With my stat plug-in, I can see what people have searched for to find my blog. I get a little bit happy every time I see someone actually searched for “maia madness”, and I wonder who might have done that because everyone I know in real life would be much more likely to just use the link in my Facebook profile.

But I get a lot of random stuff, too. Before Christmas, people kept finding my blog because they searched for “christmas lights”. How many pages of Google hits do you have to go through to find my blog on such a generic search? Someone must have been very bored. After my post on planned obsolescence some people ended up on my blog by searching for that, too. Lately, people have found my blog by searching for Linkin Park. Someone even found it by using the search term “Linkin Park sucks ass”.

People also find my blog by searching for Pink Floyd lyrics. I have twice used bits from Breathe (Reprise) as titles for posts (“Home, home again, I like to be here when I can. And when I come home cold and tired it’s good to warm my bones beside the fire”). People look up these lyrics, and find me, which is kinda cool.

But yesterday, someone found my blog by searching for “Swedish teens”. I find this… unnerving. What were they really looking for? I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know…

Second Christmas (Julian calendar) is over and done with, and was a good time. Went to church with my mum on Friday, got to see my god-child, went to a dinner-party… Everything was as it should be. The not-so-good part is that I have a urinary tract infection. Just my luck that I should have to spend my last week home pumped up on antibiotics…

Which is why I decided to e-mail Steve Cooper today and ask if he thinks it would be all right if I postponed my return by another week, to give me some more time to recuperate. I received word back almost immediately saying that that should be fine, so I’ve booked a plane ticket for the 23rd instead (just as well, really, as it turns out the ticket I thought I’d booked for the 16th was never actually booked; no clue how that happened).

Feels good to have an extra week with nothing planned. Once I’m done being ill, I’ll still have a few days to have fun, or just take it easy, depending on the mood. Also, I’ll have time to do some of the things I was going to do, like writing lead sheets and building my set.

That’s it for now. Not functioning too well at the moment. Antibiotics suck…

When I was a kid, I listened to music because I liked it. If I didn’t like it, I turned it off. Then came the teens and everything changed. Suddenly, what I listened to mattered to other people as well as to me.

I quickly realised that I didn’t really like that pop-stuff that I’d been forced to listen to at birthday parties and after school clubs. I had always preferred rock music when listening to the radio or watching music shows and have strong memories of loving Metallica when Reload had just come out and The Memory Remains and The Unforgiven II where playing on the radio.

When I was 13, a friend and classmate of mine whom I haven’t spoken to in years now discovered Linkin Park, and chose to share her discovery with me. I loved it at once. She, of course, grew out of “good” music, as you do, while I started making more and more friends who seemed to be into the kind of music I was growing to enjoy.

I was fifteen when I first understood how close minded people could be about music, even people who appeared at first sight not to be. It was when I started seeing Daniel, my first proper boyfriend. He has very strong opinions about music, and did not hesitate to explain to me why liking Linkin Park was unacceptable, and why I should immediately start listening to other things. Many of the bands that he showed me helped shape my music taste as it is today, and I am, of course, grateful for that. But why the hatred? Why the utterance of, “No, that band sucks, you need to listen to these!”

The funny thing is that there are some bands that almost everyone who’s into alternative music agree are bad, except for the ones that really, really love them. Nobody says, “So-and-so Emo band are okay, but not my cup of tea.” Either they completely love them, or they will go on at great length to make you understand how much said band sucks. I don’t think I know anyone who’s really into music who say they like Linkin Park. Even the ones who admit to having liked them when they were new will now tell you how awful they think they are. And the rest of us aren’t allowed to like them either. Of course, I’m guilty of this as well, but it’s a habit I’m trying to break.

It’s like it’s trendy to hate certain bands. Maybe it’s a part of hipster culture that just keeps spreading outwards, but for whatever reason it’s cool to say that certain bands suck. In Britain, I’ve found that band to be Coldplay. It seems all musicians and music lovers hate Coldplay. This is completely new to me, because in Norway most music lovers seem to like Coldplay.

Maybe it’s just trendy to be negative. People who just go around enjoying music for what it is aren’t particularly interesting. People who have objective discussions about the technical merits of a band aren’t interesting either, though being that person can occasionally make other people’s blood boil too. It’s the ones who have very strong opinions, who just LOVE this band and simply DETEST this one, who are interesting and who set the standard for everyone else.

Perhaps it makes us feel superior, to hate something with a passion. Maybe we feel like we’re better than other people if we just don’t like their music. You frequently hear the words, “They’re just too mainstream”, as if many people liking something makes it automatically worthless. It’s a kind of musical elitism that, the more I try to understand it, the more baffling it becomes.

