thought i would drop a line, since i am feeling like a real missing persons case. forgive the lack of capitalization and not using contractions. i know i speak formally, but this is a case of not being used to a norwegian keyboard. just wanted to say ``heyas` to all the people who were shouting out to me via lj and email. i think about a lot of people back home when i come across random things and am filling my brain with mental notes to write to them about this and that here and there. travelling lots and unreliable internet connection makes it difficult. i miss you guys.

i am on a small norwegian farm, staying with Paul\s family (birkeland, birkreim) on the west coast. We are an 8-hour train ride away from oslo and about an hour away from Stavanger. Don\t want to get into the nitty gritties, because i am working on throwing some pictures and some captions on a new blog site that I plan on starting - only problem is that i canæt connect to the internet on my laptop here (trust me, i tried). I wont go on about the farm and oslo and will let pictures do most of it, but its been crazy amazing. I went rutabaga cutting and collecting on the first day, then we went to the neighbouring valleys to peddle them to other farmers.

highlights:
*currywurst in germany - we are going to get us more of that in berlin and munchen
*'bombay crushed' a ridiculously expensive cocktail that includes bombay saffire, fresh kumquats and LOTS of brown sugar
*the sachsenhaussen sidewalk sale - there were no particular bargains, we just liked the name - er, that we made up. We thought we would give the old city in frankfurt some n. american charm
*discovering that we were accidentally issued first class train passes
*Mikkel, Kari and Oslo
*Moulte - 'cloudberries' this special berry has really captured the hearts of norwegians, i find this love affair more interesting than the fruit itself.
*mushroom hunting outside of oslo
*the farm: Ole, Tora and Bjorn: rutabaga field work: valley hopping and learning about families that have stayed on farms for generations dating back to 1400s
*a gift of a norwegian 'love' mitten. you really have to see it to understand it...actually it will need some explanation, because i didnt understand it was first presented to me. but all will love it.

stinkers:
how expensive everything in norway is. we were bleeding norwegian kroners out of our noses. everything on the farm is free though.

okay, i have already gone on and on despite saying that i wouldnt. can someone out there teach me to resize photos so that they are blog-friendly? can i resize in iphoto or do do it in photoshop?

hi hi <- that is 'bye' here.

p and I are on the rocks. I know what I want now, and that's a future and a present with P. Problem is, he's still in the same place we were in right (and I mean 24 hours before) before my mom died. that place is kind of like a no-man's land. An "I love you and want to have a family/future with you, but something's not working now, so let's take a break and find each other when we're ready again" place.

for me, I don't think it's possible. I'm at a point in my life where I just need to move forward. Everything is in place for me to do that - I'm moving in with my sister and possible kenny, I'm doing new things at work etc. I don't think that I can entertain the hope of someday reuniting with P and we just pick up where we left off and go from there. He knows how I feel, and I totally understand how he feels (I was there too) so now it's just a matter of really making a push through this tough patch OR just making an effort to seriously get over each other and move on. We're in try phase and I think I want to plan a mini trip away (either to a B&B or a weekend in Vegas).

on another note - stressball city dealing with my dad and sister about moving out. My dad's not used to the kind of rent they ask for in the city (mind you, he's used to living in a basement suite in N. burnaby) - I was stressing location as a huge importance for me and my sister (no cars). He said there's a place at Cambie and 60th asking for $1500 (a 3-bedroom), and that he'll get us a car. Uh, thanks but no thanks - what part of "location is important to me" don't you understand?! This place that we're going for is prime (location wise) and it's affordable for the 3 of us...only my sister has to live in a box. I really left the decision up to her, since she's getting the short-end of the stick. She decided to go with it - so we're meeting the landlord today at 5:30.

I just hope it all works out.

