Discoveries when googling oneself

I googled myself today, as I regularly do, and I discovered to my amusement that the hits are getting more numerous. Today I also discovered that I have signed a petition against a tv show: "Dogwhisperer away from Norwegian television!" Funny, given the fact that this is a tv show I have barely heard about, and certainly know nothing about. That means someone must have faked my signing. (Yes, my name is that uncommon - I'm the only one in Norway). Who could be this passionate about dogwhispering, I ask myself.

Loch Ness, Blogs of Note and My Shortcomings as a Mother

I might be part of a sensation as we speak. Or my husband might be. He is in Scotland for the weekend, celebrating the 30th birthday of a friend, and on a cruise on Loch Ness today, this photo was taken. Blimey if it isn't Nessie! And whereas my husband and his pals are having a blast seeing monsters in Inverness, visiting Whiskey distilleries and Scottish castles, I'm stuck here being a single parent for a few days. Not so bad, perhaps, but it turns out I'm not that good at it.

My husband left yesterday, which meant that I had to take my daughter to choir practice, and bring my son along. This I should be able to do quite successfully, since I have actually done it before. I planned to take my son to a mall nearby to buy him new pants while his sister was singing, but my son didn't particularly like the idea. So we stayed at the church. Until it was 20 minutes until choir practice ended. Then he decided that he wanted to go buy pants. Knowing that we didn't have enough time, I still took him under my arm, ran to the car and drove to the mall. Grabbing the first two pair of pants that I saw, and getting in line to pay pretty quickly, this could possibly have worked out. If it wasn't for two things: the line was endless, and when I had finally paid, my son was gone.

I admit that I'm a bit careless when it comes to keeping my kids close at all times, knowing that at some point or another they will turn up again. However, this becomes a problem when you are in a hurry, as I was yesterday. My son was nowhere to be seen, and the store was quite big, not to mention the rest of the mall, which he quite easily possibly could have entered. Calling out his name, realizing that choir practice was over and my daughter was probably standing outside, crying in the rain, I started panicking. I asked a clerk if she had seen a little blond fellow, 3 years old, yea high, and she - seeming even more alarmed than me - helped me look for him. Pretty soon I saw him, coming towards me, bringing with him the following items he wanted me to buy: 1) a Cars umbrella, 2) a Cars shirt & shorts 3) a pink play cell phone holder for his sister.

Angry at this point, knowing that my daughter for sure was panicking (she doesn't deal well with situations like this), I pulled the items out of his hands, and again with a three-year old under my right arm (crying this time), I ran towards the car. Driving as fast as I could (which was not fast, since there was a big soccer game that night- Deportivo La Coruña was visiting, and Brann Bergen was playing for a spot in the UEFA cup), I reached the church ten minutes after choir practice was over. And, sure enough - there was my daughter, standing outside, and - like an Everly brother - she did her crying in the rain. Another parent had mercifully taken upon herself to wait with my daughter, but my daughter was beyond comforting. I totally blamed my son for everything, and sort of got away with it, but seeing my daughter all teared up, I decided to wait a while until I take my son shopping for pants again.

That was Thursday. Come Friday morning, I had to bring my daughter to school. Poor girl - having a mother who is never on time cannot be easy for someone who is traumatized by the mere thought of being only a minute late. Managing to actually deliver her on time (albeit having had to take the car for a distance of 600 meters to make it), she (HORROR!) discovered that her mother had not brought the math book they were supposed to use that day. Again, tears started rolling down her cheeks. So, what could I do, but promise her that I would drive back, get the book, and bring it to her, even though I was starting to run late for a doctor's appointment for my son who was getting his plaster cast off.

So, here I am, Friday night, relieved that the weekend is here, with no school, no kindergarten and no appointments to be late for. Kids in bed, and nothing to prepare for the next few days at work, there is just one thing that keeps bothering me: Why on earth has this blog not made the "Blogs of note" yet?

Child bride and Mendelssohn's

Where to start....

I'm back at work, and my students have arrived - new ones as well as my old classes. Seeing again my sophomores yesterday was a weird experience. It turns out that one of my students, a girl at 17, who has been engaged since late spring, was about to get married that very same day.

Oh my!

