Sometimes I can’t remember whether I’ve blogged about a topic or simply repeated it ad nauseam to my friends / bombarded my parents with emails. When I get into a sleep, eat, read, eat, read, nap, read cycle just about everything triggers deja vu. Especially if it involves words. But…I’m quite sure this is a new topic! Or mostly new topic. Even if I’ve already pestered you about my summer/life plan indecision, I’m sure I haven’t shared my wonderment with the web archive. Because it just happened.

So it does start with an overcooked topic — the fact that I haven’t been accepted to or rejected from graduate programs yet, which is making the whole uncommitted summer feel a bit wobbly. It’s really a silly thing to obsess over since I’m having serious doubts about investing more money into my education at this juncture whether or not education will have me. Anyway, this is where it started, when I turned back to the grindstone that is summer internship applications and I realized…why am I applying for crummy summer internships? I have three years of project management experience and I kind of speak three languages and have been working terribly hard on original research that could possibly get published. I think I’m qualified for a real job. NOTE: If you happen to be a giver of internships, please understand I’m just being sassy and I would be happy to discuss summer options.

Which brings me to the internet archive. Eventually. After I wrote a bunch of cover letters and reflected on all the cool projects we did at the Cloisters — I mean, the Django Ride Board was pretty sweet — I started feeling especially glum that there is no trace in cyberspace of our efforts. After Ken took the job at Columbia, Cloisters life devolved into a frustrating power struggle between computer services and our independent creative space (with its independent budget). CIS “kindly” moved all our web content to their fancy blade servers, which crippled our ability to sudo our own stuff. They replaced our Plone site with a bland static brochure page (I mean it’s pretty, Alex made it, but it’s not useful or representative of our efforts in any way) that is still up today. I’ve tried to contact the new curator, but he doesn’t seem very interested in reinstating an archive of past Cloisters projects (something I already did…in Plone…)

The whole thing was pretty ugly and depressing, but all of those frustrated feelings erupted into joy when I discovered the wayback machine! I mean, I’ve known it was there, I just never used it before. And it’s magic! I entered our web address and all those years of web development washed right over me! Designs I’d nearly forgotten about, that weird block of faces, typographic choices we spent forever debating, color schemes from that little color book, flashing before my eyes as I clicked from one date to the next! It’s not a perfect solution. The Plone site, with all it’s back end machinery, is designless and garbled. But at least it’s there, proof that it existed.

On another note, my website was brighter then. Simpler, better balanced and with its own image gallery. This is terrible, I really don’t have the free time to dwell on a redesign.

A crazy thing happened the other morning. I opened a package of salmon to check if it was edible. I hadn’t purchased salmon here before, and there were about 25 different kinds labeled with words not included in my dictionary. I cut open the package and tore a tiny chunk off. I’d barely nibbled this piece when I started pulling long strands of oily raw salmon out of its plastic casing and devouring it wholesale. I was ravenous! I ate the whole package before I knew what I was doing. I didn’t even feel hungry when I started, I think it was something about the fish proteins. Maybe I should have been taking fish oil all winter, despite its general unpleasantness and fishburp-inducing qualities.

That breakfast misadventure aside, it’s been a great week. I turned down a weekend cross country skiing trip with Marie and her friends (at a hytte clear back up in Lillehammer) for a Fulbright girl-themed social night featuring the beginning of a movie (we paused it and never got around to pushing play again), fizzy peach drinks, fingernail polish, gossip, popcorn, chocolates, and of course lovely company. I personally feel we should be gender balanced and have a boy-themed night with macho movies and beer and whatever boys eat (maybe just more chocolate). It was a delightful evening, and because I didn’t go skiing I was able to lend Marie my skis! A win-win! (Since I was feeling bad about the layers of dust my skis were gathering.)

