Duuuude, so many movies! So much smiling!

So back later for a proper update, but if you don't hear from me at all this week, it's just because I lost my brain, heart, time and thought-capacity to TIFF!

Oh boy! I just found myself thinking "there sure are a lot of covers in this playlist" and then realised that that's possibly (maybe, you think?!) because it is in fact my covers-playlist. And the rest of my day has been the same way.

Well, except for the bit where my face is on the cover of the national newspaper of my heaaaart (see! (link goes to twitpic, because if you don't twitter it, it didn't happen)) and my article takes up two pages inside said newspaper. I'll feel kind of sad if all the awesome of this year happens in one month, but still, the level of awesome is quite high, so I might be able to deal with it:D

And 35 Rhums/35 Shots of Rhum, which I saw yesterday, was amazing! This year, TIFF is showing a whole bunch of movies directed by Claire Denis, and that one definitely encouraged me to see more of them - apparently it's her most conventional movie as far as narrative goes, so I'm curious to see the rest, because it was such a jolt to realise that she assumed we'd understand things from context and situations, without the characters needing to say exactly what they were doing and why (possibly a case of "You know you've seen too many Hollywood movies when..."). My only complaint would be that the intimacy between the father and daughter seemed just a bit too intimate, like they'd hired actors who were too good at doing their jobs or something. But it was wonderful, a warm, pleasant film in some ways, if not exactly that in its plot - what I mean, I think, is that it seemed to weave itself in my brain, little loops and curls around parts of my head I might not know I had. Just, lovely.

After the film, we didn't really want to go home - I saw it with Ryan (my new gay linguist friend after Tor H moved:D) and two friends of his - so we ended up at a cafe, where I learned bits about languages, cultures and crazy-conservative Polish radio (Radio Maria, I think it was?), and got to tell my own stories in return, and then I thought some about the difference of being an ally and saying you are one, and languages and opportunities.

And today I'm a bit floaty on a cloud of "my article. in the paper," which I'm totally allowing myself, because it's awesome, and I'm still new enough at this whole thing to pretty much think it's the best thing ever:>

Having placed myself in this window all day, I feel pretty confident in saying that Tromsø has it's fair share of attractive people. ("This window" is my favourite seat at De 4 roser, because it almost guarantees that people won't be sitting next to me, plus the light is good for reading - always a necessity.) My eyes, however, hate me, I'm not sure what that's about, but it's very annoying. They've been runny both today and yesterday, and right now they seem parched. Way to make sense, stupid body.

Yesterday's movie - Same Same but Different - wasn't as good at the one on Monday; I might have told twitter it was So-So but Decent, because there's nothing I like better than horrible puns - probably why I keep losing followers all the time. The story was OK - German backpacker meets Cambodian semi-prostitute, love happens (kind of) - but there were so many parts of it that didn't really make sense to me, sequences which would have required more explanation to be understandable. It's based upon an autobiography (or an autobiographical novel, something), so maybe the written version was better, or at least allowed the male main character more room for explanation and reasoning. Apparently the lead was the guy who played in The Reader, but I haven't seen that - I liked him, he made his character seem human, partly silly boy, part actual human, but then the other characters seemed very one-dimensional, flat and uninteresting. Well, except for the female lead, who was given almost as much room as him, but I don't know if the culture crashes really did her a lot of favours, though it wasn't as bad as some.

Speaking of culture clashes, I had this spoilery thought: ( on Avatar ) Man, I really didn't care much for that movie. But I saw that picture linked various places with the Pocahontas comparisons and it made me laugh and laugh: James Cameron's biggest desire that he worked years and years for was to make a Disney movie, hee! (no, seriously, I am the most unimpressed)

I've also seen The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and I liked that one a lot! A lot more than I thought I would, even; I could tell that it could have been a better movie, but the story was intriguing, the scenography was fascinating, and the story was as good a fable as I've ever heard, so it was a nice thing to just let myself sink into and accept whatever happened. And Sherlock Holmes of course, which was so much gleeful fun, and I have much appreciation for Robert Downey Jr now, and Jude Law too. Though I pretty much can't say much more about it than "shiny!" because that's as far as my brain went afterwards:D

And apparently Klassekampen is printing the shortened version of my article tomorrow - I'm pretty much stuck in "I won't believe it 'til I see it", so I'm saving all my glee for tomorrow morning, but once I see it in print, I'm pretty sure my glee will be vast and endless. I didn't think it would happen quite so soon, but well, am not complaining at all, of course!

