The odd job offer

I am one lousy blogger. That's nothing new, however.

Nothing much going on. Work, sleep, work, sleep. Oh, and the snow took off. Yesterday it was 18°C for a while and approximately a foot of snow melted off of the stone garden outside my building. The streams were happy.

About a week and a half ago someone called me and offered me a job. I said I was interested and would contact him again in a week or two, to which he agreed. Since then I have emailed this person twice and left him a phone message, all to no awail. This surprises me. If this person wouldn't want me to work for his company, why would he contact me at all? And if this person for some reason cannot keep his job offer, why not just let me know? I think this is very odd. But then again, I'm not used to having headhunters after me, so who knows, this might be the way they do it.

But I still think it's odd.

Unexpected news:

Looks like there are still decent people in this world. This is great!

Galæsilegt!

Mikið svakalega er ég sátt við þessa gjörð umhverfisráðherra:

Náttúruverndarlög um friðlýsingu nái til bergtegunda og bergforma

Sem leiðsögukona var ég oft gráti næst yfir öllu fallega grjótinu sem túristarnir mínir ákváðu að hafa með sér heim frá Mývatni, Landmannalaugum og víðar en sem endaði ferðina í ruslatunnu aftan í rútunni á síðasta degi ferðar. Eftir að friðlýsingin nær til bergs líka verður hægastur vandinn að benda fólki á að það sé ekki bara vanhugsað heldur líka bannað með lögum að taka með sér grjót frá friðuðum svæðum. Það er nú svolítið einkennilegt til þess að hugsa að ráðuneytið hafi ekki gert sér grein fyrir verndargildi silfurbergs og hrafntinnu áður, en betra er seint en aldrei!

Að auki ætlar Jónína að veita náttúruverndar- og útivistarsamtökum kæruaðild samkvæmt náttúruverndarlögum. Þetta eru að mínu mati einar bestu fréttir á sviði náttúruverndar í landinu í lengri tíma.

Why, why, WHY?

Why do I read this article in the "Fashion & Style" section of the NYT? Doesn't it belong somewhere else, like, in the news??

Icelandic Volcanoes

This semester I'm TAing a course on natural disasters. It's fun. On Tuesday, I'm giving a lecture in class about Icelandic volcanoes and the hazards associated with them. It's hard to know where to start and I only have 30 minutes. Gee, I could talk for a whole semester on this topic!

Among the more interesting things my Google-search has turned up is that researchers have used skeletons of people buried in the tephra of Hekla 1104 AD to investigate the dental health of Viking-age Icelanders.

My dad also dug up some photos of the family on a visit to Heimaey a few years after Eldfell erupted. Thanks for scanning them, dad! I think svei mér þá that I can see the geologist in me at ~4 years (little kid to the right, my brother is the little kid to the left) in this picture:

The day after

I'm pretty bad at shamelessly promoting my own agenda. See, it was my b-day yesterday and I haven't told you about it yet. I'm such a slacker.

In other news, I'm sitting here at my desk crying with joy over the sheer genius of Google. They have an online calendar!!!!!

This past weekend was (well) spent on the ski slopes of Killington and Stowe, Vermont, in as much soft, fluffy, new snow as you'll ever get here in the northeast. We had a tremendously good time. I am such a lucky pamfile.

*sob*

I CANNOT BELIEVE I missed this! *sob*

CM

The antepenultimate post on this blog is also the 900th such on this blog. That may be slightly more than the world needs. But what the heck, I'm toasting anyway!

The cold - II

It's so cold here now (-17°C) that after blinking your eyes, you can feel the moisture freeze on your eyeball. Or something like that.

Thiefblog

So, many people have been blogging about a proposed new road over Kjölur. I have my own very strong opinions on the issue and although I didn't intend to share them, again, with you all I found myself writing pages of comments on this post. Not wanting to be a total thief blogger, I'm posting my comment here. It's in Icelandic... but don't despair, I'm sure Babelfish will churn out... eh, something, for those interested.

"Sæl Eygló,

fyrst langar mig að taka undir með þeim sem sjá ekki tilganginn í því að etja saman landsbyggð og höfuðborgarsvæði. Það er leiðinlegur ávani og sérdeilis óuppbyggjandi.

Svo að því skemmtilega: Ég veit nú ekki betur en að ferðin sem þú lýsir hér að ofan - taka við farþegum af skemmtiferðaskipum á Suðurlandi, keyra með þá yfir Kjöl og skila þeim aftur til skips á Norðurlandi - hafi verið fundin upp fyrir mörgum, mörgum árum síðan og þarfnist ekki uppbyggðs vegar til að virka (reyndar er Reykjavík yfirleitt inni í myndinni, enda hafa flestir ferðamenn sem ég hef hitt áhuga á að sjá borgina. En hvað um það).

Ég get sagt með góðri samvisku eftir að hafa unnið sem leiðsögukona um allt land í mörg ár að flestum ferðamönnunum fyndist minna til hálendisins koma ef malarvegirnir þar hyrfu. Malarvegirnir, hálendið okkar án bygginga, bensínstöðva og aðgangseyris, er það sem útlendingarnir mínir hafa verið hrifnastir af. Af hverju má ekki taka tillit til þeirra líka? Ferðamannaiðnaðurinn er nú einu sinni einn stærsti atvinnuvegur landsmanna og mikilvægur ekki síst fyrir landsbyggðina.