But I don't think that receiving those breaking news freaked me out as much as the reaction of my co-class teacher did. This is a drama class, and my co-teacher is a drama teacher. For those of you who know the sort, it can hardly come as a surprise that some of these have somewhat eccentric ideas about how to proceed in life. So, what does my co-teacher suggest? Oh, nothing less than commanding this girl to stand on her desk whereas we, teachers and co-students, should hum the melody of Mendelssohn's Wedding March. He, the drama teacher, should start out very softly, then I should join him, and then, one by one the other students, until this fine humming orchestra reached the bride-to-be, where it should enter into an ecstatic humming symphony tutto la forza.

My oh my.

Summer misc.

Summer holidays are here, hence my absence from the blog sphere. It is well established that it is when being at your most busy you are most likely to find time to activities like blogging, which is, lets face it, an example of a somewhat superfluous activity. Only natural, then, that with more than one week of days filled with nothingness, blogging is not even within thinking distance.

So far I have been camping with family and slept two nights in tent, and I've spent one week in the house where I lived in my childhood days (and my adolescence days, for that matter). Both accompanied with extremely good weather, which made my summer holidays hitherto a success.

I've had a project going the week I spent in my hometown. See, I got myself a new cell phone, a Sony Ericsson with a step counter on it. Yes, I guess I did know that my activity level these last few years has not reached the desired level, but little did I know that having a step counter would be such a slap in the face. You are supposed to walk about 10 000 steps each day. My average number of steps has been something like 5000. So, to make up for this, I decided to reach 15 000 steps every day for this one week. Did I manage? Yes I did. Did I do this fair and square? Well, you be the judge of that.

I have (with mild force from my husband) been doing a lot of walking this week. But I have also discovered a lot of other ways to collect steps. Badminton is one. It is amazing how many steps an hour or so of intense badminton playing will give you. So far, so good, you can hardly call this cheating. But after a few days, and with other activities seeming somewhat more appealing than walking, I became worried that my project would end up a failure. Desperate means call for desperate measures, so when I felt that I was more in need of, say, sleep than walk, I started sending my cell phone with other family members when they were out walking. And when I was really desperate, I simply placed the cell phone on the phone holder in the car when driving, as I had discovered that this really got the steps running. So, my project was a great success, and with my newfound knowledge, I think I will even manage to keep my number of steps where they should be, namely around 10 000.

A few days in Bergen now, before I am heading for Turkey. Danish foreign ministry warns against traveling to Turkey because of recent terrorist attacks in Istanbul. I am more worried about the heat.

The Smiley Tyranny

I've been thinking about this a lot actually, and today on the bus back from work was one of these days when I had the chance to contemplate what I like to call the Smiley Tyranny. When did it start? I don't know, but it must be several years ago, that's for sure, and it is getting worse by the day. I am also a victim to this tyranny, I think many of my generation are. I try not to give in, but I don't always dare.

What am I talking about? The perceptive reader must know by now: I am of course talking about the trend, the tendency, the habit of putting smileys or winks or whatever you like to call them in all kinds of writings. We, the people, have become so stupid, or we think that others are so stupid, or easily offended, that ;-) or :-) or ;-P or ;-S or whatnot must be put in at the end of all kinds of sentences. If irony is used, be sure to place a ;-) after it, so that the recipient will not think you are being serious and thus be offended. And if you are wishing somebody a great day, make sure that you don't forget the :-) or the :-D at the end, since if you do forget, the recipient will surely not understand that this is a sincere wish on your part. And just to make sure that you don't come off as mad or angry or generally depressed, sprinkle your text with smiles and winks. That way you don't get the reaction that I got on MSN messenger once. I hijacked my (younger) brother's conversation with a girlfriend, pretending that I was my brother. Keeping up what I thought was a nice and friendly conversation, I got the following message: "Why are you so pissed?" Ouch - I had forgotten the smileys!

So be it with text messages and Internet chats, but must this Smiley Tyranny enter all kinds of spheres? My students surely believe that smileys can be a natural part of otherwise formal texts, but when the bank-person who signed for my mortgage starts using smileys in her correspondence with me, that is borderline weird, if you ask me. For goodness sake: I owe that bank more than 2 million NOK, and a ":-)" is not going to make me happier about that!

So, fellow bloggers (who am I kidding, this blog only has three readers, and one of them is me, but anyway): join me in resisting this tyranny! Let our words be enough! Let written texts be written texts, not emoticons with a few words in between. Let irony be left up to those reading our words to understand, and if they don't, let them just be left alone with their stupidity. Let us rise above the smiley tyranny, and let us not, ever again, give in to the temptation of modifying or fortifying our sentences by adding these pathetic symbols.

