The end of an era.

Ever since I was 13 or so, I’ve been completely addicted to soda. Coca Cola in particular. I’d drink up to two litres a day, every day. Needless to say, this was not very healthy, and throughout the years I’ve made several attempts at cutting down or quitting all together, without much success. I’d last maybe a day, and then get horrible headaches from the lack of caffeine and sugar. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a big fan of water or anything else that was healthy to drink.

About two and a half months ago I decided to just go for it. No soda except for on weekends and special occasions. And I’ve actually done it!  The first few days were tough, but now it’s relatively easy to resist reaching for that sugary stuff. I just make myself a nice hot cup of tea if it gets bad, and try to bring a water bottle with me to school every day. I also make sure I don’t buy any soda, because the temptation would just be to big if I knew I could just go to my fridge to get a can or pour myself a glass.

I don’t know why this attempt at quitting sodas turned out to be a success when I’ve failed so miserably in the past. Maybe I’ve just been more determined and motivated? Who knows. I’m just happy I’ve managed it thus far, and I’ll try my best to keep it up.

Me quitting soda…and not only that, I’ve quit biting my nails too! I actually have long nails! What is happening to the world?! Has hell frozen over or something? Now I just need to cut down on other sugary candy…Curse you, Chocolate, why must you be so seductive?

And just because no blog post is complete without a picture; here’s an old one of me:

 

Christmas traditions.

The dark, cold , beautiful season of winter and Christmas is upon us, and I’m sick. I’ve been coughing and sniffling since Wednesday morning, and my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton…cotton with little men hammering on the inside of my skull that is. *sigh* Luckily I’m feeling a little better now. I’ve finished my Christmas shopping and soon I’ll be sitting in my  brother and sister’s apartment, ready for two whole weeks with my family. I haven’t seen them since..this summer I think, so I’m really looking forwards to it.

While I’m not religious at all, I celebrate and love Christmas. For me it’s about spending time with your family,  creating a bit of light and warmth in the winter darkness. My family has some weird, but really cozy Christmas traditions that we’ve kept ever since I was a kid.

• My mother still gets me an advent-calendar. I’m 26, and still get an advent-calendar, as do my 21 year old little brother and sister. I love my mom.
• My brother, sister and I always get to open a gift early in the morning on Christmas Eve. Norwegians usually open their gifts after dinner on the 24th. I guess our parents decided the best way to keep us calm and entertained until that time was to let us open a gift when we woke up. It’s stuck since then.
• “Santa” leaves all of us stockings on our bedroom door the morning of christmas eve. It’s filled with candy-goodness and fruits. This is a tradition in here in Norway and even though my siblings and I are grown up, our mom..I mean “santa”, still leaves us a knitted sock full of deliciousness.
• Ever since we were little, my sister and I would bring our duvets downstairs to the living-room, and curl up on the couch, eating the candy from our stocking while watching silly old Christmas movies and specials. I strongly plan on doing this again this year. I have even bough a brand new pair of pajamas for the occasion.
• In Norway there’s always been a bit of “friendly rivalry” between the traditional christmas meals. Some eat lutefisk, others pinnekjøtt, while others again, like my family, eat Christmas ribs (pork ribs prepared to perfection in my opinion).

What are your Christmas traditions?

A long overdue update.

Oh boy….Has it really been three months since I blogged last?  I blame the…eh…eh….the mountain trolls. That’s right. The mountain trolls. *nods* I had not simply forgotten about the blog because of a massive workload at school and general tiredness. No, not at all. *shifty eyes* Why? Who said otherwise?!!

I’m officially on my Christmas vacation now! Almost a month of doing nothing but relax, read good books and have fun!  Well, and freak out because I haven’t started buying any Christmas gifts yet, or cleaned my dormroom properly( Slight neatfreak that I am, this disturbs me more than I’d like to admit)! And I still have work until the 16th, but that’s just fun, really. I mean, I work in a library…surrounded by books all day… That’s not work, that’s heaven.

Exhibit ALL the things!

Like I said, I’ve been busy being creative. I’m taking an art class(thus the studying of art history) and we’ve had a bunch of different assignments, from drawing or working with wood and clay to building sculptures of a sort from plaster. Loads of fun and quite challenging. This wednesday we had our exams, which were part verbal, covering art history and art education (I had to talk about Edvard Munch and Perception), and part practical, where we had to exhibit all the things we’d made throughout the last 4-5 months.