Yesterday, I stayed up for 33 hours - guess who has two thumbs and no ability to fall asleep on Sundays? - all because I really wanted to go to a film screening for TIFF volunteers, and knew I'd fall asleep too hard to be able to get up again in time to see the film (really, I got tired around 9 am, so impractical). Thankfully, the film was worth it:
Pranzo di Ferragosto/Mid August Lunch (Italy) (imdb) (first link goes to wikipedia, because I wanted to know what ferragosto was; second one to the TIFF-site. I'm not entirely certain whether that link will show up in English or Norwegian, I think the TIFF-site uses your original language choice to determine what language you get the information in, because the link is the same. So if it's in Norwegian, try clicking the "English" button on the upper right hand side, it might help? At least if you reload? Maybe? Who knows!) It was sweet, and I think people who have spent any amount of time with older folks, and have been fascinated and amused more than annoyed at the way their minds sometimes work, would like it. It was very undramatic, just pleasant and fairly uncomplicated - very much a festival film, I think, well-worth watching, and just the right length too (only 1h15m, any longer and it would be too much, I think). I suppose none of you are likely to just stumble upon it, but if you do, I'd recommend it for sure:>

And I can pretty much guarantee I'm not going into that much detail with all the films I'm seeing this year, but it's easy when you're only watching one per day, besides, it feels like these volunteer screenings make me able to cross off more films before getting into the delightful stress of the festival weekend and that whole thing of "how much can you squeeze into one day, and do you actually need breaks for eating?" (usually, the answer is "no more than five, and yes, you need food, eat, stupid!")

So, after getting home, I talked to my parents for a bit, and then stumbled into bed and fell asleep probably four minutes after pulling the covers up to my nose.

Today I'm seeing Same Same but Different (Germany), we'll see how that turns out, and then the rest of the week there's 35 rhums/35 Shots of Rhum, Alle anderen/Everyone else and Stilyagi/Hipsters, which is kind of brilliant, really, because I'd marked all of them down as films I might want to see. I am a bit worried to jinx things now (oh no, I wrote about the films, now they'll get lost in delivery and end up buried in Sahara!), but fingers crossed:D

And have any of you seen Humpday (imdb)? I can't quite decide if it sounds like it might potentially be very fun, or just very unfortunate, with a side-dish of offensiveness, so any help would be appreciated!

Sigh, I was so sure it was only 1 am, except now it's suddenly almost 2 am, and I really want to clean stuff. I have an intense desire to re-arrange my bookshelf, because the idea of the poetry books being all over is driving me insane. I want them all nicely collected in one place, for easy access (and a bit of bragging, even if it is only to myself). I piled all my cameras on top of my DVD-player today (here's a cell-cam photo on twitpic), and there are quite a few of them. And all of them are film cameras, except for one (which I think hasn't been in use since 2005, or so), including two polaroid ones, one of which I have no more film for. And the film for the other one expired in 2004, so I'm not sure how that's going to end up looking, it'll be fun! My shiny new Diana Mini is the black and light-blue one in the front, it takes either square or half-frame photos, but so far I haven't taken any - it's too dark outside to use it without a flash. I fully intend to buy one, I'm just procrastinating ---

I said, and then spent an hour on ebay buying one. From South Korea. Who needs security when you can haphazardly throw money up in the air and see if it brings your purchased goods back to you? (I also bought a splitzer, for no particular reason other than shopping in a 2 am fog, oh well.)

