It's getting darker...

Wow, so much has happened since my last blog post. In brief: came back to Iceland, now living in Kópavogur instead of Reykjavík :( No, it's actually lovely here, and less than a 1km from where I used to live! Went on a fieldwork trip to Norway, and for the first time ever, found exactly what I was looking for! Omg! (Old people have LDR, young people don't. That's pretty fast language change, which is actually sad.)

Came back to Iceland and got the uni to buy me a nice new Lenovo ThinkPad, which is an absolute monster. I've named him Egill, after Egill Skallagrímsson, an Icelandic hero from the sagas. He was stupendously ugly, killed his first enemy at age 6 (a 10 year old who wouldn't let him play ball with them), but wrote incredibly beautiful poetry. My Egill is like that. Really nothing to look at, but very powerful and a great worker. Except my Egill hasn't killed anyone. Yet. My Egill's full name is Egill Ljótur, Egill the Ugly. Which is actually a fully legitimate Icelandic name. Icelanders are a bit mental when it comes to names I reckon!

I'm off to the Faroes again in a week, and I've finally got this mad experiment to work, although it's going to be a race against time to get the test sentences translated while I'm there as well as running the experiments. Well, we just do the best we can. It's a self-paced reading test, which should give me insight into how the Faroese process sentences, exactly where they have trouble and so on. Cheaper than sticking their heads in an MRI scanner, and should give me similar results :)

And, finally, it's snowing! There's been a dusting on Esja and the hills around us for a while, but it looks like winter has finally come to Reykjavík!

Back in Iceland

Hello world, I'm back in Iceland! Took around 37 hours door-to-door, which included 3 hours of skyping Luce and you-tubing New Moon and Rob Pattinson in general in Singapore, and 5 hours of sitting in Copenhagen recharging my batteries and drinking chocolate milks. The whole flight from CPH to KEF I could see the plane's shadow on the clouds (and sometimes the ocean) below us, surrounded by a rainbow halo. It was gorgeous, but I don't recall ever seeing that before. Has anyone else ever seen that before? I'm guessing we must have been below some clouds, and that was the refraction through them, but I'm not sure. Very cool though :)

Bye Tom, Hi Jason; MS Office 2007 first impressions

Well, Tom lasted almost 24 hours before his guts got ripped out and replaced with bigger (500GB hdd!) and faster (2gb ram!) insides. (Still only an Atom processor though, can't wait to get a decent-speed, real-sized laptop that won't take ages to do anything, when I get back to Iceland!) Luce took ages learning how to use 'migrate' and 'grow' and 'shrink' tools in a usb-key-bootable version of linux called 'damn small linux' or something, aka 'knoppix', so I could install stuff on tom (160gb hdd) and not have to reinstall it when my computer became jason. But it didn't work. So I've spent days researching, buying, installing, reinstalling and coming to terms with MS Office 2007 (in particular Word, Excel, Access and some Powerpoint).

[Start Review of Office 2007, after 5 days intense usage]:

There are some things about Office 2007 that seem really good - the fact there's no title bar taking up screen real estate is a bonus when you have a 10" screen, and that the 'quick access' buttons can be moved above the menu bar. Both of these are 'half-size', so you only lose the space of the old title bar, no more (the title gets squished along to the right). You also lose the screen-space taken up by the half-line-sized status bar at the bottom, but it seems useful enough so I'm not complaining (about that) just yet. Thank Christ the ribbon can be minimised!

What I don't like about Office 2007 is that the Quick Access Buttons bar can't be undocked (that I can find), so I can't put it on the screen where it will be closest to my mouse for a couple of repetitive actions (that aren't worth recording a macro for). On the other hand, the styles pane doesn't seem to dock at all, which means that it covers up part of my page. To see all of my text, I have to zoom out, and this leaves a blank, unused area on the opposite side of the page to the style pane. This is pretty annoying, I hope they change this back to how it was in Office 2003.

The rulers are easy to turn on and off with a button at the top of the vertical scroll bar, just under the split screen button, so it takes up no room at all, and gives more room to my page. Again, good-o.

The hardest thing at the moment is working out where things I've used menu commands for for ages now (open styles pane, insert comment, insert (first) caption in document, insert header/footer, change AutoCorrect options, change preferences/tools-options, macro stuff), are, since they are no longer where they were. I think at least some of these have been moved to more logical places, eg the styles pane is opened by selecting the style button, and scrolling down to the 'More...' selection. That took a long time and some lateral thinking to find!

