mummimamma

I'm in the middle of exams, and feeling rather stressed out. Last week and this week has been spent first interrogating cross examining examine 59 students on their Norwegian skills (and knowledge of Norwegian stuff). At the end of that my brain felt like it was liquid, and I took half of this Wednesday off just so I wouldn't get a horrible migraine. Obviously my brain doesn't handle a lot of talking well! Currently I am in the middle of grading the written exams. Almost 2/3 through. Phew.

Before that niora visited me. I had a great time, doing some things I don't often do, like sightseeing in my own hometown, and visited the Aquarium. We also went of a hike on the mountains. And the weather was really, really great (after she left it started raining again), so we ate ice cream, and of course watched a lot of Sherlock. Lots of fun! And here are some visuals.

Penguin massage


Hungry seal


Out hiking


Aside from the exams I am keeping busy. Still moving about in a rather brisk pace several times per week, and I have signed up to run (jog/walk/move about in a brisk pace) 5 kilomtre race the first weekend of September. Because I tend to need rather clear cut goals for everything I do. And speaking about clear cut goals, I've also signed up for a writing group this summer, with the intention to start and hopefully finish the article I've been waffling about this last year.

Summer plans on the other hand, are rather non exsistent, since I didn't get into the langauge course I wanted, and I don't have a lot of money to spend on the Greek course I planned on taking since I didn't pay enough taxes last year, so yeah, money is a bit of an issue. So my plans for the summer are rather non-exisitent. I plan on us having wonderful weather this summer though; so I'll be at work from 9-2 and then head out to Nordnes sjøbad, the outdoors sea pool place for a swim and general lazing about. In 2001, when I was (supposedly) working on my master thesis, we had this kind of summer, and this is what I did, and I have memories of a wonderful summer.

Else? Well, next Wednesday I'm going to London with a friend of mine - for three days only though. Our plans are:
* Opera - since it's one of my choir friends, so opera was one of the first things we thought of for entertainment.
* Shopping - This is why Norwegians go to London in the first place, everything is cheaper there, and the selection of ... everything is much, much bigger. And the pound is rather weak in comparison to the Norwegian krone, which is good on the individual basis. Also I need new clothes, since all my clothes has mysteriously grown the last couple of months. How very, very sad!
* Cream tea - I haven't has this in years, and one day I woke up wanting it. So, now I'll only have to find a place that serves it! I spent 3 months in Cornwall some 20 years ago, and survived on a diet of Cornish pasties, jacked potatoes and cream tea.

I think our days will be pretty full with that.

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/259370.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

So, in my attempt at new and healthier mummimamma I started running last week. Well, calling it running might be a bit of a stretch. I am currently doing the C25K-programme, which means that last week was 1 minute jogging and 90 seconds brisk walk (and switching whenever the lady in my ear buds told me to, because of course there's an app for that!). This week it's 90 seconds of jogging and 2 minutes of walking, and I am still hanging on. Actually I am kind of surprised at how much I do not hate this kind of exercise.. Whenever I've done this earlier I've done it under duress, and thoroughly hated it, but now mostly annoyed that I sweat so much that I need to shower when I get back home. I hope this continues!

What have I learnt from one week of jogging?

• You don't care about how stupid you look in tight and pink and lycra because you're just too exhausted to bother


• And the lycra is kind of useful


• Don't overdress even though it's (almost) sleeting, you'll get warm soon enough


• There is always someone fatter than you running out there


• Fat runners obviously nod at each other when they meet, in encouragement? in acknowledgement?

Now I'm just pondering whether I should sign up for a 5 kilometre race in end of August? Yes? No? Wait another couple of weeks and see how jogging goes?

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/259281.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

falena linked me to the 100 entries challenge, which I on one side find daunting, considering that I am a ratehr slow blogger, and writing 100 post would take me about a year and a half, if I consider the pace I've had the last couple of years.




{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

On the other hand I know that I am a person that work best if I have some kind of pressure on me, deadlines are my friends. So I will try.

As for topics, well, falena already chose a possible topic, namely words. On teh otehr hand, I work with words, so I thought I'd chose something else, although finding something you can write 100 separate and different 8and hopefully interesting) entries about. Tricky. So I think I have ended up with writing about something I like, namely my hometown. Things I like - and don't like, places, people, history, language. Actually most of the stuff I am interested in. Also it will fulfill my constant need of lecturing people and knowing best! And perhaps I get to whip out my new camera and attempt pictures as well?

So we'll see how it goes!

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/258824.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

Yesterday was not a very good day. I held a pretty crappy lecture, and when I came back to the office I didn't manage to actually start doing what I had to do, so I postponed it, doing something else, which didn't quite catch my fancy either, and so I postponed and procrastinated, all the way until I found that I, while postponing, had done a lot of things that I had postponed earlier on. It was circle procrastination! Quite possibly my greatest acheivement in life!