Og talandi um aðgangseyri: Ég væri ekki par hrifin af því að þurfa að borga mig inn á Kjalveg. Þegar farið er upp á Skaga er þó a.m.k. hægt er að kjósa hvort göngin eru notuð eða gamli Hvalfjarðarvegurinn. Verði heilsársvegur í einkaeign lagður yfir Kjöl mun fólk neyðast til að borga sig inn á hálendið, hvort sem því líkar betur eða verr. Nei takk, segi ég við slíku.

Lítum svo framhjá ferðamönnum og aðgangsrétti/-eyri. Ísland átti stærsta ósnortna víðerni Evrópu áður en Kárahnjúkastífla var reist. Stjórnvöld í dag sjá fleiri lón og stórfabrikkur í hillingum. Ég fæ ekki séð að stjórnvöld þurfi á aðstoð einkaframtaksins að halda við eyðileggingu náttúrugæða landsins. Það er vitað mál að heilsársvegur, uppbyggður, yfir Kjöl mun líklegast leiða til stórfelldra umhverfisspjalla á borð við bensínstöðvar með sjoppu, ljósaskiltum og hamborgarabúllu. Þannig mun nákvæmlega ekkert af auðlindinni "ósnortin náttúra" varðveitast og í staðinn munum við fá enn eitt úthverfið. Hve margir ferðamenn ætli vilji koma alla leið norður í Dymbilshaf til að sjá?"

Weather

It's -12°C in Ithaca right now and it feels like -20°C with the windchill. In Manila yesterday, it was 31°C. That's a difference of almost 50°C in one day. No wonder I'm sitting on my couch wearing two woolen sweaters and all the blankets in the apartment.

Luggage and traffic

As I sit here at my beloved home in Ithaca, NY, waiting for the luggage that didn't make it out of Chicago yesterday and pondering whether I am sick or just let-lagged, I read this post on Stina's website:

Kill, Kill, Kill!

The post reminds me of the first fieldtrip I made in the Philippines. We were headed for a place just outside the city limits of Metro Manila, negotiating the insane traffic on Commonwealth (also know as Marcos, even if noone misses that guy particularly much) Avenue. In Manila, the local traffic customs call for extensive use of u-turns to get places and all highways have specially marked u-turn spots which the cars in the innermost 2 or so lanes can use (not that anyone takes the concept of lanes very seriously in Manila, but that's another story). We were fighting our way along the ~2nd innermost lane and approaching a u-turn spot when all of a sudden a giganormous truck, in the 4th lane or so, swerves to make that u-turn. Our driver William managed to brake before colliding with the truck's cargo but the van behind us was way too close and rear-ended us. None of us had the presence of mind to get that stupid asshole truck's license plate number, but fortunately none of us, except for the rear-ending van, was hurt in the slightest. In fact, the blow from the rear-ending was so mild that our Mercedes didn't even suffer a scratch. But for crying out loud, who in their right mind makes a u-turn from the middle lane across a busy 6-lane highway??

Jollibee

One of the things I love about the Philippines: They beat McDonald's at its own game.

Mogglenska

"Strel, sem er 52ja ára gamall, hefur undirbúið sundið af kostgæfni sem á að taka 70 daga."

En hvað með sundið??

The last fieldwork

Well well well wlel wlle... no more fieldwork this time. Gee, I'm going home to Ithaca on Tuesday. Can't wait to see my beloved Shan and go skiing!

I did get to see Taal Volcano, the famous "lake within an island within a lake within an island". Very pretty and very ominous:


Another sampling crowd, on the shores of Lake Taal:


The Taal basilica boasts impressive vegetation:


For part of my fieldwork, I joined a fieldtrip for a class at UP. The professor took us all to his favorite snorkeling site one morning, a place that can only be reached by boat:


We lured the fish with stale bread and they ate it from our hands. This was my first (and only, I regret to say) time on the beach in the Philippines:


One of my favorite places in the Philippines has to be the province of Tarlac. The awfully awful and almost totally useless Lonely Planet guidebook for the Philippines doesn't even mention Tarlac with a single word. Good job, guys:


Filipinos are pretty smart when it comes to vehicles. The kuliglig is a hybrid between a horse-drawn cart and a tractor, extensively used in the countryside in this part of the country:


Horse-drawn carts are also used, although I didn't see many. This one made its way calmly along the highway, not paying the slightest attention to the cars:

Flotilla

This is so much fun!

Payatas

Manila

No fieldwork and almost no sampling since Bicol. Instead I've been in Manila, trying to assemble auxiliary data and checking out the city a tiny little bit.

Tuesday was my big day off. I took a cab downtown (listen, Icelandic taxi drivers: 45 minutes and 3 dollars) and was greeted by a Starbucks right at the entrance to the oldest part of the city. Being a good assimilated 'Mercan I went straight in and had myself a tall latte. For reasons hard to comprehend Filipinos don't fancy brewed coffee, instead everyone drinks instant 3-in-1 coffee, which is basically sugar mixed with some creamer and instant coffee. Therefore, a Starbucks is in order every now and then.

