Terricited is a word: it means terrified and excited at the same time

This week went by in a snowy blur. I moved into an apartment in Oslo that I’ll be borrowing from a friend until Easter. To say that I’m excited about living on my own again is not an overstatement. I almost peed myself, that is how excited I was! Not sharing a bathroom with two of my brothers is my new definition of heaven. Example: “How did it feel to pet that unicorn?”” Like not sharing a bathroom with two younger brothers!”  I’ll miss the lunches and breakfasts my mother so kindly provided for sure, but I’ll never be afraid to sit down in a puddle of pee ever again. NO PEE PUDDLES! (Except when I get excited, that is. Puppies and me: excitement peeing and hairy legs.)

I’ve been looking forward to and dreading this week end for a while now. I’m going to the town of Stavanger on the west coast to attend an audition called “So you think you want to be a relief worker?” 

 Pros and cons explaining my terricitment (the noun)

 

Pro: Stavanger is the only one of the major cities and towns in Norway I’ve not been to and it’ll be nice to check that off my list. (We have maybe 5 major cities on Norway, none of which can be called a city.)
Con: I’m a little afraid of the people from Stavanger. Their dialect makes them seem angry all the time. Besides, it’s one of my least favorite dialects and I’m not looking forward to hearing it all week end.

Pro: The course/audition is hosted by the Norwegian chapter of Engineers Whithout Borders. I Was really involved with this org in the States, so I’m looking forward to get more involved here as well.
Con: Out of the 30 participants attending the class, only 10 will get a chance to go to Uganda and work with a development project there. I would love to do that, but tend to not perform well under stress. Just the other day, I threw my phone across the room because I freaked out about a call from an unknown number. Any more stress than that, and I really don’t know how I’ll react.

Pro: I am going by myself, so I’ll get to practice my socializing skills.
Con: I’M GOING BY MYSELF! I hate strangers, so there is no way this will be a pleasant experience. Thank goodness for Beatrice and the comfort she provides.

Thank godness I made a batch of this yesterday. Stored safely in my freezer for therapy Sunday.

What are your week end plans?

Pictures and distractions

It's only Tuesdays, you guys!
That means that there's a whopping four more days of work before the week end. Being a grown up with a full time job is not as fun as I thought it would be.

Here's a few links and pictures that can take you 15 min closer to 4pm Friday.

The past two weeks in pictures (We have snow!)

 

This is how we celebratet my friend Cecilie's 25th two weeks ago:

Here, we are discussing rectal suppository:

Winter wonderland up in the mountains this week end:

 

Yay, skiing: 

Procrastination:

• I love this girl!
• These Amazon reviews are old, but still golden: Bic Pen for Her, banana slicer, and sugar-free gummi bears. 
• A guy pretends to be stood up at Appelbee's. I wish I could have seen the waiter's face too. Getting stood up.
• Have you seen Frozen yet? Hans' little secret.
• This Tumblr is amazing: The Secret Lives of Disney Princesses.
• Scandinavian prison or American office?
• If this or this happened to me, I would be the happiest girl in the universe. 
• Zemmiphobia: fear of the naked mole rat. If dementors have this, then I hope my patronus would be a mole rat. 

Have a great week!

Friday Facts - I want an alternate universe

I was really close to setting a new record yesterday: 5 days of no injuries or near death experiences! But that streak abruptly ended as I managed to cut my finger on a bread roll. #YOLO (I really don’t know what that means, was that ok? Honestly, I’m not really sure why and what and how hashtags function, but I’m trying to expand to a younger, hipper audience. Not that you guys look old, or anything like that. You look fabulous, especially for your age. And I’ve never seen anyone more hip in my life. You’re awesome and that hashtag was meant especially for you, if you want it!)

Today started with a 4 mi run before work and a green smoothie. Can I get a what what? This week end, I’ll be heading to the mountains with friends and I’m super excited. So, before I turn this blog into a pink diary of hearts and kisses, where all I do is telling you guys about my perfect healthy and fit life, I’ll treat you to a little Friday list of what’s been on my mind lately.

Things that left me a little bitter after of watching all the harry potter movies with my sister this Christmas

1.    I’ll never know what I’d see in the Mirror of Erised. I mean, I can always guess, but I’m fairly good at tricking myself into believing that I’m a better person than I actually am. Like, I wish it would show me in a peaceful world without hunger or poverty. But sinceI started enforcing my “No sweets during the week” rule more strictly, I’m pretty sure it would show me visiting Wonka’s factory on a Wednesday, swimming in Nutella and stuffing my face with black liquorish.

2.    I’ll never know what house I would be sorted to. I’m pretty sure it would be Ravenclaw, but I’m not 100% sure. I spend way too much time thinking about this.

3.    I’ll never know what my boggart would turn into. The list of suspects is too long: spiders, heights, losing the people I love, trolls, darkness, and I could go on. In case you were wondering, I do have a genuine fear of trolls (the Nordic kind, not the Lower Peninsula kind), probably because I was raised with stories about their dangerous ways.  Part of me still believes that the waterfalls we have to pass to get to my cabin are troll pee.