Anyways, a while ago I ordered some perfume samples from The Perfumed Court, after seeing them linked in an article in D2, DN's weekly Friday magazine, and they've been slowly showing up - four out of eight (I think), so far. I fell in love with L'Artisan's Dzing, and am definitely buying more of that, and discovered that apparently whatever scent-thing my father wears, has coffee in it, because now I smell like him. I bought a coffee-scent three-pack, and two of them smell like my father, while the last one reminds me of someone else, though I'm not sure who exactly. They're all too masculine for me anyways, so it's OK, except I really wanted something nice and coffee-like to wear. I have high hopes for the remaining ones though, they're all various kinds of leather scents, mmm. Although so far my perfume skills kind of limit themselves to "yum" and "yuck" (with occasional bits of "uuuh, hmm."), I am so hopeless when it comes to all these things, but I want to start smelling like something other than just myself now:D

And now I really should sleep.

Why does facebook have the least useful privacy settings ever? (Ignoring of course the pointlessness of privacy online in general and on facebook specifically) I want to hide my status updates and notes from my mother, but she can see everything else, and also be my friend, but apparently that's too much to ask. Blah! (I tried pushing buttons and stuff, and suddenly she couldn't see my wall at all, which is not what I intended.) And then this woman added me - blabla, Sami blog whatnot - and mentioned that she had a comment for me on her wall. So I went to read it, and now I'm practicing the art of "if you can't say something nice and only want to criticize people for not thinking, you shouldn't say anything at all." (apparently I'm trying to make the point that people should only write happy stories about being Sami.)

But everything that isn't on the computer is good, except for the part where my brother left for Trondheim today, sigh. I miss him when he goes away, no matter how much he occasionally bugs me when he's here. Besides, he helped me put up two more shelves today, so it's all good. Also the new shelving means I spent some time trying to arrange my DVD's. It started out a half-decent system (music DVD's, musicals, animated stuff, non-English language things, gay stuff, book adaptions, old movies, silly teen stuff) and then there's a pile of "everything else," though I think I should maybe make some sort of actress sub-section for Angelina Jolie:D And now I have a shelf for my comic books, which is awesome! The shelf is right above my bed, so I'm kind of worried we won't have screwed it in good enough and I'll wake up dead and covered in graphic novels at some point in the future, fingers crossed that doesn't happen!

But oh, it's all OK, because the filmfestival of my heart (TIFF, but Tromsø, not Toronto) released their program today, so I'm going to browse it and make my usual "OMGYES!" and "... so much no." and "The Road? Don't want insta-depression, kplzthx!" notes to self. That's the thing with the festival and the deep, and ultimately depressing movies: they don't work so well together for me, because after seeing one of them, I need a week to clear my head and get ready for more movies. And by then the festival's over. I want brain-breaking, but not like that. I'm hoping for some nifty Argentinian movie again this year, and some delightful movies about children - preferably ones without sexual abuse. And French-Canadian ones, they tend to be a hit! God, I love that festival!

Just in case you were wondering, one of the least comfortable ways of waking up is at 3 am, after some weird, elaborate nightmare about some sort of crazy institution where they de-gay people, sometimes by shooting at them with automatic weapons, and then locking yourself into a safe room with two other people, one of whom is chained to the floor and dying from having taken an overdose of pills, and then when you go to call your mother to say "uh, come rescue me," you realise there are windows to the outside and oh shit you'll totally get shot now. That was the point at which my brain went "oh, hi, we're awake from trauma!" and then I didn't go back to sleep.

I'm better now, especially after I napped for an hour and felt like I was less likely to fall over and hit my head on something. And my brother helped me install one new shelf, though sadly we lacked the screws to put up the other two (it was a whole lot of screwing around with wrong sized heads and no right screwdrivers, so we'll try again tomorrow), and then I spent a bit of time contemplating what to do with my jewelry, especially the necklaces, since I have cleaned enough to discover that I do, in fact, own a shoe box (winter shoes, even), full of fake and real and most parts in between. I thought about just hitting a lot of nails into the wall, and hanging them on that, but I know I bought a chain once, for a similar purpose, with small rings, so I'll have to look and see if I can find that, and then do something with it. I definitely don't want to spend half an hour separating necklaces again anytime soon.

