adam var ekki lengi í Paradís. Rakst neflilega á græna tímaritið sem ég fann á flugvellinum í Portland meðan ég beið eftir Shan - Plenty. Stóðst ekki mátið að kíkja aðeins í það og mundi þá að ég hafði ætlað að gerast áskrifandi. Þá varð ég náttla að fara á Netið og ganga frá áskriftinni. Þegar því var lokið var ekki verjandi að loka Netinu nema segja ykkur frá blaðinu. Alveg stórsniðugt og sýnir að maður þarf hvorki að vera mussuhippi né stórskrýtinn til að vera umhverfisvænn.

Held ég fari út í skóg á eftir að hlaupa smá. Ég hef bara farið einu sinni áður út í skóg að hlaupa og það var svo ótrúlega gaman að ég held ég verði að halda því áfram. Iss, eins og mér hefur alltaf fundist leiðinlegt að hlaupa. Slæ þarna hugsanlega tvær í einu; losna kannski bæði við óbeitina á trjám og hlaupum. Sjáum til hvað setur.

Smá nöldur og Portland

Eitthvað gerast endurbætur á þessari bloggsíðu hægt. Ég er svo andlaus að ég hef ekki einu sinni haft nennu í mér til að setja inn link á flickr-síðuna mína með myndum úr sumarfríinu. Þetta er náttla alveg voðalegt.

Á morgun er dagurinn sem við öll hérna í Íþöku höfum beðið með öndina í hálsinum í allt sumar: Skólinn er að byrja. Undanfarna daga hefur bærinn fyllst af fólki; öndergraddarnir eru komnir aftur úr sumarfríinu og þeir nýju ráfa um bæinn með foreldra sína í eftirdragi, algjörlega týndir og þekkja hvorki haus né sporð á neinu. Þetta þýðir náttla fyrir okkur rótgrónu Íþökubúana að umferðin gengur hraðar en nokkru sinni, það er nóg af bílastæðum úti um allt og biðraðir hafa aldrei verið styttri. You catch my drift, I presume.

Sumarlokafríið okkar Shan var alveg með eindæmum vel heppnað. Flugvélin mín flaug svo nálægt Mt. Hood á leið inn til Portland að ég gat nánast séð múrmeldýrin njóta sólarlagsins hátt uppi í hlíðum fjallsins og weather.com hafði lofað mér sól og blíðu fram á sunnudag hið minnsta. Á laugardeginum keyrðum við sem leið lá meðfram Columbia-á til smábæjarnis Hood River, reyndum að birgja okkur af nauðsynjum fyrir útilegulífið (en gekk ekki vel, allt var uppselt!) og skröltum svo áleiðis að fjallinu. Eftir mikið japl, jaml og fuður og misgáfulegar ráðleggingar landvarða ákváðum við að reyna að fá pláss á Cloud Cap-tjaldstæðinu; það er í 6000 feta hæð og rétt við upphaf göngustígsins sem við ætluðum að ganga á daginn eftir. Þetta reyndist vera góð ákvörðun, það var nóg pláss, nógur tími og algjört overflød af náttúrufegurð.

Á laugardeginum komum við okkur snemma af stað og náðum upp í um 9000 feta hæð eftir 3ja tíma göngu. Þegar þangað var komið urðum við eiginlega að snúa við því hallinn undir fótum okkar var orðinn nokkuð mikill og við komin upp á gríðarlegan klaka-snjóskafl sem lá hálfa leiðina upp á topp, þar fyrir ofan voru bara þverhníptir klettar. Við vorum nokkuð ánægð með túrinn og sátum þarna í klukkutíma að maula nestið okkar og skoða eldfjöllin frægu í Washington-fylki (Mt. St. Helen's, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams) sem blöstu þarna við í öllu sínu veldi. Meðan á þessu útsýnisstoppi stóð háðum við þar að auki frækna baráttu við geitunga og býflugur sem virðast kunna bara vel við sig í 3000 metra hæð yfir sjávarmáli innan um grjót og drullu og ekki stingandi strá.

Á flugvellinum í Cincinnati, þar sem ég millilenti á leiðinni heim, keypti ég mér svo bók Jon Krakauers, Under the banner of heaven, til að forða mér frá sturlun af völdum leiðinda á síðasta spottanum heim (það verður eiginlega að taka það fram að við Shan flugum í sitthvoru lagi heim því við gátum ekki fengið tvo miða saman... annars hefði ég sko ekkert verið að sturlast úr leiðindum... það bara getur gerst ef eina lesefnið á margra klukkustunda langri flugferð er SkyMall...). Nú, það er skemmst frá því að segja að nú er ég hreinlega að sturlast af ógleði/viðbjóði... bðaaaa, meiri viðbjóðurinn sem fólk getur gert í nafni trúarinnar. Mæli eindregið með bókinni fyrir alla, konur og kalla (en ekki börn... allt of mikið af blóði og gori til þess).

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Jahá.....

Ég segi eins og hún Stína:

Fréttir af dauða mínum eru stórlega ýktar.

Hef haft öðrum hnöppum en blogghnöppum að hneppa undanfarna viku. Núna er ég t.d. búin að lifa af alveg sérstaklega leiðinlegan/óinspírerandi dag á labbinu og ætla út í góða veðrið að bardúsa eitthvað.

Á morgun er það svo flug vestur yfir gjörvöll Bandaríkin og til Portland sem þar bíður. Jibbí skvibbí.

Fyrir bændur og búalið

Ef ég væri á Fróni myndi ég skella mér í þessa ferð. Ekki spurning.

Innskot - greinin mín

Vúpps, þá er greinin okkar um Helgafell komin inn á ritstjórnarskrifstofur aftur eftir ritrýni og verið er að taka ákvörðun um hvort það eigi að birta hana (væntanlega eftir lagfæringar og svoleiðis af hálfu okkar höfundanna) eða henda henni í hausinn á okkur sem óbirtingarhæfri.

Vonum það besta.

Bloggleysi

Hér hefur ekki verið mikið bloggað að undanförnu og eitthvað gæti dregist að alminnilegt blogg birtist aftur. Ástæður: annir á tilraunastofunni og áhugi á að bæta eitthvað úr þessum síðugarmi mínum.