brunakerfið

fór af stað í gær... komst að því að við alvöru eldsvoða þá myndu allir verða fastir í stigunum. Við erum á 10 hæð og það var allt stopp á 7. hæð. Reyndar kom e-r náungi með svona brunaderhúfu (býst við að hann sé einn af starfsmönnum byggingarinnar sem eru þjálfaðir í að setja upp svona húfu við útköll) og lét okkur ganga yfir að næsta brunastiga sem liggur að útgangi bakvið húsið sem var frekar áhugavert. En já þegar við löbbum 7. hæðina þá fannst þessi líka allsvakalega brunalykt... þ.e. lykt af brenndu poppi úr örbylgjuofni. Ekki vildi ég vera sá sem ætlaði að gæða sér á poppinu. Annars er þetta í annað sinn sem brunakerfið fer af stað síðan ég kom hingað. Fyrra skiptið var í fyrra og mér skilst að sökudólgurinn hafi verið brennt popp í örbylgjuofni... er ekki málið bara að banna popp í byggingunni?

The fire alarm went off yesterday... we found out that in case of real fire, everyone would be stuck in the stairways. The Statistics department is on the 10th floor and 7th floor was were everyone got stuck. Actually some (random) guy with a firecap (not a fireman, I think he works in the building and is trained to set up this kind of cap in emergencies) made us walk to another stairways that ended at a door that leads to the back of the building - kind of interesting (I didn't know there was a small backyard). Anyways when we walked the 7th floor we could smell that something had been burning... i.d. popcorn had burnt in the microwave. I wouldn't want to be the one intending to eat said popcorn. This is actually only the second time the fire alarm goes off since I started going to school here. The first time was last year and I'm told the guilty person had burnt popcorn in a microwave... does anyone see a pattern here? Shouldn't the building just ban popcorn?

Stresstíðin nálgast

Síðastliðin vika:
kíkti í bíó á Borat á miðvikudaginn, fór í Þakkargjarðarmat til Petu frænku á fimmtudaginn, óvænta afmælisveislu á föstudagskvöldið, út að borða með Margréti á laugardagskvöldið og þess á milli var það svefn og skrifstofan sem biðu. Það var reyndar voða notalegt að vera hérna á Þakkargjörðarhátíðinni, engin umferð í borginni og sást varla sála (svona miðað við New York). Annars er misserið brátt á enda og allir að verða smástressaðir yfir prófum sérstaklega nemendurnir. Sjálf er ég að verða stressuð yfir verkefninu sem þarf að skila eftir viku en sem betur fer eru engin lokapróf hjá mér í ár. Í fyrsta skipti síðan í Réttó í gamla daga sem ég þarf ekki að taka próf í desember og það var fyrir 9 árum síðan! Í tilefni þess vonast ég til þess að geta skreytt íbúðina eitthvað fyrir jólin, væri það ekki gaman?

Last week:
went to the movies to see Borat on Wednesday, had Thanksgivingday dinner at my cousin Peta's on Thursday, surprise birthday party on Friday night, went out for dinner with Margrét on Saturday night and between that sleeping and the office waited. It was actually quite nice here on Thanksgiving, no traffic in the city and almost no one around at 6PM (well compared to usually in NYC). In other news, this semester is almost over and everyone's getting a little stressed out because of finals, specially my students. I on the other hand am getting stressed out about the project we need to present in 1 week but fortunately I have no finals this year. It's actually for the first time since junior high (the good old days when I had 3 semester in each school year) that I don't have to take any finals in December and I finished junior high 9 years ago! To celebrate that I hope to be able to decorate my apartment in celebration of Christmas, wouldn't that be nice?

Þú ert hálfviti eða með ástarkveðju...

A weekend of no work is over. To compensate for that, I'll spend my holiday in the city - doing work...
I visited my parents at my sister's from Thursday to Saturday when they went back to Iceland. It was fun, I got a lot of shopping done. 15 minutes before I left for the city again I even managed to gather everyone around and we got a family photo. I'm so looking forward to seeing the outcome.
When I came back on Saturday I met up with Valla that had already arrived to visit me. We managed to catch up on lot of stuff (if you know either one of us - we probably talked about you hehe) and I even took her to the Indian restaurant. This time around it wasn't enough to just get the attention of The Waiter, no another one starting being "really" nice and among other things we got the question "so are you going to a party later..."
After a nice trip to the East Village and Alphabet city where Valla managed to get a cocktail that was more like a desert (she even had to get a spoon to scoop up the rest) we headed home. We got home early but stayed up drinking a margarita expertly blended by me and ended up staying awake till 5am after "watching" the Pocahontas movie The New World. Don't ask me what it was about - I have no idea, I just know it was quite boring...
Sunday we walked around Chinatown and Soho and ended having Mexican for dinner with a really really good strawberry-banana margarita. We did a lot of great deals this day though we didn't buy any Prada bags or Rolex watches...