In more weird, but satisfying news, so far today I have been interviewed for a radio thing (small, but still), asked if I'd like to do a twenty-minute speech (informal and maybe funny) for this regular thing the museum has, and one of the editors of Kuiper (and a friend of mine), the periodical my article was in, called to say that Klassekampen had called and asked to print a shorter version of it at some point in the none-too-distant future (to which I pretty much went speechless and then said "sure!"). I'm pretty sure I will literally die from glee if 2010 insists on continuing on in this vein, also I think it's a sure sign all signs point to "finish your damn thesis so you can know what you're talking about already!" so it's all good. Bizarrely, weirdly, surprisingly good - especially since I felt that 2009 lacked direction and was generally a bit of a pause, with some really lovely parts, but generally slow and un-sensational.

Oh, and do any of you want one of those $10 lj gift coupons, since I still have ten of them to give away?

So, uh, hi.

As a follow-up to my last entry, in early freakin' October ohdear, I did tell my father that I wouldn't finish my thesis last semester, to which he said "So, do you want to go to London in November?" That's not quite how it happened - especially since I went to London with my mother - but close enough that it makes an awesome addition to the list of reasons why I am the most spoiled person in the world. (not true; even the vaguest amount of viewing "My super-sweet 16" proves that I am so level-headed it's amazing.)

So me and my mother went to London in November, and that was fun. Super-stressful (almost four-day visit ahoy), but fun. And then I wrote this article, although I finished that a few days after posting my latest entry (in October, yes), but the point is that two weeks after we got back from London the periodical my article was in was reviewed in Klassekampen (newspaper of my heart, as long-time readers might remember), and the reviewer said my article was the best one of the lot, and then I died, friendslist, I died of squee and glee and omg(ee)! So that was awesome, and, not to put to fine a point on it, the high point of my freaking life and culimination of at least four separate day dreams at various points in life. What she said was: "Den mest interessante teksten er kanskje Siri K. Gaskis flotte artikkel om hva hun ønsker seg av samisk litteratur. Teksten er full av personlig driv, den tenker fram en kombinasjon av egne analyser, litteraturteori og urfolkserfaringer." which translates to "The most interesting text might be Siri Gaskis great article about what she wants from Sami literature. The text is filled with personal drive [if that's something you can say in English], it brings forth a combination of its own analysis, literary theory and indigenous experiences." So you can see why it made me happy:>

And then inbetween that I developed a ridiculous crush we are not talking about - it'll pass if I don't think about it, which I don't - and a ridiculous crush on a newspaper. Well, the newspaper has been a thing for a while now, but apparently you - or at least I - can become stupidgiggly tweencrushing over a newspaper. The whole thing kind of culiminated last night when I realised that since I insist on anthropomorphising (I just spent ten minutes wikipediaing and dictionary.com'ing to try to find the proper term for it - there isn't a better one?) newspapers and the like, Dagens Næringsliv in human form is totally Mr. Big. Who I'll still maintain is the only sensible thing to come from Sex and the City. And then I thought some more and then I started shipping Mr Big/Miranda, 'cause that would actually make sense (to me, anyways). I don't know. Point being, my current favourite newspaper is Mr. Big and the thought made me giggle so much I almost fell off my bed in glee.

Inbetween all that I watched seasons three and four of Bones in a 60 hour period. Season three starts out so good and then the writer's strike happened and then it sucked, and season four was occasionally dead annoying and I must be the only person on earth not shipping Booth/Bones (I'm probably not, I know), but it's fun! And then I spent a lot of time cleaning, because my life is new and improved, or something. I think maybe I drove myself crazy with the mess? But yes, cleaning, and looking at so much mail I've received over the years from so many people - so many of you - and it made me long for the US, and long for the days when I actually did stuff like regularly mail people things. I've also been dreaming a lot - it's happened for years, but a lot more often lately - about coming home to a mailbox overflowing with gifts and presents and things. Sometimes my dreams are really easy to interpret:D

But yeah, I plan on posting a back-dated version of the year-end meme at some point, and by now I know better than to make any promises about updating more often, but life is good, we'll see. And also, mid-December marked the point at which I've been blogging for a decade. Go me!

