Here I am, back from an exiting road-trip with my mother.We planned on travelling north to Nordfjord, and then into the middle of Norway, and then down to Halsnøy were our family comes from. On our first day a thing broke on our car, can you spot it? (click pictures for bigger versions)( Under the cut )

Thank you everybody for your birthday wishes. And a specially big thank you to hierophantrix for the birthday cake! And to niora for the calorie-free cake :)

Birthday was spent in the office while the students on the beginner's level wrote their exams. In the evening I had extra choir practise for our 17th of May concert, and afterwards I went for beers with my friends, quite successfully (compared to some other attempts) trying to mingle new colleagues/friends with old friends (all language nerds). I came home late and somewhat drunk, but not feeling particularly older.
( 17th of May, experiences with bunad, and more about dead Norwegians than you want to know )

So, life is busy, but good. I don't feel older, and I have got a new mobile phone. It is a Nokia E51, and so far I quite like it.

Today is Fastelavnssøndag - last Sunday before lent. Not that the average Norwegian holds lent (or I think, knows what lent is), but that doesn't stop us from gorging ourselves on food. In this case Fastelavnsboller - shrovetide buns. Fat and sugar with more fat and sugar!



First you make sweet buns - and since lent is coming up, better make them extra fatty! ( Recipe & pictures )

It's Friday, so I must be in the office. I am currently checking and correcting the corrections to the article I believed I saw the last of last Friday. It never ends! And I've realised something horrible - here at the school of economics we only have access to really boring magazines and periodica! If I want access, online or physical access to fun (and/or useful) magazines I have to go to the library downtown. Woe!

But I have chocolate. It was a gift from one of my students. That is the upside of using the word "sjokolade" (you can guess what it means) in almost all and every example, the students occasionally get good ideas. Namely to bribe their teacher with chocolate.

This chocolate is from *checks paper* Latvia. It certainly doesn't taste like Norwegian chocolate. Chocolate is one of those things that taste differently in the different countries. I wonder why. Habit perhaps? I often find that foreign chocolate taste all wrong. Often it's too sweet, or too fat, of too much milk in the milk chocolate. Sometimes the texture is wrong, to grainy or too smooth. I have sent enough Freia Melkesjokolade to friends in exile to know that I am not the only one having this feeling about my national chocolate. Is it just us Norwegians, or do you have feelings for you strange foreign chocolate too?

Happy birthday niora! I hope you got some cake eventually!

~*~
I've been feeling kind of downish and hasn't really had much energy lately. There is much I should have done, but just don't have any urge or energy to do it. Thankfully lectures will be starting again next week, and then I will have enough to do again. Speaking about work, I attended the yearly strategy seminar, which mainly to me meant a couple of days in a nice hotel and lots of free food.

Sunday 6th of January my mother and I attended the presentation of Draumkvedet in Fantoft stavechurch. Ever since the stavechurch was rebuilt after the charming mr. Vikernes (who was baptised Christian which I never will not find amusing) burnt it down, which would be the last ten years, the Draumkvedet has been sung on Epiphany. This is a (or as all long ballads and epics - several) mediaeval ballad about Olav Åsteson who falls asleep on Christmas eve, and wakes up on Epiphany. He goes to the church and tells about his dream about his trip through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and ends with a description of Judgement Day. All sung in a traditional Norwegian style, and in one of the most archaic dialects - the one from Telemark.

It is a strange feeling sitting there in this tiny, old-new church that still smells of fresh timber, listening to this ballad, There is no heating, so everybody are packed in lots of clothes and huddled under blankets, you can see the breathing, and the lightening is mostly candles.

The church:

( And since I brought the camera along - some more )

Well, one of my new years resolutions was to go to bed at a reasonable time, so bedtime it is! (Obviously I lied)

I've been sitting in my office most of the day looking at the computer screen and trying to force the stuff I know is inside my brain into my computer (not literally of course, that much brain-mush would probably ruin the computer). Extremely annoying. How do one deal with it? Sadly I don't have any liquor in the office - although I think I have seen a can of alco-pop in the fridge, but I'm not that desperate.

After a while I decided to go outside and perhaps do some Christmas-shopping, and I actually managed to buy one gift. Sadly it's one of the three gifts I don't have to send before Monday...

And I have finally gotten my own copy of one of my mother's Christmas cds. So I'd thought I'd spread the Christmas cheer(?), and have uploaded two of my favourite songs from this record for your listening pleasure: Kling no klokka (txt) and O, du herlige (the Norwegian version of O, Sanctissima). Both sung by Norwegian folk-singer Sondre Bratland.

