What's this...?

Take a look at this cartoon.

When I looked at it I thought "uhh.... ok....". Then I saw the guy lying in the middle and, strangely enough, I found it offensive. I have no reason to whatsoever, but my first reaction was a "what...??"

Something has changed inside of me and I'm not sure if I like it. People you meet, places you go, even dreams you have at night, everything affects you. For better or worse.

I always try to see both sides of the story. Playing the devil's advocate, that's me. The past months I've been able to see more of a side I'd never seen before, I just hope I wasn't pushed to far away from the middle...

Me, me, me!

A week or two ago I asked some people I know on the net to describe me with one word. What kind of impression had they gotten of me during the years/months/weeks we had talked? Some know me better than others and I wanted to see how 'apples' comes across.

Listed in the order I got them:

- beautiful (inside your heart)
- diffident
- interesting
- apples (it describes everything) *erm...*
- understanding
- lovely
- thoughtful
- adorable
- functional
- confined
- loner
- open-minded
- mysterious
- inspiration
- intriguing
- open, lunatic
('lunatique' because one day you are happy and cool and another day you are more nervous and a little bit hard somtimes)

If I ever feel low I can just look at this list and see that people really do think I'm a nice person (or are too scared to tell the truth). Am I allowed to have a favourite among these? I'm not sure, but if I was to have one or a few, it would be those that really got through to the real me. Like 'diffident' came from a person who doesn't know me too well but it's right on the mark. Same with 'confined' and the person who added that to the list. Maybe I reveal more about myself when I'm not trying to. Maybe the real me shines through when I think it's least likely to do so. Or maybe... maybe one day my maybe's will stop and I'll be able to say what's really on my mind.

You never know. Anything can happen.

Phobias

Do you mix agoraphobia with arachnephobia?
Do you know what anuptaphobia is?

For a reason I can no longer remember I started making a list of strange phobias. It probably was because I read about some fascinating ones, it could have been because I found some names I didn't know or it might simply have been to get out of studying for my exams for a little while.

Either way, I did it about a week ago and here are the results:

Aerophobia - fear of fresh air
Barophobia - fear of gravity
Cathisaphobia - fear of sitting
Dermatosiophobia - fear of skin
Elutherophobia - fear of freedom
Frigophobia - fear of cold
Genophobia - fear of sex
Hedonophobia - fear of pleasure
Ideophobia - fear of ideas
Japanophobia - fear of Japanese
Kinetophobia - fear of movement or motion
Logophobia - fear of words
Metrophobia - fear of poetry
Nephophobia - fear of clouds
Osmophobia - fear of smells
Parthenophobia - fear of virgins or young girls
Rectophobia - fear of rectum
Scholionophobia - fear of school
Tocophobia - fear of pregnancy or childbirth
Uranophobia - fear of heaven
Vestiophobia - fear of clothing
Xanthophobia - fear of the colour yellow of the word yellow


If that doesn't scare you, maybe this one will:

Phobophobia. Fear of phobias. Yikes!

Anybody got any of these?


- Phobias from The Phobias Page

Agoraphobia - fear of open spaces
Arachnephobia - fear of spiders
Anuptaphobia - fear of staying single

As the sun sets...

I've finally put some comments on my 17. Mai post so if you ever wondered what the pictures were all about, now you've got a chance to find out. Run for it!

Sometimes.

Sometimes you find yourself in strange situations that you put yourself in, and that you really do want to be in. Most of the time that happens in real life but sometimes it can happen online. Anywhere that you can find people as strange as yourself. Yesterday I found myself in a situation like that. It wouldn't have worked if I hadn't wanted to so I guess I didn't really 'find' myself in that situation, more placed myself there.

Sometimes you are willing to give more than you thought you were. Other times you think you will be able to give anything but you realize you can't. Sometimes you want someone to do things for you that you don't want to do for them. Sometimes others think you won't do something that you have no problem doing. Sometimes it's all so innocent it can't be taken seriously, but at the same time, on some level, you know it's real.

Sometimes you feel naked just by answering a question or daring to do something. Suddenly it feels like there's ice inside your chest. But it melts, the cold never lasts. Sometimes you have to say or write something you didn't plan on either saying nor writing. Sometimes it feels like you have a picture in your mind of what something should be like, other times you really do have a picture you didn't think you'd get. Sometimes you play with sand. Sandcastles and fishies.

Sometimes.

Amazing grace...

Today Firefox didn't want to let people see my blog. If you typed in the address it said you were here, but the page that was shown was amazingbiblestudies.com, which calls itself;

"a Mega-site of Bible, Christian & religious information"

Maybe someone felt my page was too 'ungodly'...

apples revealed

All your 'apple'-related questions answered.


