When I haven't been busy fattening myself on Easter food, I have been walking around looking at flats. I am getting the hang of it now I think (although I just got overbid). As you understand - life is exciting...

But I have question! I have been thinking about myths and stories lately; How some myths become the "official" version - the one that everybody knows - of the myth, and how some are only live in the margins. I guess it works for fairytales as well, our collections of fairytales are just that, collections. Editions and collections.

The fairytale collectors walked around, collecting tales. Then they decided between the versions, quite possibly did some merging, or cutting to make them to the standard they wanted them to be, before publishing them for the general consumption of the people. Here you can add layers, like a famous rewriting or a film version, becoming the main reference point for a story (I'm looking at you Disney). For some time the oral traditions and the written tradition lived side by side,  but - at least in Norway the oral tradition is dead. Those who seek to revive it draw upon the written material.

What I has been pondering is whether anything has been written about the process of making this "official" versions. Or if this mechanism has a name.

I other news a cd is stuck in the cd-drive at my work computer. There is no little hole to put a paper clip. I have called and e-mailed the it-department to ask for help. I think they think I am stupid. Can I throw the computer through the window now?

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?

Now I am just sitting here in my office waiting until the afternoon rush is over so I can take the bus home without having to share too much body heat with other people. I have talked about it before, and I certainly prefer to have a healthy distance to the next person - even on the bus.
So here I am trying wind down after a (not particularly hard) day, before I go home and write my presentation for tomorrow.

Anyway, I was thinking. Like probably most of you I have a handful of different e-mail accounts. Job, home, spam etc. Now this is mainly about the work-account. It's not as noticeable at my university account, but here at the school of business everybody has these long signatures, mostly something like:

Poncy Name
Chief Sufi of Strange numbers
Institute of weirdness
Norges Handelshøyskole
Helleveien 30
5045 Bergen
Tel:
E-mail: sendmespam@please.no
Web page: http://mummimamma.livejournal.com/

Some even have them in both English and Norwegian.

Now I haven't got one of these overlong signatures. Well for one I am not quite sure what my actual title is. Secondly I find these long, long useless lines in emails annoying. But I was wondering whether I now seem unprofessional since I don't have one.

What do you think? Do you have one? Or do you feel the urge to stab scissors into your screen whenever you see one more than 2 lines long?

All right, time to brave the bus!

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?

Some time ago I was listening to a nature show on the radio, and they had a commenter who wondered when they would start taxing us people here in the west of Norway for our easy access to open nature, nature free of other people. It was said tongue in cheek, I think, but it has made me contemplate the thing about space, both physical and mental lately. Some time ago I polled about your personal space. As far as my - rather superficial mind you - research on the subject goes, it seems like there is a connection between geography and personal space. People from more densely populated areas have smaller personal spaces than those of us who are grown up with half a mile to the next door neighbour.

I don't like crowds, I have a rather big personal space, but I live in a city (well, big for Norway), so occasionally I have to brave the crowd. And that is why they invented portable music-box with earplugs.

Currently I own my second mp3-player, before that I had a discman and before that several walkmans. The first one came my way back in 1983. I use my mp3 player almost every day, on the hour long walk to NHH and the bus back, or the 7 minute walk to the university, when I'm going to buy groceries, and when I'm going window-shopping on Saturdays. Almost everywhere I go I bring my mp3-player and my selection of music, audiobooks and podcasts. And I can see my peers with the same tell-tale wires and plugs in the air walking around in their own personal bubble of chosen sound.

Personally I know I use my mp3 player, and before that my ancient walkmans, for two separate, although intertwining reasons. One; when I walk far long distances, exercise or have to move between points A and B for a specific reason (= walk to work) I use it to keep the tempo up and shut out the car noise. Second when I walk around in town, really not going anywhere, but don't want to hear the people around me, hear the noise they make, feel the pressure of their bodies I use my own personal bubble of sound. The sound masks the people who impose on my freedom, by wanting me to sign up for something, sell me something, ask me my opinion on canned vegetables. Even though somebody breaches my physical comfort zone I still have one last, almost unbreakable, mental barrier created by the sound, my own chosen sound, in my ears.

