Yesterday I spent digitizing maps. That included pushing the same mouse button 11310 times while moving it with utter precision over many twisted contour lines (ehemm... and pestering my pre Windows-generation colleagues for help. File names with no more than 8 letters?? MS-DOS? What?!?!) While doing so, I revisited a lot of dusty CD's found in my CD bag, f.ex. Suede´s Coming Up and the Cardigans´ Trampolene. Nick Cave´s latest proved too depressing for this work, I have to admit.

And now the map is all'a'digitized. Oooohhh, wonder what it will turn out like!!

This could be fun!

Finished Vargas Llosa´s book "The Storyteller" when waking up today. What a brilliant piece of litterature.

At last fixed the link to life in the freezer. Look at those seal pups, and those big eyes they sport!

Now I´m blogging under strict orders from Stína. I´m at her place, just entered looking like the abominable snowman from the sleet and driving snow outside. *sob*, this weather sucks from the geological perspective.

Went to bed at 10 p.m. last night, completely dead. My friend Linda Rós was very shocked. "Hey, Herdís, how can you complain about your boyfried status if you don´t ever go out?!?!" Well, my state last night wouldn´t have attracted much positive attention from any male anyway, I told her. "Ok," she replied and reluctantly allowed me to go to bed. And gee am I glad I did. Slept 12 hours straight, and as if that wasn´t enough I added four more. Beautiful.

Have been having crazy dreams lately. It´s all been about murders and perils and immoral people. Maybe I should start sleeping more and making movie scripts from my dreams. Hmmm... might make me a millionaire :)

Tuesday´s night´s dream was about this guy who was trying to kill me with a box of Cheerios. I was on my way to take the GRE stand-by and then he went for me. I narrowly escaped from him and made it to the test center. He´d made it there before me and taken the last space available, so I wasn´t to be admitted. I freaked, screaming at the people there that he was a crook and had tried to kill me etc. They just shrugged, asking what all the fuss was about; saying that since I still was alive I could just shut up. Although the dream was pretty coherent it occasionally was interrupted by scenes from winterland; snowcovered wilderness and frozen-over rivers I had to cross.

The long sleep last night was eventful as well. This time the story was about a guy who´d tried to kill his wife. She was very oppressed , so in the dream I wondered whether she´d been subject to domestic violence for long. Anyway, the bastard got a day off from prison and went for a visit to another bastard friend of his to watch some video. The prison guards just couldn´t care less about keeping an eye on him, so before you could count to ten the would-be-killer had put on a bullet-proof vest and ran for his freedom. The guards fired after him but the bullets had no effect, and being too lazy to chase him on their car they just resumed the movie-watching. Sick mofos!! Once again finding myself screaming at the injustice and corruption of this world, I demanded of them they´d go chasing him, but they just laughed at me, saying that reopening the case would cost 300 million kronur. "So what," I shouted at them, "is this woman´s life not worth more than that?? What if he kills her, simply because those 300 million kronur for reopening his case couldn´t be paid!!" Going on like this, the dream dissolved.

Now do I have a talent for dreams or what??

Just got an e-mail from my scooter-guide boss in Svalbard. They won´t hire me for next spring because some other company will be running their tours. Shit. What shall I do then? When not even filthy rich Norway can offer me a job?

Anyone got an idea about how to get positive replies to more job applications? All hints will be appreciated.

Am a great fan of the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, especially after I figured my Spanish was quite good enough to read him in the original language (and after seeing how terribly handsome he is ;).

While I was travelling in S-America last winter I fought my way through ´Pantaleón y las visitadoras´ (available in Icelandic under the title "Pantaljón og sérþjónustan") and now I´m working my way through a book called ´El hablador´ (translates as ´The Storyteller´). It tells two stories at the same time; that of a Peruvian writer who stumbles across an exhibition of pictures of an Amazonian tribe in a gallery in Florence, and that of the same nomad tribe in the Amazon jungle, as told by their storyteller. I haven´t finished yet but it´s a fairly transparent plot; however the plot is really not the issue for me in this book but rather the magical descriptions of the Indians and their world view. Highly recommended!!

A turbo day!

Maður er manns gaman, says an old Icelandic proverb. I experienced a living proof of that today.