When traveling in SE Asia and other remote places (such as the Icelandic Highlands, the Arctic and on Route 17 in NY state), toilets inevitably become a topic of interest. Turns out the toilet (or comfort room, as the local euphemism goes) at this Starbucks is the most exquisite bathroom experience one is likely to have in the archipelago. There was even hot water! Some while later, after I had strolled around the streets of old Manila for a while, a second visit to a comfort room became necessary. I inquired at a small eatery/Xerox shop that I passed and was cordially shown to the CR by the master photocopyist. What a dramatic contrast! Here I found myself in a cubicle whose walls were impregnated with the stink of urine of generations past. A lightbulk was thankfully absent and therefore I never knew what served as a receptacle in there. Was it a hole in the ground, was it the bucket, was it something I couldn't even begin to imagine? Deciding it was better to die like Tycho Brahe than use this veritable shithole, I left with a smile and a big thank-you to the copymaster.

Then there is Manila.

Here, it's hard to know where to begin. It's big. It's huge. It's absolutely monstrous. The traffic is a nightmare. The pollution is worse. The people are friendly. The kids are beautiful. A white person is a spectacle and wherever she goes, people smile or point or say hello or make remarks about the white person's alleged beauty (I have to say, I admire their good taste). Since coming to the Philippines, I haven't seen more than 3 other white people at any one time and probably no more than 10 in all. That is not a lot, let me tell you that. Before I go here again, I'm going to overdose on tanning lotion and a dark hairdye. Maybe I'll get brown contacts as well. As is, I stick out like a martian. For all the attention I get on the street, I might as well be a green midget with flippers and two antennas on my head.

Sample scrample. I need more samples. Was planning to go to Bicol again but all efforts at getting a field assistant fell through. Therefore I'll be tagging along on a class fieldtrip leaving Manila tomorrow. I'll get to revisit some of the places I already sampled and I'll also get to see Lake Taal and Laguna de Bay and sample some rivers draining into those lakes. It should be fun. After that I plan to spend another day or two sampling and then take a day or two to visit some white-sand beaches (one cant spend a month in the Philippines without ever going to the beach...). Then on the 6th, I'll get on a plane again and fly back to Ithaca. Sooo nice.

My contact here at UP, Dr. Arcilla, has been doing some studies at Payatas and he took me along so that I could sample some water. In my next post, I might tell you about it. For now, I'll tell you this: I've rarely washed myself as obsessively as I did when I got back from that visit.

Bicol

A field trip to the Bicol Peninsula has been planned and executed.

It was six days and close to 1000 km (my German gene, who needs the exact figure down to two decimal points, is not well expressed here) of bumpy and partially destroyed roads, jungle-clad volcanoes and curious and friendly locals. Some pictures should say it all:

Mount Isarog is a dormant volcano:


This volcano is not dormant at all. My first view of Mount Mayon. Note the rice paddies in the foreground and the power lines almost touching the ground. These power lines are evidence of the destructive typhoon that struck the area in late November-early December 2006:


A local man looks out over the destruction in Legazpi City, where the Yawa River found itself a new way to sea as a result of lahars caused by the typhoon:


Life goes on, even if the local bus stop is a bit messed up:


Schoolkids in their uniforms running to catch the jeepney, the Filipino equivalent of a bus. In the foreground is rice, put out on the street to dry. Many rice farmers are harvesting at this time of year in Bicol and rice drying operations sometimes shrink the roads down to half a lane:


William, the driver, and Grace, my field assistant for the trip, measure discharge in a small stream on the north flank of Mt. Isarog. The two of them have become veritable discharge experts now:


River water sampling can be very bit as messy as you thought it was:


The view of Mount Mayon in the early morning hours from the PHIVOLCS Observatory:

Enn einn tvífarinn

Héðan er nú margt merkilegra að frétta en ég hendi þessu hér inn samt sem áður:

Við vorum suður í Sorsogon-héraði að taka sýni og spurðum eldri mann, íbúa við þjóveginn, til vegar. Hann leit út alveg nákvæmlega eins og Steingrímur Hermannsson og sonur hans Gummi Steingríms myndu líta út ef þeir væru einn og hinn sami og þar að auki frá Filippseyjum.

Það var og.

Small inhabitants

on the banks of the Bucao River:

Le neuf

Well oh well, hasn't this blog become fancy?!?! Too bad all the links are out... but they needed to be updated anyway. That might take a while, though. Don't hold your breath!

Oh, and nobody told me I'd lose all the comments! Darn...

On a layover

Another Christmas come and gone and they are already advertising Valentine's Day merchandise. Hail consumption! (not...)

My little 5-day layover in the US has been rather uneventful, I must say. All the stuff for field work is pretty much packed by now, of which I am justifiably proud, since usually I'm running around last minute trying to throw everything into boxes and panicking about having forgotten something critical. This time, I'll leave that scenario for the packing of my personal items.

Christmas in Iceland was great. We met with friends and family, I saw my darling sister Lára for the first time in over two years, my old class from high school met at Stína's for (disappointingly?) civil drinks and chat, Stína's twins recognized me yet again and were even willing to give me a hug or two, something I was not able to tease out of my lovely little niece Lilja. Fortunately her twin brother, Tómas, more than made up for the un-hugginess of his sister.