On the other side, when I am going for a walk in the mountains -which there are seven to choose from around here- I never bring my mp3-player, even though I'm walking alone. And the only people I see who wear earplugs are the ones who are running and exercising, not enjoying nature and walking for its own sake. When hiking (strolling) in nature I prefer to enjoy my nature without sound, and mostly I have the opportunity to do just that. I have access to a place where I can be all alone, without seeing - without hearing - other people, but I have to seek it out. For the everyday bustle I have my mp3-player.

So I wondered what others think of the portable music boxes, and why you use them. And not to forget, how do people manage to do their Christmas shopping without one?

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.

As I was standing by the photocopier at work today one of my colleagues come up to me and said "So, you're blogging!", whereupon I blushed (and I never blush) and said, "Um, yeah?" and immediately started worrying what incriminating stuff I could have written about her. She hadn't read this LJ herself, though (as far as I understood), but had talked to somebody down at the institute of blogging humanistic informatics who had seen my LJ. Thinking of I actually have the department head's blog linked in my sidebar. Anyhow,d ue to this I'm not going to whine about work-related stuff as I've been doing lately, but instead write something pompous whining about foreign language in books which has been bother ing me for some time.

When I went to Drammen some weeks ago, I packed a couple of books to read on the 6 hour trip. One of the books I picked up at the library was Labyrinth by Kate Mosse. It's a book I've heard about here and there and it's been heavily promoted in the bookshops and when I've read the dust jacket I've thought along the lines of "hmm, this seems interesting", although not interesting enough to buy of course, so when I found it at the library I had to borrow it. Thankfully, because I found the book exceedingly boring.

I came about half way through it on my way over there, and on the way back I think I was more leafing through the book than actually reading, the character didn't interest me at all, the main character, in the two for one-offer Alice/Alais, was/were more stupid than they should be, and personally I lost all belief in Alice in the first scene where she, as a volunteer at an archaeological dig, messes up a find more than should be allowed for a volunteer. And a thinking person, she had a Ph.d in some old type of English or some sort, she should have a modicum of respect, esteem, for old stuff. You just don't run into an old grave and mess around! Since I was so totally turned off the characters early in the story I spent the rest of the book looking for things that annoy me. Luckily for me this book contained something that never cease to annoy me: when characters speak a foreign language to underline that they're foreign - or at least foreign in the eyes of the author.

Labyrinth is set in France, in Languedoc. The author starts the book with a note on the historical setting; Cathars in 1200something and the languages in the region, Languedoc and French. I do not have the linguistic competence to know if the Languedoc used in the book is modern or in fact Languedoc as spoken in 1200, but I admit I entertain a notion that it's the modern counterpart, because I'm petty like that. But what I find annoying is the constant interspersion of words and phrases in Languedoc throughout the text:

"Still no word had come. E ara? And now?"
"'Mind you do, gentilòme,'" said Pelletier.
"...her ability to outride any routier or bandits."

All these quotes has been taken by opening the book at a random page and looking for the italics. What I don't understand is why the author see the need to underline the fact that the book is set in a faraway country by all these throwaway words, unless she is using it as a crutch, instead of showing us that we are in a foreign time and place she litters the narrative with foreign words, as a way of representing the foreign. The story is told from the point of view of a person, Alais, for whom Languedoc is the first language, if it should be authentic the whole part of her story should be in that language, not in English. That book would only be of interest for language nerds like myself. The occasional throwaway line on the other hand, makes it - supposedly - exotic.

I have a low tolerance for this way of representing the foreign, for one thing it is, as I said above, a crutch, and there are several better, though more difficult, ways of telling the reader that you're not in good old England (or Kansas) anymore, but perhaps not as immediately visually noticeable. Although I, as a foreigner reading foreign in foreign, or as I have on some occasions, reading my mother tongue in foreign, may be particularly sensitive to this way of using the language.

