le plan

i shall start today's post with something serious before getting fully up to date with this blog. many people have (repeatedly) asked me what i'm doing, and the most common being am i working or studying now.

thing is, without the permit, i can do neither legally/offically. Till now i have had no word of the permit, and if i still hear nothing by the end of this month i'll head over to the police station to harass some officers abit ;D

to make everything crystal clear, i shall repeat my plan here clearly and state that the Masters in Counselling programme requires a certain level of norwegian proficiency.

1: get permit

2: immediately enroll in some official norwegian course around.

3: simultaneously look for a job in trondheim as i'd prefer to live here and courses are abundant and within walking distance. will look into talking with a friend of alex's who is not norwegian but moved here a year or two ago and is looking for or has a job as he would have found out what jobs require norwegian knowledge. one suggestion by mary is to work in a hotel as a cleaning lady as it doesnt require norwegian proficiency.

if step 3 fails, the alternatives are to move to the inlaw's place and work there. work is guaranteed and pay is good. but attending a norwegian course there involves a total of 1 hour back and forth by car. while robert has suggested i could take the bus to the course and he can pick me up after, i would rather like to not trouble him.

4: start working to save up $ and reach the required level of norwegian proficiency.

5: by the end of the year, if i manage to skip a level or two of norwegian classes, i might be able to have gained the required level. if not, step 4 remains in effect.

6: once required level is reached, immediately apply for university and pray like crazy for the best. at the same time, start taking driving theory classes.

7: if i didnt get accepted the first time, just keep working, focus on learning driving and try again asap. of course, by then i will have more flexibility in terms of what job i can take.

side note: in norway, i can clock some of my driving hours under another person with a driver's license with X years of experience. robert is happily willing to let me raise his adrenaline levels by giving me the wheel when i have passed the theory parts.

lastly, i find it annoying when people ask me about my studies because i've known what i've wanted to do since secondary school and have worked towards it. and i already have a bachelor's degree, having people constantly ask me about studies makes me feel as though it is inadequate. those are my honest feelings :)

now back to my usual rambles! some xmas wares are 70% off and i found this supercute paperplates which match the postcards i bought for xmas this year! :D how to resist when its 6nkr? plus i want to invite friends over for a meal soon but i hate to wash dishes, so having some (cute!) paper plates for such occasions = joy.

then i have to show off my very nice hp case which alvin helped me get hohohoho
oh noes, naked nails.
recently i've also began organizing my table abit. it will take some time before it is finished because there's quite alot of unpacking to do (about the same level as when i moved here from Sg, scarily.) and cleaning. voila, the fruits of my labour which is temporary till i touch it up abit more!
thats just half my collection. hehe?

finally, this is what my xmas money got spent on. getting warmer clothes!! i made a clear set goal to NOT buy anything i would wear in sg XD.

first up is a very nice sweater which costed 150nkr/ $32.50sgd. everything here was on that happy 50-70% sale.
a fancy jacket that is pretty warm!
and stockings , the style of which i've been looking for for a year or so XD. it was 50nkr/$11sgd. happy because it was over 50% off hehe.
then while out shopping with mary i found out that my dreams do exist in reality! see?!
lo behold, its TWO purple xmas trees!!!!! (small one in the foreground) it makes me happy to know it exists but i dont think i'd want the big one. XD

lastly, we went to Plantasjen to look for an xmas tree but found out it was sold out before xmas began, and only 3.5 meter tall trees were left. i asked around where i could find one and a kind lady listed a few places to check, one of which was nearby. while i didnt buy my tree there, we found the shop on the way XD

anyway, Plantasjen is a big one storey building with a cafe and lots and lots of plants!! its like a giant greenhouse! and almost all the plants there were on 50% sale! of course i got excited and started zooming all over and alex called me a hummingbird.

i found some nice buys for mini orchids, and alex got a bonsai looking plant which i havent taken a picture of yet. think we dont need more plants in the apartment or lilo's sleeping spot by the window will have to go XD.
that's it for today! yay, no more backlog XD

miscellany

a few last photos before my blog is almost up to date fully again! backlog...backlog...

