Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Post-exam life

The title can be summed up in one word only: TEDIOUS!

It's strange, 'cause before you can say "exam's over" you seem to have gone from one extreme to another. Let me clarify: About a month before my Spanish exams I'd studied like heck and now, after I've finished them I'm suddenly left with nothing particular to do. Nothing meaningful, that is. The same thing happened during and after the IB exams. Before the exams all my time was used for studying, and then the day after I'd completed my last exam I realized that there wasn't anything that I needed to do anymore. In a sense I felt kinda empty, if you get what I mean. I could be bored and not feel guilty about it. I know this is strange, but this is basically what I'm feeling right now. Bored.

And here's another weird remark: I can't WAIT to go back to school again! It's only been like, two weeks since my finals in Spanish and I really am starting to feel bored. Let me rephrase that: I AM bored. I started to feel bored about 10 days ago. My mind seems to get increasingly blunt and my life is relatively lazy, if I do say so myself. To be honest, I'm just waiting to start working and afterwards drag my sorry butt to uni to sharpen up my mind a little. Keep myself occupied both physically and mentally. Well, mostly mentally. The physical part I can take care of whenever.

How my exams went? Well, I can't say I'm dissatisfied. Take that as you will. :-P I've only received my grade for the orals; I won't get my grade for the written exam until mid-June, or something. In the mail. And then I'll have to xerox it up and send it to Samordna Opptak along with some other stuff. Then there's just waiting. Waiting, hoping and praying (which I'm also doing at the moment). In the mean time I'll be working at Stavanger University Hospital for about 5 weeks - if my blunt mind hasn't failed me yet... Which I slightly suspect it has... Not good. Not good at all.

Anyway, this is going to be a relatively short blog. I've been cooped up inside this house far too long; it's time for me to get my arse out of doors and inhale the fresh yet pollen-infested air. Yees. Life is beautiful; especially when it's sunny, which it seems to be at the moment. Well, the sun seems to peek out sporadically between the clouds, so I'm going to take my chances and enjoy it while I can. For all I know, sunshine, wind and 10 degrees centigrade could be all summer we'll get...

Happy studying to all those who are still cramming, and to those who aren't, enjoy boredom! God knows we need to be idle sometimes! (However, not too much...)

Elise

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Summer is here at last!!! (For now...)

OMIGOSH!

You can't believe how wonderful it is outside right now!!! A slight taste of summer, I reckon. Sitting here on our balcony and savoring/enjoying the nice weather - a completely cloudless sky, around 20 degrees centigrade... and wind. There's always a great deal of wind in my part of the country, especially here in the coastal areas. So it's kinda destroying all the sunny and warm weather now. But nevertheless, here I am, sitting in light summer clothes and listening to the Beach Boys with "I Get Around". To me that's really one of the ultimate summer hits!

Oooh! Bucks Fizz again! Weehee! Love 80's music! Can't say the same about the clothes, though. Hideous. Big mohair neon pink jumpers and neon green tights with Tina Turner's "What's-Love-Gotta-Do-With-It" hair put up in a ponytail right on top of yer head? I guess that was the idea of being subtle in those days... I mentally thank my parents for being a teenager in the right decade!

Anyways, studying Spanish is okay. The only thing I permit myself to read are either Spanish newspapers on the internet, a collection of Spanish poems by Pablo Neruda I got from a friend and my notes on grammar and facts about history, culture and info on Spain, Mexico and Argentina. For once I pat myself on the back for being so efficient! :-D Yet I feel I need to do more. Efficient doesn't seem good enough at the moment. I feel kinda guilty that I'm not doing more of it... Ah well, my results will tell if I've done a good job, or not. Crossing my fingers for good grades.

Anyways, for those who care reading this blog, you probably wonder why I chose "Effulgent Sempiternity" as part of my URL. "What the heck does it mean, anyways?! And why has she put such a stoopid set of words in her URL?!?"

Well, I'll tell you.

"Effulgent Sempiternity" basically means "radiant eternity". Cheesy and perhaps not a very usual combination of words, but I am very fond of big words and I wanted to express my views on life. So there.

My view on life in general is a positive one. I mean, of course there are wars and conflicts between peoples - and that has always been the case for us humans. However, when focusing on the more positive aspects of our existence we've actually found out a great deal over the past years. Take for instance Newton's Law of Gravitation. Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Heck, even the Pythagorean Theory! We've traveled to the moon and sent satellites that allow us to check how other planets are like. We've basically reached the stars.

As for matters here on Earth we've managed to categorize most of the species and can find out how certain species behave and go on with their lives. God knows what fantastic things we'll figure out in the future.

So there you go. Our eternity really is amazing. Radiant, even. It is hard to focus on these positive things when you see people starving in Africa, or rainforests in South America being destroyed, or conflicts in Iraq and Sri Lanka. But I guess sometimes you have to try focusing on the positive aspects of this world, like people obtaining their rights, standing up for themselves for a charitable cause or something to that effect. That's one way of keeping oneself sane, I guess. And sanity is something we don't seem to have much of in this world.

With this thought mind, I'm hereby going to end this entry. Gives you a little something to think about, dunnit?`

Elise