Imagine these slighly yellow during the early summer melting period. So much pee! (Source)

4.    I’ll never know what my patronus would look like. My Pinterest is filled with tigers and bunnies, but somehow I suspect I would end up with this dude:

Why hello there, naked mole rat. I never know whether I prefer the kiss or you.

5.    I’ll never know what amortentia would smell like to me. A sea breeze and pine needles warmed by the sun. The smell of a fire and freshly baked sweet buns. Acceptable and normal options, but I would probably end up with something weird like the smell of the biological denitrifications process and anionic polymer coagulants.

Now tell me: is my list incomplete? What do you think your Potterverse would look like?

P.S: If you want a quick and easy DIY project this week end, check out my sisters Severus' patrouns necklace DIY here. She did not inted this to be a Harry Potter thing, but it is!

Have a great week end,

Little Miss Awkward

This fall, I suddenly found myself in two situations I had not encountered in quite some time: I was single and I had free time. (I once did a mock interview in college and when the interviewer asked me what I did in my free time, we both started laughing.) Naturally, I thought that I should give dating a try, given my fantastic track record and the fact that I love people.

Being my socially awkward self, the only way I could think of finding datable people was through technology and the app Tinder seemed like a viable option. For those of you less updated on modern technology than myself (hi mom), Tinder is a dating app for shallow people who are too lazy to fill out a profile for an on-line site; a description that fits me like a glove. (But not the ones I got for Christmas, those are a little tight. Like a well-fitting glove.)

I have to admit that I got a little hooked on Tinder; being your most shallow self while judging people based on solely picture, name, and age can be a lot of fun. After two weeks of addiction, suddenly I found myself in a most unfamiliar and daunting situation: I had to go on dates with people I did not know. As evident here and here, socializing with the opposite sex is not one of my fortes.

If nothing else, I learned quite a bit about myself during this time, amongst other things that I am really bad at accepting compliments and that I have quite the knack for ruining moments.

Picture this: It’s one of those crisp, but not too cold wintery Sundays. The date has come to an end after a pleasant afternoon of wandering through a new sculpture park. The guy had even brought a flask of home-made hot chocolate to share while enjoying one of the best views of the city the surrounding hills has to offer. At the bus stop, the sun is setting quite magnificently (Thanks, winter pollution) and the electronic notice board tells them her bus is two minutes away. A pause in the conversation as they gaze into each other’s eyes. Or, he is at least, she has a vaguely puzzled look on her face. The relatively calm exterior hides the chaos within: “What is that look in his eyes? Is he about to kiss me? Am I ok with that? What if I don’t remember what to do? I hardly know this person. What? What WHAT?” She takes a deep breath, opens her moth and: “Fun fact: Did you know that when you flush the toilet, aerosols containing particles of whatever was in that toilet remains airborne for over two hours. Poop is literally flying around in your bathroom! That’s why you should always close the lid.” A quick hug is all they have time for before she has to jump on the bus.

This is from my house, and winter pollution has never looked so good.

Yeah, I’m real good under pressure… Another notable mention is when I told a guy I had skin fungus after he complemented me for my soft skin. It’s totally true and not as gross as one would think. It just looks like dry skin and if I was the kind of person that would tan during summer, the places with fungus would not tan. I have tried to get rid of it, but nothing has worked so far and I’m way too lazy to see a specialist just for a little dry skin. And anyways, after all this time, we’ve kind of made peace and I almost feel a kinship with it. I call it Beatrice, after the place I was contracted: Biarritz, France. The Beckhams and I: naming our kids after where they were conceived. They guy did not seem that convinced about Beatrice’s non-contagiousness, though…

Please be kind and let me know that I’m not a weirdo all by myself. What is the most embarrassing or weirdest thing you’ve ever done on a date? 

Period texts

Disclaimer: If you thought all the boob-talk last week was awkward, you might want to skip this post. And while I'm at it, you all should thank me that this post is not illustrated.
Now, back to the scheduled programming:

So, to those of you that read my last post and know a little about female cycles, it might not come as a surprise that I'm currently on my period (yay for oversharing!) Although I'm used to it by now, bleeding exessively for a week while experiencing huge hormonal shifts can be pretty traumatic. My way of dealing with trauma is to talk about it. This is an extremely healty method, just ask any psychiatrist. However, since few of my freiends and family have that profession this personality trait is vastly underestimated monthly.

My former boyfriend was naturally in the line of fire for my coping mechanisms, and the following text convo happened while he was a away one week end:

Me: It’s gushing out faster than I can replace the tampons. You should be so glad I can’t picture text now…

Me: This is why I don’t tweet. No good would come of it…

Me: I wish you could donate period blood. It would solve so many problems.

Me: Like, the week before you have your period, you could just go to the Red Cross and they would just suck it out.

Me: No more tampons to the landfill and no more blood shortages for surgeries.