At work, I spend a lot of time outdoors, all alone, investigating my mountain just outside of town. I really like it and am starting to know every nook and cranny there. However, disciplined scientific work sometimes gives way, for a while, to musings about the ravens flying around, or a pretty flower in fading autumn colors, or the simple beauty of the rocks and the surroundings. When the wind is blowing really hard it´s also nice to bundle up on the leeside of a boulder somewhere and listen to the wailing concert of the high-voltage electricity lines running through the land. I´ve found weathered bones high up in the mountain, on a rock ledge so exposed that an alert and agile animal such as the mink or the arctic fox shouldn´t be there in the first place, let alone a significantly less agile creature such as me . Did they fall to their death? Or did they starve? (And how on Earth will I ever get away?!?) You see, when you look closely there are so many things to wonder at and about out there off the beaten, asphalted track.

Today was different, let me tell you. A girl from the U.S. accompanied me today; she´s here for a year studying Katla volcano and wanted to get out of town. She agreed to become my secretary for a day, taking care of the notebook. She also operated the altimeter, and understood all my ramblings and muttering and soliloquizing. Together we practically ran up the mountain, did one major log and two minor ones, took samples (so finally my office looks like there´s a geologist here, with rocks all over!) and, in general, just "rúlluðum þessu upp", as you say in good Icelandic. I´ve never done so much in just one day myself! I could use company like this every day.

Do I hear anyone volunteering??

You know I live alone, don´t you all?

A few weeks ago I bought a fern. I used to have parekeets (two different ones, at different times) but they both flew out the window. I´ve taken that as a hint that I shouldn´t get myself another one. Instead, I chose a plant that won´t go anywhere. It´s a beautiful fern, lush and big, and it´s surviving. That´s more than any fern I´ve had so far has done.

Every late afternoon/evening when I come home I greet my fern. "Hi, fernie, how´s it going?!" I ask. And my beautiful fern rests upon the livingroom table, not really knowing what to do about this attention.

I dread the day it eventually will answer me.

Hoho, life is beautiful again!!

Nr. 1: The terrible GRE is over, and I think I did quite ok. The analytical writing saw me in my element (in spite of the diarr?ea.. hoho, lucky me they didn´t check the spelling of this!!), the other parts were ok. At least I didn´t forget - FORGET for crying out loud - to mark the answer to ten - TEN - questions on the answer sheet as one girl did.

Nr. 2: I finally have a job. It´s a temporary one, and a very wet one for the time being, but it´s a job and I´m using my brain (well, trying to anyway, things are a bit mushy in there after years of vacation) and meeting other people on a daily basis - wonderful. Was beginning to feel myself sinking into the chasms of dark depressive moods, but am very sure it´ll be much better now.

Now the snow will just have to stay away for a while. Two more weeks, please. And I´ll put up with the rain if only the clouds promise to lift a bit. Went out for the first field day today; it started in this nice drizzling rain and good views of the mountain and ended with me fighting my way to the car in nearly horizontal rain, wet to the bone, cursing, hardly seeing the mountainside even as I was almost breaking my nose on it (some of my friends and acquaintances have noticed in me a slight tendency to exaggerate...). Fortunately saw a beautiful slump structure through the fog and driving rain and instantly got in a better mood. You know, nothing makes a geologist´s day like the sight of (to me, at least) pretty sedimentary structures and post-sedimentary deformation. And my absolute favorite? Anti-dunes. I just HAVE to find them somewhere!!

If you have problems understanding this jargon, try Erna´s site. Her´s will be further complicated for some of you by the fact that it´s all in Icelandic. I think it´s cute, even if I haven´t the faintest idea what she´s talking about.

What can I say? Tomorrow I was planning to take the GRE, and then I hear that the exam papers haven´t arrived yet so the test will be given next Saturday. What is wrong at ETS? Can´t these people figure out when to send a load of papers away from their office so that they´ll arrive at their destination in time? It´s not as if the test date was decided yesterday. These people want you to sign up for a test many months in advance, then they don´t send the registration papers to Iceland so everyone has to count on their luck and take the test stand-by, then the day before the scheduled test day ETS finally announces that it will be postponed by a week. 'Call me next Friday, though, just to make sure the test papers have indeed arrived', the woman at the test center adviced me just 10 minutes ago. Why on earth did ETS switch from computer-based tests here to these paper-based ones, if this is the kind of mess it brings with it?

