asti spumanti hi ho and away

I'm catching a plane to Oslo early tomorrow morning, and then it's off to Gdansk with some friends. I'm excited to visit a new part of the world.

I'll write about the trip when I get back next week....hoping to go Gdigital in Gdansk, that is, buy a camera so I can finally add pictures to this onjo.

klem

gdansk

Headline: Weather in Poland Just Like Weather in Tromso.

I am taking a break from putting the finishing touches on my exam essays in order to tell you about the weather in Gdansk, Poland. The ten-day forecast is snowy and 32 degrees F.
I am assuming that "snowy" also means "sunny," and if it doesn't, well, I'm not going. (No, I'll still go. I'll just have to make my own internal sunshine somehow.)
Oddly enough, the forecast here in Tromso for the next ten days is snowy and 28 degress F. That's an average of four degrees colder, so the frost-bite will take longer to set in in Gdansk. Hurray!
I've only ever owned one thing that's Polish - as far as I know - and that's a ring that I bought in Alaska. I love the ring, so it must be a good sign. And I would choose a Polish over a Bratwurst anyday, so that's also a good sign. (But I'd choose an Oscar Meyer weiner over both.)
Poland is gonna be excellent.


Other noteworthy headlines: Peterson Traumatized by Terrifying Brownie Incident.

Scott and I were supposed to bring a dessert to this Thanksgiving dinner last night, and I thought "just-add-water" chocolate brownies would be both easy and delicious. Clearly, Norwegian brownies are not the same as American brownies (despite that the package says "American Brownies" right on it.) They looked really good from the top, you know, all brown and smooth. But then the edges started getting really hard and the inside remained like soup.
I prefer not to eat my brownies with a spoon, and if I had put them in the oven for any longer they would have caught on fire. I had to abandon the project.
My roommates Hanne and Andre thought they were perfect...weirdos.


Pokojowy, friends. Pokojowy.

my onjo

Since I hate the word "blog," and since my friend Reidun kindly informed me that "online journal" was too pretentious, I was delighted when she also offered up a good alternative: "onjo." You know, a combination of "online" and "journal." It retains that same internet nerdiness while not being nearly as irritating.

I have also decided that while bottom-up styles of conflict resolution will ultimately be the most successful, epsecially in identity/secession conflicts, the "bottoms up" style would be equally successful...the parties involved in the conflict would simply drink themselves into peaceful oblivion, promising to be best friends forever.

Bånnski!

happy thanksgiving!

Hello family and friends.
I just wanted to wish you all a Happy Thanskgiving - even if you are in a country that doesn't celebrate it. I have a lot to be thankful for and even though I won't be eating turkey tomorrow, I will still be thinking about how grateful I am to have family and friends like you. I will, however, be eating Thanksgiving dinner here in Tromso on Saturday with the other Americans in town. Scott and I are bringing a dessert...maybe a pie.

Peace and green beans, folks.

ps: thanks for the great letter(s) Megs :-)

girly boys and boyly girls

I started writing exam number two this week. Number two, part one, that is. The topic I have chosen is gender and war/peace/power. It's a very interesting subject. Andre and I have had some pretty intense discussions on the topic, and although we do not see eye to eye, I think we both learn something in the process. When I finish this paper, I have to start writing the second one, which will be about conflict resolution in relation to varying definitions of conflict.

My friends Anne and Sigrid came to Tromso! I worked with these two fantastiske ladies at Skogfjorden last summer and both of them are now studying in Trondheim...drama and education, respectively. Anne lived in Tromso for the last couple of years, so she was especially excited to come and see friends, experience the darkness, go out on the town, etc. Sigrid gladly came along for the ride. It has been very fun having them stay at the apartment and I will be sad when they go back down south. I'll just have to plan my own visit to Trondheim next semester.

Send me good exam-writing vibes. I have a lot to do before next Monday...but when it's all over, I'm off to Poland! Stone-washed jeans, here I come! And I'm buying a pair for you, too, Marit.

Later.

hamburgency

I've been having a real hankerin' for a hamburger lately.

The last one I had was in early summer, I think, and I thought it was about time for another. So, after our weekly Sunday hike, some classmates and I headed down to Blå Rock (a bar and concert venue here in T-town) and ordered us some burgers and fries. Mmmmmmm, burgers. (That one's for you, Dad.)

