ingvild

Apparently tinypic is cutting out international viewers.

I'm a little confused, though - I can still see all images uploaded to tinypic, including my own.

So if other people could tell me if they can see my images, that'd be great. I need to find out how extensive the problem is.

Posts with images:
http://ingvild.livejournal.com/51511.html#cutid1
http://ingvild.livejournal.com/48097.html#cutid1
http://ingvild.livejournal.com/43464.html#cutid1

By my calculations, I'll have time to breathe again sometime after Christmas.

Anyway.

Princess Tutu is one of those shows I've never either wanted or needed fic for. It's just too perfect the way it is. The only thing I could ever do for it was the Spot the Reference series.

However, omnicat wanted Tutu fic for her birthday, and what omnicat wants, omnicat gets.

It's in the mail, hon. Happy birthday.

Gratulerer med dagen til alle norske!

And for the maybe two people who read this and don't understand Norwegian: Today is our Constitution Day. On May 17th, 1814 we signed our own constitution. Technically we were still a part of Denmark back then, and given that we'd entered the losing side of the Napoleonic war, we were soon after given to Sweden as war spoils. Norway didn't gain independence until 1905, in an event that went sort of like this:

Norway: We want our independence!
Sweden: No, you can't!
Norway: Bring it, much more powerful and better-armed country!
Sweden: Oh, it's on...Actually, on second thought, we're not gonna bother.
Norway: Okay...Thanks?

We don't actually do a big celebration of that event. But today, on Constitution Day, we dress up in pretty clothing (a lot of people, especially women, wear the traditional outfit called a bunad. Mine looks similar to this), there's a big parade of school bands and organisations, each school have an activity thing where you can do ball toss or stilt walking or whatever and we eat sour cream porridge and wave flags and stuff. It's pretty fun.

P.S. I've been meaning to ask. There are three clickable links in this post. Can everyone see them all right? I kind of like this look, but I suspect that links tend to disappear.

So, it occurs to me that unless you know me offline, you don't know that I'm going on an orchestra trip this Easter. To Japan.

Anyone who wants postcards can message me their name and address! I'll be visiting Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, so if you have a preference in where you want the card to be from, let me know.
ETA:By "message" I really meant PM, but that's up to you. If you want, I'll PM my e-mail address so you can send it there.

We've got a pretty tight schedule, but I hope I'll have time to see some things. I really wanted to see the life-size (read: 59 feet, or 18 meters) Gundam in Shiokaze park, but apparently that was only up for two months, from June to August 2009. I am a sad mecha fangirl.

One of the hotels we'll be staying at is right next to Tokyo Tower.

I am...a little exited. You know. A teeny, tiny bit.

I also think I really need to practice intensively for the next two weeks, because the Sibelius symphony is kicking my ass.

It's ridiculous how happy I am that our local grocery store has reopened. Especially since I'm not particularly fond of the store chain. (I think it's because I can't figure out their business profile, besides "take over other shops that Ingvild liked better".)

I'm very spoiled in this regard. It wasn't exactly far to the other shop - ten minutes to, twenty from, depending on how heavily I was carrying - but when I've grown up with the shop thirty seconds away...

I'm writing this from my brand new, absolutely tiny notebook computer. It weighs less than a kilo, and is smaller than most of my dictionaries. It's actually not all that difficult writing on such a small keyboard, I'm kind of surprised to tell the truth. It came with a free two-month trial run of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, and to tell the truth, it's taking me more time getting used to Word 2007 (I still haven't located the preview icon).

The biggest problem there is that this Office package included OneNote 2007, a note organising tool, and I sort of want to sit and play with that instead of working... But no. I WILL work on my thesis, dammit. I have finally regained my work morale, and I will not squander it on fancy electronic notebooks.

Can someone please explain to me why I had to rediscover Elfquest and the urge to write fanfiction just a few weeks before my exams?