Won´t complain too much, though, a week more to prepare is certainly ok with me ;)

Words are very much a part of my life these days, as I prepare for the GRE general test. Phlegmatic, quail, mollify, extirpaticatepuhdisnurfindurf... ?!?!?

The loveliest words, though, that I´ve come across in days I found on the Nature homepage: perovskite, magnesiowüstite, ringwoodite. Nearly all mineral names end with -ite, yet no mineral is called 'trite'... because noone is!

This brings back to me a fond memory of flat-sharing with my friend Erna during university. Both of us were quite occupied with being the curious science student and we´d (especially Erna, though, since she was doing all the chemistry) read the description of contents on absolutely everything bought to the home. This involved nail enamel-glasses, of course, and on my Star Gazer silver nailpolish we read that clintonite was one of the ingredients. I always thought Clinton was kinda cute, so I found it very appropriate that he should bear the name of a mica (glimmer!!) mineral ;)

Recommended reading for those of you comfortable with the German language (there are also pics there, so German knowledge is absolutely NOT indispensable for successful viewing): Alex, and her brand-new daughter Líney Inga. A great blogger at an early age!

Gave a bloody brilliant speech (well, at least I think so!) at the presentation course this morning. My topic: The awfulness of the Icelandic school system as it produces individuals totally devoid of critical thinking and feeling of social responsibility. Og hana nú! The inspiration came from a talk with my 15 year-old sister who´s doing last year of elementary school, as she told me of a boy in her class who was going to write an essay on the elections for the City Council last spring. Their teacher forbade him to write any critique whatsoever in the essay; 'you´ll learn that in high school'.

In the absence of any training of their critical thinking, it´s also kinda sad to hear that in the courses where they are taught about their rights in society, their duties are totally neglected. 'Duties?', my sis asked. 'What´s that?' Well, you know, trivial things such as paying your taxes, voting...

Coming to think of it, the first time I ever experienced a teacher asking his class to write a critical review of anything was in an undergraduate course in anthropology. That´s university, mind you. Until then, we´re not expected, in some cases not even allowed, to think; we´re expected to be nice and quiet and accept everything the omniscient teacher has to tell as the holy truth. I was naive enough to believe these days were long past.

Another thing that amazes me is something I heard on the evening news on the radio tonight: More than 80% of parents in Reykjavík are happy with the education their children receive at school.

Stína and I are preparing a great big chicken party tonight. They have a chicken, I have a chicken, so why not make these chicken meet and be merry?? It will be a wonderful meal, as long as they don´t make me eat the custard for desert.

The two of us spent Friday evening watching the Norwegian masterpiece 'Elling' on video. Ohhh, I love it. One of those movies that warms you up on the inside, while all the remarks are simply so funny you don´t have time enough to laugh between them.

The helicopter ride early on Friday morning was awesome, too. The pilot felt we needed a bit of waking up and showed us some fancy moves, like flying at (what appeared to us) 10cm from the ground, and dipping the helicopter 90 degrees to one side so I was lying on the window! We woke up, needless to say. Being picked up by car at the end of the day felt unusually mundane after this experience.

Am going to take the chicken to Stína´s, where it will be dissected and transformed into a delicious meal, and then back home to finish my three-minute speech I have to give tomorrow at the presentation and public speaking course I´m doing. Better do well on that!!

I got the best job on earth.

Was "called out", almost in an emergency, to help out at the University with geophysical measurements, since someone got sick (this someone is actually Kirsty, a girl I know, and I´m really sad that it is under such unfortunate circumstances that I get to do this job). Disa and I drive out of town every morning, put the devices into the rucksacks and trott off. Walk 500 m (the first day in really rough lava clad with really thick and soft moss), take the packs off and measure. How hard does the earth pull here? As soon as we´ve found out, we take off again. Another 500m. What hard life!! Especially with not a could in the sky; the only occupational hazard is sunburn.

Tomorrow we´re going way off into the lava expanses of Reykjanesskagi. A helicopter will take us there. Feel free to envy us as much as you like. Anyone said geology was the wrong profession??? It may be hard to find work, but when you find it chances are it´s worth the search!!

So, what´s the catch? It´s as temporary as jobs get, just two more days.

Oyoyoy, what an autumn day. My brand new haircut blown to pieces and my butt (of all places!!) wet from walking in the horizontal rain.