I was a little skeptical going into it, because Norwegians like to put weird stuff on their hamburgers. But it tasted really good and it has subsequently inspired me to seek out the best hamburger in town. I'll let you know the results when I have a few more burgers under my belt....quite literally.

Peace.

are you ready to ruuuumble?

Well, are you? Because if you're not, there's no point in going to see Tromso Storm play basketball. I know this because I went to watch the Storm play the Asker Aliens (yep, that's right) on Friday night. It totally rumbled...and the Storm unfortunately rumbled their way right into a twenty-point defecit. Bummer. But, the experience was pretty rad.
Tromso's team is made up of some Norwegians, a couple of Americans (two is the official limit...any more than that would be considered unfair, I guess) and some tall guys from other countries. I would compare the level of play with that of division 2 or 3 college b-ball in the States. It was fun, entertaining, and, in typical American fashion, very over-the-top. We're talking flashing lights, big booming player introductions, the Arctic Girlz dance team, and loud pump-you-up music. So, are you ready to rumble, er what?

telemedisin

I started my new job on Wednesday of this week. Allow me to share some of the details of this most interesting experience.

I arrived at the Research Park (as translated from Norwegian) at 9 am. This building is associated with the University Hospital in Tromso, and, as I would imagine, it is where a lot of research takes place. I took the elevator to the third floor, where the National Telemedisin Senter is located, and found my new boss, Halgeir, in his office.
(Just so you know, I am not exactly sure what telemedisin is, but I will write about that as soon as I figure it out.)

Halgeir is a middle-aged man who has worked at the University of Tromso, at the hospital, and now in the Telemedisin Senter. He is also blind, which is where I come in. My job is to read to him the various papers, books, and emails he recieves on a daily basis. Sometimes I record myself on an mp3 recorder, sometimes I just read aloud. Since a lot of the material is in English, he wanted someone who was at a highly fluent level. I am managing just fine.

The first thing I read was a paper he had written about medical data modules in three small communities in Northern Norway. He wanted me to check for grammar mistakes and other small errors.

Then we had lunch.

After lunch he had me read the first 45 pages in Robert F. Murphy's "The Body Silent" into the recorder. Even though I was recording it, he sat and listened anyway. The book is fascinating and I was basically being paid to sit and read it aloud. Murphy was an anthropologist at Columbia University for many years, doing field research in Brazil, among other places. Because of a tumor encircling his spinal chord, he became slowly paralyzed from the neck down starting at age 52. "The Body Silent" is both an anthropological look and Murphy's personal perspective on how we view disability and what it means to be "disabled." I have only read the first few chapters, but I would already recommend it to anyone.

I have a feeling I am going to learn quite a bit at this new job...not the least of which is a computer system designed for the blind. It talks out loud.

hurray for the socialists! i gotta pee.

Something bad happened today, and then something good happened, and then I took a nap.

The bad thing was that I suddenly had to pee every five minutes. Uh oh, must be a bladder infection. (OK, so I don't think this is embarassing to write about, so you shouldn't think it is embarassing to read. It happens to the best of us.)

The good thing was that I had my first taste of the Norwegian socialist healthcare system, and boy was it ever delicious. I got the name of a doctor's office from my roomie Hanne, and I called anticipating a lot of trouble...you know, paperwork, questions about where I was from, why I was here, and why I didn't have any medical forms with me. But instead, the woman who answered the phone just told me to come in at one o'clock.
"Huh? Just come in? No appointment? No waiting? No fuss?" I showed up at one on the dot, filled out two simple forms, peed in a cup, waited ten minutes, saw the doc (who affirmed that I did, indeed, have a bladder infection), got a prescription, paid the doctor 35 kroner (six bucks or so...yes, a little weird handing him cash, but that's how they do it over here), and left.
The whole process took 45 minutes. The prescription cost ten bucks at the pharmacy two blocks from my apartment.

So, for those of you who were wondering, such is the healthcare system in Norway. You just get treated....kind of like magic. I promise my next post will be slightly more discrete, but I jump at any learning opportunity.

The nap was great, by the way.

the rest of oslo

It was clearly my fault that it rained Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Oslo. I mean, it started raining in Tromso shortly after I arrived....and it never really stopped. The rain obviously followed me to Oslo, keeping constant tabs on me until the morning I left. Hmmmm, I'm starting to worry about myself. Payback for a lovely summer, I guess.