On the other hand, Mosse also uses French in the book, and this is much better, because for both of the main characters French is a foreign language, a language of the oppressors for Alais, and when commands, questions and phrases in French are used around the main characters we , the readers, actually get more into their heads than for all the Languedoc spoken earlier, this is Foreign, yes, you might understand it, but on a page of English it stands out. This, I have nothing against, it's foreign to the characters, it can be foreign to me too, even though I have no problems reading French.

A related phenomenon is when foreigners, who generally seems to have a good grasp of the language, revert to their first language in a short line or simple word, even though their grasp of the second languge should indicate that they could continue without these interjections in Foreign. These are also simple ways of showing "foreign", but are they natural? When I speak English I only drop back into Norwegian when I get to a word where I can't instantly find a fitting English word, and these are rarely swearing words, the words for close relatives or simple words. Often it's whole cultural concepts which there is no equally clear cultural concept in English, utepils being an example.

As a tangent to this I remember Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, who was constantly sacre bleuing, telling that he used it as a strategy to make the murderers belive him harmless - after all he couldn't even speak English. Ingenious. I wondered about it when I read it though, did Christie only think of this after she'd written sores of books with an uncountable number of sacre bleus?

And since I'm on a roll, I'll start on films. I've been told - haven't seen it yet - that Marie Antoinette is almost ground breaking in the fact that they don't speak English with a pretend French accent, but just English. Which is amazing, but I've already sat through a Kirsten Dunst film where they speak English with some sort of East European accent throughout, namely The Devil's Arithmetic. I remember wondering when I watched it why on earth they had these phoney accents, the fact that the film wasn't set in the US was obvious, the accents was just grating. Are the film-makers so worried that the public are unable to understand that a film is set somewhere but the US unless the actors speak in an annoying accent?

On the other hand there have been instances where I think they've shown that the film is set in Foreign in a good way, my personal favourite is Doctor Zhivago, this film is set in Russia, if I recall correctly a nice and proper English is spoken at all times, but all street signs, shop signs etc. are in Russian, and when we see dr. Zhivago write his Lara-poems he writes in the Cyrillic script. Successful? I like to think so. But it's quite possibly impossible to transfer this trick to a book, unless you start talking about the quality of the letters, the sound of the language or some such.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong, after all I speak with an accent.
When I speak English.

All right, I lied, before I did all those things I said should do, ought to do and most certainly will do (especially the eating - eh, and the cleaning, the floor in my room is gritty, dammit!) I will write down some stuff that I've pondering on in between bouts of self-pity and mostly bouts of nothing-at-all.

Recently a newspaper announced that they was interested in getting in contact with new book reviewers, and since I have nice friends, each and everyone of them notified me of this. The crux was that I needed to show some of my work to them. So I dug around in my computer for some of the more recent reviews I've written that was longer than 200 words and came up with three.

The problem? Well, all three of them were total trashings of the work in question, namely The Da Vinci Code Bokhandleren i Kabul (The Bookseller of Kabul) and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. I think I have made my views on The Da Vinci Code pretty clear by now, (although I gave it props for pace). The Bookseller of Kabul is a work of fiction posing as fact and is written with lack of insight into the society and the author's place as an observer. Although it raises some interesting points and the writing is quite fair. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is just a piece of misogynistic, libertarian, pompous crap, although - again - the writing is interesting in places.

As I sat there reading my reviews - realising that the tone was way to crass be publishable in a mainstream newspaper - I pondered why I always like to criticize books I dislike much more than the ones I actually liked. I have spent more hours trashing Dan Brown than I have promoted my favourite authors, and the only reason I can come up with is that I think it's fun. Pointing out bad writing, plotting, bad grammar and style is much more fun that telling that someone actually got it right. When I look up a book on Amazon I always read the lowest rating reviews first. Given, many of them are one liners not telling me much about the books, but when someone can be bothered to write something pointing out the flaws I find that much more helpful than the ones who just raves ecstatically. Another given is that people have different tastes (which is why Bergens Tidende should stop sending people who don't know or care shit about science fiction to reviews SF-films.)(Especially if they have a crush on Keanu Reeves.)

