meetings, books, skateboarding and more

Well, despite not having written anything last week, I DID actually do stuff.  

I was thrilled to have been able to talk with Nils Ivar Agøy about aspects of translating Tolkien last week.  We met on Tuesday at about 10:30 in the morning, and chatted for an hour or so.  He gave me an article/talk which was published by and he had given to the Dutch Tolkien society Unquendor in June 2006.  It's called "Things to remember when translating Tolkien" and he gives his opinions on not only what is good to keep in mind when translating Tolkien, but ideally who should be translating Tolkien, in his opinion.  

"So the ideal translator should be well versed in North-West European history, cultural and linguistic history, mythology and folklore, not to mention Tolkien's personal biography as well as the Bible and Roman-Catholic theology and ecclesiastical history.

A tall order!  This may be a good time to declare that I have never had the pleasure of actually meeting that fabled creature of myth, the Ideal Tolkien Translator.  But the above approach is broadly the one I aim for myself."

Not only did I get to talk to him, but he told that he could show me some books that might be of interest to me if I could drop by his house some time.  So this last Monday I stopped by, and saw definitely the biggest private library of Tolkien books that I had ever seen in person.  There were many interesting and rare books there, and I got to see a copy of the Return of the King signed by Tolkien.  Not only did I receive a lot of information and general knowledge about things Tolkienian (Tolkienian is the proper adjective), but he saved me the trouble of going out and buying a few items that I was planning on buying anyways.  He was too nice.  I do have more questions for him, of course.

Last week I also went snowboarding one more time, with Lars and Marcos, at Kongsberg.

That was a pretty good time, and then when we got back to Bø there was a disco at Kroa so we ended up going there.  Marcos said that he needed to do something standing up anyways, since his butt hurt to bad to sit down.  Disco was good, and then we went back to Lorenzo (one of the Italians)'s kitchen to play Texas Hold'em.  Not only was it fun playing cards, with him, Fabrizio, Marta and Nuria, Kirsten, and maybe one more person, but Marta (a different one, his Norwegian neighbor) made the best spaghetti ever.  Ever.

Aside from meeting with Nils, this week also got to skateboard!  There were some guys skatin in the hotel parking lot, so I stopped and talked to them and one of them let me borrow his board (like borrow until I'm not here anymore).  So now I have a board, though I'll be buying a new deck soon, just because, and I have some guys to skate with as well.  That was most of the fun stuff that has happened this week.  Today I read aloud in literature class, a poem in Nynorsk, which went allright actually (I think).  I don't read Nynorsk aloud too often, or possibly ever.  Now I'm just preparing for a test tomorrow, and pleasure reading.