Summer's almost here

The school year is coming to an end, and as always my feelings regarding that are mixed. Since Christmas I have been looking forward to the well-earned weeks of not worrying about students, preparing for lessons, correcting endless piles of English and Norwegian essays and so forth. But when summer is almost here, I get kind of nostalgic. My seniors are not coming back after the summer, so there are another 55 young men and women, embarking on a journey into the wild, wild world, and who knows if I'll ever see them again. That makes me kind of sad. But of course: many of my students will return in the fall, and there will of course be the new ones, the cute, innocent juniors. That's the spiral of a teacher's life, I guess.

About the strike: It ended after pathetic one and a half weeks. And what did we achieve? Close to nothing. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. I'm thinking about leaving the Union, but then again; what is the alternative? And also, I have all of my insurances through my union, and I don't see me getting equally good deals elsewhere. So I guess I'll stay, but only for purely selfish reasons, not because I think they're doing a particularly good job for me or my fellow academics. And of course: who would turn down the opportunity to one day perhaps be able to wear this oh-so-fitting striking t-shirt once again?

EURO 2008

It's soccer time again, and I'm enjoying it. Norway is, as usual, not qualified for the championship, but I don't really care. The soccer of the Norwegian national team the last few years has not been something to write home about, so as long as that is the case, it is just as well that they stay at home and do not compete against the better nations of Europe.

I try to watch matches every night, but with kids that should be put to bed at a certain time and so on and so forth, it is not always easy. I have had a weak spot for Portugal since EURO 2000, when they lost on golden goal against France in the semi finals. In 2004 they came all the way to the finals, losing against Greece. This time I hope they will make it all the way, and become the new European champions. Being married to a Dutchman, I do however also feel obliged to cheer for the Netherlands, and truth be told, I don't find that hard at all, especially not after their convincing victory against Italy (3-0) in their first match. If one of these two teams will go all the way to the top, I will certainly be a happy camper.

Names interest me, and as a fun fact I can announce that Gomes (in some form) occurs on no less than three national teams. Nuno Gomes on Portugal (which I see as the original Gomes, since he is after all the oldest one, and also, of course, the only Gomes I knew about before this championship), Mario Gomez on Germany and Bafetimbi Gomis on France. And with that I end this update from EURO 2008. However, should there be more Gomeses out there in the EURO 2008, I would be very grateful to hear about it.

Strike, Stoltzen and Sayonara

I'm on strike. Well, not just me, but a lot of teachers around the country. We've been on strike for a week now, and I must say that I'm enjoying my first strike. I'm enjoying it even though I did not know that there were so many things you have to do while on strike: being a strike guard -guarding the school entrances making sure that no one who's on strike tries to enter the school, and that none of those not on strike does the work we are supposed to do -, going to the striker's cafe, attending various strike meetings, and not to forget talking to the press. I don't know why, but in my young(er) days, when I was desperately seeking the attention of the media, the media did simply not seem to be interested. But now, when I've come to a realization that I'm actually not that eager to get publicity, journalists have a way of singling me out. So I've talked to no less than two (2!) journalists since the strike started, and who knows what the number might be when - if ever - this strike is over. So, what are we striking for, you might ask. It is as simple as this: In the richest country of the world, education is simply not prioritized. That means that you have better chances to get a well paid job with no, or hardly any education than you have after studying 7 years at the university, as I have. Education does simply not pay! This we want to change; it should be attractive to teach, but alas it is not, because it is not well paid. How will the politicians change the negative trends in international surveys, like PISA, if they will not make it attractive to become teachers? They won't, so we're on strike.

A couple of days ago, two girlfriends and I walked for the first time this year up a steep hill called Stoltzekleiven. It is not long, but it is very steep, with stone steps almost all the way, so it is quite a challenge for the legs. It is not what you would call a nice outing - it is blood, sweat and tears, not to mention a lot of heavy breathing - but when you reach the top, hopefully a few seconds sooner than the last time you did this, and you take in the spectacular view of Bergen, it is definitely worth it.

Today the Hungarians left. They ended up staying four weeks, unfortunately without getting a job in the city. I grew quite fond of them after the initial chattering, and I was sad to see them leave. Sure, Mr. Chatterbox and I had our disputes - like when he told me to buy wiener sausages instead of grill, failing to comprehend that I actually prefer grill - but the good thing about people who are upfront is that you can be just as upfront back, leaving no room for discontented murmuring behind each other's backs.

