Interests of genius and Cardassians.

Song of the day: Þessir menn, by Valdimar. Dat bass.

Yesterday, I had a great time helping my twelve year old niece with her Religious Studies homework. Granted, this was not because the subject was so eloquently expressed, but because we share the view that the Icelandic education system doesn't have half an idea what the Funk&Wagnalls it is doing. To whit; the current subject they were tackling was Hinduism, which you'll have to agree is at the very least interesting (religions involving gods with animal heads generally are), the stories of which count as many of my favourites in religious dogma. Yet somehow they writer of the textbook managed to strip the subject down to its barest facts, shredding it of all fascination and wonder, leaving you feeling like you had just eaten a particularly bad bowl of cereal (the kind that taste like paper-mache.)

It was honestly amazing, and not in a good way. Which led us into the discussion that its disgustingly difficult to learn things that are boring, and why making the subjects so still seems to be the pinnacle of achievement to which all school book writers aspire. I mean, it's hell of a lot more easy to learn things that you find fascinating, which is why people tend to start specializing (or at least doing better at some subjects than others) from an early age, in the things they like. While I will be going to study archeology at university because I love it to bits, I would never subject some of my friends to it because frankly it would bore them to tears and they just wouldn't be able to learn it because they wouldn't want to in the first place. It's ultimately what makes a genius, I think. After all, what is a genius but a person that is really, really interested in something? Sure, intelligence helps, but it's not going to do you any good if you just don't care about anything.

My niece really is marvelous, though. She's very clever to the point that she finishes her finals exams on ten minutes and gets 10/10 (in the subjects she likes, of course), and even then, some of her teachers give her crap about it because they're always certain that she just hasn't studied at all and has flunked the whole thing, even though she has turned in consistently good work over the whole year. I had been a bit on the fence about it I should have her inherit my pocket watch (since it has an S engraved in it and both our names begin with that letter) because while she shares my love of Star Trek, she also follows the exploits of that Kim Cardassian chick.

What, it's spelled 'Kardashian'? Whatever, I'm still doing this joke.

But it was all decided on the moment when a discussion of avatars lead into another on James Cameron's Avatar and she somehow managed to explain the concept to herself using the film, an eraser, a sheet of paper and a pen as props. I have no idea how I would replicate the effect in written word, but trust me, it was cosmic. She is definitely getting my stuff when I die. Well, at least some of it.

I may possibly be doing a post on when I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. Not to get graphic or anything, but... There will be a LOT of sporfling and squeeing.

Not all there is to it?

Song of the day: Pieces by Red (Instrumental).

So it has been brought to my attention (by myself and also my sociology textbook) that I grossly oversimplified the weirdness formula, which looked at first a little something like this: AW/JW = W%

Number of people that have said weird trait/the number of people not possessing that weird trait. I.e. attributed weird/judging of weird

But thinking in terms of 'amount of people judging' versus 'amount of people judged' just isn't good enough. This becomes apparent when it's made clear that the term 'minority'  seldom has anything to do with the size of the group in question. Arguments have been made, for example, of women counting as a minority as as they have generally had to deal with a crapload of oppression throughout history, even though we make up roughly 50% of the human race.

You could also take the Marxist approach; that the ruling class defines what is socially acceptable and thus what is considered weird. There is also the basis of H.S. Becker's Labeling Theory, which argues that a deviancy doesn't become one unless there is someone to observe it and label it as such (which gives rise to the argument that in such circumstances, someone does have to observe the tree falling in the forest for it to count.)

 Which, as argued by Terry Pratchett, does make a sound when it falls; after all, there is always something in the forest to hear it, even if it isn't human. Why would a forest be there if there is no life?

Although to me that doesn't seem quite all there is to it. Of course no-one can consider you weird for wearing socks on your elbows (which is amazingly comfortable, by the way) if you only do so in your own home, because then they don't know about it. But it seems to be only one facet of the formula.

But then there is finding out what makes one thing 'weird' and not another. As noted before there is the 'majority rules' as in if a lot of people do this it's normal but a fewer people do that it might not be. But that was the failing of the original formula. Too simple.

How do you make 'weird' and 'the norm' a mathematical constant? How do you make deviancy a measurable entity? Although I find math along the lines of the Fibonacci spiral to be ridiculously beautiful, I'm still not very good at figuring out numbers. Anyone out there with something to add? A brilliant brain of mathematics or sociology or just someone curious to see how this goes? I suspect this could make an interesting thought experiment.

Meanwhile, back to my fic writing. Peace!

The weirdness formula: I talk about my country

Song of the day: 'Time' cover, from the soundtrack of Inception.

So ever so often I go wikiwalking on the internet, mildly obsessed with something I've been thinking about recently. This time, I was extremely curious to see what people think of my own country, and according to Google auto-fill that is:

1. Icelanders are weird

2. Icelanders are kooky

3. Iceland is boring (which led me to a very interesting article where the author concluded that Icelandic girls are boring since none of them would have deep conversations with him before sleeping with him on top of being annoyingly feminist)

On the first two... We are? I mean, I'm quite flattered if that is really the case but isn't the whole thing about weirdness subjective? Isn't that the whole basis for weird? By that standard, every culture you don't know or aren't used to is weird compared to your own. As for the third, I dunno. I don't find it particularly boring, but each to his own.

I wonder if I could make a mathematical formula for weirdness. Lessee... Number of people that have said weird trait/the number of people not possessing that weird trait. I.e. attributed weird/judging of weird. AW/JW. That should give you a percentage, since the size of the second group tends to be higher than the former. Please tell me if you can make something up that actually makes sense.

Yes, it is true that the Mayor of our capital is actually a comedian/punk rocker/actor with no experience in politics and promised to break all his promises if he were elected.