I need the world to be more sympathetic. 'Cause I have this secret desire to start acting my age - for really dumb reasons, but whatever, let's not focus on that - and so I decided that one step in said plan should be to start wearing perfume. Or whatever flavoured-water version of perfume is currently popular; I currently smell like eau de confusion when it comes to scent. And what I figured was that the best way of going about this - me being an absolute novice and completely useless with such things - would be wandering into whatever nice perfume-selling place I can think of, and go "this is what I smell like now, help?" Except I figure that unless I'm massively lucky with finding the best sales person ever, I'll end up with someone going "... uh, try this!" and shoving the most expensive thing they think they can get away with at me.

And I know what smells I like, but I have no idea what actually smells good on me, and I think they might be wildly different. Hmpf! I like the idea of leather, and a slight whiff of honey and dark, but not Christmassy, spices, that sort of thing, but still soft. I want people to really have to invade my personal space - in a nice way! - before actually smelling me. I've totally given up on make-up as far as being a grown-up goes - although I have hit the point where I'm all "well, I guess my skin needs some sort of moisture, especially during winter what are these weird dry patches oops," so, yay, progress! - and my style of dressing is sort of wavering between being maybe seventeen (I almost said nineteen, but no, most of the new students look more grown-up than me) and maybe mid-twenties, so I figure I can at least smell like a person who knows what they're doing. Even if I'm not!

Not that I expect any of you to go "Hi Siri, let me tell you about my hidden storage of perfume-knowledge," I just felt a need to complain. Also I received an e-mail from my thesis advisor and almost threw up, so... That's not a good sign? I think one more semester is in order, though I really don't want to tell my father. Especially not since I wouldn't even be able to complain if he decided to punch me in the face for it, I'd deserve that. So, the fun part is trying to find a way to say it that also presents all the good arguments for it, not just the "I totally didn't do anything sensible and now I'm wimping out, because that's what I'm best at."

Life:/ Except for some bits of it which, while not making me seem any less pathetic than the rest of this, are at least slightly delightful! I'm pathetic and delighted! And deserve to be punched in the face, so I don't really come out on top, either way. Sigh.

Once upon a time, years and years ago, in the deepest bowels of this journal (and they're deep, by now), I coined a term along the lines of "2 am brain." A sudden - or, rather, surprising - shift in my internal brain chemistry that meant no matter how nice a day I'd had, at some point, around 2 am - unsurprisingly - my brain went "WAAAH! :("

I was reminded of this because I spent the entire busride home fighting back tears. I didn't have a brilliant evening, as such - though parts of it, and most of the people, were lovely and hilarious - but it wasn't a bad one at all, and I got a hug from an amazingly hot Swede, so that made me happy. Plus he seemed like a hands-on kind of guy, but not in a bad way, just how some people tend to touch without thinking - he even patted my head, and it didn't feel condescending! - so it was really sweet and made me happy. But obviously not happy enough, so I kind of spent ten minutes sobbing once I got home. I'm OK now - better at least - but I'm still feeling like I really want a hug, but it'd have to be from a specific sub-set of people I know, you know? I can think of two people, maybe three, who I'd like a hug from, most everyone else would be lovely, but not the right kind. Or something. I'm feeling whiny and needy and the stupid bus didn't drive all the way up the hill, so I had to walk home, in the rain, and it's not like that helped at all, and now I'm thinking about writing a complaint and asking for a refund for part of my ticket, since I paid for a service that I didn't receive, and so the bus company obviously broke a mutual - if silent - agreement of terms of use.

I'm not actually drunk, though I wouldn't blame you for thinking I am:> (I had a moscow mule, it tastes funny, but yummy, and definitely isn't enough to make a person un-sober. (even if, at the party I was at last Saturday, a friend of mine said she was probably more sober than me, even if I'd only had one drink, just because I drink so little. But I think it takes a bit more than that to actually fill up my entire body with alcohol, so I'm sure she's wrong))

I think I could write more, but it'd be grumpy and whiny, so I won't. Not that there's anything wrong with grumpy and whiny, but I'll just end up feeling worse in the morning (see, I've learned stuff since I was young, woo!). Except I agree with The Be Good Tanyas in "Light Enough to Travel":

Promise me we won't go into the nightclub
I really think that it's obscene
What kind of people go to meet people
Someplace they can't be heard or seen?