October's here, YEY!

Dagens samtale:
Karina Nielsen: Hmm hvorfor kommer der nu ikke regn som lovet.. Nu har den lille hest jo fået tøj på og bleven vasket. Og nu er det bare alt for varmt for ham :(
Monica Christensen Birkler: Er han kuldskær, den bette hest? :)
Karina Nielsen: Ja lidt og hans mor kan ikke lide den står og fryser lidt så hun tænkte hun lige ville hjælpe ham nu hvor regnen kom. Men regnen venter jeg stadig på..
Monica Christensen Birkler: Så valget står mellem lungebetændelse og hedeslag... det er FANDERME ikke nemt at være hest :D

After a week I managed to persuade my brother to take a look at my harddrives. The day started out well, as he was able to salvage my entire C-drive (AND the 20-30 hour PLUS drawing I had on my desktop) but he failed to even connect with the D-drive...

Fortunately for me, I have two back-up solutions in store: One is that a guy that Dennis knows claims that it may be fixed with a new "print" whatever the hell that means... The other is that Kris' cousin Søren gets ahold of it and tries to access the data on it... Only problem is that he won't be available to do that in another two weeks time...

So the fight is far from over... and now I will go and figure out how my latest PSP installment works!

Just spent two hours translating a 1985 Norwegian article/review of ElfQuest... someone really had his panties in a bunch when that article was written...

It all began Friday when my computer started rebooting without being prompted to do so... Kris suggested a virus, so I ran a virus scan which came up negative.

As I had just gotten my AddOns in WOW to work (and had changed the screen resolution in the process) I suspected that that might be the cause and changed the screen resolution back, and was able to play the game for a couple of hours without trouble. Then it rebooted on me again, and then it refused to boot entirely.

Kris spent half of yesterday switching hard drives back and forth without any effect. He suspects that my C drive is toast and that the D drive is not far behind.

Which is a piece of utter FUCK! A month ago I did a back-up of all my photos, so they're safe... But all my WIP drawings, music files and more importantly, my story text files... gone...

Morten has promised to attempt a rescue mission on Friday and I have taken him up on that offer, which... is an offer I more or less forced upon him...

So, how am I online? Enter the angel of salvation that is my husband... After he threw in the towel we rushed to a computer store and he lent me the money that bought me a new computer. It's a Packard Bell; bigger and uglier than the old one, but it's also a lot faster and silent as a tomb...

And GOD, Vista is confusing as hell! And asks permission for every little bittey detail! "You have asked the computer to delete this file!" Yeah, go ahead "Do you want me to delete this?" Yes, now please delete it... "Are you sure I can delete this?" Yes, now delete the stupid file! "Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you want me to delete this file????" ...! "Really sure?" *groan* "Really really sure?? ... You've asked permission to click this button... I cannot let you do that, Hal..."

I had quite a few favorite teachers in school, all depending on which part of the school system I was in... But most of them have been related to being taught English!

In 8th or 9th grade I had an English teacher called Inger. She was the one who ignited my love for the English language. The best piece of advice she ever gave anyone was that if you didn't know the translation of the word you needed to say, you could always explain in other words what you meant...

In 10th grade my English teacher was a very strange guy called called Per Clausen. His initials were "PC" and he found it funny calling England and introducing himself as PC; It was what we all called him! He would sit in his chair in class and whenever one of the students made a mistake, he would sort of freeze and then just say "Urh, no" or "urh, what??" He was a fun guy...

In my second year of high school we had two new teachers, which both ended up being favorites. One was my Spanish teacher, a guy called Paul Klitnæs. He had a weird sense of humor and his lessons were always terrific (he made us read a text where an intercourse was described in great detail! Funny part was that THAT part of the text never became part of the exam curriculum!)

Another teacher from that year was another "Paul"; Poul Aage Foghed. He was a big guy, in his late 50s, early 60s I think, with a heavy passion for Irish and Scottish AND he looked like he could kill you with a stare! He was, however, a very nice guy, and if something said in class reminded him of a song, he would stand up and sing the song! During his lessons we read Poe and Bram Stoker, and we had a comedy theme including reading and listening to Denis Leary (!!!)