And there's this saying about splinters and eyes and brothers and stuff which I choose to totally disregard at this point.

But, a point I return to regularly is that literary criticism in Norwegian media is bad, outside a few highbrow magazines that nobody reads. It's a short synopsis and some platitudes of why this is a good book or, on some occasions, a not so good book. But even when the review in question is mainly negative it rarely tells us what makes the book bad, or more importantly why. In these instances the reviewer just drags out the synopsis and talk about the cover or somesuch. Few of the reviews and criticism I read in my papers are able to take the book out of the enclosed space of the book itself, analyse it terms of literature, ("intertextuality" seems to be a foreign word to many reviewers in Norway), society, history (nobody had ever seen the story in The Da Vinci Code elsewhere); generally in a light where it can tell us what good such a book can bring us in terms of expanding our minds.

All right, I admit that people would like their books to be favourably reviewed and negativity doesn't sell, but even when we are pointing out flaws we can show that something is good.

Right, this entry ought to be edited a bit, but since lack of food is now an issue it will not. May return to it later on.

In other news, People are strange is one of the songs I chose to analyse for my music exam 12 years ago. I'm such a cliché.

For reasons unknown I woke up this morning wanting ice cream for breakfast. Ice cream with lots of chocolate sauce, and I wanted fries with that. There are things you should be doing when you are twelve or twenty-one, not thirty-one.Dipping fries in the ice cream you have for breakfast may be one of them. In my defence I can say that I've been having lost of weird dreams lately and that must be affect my mental balance.

I remember many of my dreams, although I am quite sure I try to organise the storyline(s) into something that is recognisable from a storyteller's viewpoint. Still I never try to analyse my dreams in any way, either psychoanalytical or predictive. My dreams are like my stories, what they mean is what you make them mean yourself. Sometimes I wonder where my dreams come from though. The other night I dreamt that I, along with a group of people was going back to the place I went to kindergarten to save someone, I think. Mainly we went running militaristicly - with guns and in fatigues - around in the building which, as per usually with dreams, was not really the building it was supposed to be, but somewhere else, with lots of stairs, doors and cobwebs that shouldn't really be there.

In the group was also "The true love of my life". Strangely I was thinking of him explicitly like that; Mitt livs store kjærlighet, though I never think thoughts like that, since I pretend to be a cynic. When I woke and thought of the dream I found it really cumbersome and weird to think of someone like that, but in the dream it was quite natural. I also spent much of my dream staring at his butt as we climbed up and around in the labyrinthine building, which is equally weird since I never have quite understood the thing with butts - what am I supposed to look for exactly?

The thing that kept my thoughts occupied all yesterday was "My one true love", or to be precise, his appearance. He was kind of good looking in the way male actors are good looking, fit and nicely built, muscles, neat. And I was wondering what on earth made him attracted to me - being not as much fit as fat. This made me think of the appearance of my ex-cuddle objects, which I occasionally think of with wonder. Most of them (which aren't that many really) have been above average good looking and rather body conscious. Thinking about it I think I can only think of one (of the males) who didn't sport a six pack. I still wonder what they saw in me.

To cheer me up from all these morose self-deprecating thoughts my subconscious decided to entertain me by dreaming of lots of sex and fun with tall, blonde, long-haired girls all night.

I knew there was a reason that I didn't analyse my dreams.

I've been thinking a lot about words and vocabulary lately. Not that I think about it more than most on an average day, two incidents on Wednesday made me think about it more than most days. The first incident was that my friend Merete presented a paper. Now Merete is kind of old fashioned, she revels in using obsolete words and expressions both when speaking and even more when writing, also she has a tendency to stretch Norwegian grammar so it fits with Latin (or old fashioned German). I am sometimes rather annoyed with this style as I find it unnatural and occasionally pretentious. Now I have done quite a lot of proof-reading and editing of other people's works and I know that people express them in in ways different from my own, and even though I find my own style superior to theirs I have learnt to appreciate live with that.