Many years ago I was in a chat room. It was a room on a webpage where we had email accounts, message boards, like a little community with groups of friends.

One day when I was in one of the chat rooms we were talking about famous people whose first and last names started with the same letter. I asked;

"alright, my name is Anne; what should my last name be?"

"Apple"

and that's how apples was born.

The reason it's stuck with with me until now, years later, is probably that I got a new hotmail address not too long afterwards. I'd never wanted a hotmail address, I had one a few years before that but it was just too 'typical', everybody had it so I didn't want to.

Then came MSN. I needed an address and I guess you, like most people, know from experience how hard it is to get the address you want when 200 million people(or thereabouts...) have already signed up. So after a while I landed on anne_o_apple, which wasn't taken.

The apple thing just stayed there in my address for a while and I'm not sure what happened. I've probably got so many questions about the 'apple(s)' that it was the first thing that came to mind when I started this blog last year. Applestories was a fact.


Apples is a confident Moonbeam.
But that's another story.

An inbox full of apples

I've been getting so much spam lately, I've taken my email addy off here and anywhere else it's just sitting still for people to look at.

I did, however, put up a new one so if I get any spam there, I know you're to blame. And then I'll smack you in the head with a shovel. (yes I'm serious)

The addy is applestories@gmail.com and I even put it in MSN on Trillian so if you suddenly feel a burning desire to tell me off for something or other, you're very welcome to do so.


Oh, and if anybody wants a gmail account please give me a shout. I just can't get rid of them.

17. mai

Our national holiday started with rain. Our day, the day we celebrate that, in 1814, our constitution was written. Lots of rain and 2 degrees C, people are lining up by the university to walk down the hills to join the parade.




You can't have May 17th without walking in a parade, so I joined someone from the Uni marching down to the square where everyone was to line up. This is looking down from the top of a hill, down lots of stairs, to the square.




Not easy to see but there were so much people, I've probably never seen so many people in one place in my life. They were standing like this along the parade route, which went on for miles. The parade is where anyone can walk with a flag or a poster with the name of their group. There was anything from schools and kindergartens, sports teams, Bergen's football team and great pride had their own place, there were old cars and people on bikes, singing groups and I even saw some under the definition "those of us who don't have our place in the parade". It's like this in all of the country, but the bigger the town, the bigger the parade. So if you want to join, no one can stop you. Why would they want to?




Speeches, speeches, there are always speeches. It was raining though, then the sun came out. When we were watching the parade it started hailing. The weather kept changing. The secretary of the Children and Families part of the government had her speech but there weren't much people there. Was a little boring so we didn't stay long. I heard two and a half speeches, without having to, I feel proud! (I'm still a kid, really..)




The viking ship. They put this up just for the day, I think, they were taking it down the next. This was where they held the speeches. Clouds in the east.




The weather is always nice on May 17th. It did look bad in the morning but later the sun came and it was warm and oh so beautiful. I love trees and here's a picture of three of them. A few days later the pink flowers had started falling off but here they were just gorgeous; it was a perfect day in many ways.




The fire station all decorated with Norwegian flags. People still watching the parade, it never seemed to end. Another beautiful day in May, it's a special day. It's the childrens' day with ice cream and hot dogs. We don't have military parades. We have children, we have flags, we have the russ (gotta love it, I was blue). It's a happy day. If you're ever here on the 17th of May, get a flag and join the parade. You'll never forget it.

Looking for Mike

Mike was a guy I met at Spinchat a little over a year ago. I was living in France, so was he. He was an an American working in Belgium (I think) and living just on the border. Funniest thing I'd ever heard, living in one country, working in another... Anyway, I think we only talked once or twice but he really made an impression on me.

His 200kB-something email had just being lying in my Hotmail inbox for over a year. I'd thought about writing him or deleting it but never got around to it. We sent a few emails back and forth but it seemed like half of them got lost on the way. Tonight I decided I was going to send him one, a year after I last talked to him, even though he has no idea who I am. It's just something I have to do.

I wouldn't ordinarily write this, sending a weird email to someone I have no idea who is (and who might very well read this) isn't really a big event. I guess I just thought that if I don't get a reply, and I decide to delete the emails and that was that; at least I'll have this to remind me of it. It's strange when you talk to someone who makes you think, even a year after you had a conversation with them. He had dreams. He believed in what he did. And he had the balls to go for it.

Any wonder I liked him?



Edit:

"This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed..."

The one that got away...

My nose feels funny.

For those of you who don't know, that't my standard line for "I think I'm on the way to getting drunk." My nose felt funny two hours ago.