When I started college my favorite teacher was our British Culture and History teacher. Ian was his name. Also a very nice guy, he taught translation as well and we had a lot of fun in his classes, which sadly were only for one semester.

Another translation teacher from my scond semester of my BA was Nick...! He returned in my first MA-semester as well, and I enjoyed his classes very much...

95% of my favorite teachers have been favorites, not because of the subject they taught, though similar, but more because they had a love for what they did, and that love shone through via confidence in their subject and that confidence allowed them joke and teach with passion!

Dagens samtale:
Omhandlende: http://www.billetlugen.dk/musik/7997/

XenoMorph sagde: trist det er i parken
Thitida-No-Chey sagde: meget
XenoMorph sagde: har ikke hørt andet end dårlige ting om koncerter der
Thitida-No-Chey sagde: man skal i al fald have billetter de rigtige steder og jeg ahr altså ikke lige 1100 der står god billet på!
XenoMorph siger: skal fandme da heller ikke stå op til en koncert
XenoMorph siger: 450 for ståpladser
XenoMorph siger: ffs
XenoMorph siger: skal fandme da heller ikke SIDDE NED til en koncert
Thitida-No-Chey siger: hvad fanden har du så tænkt dig? Svæve?
XenoMorph siger: quiet you

In a perfect world where 100% of the money would go to the people you wanted to support through a charity organisatíon, I would probably donate a fair amount to Médecins Sans Frontières. Their struggle, it seems, has no end, yet they keep on fighting.

In that same perfect world, Amnesty International's on-the-street fund raisers are less pushy and works for free, so that even the smallest amount will benefit others... When that perfect world comes into view, they'd be my next beneficiary...

Third, the WFP, same reason as with MSF. I had never even heard of this organisation until one day Sean Connery was on my television, talking about the greatest gift to give... He's right... Y'know...

Other than that, I would probably end up splitting the money four ways and support the local Danish animal protection agency (Dansk Dyreværn). I would never even consider supporting WSPA for the sole reason that there are rumours that their socalled proof-of-mutilation videos are staged -by- the WSPA, and I don't really want to take that chance... Dansk Dyreværn makes no such videos and I have seen them in action, so they'd be first in line...!

Though cats have a special place in my heart and kittens are among the cutest darn thing on the planet, I'm going to have to say a foal. There is nothing cuter than watching a week-old foal stumble about on legs that are far too long compared to its body. And watching them try to nip off grass when they don't have any teeth... Ultimate Awwwww in the world... Plus they're cute and fuzzy and so full of life!

Religion is something that I never really understood. I can understand how some people feel the need and desire to believe, and I honestly envy the people who can find strength through prayer.

I was born and raised Protestant; I was christened and 14 years later I confirmed that christening. When I was 24 I left the Evangelical Lutheran Church here in Denmark; it meant absolutely nothing to me and thus I saw no reason to be part of it. In comparison; you don't have a membership at the gym if you never go, now do you? So I have indeed converted, from nothing to nothing.

While my view on religion is somewhat twisted, I do respect other religions. I don't blame people for being religious, it's their choice, and I will not judge them. I do however blame them if they use their religion as an excuse to harm other people or try to force their religion upon others. Which Christians have done for ages, teaching everyone how vengeful and hating the overlord of the three major world religions is. Well, they acted on his behalf, what are we supposed to think??

I -am- a believer, but not in any god that an earthly church preaches. My god is one of common sense and that includes respect for other people. Some people will tell me that the fact that I don't believe is disrespectful, and as I find that particular statement disrespectful toward my free will and free choice and I will usually just tell them to go to hell... Which is rather difficult when you don't -believe- in hell! And besides, if the almighty is as forgiving as everybody claims he is, it doesn't matter IF I believe; I'll still be forgiven. If that isn't a win-win situation, I don't know what is...

