7QT: Are these starting to sound the same each week?

1. The Sushi Bazooka, alternately titled The Sushezi.

I don't have this or want this; I just think it is amazing.

2. I love the public library so much. Normally I like to plan out what books I'll look for before I actually go to the library. This way I can check off a book that I've actually been meaning to read. Greg often likes to just browse to see if he finds anything that looks interesting. Every time this happens, I end up finding books too (or sometimes I find books and he doesn't). For example, did you know that Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls fame) wrote a book?

The other great thing about library books is that I'm more motivated to actually read them. I don't like to leave a book unfinished, and I am not a huge fan of renewing the books (because obviously I pick the best books and other people are surely waiting for them). Also, I like to have the book I'm reading, plus one on hand for when I finish. Sometimes, I'll get a surprise email saying a book I was on the reserve list for is available for me, and those you have to pick up within a limited time and you do not have the option to renew. All this adds up to reading rates that I am quite satisfied with:) Thank you, Library.

3. I feel like I write about Anki, the electronic flash-card program, quite often. A thing I really like about it is that you can look at a nice display of graphs and stats. Normally I just look at the stats of individual 'decks' but the other day I checked out the stats for all the 'decks' and there were some interesting things there. I found out that on average, I am studying Swedish vocabulary for about an hour each week, and normally this is done with 20 minute sessions on three days of the week.

In my mind I have this goal of studying vocabulary for twice this amount of time. I really wish I would only skip one day of studying per week, but that never seems to work out for me. It is sort of a mixed bag of feeling glad that I am studying vocabulary for so much time (compared to the nothingness of the majority of my time living here) and feeling disappointed for not doing more. I can really tell that it makes a big difference in my Swedish skills, but somehow that doesn't give me the motivation to do more.

4. In Swedish you can sing an alphabet song to the same tune as the english alphabet song. There are three extra vowels at the end of the Swedish alphabet, so once you get the 'lmnop' section, there are really no pauses and you also never say 'and' before the last letter. Also, people of my generation do not include w in the Swedish alphabet, but when a 3 year old sings it, he includes it. Just some Swedish alphabet facts for your friday.

5. Here is a fun fact about the northern lights: If you are seeing a really faint glow in the sky, near the northern horizon, and you are wondering if you are seeing aurora or clouds, check to see if you can see a star through it. You can see stars through aurora, but clouds block out the stars.

6. The northern lights are called norrsken in Swedish, which sounds like norr-when but you have to imagine the person pronouncing the when like a person who has a strong h sound when they pronounce the word white. Norr means north, and the only other place I've seen 'sken' is in the word solsken, which means sunshine (sol = sun).

7. Folk dance tomorrow, and folk dance next saturday too! It feels lucky to be me!

__________________________

The End and The Link-up!