I’ve found both temporary and more permanent solutions to the phone problem. Marie’s boyfriend lent me his old phone, a really old Nokia that functions. Kind of. It is very old and the buttons stick, it’s hard to navigate menus, I’m not supposed to delete his old contacts, etc. but at least it can place and receive calls. And tell the time. Yay! Picky as I sound, I am so, so grateful to him. I also ordered a new phone from Amazon today, and while it was expensive it cost less to buy an unlocked phone from the States than it would have cost to get the SAME phone at the Telenor “free phone discount” with a year plan. So I have a feeling I can resell it if I so choose (and if it survives the next few months without getting stolen). It will. I’m not letting this thing out of my clutches.

My newest procrastination object is the tv show “Sports Night.” It’s really smart. Abbey lent it to me yesterday and I’ve already plowed through the first season (luckily for my Fulbright research there are only two seasons). It sent me through about twelve mood swings that ranged from cracking up laughing to tears. I suspect that some of the power the show has over me is in the way that it captures the atmosphere of 1999-2000. Everything from the colors, plot themes, technology, music…just seems to animate my memories of those optimistic pre-9/11 years in the US, which also happened to be carefree times in my early high school life. It’s not just nostalgia, though. Many of the episodes have challenging plots, tackling issues from gender and race in the workplace to editorial freedom, athletic drug abuse, politics…but it’s a comedy, and it’s just as funny as it is tough and emotional. So I give it two thumbs up.

That’s the story from Scandinavia. FSD will be texmex/taco themed, so I’m bringing black beans. I have a meeting with my adviser early next week to firm up my independent study plans and finish off my interview proposals. I’ll let you know how it all goes!

The first thing pressing on my mind is the fact that my cell phone is most definitely gone. Dropped by the bar tonight and there’s been no trace of it all week. That will set me back another $150-200 if I order from the states, more if I pick something up here. I’m going to devote a whole section of my report to the misery of life without a phone.

Other endeavors have been more successful, however. The Fulbright weekend really refreshed me; I’ve redouble my productive efforts. I have set a goal of writing one short article, only about 5 pages, per week from here on out. Some of them will not be more than mobile phone journal entries and observations, but as I get moving with my interviews they should come to be more substantial.

The ski weekend had another and unanticipated consequence — it has changed my eating habits. Those wonderful huge buffets made me much more courageous about sampling fish, for example. So when I went food shopping on Monday my basket was overflowing with way more than the standard fare of rice, milk, eggs, weekly veggie. Now I’m eating salami sandwiches with sweet mustard, sugar snap peas, salmon, granola with yogurt…and I’ve actually been hungry enough to eat everything before it spoils! At least so far.

I need to sign up at the gym soon, I could really use the adrenaline. Working out is a great way to anchor my sleeping and eating habits into a healthy pattern. I’ve just been so busy lately. My first order of business is registering my interview plans with NSD, Norway’s IRB equivalent. Without their approval I can’t deal with “sensitive” information, and who knows what I’ll come across in people’s communications. I should go through the process to be safe, but it’s kept me pretty busy. I have to write up all my interview questions in advance and outline my objectives. It’s a good exercise, but not the gym kind…

Now that my phone is gone I can’t actually complete most of the tasks I’ve been working on. I filled out job applications, but can’t send them out without a phone number. I need to make reservations for my trip to Copenhagen in two weeks, but I can’t make the plane or hotel reservations (I can enter all zeros on the form to trick them, but it won’t go through without a number…and I won’t be able to call to confirm). Bah! It’s just a nuisance, because what is a thief going to do with it? They can’t get in without the PIN/PUK codes (as I learned just a few weeks ago). I guess they’ll sell it. Jerks.

I’ve been thinking seriously about applying to law schools. All of this self-guided research time is incredible, but sometimes I feel like I’m floating. It would be nice to be on a track, especially one that will pay off its own loans. We’ll see, I’m still chewing on it. I’m planning on taking a few LSAT practice tests to see how I measure up and what the options are.

