Emerging from survival mode…

The past two weeks have been mad, crazy, nuts, with heaps of fun, frustration and stress sprinkled in between.   But  finally, things have calmed down enough that I have enough mental reserves to resume blogging, which must be a good sign!

So, what happened?  Well, the final wasn’t an abysmal failure, but I heard that it was very long and difficult.  Perhaps a bit soul-crushing even, but I believe/hope the students are young and resilient enough that they won’t be too scarred.   Also, as I mentioned before, I had included two difficult ‘nuggets’, which indeed proved to be very very difficult – so difficult in fact that they exposed a matter I can’t comment on in public but has been the source of much stress and frustration, and is not over yet.

Anyway, back to the story of the past two weeks.  

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Pictures from California

Here are some pictures from my week-long trip to California.

Friday 10. December 2010: While in the Keflavik airport in Iceland, Icelandair stewardesses all of a sudden started singing holiday songs in the main departure hall. Later on they moved to the more crowded (badly designed) US departure lounge. It was most definitely stress-reducing. It's hard to be in a bad mood when people are singing lovely songs!

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Shouldn’t I be more frantic now?

I’m traveling to California on Friday, and will be returning the Friday thereafter, leaving Finnur (aka The Hero) in charge of house and kids.   I have a TON of stuff I need to get done before the week is over (grade a final, assemble a poster for a conference, choose a book for nextRead more

Fannar Hrafn Pétursson

Today, Pétur and Signý christened their 2 month old boy Fannar Hrafn Pétursson (which kind of translates to Snowy Raven Son of Peter).  It was a beautiful frosty day, and we all had a great time.  I took (too) many photos, although sadly a lot of them are quite blurred since my camera, flash andRead more

Aaaaalmost there!

It’s December!!  Yikes!!  But also Yay because teaching for this semester is all but over.  My last ‘lecture’ was on Monday (it was an unprepared review) and that’s also when I gave the last homeworks back.  This week I need to write a final for December 7th, and then a sick-test for December 20th orRead more

The opinions of the assembly

Iceland just held a vote for a citizen assembly that is meant to draft a new constitution. The old constitution is a bit outdated and not clear on many things. It was adopted in 1944 mostly by taking the Danish constitution and replacing the word ‘king’ with ‘president’, since Iceland doesn’t have a monarchy. It has only been amended 7 times in the last 60 years and numerous attempts (by the political forces) at a wholesale revision have failed. Hence the citizen assembly.

Curious as ever I used the opinions listed by the candidates (on dv.is) to figure out the majority opinion of this newly elected assembly. 25 members were elected, of which 2 (8%) did not respond to any of the questions in the survey below. But here are the results, for those interested…

Hopefully my translations of the questions didn’t change their meaning. Also, if you spot data errors, let me know and I’ll fix them promptly. The raw data (for error checking purposes) is here.

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Thanksgiving

While we lived in California, we met quite a few Icelanders, many of whom became good friends of ours.  As it happens, many of the Icelanders we got to know in California moved back to Iceland before we did.  Needless to say, it’s been a lot of fun re-connecting with our old CA-friends. 🙂

Back in California, there was a ‘core’ group of Icelandic families that often met up, and, for example, went camping together.  This group has stayed in touch in Iceland, and we were thrilled to be invited to a thanksgiving potluck this past weekend at Lára’s and Halldór’s place the Saturday after the official US Thanksgiving.

We took on bringing the gravy (“brown sauce”, Finnur’s speciality) and waldorf (apple/walnut/celery/grape) salad (Hrefna likes chopping things!).  Unfortunately, Finnur apparently got some random energy-zapping bug that Saturday, so by noon-time he barely had energy to get the gravy going before collapsing into bed for an hour.  He did manage to finish the huge pot of gravy, but stayed behind while I took the kids to the party.

A salad in the pre-tossing stage next to an aperitif.

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Woooosh!

That’s the sound that time makes these days.  I blink, and it’s all of a sudden well past mid-November!  Which is good because that means teaching is almost over and sanity may return.  Maybe.  There’s always next semester to fret over, but I’m trying to remain nonchalant.

The biggest annoyingly-drawn-out-event of the past couple of weeks (during which there has been no blogging) has been the presence of the Incredible Lurking Stomach Bug of Doom.  Anna was the first to go on 4 November, Bjarki got it on 9 November and Finnur on 15 November.  I sit here feeling not entirely well, but keep hoping that I’ll escape with nothing more than this burpy tiredness that’s been pestering me since last night.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

In between the mountains of hurl-related laundry, and us trying to juggle who minds the sick kid when, stuff’s been relatively quiet.  The biggest event was Finnur giving a talk at the dedication of a new very very fancy building of Reykjavik University, of which he is a graduate.  He was called on as an alumni to give a short speech, and apparently it went well (I was minding the kids at his parents’ place).

11 November: The backside of the very new, very fancy University of Reykjavik building.

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Jumping kids

A few old boxes of clothes from my mom happened to get intermingled among our boxes that we stored for 10 years here in Iceland. Out of the boxes came a few old items of mine, many of which got passed straight down to Anna. This morning she put one of my old items on,Read more

Páll Óskar and Sinfó

I am extremely fortunate, in that I have a good friend who takes it upon herself to organize fun outings for her girl-friends, which is awesome on so many levels!  About a month ago she sent out a notice that a fun concert was on the horizon, featuring Páll Óskar, who is one of the most beloved singers of Iceland, and the Icelandic Symphonic Orchestra (plus a four-piece regular band).  She was kind/wily/persistent/quick enough to call and book tickets for us as soon as they began selling them, because the two shows (later four) sold out in a couple of hours.

Tonight was the night, and I walked over to the concert hall to meet them (5 mins walking).  Right from the get-go it was obvious we were in for a treat, and we all walked out with smiles pasted on our faces.  I must admit that Páll Óskar turns out to be a much better singer than I’d ever imagined (I haven’t really seen him perform live before, at least not in this capacity).  He isn’t a fancy singer but he’s got a direct link between his heart and his lovely voice.  He also happens to be flaming gay and boy oh boy did he have fun with his costumes! 🙂

We sat in the third and fourth rows from the stage! This is from before it all started.

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