Shan and I met repeatedly with our Ithaca-friends Ármann and Ása, who had us over for dinner and joined the two of us and Lára and her boyfriend Kári to a summerhouse in the countryside, where fierce winds tore open trunks of cars and the hot tub was incredibly cozy and nice. We also went to the mother of all Christmas parties, the Líndal-clan's meeting at Stína's childhood home. It was fun as always, meeting Stína's mom and sister and her stepfather Sigurður, with whom I didn't have a nearly long enough conversation. I also learned how age is no barrier to other women eyeing my boyfriend; Sigurður's sister, consideraly more advanced in years than Shan, couldn't get her eyes off him once she had seen the "beautiful, big man" and even introduced herself in her finest Icelandic! As is to be expected, I just about burst apart at the seams with pride over my man :)

Downtown on Þorláksmessa was wonderful. We were a little crumpled up, since we arrived on noon that same day after a long trip from Ithaca that included a roughly 5-hour delay on our flight out of JFK due to crazy (as we say) weather in Iceland. That crazy weather had abated considerably by the time we arrived but rain, winds and general gloominess prevailed until New Year's Eve. That day we had decided to go for a drive in the countryside and lo and behold, for the first time in over a week we saw the sun! New Year's came with the best weather in 10 years, windstill and temperatures at the freezing point. Shan shot up the hugest of all huge bottle rockets (almost...) and the fireworks spectacle in the city was fantastic. Some idiots next door almost killed someone as a big bottle rocket that was meant to explode way up in the sky landed in our neighbors driveway and exploded there, I'm glad it wasn't our driveway! In general, it was a great evening, but I'm glad that I'm not a survivor of war because I would need psychotherapy after hearing all these explosions.

Next time, I'll blog from somewhere in the Philippines. 'Till then!

Next chapter

Well, I passed.

And now my upper arm aches. I got four shots of vaccines today and bought almost 200 dollars worth of anti-malaria pills. Sounds like this Philippines trip is coming up pretty fast, right?

But first to Iceland. Tomorrow, to be precise. It'll be interesting to see my dear old Iceland totally saturated with winter rains.

And in case you wondered, the exam was really really REALLY hard. I thought for a while they weren't going to pass me. It was over three hours of relentless probing and prodding and debate. My brain was so fried at the end that I could hardly say my own name. But it was immensely useful and I'm very glad that I'm done.

Then, after work today, I realized that today was the first day that I felt entitled to be in grad school.

2 days to go

Jeremías Pétur hjálpi mér!

The joy of science

There is something called poor correlation. Then there is this:
To protect sensitive souls I have changed the labeling on the axes.

Brill!!

It had to happen sometime.

The visa

in my passport (and my passport, too) arrived with the FedEx man today. Now I just need January 6th to appear (and get all my gear sorted and packed) and then: Philippines, here I come!!

And some more:

It's time to share

my knitting-and-crocheting habit with you all. Here's my latest accomplishment:



and a scarf that I made while watching Sex and the City with Annelise at the lake house back in the day:

If I were a millionaire...

... I'd do something about this. It's so sad.

The massage

Just so I won't forget, I'm telling you guys that I have an appointment for a massage at 4:15 pm next Tuesday. Gee, I'm looking forward to that. What untamed luxury!

9 in your sleep

Again I'm having such vivid dreams that I almost wake myself up. Especially when I start talking in my sleep, which I think I have been doing lately. Poor Shan :)

Every day now brings the dreaded A-exam closer. Omg. All hail to Damien Rice for helping me through these difficult times.

My fortune cookie

I bought the ticket to the Philippines today. Now I better pass the A-exam, which I also (tentatively) scheduled today for December 20th. Hjálp!!

On human nature

My friend Stína's recent post made me think of all these different conditions that can afflict one and how they are not clear-cut but rather melt and fuse into one another. Much like crystals if you ask me, the geologist. Mineralogists have come up with the most beautiful diagrams to describe the ways in which crystals morph into one another depending on their ingredients and conditions of formation, and isn't that what ultimately also dictates how and who we become? It is strangely comforting to me to see how close we humans are to the basic rules of the universe.

All complaints banished

Ok, Væla, I'll stop complaining :)

Yesterday we had several nanometers of snow and the season's first rime. Today, the nanometers had all sublimated but the rime was still there. Bjútífúl.

Another Thanksgiving is upon us. Shan and I are taking off to Delaware this afternoon to spend the holiday with friends and perhaps family. No blogging for a while (as if that were anything new here on this farm).

Oh, the Prime Minister

What prompted the quiz was this event and the fact that when I told people I was going some would ask "ok, but who's that guy??".

Well, at least I didn't tell any Nobel Prize winner...

Quiz of the month

Do you know, right now (i.e. before googling it), who Shimon Peres is?

And since I'm at it...

I might as well post some more.

Am currently getting psyched about my upcoming trip to the Philippines in January. For those of you not in the know (which includes, I presume, every reader of this blog), I am going there to do fieldwork for my thesis work. It should be quite some adventure...

Fortunately I have some contacts there by now, thanks to my office mate Adam. A professor at the University of the Philippines has been exceptionally helpful, putting me in contact with a lot of people who might be able to assist me in many ways. Among other things, he's secured me the company of one of his grad students for part of my fieldwork. Now that's swell, because there's nothing more conductive to sudden madness than being alone in the field for too long.

So, I'll be goofin' around on Luzón in January and February, visiting ophiolites and volcanoes and maybe, if I'm very dugleg, Palawan. Again, a geologist's life is hard.

Then take a look: This is so cool! It almost makes me feel like a kid again, that a letter from me went to these far away, exotic places.