Let me tell you, combining clay and wood is not easy! Nor is carving in raindeer-horn, which is something we did for our assignment in traditional laplandish artwork. Hours and hours of blood, sweat and tears went in to making those engravings, but it was well worth it. I passed my exam with flying colours, and can let my books and paintbrushes rest until after the holidays.

I’m actually quite exited about christmas this year. I’m spending it with my mom and my little brother and sister in Drøbak ( an hour or so by plane away from here). It’s the Christmas city of Norway, and I’ve never been there before. And hopefully I’ll have a nice, normal, non-eventful celebration this year.

The next week or so will probably fly by in a blur of store after store. gift after gift. I actually like it though. there’s something really satisfying about finding that one thing that you just think is perfect for someone. I’ll probably see wrapping paper whenever I close my eyes, or planning gifts in my dreams until I’m done. Speaking of, I probably should get to sleep now. I have to get up early tomorrow if I want to join one of my neighbors when she leaves for work… It’s 1:30 A.M. already! Knowing myself though, I’ll probably spend waaay to long browsing 9Gag or Memebase instead of snoozing though. Hillarious memes, Y U NO let me sleep???

My top 10 Childhood fads and things part 2

Tada! Here it is! Part 2 of my top 10 or so childhood obsessions and things. Let’s kick it off with something epic, shall we?

6. Dinosaurs:I used to love, love, love dinosaur toys as a child. On one of our home videos, a 5-year-old me is bathing my brachosaurus-figure in the kitchen sink. And in elementary school a friend and I founded The Dino-Club. It was very exclusive with only us two as members. And yes, one of my favorite movies as a child was The Land Before Time, or as I knew it, Lillefot og Vennene Hans.

Aaaaaaaw....

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7. Disney: Partially to blame for my unrealistic expectation in men. I grew up in what I consider to be the golden era of Disney cartoons. I remember seeing Sleeping Beauty, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, the Lion King and Aladdin at the movies, and it was love at almost first sight. I still watch my Disney DVD’s now and then, and I always end up singing along to the songs. I also remember seeing all these short little classics on a tape. Said tape still exists somewhere, but I don’t have a VHS player anymore, so it’s fairly useless.

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8.Rock A’Doodle

One of my all time favorite cartoons. It’s about a young boy who gets turned into a kitten by an evil owl. The boy/kitten then has to help a group of farm animals find the rooster Chanticleer, who disappeared from the farm when he thought the sun would rise without him singing. The story is fun, the songs are catchy, at least as far as I can remember.  The past few years I’ve been searching for the norwegian version, but no luck so far.

*Start singing~Cockadoo what a day~ *

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9. Fort Boyard/Fangene på Fortet

Origninaly a french gameshow that Norway adapted as its own. It ran from 1993 to 2002, with a break from 97-99. A group of people are transported to Fort Boyard, a fortress on the west coast of France. There they have to complete different challenges, like crawling through a room full of spiders and scorpions trying to find tiny pieces of paper with a password, bungee jumping, wrestling and loads of other things. The competitors get one key for each challenge they manage. The goal is to get as many keys as possible, solve a riddle, then get as much gold from a cage as you possibly can before the resident tigers are released.  I loved it, and now TV3 have started airing new episodes after almost ten years!

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10. Pogs

Who knew that small, round pieces of cardboard in bright colors could be so much fun and create so much rivalry? I used to collect and trade Pogs  when I was about 9 or 10. Of course it was all about the shiny ones and the metal slammers.  All the kids in my neighborhood would gather outside one of the apartment buildings to play, and it was a great time.

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There were so many things I wanted to write about that this list could easily have become 4 or 5 parts long, but I’ll leave it here. Spice Girls collectible cards, the movie Dangerous Minds, so-called self-tying shoelaces, Sesame Street ( the norwegian version at least, called Sesam Stasjon), hair mascara, Are You Afraid Of The Dark, Nintendo and Sega,  a whole ton of cartoons…these all shaped my childhood.