first is an xmas gift i LOVE. its from raymond and hilde, and i really cant wait to try it out! its a set of 4 fondue pots, heated by putting those little tealight candles underneath :D my first comment was 'shit! now we'll never lose that xmas weight!'XD

then i have a cute top mary got for me which i really like alot. they have lots of similar looking tops on ebay and stuff but they are usually made in china and one size only, which is XS-S. :P so i'm really happy to get one in my size, as you can see.

for awhile now i realised i also havent posted pics of cats, and have to put one up of chubbachubs watching tv XD he sat there for a full 10 mins staring hard.

shortly after new year, i made a little house for the cats, which chubbachubs likes to use quite frequently. this was inspired by Aunty elke, who i rememebered made one for nicola and us cousins to play in when we were kids at aunty choo's house.

so he inspects...

he enters...

and settles! XD

and out of randomness while shopping, i found a highly special necklace which i think my mommy will never wear hohoho.
i hope everyone knew i meant the cockroach. i thought it was simply hilarious XD

a couple more pictures of more appealing trinkets... taken while having breakfast in the hotel that mary and robert stayed in when they were here. the hibiscus on the table was huge and lovely :D

and my super healthy breakfast. *nodnod* the donuts are new i think, and the carrot cake topped with cream cheese. ohhhhh sinful sinful happy food.in more current news, i downloaded the Sgradio app, and i really love it because i love listening to class 95 with the morning trio which plays after 11pm here XD . sadly when they play the best songs i think i'm asleep or doing other stuff.

another good reason to be glad to be home: my shower scrub gloves. without those after a week or two i still feel dirty after a shower XD smooth, clean skin, how i've missed you.

of christmas trees and cupcakes

not too long ago, norway was hit by the trend of cupcake making and various products. while i THINK its waning, i just got bitten by the cupcake craze... which resulted in.. well...cupcakes and a exasperated husband XD

why? i have alot of cupcakes now. starting with a coin bank on the left, and a trinket holder on the right. useful because i tend to dump my jewellery on the table now and then.
then i have a HUGE cookie jar........ its filled with sweets and chocolates at the moment. this was on 50% post xmas sale, so hoorah.

and then i have more 50% off cucpakes, which are currently on my happy xmas tree! these are mini and really cute XDof course i also have a few normal sized cupcake ornaments, all but the huge looking one was on 50% off. Its not THAT huge, i lifted it out so it would show up in the picture, as its the prettiest one in my collection XD
and while i'm showing ornaments i might as well show off most of the rest hehehe

all of these were bought at 10 for 100nkr, me and mary split. thats really dirt cheap considering most of them are glass ornaments, and those usually sell for at least 30nkr and up for this size. the cutest here is the hedgehog on the lower left corner and the squirrel on the lower right. TEE HEE HEE.
then i got some mini ornaments from Nille (cheap store) at 12 for 59nkr. i thought some were really cute, although i wonder what a hot dog has got to do with xmas. This ideally goes onto my $2-bought-in-daiso tree which i didnt get the chance to take out and decorate this year.

a handpainted ornament from mary, which i HAVE to say must have been done by chinese, because of the style (you find many similar painted-inside-glass things at chinatown) and the eyes of the angels are just... china.
then some random other ornaments which are 50-70% off or from mary's collection. she has so much stuff so she gave a little to me hehe :D i hope to never collect ornaments that i will not use on my tree though, it really takes up space for storage. i really love the birds here hehe

of course these arent all the ornaments on my tree. i have over 50 ornaments placed on it XD. not bad at all considering this is my first xmas tree XD. there's even a little black and silver glass angel and black balls around for alex, and a couple of purple balls amongst other things. The colors in the picture is quite dimmed so it looks less decorated, plus i got lazy with the silver glitter at the top of the tree XD. aunty siu mui said i didnt have enough ornaments and lights, but i think more lights would be overkill? the back 1/3 of the tree is undecorated though HEHE

have some special ornaments from Old World coming in soon, bought by Mary on eBay with my help. they're special because traditional methods of making glass ornaments is used to create them, and they have a wide variety of ornaments down to vegetables XD.

shall blog again really soon!

belated new year

new year was quite a fun one with eva's (mary's younger sister) coming to visit with her whole family. that includes her husband, her two sons, the girlfriend of one son and their infant son. quite a few people!