Other than that... nah, nothing else.

What ?#!%#*&T*^&T)@^?

Holy guacamole, what the bloody hell is going on w. this Blogger thing? Some missing html closing tags and my blog is practically stabbed to death! I protest. I protest all.

Update:

Well, looks like it's back to normal. Maybe I'll entertain the devil and try posting these quiz results again. But *phew*, this was about as much as my little heart can handle.

November 16th

and it's 18°C outside.

18°C!!!

That's it. I'm moving to the Antarctic.

Lost blogger

A severe Lost addiction has afflicted family members as of the beginning of the third season.

We happened to be at friends' house when the first episode of the third season was aired. Inevitably, we left with the entire DVD-collection of the first season, borrowed from the lady of the house. A week later, after watching the second episode of the third season, we borrowed the complete second season from another friend. Five days later, we were up-to date. We should probably go and get a life, but Lost is a perfectly acceptable substitute for one, thank you.

But, now there won't be any new shows until February. That's totally awful. Fortunately I have finals, Christmas break and a trip to the Philippines to keep me busy until my life can resume.

Breaking the Silence

I am breaking my silence of more than a month to tell you the most extraordinary thing:

The other day, I met a guy in his twenties who taught his grandmother to crochet.

Now beat that!

Plögg dagsins

Fréttatilkynning


Göngum með Ómari
- þjóðarsátt fyrir komandi kynslóðir


Boðað er til fjöldagöngu með Ómari Ragnarssyni frá Hlemmi að Austurvelli klukkan 20.00 á þriðjudag. Ómar hefur kynnt hugmyndir um nýjar leiðir sem fela í sér að hægt verði að afla raforku til að knýja álverið í Reyðarfirði án þess að fórna þeim náttúruperlum sem færu undir fyrirhugað Hálslón. Ómar leggur til að fyllingu Hálslóns verði frestað og Kárahnjúkavirkjun verði geymd ógangsett sem magnað minnismerki um hugrekki þjóðar sem leitaði sátta við kynslóðir framtíðarinnar og eigin samvisku.

Ómar kynnti þessar hugmyndir sínar á blaðamannafundi á dögunum. Við tökum áskorun hans og sýnum stuðning okkar í verki með því að safnast saman og ganga niður Laugaveginn. Við hvetjum þig til að gera slíkt hið sama.


Því er boðað til:
Jökulsárgöngu niður Laugaveginn á þriðjudag kl 20.00
frá Hlemmi að Austurvelli


Horfumst í augu við siðferðislegar skyldur okkar gagnvart landi og náttúru –
Göngum með Ómari niður Laugarveg á þriðjudaginn.

Idling

Every so often I have to visit this website and be nostalgic. That's been today's order.

It hasn't all been melancholy, though. To my wonderfully pleasant surprise, the Camper shoes I ordered online last week are already in Ohio, having been sent from Barcelona yesterday! Jömmí jömm, new Camper shoes!! Lucky me!

Surprise

Where do you think this picture is taken?

Isn't it weird how one can immediately tell? Is it maybe because Julie Christie looks uncannily like Valgerður Sverrisdóttir in the picture?

Well, those were my two cents. I should be in bed. It's late.

Out of my league?

Yes! I finally did it! After a long absence away from any kind of organized singing I enlisted in a chorus here in my hometown of Ithaca, NY. The chosen chorus was the one that didn't require an audition, as there are few things I hate more than such torture. I also figured that if it doesn't require an audition, it probably is pretty easy going (last time I sung in a chorus was in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. The program consisted of ABBA and "Vem kan segla". I obviously need easy going).

Boy, was I wrong. I've been to two rehersals so far and I feel that I've accidentally stepped into the Navy Seals of choruses. At the first rehersal we were handed the score of the fall semester's piece: Mass in A-flat major by Schubert. Open it on page 1 and start singing. Before I could flip the page, the rest of the chorus had already sung half the mass. Holy Mo.

Many many many years ago I flirted, with appalling results, with structured music learning. I must have been the worst student ever to (dis-)grace Mr. Cortes's little classroom on Hverfisgata with her presence. I never learned to read music properly. I can't tell a tvíund from an áttund (or almost not). And here I am, supposed to be onsighting a whole f***ing mass! Hahaha, am I the only one who thinks this is funny?

So, they do have training wheels for us less gifted. Bunches of CDs with all the different voices, including fortunately the alto, are on their way to Ithaca as we speak. I can pop it into the CD player in the car and howl out loud all I want on the highway so as to not embarras my fellow altos during the steepest part of the learning curve. And actually, although it may sound like I'm cursing the day I decided to join the chorus, I love it.

Hammer Time

I won a very solid rock hammer this afternoon. Always the lucky one, me. This unexpected stroke of good luck happened at an information session held by Conoco Philips, whose representatives are now on campus trying to lure us geoscientists into their ranks. Whether that will be my fate remains to be seen...

The upstairs neighbors' TV has been keeping Shan and I company for the past few weeks. It's a very reliable companion, within hearing reach every hour, every day. While we admire its tenacity I doubt if either of us would miss it even the slightest bit were it to burn in the flames of hell. Perhaps the rock hammer could be put to good use here?

A few nights ago I dreamt that an old friend of mine had started wearing eye shadow and eye liner (but no mascara!). That wouldn't be odd, per se, if this particular friend of mine wasn't a guy who, so far, hasn't shown any interest whatsoever in make-up.