They have surely been a blessing to us. These last two weeks, they have had dinner ready for us every day when we got back from work (or strike), they have made a table from year 2000 and a piano from 1829 look new again, and as already mentioned they actually created a garden out of wilderness in the back of our house. Mr. Chatter (among other things) is a painter, and we now have no less than five of his paintings in our possession. I really hope our paths will cross again, and that I once more will be able to get a headache from too much talk.

Lastly: Rune Rudberg allegedly slept with 1000 women (but I'm sure this number has increased by now), and as for Kafka: I am still only on 1.5 pages. What's wrong with me?

Interior architects, lunching on a crossbeam and Rune Rudberg

I was at a party last night. My husband's friend's girlfriend turned 30. Shocker that I didn't know many of the guest. Besides, almost everyone there were interior architects, like the birthday girl. And what are you supposed to talk to an interior architect about? Interior? Architecture? I am not much interested in either. And of course, all interior architects are minimalists, as was the birthday girl, which leaves nothing to say about the interior of the apartment we were in (as there was nothing). So, this could have turned out a pretty dismal evening.

Luckily I was there with my husband, and as I'm sure you know, there's nothing like being with a person you know really well at a party where you know practically none. As long as there are people (or objects!) to make fun of, of course. This time, the first thing my husband pointed my attention to, was that the only picture the hosts had on their wall, was Charles C. Ebbets’s iconic 1932 photograph “Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam.” For a long time, this picture has been a joke for the two of us. Not because of the photo itself, which is indeed a good shot, but because of the mass production of it, and most of all because it is for sale in Ikea. And as far as things for sale in Ikea, they have a tendency to pop up in thousands of homes across the nation, so also with this photograph. So, basically, it has turned into a huge cliche. But up until now, we have not had the pleasure of seeing it in any of our (close) friends' houses, we have just made jokes about what kind of people we imagine are capable of actually buying this photograph at Ikea and putting it up on their wall. Oh, the irony: Interior architects are that kind of people! What a great start of the evening!

Next, we notice a guy who looks like Rune Rudberg. Now, those of you who are not Norwegians out there probably do not know who Rune Rudberg is. Although he certainly is notorious in Norway, I don't think his fame has crossed the borders. Anywho, I always see people who look like celebrities or otherwise infamous people when I'm out, and I'm pretty used to the people I'm with not agreeing with the celebrity look-a-like. This time not so: Another friend of my husband turned up at the party with his girlfriend, and this girlfriend said the exact same thing to her boyfriend that I said to mine: "Look, there's Rune Rudberg!" Which surely had us discussing this Norwegian singer, who owes most of his fame to his boasting of having slept with more than 3000 women. Or so I thought. The other girl says: "No, it can't be 3000!" Upon which my husband quickly figured out that if this singer, given that he is 50-ish (I have to google this!) and has been sexually active since age 15, must have slept with a new girl/woman approximately every third day. Ok, I admit it: That sounds quite unbelievable. But if it was only 100 women, which was the suggestion of this girl, I really don't think that's something to brag about in the media.

The rest of the evening we spent discussing whether or not Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" can really be said to deal with ironic incidents. So, all in all, this was a very nice party indeed.

Oh, well; I have to stop now, google is awaiting me.

Mid-May resolution regarding Kafka

I have decided to take up Kafka. It was a strange meeting last summer, in the beautiful city of Prague, the city of Franz Kafka, which intrigued me. Meeting a French guy who was truly marked by having been forced to read Kafka during his school years, made me curious about this widely read, but yet rarely understood and even more rarely loved author.

For my birthday last fall, my girlfriend gave me Der Prozess. I presume it was meant like a joke, the fierce critique put forward by our French friend still fresh in mind, but I eagerly started reading it. That is, I read 1.5 pages. Then I for some reason stopped, and I have not read another page since. I have asked myself why a hundred times: Was it too boring? Was it too painful? Were the 1.5 pages enough to torment my soul like Kafka's soul (again according to our French friend) truly must have been tormented? Or was it, God forbid, too intellectual reading material for me? The truth is: I do not know. But with the darling buds of May, sunshine and shiny happy people everywhere, I have decided to take up Kafka. I will give him another try, and I don't intend to stop until I've reached rock bottom of this Prague magical mystery tour