Some times - all right - all the time I get hung up on something. sadly it's rarely anything important, or really useful. Like how I spent quite a long time in third grade (and occasionally since then) figuring out when (and occasionally how) Jesus went to the toilet, and more recently, why the people on Battlestar Galactica don't realise that they need to get people who can make stuff, basic stuff, like shoes, clothes - which made me furious when they didn't support Chief Tyrol's attempts at making a plane. Making stuff, not just repairing it. But generally that thought, that you need elementary basic skills in a dystopic future is often lost. But really, after the End of Civilisation you don't need electrical engineers, you need shoemakers and people who know how to grow and prepare food. And yes, I do have a depressingly bleak outlook on the future.

Currently I am thinking about the weather, and I am certainly not the only one. There is way too much talking about it. Of course being Norwegian, and from the west coast in particular the weather is important. It changes. A lot. So far today, it has snowed, hailed, the sun has shone from a clear wintry sky, and at this particular moment it's raining sleeting raining. Weather is the Norwegian safe subject to talk about. Norwegians do not do conversation, but there are cases when you do need to strike up a conversation, and the safest way to get it started it to star with some remarks on the weather. Usually about the (only very occasional lack of) rain.

But lately I've been thing about talking about the weather. In the book we use in my Norwegian course there is a whole chapter on the weather, and I get to learn the students about different types of rain and wind (and no, a gale is not a storm dammit). And I tell them that the weather is a safe subject - but since we are by then on chapter 8 they may already figured that out themselves, after all they are smart. The other day in class one of the students (the cute French guy) complained "I am so very tired about talking about the weather! That is all you Norwegians are talking about!" (And he don't even read Norwegian newspapers, so he didn't get all the hysterical talk about the first storm strong gale of the autumn.)

So what can you talk about if you don't talk about the weather? Imagine a future - hopelessly dystopic of course - where due to climate changes there are constant extreme weather. And talking about anything weather related is taboo. How would you strike up a random conversation?

Gratulerer med dagen!
Happy constitution day!

I've just arrived home after a long day, I've taken off my bunad, and am currently lounging on my sofa, listening the the people still celebrating downtown. I am getting old, I can't celebrate like that any more. And my feet were killing me.

So, Klara's constitution day in random pictures (I'm not as cool as miss_nightowl who made a video from her 17. mai!)
( here )

For some reason Time have visited Pingvin, one of the places I occasionally go for a drink - the whisky is cheap there. But why just that place? Huh, the world is strange.

And, hello, I'm back from my Eatster holiday, yes, there was food. I also caught a 5 day cold, and I'm currently on day 4, runny nose and coughing, but finding someone to teach my class today is more work than actually teaching it myself, hopefully the students are feeling talkative today, because I sure don't!

Also my head is filled with thinky stuff, but I'll leave that until after my class which starts in 17 minutes.

I've been grumpy-teacher again. The students are lazy and don't read their homework, don't learn any  the vocabulary, and it makes me horribly impatient and grumpy. These last few lessons I've been Grumpy-mamma during the lectures, scolding them because they never prepare for class (well, a few of them do, but that is the minority). I don't like being grumpy, but I don't like teaching an unresponsive class either. A class were we can't do anything because they don't do any homework. After each of these grumpy-sessions I hope they'll start being eager and bright-eyed students. But still no luck. Perhaps next week?

Today we've been talking about the clock, which many of them find quite complicated, and tangentially to that I found an article on BBC quite amusing: At noon on the dot, punctuality will make its debut in Peru.

I forgot to talk about punctuality... Personally I don't like people being late, and I'm infamously known for arriving on time at parties - ie two hour before everybody else, while the host is in the shower.

And apropos punctuality, another cultural difference I've been thinking about lately is space. I'm Norwegian, I'm reserved and I like to have my personal space big! If you stand closer to me than 70-90 cm I'll back off. Since all my students are foreign (!) and for different cultural backgrounds than me the size of their personal space differs. the students from Germania usually have more or less the same space as I, but the one from further south always stands closer than I like. And I take a step backwards. And they follow. And I take a step backwards. And I feel very, very rude. One day I will have to explain that I'm not being rude, I'm just Norwegian. I want to keep a distance to them both since I'm Norwegian (70 cm) and their teacher (+20 cm). Men can usually add another 5 cm.

