Hello wien!

Groan...Sorry Austrians...[then again, it was reference to their recent National Day 26/10]

Yes, it's that time of the year again.....Halloweeeeeeeeeen!!!!

Yeah, who am I kidding...as if my family ever celebrated Halloween...what are you, American?

It's true. I've never celebrated this holy day. Never dressed up in macabre costumes or wandered down the street collecting assorted candy (perhaps a result of my mother's overwhelming fear of me being sodomised by the creep who lived down the road from us...). Now as someone who may perhaps be the giver of candy, I must admit I've still never dressed up as Bride of Chuckie nor chased little children down the street screaming "Candy!!! Candy!!!" as I fling plastic snakes and jelly babies in their eyes. (Again, something about dispensing candy to little children - not least to say chasing them down the road - strikes ILLEGAL in my mind).

On a more serious note, I've always thought Halloween to be an American thing. Commercialized with a Z, [insert adjective]. We never had whole pumpkins at Coles this time of the year. Now when I walk around ICA (the equivalent of IGA in Australia), I see whole pumpkins everywhere. Lollies and candy are on sale for about 33% discount, and all the 2-dollar shop equivalents are now stocked up with scary and/or skanquey clothing. And that's skanquey with a -quey thank you very much! All this pumpkin business has gotten me thinking. Maybe I should make some pumpkin soup!

Anyway. On another note, I think some of my friends here are probably sick of hearing me express my fear of failing these upcoming exams. So instead of fearing of failing, I've decided to do something about it. Three days ago, I spent the whole night tidying up my amassed pile of notes. Some of the slides (vulval pathology in particular) made me wince as if I swallowed a shot of balsamic vinegar. But it was done. The next day I hole punched the notes and arranged them into nice folders. The next day (today) I sat down with an embryology book and started with Square 1. I spent 5 hours in the library, and they were perhaps the most productive academic 5 hours I've spent here in Norway. And now I'm thinking about Trondheim and how wonderful it would be to visit there before I go home.

On another note, why is my dandruff playing up? I mean, come on, it's okay to say it, I have dandruff. It's not like incest or something... And normally it stays relatively under control with regular hair washing. But this is seriously getting out of control now, I feel like I'm malting just like the rest of Norway's trees. Snowflakes, yes. Scalpflakes, no... Maybe it's time to whip out some of that Beclamethasone...I think that's the stuff they use to treat babies with RDS, isn't it?