What I do know is that there are some bands that I find I like “against my better judgment”, so to speak. No matter how many times other people tell me that this band is bad, that they’re not authentic enough, that they’re commercial or whatever other reasoning they may have for it, I still tap my feet and grin when I hear them. And, after all, isn’t that what music should be about? Just enjoying it? Does it, then, really matter who performs it?

I don’t think so. Of course, I still cringe every time someone plays a Glee version of just about any song, because it hurts my soul. But you go ahead and listen to it. Apparently, some people like having their brains bashed in with a flat, “perfect” mix and sugarcoated vocals.

I wonder how many people I offended with the last comment…

It’s been a hectic Christmas, and it’s passed way too quickly. On the 23rd (known in Norway as Little Christmas Eve), I went to my mum’s place quite early, meaning to help out with the Christmas tree. A few days before, my parents’ stove broke, and on the 23rd my mum was waiting for the new one to be delivered. This did not go according to plan. It was supposed to be delivered before 5pm. Instead it got there at ten to 7. Apparently, it had been forgotten back at the warehouse when the delivery person set out. As a result, the Christmas tree wasn’t brought up from the basement until a bit later, and no decorating was done on the 23rd as we usually do it.

Mum made some porridge, though, and Morten and I had some before we left, to head off to Morten’s parents’ place to help decorate their Christmas tree. My step-dad took us, and then stayed for a cup of coffee before heading back. It was very pleasant.

After watching the mandatory Little Christmas Eve TV entertainment, Grevinnen og hovmesteren (in English, Dinner for One aka The 90th Birthday, hardly known in Britain at all, so if you haven’t seen it, please do!) we had a taste of the Christmas rib, and then decorated the tree. Please note, if you will, the string of flags in the front. It’s over 100 years old and contains flags that haven’t been used since before WWI, including the old Finnish flag from back when it was part of Russia, the old Japanese sun flag and the flag of Austria-Hungary. We had a lovely time.

On Christmas Eve, Morten and I parted company. He was celebrating at his aunt and uncle’s, and I at my parents’ place, with them and my brother and his mum. We started out by visiting the cemetery and saying Merry Christmas to dad. We do this every year. Our ritual involves lighting a cigarette and having a toast in aquavite. Then we went to my parents’ where I finished decorating the tree, which they hadn’t quite had time to finish. We had a lovely Christmas dinner, and then opened our presents. It’s amazing how many gifts five adults can accumulate… Only five of us, and no kids, and still we could hardly fit them all under the tree. I dread to think how many presents there were at Morten’s Christmas celebration, where there were three kids present and more adults.

After gifts and dessert, we sat up talking for a long time. Morten showed up some time after midnight, when he was done with his family stuff.

Christmas Day was lovely and calm for me. We had breakfast all day at my mum’s. Sadly, Morten got a call from work at 8 am, asking him to come in as they were short staffed.

On Boxing Day, we had dinner at Morten’s parents’ place. His grandparents were there, and his uncle and three cousins. The kids are sweet, but rowdy and noisy and I won’t say I wasn’t somewhat relieved when they went home after dessert. We were served duck for dinner.

The 27th was our only day between Christmas and New Years we had to ourselves. We spent it at home, eating Spaghetti Carbonara and watching movies.

On the 28th we went to Morten’s parents’ again, for their annual Gnav-tournament with his mother’s side of the family. I’m not gonna get into the specifics, but suffice to say that Gnav is an awesome, very old game and we had lots of fun, and I won the last round. Yay!

The 29th, Morten went off to his annual Christmas stir-fry party with his old friends from upper secondary school, and I went with my parents’ to Tone, my brothers’ mum, and had turkey and played Monopoly. Got to see my niece, too. I don’t see her often since she moved to live with her mother. She seemed to be sad about something, but cheered up as the evening progressed a bit.

On the 30th, Morten’s parents came to dinner at my parents’ place. Morten and I were kind of nervous about it (especially Morten), because it makes stuff feel very official and real when your parents meet, but it went exceedingly well. Morten’s family is really “our kind of people”, so I’m not surprised they got along, but very happy and relieved all the same.

New Year’s Eve we went to a party at Tina’s. There were tapas, and I had beer and champagne and whisky, and we watched the fireworks and talked to people and stayed until nearly 6 am. No point in details; you had to be there. Suffice to say, I snogged a girl and Morten snogged a guy and all’s right with the world. I call that a good party! Then we called a cab and went to my parents’ place to check up on the cat who was alone since my parents were visiting friends out of town, and slept there.

Yesterday, Morten had work and I had dinner at my parents’ and watched How to Train Your Dragon and Fantasia with my mother. Home alone now, as Morten’s working this evening too. Gonna start thinking about dinner soon.

And now I leave you with this awesome photo I took of the moon in Walsall before I went home, with my awesome 55-200mm lens (this one’s slightly cropped so you can see the moon properly):

Happy New Year!