Today I'm an examiner on the CEMS-exam, a language exam for buisness students, so I'm dressed up in my blue business-lecturer shirt, since I have to play the part as well. And of course I ended up spilling food all over myself during lunch break. Earlier this week I had a white shirt, and spilt tea on my shirt, so now I am wondering whether I should just start wearing batik-patterns.

Else I was on my first run* since 1999 on Tuesday, planning on going on my second today. I am still alive.
* one minute run, one minute fast walk, one minute run, etc, for 4 kilometres.

And the sun is shining, and now I'm off to quash young students. And it's Friday! I hope you are having a Friday as good as me! (It is good, truely!)

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/258738.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

Today I have worked my way through my to-do list at work, working through and ticking off (that is the best part) all those little tasks that I hate to do; send travel expense bills, answer emails, organise censurers for the exams, and setting up dates and find rooms for the exams, update the web-page for the research group, fiddling with the budget and all those things that needs doing, but I hate to do, so I postpone them until I have sizeable amount of them, and usually a bit too late. And then I end up like I did today, doing about 20 tasks that took between five and twenty minutes each.

And whenever I have a day like this I get rather stressed, and swear at myself for not doing these tasks in between the other stuff I do. But what happens is that they always pop up at inopportune moments, so I will have to do it later, and since it's not really that important - at least in my head. It gets put on my mental list of things to do. Which I immediately, if not forget, do not have present in my mind, when I could have done it.

I've tried various ways of reminding myself of these little tasks, mostly by trying out various ways of keeping a running to-do list. The one I use the most is the old fashioned paper version, kept on a notepad next to the computer in my office. Unfortunately I also use this notepad for other note-keeping as well, and often my to-do list gets lost. Occasionally I write stuff down on post-it notes, but these also have a tendency to get lost. So, not optimal. I've also tried various digital to-do tools, both at the computer and on my phone, but I usually find this to be a bit to fiddly, although I like having my to-do list available everywhere, and not just on a notepad under some books in my office, but whether it's on my phone or on my desk, I think my biggest problem is that I forget to check the list anyway. because I dislike doing everything on it. It's a good thing that my job is not mainly administrative; not my forte!

So, after all these tasks happily ticked off my list I went to yoga class, which was great. And then I went to the shop to buy food, and when I checked my shopping list it said: Carrots, cucumber (these I never erase because I always need more), cotton pads and then food. Very helpful!

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/258282.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

In case you don't know (and I guess most of you don't), the subject is a Norwegian word meaning tired of food or bored by food. It happens every once in a blue moon, and since I now have had my dinner made for me for the last two week, and just now I can't dredge up the enthusiasm for making food, and for eating it even less. On my way home I was toying with the thought of having a bottle of red wine and a packet of crisps for dinner, and calorie-wise it's more or less covers my allotment for today.

Of course I didn't; I have a class to teach at 8am tomorrow. If there any students that is; most of them seems to still be enjoying their Easter holiday, and not panicking over exams, which are only a couple of weeks away...

Huh, else? Not much, but tomorrow is payday - just in time for the weekend!

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/257842.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

Happy Easter everybody. At least hereabouts it's still Easter holiday for a couple of hours more, and I am postponing worrying about getting back to work as long as possible, since I really didn't get around to do all the work I was supposed to before going on holiday a week and a half ago. As per usual. And next week will be one of those confusing ones where I am not quite sure what day it is, since the first day is not Monday, but Tuesday, but we'll still have a choir rehearsal, even though it's not Monday, and then I cannot attend Tuesday yoga, and I'll be confused for the remaining ehh, four? three? days of the week.

But holidays, first off, Prague - was nice, although the weather wasn't optimal, it was windy, raining and rather cold, so in between the sightseeing we fortified ourselves more on soup and hot wine (usually the one or the other, rarely both) than beer, which was the plan. But it was nice anyhow. So we did a bit of sightseeing, a bit of shopping (I bought a new handbag, and suffered through several second hand vintage shops, I never get the lure of those shops - probably because I can never find anything that fits, or if I do, it's made of polyester, which I cannot stand), and lots and lots of eating. Most of it was good food as well, but they really aren't too hot on vegetables down there. And I managed to keep my weight stable through all those dumplings and wine (Czech wine!), so I am pretty proud of myself.

After Prague I went down to our house in the country with my mother. That was nice, despite the rain of course. Some hiking, and lots of lazing about.

Today I've been grading exams for the preliminary course in linguistics at the university, and trying to remember all those things I have forgotten in the 18 years that has passed since I took that course myself. Weird feeling.