Poll #937911 Space
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

How big is your personal space

Where are you from/ Where do you live?

What do you do when somebody invades your personal space?

And now: Yoga-time!

I'm currently in my NHH office, pretending to do something because I told the students that I'd be available here today. Their exam is on Monday, and they should be busy studying, but personally I'm quite sure they're all skiing in Hemsedal. And nobody is disturbing me. So here I am, pretending to write serious business-like emails, when I'm just planning to have a beer with a couple of friends tomorrow (and we've found that even though we both dislike Outlook a lot, it's quite fun sending calendar-entries with Beer! to each other. I'm also (bad me) eat eating sweets I lifted from one of companies trying to seduce the students into working for them.

That is one of the big differences between the university - at least the Faculty of Arts that I have always belonged too, and NHH, the business school. The students here often get a job right after finishing school and there are lots of possibilities for internships and such, things that those of us studying liberal arts never dream about. They are also spoiled with people wanting to recruit them. As I was walking past the staircase where the companies usually have their stands I overheard two people talking to each other

- So, are you going to the presentation?
- Nah, I don't think so, it's a boring company, and besides they only give us pizza. I hear that [an other company] are bringing potential recruits for a skiing holiday in Hemsedal

First of all: Turning down free pizza? That is not just wrong but also against all student-like behaviour.
Second: Free skiing trips? What?

Yeah, sure I am envious. I'd like to have my education appreciated, not having defend my choice. Or worse, but more common explain what I spent 8 years of my life studying.

But this is something I harp about constantly. Norwegian businesses are really boring. They employ people with the same education as themselves. And if the education it's instantly recognisable, like "I'm a doctor - I know insides" "I'm an engineer - I know machines" they don't hire them, even though in many jobs you get on-the-job training. And the specifics of the education is secondary.

An other thing with fascinates me quite a lot here on NHH is how the students look. To me they all look the same. No, that is wrong, they come in two variants, male and female. In both these groups there are some who are blond, some who are dark-haired, but aside from that they kind of look the same to me. I'm still working at finding the factors of this uniformity. Currently I'm working out of the hypothesis that is has something to do with how all of the females have eyebrows of the same shape (plucked), hair in the same cut (shoulder length, no fringe) and the males has the same haircut, short, spiked and none have facial hair. They are also quite uniform in their clothing. Tight jeans for everybody, flat shoes or sneakers for most of them. Big belts for the girls. Most of the women also have one of those big unshapely leather shoulder bags with lots of pockets and straps that are so trendy now.

I, of course, am used to the fashion of the liberal arts part of the university. We're probably slaves of fashion too, we as the NHH-students - just not the same fashion. There is more corduroy in the liberal arts. More skirts for the females, different hairstyles, weirder jewellery, more knitted clothes, hats, more beard and/or long hair on the males.

Traditionally there has been clear divide between the NHH-students and Liberal arts & Science students, And I still feel a bit uneasy when I'm here at NHH, I feel fat, ugly and really old fashioned. But then it might just be me. The other lecturers look quite like me, not only the language instructors, but all the lecturers, in fact the lecturers are way more casual than the students. Well, if I'm going to be a absentminded professor one day I will have to work on my eccentricity and not worry about looking like everybody else.

Earlier today niora linked to these emperors over on youtube. I've had the same video as the start-page on my browser for a couple of days, because a laugh is a great way to start the day.

And now, the question, mostly for the Norwegians or with enough knowledge of Norwegian music (in Norwegian). I'm making a selection of Norwegian music of my Norwegian class and I'd like some ideas what to present. It has to be Norwegian music, and if it has lyrics, those has to be in Norwegian too. So, pimp your favourite Norwegian song/music (all genres).

And I promised niora that'd I'd write on my paper until it was time to go to yoga-class, but really it was so booooring! Gender in Antigone? Blah.

Oppdaget plutselig at Torgrim Eggen - som en gang i blant er blant mine favorittnorske forfattere - har en blogg. Så jeg tok like greit og syndikatiserte syndiserte laget en feed av den her.

Finnes det andre feeder av norske forfattere her på LJ?

For Norwegians, at least those of us living along the western and northern coast, warm summer days with sun and blue, blue sky must be savoured as they are a rather rare commodity, and days like this suspends all normal plans in favour of being outside, being social, eating ice cream, drinking beer, hanging with friends and family, go for hikes, barbecue, lounging a park pretending to read something. I didn't quite realise how deeply ingrained this habit was until the first summer I spent in Greece where there was days upon endless days, weeks of sunshine and blue skies. Such sunshine frenzy works well in Bergen, where such periods rarely lasts more than a couple of weeks - if we're lucky - some years they last but a few days.

