Good Girl/Bad Girl Syndrome

Marte, do you remember how Nikolai always said "Broki" or "Nu må du ta på dæ broki!" (or did he say Brokji? Anyhow, I just realised that it is the russian word for pants/trousers. How funny isn't that. Quite. ANd for those who don't know - my friend's father always used a funny word, which is not "bukse" (Norwegian word for pants/trousers) but Broki whenever he talked about pants/trousers. It was interesting to discover that that was a Russian word!

I have been a bad girl today. I have a draft essay to do for tomorrow, and I have not got one word. That is unfortunate, I realise that. However, I feel like I am all the time saying to myself and to my housemates " No, I can't come, I have to study." I think I study way more than other exchange students(??) (from York?). At least it feelsl ike it. So tonight it stopped. I just could not make myself go and study when there were guitars, recorder-flutes, bass-flutes, a bass and voices playing in the living room; a tonne of food and wine and interesting people to talk to. I just could not say Sorry, I am off to the library. It was one of the nicest evenings here at the co-ops; the old coopers are invited back to have a Thanksgiving meal with the current habitants. It was very interesting. Now, the fact that I spent my night playing, talking and singing (and eating and drinking two glasses of wine) means that I will not have anything to hand in to my teacher tomorrow. And this is the same teacher that is so nice to me and understanding, and thinks the most important is for me to learn. I feel like I am betraying his trust in me. I had a choice at 9, when we were done for the eveing. I could go to the library and stay there till 3 in the morning (there is one room in the library building that is open 24/7) and then be deadly tired tomorrow - and still not have a proper draft essay to give in. So I dropped that, stayed at home, drinking a cup of chamomile tea and going to bed as soon as my teath are brushed. It have only been in bed this early (22.30) once before since I got here. Good Girl Complex is really hitting me, it is hard to not do what you are supposed to... and try to not care. My Norwegian Co-year at UWCAD was good at this (Silje, you know this is true), and I always kind of envied her for her ability to accpet that what you do is what you do, and what you don't - well, you haven't done that, no reasong crying over it... So that was my choice, I will have to stick to it. And be ready to take the consequences. It may not show very much in my blog, but I do spend a lot of time studying, and if I am not studying I am busy doing something or another, that be driving the electric vehicle to fetch compost from around campus (early Tuesday mornings) or working at the farm or cooking for the house, or dancing folk dance (which, by grief, I haven't done in three weeks, because there is always something happening sunday evenings).
Good night. Oh, tomorrow, I am going to a workshop on how to write grant applications. America has a lot of money, er, that is, the University of California has a lot of money they want to use to make the world a greener place. Er... there is a sum of money available, and for any European, used to broke students groups and financial restrictions, it is like winning the lottery. Without having to buy a lottery ticket. You just have to figure out what you want to do with the money - convert vegetable oil into biodiesel or estimate the cost of putting solar panels on all the roofs or increasing awareness of local produce and doing a nice project on it involving the campus catering facilities...etc, etc. I am not doing these things myself at the moment, but it might be useful to learn how to write a grant application. For anywhere in the world I maight find myself. Right. Bed. Ciao.