In that same dream, my cell phone had gone haywire. Whenever I'd try and call someone, the phone would decide, in some random process, who would actually be called. Of course, that would never be the one I planned to call. Don't try to tell me technology isn't evil.

Which brings me to the topic of instruments. Scientific instruments. I'm not the biggest fan, at least not of uncooperative instruments. One particularly uncooperative instrument in my lab didn't start to behave until it got to go to California for a month. When it came back it finally started working again. That's one clever instrument if you ask me.

Brownian motion

Ok, so, before I continue my ambling through the remote sensing problem set due on Friday I'm going to tell you this:

- Yesterday was my dad's birthday. Til hamingju!!

- Friday was India's birthday. Congratulations!

- Shan and I very unexpectedly spent the weekend in Oregon celebrating the latter birthday and hanging out w. the family. An altogether great experience.

- My paper has been cited once. Hah!

- Am currently reading "The Feminie Mystique" by Betty Friedan. It is totally captivating and I'm blasting through it as if it were a thriller. It's also unbelievable and more than a little frightening to read about where women were in the USA in the middle of the 20th century. Repeatedly I find myself just having to stop reading and pick my jaw off of the floor.

- The Dixie Chicks are my favorite at this moment, both for their music and because they have guts (they do, for instance, have clothes on..). Sufjan Stevens is also delightfully bizarre but too easy to fall asleep to.

- Somehow I find myself taking three classes this semester. Remember that this is my fourth YEAR here in grad school and I was fed up with taking class already by the second semester. Something's odd here.

- This semester I'm also teaching a lab in an introductory oceanography class. It's so much fun because us two grad student TA's have two undergrad assistants who actually do the teaching. I find it so cool and not because they do the hard part, but because I'm learning so much from my undergrad assistant about how to interact with students and teach. It's by far the best part of my semester.

Steradians and solid angles have yet to prove if they can enrich my life significantly until the end of the semester. I guess I'll have to plough through the problem set to find out.

*shiver shiver*

This article I read recently in the London Review of Books sent shivers down my spine. It's over 20 pages long but well worth the slog.

Motorcrash

My fellow grad student Jack and I were out riding yesterday afternoon when we saw this. I guess one can't be too careful...

The Canal Classic

A handful of us Ithacans went to Little Falls in the Mohawk Valley over the weekend to compete in the Canal Classic 2006 bike race, including yours truly. It was good fun and really hard, especially since it was pretty windy and I rode all alone the whole way (~54 km). I guess I was pretty pathetic towards the end as I found myself yelling, in Icelandic, at the wind. Anyhow, much to my surprise I walked away with a prize! It might have had something to do with the number of participants in my category *hóst hóst* but what the hell, who cares?? A plaque's a plaque, right?

Much less surprisingly, Shan also got a prize. We're so cool ;)

The night before the race we spent at a friend's parents' house. For inexplicable reasons we ended up watching 'Hostel'. I'm still having bad dreams. Yikes.

Friday night

Uhhh... I'm looking forward to going home. Just a little more desktime. Thank heavens for Björk and Pagan Poetry, how would one otherwise make it through grad school?

Ithaca's heroes

It honestly feels like I'm being deep-fried.

Saturday felt hot. Or maybe it was just me. In any case I sweated like a pig riding around Skaneateles Lake, up numerous hills (some of them very much unpaved and gravelly - which lent a sense of adventure to the whole endeavour) and with the wind in the face often enough that I caught myself wondering if I'd been beamed over to Iceland in the Miocene. Haríharíhar, that was a geologist's joke, aren't I funny??!? Arriving in Skaneateles town I sneaked my way into the town's fanciest restaurant's bathroom (wow, lots of genitive there) and seeing my face redder than an overripe tomato I was happy not to have bumped into my hero Bill in the lobby ;) Us outing clubbers had lunch at the famous fish-fry joint in town and didn't meet anyone famous. The town does have a bit of the Nantucket feeling about it, though. The Nantuckety people were all looking at this glorious boat show by the lake, which I wowed to visit the following day with my beloved co-habitator.

And so we did. It was lovely. I saw, for the first time ever, a Joel White/Herreshoff boat in person. Why is that important? Hah, before meeting a certain somebody I woundn't have known. But now I know: Because these are the most beautiful boats on Earth!

Well, the recently-turned-tropical outdoors of my 'Mercan hometown await. I'd better get the spandex on!

Later:
Oh, and btw, the title obviously refers to my lovely co-habitator and his girlfriend, who are braving global warming and heatstroke by going out for a bike ride.

Ithaca right now:

"Current Weather Conditions
86°F
30°C

* Relative humidity: 63%
* Wind: 6 MPH from the north
* Atmospheric Pressure: 29.88 in. (758 mmHg)

Last updated Monday, July 31,2006, at 6:00PM
National Weather Service Forecast

Forecast issued 3:12 pm EDT, Mon, 2006-Jul-31

Warning: EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM TUESDAY TO 8 PM EDT WEDNESDAY"

See more here.

Growing vegetables... where??

An excerpt from a book on the climate of Hawai'i:

"Even though summer radiation totals at the high-latitude cities exceed Honolulu's because of longer days, the midday radiation intensity is still higher in Hawai'i. This means that while a person is more likely to get a bad sunburn in summer in Honolulu, bigger vegetables can probably be grown in summer in Reykjavík, Iceland, because of the length of daylight."