The things that annoys me with Merete's style is that there is no rule to when she prefers an antiquated word to a modern one. If you use a old and mostly forgotten word as a conscious choice in a specific context I have no difficulties understanding and endorsing that choice, but I find myself being annoyed when someone uses an old-fashioned word in an everyday context.

Now that I am writing this I am almost starting to disagree with myself, because what I am saying is not that one should only use common and generalising words, but what I like is that if you use a specific, strange and/or old fashioned word you there should be a reason for that. Now the two words that has been annoying me for days now are there : alfons and betler, ("pimp" and "beggar", or to be precise, old fashioned equivalents of these, I leave it to you to come up with some). Alfons, from A. Dumas's Monsieur Alphonse is more used in Danish as far as I have found out (which usually tells us that it's old fashioned). And whereas betler is more common, I have mostly encountered it in old church registers where they used to write down the occupation.

To me these words are classified as book-words, which means "words I have encountered (mostly) in books, and even though I understand them I will never use them as a part of my everyday vocabulary". That said, if I was writing about people in the 1860's I might use the word betler for tigger to convey the distance of time. And if I ever should write about the pimping business in Bergen in the 1930's I will be sure to include the word alfons. But in my everyday use I will never talk about the drug-addicts asking for money for "coffee" as betlere or ... hmmmm, thinking about it, I don't talk that much about pimps.

Wednesday is also the day of my weekly online discussion group day on the Subject of the Semester™, which is Norwegian as a second language (which means that I will, in three years time, be allowed to teach Norwegian to foreigners. Now last Wednesday's theme of discussion was, yep, how people learns new words and how to teach them that. So, with these book-words itching in the back of my mind I ended up in a discussion in my group. One of the persons there had the idea that you can't actively know a word and choose not to use it. Either you know it and use it, or it's just in your passive vocabulary and you can only understand it in context, but you can't use it yourself, even if you are a native speaker of the language. Bullshit. There are lots of word that I know well, but choose not to use. Granted in the languages I don't know that well, Greek and French, I usually don't know too many synonyms, so I use the word I know about the thing I am talking about, but in Norwegian and English, there are words I know but actively choose not use because they don't fit my style, they are politically or socially tainted (nigger anyone?) and don't tell me that people don't know what fuck means even though they choose not to use it!

Now that I have thought about it, perhaps this mad longing for the precise word I want is why I write so slowly, and why people sometimes gets exasperated with me when I'm translating, I don't grab the first word that comes to mind, I want the right word, even if it takes all day.

ETA: I want the right word, even if it takes all day.
Which it did. As I was walking around searching for my friend Hilde it hit me. Please replace half of my ramblings with "it gives the wrong connotations".

I usually try to be nice and write nice comments, but today I have written one of my pissy comments. They are few and far between, but every once in a while they force themselves way past my guard. The reason why I am writing this is that the comment in question touches upon one of the things I have tried many times to write an entry about namely the way USanians talk about their ethnic background.
I freely admit, as I have done before, that my knowledge of the US is limited and comes from watching Buffy, the internet and sitcoms.

What never fails to surprise me is that many USanians constantly say that they are "Greek", "Norwegian" "Dutch-Polish", "French-Hungarian" even though they have never visited the country/ies in question. What they mean, I have come to understand, is that their ancestors who sailed across the sea at one or other point of the history came from these countries, thus they are speaking about their ancestries, but to my Norwegian mind they are nothing but inhabitants of the United States of America, "Americans" or "USanians" as I tend to call them. Just the same way I am Norwegian.

My national identity is built, not only on the countries from which my ancestors hailed, but even more upon the place and society I was brought up. Even though my father isn't Norwegian I was born and have spent most of my life in Norway. I have been thoroughly socialised into the Norwegian society through years of kindergarten, school and hobbies. I hold a Norwegian passport and own a piece of Norwegian land. To make an example, I bumped into an English-speaking Norwegian who claimed she was Norwegian. Her great-grandparents emigrated to the US back in the day and they eat lutefisk during Christmas, and her grandmother knows how to make lefse. She is of Norwegian heritage, yes, but she's not Norwegian. Lefse and lutefisk are tenuous claims to Norwegian-ness.

