The other day, I came across this wonderful movie clip. It was sent to my boyfriend from his mother, who was just thinking it was cute. Little did she know that this was also based on the true story of how we are awoken avery mornging.

We have 3 alarmclocks. Every morning at 6 am, when the first of them tolls, kitty-cat comes purring and fluffy into the bed ( I actually think he spends time fluffing his fur to look extra cuddly and heart-melting).
First the purrinng and cuddling is quite friendly, after 10 minutes, when the secon alarm goes off, he commences the next step; he starts "stomping", first the duvet, then the face, and lastly, my throat.
Now, you must remember that every morning, when I "wake up",Im a zombie, my body is present, my mind is not.
By the time the 3rd alarm pierces my eardrums, Im already fast asleep againg, returing to zombieland, and this is when the ting, furry monster starts to nibble my face ( Im sure, if he could wield a baseball-bat, he would) or my toes. Or he starts experimenting how he would do as a scarf.
Finally, for "some reason", my boyfriend grows tired of this and wakes up to feed the little parasite.

5 minutes later, when Im starting to return to the lands of the living, and regain parts of my concience, kitty is back to tell me the terrible woes of being a cat in out household, he is actually not being fed!
At this point the miaowing starts; the sore, scorn sound of a cat "experiencing" starvation, absolutely able to make one's spinal cord twist.
This is when, at about 6:20, I finally get up and, "Miaowzers" lets out a sigh of relief.
I go to the bathroom to to take my daily shower,he stand staring outside the showers.
I go back to the bedroom to get dressed, he sits on the bed staring "remember me?"
I go bak to the bedroom to fix my hair, he's there too "Feed me!"

Finally, I enter "the kindom of pleasure", the kitchen, and he lets out miaows of pleasure and relief "finally, 2nd breakfast" (Kind of gives me an idea of where J.R.R. Tolkien got his idea for the hobbits and their multiple meals from).

He quickly finished the 2nd breakfast, and gets ready to lurk around to see if he can manage to loot some leftovers from out breakfast.

At this stage, I've completely returned to become fully human again, and now, I want something back for the torture.
Not a chance, the kitty schedule clearly states "Sleep", and "Do not disturb sleeping Kitty"

Isn't it wonderfull having a cat in the mornings?

Brainwash ?

Last week i had a test. That of course meant that the day before was spent trying to find excuses not to study, - or activities that would leave you feeling less guilty for not studying. Don't get me wrong; I DO study for tests, its just that, somehow, all my motivation takes a vacation the day before a test, and im left trying to study and hunting for my motivation.
One of these activities for me, is watching documentaries. I mean, its entertaining, and at the same time educational (nevermind the fact that its not related to the subject i was having a test in).
The documentary of choice was a one investigating the gender differences. It was lead by a norwegian commedian, who is trying to actually be serious. After all, at some stage he actually obtained a degree in sociology.
My expectations were quite high, as, well, i have a tendency to assume that funny people are smart, and that he was probably up to something mischievious anyways.
I must say, I was not dissapointed at all, although the mischieveous parts were toned down a bit.

Personally, I have been convinced that its mostly the enviroment that creates the differences we experience when it comes to gender differences. My mother, for example, was very concious about giving me both dolls and cars, as to be sure not to force me into any gender sterotype. Although i often chose to play with the dolls, I had no problems playing with cars of any of the boy things either. She never forced me to wear dresses, I wanted to. She never taught me to wear make-up, not that she forbid me to wear it, but she left me completely to my own choice. The result, today, is that i might have a more masculine field of interest than other girls, I like cars and computers; I love to play computergames, and I dont really mind getting oil on my fingers. However, I love to dress up, and I do love to wear makeup, I like pink stuff and don't mind romantic commedies.
I always attributed this to my upbringing, and this seems to be the view of quite a few norwegian scientists. They mean that even the action of giving boy babies blue blankets and girls pink blankets are part of making the gender differences.
Some disagree with them, especially a guy from Cambridge (Sasha Baron Cohen's cousin) who had done research on fresh-out-of-the-womb babies. He and his research team had held up figures of faces and mechanical stuff, and found that the boy babies stared at the mechanical devices the longest and that the girls stared at the faces the longest. From that the research team concluded that there was differences in our fields of interest even from when we were born.