Now my head is going buzzzzz and I should go to bed. Big day tomorrow and don't worry, you'll get to know all about it. I'm dragging an Italian guy I've never met before to the May 17th parade. May 17th is our national holiday, it was when, in 1814, our constitution was written. And having an exchange student here who doesn't realize what's going on, and will miss out on the whole thing unless I help him out, is just not cool.

It's the children's day, we don't have military parades at all, it's all flags, music, hot dogs and as much ice cream as you can eat. It's a wonderful day and, no matter how far I flee to get away from Norway, Norwegians and the Norwegian language, this day makes me proud to belong to this country. Whether I be in a small town in the middle of nowhere, or in a park in Paris marching alongside the ambassador, it doesn't matter. A May 17th parade is a Norwegian thing, we love it, we can't leave it, no matter how far we run.

Which Religion...?

You scored as agnosticism. You are an agnostic Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics don't believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (nor lack thereof). Agnosticism is a philosophy that God's existence cannot be proven. Some say it is possible to be agnostic and follow a religion; however, one cannot be a devout believer if he or she does not truly believe. agnosticism 79% Buddhism 71% Paganism 58% Islam 50% Hinduism 42% atheism 42% Satanism 42% Christianity 25% Judaism t 25% Which religion is the right one for you? (new version) created with QuizFarm.com

I could believe that. I always cross the 'Other' box when asked about my religion and agnosticism sounds close enough to 'Other' for me not to think they're trying to categorize me too much. You don't categorize me. I'm special. And so are you.

Store Wars

I found this here.

Friday 13th

It's not. Not anymore. It's just late now. And the day has passed. You just wait for it and wonder every month "Did it start with a Sunday? Will the 13th be on a Friday?". It happens once or twice a year. And now it just did. And I didn't even do anything. Almost didn't even think about it. Nothing bad happened. That I remember. I just posted a post that looked weird.

The next Friday 13th is... January. Man.. that's a long time.. Eight months. You almost have time to have a kid before the next Friday 13th. Today I read about how the brain develops before you are born. Did you know that when the egg...cell...embryo thing gets attached to the uterine lining, it doesn't just get attached, but it actually starts to grow inwards, in a way. Its cells grows into the mother's body, it's not just something that grows inside a woman and is attached through the umbilical cord, but the cells actually grow from the uterus and into the body of the mother. There was a picture. I'm never having children.

What Are The Keys to Your Heart?

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who have a split personality - cold as ice on the outside but hot as fire in the heart.

In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you.

You'd like your lover to think you are stylish and alluring.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was insecure and in constant need of reassurance.

Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as commitment. Love only works when both people are totally devoted.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Considering this is a random Blogthings test, it strangely enough sounds quite a bit like me...

And someone please please please help me get the white thing on top away. I can't just delete it and I can't find anything in the html codes that explains it. What do I do?

Edit: I did it, I did it!

My little heart

Today my heart broke. It came as a complete surprise, I didn't expect it to happen but it did. There were no signs, no warnings. You would think you'd see flashing lights and sirens for such a thing but no, there was nothing, just warm drops running gently down my cheeks.

I was in the shower when my necklace got caught on the sponge-like thing. It keeps doing that and I just ripped it off, it would take too long to untangle it. Then I saw a little circle.. thing on the floor. It was the thing that attached my heart, my darling little heart, to the chain around my neck. I looked everywhere, realizing my heart had broken but hoping it wasn't lost.

Not a lot of people see that heart. I've been told it's "simple" but I love it. I don't remember how I got it I just know I've had it for a long time. I don't wear my heart on my sleeve, so to speak, whenever I wear it, I keep my heart hidden under my sweater. Hide it so nobody knows I have one.

I found the pieces, now I'll try to put them back together. I'm relieved I realized what happened. It's so much better knowing how and when and why rather than just being left hanging, not knowing what happened or where my heart went off to.

Now I'll put it where no one can find it. Somewhere safe where it can't be touched. I don't want to have my heart broken again.

Panty Personality

You're a Hipster

That's right, funny girl, you know how to use your quick wit and wise cracks to work a room, a party, or even that cute guy you've been eyeing. So even if you've never donned some super silly and sexy hipsters, these funny undies match your sweet and fun-loving personality.


Hipster? My whole panty drawer (and all those that don't fit in there) just shuddered. Don't worry, I won't throw them out and start buying hipsters. I love my funny thongs too much.

Emode.com

Summer's coming

I've been able to see the sun set four days in a row.
I've picked flowers and seen blossoms on cherry trees.
I've seen men with dogs and babies sitting outside reading books.

