A rose by any other name would not make The Friday Five…

1. Is the name you have now the same name that’s on your birth certificate? If not, what’s changed?
It’s the same, though the name I use when speaking English, Robin, which I feel as much as home with as with my real first name, is not on my birth certificate.

2. If you could change your name (first, middle and/or last), what would it be?
Well, I wouldn’t (I mean, if I wanted to, I could, couldn’t I?) – though I have considered adding Robin as a middle name.

3. Why were you named what you were? (Is there a story behind it? Who specifically was responsible for naming you?)
My parents had only decided what to call me if I’d turned out to be a boy – in which case they were planning on naming me after my great grandmother. Her name was J?rgine, which is quite an old-fashioned name, and though they did not want to name a girl J?rgine they thought J?rgen – the male form – would do nicely for a boy. How they came up with Ragnhild, I don’t actually know – I’m not named after anyone in particular, at least.

4. Are there any names you really hate or love? What are they and why?
Hate? Not really. There are a lot of names I’d never use for a child of my own, but that’s got as much to do with association as with the name itself. Love? Well, yes, but I’m not going to start listing them all here, as it would take all day.

5. Is the analysis of your name at kabalarians.com accurate? How or how isn’t it?

Your name Ragnhild has given you tenacity of purpose and has made you extremely independent. Whatever you undertake, you approach from your own point of view, and others either have to conform to your ideas or go their own way and leave you to work things out for yourself. You are so narrowly focused in your pursuits that you frequently overlook the little personal considerations and attentions that create a bond of understanding and sense of companionship. Thus it is difficult for you to merge your efforts harmoniously with others. In the home, you can inadvertently be offhand and abrupt when you would really like to show your affection. In circumstances that require a little finesse, you find that you are inclined to be too direct and straight to the point and suffer frustration in your personal relationships as a result.

That’s a bit over the top, I do think. It starts off well enough (I’m quite happy with the first two sentences). I’m not sure that the accusations of abruptness and lack of finesse are entirely undeserved (I have been accused of being startingly candid – however, some of us call it honesty, you know), but I can’t say it’s caused me to “suffer frustration in [my] personal relationships” as of yet, so I hardly think there’s any need to worry.

Addendum: Forgot the health hazards… “Tension could affect the eyes, ears, teeth, or sinuses. Frequent head colds or severe headaches are potential problems.” Uhm. Yes. I do get tension headaches. But does anyone not get tension headaches? Frequent head colds? Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say “frequent”.

37.5 %

My weblog owns 37.5 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

(Via Anja.)

A day for quizzes, this:

Your soul is worth ?30257. For your peace of mind, 16% of people have a purer soul than you.

(Via Ole.)

And this seems pretty accurate:

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I’m off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don’t understand.

How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

Though if I stick to giving just one answer for each question I turn out to be younger:

My inner child is six years old!

Look what I can do! I can walk, I can run, I can
read! I like to do stuff, and there’s a whole
big world out there to do it in. Just so long
as I can take my blankie and my Mommy and my
three best friends with me, of course.

How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

So who knows? (Also via Ole.)

Voice in my head: Pink – Family Portrait (getting quite sick of it, to be honest)

In the absence of the real thing a girl will have to make do with pictures. So here’s a picture for you (well, me, really): Martin in his Kilt. I really need to get some better ones snapped, though.

And while we’re at it, this is the only digital picture I got around to snapping while we were “up north” – the house peeking into the frame at the right is where his father was from.

Voice on the stereo: Lillebjørn Nilsen – Tanta til Beate

How I’m supposed to survive next week, I don’t know. I haven’t seen Martin since this morning – he’s nursing his cold under a duvet on his couch and I’m trying to get some useful stuff (washing up and uploading pictures…) done here – and I’m missing him like crazy. And he’s off to Scotland on Saturday and I don’t get to go until the Saturday following. So how am I supposed to cope?

Help!

Anyway, in the meantime: I’ve uploaded the few pictures I managed to scan from Ireland – more will follow once I’ve been to Trondheim again – mid to late October…

Voice in the room: Ainslie Henderson – Keep me a Secret (yay! the new series of Fame Academy has started!)

Smells are incredibly important. We all know (partly thanks to Proust) how evocative smells can be. Certain smells can transport you back to a different time and place with much more immediate effect than other sensory data.

What I find fascinating, though, is how people smell different and how perfumes react with an individual’s own smell to produce different results from person to person. Most people I know have tried a perfume that smellt really lovely when a friend wore it and turns out horrible on themselves. This is why you should always try a perfume on yourself rather than on one of those silly little paper strips, and why you should leave it on your wrist for at least half an hour before you decide whether you want to buy it or not.

Really.

The topic came up because I bought a deodorant yesterday. Not an unusual occurrence, obviously, but I thought I’d try a new one, which has turned out to be a big mistake. It has obviously clashed seriously with my personal chemistry and now smells totally icky. Instead of “perfume” or “sweat” I smell of disinfectant mixed with that smell blackboard sponges get when they get old – mouldy moistness. Not good. I would have preferred “sweat”. Need to go shopping. Definitely need to throw yesterday’s buy in the bin.

Incidentally, I have another deodorant at home that I am unable to use, too. Not because it smells icky, but because it smells all wrong. It’s a Ldh (or whatever) and it actually smells of hand cream. I’m sorry, but armpits are just not supposed to smell of hand cream, that just majorly confuses the brain and my brain is having a tough enough time as it is.

Voices in my head: The Fraggles – Fraggle Rock

Melissa is, again, the source of excellent links. I agree with her on Albert (how could you not want to tousle his hair?), but I think I’d like a wee Will, too.

Now where have I heard that word before? The Friday Five is in a housewifey mood:

1. What housekeeping chore(s) do you hate doing the most?
I don’t do ironing. If clothes need to be ironed, I just don’t wear them (so I try to avoid buying them).

2. Are there any that you like or don’t mind doing?
I don’t mind doing the dishes. I actually like getting up and doing the dishes in the morning, especially after a night out. Normally I don’t have time to do it, though, so I’d still rather like a dishwasher in order to get the dirty dishes off the work surface.

3. Do you have a routine throughout the week or just clean as it’s needed?
Throughout the week? How often am I supposed to clean? I do the dishes when it’s needed – actually, I do them when I have the time, as it’s pretty much always needed. I do the vacuuming whenever it gets so bad that I really have to or when guests are coming. Other cleaning? Hm.

4. Do you have any odd cleaning/housekeeping quirks or rules?
I have a definite order for what gets cleaned first when I do the dishes – most importantly the glasses get done first (there is actually a rational explanation for that – it’s very difficult to get clean glasses if the dishwater is already greasy, so greasy things need to be done once all the glasses are out) – and I get annoyed if I watch someone and they do it ‘the wrong way round’.

5. What was the last thing you cleaned?
I vacuumed around the bed on Tuesday. Since then I’ve hardly been at home.

exactly was the person who searched for “flint painter kittens” looking for? Did they find it? I’m just curious.

Been looking at my referrals again, obviously.

People have been stopping by looking for kilts lately.

Mmmm. Kilts.

Voices in my head: Annifrid and Agneta – The Name of the Game