Habbla ha. Somebody should have told those taro-farmers in Hawai'i...

Visit

Thor is right now in the skies above Ithaca. Gee, I love thunderstorms!! Especially when I'm safely inside.

Mom and Kristján kept Shan and me company over the past weekend and gee, was it nice to see them! We visited some nice restaurants in town and out, not to mention the ever-popular Restaurant Mamma which this time was located in our very own kitchen at Seneca Resorts Inc.. We went to see some bikers at the Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse, as well as just hanging out on the couch and chatting. An altogether wonderfully relaxing and entertaining weekend. Hail visits!! (hint hint, my sheep-loyal readers).

And since they left it's been back to work. And a couple of bike rides, one in the pouring rain and the other up a big big hill. And tomorrow I'm going with some buddies from the Outing Club on a ride around Lake Skaneateles. Should be nice, especially if the weatherman is right that Thor will be somewhere far away.

Art in Grótta

If I were in Iceland these days I'd go to see the art exhibit in Grótta and listen to Haraldur Jónsson's wailing piece of art, also heard in the interview with the artists on The Old Steam.

Happy crappy

It turns out that Vanuatu is the happiest place on Earth, not Iceland!

In fact my beloved fatherland, for all its self-glorification, scores pretty bad on this new happiness scale, which takes into account not only perceived human happiness but also how efficiently we use Earth's resources. On that scale, we come in at nr. 54 out of 178. The good news here: There is a LOT of room for improvement.

Among the countries that are better than we at efficiently converting their natural resources into happiness and prosperity are China (!!!), Nepal, Bangladesh, Tadjikistan and Cuba. Hundreds of new, old-fashioned and extremely polluting coal power plants are being constructed every year in China. These plants produce enough soot to make cities on the West Coast of the USA worry about impending pollution. Still, China scores higher than we.

But wait, don't WE, the Icelanders, live in the most pristine and wonderful country on Earth? Aren't we saving the world from global warming by building Kárahnjúkavirkjun and damming every river, stream and creek for aluminum production and, maybe, oil refineries? Doesn't the global society see what an Enormous favour we are doing to everyone on this planet when we drown our unique sub-arctic ecosystems for an international aluminum giant??

We don't even have unemployment. We're idiots.

Claudia and I

There's one thing I can think of that Claudia Schiffer and I do not have in common: Being photogenic. Earlier this afternoon I had to have my picture taken at the DMV for my licence and trust me, it was agonizing. In the first try, I looked like a heroin addict. In the next one, I looked like someone who has just been roused from a 250 year slumber. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth pictures were all perfect expressions of the death-row inmate I would be if I ever did something seriously wrong here in this country. And the seventh one, well, it nearly made the lady behind the counter sob but it's going to be on the licence anyway.

Shuffle shuff

I'm totally happy with my iTunes shuffle-function. Now I'm finally hearing again all these fabulous songs I haven't had the imagination to play for years!

Consumer crisis

I'm in a consumer crisis: I've become eligible for a free new phone from the cell phone company because I've been such a loyal customer. However, my old phone works just fine and I don't really need a new one. What do the Danes do then??

The sleuths

Read this, and you'll see the handsomest boyfriend on Earth and his awesome team of science-detectives. Impressive, huh?

4th of July

The fireworks to celebrate the national holiday were all sent off last night. Unlike my first summer here, when I watched them twice, I didn't even bother to steal a look out the window this time. The reason is, obviously, the alarming combination of TV and the Tour. One has to celebrate the day off somehow, though, and therefore Shan and I are headed for a BBQ party at his advisor's house later in the afternoon. I'm right now enjoying the peace and quiet in my lab, trying to get some blogging done. Yep, very hardworking I am, ay.

For the last few days Shan and I have been pup- and housesitting for our friends Vern, Ryan and Brady. Those of you who know me might be aware of the fact that dogs and I traditionally don't go together very well. Either I've been mistaken about the canine population or Cadence and Presto are highly unusual specimens, but they are totally adorable. They do like to bark a lot when people come over and jump all over the visitors but once they (and I) are past that, they are incredibly smart and nice dogs. And I can't believe that researchers are wasting their time trying to scientifically prove that animals have personalities - how could anyone miss that?? Presto is definitely the more rebellious of the lot (she even wears a mohawk on her back when she's out play-fighting with her sister!) but Cadence takes full advantage of the fact that humans are more than happy to feed her and keep her happy and she'll even try to climb into my bed in the mornings when she wants her breakfast.

Another thing of notable importance in our temporary house is a bizarre thing called TV. We haven't had a set since last year (i.e., it lived in the basement for a while until Shan decided to give it away to whomever would take it. It was gone before you could count to ten) and I have to admit, I'm glad. Now when we come home we send the dogs out to do their thing and then we go do our thing - watch TV. At some point during the evening when we find ourselves starving we pick up the phone and order a pizza. Then we continue watching and wake up in the middle of the night, having salivated all over the couch. Ok, well, it's not quite that bad, but it is bad. I'm never getting a TV, that's for sure!

Another week

Well, another week has whooshed by without me so much as noticing it. Or almost not.