One central question was that Norway is announced to be the most equal country in the world, yet 90% of all norwegian nurses are female. How is it that when women are so equal, women still choose traditional professions?
Personally, I always thought is was the enviroment that affected us, I mean, what your friends do and such. Also, I would imagine that it'd be somewhat "scaring" for a male to enter a nursing programme, when he'd be the only boy. Not that he'd be scared of being with all the girls, but rather that he'd be scared of what his guy-friends would think of him for choosing such a "feminine" profession?
For my part, I always found it amusing and slightly sad, that ppl couldn't imagine me as an engineering student (I did engineering for 2 years), but rather automatically assumed that i was studying for preschool-teacher or nurse..
When they however managed to find out that I did engineering, they automatically assumed it must be chemistry, and they were right.

For my part, though, I never really thought about any of this, I just chose what i wanted to, regardless of any stereotypes. Maybe this is what they speak of when they feel that they can conclude that its not only our enviroment that affects our fields of interests?

Football and neon colours

I'm not really one for football. Its not that i hate the game . I just don't see why it should occupy so much time on TV, or take up so much space in the news papers. Its just a ball for god's sake! It's grown up men running after a ball.
It's grown men, being paid to run after a ball. Maybe, every now and then, a goal is scored, and when that happens, it seems to me like its pure coincidence; either the keeper is asleep, or the guy who scored the goal didn't actually even aim for the goal.
Again, I don't hate the game, and I don't mind playing for fun on nice summer days.
I just don't see how it somehow has gotten a status as the world's national sport.
Despite my doubts of the value of professional football, on Wednesday, I attended my first football game ever.
Of course there was a special reason; Norway was playing against Slovakia in our neighbouring city, Zilina.
I didn't come up with the idea to go there myself, our local "student organisation" Klamydia (gotta love the name) arranged everything :)
I was supposed to go there with the rest of the students in a bus, but ended up having to drive, as the infusion therapy at the hospital never seemed to end. I didn't mind the drive, Slovakia has a beautiful nature, and the road to Zilina winds by the river Vah in a valley where 2 mountain ranges meet.
Although beautiful, this stretch of road was earlier (dunno if it still is) one of the most accident prone in Slovakia, as the road only has 2 lanes, Slovaks seem to have a taste for overtaking that makes me shiver inside, and the fact that big rocks tended to fall down onto the road (and sometimes cars :().
When finally in the outskirts of Zilina, we started to notice ques and policemen. I didn't really give this any extra thoughts as neither policemen or ques are unusual on Friday afternoons (the fact that it was actually Wednesday didn't even cross my mind).


As we approached the stadium, we started to notice that cars were parked along the highway, and glum thoughts of not getting to see the match started to enter my mind.
As expected, after having tried to find a place to park for an hour, we ended up parking by the highway, having to walk quite a while to get to the stadium.
I feared that we'd have problems finding the other students, but as we were to be supporters, many had cleverly dressed up in Norwegian red and blue high-school-graduation dresses. Some had even brought a huge Norwegian flag, and the best, i think, was the huge bass drum one of the 6th-years had brought.
Songs and slogans were sun and shouted loudly, steadily accompanied by the dump sound of the bass drum.
I think that, although making up only 1/8th of the stadium, we made more sound than all the Slovaks:) As this was my first professional football match ever, I spent a lot of time being fascinated at the fact that the field seems a lot smaller that it does on TV, and the fact that we seemed to be "caged", as nets and high fences seemed to surround our section of the tribune.
Needless to say, Norway won 1-0. In my opinion, we were the best, and i think it was because we were there. Or they might just be a quite good team. Or they might suck, and just have been lucky. I honestly don't know. One thing i know for certain, though,is that the atmosphere was the best, filled with high spirited students and the fresh taste of victory.


