Glacier Boy

Well I went to see one of my lecturers today, after not been happy with the mark I had received for an essay (65/100). When I first walked in he said he had already decided to push it up to 68/100 as he felt that he probably marked me harder than others, after chatting with him some more about my essay he bumped it up to 70/100. Yehaw!

Busy in the midst of starting another essay on possible effects of terrorism on the economies of states in East Asia and finishing off a quilt for my nephew Jökull or if you want to be pedantic, my half-sister’s step son. My family tree is a tree with branches all over the place 🙂

When I first went to Iceland at the end of 2002, the quilts that Mum had made for her step-grandchildren were proudly covering every bed, when I got home I said to Mum, you should make quilts for the step-step grandkids as well. She said I will make two; you can make the other two. So Mum has made one for Toti’s eldest step-child, Anna Rún and has the fabric for the other one for Stefan. I was delegated to make quilts for Herdis’s step-kids, the first one was sent off for her eldest step-son, Krissi after last year’s show and now I am in the final stages of the quilt for her other step-son, Jökull or as we call him “Little Glacier Boy” as Jökull means glacier in Icelandic for this year’s show.

When it came to naming the quilt for the competition, I expanded on Jökull’s name and titled the quilt “Magical Powers for Glacier Boy” and in the comment section said a little bit about Jökull and how he is Iceland’s answer to Superman 🙂 Depending on which banner you get when you load my blog, you may have seen Jökull showing off his magical powers lifting rocks to make a dam. Dam Builders

Well enough with all the chatter, here is the quilt, tonight I sewed the blue borders on to the quilt top and tomorrow, Mum and I are going shopping for the backing fabric

Glacier Boy

escape.

Yesterday was by no means the nicest day.

From all the essays and work I have handed in over the last two and half years of uni, I have always felt that the mark I received was the mark I deserved. However that all changed yesterday.

I received an essay back for which the lecturer gave me 65/100. His first reason was that my essay is pieced together with notes from first year International Relations and those had no relevance to the topic of my essay. WTF? My essay was on “Why is war such an endemic part of international life?” IR theory on state sovereignty/anarchy, the images of war, etc sure as hell are relevant to the topic. Yeah, so relevant that he talked about them in his lecture on war, Good Job Matey 🙁

As well him saying that my references are a bit old. Let me see, from the nine references I had the dates were as follows; 1991, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2004 and ND – over half are since 2000!

Going to see him next week to hopefully get a re-grade, because I am not happy Jan!

Then I came home with a shocking headache from lack of water.

Home life is not something that I really talk about here because it is not something I want to broadcast to the masses. Days when Mum is away are always hard because as much as we disagree over things she in the end grounds me. Last night was not nice but I did better than I normally do and kept my mouth shut for the most time. With all those feelings in my mind of just wanting to escape away from it all, this layout appeared 🙂

Escape

Ireland

sent us an email today, telling us that the company he works for (Industria) asked him if he wanted to go work work in the Dublin, Ireland office for a month and who could turn down an offer like that?

So, my lovely big brother got to use his new and shiney Icelandic passport to breeze through passport control, unlike the excessive time we spent waiting to be processed and we were on Australian passports and are part of the Commonwealth Realm, really is something, we recognise Lizzie II as our head of state and we have to wait in line and get questioned whilst all the Europeans just waltz on through. Just unsportsman like 🙁

Back on track though, so whilst my Karl is living it up in Ireland, back here in Australia, we are hoping for rain, running out of water, doing assignments, working, chatting about our plans to to drag queen jelly wrestling tomorrow after uni (now that could be interesting) and not much else.

Helen at Santa CruzHelen and Matthew on 'holidays'Want to share these two images that Karl has taken on the two times I have visitited him overseas, the first at Santa Cruz in November 2002 and the second Matthew and I doing our thing in Iceland this year.

Happy Birthday Mum

Happy 54th Birthday Mum 🙂
Hope you have a good day and enjoy having a birthday in Iceland again.

Matthe and I are surving quite fine 🙂

the something special

When washing up in our house the washer gets to pick the music, since Matthew normally washes, he gets to pick the music which normally consists of tunes from 7 seconds, agnostic front, rancid, bouncing souls, sick of it all, misfits, nekromantix, anti-flag, dead kennedys, operation ivy, lars frederiksen and the bastards, vandals plus a stack of other bands.

Most of it I don’t mind but is not something would listen to everyday however recently I have caught my self singing along to the something special by the bouncing souls. It is just such a great song 🙂 Have a listen here – scroll down to the samples section.

The Something Special

We can’t agree on a single thing,
I dont know why.
We almost killed each other on the inside.
I managed to be a jerk anyway,
it doesn’t have to be this way
Forget about the things I said
I make no excuse for them.
I want to start again
We all walk our seperate ways
I don’t know why,
I hope we meet again somewhere some day.
I can’t chage the way you feel
It doesn’t have to be this way
Forget about the things I said,
I make no excuse for them
I want to start again
I think about the two of us,
I don’t know why,
I feel good on the inside.
It’s different now,
I’m one I stand alone.
I have to be this way

a family day.

This morning, Pabbi, Mum and I made a trip down to the beach at Sandgate to watch the sunrise and enjoy a photography filled time. Mum and Pabbi were sharing the Fuji and I had my 350D (which needs a name, any ideas?) along with the tripod and a bunch of lenses, even though I only ended up using one lens. mmm. A fair few of the images I took have become header images for here, which you will notice change with each page load thanks to some cool php I picked up. I will post more photos as I go through them. And of course I had to take self-portraits of me in my new funky jumper.

 self

Then, this afternoon Mum, myself and Mary (a close friend of my late grandmother, who now fills in that role) went to see a private screening of  The Wedding Date, ok so it wasn’t a private screening, we just shared the with five other people. What a crack up of a movie, though it did have plenty of sad bits, Poor Kat, but in the end it all came together and how gorgeous was Debra Messing’s hair in the movie?

Cricket tomorrow, hope the Giant Killers win this game, as it will be the last I see till after I return from Iceland.