The vacation went very well. Your's truly and her boyfriend hiked in New Hampshire, scaled the abominable headwall of the Great Gulf, missed the peak of Mt. Washington on purpose, spent a memorable evening at the Lakes of the Clouds hut and hiked back to civilization in pouring rain down the Tuckerman Ravine, of late-spring skiing fame. After this totally wonderful hike we ambled/drove through Portsmouth and down to Boston where we spent almost a full day shopping and urbanizing ourselves a bit. Very nice indeed.

And Germany just won Argentina. A quarter of me (the Prussian quarter) is justifiably proud. However, the Prussian quarter is not particulatly proud of Jan Ullrich. Was ist eigentlich mit diesen Leuten los??

This weekend

it'll be Mount Washington for Shan and I. Yes, we are going on a (mini-)vacation in the mountains of New Hampshire!!

Merde!

I f***ed up. Big time.

Added ten minutes later:
Well, it looks like the f***-up might be fixable, at least partially.

Pink orgy

I was VERY surprised to see the Moggi front page all pink today. Then I read this post and realized why it is so. See my friend Sif second from left on the picture? I'm so proud of her and the other women and men in the Femínistafélag who are so diligent and innovative working for equal rights of men and women. Go girls, and go Moggi!

Happy 17th!

mbl.is tells me it's been rather miserable in Reykjavík today, rainy and cold. I'm sure my Icelandic friends celebrating the national day in Reykjavik will feel a lot better hearing about my balmy summer day in Ithaca; the temperature is reaching broiling point and if I weren't such an exceptionally conscientious grad student (hóst hóst) I'd be swimming in the gorge right now... right, that's where I was headed...

Helvítis bömmer er það annars að hafa 17da á laugardegi, ekkert auka frí. Algjört frat.

The bike

About three weeks ago I bought a road bike of this variety. This was done after lengthy considerations and even lengthier considerations have followed. See, it's not enough to get a bike. You need a bike computer (to keep track of your speed, distance, average speed, total distance covered etc. etc.), padded shorts (to retain the functionality of your nether regions), a bike jersey with pockets on the back (so you don't have to carry your house keys stuffed into your padded shorts), clipless pedals, shoes to go with the clipless pedals, biking gloves and even biking socks! Getting all this stuff, being an avid online shopper, has proven strenuous. Too small, too large, out of stock and not bothering to let us know, attitude from staff who think they're doing you a favor allowing you to buy their overpriced-but-available stuff from them... úff.

And in spite of all this, I find myself having covered a lot of ground on my new bike (in my sneakers and Shan´s old crash shorts) and slowly, walking up that monstrous hill on the way to school in the mornings is getting easier.

The Icelandic Library

No, not dead yet.

Some of you might know that Cornell has a large collection of Icelandic books. Browsing in the catalog, I came across this.

Citing the obvious:

In case y'all hadn't noticed, my two last posts have been all about sympathy hunting. And yet I haven't gotten any. I am deeply hurt and offended.

Attempts at well-being

Earlier today I subscribed to Yoga Journal. By this time next year I'll probably be (oh, hvurn djö heitir þetta...)... levitating my way around town.

The cold

I'm at home nursing a cold the second day in a row. It's really beyond me why I get the cold so often. This one started on Tuesday night when I could literally feel my chest getting constricted, from one second to the next. I was walking across the living room floor.

Anyway, my Throat Coat tea is brewing on the desk next to me and I'm all bundled up in woolen sweaters, ski socks, scarfs and even my favorite elf hat. Having a cold isn't all bad, it's an excuse to wear your favorite winter hat in the middle of the summer.

Otherwise, nothing much is new. I'm listening to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole (I've been practicing for a week now and I still can't get his last name into my long-term memory) and Nick Cave, solving sudokus and generally wasting time. Shame on me.

Til lykke med dagen!

Today is the Norwegian National Day. Unfortunately I always missed the celebrations in Longyearbyen.

Dad and Sigga came and went and we miss them. We had a great time and even took them to the Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse. We also had the lamb that they brought with them... it was incredibly delicious. So are the pepper-sweets they brought. And I'm currently reading "Draumalandið" and like it a lot. The next visitor, my dear mother, will be here shortly and I'm already planning activities for us. Having visitors is such a fabulous way to spend time! Consider yourself welcome.

The weekend was spent in Delaware visiting Shan's mother. As you remember, her apartment suffered smoke damage recently when another apartment in her building caught fire. They're cleaning the mess now and it seems Charlotte got incredibly lucky, with very little damage that thorough cleaning can't fix. That's so great.

Since last post I have also been notified that I got, fortunately, one of the five grants I had applied for to do fieldwork in the Philippines for my thesis research next winter. My joy over the news was augmented by the fact that I got the largest grant I applied for and I got more money than I asked for! Spennó spennó and I'm going to the Philippines for 3-4 weeks in January. Yay!

In the meantime, I have to process my samples from Hawaii. Currently I'm rigging a vacuum system in a lab on the other side of campus... and nothing works! That's of course not strictly true but I'm having some persistent problems that I haven't been able to work around yet. Annoying. But, what else is new??

I have also been forewarned that I might find myself being the only grad student physically present in my lab next winter. Now that sounds just awful.

Some history and a visit

My dad and Sigga are coming for a visit today. I'm looking forward to seeing them so much.

Last night Shan and I watched The Fog of War. A most interesting movie and history lesson.

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*