What I find even more intriguing is that many USanians go around promoting their non-USanian-ness in such a way, never introducing themselves as what they truly are; citizens of the United States of America. The immigrants have kept some pieces of their original culture, but in most cases these mixed into what has become the USanian culture, but in some cases they are frozen in time, as family heirlooms, some special dishes, rituals, religious observations, which may or may not be out of date in the country of origin. What they seem to forget is that we have moved forward on this side of the pond too. In the 150 years gone since your great-grand parents left the home we have been through a couple of revolutions ourselves, Norway most certainly wasn't the social democracy it is today, it wasn't even an independent country. And similar changes has happened all over Europe. I have more in common with a German or a Finn than with the descendant of "the Norwegian" who left for the promised land 150 years ago, even though our cultures touches upon each other in some places, among other in the case of the lefse. But in most cases a Greek-American and a Norwegian-American has more in common that I and the Norwegian-American.

I do not belittle these people their past, in fact I am impressed how the US are more aware and uses its' history, both personal, quasi personal and as a country, in everyday and political life, we never do that here, even though we have enough to choose from. What I am wondering is whether and why you people from the US promote the fact of your origin so clearly, to not be from the US originally. I know that most of the inhabitants in the US today are descendants of immigrants, but you have been your own state for a long time now, longer than many of the modern national states, my own included. You have your own culture. It is influenced by different cultures and religions at different times, but US culture and society is its' own culture and society with its' own distinction, despite its' origins. Is there anyone considering themselves nothing but an inhabitant of the US, not native American, not African-American or any other hyphenated American?

As far as I have understood most USanians are immensely proud of their country, the US of A. Why don't they say so?
It's all right, you can whisper it to yourselves first: I am from the United States of America.

I learn new words every day. For the languages I consider myself as not being proficient in - Greek, Latin, French, Finnish and all the other in-the-works languages - I write the words down in my colour-coded notebooks, original word on the left, Norwegian translation on the right. Whenever I encounter a Norwegian or English word I don't know (even though I may understand it) I just scribble it down on whatever is handy, which usually is the bookmark, and look them up later.

Some time ago, when I was looking up a slew of English words I realised that almost two thirds of them was adjectives. I started wondering whether this was a trend or just coincidental. So the last few weeks I've kept a closer look on what words I need to look up. And again, in English there was an overweight of adjectives, followed by nouns, and no verbs. In Greek there were more nouns than adjectives and a couple of verbs, same in Latin.

In English I could give synonyms (in English) on almost all of the words, whereas I could only give synonyms for half the words in Greek and Latin which clearly points out that my English is much better than my Greek and Latin, something that hardly is a surprise.

There are, of course a couple of difficulties with this:
1. I read more in English than in all the other languages.
2. I read all types of literature in English (fiction, poetry, newspapers, technical literature, lots of stuff online...), whereas in the other learning languages I read less and in a more narrow scope; poetry and newspapers and some technical literature. And fiction and poetry is generally more descriptive, and gerenerous with the adjectives, than technical literture and articles.

But despite the difficulties the question still stands. Is there a reason for all the adjectives? Do English have more adjectives than other languages or are there generally more adjectives to be learnt?

So in fifteen years or so, when my Greek is up to par with today's English will I learn mostly adjectives in Greek too?

Still sick and in bed. As things progresses I think I'll be up and about tomorrow, my mind is willing, but alas, my flesh is weak and prone to fainting. So I'm bored in bed. And watching those exciting programs on Discovery Channel.

But after watching twenty hours of mummies and Stonehegde-stuff I wonder what the presenters think of me (the audience) when they - for the fifty sixth time - ask and how could these ancient people, with no power-drills and atom-bombs, make these wonderful - whatevers - with only stone axes? I mean, how stupid do they think we are? And why are they always trying hammer worth of the modern civilisation into us? These people where barbarians even though they managed to build these huge monuments - or whatever - (probably just plain luck) without any power tools. Patronizing.

Mmmm, back to sleep.