Oh, well. Tomorrow I hand in my papers (I'm so sick of them both now), and then I have one week before my two language exams. Then I have quite a lot of time before my oral literature exam, but in between I'm going to sell programs/be a flower girl at the Festspillene, and there's job coaching, so don't worry. I'll be pressed for time there, too.

Blargh.

I wanted to write an entry about how the emotionally moving stuff hits us harder in comedy series because it's all the rarer...

...and relate this to why so many are tired of blood and gore in comic books.

I wanted to write an entry about how I, after having watched a lot of episodes of Scrubs in a row, start thinking in the structure of a TV show.

I wanted to ask why, exactly, so few white superheroes have brown eyes. (And related to that, how did Jubilee, who's Chinese-American, end up with blue eyes? Or am I just displaying my ignorance here, and that's actually not too unusual?)

Unfortunately, I have a week to finish a paper I have only just started on, and on Tuesday, my older sister comes to visit with all three kids.

This is what I get for pushing things ahead. I really should have done that paper instead of...watching Scrubs.

(I couldn't stop! It was funny!)

Word of advise for people who are bringing a string instrument into Russia:

1. The air hosts do not know how to fill out the customs declaration. Don't trust them.
2. Be painfully accurate. You fill out two forms where you check the 'entry' box. On these two forms, one stating the country of departure as exactly that (in my case, Norway, not Denmark where we middle landed). The country of destination is Russia. When you come up to the customs desk, they get both forms. one will be returned to you with a stamp, and you are supposed to return it when you leave Russia, along with a third form, where the 'exit' box has been marked, as well as Russia as your country of departure and the country you're going to (Norway) as destination.
3. Check 'no' in all boxes except 3.4: Antiques and objects of art; and 3.11: Temporarily admitted (exported) goods. Unless you really are bringing 3.2: Weapons of all descriptions, ammunition, explosives; 3.3: Drugs and psychotropic substances; or 3.7: Radioactive materials.
4. Turn the page. Under point 4, describe your musical instrument. Number (are you bringing four violins?), price and description: year it was built, registration number, by whom was it built, where was it built, size, colour...anything that can later be used to identify the instrument.
5. Do not write in red ink. Use black or blue.
6. If you write something wrong, take a new form and start over.
7. Remember to make good time for this. When you come up to the customs counter to deliver the forms, you must open the case and show that the information provided about the instrument is correct.

Now, imagine doing this with the entire string section of a 70-people strong symphony orchestra, non of whom knew how to fill out the forms to begin with. Yeah, we were delayed a bit on our first day.

The reason they're so anal about this is that many people come to Russia with a crap violin, viola or cello, buy a good one cheap, and leave the crap one behind when they leave. To actually bring a musical instrument out of Russia (or at least a string instrument), you need permission from the Department of Culture. I'm not kidding. If it's built before 1920 (I think), they won't give you that permission. Fascinating, eh?

I had a nice trip, though. Might write more sometime later.

Oh, and happy birthday to me. (And my sister Silje, but she's in Paris right now and doesn't even know about my journal, so she just gets a text message at the time being. For the record, she's six years older than me; we're just born on the same day.)

My first time as an instructor went pretty well, even though I would have preferred it if my little group could produce just a little bit more sound. Ah, well.

I've already mentioned Snakes on a Plane (SoaP). Incidentally, here are a few more interesting links:
Snakes on a Blog
snakes_in_a_fic

Now, I'm going to mention something I see all the time on scans_daily: The Goddamn Batman. This is from Frank Miller's All Star Batman and Robin which, from what I've seen, isn't really very good. But this particular line is referenced again and again and again, paraphrased, photoshopped, generally done everything with. It's quite addictive.

Now, I was reading The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore which is a book of interviews done for Moore's fiftieth birthday in 2003. In it, they reprinted a number of pages including on from the British magazine Daredevils. The entire story was posted on scans_daily and I was impressed then as well, but now I finally found out when it was first printed: in 1983. So now, when you read Grit, note the bottom caption box in the first panel, and marvel at Moore's psychic skills - or possibly Miller's repetition or predictiveness.

Enjoy.