Oh hi! It’s me again. What, it’s been almost a week? I know, I know. I have a good excuse. Yeah, yeah, I really do. No, really. I do. No, stop that. Stop repeating everything I say. I’m telling mom on you.

Thank you.

Now, my excuse: I just recently realised that my first exam is two (three at the time of realisation) weeks away, and I have a whole lot of pages to get through. I might have to drop reading up on either Roman history or Norwegian history. Most likely I’ll drop Roman, as I have a decent insight into that already, whereas I know so little Norwegian history that it’s almost embarrassing. Either way, I’ll focus on European history, as I am sure they won’t give two consequent exams with no questions on European history. They’d better not.

Also, we’ve been doing some interior decorating! We still haven’t bought a lamp for the dining area, but we HAVE bought and put up shelves for the storage space under the stairs. And when I say “we” here I actually mean both me and Tor, for once! I did the buying and he did the putting up. Teamwork!
We also turned the cramped little library/whatever into a library/home office, so that I won’t have to kill my back by hunching over the laptop. I now have a good desk and a very nice chair. Pictures to come when I have cleaned up the rest of the mess that is down here, and hung up some pictures.

Tor wants to turn the upstairs spare bedroom into a movie room (if he could, he’d probably go all the way with home theater carpeting and the works), but I have managed to steer him away from that path. He is just ignoring the fact that I told him even before we bought the house that that room was to be set aside for a nursery. I did agree to store our DVDs in there though, because we really have nowhere else to put them all.

Would you look at that? It is now tomorrow. Quick recap of what I did last night after not finishing this blog entry:

• Did some reading/note taking.
• Made chocolate mousse to use in a cake
• Watched Interview with the Vampire on TV.
• Read some more, took some more notes.

Hi, hello, how are you today? Not so good? Well, I am super, thank you for asking! Now to cheer you up, I present you with this little clip that is my very favourite scene from Firefly, which is my very favourite western/sci-fi show (because there are so many of those to choose from!), which you should all watch because it will make your life better:

Ok, so my initial plan for today was to go to the gym and maybe check out the pool there. But then I realised that tomorrow the physical therapy people are having a class in the pool, so I might check in with them instead.

For today, I am just going to go for a walk instead, because the weather is beautiful, and I want to take advantage of being home during the daylight hours to take some photos. During this walk I am also going to try and establish the quickest route to the gym. I know where it is, and I sort of know where it is in relation to our house, but I have a terrible sense of direction, and I’d rather not face the big unknown tomorrow on my way to the pool thing when I can face it today instead.

Then I might go to the gym later today, and attend either the aqua aerobics or the yoga class.

Now I just need to wait for the iPod to charge, and I am almost good to go. Hopefully the camera’s batteries are still good to go - as others before me have pointed out, one of the S3 IS’ shortcomings is that it won’t display battery level until it is critically low.

I wrote up a longish post on this yesterday, but then forgot to post it and now it doesn’t seem right, so here’s the short version:

I went to see the doctor again because the pain was rather unbearable. She examined my back and told me I have an inflammation in my lower back muscles, radiating out into the hips/thighs. She then gave me a prescription for anti inflammatory meds, which I can’t take yet because of the penicillin, so to cope with the pain I was also given heavy duty pain meds. Yesterday afternoon I had my first pain free hours in days, and it was bliss. Last night I slept through the night - also bliss.

I’m also in sick leave for the rest of the week, so that I can try and go to the gym as much as possible. I’m heading there after I’ve had breakfast, to try out some pool training. Now hopefully my bathing suit still fits…

I had to give in today and call the doctor’s office to beg for an appointment. The bladder infection is more or less gone, what little is left of it doesn’t really bother me because I know how to keep it down (orange juice and cranberry capsules ftw!), but when I woke up on Saturday I had this strange ache in my left hip/upper thigh. I figured I’d just strained a muscle or something, and thought nothing more of it. It was still there on Sunday, and still I decided to ignore it. Monday came around, and so did the bladder infection - it flared up like whoa, so I called my boss and asked to work from home for at least the first half of the day. I went to work around noon, and everything was ok. I got home with the headache from hell, as well as a little more pain in the hip/thigh, so I took some Ibuprofen and went to bed.

Then today. Today. THE PAIN. It hurt to sit down, it hurt to lie down, it hurt to stand up. The only thing that didn’t hurt was to walk around. I still went to work though, but called the doctor’s office the second they opened. I got an appointment at 14:10, and was asked to come a little early to give a urinary sample.

At about 11 am I consider going home, because I just wanted to lie down on the floor, curl up into a little ball, and cry. It just HURT. It’s this strange, inexplicable pain - it starts in my lower back, and then sort of streams down into the hip and thigh. It also makes using the toilet a real pain (no, not in the arse). By now I am pretty sure that it is NOT just a bladder infection. It might be a renal pelvis inflammation, but I’m pretty sure the kidneys aren’t that far down.

I get to the doctor’s office in good time, and get handed a cup to pee in. I still haven’t mastered the feat that is peeing in a cup without also peeing on my hand. Ew.

For once I get to see the doctor only 10 minutes after my scheduled time. She tells me my urine is murky, which makes it hard to see if anything is wrong with me. I tell her where I am hurting, and she taps my back where my kidneys are. No pain there. Hmm. This is a conundrum. She eventually decides to just put me on a penicillin cure anyway, because that should clear up any infection that might be lingering somewhere in my body. I ask her if I can also take some Ibuprofen to keep the insane pain at bay, and she tells me I have to let the penicillin work for at least two days before I can take any pain medication. TWO. DAYS. At the time it seems ok, because right then and there I am not in much pain.

Then I get home. OW. OW. OW. I am now NOT able to stand up much without it hurting to the point of crying. If I’m still like this tomorrow morning, there is no way I will be able to go to work, or at least I won’t be able to function very well.

Not happy. At all. Work your magic, penicillin.

(Sidenote: I totally saw Christina Yang at the doctor’s office.)

This is something that annoys me in all settings, but it is occurring increasingly now that the US presidential elections are coming to a close.

It annoys me when people call other people stupid just because they do not agree with them. It annoys me when people say things like “you have to be stupid to listen to Britney Spears”, or, more relevant these days, “you have to be stupid to vote for McCain”.

Aren’t we all entitled to have our own opinions about things and people, without being called stupid?

I completely respect the fact that some people would never vote for McCain, I really do. I just resent that some of those people would call other people stupid, ignorant idiots or something along those lines just because they are of another opinion. It’s just not cool.

Writing this feels kinda like a deja vu - I just realised that it’s because I have written more or less the same thing before, but then pertaining to religion.

More specifically, a new cellphone. Not that there is anything wrong with mine, I just have an urge to replace it with something new and fancy. The problem is that with our current financial situation, I can’t exactly justify spending a couple thousand on a new cellphone when my current one is working just fine! I’ve just switched services too, to one that doesn’t offer any “free” or discounted phones, because the service itself is so cheap, so I’d have to shell out full price, and unlocked cell phones are so darn expensive.

It really doesn’t help to see all these iPhone commercials everywhere. Stop being so attractive, iPhone. Please. STOP IT.

Also, I’m sorry I didn’t get to do the Thriller dance for Halloween. I was too busy. Next year maybe? Or I could put on a Santa hat and make it a Thriller Christmas dance.