Author: lizardek

21
Feb
2007

THOSE WHO KNOW NOTHING OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES KNOW NOTHING OF THEIR OWN*

Translating isn’t that hard when you’re working with familiar or simple texts. I do it all the time at work (not to mention in my brain) and I do it on the fly at bedtime whenever one of the children brings me a Swedish book for a bedtime story. However, even when “fluent” in a second language and well-versed in word choice and use, turns of phrase and styling, translation work sounds a lot easier than it is. I handle a lot of translations during the course of my work every week. I don’t do them myself; we have an...

20
Feb
2007

OH SURE, NOW IT COMES

We’re supposed to get TWO FEET of snow tonight and tomorrow. TWO FEET. That’s 24 inches. 61 centimeters. Oh geez! It’s up to my knees! I don’t know whether to be pissed off or pleased as punch about it, given that in the former’s favor the mild temps and increasing daylight has me longing for real warmth and spring flowers, and in the latter’s favor we’ve had nearly no snow at all this winter so it would be kinda nice to have a little bit. It would have been nicer if it had come in January, when one thinks it’s...

19
Feb
2007

WHO NEEDS BULLETPOINTS WHEN YOU’VE GOT ASTERISKS?

A link on an art blog that I check in on now and then was recommending a certain ezine: Get lost for hours and hours! And I thought, who has hours and hours? All you people who have hours and hours to sit and peruse the archives or issues of any website, where do you find the time? I mean, if you don’t do it for work? Okay, I spend hours and hours on the computer, but I’m usually in the middle of 3 or 4 projects: website maintenance, newsletter editing, spider solitaire, book editing, inventory updates, music editing, reading...

16
Feb
2007

HOW I WONDER WHERE YOU ARE

We borrowed a nearly full-sized eletric keyboard from my friend Debbie for Martin to practice on for the next several months while he’s taking piano lessons. I brought it home late last night and set it up on the dining room table.* Martin headed straight for it when he got home from school. It has 99 song and style settings, allowing you to change the pitch and sound-style of the keys to just about anything you can imagine except quacking duck. It’s got harp, polka, rock-and-roll, softbeat, tango, and honky-tonk to name just a very, very few. It rocks into...

15
Feb
2007

THIS THAT AND THE OTHER

Another Reason to Love Sweden: Today I went again to the pharmacy, to pick up the prescription I had dropped off on Tuesday. They had sold out of the medicine I needed that day so I had to come back. Because I had requested to fill the last 2 months of the prescription (normally, they only let you fill one at a time) due to the trip to the U.S., I had to show my travel itinerary as proof that I was actually going to be out of the country and therefore unable to wait. I had another reason for...

13
Feb
2007

NOT GIVING PEAS A CHANCE

Why I Love the AWC: Because I can send out an email to the 123 members asking if there is anyone who would like to take 2 cans of Campbell’s Green Pea (shudder) soup off my hands and 5 minutes later get not one, but 2 responses that yes indeed, there ARE people out there that would be happy to have them. (update: FOURTEEN FIFTEEN people have responded so far) One of my colleagues was in New York last week, and while emailing about work, he offered to bring me back something…I asked about my disappearing shampoo, but he couldn’t...

12
Feb
2007

RUN IN CIRCLES SCREAM AND SHOUT

Aaaagh! Remember that item on my to-do list all last year that kept not getting done because it required a hefty fee, photos, paperwork and a trip to the embassy??* This one: Renew Karin’s U.S. passport AAAGH! I never got Karin’s U.S. passport renewed! *commence total panic attack* *Which is in STOCKHOLM. Keeping fingers crossed the Copenhagen Embassy will not give me shit when I call tomorrow to make an appointment.

11
Feb
2007

IS THERE A 12-STEP PROGRAM FOR BULLETPOINT ADDICTION?

3 things about myself that still need work: Swearing, eyerolling, requiring instant obedience. I had a conversation with the Help Desk at work last week in which I complained about the fact that my computer seemed slower than ever and what can they do to fix it? It wasn’t the lastest updates, they maintained. They checked the memory: fine. They checked the capacity: fine. They checked a whole pile of other things: fine, fine fine. Conclusion: I am too fast for my own computer. In other words, it’s just me. I’ve been on a high, in a good mood for...

10
Feb
2007

THE TEMPO OF TWO LEGS

3 days in a row the sun has been shining and I’ve gone for a walk despite the below freezing temperatures. When I drove down old Odarslövsvägen yesterday, the sky opened out in front of me in a giant pink and pale purple bowl. I thought I’d never seen anything prettier. Little puffy clouds were dotted here and there like a flock of sky sheep and the sun was dropping slowly behind me pitching out every vibrant pastel in its palette for my delight. Most of the fields are still green, having never really had a chance to freeze completely,...

08
Feb
2007

BURNING A HOLE IN MY POCKET

One thing that seems to define most expats that I’ve met is their craving for things from home that they can no longer get, and the strongest feelings alway seem to be engendered by candy. jes6ica wrote a post earlier about childhood desserts and sweets that she missed and it got me thinking about it again. It’s always been amusing to me that if you put any group of expats together, after a while the conversation will inevitably turn to food and suddenly people are moaning longingly about Pop-Tarts and Tim Tams and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Here in Sweden,...

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