Soo...I decided to take matters into my own hands a few days ago, by calling an impromptu meeting with my manager. I wanted to discuss get some feedback and discuss goals...and really, I wanted to ask for more money. the meeting went well, and my manager was all for me getting paid so we were talking about ways that we could sell it to the partners. During our discussion, she came up with the idea for me to take on this PR role that she would be recruiting for. This is in addition to parts of my job (the parts that I like) - so before i know it, she pulls the HR manager into our meeting to see what she thinks. She thinks it's a go, and agrees that we'd have to convince the partners. We all left the meeting feeling pretty excited, but still unsure of how things would unfold. I mean, the 3 of us could only do and hope for so much, ultimately it wasn't our decision.

this was thursday.

This afternoon, my boss comes to me and says that she wants to talk to me about what we had talked about. She sat me down and gave me a revised job description and says that it was a "go"! She said the partners thought it was a great idea and that she could get me most of the money I wanted, but at 6 months in the role, I would be able to get a substantial raise. wahoo!

I feel really great! This was dream job from the start because I knew that it was a place that would let me grow...and getting a promotion after 6 months ain't too shabby. Guess all I had to do was ask.

there's one down-side to it all. My boss wants me to move to a new desk - one next to her...a biggger one, with a better view. She says it will be a nice symbolic move. Most of it's good, except for the fact that I don't want others in my department feeling "wierd" about it. I guess I'm the only one who feels wierd, because I've gotten to become close to KG at work, and we're buds...only we were buds on a semi-same level, and this move would make it a little different. I think moving desks makes it wierder than the actual change in title and description. I'm sure KG is happy for me, but you never know with these things.

wahoo!

Long story short - I've been hitting some major lows. Seriously, I have never felt so stressed out and out of control in my life. I was having major boy issues with my boy and things are currently on the mend. It's more just me being super-sensitive and needy, and him not knowing how to deal with this new me, we were always so "mature" and even-keel about these things.

Did I mention that I'm probably going to be moving again? My dad wants me and my little sis to move in while he moves to Calgary and tries to...I guess just try something else. I'm not sure what to make of this (moving in with little sis), but I'm sure I'll have lots to bitch and complain about when the time comes. My dad is wanting us to move into a condo complex run by a buddhist organization, with preference for residents 55 and older. WHAT!? I can't believe he even voiced it to me as if it was a consideration.

work is an emotional rollercoaster because there is so much to do and so little time to do it. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing my job properly, but then at other times, I've got a partner emailing me (cc's my boss and other partners) about what a fantastic job I'm doing. Isn't it like school, where you think you're doing a crap job on a paper and it comes back with an A and glowing reviews. I jsut don't get life sometime - but I'll take the "A"s.

this may come as a little premature - but I jsut realized I'm not a kid anymore. Everyone say it with me, "I'm not a kid anymore" (maybe with the exception of baaaams, since she's still in school). I'm a real growed up person with growed up feelings and growed up responsibilities and growed up problems. As depressing as this sounds, I just feel like I have very little to look forward to - I have so little to look forward to that I go into work early and stay late...and I don't even whine about it!

okay, I lie, because I do look forward to something - although work related. I will leave the initials GK. A project manager from a construction company that's in charge of a large project for us. I've had the pleasure of working with him for the mother of all proposals. Two words - SILVER FOX. I would say he's in his late 30s...and dreamy like the weathered, Gaelic type tend to be with the subtlest lilt of an accent. *sigh. I slipped him my number over email - with a casual, "if you have problems with the ftp site, you can reach me this weekend at:..." He didn't have any problems with the ftp site, but he did have wedding ring. He's kind of square...in a responsible, project conscious kind of way, which makes me swoon even more. I love squares and I love geeks. *sigh. I'm not so growed up after all.

So I went down to the library, thinking that I could spend some time reading and working on my writing assignment and it was closed! I came home instead...in the rain wondering how I should waste my time.

I'm taking Paul to the hockey game tonight - I'm not a huge fan, but I won a draw for tickets for tonight's game. The tickets are much excellent (I've been told). Row 1. It doesn't get much more excellent than that. Okay, so I'm bragging right now.