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/257710.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

The last two weeks or so, people (women mostly) has started complimenting me for my hair, which according to them, looks great. Personally I think I look like a troll, and I am long overdue for a haircut - I have an appointment on Friday - and hopefully I will have gotten my salary by them, because I'm broke!

Is it perhaps a secret code for something else? But what? I have no idea.

Anyway - under the cut you can see me, with my supposedly great hair.( Read more... )

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/257182.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

The other day I was asked to to talk about e-books to a group of people at work. Weird to ask me, really, except that I am probably the only one who owns a Kindle, have tested a tablet and speak Norwegian. (And I have talked to this group on the Norwegian (lack off) e-book policy earlier).

So I talked a bit about the different thingamajigs and their up- and downsides. And I even made an impromptu little song (on a well-known Norwegian religious melody; "Jesus loves all children", Klara loves all books, paper or digital, as long as they tell a story. And I wonder why I never get around to say everything I want during a lecture? I am the queen of digressions.) Anyhow, since I've already have made some thoughts on the subject I might as well write them down. Because my plans for the evening has been cancelled, and I cannot be bothered to make other plans.

( So, books. Books are nice. )

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/256841.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

The last three weeks I've been feeling great. Three weeks ago I felt really, really great, so great it bordered on manic (quite possibly on the other side of that line), but luckily it's abated a bit, now I just feel great. And a bit worried that I feel great, because I worry that it will end. And then I worry that I worry about not feeling great. Feelings - not my forte.

But yeah, feeling good. I am not quite sure whether why this mood came over me - and why it has lasted so long, but I suspect that it's a combination of a more balanced diet (because constantly low blood sugar does not make you feel cheerful), the promise of spring and longer days as well as regular brain chemistry.

Also I am planning my summer holiday. As per usual I plan on applying for a language course, but I'm not quite sure I'll get it this time, since it's mainly for students, and I think there's about 4 places for Norwegians. Wonder what to do if I have to pay my own holiday(!) as well as plan it.

And speaking of planning trips, so far I have two lined up; Prague in end of March and London in the middle of May. Yay.

Else my days are much like normal; teaching, choir, yoga, walking, and counting calories and carbohydrates.

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/256697.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

So, the other day I was taking the bus to work, as I usually do. Since I had some work to do before my morning lecture I took an earlier bus, earlier in this case is 0645, a time of eh, day there aren't many people about, and so on the bus. I think we were about six or seven after we'd let out the main rush in the city centre. And so we continued our intrepid journey. I was sitting in my seat surfing on my phone, my bag in the seat next to me as one is wont to do when one is Norwegian.

So, at one bus-stop a women, probably my age or a bit younger comes in and sits down next to me.
Insert shocked gasp.

And I got perplexed and a little bit upset. This is Norway, you don't sit next to people when there are free seats elsewhere. In fact, on short bus rides you'd prefer to stand rather than sit next to somebody. This is one of the things I always bring up in the intercultural communication lectures. Most Norwegians have personal space about a kilometre (or at least a metre) wide.

So I had to complain to everybody I met, and most of the Norwegians understood what I was talking about. Whereas it wasn't rude to sit next to me, it is not done. Most of the foreigners just told me it was typical Norwegian behaviour, and that I was just weird.

I spent the rest of the day feeling very Norwegian.

On my way home, again on the bus, bag securely set on the seat next to me so nobody would invade my personal square mile, and in steps one of my more remote colleagues. I ducked into my book in the hope he would overlook me, and I would be spared the effort of making pointless small talk with a person I know that I have absolutely nothing in common with. Not so lucky, he did of course sit down, and I spent the next half hour making small talk about English football (of which my knowledge is nil) and the places to go hiking around Oslo (of which my knowledge is probably less than nil). I felt rather antisocial after this.

So, what is the lesson of all this? Perhaps I should give everything up and become a solitary hermit in the mountains? Nah, I'd go crazy within a week.

In other news: -6,2 kilos in 6 weeks. Spring is coming. Life is not bad.

Crossposted to http://mummimamma.dreamwidth.org/256246.html where it has comments. You can comment here or there.

There are things that i have to do which nobody ever talked about having to do when I did the mandatory pedagogics course for teaching.

There is all the paper-work, the constant pressure to report everything, and everything that is reported I hate that. And it is boring. I wonder whether anyone ever reads all the reports I have to write.

And I have never seen a instructor's manual who has a section on writing letters of reference in them either. But it's still a part of my job it seems. And I have to write them in English, and I have absolutely no idea of which phrases to use, what differentiates a glowing recommendation from a merely good? My feeling for English is nowhere as good as my sense of Norwegian (after all I am not teaching English!). Also the audience of the letter is a factor, when writing for a Norwegian audience, even in English, I tend to temper myself more than writing for a unknown, probably foreign audience. But really I have absolutely idea of what I am doing, nobody ever said anything about this is school.