Sure, exams are a week away and I won't have time to read all the books I'm supposed to read.
Sure, I still haven't found a summer job and it seems like I'm not meant to get one.
And sometimes, just sometimes, you catch yourself wanting things you can't have.

Shit happens.

But now summer's coming.
The sun is shining
- and life is good...


no... that's only true half of the time.

The Hair Mystery continues

I found another one of these today. It was lying right next to my pillow, beside my teddy bears (the rabbit seemed completely undisturbed by the whole ordeal). I checked the rest of my bed for dark strands of hair but didn't find any more. I checked under the bed to see if there was a monster there but found none. I even checked my hair to see if if it had turned all dark in the back (after all, you never see the back of your head so all kinds of strange things can be going on back there).

Then I thought maybe it's not hair, maybe it's some kind of thread or something. I had a closer look and saw that it was thinner in one end, just like normal strands of hair, there was no root but there was a darker spot at the other end. Again it is about 10-15cm (4-6 inches) long and it's straight although a little 'curved'.

One of my roommates (the four of us all have our own rooms but share kitchen and 'living room area') has dark hair, maybe she drops hair in the kitchen and my clothes suck them in and spit them back out onto my bed...

This is getting spooky.

Free Pizza!

I got two of these emails today, offering me $100 Pizza Hut gift cards. At the end of the email there was a link to 'Unsubscribe'. I click this link. Now what?


"We're sorry! This offer is not available in your area. You will be redirected shortly."


I'm too far away to unsubscribe!

What are you gonna do?

The Bridge

The biggest newspaper in Bergen, Bergens Tidende, has several webcams around the city. And now they've put one up on our darling bridge! Point your browser here, click the picture, and you'll see (left side) where I walk past almost every day (when I have leftures). You can even see the building where I live on the other side there! Our bridge is famous!

Know your soul

"I think I work better with women I've slept with. Once you've seen their cum-face, you've seen their soul."

Random comment from random tv show.

73kB

Does anybody know what virus or worm is included in the 73kB emails? They used to be everywhere a few months ago, then they seem to have been lying low for a while and now they're back. I got 10 73kB emails today, what's in them?

Five times five

It is now officially 05.05 05.05.05

Module 31: The Social Psychology of Sustainability

"Most folks queried by Gallup report that, yes, they would like to be rich. Three in four American students entering college - nearly double the 1970 proportion - now consider it "very important" or "essential" that they become "very well off financially". It's not just collegians. Asked by Roper pollsters to identify what makes "the good life," 38 percent of Americans in 1975, and 63 percent in 1996, chose "a lot of money". Money matters.
- It's the old American dream: life, liberty and the purchase of happiness.

Since 1957, the number of Americans who say they are "very happy" has declined slightly from 35 to 32 percent. Meanwhile, the divorce rate has doubled, the teen suicide rate has more than doubled, the violent crime rate has tripled (even after the recent decline), and more people than ever (especially teens and young adults) are depressed.
More than ever, we have big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminshed civility. We excel at making a living but often fail at making a life. We celebrate our prosperity but yearn for purpose. We cherish our freedom but long for connection. In an age of plenty, we feel spiritual hunger.
- I call this soaring wealth and shrinking spirit "the American paradox.""

From my 'Exploring Social Psychology'
text book by David G. Myers

Hair-mystery

I have found two dark, 10-15cm (4-6 inches) long strands of hair in my bed. My hair isn't that dark, they can't have been mine. I changed the sheets less than a week ago so they can't have been there for long. No one with kinda long dark hair has been close enough to my bed to leave a couple of strands under the duvet.

Where did they come from?

1994 and 2005

Dear Mr. Clinton, I want you to stop the killing in the city. People is dead and I think that somebody might kill me. So would you please stop the people from deading. I'm asking you nicely to stop it. I know you can do it. Do it. I now you could. Your friend, James.

Ten days later, 9-year-old James Darby was killed in a drive-by shooting in New Orleans.


Today the world as a whole spends $2 billion on arms and armies. Two billion American dollars every single day.

Making it easier to kill each other.

Men and Monsters

Also from the book I'm reading.

The woman telling the story is a make up artist working for a TV station, currently on a science fiction show where she has to make the actors look like aliens, 'monsters' if you like.

"Hector took me aside today. He said he was sorry about Terry. I said, all I ever wanted to do was understand the man inside the monster. He said 'No love, you've got it the wrong way round.' He said women always do."


I think they might be invisible.

Big is Beautiful

You don't have to be skinny to be a beauty queen.

Libras

I read this in a book today:

"Libras are very good listeners. The typical Libra is destined to be a loving wife, a hairdresser, or a United Nations diplomat."

I've always wanted to work for the UN...