Reykjavík Mayor Jón Gnarr dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi 

along with Lady Gaga because why the fuck not

Yes, we do have a tradition of eating sheep heads and sort-of-rotten/cured shark (personally I would touch neither with a long stick) and (very) occasionally hunt whales (which are DELICIOUS.)

Yes, almost everyone doesn't have a surname, and instead has a patronym or occasionally a matronym (which plays merry hell with the tourists whenever they try to look something up in the phone book)

Yes, we WILL eat barbeque as soon as summer officially starts, whether it is pouring with rain or temperatures are below zero (which tends to happen)

We can still read the Landnáma (a book written about the first settlers somewhere around the year 1000), which I find seriously cool; the language didn't change for centuries due to isolation.

Then there is the thing about leaving baby strollers outside (which I thought was perfectly normal until my foreign friend asked if kids didn't get stolen all the time and I was like... What?) and the communal showers, saunas and natural pools... we aren't very nudity-conscious. Our parliament is also the oldest one still in practice and we get earthquakes and volcanic eruptions a lot - that's what you get when your ancestors settle right on top of the Mid-Atlantic ridge. We also have the same word for 'aunt' 'niece' and (female) 'cousin', which is 'frænka' (the same goes for 'uncle', 'nephew' and (male) 'cousin', which is 'frændi'.)

We are a sarcastic bunch of bastards to a fault and alternate between talking about how amazing the place is to how terrible it is in a matter of minutes. The main religion of Iceland is Protestant Christianity, but you'll find that very few people actually practice it and a lot of people identify as 'not particularly religious'. Some people still practice Ásatrú, which has got all the cool gods like Óðinn, Þór and Loki (and for the last time, not the latter two weren't brothers, that's just the Marvel comics!)

I suspect us to have SIS (small island syndrome) since we think ourselves as a whole as much bigger than we are (and this is probably what led to the banking crisis.)

We also have the first openly gay prime minister (something I'm seriously proud of, and I generally think that being proud of your country is kind of a redundant thing) and by law anyone can marry/love/sleep with whoever the hell they want (as long as it's in consent, of course.)

There is some rumour about Icelandic girls being the hottest of all time (kinda like that rumour about Swedish girls), which, you know, take it or leave it; yet again it depends on your preferences.

Oh, and of course we don't believe in fairies. Er, although, we might not move a rock or farm a particular hill with a certain reputation about it.... You know, just in case.

Oh, and just to make it clear for once and for all, Eyjafjallajökull is pronounced (approximately):

-Eh (imagine an Aussie saying 'Eh, mate?')
-Ah (like that time you found out something mortifyingly embarrassing about your great-aunt)
-Fia (Like 'Fiat' without the T)
-La (hard L sound)
-Juh (I'm having a hard time finding the appropriate translation for the 'ö' sound, but 'uh' will have to do)
-Kull (another hard L)

See? It even makes sense now. Really it's the most uninspired name ever for a volcano when you translate it; it essentially means 'Island-mountain-glacier.' We are such amazing givers of names as a nation.

Now, non-existant commenter, tell us what things people find weird with your country that you find completely normal!

P.s. Please don't ask about Björk, okay? Even we think that she's weird.

On death and dying (and the good things about black humour)

Song of the day: 'A Mhaighdean Bhan Uasal (Noble Maiden Fair)' from the soundtrack of Brave.

So, my grandmother just died. Which is sad. Uh, not to state the obvious, or anything.

And when the family got to know about it, there was grieving, and crying and generally being miserable but still a bit glad because she had been sick for so long and died in her sleep. I suppose that you could call it a good death, if there is such a thing. But more importantly she had a good life, or at least a life worth living, which is the most any of us can ever ask for.

So I stayed over with my sister and her family for the night to comfort them (for them to comfort me), and it was nice. But I kinda got this feeling that I would also have been fine alone at home by myself. And at first I wondered if that was callous, but no. I simply seem to have skipped right to the final stage of grief, if those can be considered accurate to the human experience. I mean, I didn't even cry. And then I realized that I had already done most of the grieving before she even died, because we all knew it was going to happen, although no-one said it out loud.

I think the story I have been writing throughout April (finished on time, by the way. Woohoo!) helped a lot. I didn't realize it at first, but the protagonist was experiencing the same crippling fear of death that I used to have when I was younger, and also dealing with my own grief of my other two grandmothers, which also died only last year. I wrote it without realizing that it was also about me, in a way, and dealt with the feeling that I had about being left alone. I mean, now a whole generation of my family is gone; all six of my grandmothers and grandfathers. And in the end, I realized it by writing it thus:


‘The moments leading up to death may be horrible, but the end itself just is. It’s neither good nor bad. There may be people left behind and there may be people who leave, but if life does anything, it goes on, and so does death. Don’t be afraid, Martha. People may leave, but that doesn’t mean that others don’t arrive.'

It was a pretty cathartic experience, and a good one.

So all in all, my grandmother was an awesome lady. I mean, she put up with my grandfather, for one (long story) and she raised like six or seven kids. She had my mum, which, not to brag or anything, is kinda important to my existence (and also happiness). She never went to what we would think of as a school in present time, but she was wonderfully smart and read like she was racing against someone (and had so many books I can't even count them). She had a wicked sense of humour, and in the tradition of our family a pretty gallows-oriented one. I think she would have appreciated what my best friend said to comfort me when I told her. I hesitate to write it, though, because of the chances of it being misunderstood by, well, everyone.

Ah, screw it, no-one reads this anyway.

'What's up with your grandmothers dying all the time?'

'And here I thought you had made it perfectly clear to your grandmothers that they should stop that whole dying thing. Tch, hipster grandmas.'

I just find this hilarious. But then again I do come from a long line of gravediggers.

Rest in awesome, grandma. We will meet again.