And then there are the times when students break down. This happens. Nobody ever told me about what to do then either. I have had students who have ended up in hospitals with severe depressions (Norwegian winters can do that to you), parents have died when students are across the world, and then there are the the breakdowns brought forwards by homesickness, breakups, culture clashes, exam pressure ... I never thought I would have to handle this as a university instructor. As a school teacher one would expect to encounter these things, but not me. And truth to be said, I am not so good at handling emotions, I just get confused and uncertain.

But it's worth it. Occasionally a student stops by, saying that they've enjoyed your classes, and they learnt a lot. And it's worth it. Definitely worth it.

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Because I am a very smart woman I have overstrained my foot and it got inflamed, so my doctor gave me the options
a) crutches
b) sick-leave.
I leave you to guess which one I chose.

Also I am still pretending to read A Clash of Kings, but there are just to many stupid people, so I gave up and started reading Economics Evolving instead - I'm not quite sure what that says about me.

Most of today was spent in a meeting coordinating the research training, and I really, really should learn to think before I speak, I say a lot of thoughtless and stupid stuff, which makes me look bad. Of course some of this is due to the fact that I think better when I get to think aloud, preferably in the company of someone saying: "M-m, yeah" at random intervals, like a Winnie the Pooh to my Owl. But I really should learn to think inside my head. How does one do that?

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Sitting on my arse on the sofa with my foot on a pillow made me realise how much I rely on my feet to get around. I don't have a car, so either I take the bus or I walk, so sitting around was really boring. And since I am occasionally just a bit impatient, I overloaded my foot by walking on it too early, and had to spend some extra days hobbling around on crutches. Not that it didn't have some advantages; The bus driver always waited until I'd sat down before driving, people giving up their seat to me, students carried my stuff around. Having a visible ailment sure helps! Although I much prefer two healthy feet!

Also I have fought off a total of 4,5 kilos in four weeks, so I am a bit proud of myself (yay, me!), and for the last two weeks I haven't even exercised (since most of my exercising involves two feet).

And in my week of sick-leave I watched a lot of television - after all I was on sick-leave! I couldn't do hard things read a book. Actually I haven't done much book-reading (there has been some work related article reading though) lately. I have been trying to getting into the Song of Ice and Fire, but the books are just too damn long! I feel that I never get anywhere in them. Thankfully I have them on my Kindle so at least I don't strain my wrists as well as that pretty little head of mine. So that is another good thing with the Kindle. I have a mental scale of good and bad things with it, one day I may write it up.

Else, the weather is as fun as it it tends to be at this time of year, although not as cold as further south (and further inland), although we got about 15 cm of snow overnight from Sunday to Monday, and on Monday the temperature rose, and we suddenly had 15 cm of slush on the ground. And just now that slush is in the process of freezing, so walking will be a bit of a hazard tomorrow.

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On my way home yesterday I managed to sprain the wrist of my foot. I have spent most of the morning in the doctor's office, and am now on sick-leave for the rest of the week and am supposed to stay off the foot as much as possible.

Currently I am checking out the selection of daytime television while my Kindle is recharging. But I'm almost worried that there will be some sort of political crisis somewhere, because that is what usually happens whenever I'm on sick-leave.

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So, just as I sat down to write a post here on Sunday, I got a message that there would probably be Northern lights that night. So out I ran, grabbing my camera and set off. Northern lights isn't that common as far south as Bergen where I live, too far south and often overcast, although these last two years, we've seen it (or could have seen it if we were up in the middle of the night) a couple of times. But this was around 9 pm on Sunday.

Unfortunately I live more or less in the middle of the centre, and with a view to the wrong side, so I had to walk a bit to get a view of the north (Of course on about ten centimetres of ice, a lot of people are stupid and never clear the street in front of their hourse: "hy should we clean the pavements, in a couple of days the snow will rain away, and who walks on pavements anyway?" It annoys me no end.) But finally I found a great place, and luckily just in time for what would be the main show. It was great. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any decent pictures, but if we're lucky it might happen again, and my then I will have figured out the setting for taking pictures of green waves on black sky. I got myslef a new camera for Christmas (Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3, it was on sale - at a third of the price), and I am still figuring out how it works. Perhaps I should make myself a photo challenge? Anything you want to see from my life?

As for life, it's getting busy again. I keep forgetting how busy the first couple of weeks of lecturing is, gazillions of new students, and all the old ones have forgotten everything they learnt during Christmas holiday...

But on the good news side, these last two weeks I have lost fought off 2,8 kilos. Go me! I hate the metaphor of "losing weight", I am not losing it, every gram that disappears from my body is fought off, trust me. Although I got a bit disappointed when I figured out that the more weight is fought off, the more I have to exercise and the less I have to eat - it just seemed the wrong way to reward my hard work?

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