we ate pinnekjøtt (dried lamb sticks that gets boiled) with potatoes and some other stuff... i did the nails for eva and charlotte (the gf) and the boys played a board game called Talisman. Its quite an entertaining game since it takes hours to complete... i tried it twice, and usually avoid playing because i dont want to sit there for hours XD.

didnt bother to wear a dress or put too much effort into dressing myself this new year. but mary did my hair and glammed it up abit
The top i wore was brand new, bought in elnesvågen during the post xmas sale for just 100nkr! i was quite happy with the buy because i dont have anything like this in my wardrobe and i thought its a nice change. lots of sequins and beads, which i used to hate having on clothes. however... when i looked at myself in the mirror i couldnt help thinking i looked overall like an aunty version of my mother.
anyone agrees? the comment box no longer requires any id or logins btw, so its easier to say something. my in laws and hubby thought i looked very nice with my hair up though, and said i should have it up more often. sadly its something i love/hate. i love how it looks, i hate how it gives me a super sore scalp after due to all that hair pulled up tight on my head. so a side view..
and i was really trying to get a proper picture of it, and focusing while in a good mood leads to an expression i shall call 'le grace'. why? half the pictures she takes these days is probably with that face HOHOHO. and i shall know if she reads my blog when i receive a 'WEEEIIIII!' on whatsapp.


back to new year.

later in the evening, the baby sebastian was out on the sofa getting lots of attention, and i thought it would be funny to put one of those realistic looking baby dolls mary collects. the reactions are hilarious, and i shall let the pictures speak for itself.

it got quite funny because when i tried to remove the doll, he hugged it XD it was also interesting to observe him trying to interact with the doll as though it was another baby hehe
shall blog again real soon!

pure nails

compressed all the recent nail art into one post :P

charlotte's nails done on new year's eve. shortest nails i've painted so far, which was a challenge because it limits what i can do. But i loved the result (sucker for snowflakes) and charlotte found them cute too. :)
then this is eva's (mary's sister) for new year as well. She had a layer of nail polish on already so i just had to paint over, so it was really quick to do. quite a few people liked it, eva really liked it... but i didnt fancy the color combi XD which btw, is not my choice. i'm not so much into earth-y colors hehe


for mary, i didnt do her nails on new year's eve because she felt i would be really worn out XD hehe kind. did some sweet looking nai art on her which she likes. then my post-xmas nails... i HAD to use purple. xmas themes usually means reds greens and golds.. i think i shall avoid the darker colors because xmas themes turned my nails a little yellow :(
then i also did something for hilde when she visited cuz she wanted to try out the striping tape which she eventually ordered for herself too XD simple yet pretty design, but easier to do on someone than for yourself.
next is my new year's eve nails. since i wore a heavily sequined and beaded top i thought it'd be fun to do the same for my nails XD i really love the combination, but this doesnt last more than a full day or two because things start falling or peeling off!
lastly i did one last nail art before leaving hustad. funny enough, when alex saw it he recognized i had done the same design before. i think i tested it out on a fake nail to see if i could copy the design and showed it to him. ah, thats how much attention i got hehe. and purple. X) ah, sweet purple.
now to start blogging about something else!

trondheim sweet trondheim

back in happy cold trondheim! not much rest yet though, since the moment we got back it was chill, tidy abit, buy some groceries, sleep. then it was up early for breakfast with the in laws at the hotel at around 9:40 ish. breakfast closes at 10 XD

after breakfast robert had to dash off to work, and alex joined him while me and mary went shopping.

and we didnt stop till 5pm or later.

i'm not gloating or taking pride in that fact, i'm complaining! i was REALLY tired by then and my muscles were stiff all over (when you try for hours not to slip on ice...)and my feet hurt. i managed to buy some really nice things on sale though :) 50nkr for a knitted wool jacket was the best buy in my opinion for today

anyway, just to keep some flow going, i'll just blog pictures of the beef in this post!

first up, 250nkr hotplate beef in Elnesvågen! This is a suspected Iranian place, or Turkish. Cant really tell, but perhaps if my dad saw the pic of how the food is presented he may give some insight to the former. moving on... a glimpse of the restaurant from my seat.
quite nicely decorated, very spacious and surprisingly empty. now bring on the BEEF.