Me: Why I don’t have the Nobel prize yet, I don’t know?

Me: We’re literally talking pints now.

FBF: Ohhhhhhhhh myyyyyyyyyyhyh gggggggggggggggg striiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnngggggggggg. [Fyi: the FBF doesn’t wear g-strings, he just picked that expression up from me]

FBF: And it would be called the Nobel Period prize.

Me: Well, all things considered I would aim for either the medicine one or the peace one. Maybe both.

FBF: Just got to Matt’s house. [Trying to change the subject, sneaky.]

Me: Did you give your friend Eric my number? [A friend of the FBF had just texted me.  Ididn't know him that well, but we had met at a bar the week before where he developed an interest for one of my girlfriends]

FBF: Not that I remember.

Me: Ok, someone did and they might regret that.

FBF: What did he say?

Me: Because, you know, I’m a giver. A giver and a sharer.

FBF: I have no clue what you’re saying.

Me: He wanted to know who the girls I was talking to and he was flirting with at the bar was.

Me: Then he started to ask about my day. He soon regretted that.

FBF: Haha, I’m going to give him shit for that. Why?

Me: Because of how I share stuff. Sometimes stuff about my vagina.

FBF: That what I thought. A little surprised you shared that with him though.

ME: Why? When I’m bleeding this much I share with everyone.

Me: Also, I feel like that if I have to suffer through this, the so does that rest of the world.

I'm sorry I'm not sorry,

Not dead!

Hello and happy new year to all!

For many, the new year symbolizes endless new opportunities and possibilities, hopes and dreams to be achieved, and weight and grievances to be lost. Here at Topknotted, I see it as a great and doomed time to start blogging again. It’s not the second time that is the charm after all, but I’ll give it a go. No scheduled mon-wed-fri posting that will surely fail again though. 

This Christmas was great, like always, but it’s safe to say that my heart was not what grew two sizes. Like most girls, my boobs have a mind of their own and their size changes according to the time of the month. Usually not by a whole lot, but enough to notice if you pay attention. (I feel like I just gave the entire internet permission to monitor my boobs, that's a little unfortunate.) Anyways, right before Christmas they decided to outgrow all of their bras. Initially I was pleased, because who wouldn’t want some help filling in all those dresses during the festivities? Three weeks later and I’m eagerly awaiting the transformation back to their normal state of reduced size and reduced tenderness.

So, after that charming story I thought I could top this post of with a list of the important life lessons I learned in 2013. It’s rather short, because I don’t really learn from my mistakes. 

What I learned in 2013

1.   Waiting to watch Doctor Who until after graduation is always a good idea. I would really like to say that the main reason for my blogging hiatus was that I was busy being an exemplary worker doing a ton of overtime, socializing with friends, and volunteering all my spare time at some great charity. Although there is a morsel of truth in all of those statements, I would be lying if I said that was the cause. No, the reason is that I started watching Doctor Who, and consequently found the man of my dreams, realized that visual media can be just as rewarding as books, and my scare of the dark got magnified by a gazillion. Tonight, I’m going to watch the first episode of Sherlock season three and BBC will officially have full control over my life.

I don't think I would have graduated if this was in my life a year ago

2.   Remembering names during an introduction is always a good idea. Not only did I find the perfect man the past year, I also found my future husband. It was a dark and breezy morning amidst the majestic mountains of western Norway, the day my fate forever change I wish...As it turns out, there is a limit to the task my brain can perform simultaneously while somewhat sleep-deprived. I found that limit during the previously described morning. Just put it in front of the most handsome human being ever to exist, and maximum capacity is reached when trying to pronounce my long name and even longer company name without drooling and obsessing over the fact that my hair wash was three days overdue. So, I left this fateful encounter without a trace of his name left in my brain. 

One of the main disadvantages of working solely with middle-aged men is that they never know that it’s common courtesy to warn young, single co-workers about potential hotness. A quick hair-wash would have eliminated one of the brain processes and I would probably have been engaged by now.

  

Anyways, the brain failed me and the first of the five stages of grief kicked in during the flight back home quickly followed by anger. Luckily, the bargaining phase consisted of a lot of things I’m not proud of and I finally managed to stalk him down in December. Joy to the world indeed! Only to find out that he has a girlfriend. I’ll consider this sad chapter of my life closed when my phone stops predicting "husband" as soon as I type "future".

The five stages of grief, in case you needed a refresher. Source

3.   With a little imagination, you can always turn your crazy into something constructive. Some people say signing up for a half marathon because a guy you met once runs marathons and he might be there screams "restraining order". I say it’s a very effective way of quitting the apathetic cycle of procrastination and finally do something you’ve secretly been wanting to do for a while. 

But maybe I'll finish that half... Source

As you all can see, between the hearbreak, the Doctor, and the running, I have some farily good reasons for my absence. But don't worry, I'm back, and I have a feeling there'll be plenty more awkward boob stories in 2014.

That’s all for now folks,