Howcome you didn't see this yet??

I wonder why I always get a frigging head ache after working out... It's starting to annoy me!

My first exam is over, well, it was more a test, as exams finish a subject and I will continue this one in September. Interpretation! It was touch and go, really, I wasn't really caring if I passed or not, but apparently our teacher wanted us all to pass and chose a dead easy text for us to interpret. We had to interpret a speech on Obama's first 100 days and I started out with a strategy of tailing Bente, our teacher and speaker, as if my life depended upon it... which in itself is not an entirely bright strategy, but today it worked. I had very few holes and apart from a few problems with numbers (how much is a Danish BILLION in English, hmm? Because an English billion is a milliard in Danish... Oh, and try remembering that in the splitsecond you get the word and need to interprete it... YIKES!)and listings of facts ( I hate those, I always lose SOMETHING!) I'd say it went very well... Except that I do regret translating "homoseksuelle familier og deres børn" into "homosexual families and (their) children"! Whoopsie! I did catch it and corrected myself and I bet Bente and Anne had a smile over that one. I remember snickering at my own stupid mistake when I made it and then corrected it...

Later in the day we went to see Angels and Demons, which I had truly expected to suck major time butt. But it turned out that the changes that had been made, which I had objected to as they were in the trailer, were simply a twist made by the screen writers in order to connect the first movie with the second as the first movie is based on the second book and the second movie is based on the first book... Stupid, really, but the re-write kinda worked, and the movie was a pleasant experience. Only thing that bothered me was Thure Lindharts's heavy Danish accent. He was supposed to be German-Swiss or something like that and... It didn't really work for me... I knew that Nikolai Coster-Waldau was in it, but that he actually played one of the MAIN characters was quite a surprise! And he was actually pretty good! Oh yey! For once!

Tomorrow I will start my week of studying for my Legal translation exam. I need to have all the pages of the two books mapped out completely, so that I know everything that is there...! I don't want Bente (yes, the same Bente as above!) to catch me off my guard... I know she's a nice person, but in times of exams, every nice teacher I ever had always turns into a growling predator, thirsty for my blood. It's not their fault, but in my tiny pea brain, they all hate me...

I'm not dead... but it's close...

Here's my schedule for the next "couple" of days:

Friday May 8th: "My" niece Matilde's confirmation
Sunday May 10th: Alexander's confirmation
Monday May 11th: Madonna goes in for Vaccination and health check
Tuesday May 12th: Interpretation exam: Only lasts about an hour, but I have no time to prep for it... I'm thinking that flunking it isn't so bad, I can do it again in August
Tuesday May 12th: Sneak premiere on Angels and Demons... I won't finish the book in time, but judging from the trailer, it won't matter, they've fucked up the storyline everso gloriously
Wednesday May 13th-Sunday May 17th: Study for Legal Translation Exam
Friday May 15th: Dennis and Claudia's housewarming party
Monday May 18th-Tuesday May 25th: Week exam, Analysis and production of professional texts
Thursday May 28th: Twelvehour exam, Technical translation
Tuesday June 2nd- Tuesday June 9th: Week exam, Legal translation
Thursday June 18th: Start oral defense; Analysis and Production
Either Thursday June 25th or Friday June 26th:Oral defense; Analysis and Production - Start oral defense; Legal Translation
Tuesday June 30th: Oral defense; Legal Translation

Wake me up when it's July!

Watch


Gran


Torino


NOW


I command ye!

Quote of the day:
Nog: Maybe they were attacked by a vicious tree???

I was rolling over my keyboard, laughing my guts out.... Well, when trees DO hit, they hit hard, so ... ^^

This was me on Kris' birthday three years ago:

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.6
Mind:	5.5
Body:	7.3
Spirit:	7.5
Friends/Family:	3.2
Love:	6.9
Finance:	8.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

And this is me today:

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.8
Mind:	7.3
Body:	7.5
Spirit:	7.8
Friends/Family:	5.9
Love:	7.3
Finance:	7.4
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

What a change...!