When I woke up today, at first I didn’t realise where I was. It took me seeing Morten’s face on the pillow on my right, and then realising that my mobile was on the night stand on my left before it dawned on me that I was actually at home, in our bed.

I took a shower in the warm, familiar bathroom, and am now having breakfast in the living room, with all my dvds “looking” at me, as well as the photos on the mantel. Those are my speakers, and my Nintendo Wii next to the TV. My books in the bookshelf. And my piano in the corner by the door.

Yesterday, I checked out of the hotel early and headed out to Heathrow. However, they were only letting people in who had a scheduled flight in less than three hours, so they put me in a marquee and gave me a cup of tea, but I was pretty far away from the heat source and so I got really cold after about an hour. I explained to the guy at the entrance to my check-in area about how easily I get urinary tract infections and could he please let me in so I could get some warmth in me. He agreed and told me not to tell anyone. Kind of him.

And then I waited. While I waited I went to a café upstairs and had a cup of soup, and talked to a Japanese man whose suitcase informed me his name was Kimura. He said he was stranded on stand-by to go back to Tokyo. He was an international liaison with a drug company which, get this, was owned by Kirin, as in the beer.

Then I checked in, sat in the business lounge for a while and went to the gate when the screen told me to.

The flight was a little bit delayed, but not by much. On the plane I sat next to a man called Julian (Jules) and his son Julian (Jools). Jools was drawing guns, so I asked him about them and got to talking with both him and his father, who were trying to get home to Sweden. (Jules was English.) Jools let me watch an episode of Fawlty Towers with him on his dad’s iPad.

Then we landed, only 20 minutes behind schedule, and the rest, I think, is history. My parents and Morten picked me up and now I’m here, happy as can be. Off to see my mum now. We’re going last minute Christmas shopping.

Just a quick update to say that my flight for today is still scheduled. I will now shower and have breakfast, and then head off to the airport. Want to be there early.

After a quick Starbuck’s breakfast/lunch, I took the tube to Piccadilly Circus and walked up Shaftesbury Avenue to Forbidden Planet. There I spent some time browsing Doctor Who collectibles (walked away with an 11th Doctor Sonic Screwdriver LED torch) and had a look at some books. Ended up buying a novel by Mike Carey, whom I’ve only read comics by (he wrote the Sandman spin-off Lucifer, among other things). It looked interesting. Also got a kick out of finding that teenage fantasy romance of the kind Stephanie Meyer writes was NOT in the sci-fi and fantasy shelves, but had their own section: Paranormal Romance. WIN!

After that, I took a brief trip to Orc’s Nest and looked at RPG books. Couldn’t buy anything, cause I can’t fit them in my luggage, but found some cool stuff I might check out later.

Then I took a break from the nerdiness and went by a couple of clothes shops. Ended up buying a nice dress that was on sale at Mango. I’m sure I’ll be able to fit it in my luggage somehow, though I’m not so sure about the belt that came with it. That’s okay, it wasn’t particularly nice anyway. I have much better belts (made from actual leather, no less) at home. I’m thinking I’ll wear the dress for New Years Eve.

After that I went to Hamley’s and had a look at Harry Potter collectibles and science toys. Didn’t buy anything there either, but I always go to Hamley’s. Can’t break a good tradition now.

I was going to go to the British Museum, but it was already closed when I got there. Oh, well. Next time. So I went and shopped at Sainsbury’s instead, bought some food to eat (didn’t feel like real dinner, so I bought some salad and things) and a big bottle of San Pellegrino. So I’m set for tonight.

I’m pretty ready to go home, though it’s in no way certain that I’ll be flying tomorrow. The following message is now up on HeathrowAirport.com:

“We are operating a reduced schedule until 06:00 on Wednesday, 22 December.”

So, we’ll see. Maybe my flight is in the reduced schedule, maybe it’s not. Whatever you can do for me, do. You know, pray, send good thoughts, happy juju, whatever you happen to believe works, please, please just do it. I’m open for anything right now… Just don’t sacrifice any kittens. That would make me sad.

Thinking I’ll watch a movie tonight or something. Not gonna stress now. Whatever happens happens. Nothing I can do about it, really, except try to remain positive.

My flight for today was canceled as well, which is why instead of sitting on a plane, I have just had a bath in my hotel room. SAS texted me early this morning, and my mum rang me at around 7 to let me know she’d seen it on the BAA website. She suggested I hurry out to Heathrow and try to get on a flight to Stockholm or Copenhagen or somewhere else closer to home that they were flying to, and then get a train or bus or something.

