counting down

There is 4 (or 5) days to Eid

There is (hopefully) 7 days to we hear from Sami's doctor

There is 18 to 32 days left to Sami's grave stone is finished

There is 23 (I think) days left to I start working full time again

There is 54 days until we celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary

There is 77 days left to Christmas

And 84 days to New years eve

Last, but not least, there is 96 days until my sister joins me in the thirties. (And I know she really look forward to that).

How I say it

I noticed today that my pronunciation is getting better. As you probably have understood (if you didn't know already) english is not my first language. Hence I struggle with proper grammar, spelling and pronunciation in english. I do speak well enough so that people understand what I am talking about most of the time. My approach when I don't know how to say a word is:
a, switch to a simpler word that means about the same (this also goes for spelling)
b, just pronounce it like I think it should be

When I do' b' I many times come up with my own words, which to some people (whom I might be married to) find amusing.

People do every now and then ask me to parrot back a word they say so I can get it right, but that do not always work, don't ask me why. What comes to mind right now is the name 'Hugh' - I just can't say it. To me it sounds like I'm saying huge..

I'm not sure why I have so much problems. It could be because Norwegian have pretty much the same letters as the english alphabet, but even with almost the same letters the sounds of many letters in Norwegian are different from the sound of the same letters in english.

(Are you still following?)

Say you try to make me write down letters while you spell to me. You might say "e" and I would most likely write "i". See how it gets hard?

I am getting better, I noticed that today. I was at church and for some reason they have all their songs in english (could be because it's in Australia). I love to sing, really really love it, so I will sing along even though I do not know the song. I just listen to the music and pay attention to the people around me and sing away. Many many times I have (pretty loud too) pronounced words very wrong only to realize it half way through the word when I hear people around me singing it differently. But today (make a mark in your dairy) I noticed that I actually sang the words the same way as the rest of the congregation...

So there might me a little bit less free entertainment for certain people (not mentioning any names here..) in the future.

some action

today, while I was cooking dinner, the power went of. Well that happens sometimes, but this time there seem to be no problem with out power board. I went to talk to the neighbour and sure enough they too had lost their power. Well, now we didnt know what to do.

I decided to go for a walk just to kill some time. When I got out on the street I noticed there were lots of other people out too. And all the cars from Brunswick road was directed up our street. At first I thought it was an accident. But could not see anything of that. I walked for a bit and then I saw a firetruck. So I asumed it as a fire close by. It was a bit strange though that the fire fighters was just standing on the street and talking to eachother. I kept walking when one of the fire fighters called me and asked me to stop. He asked me where I was going and I said just one more block up. He then asked me to cross the road before countinuing and then he pointed up. I look up and then I understood everything. On the power cables there was a piece of alminiume balancing. Those kind many people use on their roofs. Dont ask me how it got up there The house around do not have thouse kind of roofs and it was been a nice day with no wind what so ever.

Well it did explain why they had to take the power though. I stood and watched for a while and was imformed that the power would be back on within an hour. So we have power again now and we got dinner alright.

Its scary though to think of how depended we are on the power.

no more christmas

Christmas this year was very nice. We had a great dinner and got some nice presents too. Rumor has it that there is more presents coming too. So now when its not christmas I am enjoying my holidays. I have been sleeping and resting a lot. And also had sometime for a bit of shopping.

New years eve celebration tonight will probably be very quiet, hopefully we wont get the tunderstrom forcasted. I like to see some firework!

2007 are looking like it will be a very exciting year for us. It will be the beginning of a new chapter in the Hameed family. Something we are very ready for.

2nd sunday of advent

update!

I got a comment from my lil sister that I was very good at updating my blog... yeah i know she meant it ironic :P

Anyhow, life is very busy here - so its much easier to just read other people's blog then write on my own. Since I last updated Ramadan has come and almost gone... only today and tomorrow left. Its first when Hameed dont eat during the day I realice how much of our fun time together actually involves eating or drinking. So now Im really looking forward to Monday when we can go out for lunch or for a cup of coffee again.

Work is busy as always and now we have finally gotten the dates for our accreditation. Here in Australia there is a set of requierments a child care centre has to follow in order to be allowed to operate and every second year a person come and check that what we are doing are good enough. This person is due to come between 1st November and 12th of December. So cross you fingers for me that Im able to get up to date with my paper work before then. And this is also part of the reason for why Im up at 6am on a Saturday. The other reason for why Im up so early is that Hameed left for work at 4am and its hard to sleep again after being woken up.