It’s been a torturous couple of weeks, with exam-making and then exam-grading, but I’M DONE! YAY! (Sadly, I’m only DONE for another month before I’ll be hit with a couple of make-up exams for those that failed the initial finals. I’m in denial until June begins. But by mid-June, I should be REALLY REALLY DONE!)Read more
Today this posting appeared on the government job-board (sorry, Icelandic only as far as I can tell). Yes, it is my current job. Which I have sort of resigned from – ‘sort of’ because I’m officially taking a year-long leave of absence for now because they’d (almost certainly) like me back if I change myRead more
I hate making exams. I hate making exams. I hate making exams. I hate making exams. … Yes, grraoooaaarrrgh, it’s Exam Season. Again. I’ve retreated to working from home because I can’t risk running into students while I’m making an exam because I’d just tell them all about it. I can’t lie. But that stillRead more
Jóhanna (Nökkvi’s fiancée, aka my soon-to-be sister-in-law) is graduating from the Icelandic Academy of the Arts this spring. To show off their students’ works, the school puts on a large graduation show at the Reykjavik Art Museum, which opened today. More/bigger images here.
Jóhanna by her very large painting titled "Ég geri hvað sem er" or "I do anything".
Only in Iceland? Here Jóhanna and her parents are with the First Lady of Iceland, Ms. Dorrit Moussaieff!
On my second day in Copenhagen I woke up at 8am (grrr… only 6 hours of sleep) and went to meet the good people of NORDUnet as well as the other representatives from the five Nordic countries to help plan this year’s conference. After the meeting ended that day, I headed back to my hotel for 20 minutes of horizontal time, before heading back out again to meet the planning committee at a fancy restaurant where we had a great dinner. On my way to the dinner I happened to walk through a portion of Kastellet, which was very pretty. Here are all the pictures, a selection of which is below.
At the Central Train Station at 09:30. I really liked the achways, but had a hard time getting a good picture of them.
As I’m typing this, I’m sitting in the Copenhagen airport (Kastrup), looking at the Icelandair-plane I’m about to board, and I figure I have some 15 minutes to kill before they start boarding. So here goes: My first evening in Copenhagen (click the link for all the images, I’ll just post a few below).
The bed in my tiny, yet somewhat swanky/modern room.
I’m in Denmark! Yup, I’m on a two-night worktrip to Denmark, to participate in organizing a conference this fall about a subject I know rather little about. But I probably know more than Regular-Joe, and am therefore eligible to be ‘the Icelandic representative’ apparently. So far the trip has been mostly uneventful. The biggest dramaRead more
One of the perks of having a state-sanctioned religion is that Easter-time comes with lots of holidays: Thursday, Friday and Monday surrounding Easter are all public holidays, and most schools take a week off or more. We used the opportunity to visit Kata and Jói up north, just like last year (see this, this, this and this for a refresher) for a change of scenery, and the chance to spend some time with good friends.
This year we mostly lounged around. The kids were mostly self-sufficient, we visited the next-door swimming pool a couple of times, visited a farm owned by Kata’s cousin, ate too much, and played board-games in the evenings. The most energy-sucking ‘activity’ was me going out with Kata and her neighbors for two ‘couch-to-5k‘ walking/jogging sessions (weeks 2 and 3) after which my legs reminded me why I avoid running (Helloooo Shin-Splints!).
All in all we had a lovely time, and hope to visit them again this summer, when the area is a bit greener. 🙂
Three road-warriors during a walking-bit in very bright vests because that road is a 'main-road'.
The kids by the main-house at the farm. Behind them the fjord stretches inland.
These lethargic pictures from last week are making me lethargic just looking at them so here is some happier fare! Bjarki finally went to daycare today after finally having a full fever-free day yesterday, after five days of fever-episodes. What is it with our kids and waking up with little to no fever, only toRead more
This past week, all of us but Finnur have fallen ill. Anna took the first shift, waking up warm on Monday, and then spending ALL of Tuesday sleeping (‘Can I go on the computer?’, ‘Yes’, ‘zzzzzz….’) before being mostly herself again on Wednesday. As she was getting better, I succumbed, and spent Wednesday afternoon untilRead more