Say what??

In honor of the holidays, I'm going to post something completely unrelated to any winter celebration whatsoever...just something that I deal with every day that it occured to me might be sort of funny to read--the literal transliteration between English and Norwegian. Since the two languages share a great deal still and more or less came from the same languages, most things can be translated literally and directly between the two and still make sense, as long as you go back and rearrange the grammar. Usage, however, is a different story. Here's some very commonly used phrases in Norwegian, their literal translation, and the most common English phrase to say the same thing:

Hva skjer a? - What cuts? - How's it going/what's happening?

Hvis du vil - If you will- If you'd like to (in certain situations this sounds quite strange)

Hvis du har lyst til - if you have lust to - If you want (it was literally months before I could bring myself to say this)

Fy faen oss - oh damn us - general obscenity exclamation, (not especially mild but very common nonetheless) but when Norwegians are speaking english, they often translate it as 'fuck us', which i invariably find hilarious

messing naken - brass naked - norwegians translate this one as 'really naked' or 'very naked'...just an expression but rather entertaining to hear them try to explain to the american the difference between 'naked' and 'really naked'

i det pratsomme hjørnet - in the talkative corner (prate = chat) - in a talkative mood

anyway, you get the point.

No More Finals!

This madness that is
Core is done, my brain now free
To think of snow again

Falling Rain

The rain in endless
Sheets pours down, flooding courtyards
Dampening brown leaves

It came last night, sudden
Downpour in the gutter out-
Side of my window

Never stopping, the
Rain fell though the night, taking
Dust and smog from air

Parts of dining hall
Closed off, filled with water now
Drains clogged with dead leaves

Heat is gone, now cold
Seeps in to buildings with single
Pane glass in windows

From above, the ground
Sprouts brightly colored mushrooms,
Umbrellas with feet.

Do trees shed tears? Let's cut them down and find out

Back in Alaska
Back to the snowy blackness
Eugene is like gold

Adventures with google translate

Loni's heroic couplet

tocino buen cocido, mucho de 

la gente que nos pasan dicen ¡mmm!

our translation

bacon cooked well, many of

the people who pass us say Yum!

google translate's translation

bacon cooked a lot of good people who pass us say mmm

....well that changes the meaning a bit doesn't it?

Scandinavian Specialty:

on an attempt to make caramel

Starbucks whipping cream

18 tablespoons butter

3 cups of sugar

oops, uh-oh burning

so, apples only, sorry

for this christmas bash

back to the kitchen

experimenting further

who will eat this stuff?

says genius Sarah

our marketing lacks finesse

make up a good name

try our new special

its from Scandinavia

"yum coffee toffee"

Loni's lovely haikus....

she makes me laugh.

slick slimy tortoise

slides across the boiling lake

he is almost dead.

 

Reasons Why My Roomates Should Not Be Given Holiday Decorations

So, my roommate (Annsley) was visited by her parents on Friday, and they want to Target. There is a door decorating competition for our dorm, and I had asked her to see if she could pick something up that we could use.

I got a little more than I bargained for.

As you can see from the above, Annsley and Emily, my other roommate, went a little nuts (ok, so I helped a little). Annsley demonstrated very well that she should not be given ribbon, although it was really funny watching Emily's face when she came out of the shower and saw what had happened to the bunk bed. Emily is responsible for the menorah on the door (although I fixed it, since she somehow forgot two branches) as well as the pom-pom garland around the board and name tags. Tinsel features rather largely in the decorating scheme, as does duct-tape.

But no matter how ridiculous it looks, we had a ton of fun.

a watercolor of a photo from prince william sound

Justin and I were exploring a really cool creek area (I took Aimie and Andrea as well)

Fun with Photoshop!

I am extremely excited about my recent acquisition of photoshop on my laptop. I found a tutorial on making photos look like watercolours, so here is one of my first tries. This could be a very addicting program...