I'm pretty psyched. Paul has no idea what we're doing...and he likes hockey so it'll be a grand ol' time. He's out with some friends right now and I'm eating a bun my grandma made. My dad came to drop off some food for me - since I wasn't home, he left it in my bbq on the deck. That's our secret food exchange place. He leaves food for me, and I leave empty tupperware containers. It's kind of fun opening up the lid of my bbq to see what food would appear next.

All is well and no complaints. My ass is broke these days because of my shopping habit - so I've got to curb that soon, especially with Christmas coming up. thank god for fulltime work. work's going great and I can't wait for my review, this happens in december (3 months from when I start). This is where I'm going to demand the big bucks or threaten to walk. Yeah right. I do feel like they need to pay me more...and I've got a feeling they feel the same way. The question is how much more? since I'm new, I probably won't be demanding too much...but I do want them to know that I work hard and feel that the quality of my work is good...therefore my salary should reflect that.

Kristy - a friend at work got engaged! I would say that I'm closest to her and I'm so happy for her! Seriously, hearing about her engagement really made my day. Paul and I always talk about how we don't need to get married blah blah blah, but when I think about it, I would be so happy if he asked me to marry him! This is a ways away and there are still things that we have to work through, but I guess I would like to be married after all.

It's nice falling into a new rhythm and routine. Coming home to Paul (and only paul) is getting normal, not living at the girls's house is getting normal, amber being in new york is getting normal, mike burns back in town is getting normal and work is geting normal. I think I'll launch into some new things in january. I'll decide in the next month or so.

so I've spent the last 2 nights alone at my house. I thought I'd be kind of creeped out, but it's not so bad. I just spent the last hour trying to figure out why my dishwasher won't work. It still doesn't and I went online to see what's up. It's a long story, but it seems like lots of people have problems with this model.

I had loaded up the dishwasher (since it's a big one) and now I can't wash them. I decided to wash them by hand. I HATE dishes. All I want is for the dishwasher to be fixed, so that I don'thave to do them. But it looks like I'm (Paul's) going to have to do dishes for the next little while.

work has been great. Week 1 down and I'm excited to start week 2 and 3 and 4...I can get gushy about work. I just feel like I understand the place, what they do and how I (will eventually) fit in there and I'm excited about all that. It IS only week one, I'm sure you'll hear all about the crappy stuff that may go down in the future.

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get to work...getting on the skytrain at main and terminal during morning rushhour is brutal.


cross your fingers for my dishwasher to get fixed. I've already contacted my landlord.

so, I didn't get the job of my dreams - aka, research/writing at architecture firm. They thought I was "lovely", but I just didn't have the architectural/marketing experience they needed for the role. I kind of knew this going in, but was hoping that they'd want me despite that. I can't control the fact that other qualified applicants are more suited for the role. C'est la vie.

*herrumph. So I am very disappointed, because I had been so hopeful about this...it was dream job afterall.

Upwards and onwards, I will now accept an offer from company A. The compensation package is great, and aside from comparing it to dream job, it's a job that I would have taken if I hadn't gotten dream job. So all in all. I lost dream job, but I still have "job". And really not "bad" job - this is what I have to tell myself.

Honestly, I was so ready to start something new in the fall, and I'm so tired of sitting around and waiting on these interview things. I wanted this one pretty badly and I'm not sure there is another one like this floating around...and even if there weren't, I would run into the same "lack of experience problems". I'm feeling kind of defeated right now - if you couldn't tell already.

I'm tired, but I won't be able to sleep. I'll be okay. Things could be worse.

After my meeting (3rd interview) with Dr. Yves at Malachite head offices I decided to go and spend some time and London Drugs. We had a nice talk about him and his work...mainly in stem cell technology and research, he's a transplant doctor...and not a Bond Villian as Paul would like to think. With a head guy like Dr. Yves running an organization called "malachite", I can't blame paul for drawing those conclusions. *sigh, If only I were interviewing to be a sexy henchwoman - how dangerously sexy would that be?

