Category Archives: Hope

YES! (And a call for assistance)

By terje | Published: December 4, 2008
Yesterday, I got got an e-mail notifying me that I have been accepted as a student at the Norwegian Institutes at Athens and Rome next semester! Along with about 20 other students from various Norwegian universities, I’ll be spending first six weeks, from January 26 to March 6, in Athens, followed by six weeks, [...]
Also posted in A Moistening of the Eyes, Bliss, Dumb luck, Education, Glee, Gloating, Goosebumps!, Gratitude, Great Expectations, Greek stuff, Help!, History, Hodge-podge rambling, Lists, My microcosmos, Optimism, Pride, Roman stuff, Strategy/Plans, Whoa, Yay! | 24 Comments

An awesome coincident

By terje | Published: November 23, 2008
So I’m sitting in my room, working on my linguistics home exam, and I’m trying to explain why the verb paint in the sentence his father was painting a picture is not the same verb as the paint in the sentence his father never painted again, right? My line of resoning is the kind I [...]
Also posted in Awe, Coincidents, Collections, Education, English, Glee, Goosebumps!, Hodge-podge rambling, Impressions, Language, Links, Megalomania, Music, My microcosmos, Optimism, Pessimism, Pleasant surprises, Potential, Pride, Procrastination, Rant, Videos, Weird stuff, Whoa, Words, Work, Yay!, lol | 5 Comments

When I first read this, I imagined for a moment that 1204 and 1453 had been nothing but bad dreams. Reality dawing on me felt like a fist in my guts

By terje | Published: November 21, 2008
“Constantinople was an impregnable city …” — Robert B. Kebric, Roman People (4th edition), epilogue.
Also posted in A Moistening of the Eyes, Greek stuff, Grief, Hallucinations, Hist2125, History, Irony, Language, Literature, Love, Medieval stuff, Misery, Nostalgia, Oh noes!, Pain, Quote of the day, Regret, Roman stuff, Wistfulness | 3 Comments

WALL-E

By terje | Published: September 20, 2008
As I went to see WALL-E (from now on Wall-E, as Nature abhors a shout, even though it’s supposed to be an acronym) last a couple of days ago, I was feeling highly ambiguous and thus also a bit scared. You see, my hopes for this movie were nothing short of astronomic, as just about [...]
Also posted in A Moistening of the Eyes, A Praise Chorus, Ambiguity, Art, Awe, Bliss, Glee, Goosebumps!, Great Expectations, Hodge-podge rambling, Impressions, Irony, Love, Movies, My microcosmos, Optimism, Pimping, Pleasant surprises, Potential, Rant, Recommendations, Relief, Review, Speculations, Wistfulness, Yay! | 11 Comments

Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber

By terje | Published: June 9, 2008
(If this isn’t my best review, please bear over with me; it’s been over two months since I read this book.) 2001 (1970, 1962, 1970). 165 pages. “Induction” (2 pages) “The Snow Women” (74 pages) “The Unholy Grail” (27 pages) “Ill Met in Lankhmar” (62 pages) Swords and Deviltry is the first collection of short stories in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks series’ [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Annoyance, Collections, Conflicting emotions, Disappointment, Discomfort, Great Expectations, Impressions, Language, Links, Literature, Opinions, Pessimism, Potential, Review, Scepticism, Speculative fiction, meh. | 2 Comments

A Plague! A Plague on Our Houses!

By terje | Published: May 24, 2008
In my Last.fm shoutbox, I was recently asked by one of my readers to post more frequently in my blog, and seeing as your whim is my law, I bring you this: an essay of sorts about the last topic you’d expected me to write about! One of the things you might not know [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Annoyance, Boredom, Conflicting emotions, Disappointment, Discomfort, Dumb luck, Evilness, Failed attempts at subtility, Family, Football, Forums, Glee, Gloating, Goosebumps!, Great Expectations, Grief, Hallucinations, Help!, History, Impressions, Irony, Language, Laziness, Links, Lists, Lotta, Media, Megalomania, Misery, Music, My microcosmos, Norse stuff, Norway, Nostalgia, Oh noes!, Opinions, Optimism, Pain, Panic, Paranoia, Pessimism, Pettiness, Pleasant surprises, Politics, Potential, Pride, Procrastination, Roman stuff, Scepticism, Speculations, TMI, Television stuff, This Blog, Various, Videos, Weird stuff, Whoa, Why do I think anyone cares?, Wistfulness, Words, Yay!, lol, meh. | 11 Comments

Another one of GRRM’s ASOIAF fantasy references?

By terje | Published: January 4, 2008
So far, I’ve noticed references to at least two other writers of Epic Fantasy in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The first was quite simply the use of the name Vance on one of Westeros’ noble families, and the second (which I admittedly didn’t discover myself, I’m ashamed to say) is [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Annoyance, Boredom, Coincidents, Disappointment, GRRM, Hodge-podge rambling, Links, Literature, Revelations, Scepticism, Speculative fiction, meh. | Leave a comment

This does not bode well…

By terje | Published: December 24, 2007
I was in Molde yesterday, to have dinner with a buddy of mine from high school, and somehow at least two thirds of the four hours we spent together were spent talking about World of Warcraft, which said buddy, like so many others, had been pretty much addicted by the last couple of years. Personally, [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Computer games, Conflicting emotions, Discomfort, Forums, Hodge-podge rambling, Irony, My microcosmos, Oh noes!, Pessimism, Procrastination, Rant, Regret, Scepticism, Speculations, Strategy/Plans, Stress, This Blog, Why do I think anyone cares?, Wistfulness | Leave a comment

Curses! Or constructing next term’s schedule

By terje | Published: December 21, 2007
I checked my course registration page at NTNU (ooh!) about an hour ago, and much to my delight I discovered that I’ve been registered for not two but three courses this spring, and that these three combined fill my required term quota of 30 study points. English Linguistics gives me 7,5 points if I pass it; [...]
Also posted in Annoyance, Boredom, Coincidents, Conflicting emotions, Disappointment, Discomfort, Education, English, History, Hodge-podge rambling, Language, Laziness, Links, Lists, Literature, Megalomania, Misery, My microcosmos, Norse stuff, Norway, Oh noes!, Panic, Paranoia, Pessimism, Pettiness, Procrastination, Rant, Regret, Strategy/Plans, Whoa, Why do I think anyone cares?, Wistfulness, Work, meh. | Leave a comment

Our hope

By terje | Published: December 15, 2007
“But we will not be around in 500 years to see how our predictions have fared; we can only hope that historians of that future time will be understanding of our inability to guess how things would turn out and why.” — Laurie Bauer in the conclusion of the discussion of the chances of a [...]
Also posted in English, History, Language, Quote of the day, Speculations | Leave a comment