I just got the results of my thesis examination, the outcome of my stay in Strasbourg, and I passed! And not only did I pass, but on a three-level scale (of "pass") I was credited at level two with a "pass good!" Now I can rest peacefully with respect to my thesis--although the peace will have to wait until I have celebrated the result!
Those who want to make their own judgement can download the thesis (PDF, 1MB) and read about "Search Engine Credibility."
I am certain I bought a pack of eggs yesterday or the day before, but now I can't find them and I need them for baking a cake for tomorrow! Of course, this can wait until tomorrow, but nevertheless... Maybe it is just another symptom for the stress I experience these days. Where it comes from is hard to say, but it feels like I cannot get enough things done and at the same time I am not doing anything. Where do all my time go? Sure, I go to work every day, and I attend French lessons two evenings a week and try to study French between those lesson. But this shouldn't occupy more than just a small amount of the total sixteen hours I have each day and doesn't explain why my apartment looks like a constant mess. It feels almost like the last couple of days in Strasbourg when I was awake for two days and nights in a row, slept for three hours and worked on the following day. I feel like a becoming zombie.
I'll try to leave the zombie behind in the swimming pool tomorrow morning.
There is mainly two reasons for this. I prefer focusing forward in time, and I have a bad memory. Whether those two are related I don't know.
So, I am changing the blog title from Yesterday... to something else. I think I'll just go creazy on the creative-o-meter and name this blog equivalent to its predecessor from Strasbourg: Asbjørn in Oslo!
And why would I need an invitation? Well, it is part of the process of getting a visa for Russia. As I am not staying in a hotel, I had to get Mari to send me an invitation. Yesterday it came through on fax, and today I went to the Russian embassy in Oslo and picked up the visa. Though "picking up" may not be the proper term, as it came quite expensive. Not only because I started out with the wrong address, resulting in two tours around Oslo in taxi before I got to the right place, but also because it is expensive to get a visa the same day you apply for it... One thousand Norwegian crowns, to be precise (that equals some 128 euros according to the American Express Currency Converter).
Yesterday I also had my long-awaited ADSL broadband connection installed. The guys from the telecom company said it would just take fifteen minutes to install it. This seemed sound to begin with, considering that the line was active until I returned from Strasbourg. However, fifteen minutes became half an hour, and turned into one hour. By that time, I had finished both lunch and dessert and started doing my homework in French while the guys worked on the line. After two hours they finally made it work and I could return to the office. Yesterday I worked late.
Tomorrow I am getting up at 05:45, and with three cans of Norwegian liver paté in my bag I am flying to St Petersburg to visit Mari for the week-end.