Speaking of sexy. At London drugs I spent a good 10 minutes trying to decide on the right conditioner for me. I kept on leaning towards the "curls/wavy" variety...but decided that I shouldn't delude myself any longer. My hair is thick and it's straight and no amount of conditioning with the right formula would change that.

Back to sexy...I picked up a couple of different conditioners and did the smell test - because, let's face it, smell is really the deciding factor. I picked one up and flipped the lid and gave it a gentle squeeze, you know to activate those wonderful, in-bottle aromas. "splurt". Guess who's now standing in london drugs with a squirt of creamy conditioning substance on her upperlip. Yeah. It's me. In that instance, I imagined what I looked like to myself and the rest of the world and humour beat out embarrassment as the overriding emotion. It was a close race though, although the idea of ejaculate on my face in public is mortifying...it is also undeniably funny.

If only Dr. Yves saw me with that conditioner on my face. I'm having trouble deciding if it would have been the deal breaker or the deal maker.

It just doesn't get any better. I dropped my ibook laptop (my fault I know.), but now there's this purple crack on my lcd monitor in the top left corner. It could be worse. My computer seems to be working fine and I've looked at my warranty, which obviously doesn't cover my butterfingers. This all just stinks. I can't afford to replace the monitor and it's probably not worth replacing anyways but for the mean time I will have to deal with it. I've been reading up on some forums and some people have said that the crack has spread - I hope mine doesn't! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - I am so mad at myself!

My plan of action is to call the macstore and see what can/can't be done about this. If anyone has any suggestions or answers, please send them my way.

Paul will be nice about it, but he will use this incident for further ammo in making fun of my inability to grasp and hold onto things.

ug. On top of all this, I feel so sick. Last night we had a little too much fun with triple long island ice-teas at the Royal. It was a-flowin' and it's all thanks to this guy that kept on buying rounds for us - even the guys in our group. He did have some intentions of taking J to lunch - he was very enamoured of her and was convinced that her name wasn't "J" for some reason. No matter, he was always there with fresh triple long island iceteas just as we were getting down to the las inch or so. Thanks stranger!

This all makes me feel like puking.

I got a call today and learned that I am the successful tenant to land the HOUSE OF MY DREAMS!!! Wahoo, so I got the adorable place with the ktichen of my dreams, now I just need a job to afford the food I'm going to cook in it.

The location is not prime, but it's not bad. On 12th, where the street gets narrow and the trees grow big...I was kind of concerned about the noise at first, but once inside it wasn't noisy at all! So Wahoo!! Home!

Now all I need is the job of my dreams to cap it all off.

I'm not one to believe in signs or symbols and I half-watched "under the tuscan sun". Love Diane Lane, but not this movie. It was major ches, and about all these weird signs and "what's meant to be" blah blah blah...
I think I'm reaching here with the whole "signs" thing, but I got stung by a bee right before I went to bed the other night. I was going along, minding my own business, brushing my teeth and a bee stings me on the bottom of my foot! I've never been stung before (once in Thailand by a small wierd thai bee, but that doesn't count), and this is counting all those years in the bee-infested cotton candy stand at Playland! My point is that, I think maybe getting stung was a sign of good things to come. Kind of like good luck from a bird pooing on you. I don't know why I'm trying to make sense of this bee sting. It just seemed like a total random occurence (hello? in my bathroom?). Looking back on the last few lines, I can't believe I am trying to reconcile my luck in landing my house with a beesting. The bee venom has got the better of my common sense.

I feel kind of obsessed by it because it's transformed into a mosquito bite itch and has been itching me on the bottom of my foot for a full day now! And we all know how satisfying scratching the bottom of your foot can be.

I was seriously pissed off at getting stung. Atleast my roommates got the satisfaction of me flipping out mid-toothbrushing.