isnt that such wonderfully prepared food?? my only complaint is that they dont ask you how you want your beef done, because i love my beef done medium. here they did well done, but still managed to keep the beef quite tender. the pretty yellow thing surrounding the plate is mashed potato, which tastes rather odd on its own. Yellow thing in the middle is BUTTER filled bernaise sauce. it seems foreign restaurants in norway love to butter up the bernaise horribly... but this one went well with the brown colored sauce underneath. the happy mixture of most of the food there tasted heavenly!

bottom right corner of the pan is a cheese-topped baked portabello mushroom, which was very tasty because the mushroom didnt dry out at all during baking.
whether that was worth 250 nkr... well i have no comments, cuz i didnt pay for the meal hohoho. such dear parent in laws i have :D

next is... BIG HORN STEAK HOUSE in trondheim! its quite a popular place and Robert booked a table a day in advance for us. we had a cosy window seat, although i was told if we sat further up we could watch the chefs cook the sexy hunks of meat.

on the wall is the head of an american bison if i'm not wrong. Darn i didnt know it was that huge. XD
The menu comes in norwegian and english, although alex said even if it didnt come in english i'd be motivated to learn the norwegian there and read it. XD i took this picture so you could see the prices of beef there.
then i had to take a portion of the menu because i thought it was hilarious..
and finally... le beef! i ordered a 200g tenderloin, while alex and robert ordered 300g sirloin each. mary went for 200g sirloin i think. Everyone else had their beef well done while i went for a medium... but it was more medium rare to rare on one end :P

i really wanted to take a video of me poking the beef with the knife just to show how darn juicy and tender it was! sadly it was too dark.

me and alex shared a starter together, which was perfect for two if you ask me, since.. well.. almost everything there is a pair! the shrimps were my favourite texture of crunchy freshness, just that it was slightly spicey. everything else was good too.

my side dish was creamed spinach. basically i just miss leafy vegetables which seem nonexistent here for some reason. Creamed spinach was the most expensive side dish at 49nkr, which i found intensely strange for an almost pathetic bit of veggie? ah, i miss aunty siu hong's quiche. it had so much yummy spinach in it...
that's robert's and alex's side dish. top is creamed mushrooms, which tasted alot like campbell mushroom soup but richer and tastier. and below was asparagus with mushrooms which i didnt try.
lastly, i simply had to take a picture of the final bill... which i'm supposed to send a picture of to mom just to see her reaction hohoho. but i dont dare HAHA
aaand in singapore dollars that's $412.

with that, i shall end here and blog again tomorrow!

boo

a quick post from the workplace to say i STILL have no internet at the in-law's house. they are taking forever to fix it >_> there were two hurricanes recently, Dagmar and C... c..something. one of them was in our area and shook the house. blew off all the panels in one of the greenhouses and lots of soil over the balcony. most importantly, it ruined the internet in the area! poo!

other areas didnt do so well though. a roof was blown off someplace, a living room got blown in, trees fell here and there but not that many... boats in the docks got flooded and sunk.. some boats were washed ashore too. ah well.

will be leaving back to trondheim on thursday together with the inlaws as they are going there for work. CANT WAIT TO GO BACK! i miss the bed which is 3 X the size of the one we use here. i miss my desk(its MY space. MINE!) and my com. i miss our zoomzoom speed internet. our 50'' tv XD...

but actually i'm itching to craft up something new and all the supplies are back home in trondheim or sitting in the post box there waiting for me to tear open with gusto.

i'm also itching to clean up the place and redeco my desk.

meantime, there's NEW YEAR SHOPPING SALES!! and its not like Singapore where there's 20-50% sales or 'up to' 50% sales and you see pathetic amounts of things that are REALLY discounted. here, you get STOREWIDE 50% post christmas sales at some stores, or 50% off all xmas wares. Then you get 25% storewide on clothes... or half the contents in the stores are 50% off. i am going shopping today AGAIN. WOOT. i dont think i'll buy anything out of the sales periods, ever!

today we are also going for really really good beef in Elnesvågen i'm told. HOORAH!

blog about it when i have net or when we're back in trondheim!

happy new year to everyone. i turned on my phone on new year's eve to see if i got any smses and it was zero. T_T but today i turned on whatsapp and saw many people had sent me a message there and it felt so nice (and less lonely and forgotten).