It was a short shower, as my dad´s wife said. The jeep trip became, in my case, only 2 days instead of 8. Woke up on the 2nd day in beautiful Landmannalaugar with a mind-blowing headache that solemnly refused to surrender to any painkiller known to man. Driving on the bumpy, winding roads of Sprengisandur didn´t help a lot. Close to the threatened Þjórsárver (hydropower, what else can Icelandic politicians think of anyway??) we stopped to look at the view but I ended up puking behind a stone. Wonderful. Won´t go into the graphic details but this odd and uncomfy behavior was with me for the rest of the day, even the hut we stayed in at Myvatn got a dignified greeting by me. After all of this I wasn´t really looking forward to driving a few hundred more bumpy and winding kilometers in the highlands so I decided to call it a day and hitched back to Reykjavík on Monday. Kverkfjöll and Askja will have to wait for my return a bit longer :(

When this winter settles in, I can´t help thinking of leaving the country. A friend´s in Thailand, just chillin´. Aaahhh...

Am I blonde??

Was going to call my friend Stína. So I picked up the phone at my dad´s Internet Café and dialed a number. Instantly my own cell phone starts to ring. 'Oh, this must be Stína' I thought and took my cell out of my pocket. The screen read 'Dad´s place'. 'How weird, I thought, they're not in'. Answered anyway, holding one phone to each of my innocent little ears: 'Hello?' and thought 'Gee, what an echo!!' Finally realizing it was myself calling myself and talking to myself, in both ears, I started screaming with laughter. Called Stína, in the right number, still howling with laughter, and explained to her what a blonde I was being. She asked me if I was drunk. Should I go and see a doctor about this??!?

Guess this is only a logical consequence of having tried to use my cell phone as a mouse so often. I´ve never tried to use the remote control as a phone, though.

Had a splendid dinner last night at Iðnó, down by the lake. No romance, though... just my bosses being nice. Ok, I´ve been moaning about not having any work and still I don´t really have any. At least none that you put proudly on your grad school application to show how dedicated you´ve been to geology... "selling books over the phone.. the new Icelandic-Icelandic dictionary and Snorri Sturluson complete" Terribly relevant to geology, right?

Anyway, if you want either of those books I can get you it with a HUGE discount ;) If you want both, you´ll get a surprise!

Do I suck? Never mind, since I am leaving town tomorrow and won´t be back for the next week. You see, at the demonstrations at Austurvöllur last Tuesday I met my long-time buddy Kjartan (he´s Bollason and thus the namesake of one of the most dramatic heroes of the Iceland sagas...) (although I had some trouble understanding, as a kid, why anyone would be called Cup (i.e. Bolli - Bolli´s son will have Bollason as a last name, according to our old name traditions)) and he told me about the jeep trip he´s going on with an American pal of his. I must have gone green in the face with envy or something since Kjartan asks if maybe I would like to join them. Hey, wow, of course!! I'll lose some money by not showing up at work for a week... but, what the heck. Let me explain:

In my mind Iceland has in a way turned into some sort of Gulag, and I don´t really feel well here because of this. Life here is to a large degree centered around making money, keeping up with the Jones´s, you have to work hard to be something and a person´s value is too often measured in the amount of money he or she makes. Very twisted, I know. I tend to let this mentality influence me a lot when I´m here and every summer since 1996 I´ve spent working as a psychopath, making money and not thinking about anything else. Not that it has made me rich, but I have lost out on a few things, like going abroad with friends, going camping and hiking, visiting the place my granny was raised in Hornstrandir, by now deserted and turned into a nature reserve... see what I´m getting at? So I thought, why the hell skip this opportunity to go to the highlands for some few krónur?!?! I mean, I spend a lot of money on going to Chile and Bolivia to go hiking there and on jeep tours...

Am looking forward to it.

Finally made it! Attended the demonstrations at Austurvöllur in the early afternoon and was lucky enough to get an aluminum-paper helmet from this girl who had to go to classes and thus couldn´t attend the latter half of the demonstrations. I´ve skipped school for less... Anyway, borrowed a box of skyr (the most Icelandic thing there is, soft cheese/yoghurt thing...) from a friend and sang patriotic songs together with all the rest, while the MP´s hurried from the church into the Parliament building, closing the doors quickly after them. Then we shouted a bit and all the cops looked kinda ridiculous, facing this very peaceful crowd. It was so invigorating!!! Would have liked to see a lot more people though.