However, my absolutely amazing significant other, who spent all day yesterday on the phone and the Internet trying to get me on a flight today, and who couldn’t sleep last night and instead sat hitting refersh on the status of my flight, had an even earlier start today. He got on the live chat at Wideroe.no with a lovely man named Hans Petter, who managed to get me on a direct flight to Oslo tomorrow afternoon. He also bumped me to business class, as sometimes happens when they over-book (it has actually happened to me once before, when we flew to Iceland when I was about twelve).

This is awesome in lots of ways, the most important of which is that tomorrow the temperatures are rising. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll be up to 0 degrees Celcius out at Heathrow, and as we all know, 0 is not the temperature at which water freezes, but at which ice melts. Since this is the rainiest country on Earth, I have every confidence that they’ll manage to deal with a wet runway even though ice provided a serious challenge.

I’m expecting there to be delays of course, but I actually feel optimistic and hopeful (which means I’m setting myself up for disappointment in the event that the forecast is wrong and it’ll still be frozen tomorrow, but oh well). Several planes are taking off from Heathrow today, too, so maybe tomorrow they’ll be back to something akin to normal, apart from flights to other places that are also having trouble.

So, today I’m heading off to my favourite parts of London to have a look around and just take it easy. First stop is Starbucks as I missed breakfast today (nowhere I have to go, so I might as well sleep in). Then I’m thinking Shaftesbury Avenue to head to Forbidden Planet. Might head to Camden, but that’s not as much fun when you’re alone. Either way, I’m gonna have an okay day.

Keep your fingers crossed and think good thoughts for me!

I’m too exhausted to even be angry anymore… I just feel like some evil power sent this whole day to hurt me as much as possible.

My rebooked flight was canceled. I was already on the train to London when I found out, and so I continued on. I rang Morten, and my mother, who came up with the brilliant idea to take a train to Paris and then get a flight from there instead. Morten booked a flexible ticket for me from Orly, and I arrived at London Euston with fresh hope.

However, when I got to St. Pancras, I learned that all Eurostar trains were booked full for days. That just about killed me and I broke down in despair. Morten found a couple of Norwegian flights from Gatwick that would get me via Bergen or Stavanger, and then a morning flight from there to Oslo, but while I was checking with my mum if I had anyone to stay with in Stavanger those flights had both been booked full.

So I got on the Piccadilly Line out to Heathrow after all, as I didn’t really have anywhere else to go. It was crowded, and impossible to find help at first, but in the end some lady at the airport information desk understood what it was I needed and sent me in the right direction. In the meantime, Morten found me a flight with SAS tomorrow at noon to take me home, via Stavanger. Pray to God that it’ll fly…

I got a hotel voucher from the very friendly ladies up in the departure hall and got back on the Piccadilly Line, headed this time for Holiday Inn Regent’s Park.

The room is nice. I’m waiting for some tea-water to boil now, and listening to music in bed. The Internet is slow, and cost me £15, but it’s better than no Internet at all. I had some dinner (also paid for by BA) in the restaurant, which was also perfectly all right though in no way divine.

I have never wanted to go home this badly before. I want my bed and I want my family and I want Morten, most of all. Makes me all weepy, just thinking about it all… So please, whatever deity can possibly exist, if there’s any fairness and mercy in this world just get me home!

EDIT: An after-thought… I’ve spoken to a lot of strangers today. I talked to a girl on the platform in Birmingham when the train was delayed. I talked to a lady on the train to Euston, after I thought I’d be getting home tonight and was feeling giddy. Then I talked to a girl named Jessica who was flying to Hong Kong on the tube to Heathrow (she’d been talking to this poor man who was waiting for his wife to come home from Germany and hadn’t heard from her in two days), who was very friendly. Then I talked to a man who heard me talking Swedish on the phone and had lived in Sweden when he was a teen and had a Swedish girlfriend, while I was waiting for the tube back into the city. And finally, I chatted with an Austrian man who lived in München and had been stuck for two days.

So, while I hate my life right now, I guess hard times do help shape us. I usually never talk to strangers, at least not if they didn’t talk to me first. Could be worse.

My flight’s been canceled, and I’m back in the Student Village just feeling like shit, basically. I was waiting for the taxi to take me to the train station when Morten called and told me. I just feel so devastated right now, I can’t even begin to describe it. I tried looking for another flight that would get me home today. Tried every airliner I could think of. Nothing… So I rebooked my flight with BA for tomorrow, same time, and here’s hoping that it’ll stop snowing and they’ll get their act together so I’ll actually get to fly tomorrow. At least I’m likely to get compensation…

The one happy thought is that I’ll get to spend some more time with Emma. I dunno, maybe we can play Cluedo tonight or something, if they haven’t already made other plans. I wonder what to do for dinner, though… Hadn’t really planned food for today so I have nothing in. I have spaghetti… Abi’s out, maybe I can ask her to buy me a bolognese or something.

Gonna watch some Big Bang Theory and cuddle Pixie now.