Something else, I just found out that my friend Ragnhildur has found herself a new best friend. I've been replaced. So the only thing I can do is to admit my defeat and show you a picture of the two of them together:
Smá úrdráttur úr færslunni að ofan á íslensku:
Slappaði af um helgina. Eftir heimsókn til Siggu til að hitta mömmu og pabba þá hitti ég Völlu í borginni. Við brölluðum margt, tók hana m.a. á indverska staðinn þar sem þjónarnir eru orðnir tveir sem sýna óvenju mikinn áhuga á okkur. Kíktum aðeins niður í bæ um kvöldið. Á sunnudeginum fórum við í Kínahverfið og Soho og náðum að gera kjarakaup. Fengum svo mexíkanskan mat um kvöldið þar sem hápunkturinn var góða jarðarberja-banana margarítan.
Svo er Ragnhildur víst búin að eignast nýja besta vinkonu. Myndin hér að ofan er af þeim tveimur saman. PS. fyrirsögnin er fyrir Völlu - get útskýrt hana á msn ef fólk vill...

Clinton

Libor was so gracious of allowing me to post this picture he took today.
After the discussion I walked with Rachel and Petr to 114th St. Bill Clinton was standing outside with his fancy dressed secret service agents (and others, I just noticed the fancy dressed, earpiece guys). Anyways not that many people were standing there so we had a good view of him. When he's going into his svu Clinton waves to us and this one guy standing behind us waves the program booklet and a pen asking for an autograph - and Clinton nods OK, so the guy got an autograph. But we were too late cause the 5 seconds it took us to realize that we could have handed ours too was 5 seconds too much. I guess I have to learn how to behave when I see celebs here. I obviously don't know the rules - need someone to teach me, hehe. Anyways, the guy who got the autograph got a congratulations from the woman bringing the program back to him.

39 days till...

Quick update, I had such a good time at my party. I even took some pictures. Who knows if I'll post them later. (Read: You have to ask very, very nicely). Went with Jane to meet Madalena at this Portuguese dinner last night. Very good food (of course it was, Madalena was a part of the cooking team), Jane and I met this interesting Irish guy studying bioethics. He made interesting points and was fun to talk to so even though we barely knew anyone there, we had a good time.
Today I'm going to watch a discussion between Vaclav Havel and Bill Clinton here at Columbia. I'm one of the lucky ones that got a ticket (yes you had to reserve a ticket, for free of course). Vaclav Havel is actually visiting Columbia for the rest of the semester.

And last but not least. I was reading Asdis's blog and she was talking about the Icelandic Yule lads. Thought I'd give you guys a link to a very good source for how we Icelanders celebrate Christmas. If you don't have time to read it all, scroll down to where they talk about the Yule lads and the Christmas cat it's a fun reading.

Takk

I just want to thank everyone that sent me an email, commented here on this site (and facebook), called me, texted me and just wished me happy birthday in person. I guess I just never realized how amazing friends I have ;)

Anyways to explain my birthday gift. It's like one of those computer pets that was the buzz when I was a teenager. Except this one listens to music ( I guess the ipod effect). What you can do is connect it to an mp3 player and it will dance for you. You also need to pet it and treat it as your regular pet. It will flash lights to tell you the mood it's in and as it "grows" older it will evolve a personality, depending on what kind of music you feed it. I have to admit I haven't turned it on yet. I am thinking about waiting for my party. But I have to admit I've already dressed it up in it's pink outfit. Looks absolutely fabulous. Btw. I've already named it, it's a female called Káta.

Vildi bara þakka fólki fyrir allar kveðjurnar sem þið senduð mér á afmælisdaginn. Hvort sem það var í gegnum tölvupóst, athugasemdakerfið hér (eða á facebook), hringduð í eigin persónu, senduð sms eða bara köstuðu kveðju á mig í persónu. Æðislegt til þess að vita hversu marga vini (sem muna eftir afmælinu manns) maður á ;)

Þið getið lesið lýsinguna á afmælisgjöfinni minni hér að ofan á ensku, ég samdi þessa lýsingu sérstaklega fyrir þig Ragnhildur. Ég skírði hundinn Kátu svo ef einhver hefur áhuga á að hitta Kátu þá get ég komið með hana heim um jólin ;) Að lokum vildi ég bara segja að ég er með partí í kvöld (laugardag) hér heima hjá mér. Allir velkomnir. Vildi ekki setja þetta boð á ensku því þá margfaldast möguleikinn á að einhver sem ég þekki ekki mæti. Hins vegar nátla eru allir Íslendingar velkomnir því eins og ég segi við vini mína hér, allir Íslendingar þekkjast :D common.

News

Always strange when you haven't gone to sleep the day before your birthday but it's after midnight so it technically is your birthday but then you're born in the evening so it really isn't your birthday - yet.

Still I got few presents already - one of which you can see the photo of right here.

With it came this - just so it won't catch a cold.
Ahhh, you gotta love my niece and nephew.

My parents just left the city this evening after a few days visit. I at least got some new, custom made shelves in my closets - and someone to carry down my laundry for me. Now my closets are more organized than they have ever been. Can you imagine that - me being organized?

Highlights of my parents stay - managed to get a little bit lost with them in Chinatown. So lost that one of the ladies at the Chinatown buses tried to grab me and insist that we WERE going somewhere! Also, we went to the Top of the Rock. All the way up to the top of Rockefeller Center. The view is amazing up there and I like it so much more than the Empire State. The main difference is the amazing view of Central Park - you know the one in the famous photo of the workers having lunch, and the elevator ride was interesting too. Also for a semi-afraid-of-heights-person like me, I felt so much safer at the Top of the Rock ;)