Yup, I am, and happy Labour Day to all of you.

Everytime I don't update somewhat regularly I'm pulled between reviewing what I've done and writing what I've been thinking about. Since I tend to do the former I thought I'd do the latter this time.

Lately I've been pondering what to do now that I've finished - for good I guess. Despite the fact that my Thesis was praiseworthy and highly recommendable I don't want to pursue a further academic career (Dr. Art. is at least four more years). As I might have said before I like working in a group, I like to teach, I like the immidiate contact I get when talking and discussing, and not necessarily the more scholarly read-write that's preferred hereabout. And as a friend of mine once said, you get a scholarship, retreat into a cave not seing daylight for four years before coming out with 300 pages of pure, untainted by the thoughts of others, research.

So, I ponder. The idea I'm nurturing now is getting abroad, since only a select few here in Norway have ever heard about Latin or Classics in general. So Current Idea;

Phase 1: Find a decently paid temporary job for the remaider of the year.
Phase 2: Move abroad, since the EU gives the possibility to freely move across the borders of the EU (+Norway & Iceland) while still getting unemployment benefits from country of origin.

Problem 1: I have a Norwegian student loan, so not only do I need a regual salary, I need a Norwegian rate salary (at least 260.000 kroner (34.500 €/37.500 $)
Problem 2: Where should I go? Currently I'm thinking England, London or something, but I have't really researched things though yet.

So, I'm now going to take the bread out of the oven.

I spent most of this morning in the music shop in town looking for a recording of some Beethoven sonatas, somewhere I lost concentration and started to look at the various covers of the cds instead. They are remarkably similar.

Cds with orchestral music and chamber-music often show a picture of the conductor, concertos or solo-works the artist. Obvious, right?

If it's a picture of the conductor he (name three famous female conductors) is usually shown from the waist up wearing a slightly mad or possessed expression, you'd think conductors only conducts allegro furioso-movements. Male artist come in two groups, "traditional" and "young & trendy". The traditionals are normal portraits of serious artist looking serious. Young & trendies has to be below 40 and are allowed to smile and lean slightly forward - intense pose or slightly backwards - relaxed pose. Female artist wears (tight) velvet dresses in black, sometimes red (only if they are below 30) and are usually shot from mid-thigh up, the female artist should smile on her cover.

Choral music rarely shows the choir, if it's religious music, the cover usually has some more or less famous painting of the appropriate festival, if not ... hmm...just some picture that fits the mood, era, composer.

Early music has, almost without exception some picture from the Middle-Ages or Renaissance (depends how early the music is) on the cover.

So what did I buy?

The Sviatoslav Richter-recordings of Schubert's sonatas in G, B and C.
The cover has the famous artist looking seriously at us from a monochrome portrait.

The recordings are magnificent.

Another boring day, but only two more weeks until uni starts again, Tore, Henrik & new guy will hopefully be back next week, fed up with being alone, making dinners for one, having breakfast alone, no unplanned watching of bad films with in the evenings.

Ok, I will not feel sorry for myself. Didn't get the job it seems, although the promised to call Monday regardless of outcome.

Am looking through various scholarships to see whether there's something there. So far the only probable I've found is Fulbright Scholarships and Onassis Scholarships. The only problem is that I don't have a good idea for anything for the Fulbright one, and though I have a sketched out plan for Onassis they almost always give their grants to second-generation Greeks from Pontos. :-( Also there is an exchange programme for language teachers in Europe Comenius, but I fear that it's really underpaid, and I need money, I've got a student loan to pay! (and expencive tastes in ... everything)

I'll ask Kardia mou if he has any bright ideas for my future...

Well, at least I have my short time plans clear;
*Nordnes Sjøbad with Ingelinn tomorrow. Cinemateket in the evening - D.A.N.G.A.N Runner Perhaps I can pick up another Japanese word? Might be useful in general conversation (along with the other two!) (Three!)
*Lunch with Siglinde Friday.

Oh, And Marit sent me this one: Forma Urbis Romae Perhaps I should join, I'm really good at jig-saw puzzles.