During the game, I was fascinated at the Norwegian team's keeper choice of colours. Not that I plan on making this a fashion blog, but his shirt and shorts were bright neon yellow. In my mind, it seems like a very bad idea; if i was a keeper, I'd choose camouflage colours or something that'd make me as invisible as possible, so that the opponent would spot me :P
Apparently, my way of thinking isn't the right when it comes to football. Keepers often get to choose their outfit, and often, these bright, almost blinding colours (ahh,, new theory), are the colours of choice.
The bright colours distracts the players and makes them aim at the keeper instead of the places were the keeper is not and often gives the keepers markedly higher chances of catching the ball. (Or so I'm told)
To confirm this idea, I was told the tales of a guy playing in English football, Van der Saar, who wore colours like the Norwegian keeper, and apparently didn't let in a goal for 3,5 month (which is supposedly some kind of record)

Proliferation and cement

So, 2 things..
1. It has been mentioned that I am an overactive blogger, or as a friend mentioned, that i was very "proliferative" (hehe..I don't really need to mention that he too is a med student?).
It's true though, but what else can you really spend your days on when you're confined to bed rest.
Of course, I know, I could study a lot, and, yeah, I do that too, but at some point you need a break too.
Again, when confined to bed rest, your range of choices is quite limited, and usually involves, yup, you guessed right; laying in bed!

The trick though, is to manage to still have stuff to write about, as, well, you do run out of stuff to write about when ur chained to your bed; but hey; i could always just whine a bit more:P

2. Yesterday a wrote about a majority of Slovak buildings being made by "cement, concrete and other grey stuff". Also, I mentioned that Slovaks can be percieved as slightly grumpy people by people like me (med studens been here for 3,5 years and still barely have the language skills of a 2year old).

In hindsight, I realise that some might find that offensive, howevermuch i try to explain that that is not my intension. Therefore, I have decided to post some pictures of the city I live in here in Slovakia.

Also, I'd like to say that the grumpyness most likely is related to my lack of language skill, and it must be so annoying listening to my attempts; as grammatical errors and pronounciation mistakes might leave me saying "At dinner I pissed in the book", while actually meaning to say "Last night I read a book".

In spite of my language skills, I had quite a nice conversation with another patient at the hospital yesterday. ( Yup, although not being admitted, I still have to come back to get IV-treatment for 2hrs every day for the nest 5 days).
She was a former nurse at the hospital, and seemed quite used to speaking with foreign students. After the conversation i noticed that I actually understood more than I probably would've done a week ago. I find it quite encouraging, and wouldn't mind meeting her again, so I could get some more slovak practice:)

Old stories are still funny

Today is my good friend Charlotte's birthday. She turns 22, and has start complaining that she gets older :|.. Now what does that make me !??!
Speaking of old stories..
Another old one, is my friend Renatusjka and my friendship. We have known each other since last year of 2ndary school.She has an amazing sense of humour.
Renatusjka studies russian, and, as part of her degree, sometimes get horrible homework, such as "Translate and discuss the influence of production of light bulbs in Uzbekistan on the wood-pecker population in the suburbs of St.Petersburg.
In stead of getting bitter and quitting the studies, she grits her teeth, and politely (and not so slightly satirical) asks the question "Are russian teachers also human beings"? I couldn't help it and had to answer her (of course politically incorrect):

Russian teachers are not like us, they are from Russia, and they are teachers. As we all know, everything in Russia is made from cement and mud. Logically this must also count for the living creatures too; and on that basis, I'd say that Russian teachers aren't as human as us, if not not at all, but rather some type of Golem...

When it comes to russian teachers of non-Russian origin, I'm also doubtful. Something must have driven them to the point where they wish to drown already overworked students with complex and intricate grammatical structures and articles like the above mentioned. I'm imagining that the reason must be a heart of stone, and that brings us to the topic of trolls? I'd say that trolls are more like vampires, as both vampires and trolls tolerate sun-light particularly bad..
Hence, i feel that the conclusion must be that neither russian teachers nor Russian teachers are human, but rather distantly related, corrupted and mutated beings.

At this stage, u might think me evil, some kind of racist or "anti-eastern-blockist" or even "anti-former-sovjetist".
And, yeah, evil, foul, rotten, I think i can be one of those; but I actually do live in one of the former eastern-block countries, Slovakia (and, believe it or not, i chose to live here), and, well, the vast majority of structures here is made from cement, concrete and other grey stuff.
Also, the workload related to studies is tremendous (at least compared to when I studied in Norway). This have lead to a down-prioritising learning the Slovak language (not too clever) and problems with getting really close with the locals.
I think that is one of the reasons why we often perceive them as a cold, grumpy, and slightly annoyed people. Of course, when u get to know them, they're (probably :P) just as me and you. Until I'm able to have fun with them, I'll settle with making fun of them instead :P