Post-script: Yes, I really do kick ass at this updating-blog-frequently thing. Lets do a 5 minute catch up: I got a new job. I aced my exams. I have summer vacation and am leaving for Greece on Wednesday. Seeya in mid-July!

Love you too, babe. ;)

See, I went on Easter vacation to the mountains, what, 3 weeks ago? And snowboarding full speed down the hills - a fantastic feeling by the way, I love snowboarding - I fished my camera out of my pocket and recorded a tiny clip. Somehow, I then got the idea that the moment I got home, I’d add some music to the clip, change the hues and contrast a bit, upload it to youtube, and then post it here with the subject “this is life”.

Now, this never happened, as you might be able to tell. When I got home, I discovered that Premiere Pro hates me. At least, I was unable to successfully import that clip while keeping the right frame rate, resolution, etc - apparently, it turns out that PP wasn’t exactly made for editing home videos recorded with the Olympus Mju’s film function, haha.

And since then, I’ve just been really really busy. I’ve got a bunch of emails in my inbox marked “REPLY TO THIS”, as well as a fantastically long list of things to do. So if you’ve sent me and email during March or April, and not received any reply - please stay patient, I’m getting to it! Eventually! I promise. :)

Right now I’m working a series of three posters for a school project, where the task’s to create an advertising campaign for Ikea’s series of Billy bookshelves. It’s surprisingly difficult. :( (and I’ve come to realize that my concept isn’t nearly as original as I thought it was, so because of that I’m not going to be posting it online, boo.)

A week ago in Social Studies, we were discussing the reason for differences between avg. salary for men and women. I’m arguing that this is mostly a result of women choosing jobs that pay less, such as ones within health care, in addition to that more women are less careerdriven, and rather family-focused, than men are. I end it with asking whether there’s examples of a woman holding the same position as a man, but being paid less - something I state would be extremely unfair and discriminatory.

The girl sitting next to me turns and looks at me, and says I need to stop being such a feminist.

fem·i·nism   (fěm’ə-nĭz’əm)     noun
1. Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

Shit, I’m not even close to identifying as a feminist, and I’m far from advocating the issue, but by dictionary definition - why would being a feminist bring negative connotations? Do anyone really want to go back to living in a time where women stayed in the kitchen making sammiches? I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I’m quite enjoying my right to vote and my right to equal education. If you agree with me on that particular issue, you are per definition a feminist. I don’t think that’s something one should be ashamed of.

The stereotype of butch, man-hating feminists seem to have originated from the radical feminists, a movement which to me appears to be less about equalization and more about revenge against men. Hell, I’m as feminine as they come, if you judge by vanity, attraction to babies/puppies/baby pandas, fondness of the color pink, etcetera. However, this doesn’t stop me from being extremely ambitious, someone who’s dream is getting a good degree and a better job. If that makes me a feminist, then let be it. I would happen to find it extremely unfair if someone could earn more than me only because that someone has a cock, but apparently that viewpoint makes me unique among my classmates.

On a related topic, this reminds me of the BitingBeaver and the whole “my son looks at porn, I should have aborted him” drama. The link goes to Encyclopedia Dramatica, is NSFW, and should be taken with a grain of salt, but the topic is definitely fascinating and worth a read. Both for the amusement and the intrigue.

I’m female and I can’t comprehend this kind of hate. Sure men can be assholes some of the time, but for the most part I think guys are awesome. Plus women can be far meaner and nastier in their own ways. What drives someone to such unthinking animosity towards the opposite gender that they’d despise their own son for jerking it to porn? –A user at SA forums

^ Quoted for truth. (and slightly because I had to create a blockquote style just for this entry, so I want to show it off some more. ;D )

Update on last post: The guy called again today, and my dad answered the phone, threatening to report him to the police if he didn’t stop calling. Jeez dad, way to overreact - poor guy. I’m glad to have the matter off my hands, though.

I’ve been looking at several universities lately. All American ones, actually. And all art schools that offer a program in graphic design. The schools that look most interesting are California College of the Arts, California Institute of the Arts, and School of Visual Arts. If anyone know of schools with similar programs, or have any experiences with the schools listed, I’d adore it if you could tell me about it. :)

The only issue is really the extreme cost of going to university in the states. I get a lot covered by the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund, but only for the last 3 years of a Bachelor. Freshmen students aren’t eligible as European Bachelors only go over 3 years, not 4, so the first year is considered superfluous.

And even with the financial aid, I’ll still be knee deep in student loans when I finish. Yeah, I’m looking forward to that.

Again - if you’ve got any tips related to college application in the States, experience with being an international student, a story about that one international student in your class who was a freak, or a friend of a friend who almost got into an art school - I want to hear it!

In completely unrelated news, here’s my Super Mario ringtone for iPhone. It’s cropped to loop perfectly, hurrah. To use it for non-iPhone purposes, rename the file to mp4. That should make it act like a normal audiofile :) For the more quiet kind, I also found the Kim Possible beeper tone, which is great for text message notification as well as a short ringtone.

• Super Mario Bros. ringtone
• Kim Possible beeper tone

Little piece of information about me: I am absolutely awful at saying no. I’m a people pleaser. I want everyone to like me, and I definitely don’t want anyone to find me rude. This has bitten me in the ass more times than I can count. A recent example follows.

The other night, I had been to the city, so I was sitting on Burger King while waiting for the train to come. Now, note that I was alone, and that the area around the central station is not one with a good reputation - you could walk 20 meters from the main entrance and on the way score both heroin and a hooker. Anyway, once I’d finished the meal, I fished my iPhone out of the pocket and started watching random YouTube videos to keep myself entertained. Then, out of nowhere, a complete stranger sits down across from me and begins conversing. He’s maybe a year or two older than me, African, and speaks somewhat broken Norwegian. I play along despite being completely uninterested.

When my train’s a couple of minutes away, he insists on following me down to the platform. When I’m about to board, he asks for my number. I hesitate, but because I’m terrified of being impolite or rude, I give it to him.

On Sunday, he sends me two texts and calls me thrice. I never dared to pick it up, instead ignoring it until it stopped ringing. On Monday, he calls me thrice more. By now, I’m dreading every time I hear my familiar Super Mario theme ringtone, but he seems to have given up and finally taken the hint.

I feel awful about it. :( And slightly flattered. But mostly awful.

My best friend is now making me say “NO” to a request at least once daily, to ensure something similar doesn’t happen again.

I’ve been working on developing the new version of Galleristic lately. I took the old version down from my scripts collection not too long ago because of insecurities, (I first wrote it when I was 13, after all…) but the new one should be up in less than a month. I’m writing it from scratch, adding new features, updating it to today’s standards and most importantly fixing all security vulnerabilities that existed in version 1.0. When Galleristic 2.0 comes out, it should be a great script for maintaining a basic photo gallery or portfolio, which is easy to customize based on your own needs and design.

Here’s a little preview of the redesigned default template. Compared to the old one, it’s quite a big improvement. ;)

If you have thoughts or inputs, either on the design or features you wish to have in Galleristic, feel free to share. I’ll probably need beta testers in not too long as well, so if you keep checking this blog, I’ll post a link to a beta .zip sooner or later! :D

(PS: I have a habit of taking my post titles from random song lyrics - get used to it. ;) And if you want to, you can guess where they are from.)

Thorough documentation for jQuery can be found at the website, jquery.com. However, I’m going to be covering some of the basics here. :) You should have an elementary understanding of HTML and CSS, though, and possibly also of general programming language structure. If not, you’re probably going to be really confused. (more…)