Despite the rain, I had an enjoyable time in the capital. I was walking down Karl Johans one day and I could've sworn I heard someone shout my name. It was Anne and Ingvild Myklebust - good friends from Alta who were in town visiting their older brother and sister. We only had a few minutes to chat, but I assured them that I would stop by when I was in Alta for Christmas.

I met Eli Marie's boyfriend, Kristian, who is a very friendly guy. The two of them and Hans Olav and I went to a tapas restaurant on Friday night. I am not quite sure I get the tapas concept, but it tasted good and the place was "koselig." One of the best parts about being in Oslo was walking around and having Hans Olav tell me where we were and what the various neighborhoods were known for. He was a good guide to the city...and an even better guide through the reptile park. The reptile park is in downtown Oslo and it is Hans' favorite "museum." There were tiny gekkos, big iguanas, enormous snakes, and a big, loud parrot. You could fit this reptile park into a shoe box, and the temperature inside must have been around 95 degrees, but it was an excellent "museum" to visit. (Who cares about Munch or Norwegian history when you can hang out with some lizards?)

Thomas (co-worker from Skogfjorden) and I made dinner at his apartment one night. This gave us ample oppportunity to catch up on all the Skog-gossip. There wasn't much, so we ended up watching a movie and talking about the Timberwolves. He had also brought me copies of The Onion and the Mpls. Star Trib. from his recent trip back to MN. Good stuff :) AND Easy Mac! How could I forget the Easy Mac?!

I also met my friend and former Skog-leder Peder for a cup of hot chocolate. It was really nice to catch up with him and hear how life in Oslo is after one year at Luther Sem. in St. Paul. He's studying to be a pastor, which I think is extremely interesting to hear about...esp. in Norway. He said I'd have to stay with him and his brother, Ottar - who has also worked at the Skog, next time I was in town.

So, now I am back in the Arctic after a short vacation in the South. It is pretty cold here, but the sun is miraculously shining today...kind of. I'm gonna put on some good "walking out" music and go get some lunch.

Snak(k)es!

It's Hans Olav.

Hey! I'm in Oslo! It is nice to be off the island.....no, I wasn't voted off, I chose to leave. I flew down yesterday (Wednesday) and will be staying until Sunday. Hopefully I'll find the time to do all the things I had planned on doing down here.
Wait a second.
I hadn't planned on doing anything! There are a few people I'd like to see, but I'm not really in the shopping/museum/standing-in-front-of-the-palace-waiting-to-see-the-king mood. I've done that before, so I'd rather just walk around (hopefully in the sun) and hang out with Hans Olav and others. Hans, for those of you who don't know, is my AFS brother. He lived with us in Duluth in 1996-1997 and I haven't gotten to spend an extended period of time with him since then. He said I could stay at his apartment in Tøyen, so here I am. Hans looks pretty much the same, except his hair is getting long. He showed me pictures and told stories of his seven-month stay in Afghanistan last year, which was completely fascinating. Really amazing. He and I and his sister, Eli Marie, made dinner together last night, which was very nice. And tonight my friend Thomas is gonna call after work and we'll undounbtedly find something fun to do. I'll keep you posted. More Oslo adventures will come later...

It's Kong Olav.

Hanne (roommate and fellow peace-student) and I woke up at the crack of dawn today, walked down to the Redd Barna (Save the Children) office, got into Bjørn-Richard's (Redd Barna leader) car, and drove two and a half hours to Bardu. Our goal: to tell school children between the ages of 6 and 12 about Angola and Kosovo. Our success rate: phenomenal...well, for the most part.

Bjørn-Richard kindly offered to do the first session, so that we could see how the whole thing was supposed to happen. But then - in typical Skogfjorden fashion - we learned by doing, improvising along the way. (I would argue that this is the best way to learn, anyway.) Hanne and I showed them a film about Angola and then put various pictures on the overhead, asking them to tell us what they saw, felt, thought, etc. It is easy to forget how straight-forward and "right on the money" kids can be, and after spending so much time with adults lately, this was a refreshing breath of fresh air...a life-saver. They had great questions, intelligent answers, and they noticed details in the pictures that so many adults would have completely overlooked.

After a total of five sessions today, we look forward to many more.

PS: One of the pictures we show the kids is of a statue in Angola that was erected after the war. The statue is of two Angolan men with mustaches, sun-glassses, carrying guns, and holding the Angolan flag. When asked what they saw in the picture, one kid proclaimed with great seriousness: It's Kong Olav.
Last time I checked, Kong Olav was neither black nor Angolan, but it was a good guess.