Finally, since I tend to have 3 or 4 Office programs opened at the same time, I'd like to be able to change the background colour of each independently. But when you go to 'Change Access options' and select 'black', it actually changes this in all of the Office programs. *sigh* Hopefully this can be changed soon too.

Woops, sorry for that launch into a review! But this is a blog, and this is part of my Icelandic adventure, even if it happened in Melbourne.

Farewell daisy, hello tom!

My poor darling daisy, a 4 and a half year old Acer Travelmate 3000, suffered a few heart attacks earlier this weeks, and finally, on Thursday morning, completely carked :( I had just gotten back into full swing of work, which may have contributed to her demise. So I spent a panicked 14 hours on Thursday researching new laptops, and found NOTHING that exactly suited me. So instead, I've opted for a netbook for all my travels, and the uni in Iceland is going to get me a workhorse computer for my proper work. So, this is my first blogpost from tom, an acer aspire one d250 10.1" black netbook. Tom had to be black, cos my dad already got the blue one! Great minds... (Except his won't be specced up with twice the RAM and three times the hard disk space ;) .) I am so skypable now - tom's inbuilt webcam and speakers are truly impressive!

Back in Melbourne for some winter loving

Okay, so I've arrived back in Melbourne, but I'll be back in Iceland in September and October. July was spent: hosting visiting LFG scholar Ash Asudeh in Reykjavik (which turned out even better than I had hoped!), travelling to Cambridge to present at the LFG conference (which went really well, Mary Dalrymple spent ages with me working out how to formalise what I said in my talk, and I met a guy who had actually met Isaac Asimov, and written to Robert Heinlein!), met up with friends in Copenhagen (I have a new favourite saying: "Hvor det er hjerterom er det husrom" - 'Where there's room in your heart, there's room in your home' - I stayed in a 3 bedroom flat with a family of 5! Thanks Anne and family!), visited the butterfly enclosure and tried out the (heavenly) foot massage machine in Changi, and went snowboarding at Perisher in NSW for a week. I had the best instructors, each day they said, "What do you want to work on today?" So I have now ticked off everything that was on my list: bumps, jumps, tricks and t-bars :) I officially feel comfortable on a snowboard, and can't wait to get up to Buller to practice on some harder runs - Perisher is 60% blue :/

My first priority back in Melbourne (apart from finishing some writeups of conference papers and getting prepared for the next round of fieldwork in September) is to get insulation in the house - happily the government is offering $1,600 rebates for exactly this. Next priority is to get the hot water system, and the bathroom in general, fixed, and happily the government is offering rebates on solar hot water systems at the moment! #3 priority is rain water tanks, and I hope the government rebates for them are still in effect. Yay for good timing of rebates!

bye-bye Víðihlíð

This is my last post from Víðihlíð, tonight I'll be sleeping in Kópavogi! The shame of it! No, actually it's quite a lovely area :) Oh, and I finally got to go to Þórsmörk, and it was definitely as beautiful and special as everyone has said. Not to mention lovely and warm - I shocked the hell out of the Icelanders after our 22km hike by lying down for a few minutes in the icy cold river beside the campsite to cool off and wash, while they only lasted a few seconds each :D Photos forthcoming.

June summer holiday

Phew! I've just returned from my 3-week trip to Europe, which is why I haven't been replying to emails. Will work on the photos when I have spare time from moving house and working. Here's a summary of my June so far:

1-6 June: NORMS Linguistics workshop, Hotel Fefor, Gudbrandsdalen in Norway. Highlights:

• Swimming in a mountain lake, fed by snowmelt from the highest mountains in Norway, at 1158 metres above sea level
  
• Playing Cat's Cradle (you know, that string game) for about 4 hours with Gísli on the last night
  
• Finding out that some Dutch dialects have subject-complementiser agreeement in embedded clauses, as well as subject-verb agreement (eg 'I know dat she is coming', vs 'I know dan they are coming'.)
  

6 June: Mark and Susana's wedding just outside of Rome. Highlights:

• Navigating from the airport to the reception in Italian, where my Italian consists of a few songs about Dario from the textbook Avanti! (Non sono Dario, sono Pino. Sono piccolo fratello di Dario. Dario e i gabinetto.)
  