This is just a quick post via shaky Internet from our mountain hotel outside Lillehammer. It’s been a great weekend so far, a total blast. I took a snowboarding lesson yesterday and fell down surprisingly little — although I couldn’t quite figure out how to turn so that I was facing up the mountain; I could only face down the mountain. It was fun, but I plan to stick to skiing in the long run. The meals here are fantastic and free, huge buffets with all kinds of fishes and meats and gelatinous desserts. The Fulbright crowd is great, we’re having a blast drinking and dancing and playing in the snow.

Presentations went really well on Thursday. It was a long day, but the other Fulbrighters are so bright and doing such interesting things. We were recognized at a reception at the ambassador’s house, which was pretty amazing. Beautiful house. He mentioned that he’s heading to Poughkeepsie next week (he’s an alum) to meet Cappy and do the college tour thing with his son, so Vassar kids should keep an eye out.

I didn’t ski or anything today, I took a pretty lazy morning and went for a walk in the pretty snow in the afternoon. Jeff and I rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain a few times (lift tickets were included with the rooms and it picks up just outside of the hotel door) and took pictures. I considered ice skating, but it might be a little too warm for the natural ice. We’ll have a nice sit-down dinner tonight and then probably more socializing. We’re heading out tomorrow afternoon. Spending all this time with the everywhere-in-Norway Fulbrighters really makes me want to get out and visit more of the country.

My schedule has gone manic depressive, but I’m surprisingly sane in the midst of it. After a few weeks of leisurely adjusting, reading, and planning I have a jam-packed schedule. Yesterday and today I have class from 10-6 (with some breaks in between, of which this is one) and tomorrow is our big Fulbright seminar in which everybody gives a presentation on their research. That is running from 9am until 5pm, at which point we all haul over to the Ambassador’s house for a reception in our honor. Then there’s the weekend.

I’m excited about the weekend, not because it will provide a break from the hectic week but because it will cap everything off with crazy busy fun. On Friday morning all the Fulbrighters (not just the Oslo crowd, the whole Norway-wide bunch) are being bussed up to a resort outside of Lillehammer for an expenses paid weekend of skiing and socializing. I originally thought that our presentations were a part of this, but they’re aren’t…unless you count the trip as a reward for a very, very long Thursday (and I kind of do).

Class has been good. I know quite a few of the other students from last semester, so there are plenty of chances for pre-class chatting and note-swapping. The reason this week is so crazy with lectures is that one of the professors is from Scotland and can only be here this week. She seems to be teaching pretty directly from the book, but she has relevant anecdotes and graphs from her own research and she seems pretty knowledgeable about both media and economics (which is good, since the topic of the course is media economics). Plus she has a cute accent. After this week’s lecturefest the schedule will cool down to one lecture and one discussion group per week, should provide a nice not-strenuous, not-boring routine.

In other lifestyle news, I purchased a dvd player, which I love. It is region-free and can also read USB sticks, so I can transfer movies straight from my computer to the tv. That means I can watch anything — Norwegian, American, or digital. While I was at the tech store I also picked up a cable, so I can watch Norwegian tv, too (hopefully a boon to my language skills and/or accent). It’s nice to have something playing while I work on the computer, since before it was one or the other. I’m also having an external hard drive shipped from home, which is absolutely necessary since I’m down to 400mb of free space on the computer (taking too many pictures, I think) and it appears that this machine draws the majority of its memory from hard drive space. I mean, I studied virtual memory in college, so I know how this works, I just didn’t think that it needed over a gig of disc space to run more than one program at a time 2 minutes after a restart (what is the 2 gig 667 mhz RAM even doing??). Sorry if that flew over some heads, I’m just grouchy about dishing out more cash than I’d budgeted.

Looks like it’s time to run back to class! This evening should involve picking out an outfit for tomorrow, polishing up my presentation, and maybe grabbing a drink with the out-of-Oslo Fulbrighters who are in town for the event. Hope everything is going well elsewhere in the world!