So this last week I've come home from work and after a short nap I've headed out again, basking in the sunshine, and since midsummer has just passed it's barely dark, which just gives us the extra push to stay outside just a little longer. I've spent the weekend lounging on a grassy field by the fjord, showing my white, white stomach that hasn't seen sun since the late 80's, to the public and occasionally braving the cold water just to prove that I'm a descendant of vikings. Sunshine is wonderful. And what does people talk about in places where the weather doesn't change from day to day, hour to hour?

A stray thought, has anyone invented a kind of device for us single people who needs to have after sun lotion rubbed on our backs?

ETA
Not to mention that the fourth birthday of this journal passed while I was ... having a picnic in the park. My journal is getting all grown up!

I have finished marking all the exams, tomorrow I'm going to have a last look on all the candidates I am contemplating failing. It's been hard work, but interesting and occasionally quite fun. Well, for me, probably not for the candidate, most of the memorable phrases come from the failing exams. One of the exams was written so totally incoherently that I could understand it, even with the best of intentions. But all in all I think I have been a rather nice examiner. they'll get the results Thusday, I think, so we will see how many crying candidates will be calling for explanantions.

Speaking about jobs, today I got the list of applicants for a job I applied to (which I will not get since it will probably go to the one who is currently working in that very position just now). There was 68 other applicants, among them two of my friends, one of my flatmates and about five or six people I know from school or university... How wonderful! Perhaps I should take make the applicants list a hit list?

Which reminds me of one of my Super Secrit Plans, namely becomming a contract killer working exclusively in academia. After all in academia many positions are held by old men and women walking around like shadows in slippers in the corridors while there are scores of young, smart and unemployed people waiting for an opening. Not only that, but hide the assasination of an old, decrepit person with a bad heart can't be that difficult. Just a push to make them topple down the stairs (everybody knows professor P. had a bad hip) or I can kill off their poodles hoping that the shock and sadness will cause an attack. Furthermore I think it's a job that'll suit me: it's project based, I follow a case from the planning to execution, it's well paid, there are opportunities to travel a bit, not just rot inside an office...

Some people who has got spiffy new jobs are the new ministers in the new Norwegian goverment. What amazes me every time we get a new goverment is their tendency to make new ministries. Of course, there are the good old ones, foreign affairs, defence, justice, finance, oil & energy etc, but then every new goverment wants to make their own strange departments, like department for egality and integration and but my favourite this the department for modernization. Wonder what they are going to modernise? And every time it happens all my goverment working friends get new email adresses. Annoying. Does the same thing happen in the other countries in the world? Any strange departments to report?

Off to chior practise now. Lala!

Happy equinox everyone!

Today is the day where I prepare myself for autumn. From now until spring equinox the most important word in any Norwegian's vocabulary - well, the female ones at least - is koselig, which is related to cosy, but really untranslatable. Usually means tea, candles, woollen socks, books, huddling (and cuddling) under blankets, biscuits (or skilllingsboller and kransekakestenger) and rain and darkness outside.

(Here I ran into my flatmate Sigrid's room to remind her of equinox, and we had a long, detailed and food-porny debate on hot chocolate and cream tea. Because we are seals who need to store fat to keep warm in winter.)

And also the fridge is being filled with bottles of tran - cod-liver oil that we drink to keep D-vitamin deficiency at bay. I have changed my lightweight summer duvet for the new, heavy down-filled duvet (since the last one died unexpectedly last year). Aside from this I have a busy life being unemployed and sit in cafés, scribbling all day. And just as I'd started looking into my fireplace trying to clean it Hilde called me telling me that she was sunburned after having spent the whole day at the beach in Tel Aviv. Bastard.

And now for some equinoxy kos (cosyness) - tea and scones in the tv-room

In the nordiccountries community there has been a couple of posts from Bergen. Lots of pretty pictures of my hometown.

There is the Huge panorama picture from Fløyen (where you can see my house!)

In this post there are a couple of pictures from my neighbourhood (although no pictures of my house), starting after the pictures of the trees and the lake (the neoclassistic buildings). And lots of pretty pictures of Bergen besides.

And then there are lots of pictures of Bryggen.

Enjoy.