• The bright green kilts worn by Mark, Luce and Matt. First time I've seen groomsmen more eye-catching than bridemaids
  
• Susana's family. First time I met them. I'm already disappointed that they don't live in Melbourne.
  

After that, coupla days: Rome. Highlights:

• The crazily thin Roman pizzas.
  
• The stupendously yummy chilli chocolate gelati near some church near the river.
  
• The insane, people-everywhere, churches-everywhere, mopeds-everywhere pace.
  
• The Colosseum. I could totally visualise Asterix and Obelix charging and sneaking about there!
  

After that, 3 days: Naples/Napoli. Highlights:

• Rosemary (Luce's mum)'s beaming face as she threw herself heart and soul into the pure insanity that is Naples
  
• Tango dancing in the posh part of Naples (thank god there was one!)
  
• Visiting the ruins of Pompei and seeing Mt Vesuvius
  
• The gum trees :D
  
• The yummy focaccia-based pizzas
  

After that, one night: Rome again. Highlights:

• How truly PEACEFUL the city was. In comparison with Napoli.
  
• Gelati
  

After that, 1 week: Rethymno on Crete, in Greece. Highlights:

• The totally bizarre driving style. Basically, you can overtake at pretty much any time, which means you drive on the shoulder wherever possible, to allow people behind you room to squeeze past, and to avoid oncoming overtakers on your side of the double lines.
  
• The Palace at Phaistos, and the Phaistos Disk
  
• Knossos
  
• BA-KLA-VA
  
• Kafaiti (it's the hairy one, my new favourite)
  
• Samaria Gorge - 17kms of white rocks, pink oleanders, orange cliffs, clear streams and the beautiful green of gum trees, starting 1km in the sky, finishing in the super-inviting mild waters of the Mediterranean Sea
  
• Down-time, where we could all just kick back and read our books, and continue to regain our sense of self after Napoli
  

Last 2 nights: Agia Pelagia, on Crete. Highlights:

• Finally having Luce all to myself!!
  
• Snorkelling several times a day
  
• The freshly-squeezed blend of pineapple and orange juice, despite the skepticism of the restaurant guy
  

Reykjavik again. Highlights:

• It was still light when the plane landed at 11:30pm, and it was still light when I got to bed at 1:30am
  
• The tap water is not only drinkable, but it is decidedly yummy
  
• High-speed internet on-tap
  
• Super-comfy bed and pillows
  
• Endless supply of scaldingly hot water at a good pressure
  
• The toasty warm inside, refreshingly cool outside
  
• I can finally recognise an Icelandic accent on someone's English, and it's beautiful!
  
• It's home. And only 4 weeks til I'm back in Melbourne, at my other beautiful home.
  

Creative in Reykjavík

Righto, I just wrote a poem. It's not even a sentence, just a very long noun phrase, and it's certainly horribly clichéed, plus it changes referent/topic halfway through without proper notice, but I think it fits what I can see right now. Sitting in my living room right now, with only candles and evening daylight outside to see by, is truly beautiful. :)

Reykjavík, sumarið 2009

The pink light
at half past ten at night,
like the world is lit by a sea of candles
stronger than the stars,
muted by the rain -
polishing the short-lived green
of the world outside my window.

Salsa dancing

My friends dancing salsa! On Kastljós (hahah!)

http://dagskra.ruv.is/sjonvarpid/4431388/2009/05/20/4/
Salsa á Hverfisgötunni með Tepokanum

A windy tale to rule them all

Okay, so I've had some stories to tell about the wild wind here in Iceland before, like trying to jump in a puddle, but getting blown off-course and missing, being unable to walk under a bridge because the wind just blew me backwards across the ice, being blown sideways off the bike-path, and 2 weeks ago getting caught in a particularly forceful gust at the wrong moment in a pedal (one up, one down), and being blown backwards on my bike. (Okay, that was my own fault for trying to take a short cut over the top of the Perlan hill instead of going around the cemetery)... But this just takes the cake. Fair dinkum, surely this will drive home to you just how ferocious the wind here can be: So, our uni foreigners' 'coffee meeting' group went on a walk about Reykjavík with a guide today. So that I could see the statues and so on, I tied my hair back out of my eyes. And... wait for it... THE WIND BLEW THE HAIR ELASTIC OUT OF MY HAIR!!!! Seriously, that can't be in the rules! I say, that's simply not cricket!!