Pottermore and a very emotional Sorting…(Spoiler-free)

I am one of the lucky million who gets to beta-test Pottermore, and yesterday, after what felt like an excruciatingly long two week wait, I finaly got my Welcome mail. Honestly, I understand that the developers need to let people in in small groups at a time, but honestly, the waiting period is getting ridiculous now. They knew how many people registered for beta-testing, and they should have been prepared for that.  It’s been two out of six weeks now, and only one seventh have been let in so far. But enough about that…

I’m in, and I’ve spent a few hours yesterday and today exploring, getting a wand, and more importantly, being sorted.  I, like so many other Potter-fans out there, have been anticipating getting sorted with a mixture of dread and excitement. What if I got sorted in to the wrong House?

The last few years I’ve felt more and more connected to Ravenclaw. While I don’t really consider my self particularly smart or witty, I’ve always felt like I would fit right in with Ravenclaw. I pride myself on at least getting decent grades, even if they’re not the best. I love learning new things,  and when I read the description of their common room in Deathly Hallows, I knew this was the House for me. Big and airy, with tall windows, a domed ceiling dotted with stars, loads of bookshelves…Simply stunning.

When I got to the Sorting Ceremony in Pottermore I had to take a deep breath before I started. My dread grew question after question, until finaly:

THE SORTING HAT HAS PLACED YOU IN HUFFLEPUFF!

…..Hufflepuff? HUFFLEPUFF?? Really? *Stunned pause* Now I have nothing against Hufflepuff. I like Hufflepuff. I just never really connected to it, just like I never really connected to Slytherin or Gryffindor either. I’m not very patient and at times I can be plain lazy.

Reading the more detailed description of Hufflepuff afterwards, I guess I do see the Puff in me. It does suit me, but I still feel a bit strange about it. Then I feel strange about feeling strange about it. After all, it is just a fictional House and an online quiz. It doesn’t feel that way though. Like this lovely little blogpost says, your House sort of defines you as a person. Gryffindors are brave and daring, Slytherins are ambitious and cunning, Ravenclaws clever and witty fond of learning, while Hufflepuffs are loyal and has a great sense of justice. And if you’ve associated yourself with a House for years and years the way many Potterheads have, then it is heartbreaking to suddenly not belong there anymore, through a Sorting created by Rowling herself. So I guess I’ll go shopping for some yellow and black yarn for my new scarf ( and I just got my blue and bronze Raveclaw one!).  I’ll get used to my new Hufflepuff-self for sure, and show my badger-pride, it’ll just take a little time. And I’ll always be a RavenPuff or HuffleClaw by heart.

….Oh, and I love my wand! Redwood with a unicorn hair core, 10 inches, quite flexible.

My top 10(or so) childhood things, part 1

I work part-time at a library. Libraries have all kinds of fun,wonderful, strange things. A few months back I found a book called “Childhood-the 90’s.” It listed and explained different fads, fashions, tv-shows and other things that defined those that grew up in the 1990’s. It was hilarious reading through it, remembering the things from that era that I loved, and some that I still adore.

I originally planed for this to be a top 10 kind of thing, but as my list grew and more and more, making me grin with a mixture of embarrassment and loving memories , I realized that it had to be a bit longer…I’m thinking top 15, divided into 3 parts.

So here we go, a dive into my weird childhood obsessions. My Top 10 or so childhood fads, in no particular order.

1. Kaptein Sabeltann:
or as he’s known in the english speaking world: Captain Sabertooth.I grew up with the original bunch, with Janne Formoe as Sunniva(Veronica), and her father, Terje Formoe, as Sabertooth himself. A friend and I used to sit in her basement, singing along to the songs. If I remember correctly, Pinky(Tiny to you non-norwegians out there), was one of my first fictional crushes. To this day I still remember a lot of the songs, and Pinky’s Song is as awesome as ever, not to mention Grusomme Gabriel ( Gory Gabriel). Also I can not explain enough how much I loathe the English name translations. Why couldn’t Pinky just be named Pinky?

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2. Hélène et les garçons:

I used to watch this show religiously when I was in elementary school. I ran home once the bell sounded, and when my school days became longer during fourth and fifth grade, I died a little inside as I realised that I would no longer be able to get my daily dose of french tv. I don’t remember much of it now, but it was about a bunch of young friends and their daily life. Hélène wanted to become a musician, as did most of her male friends. Her roommates wanted to become models, I think. And then there’s the boy’s hair…Oh the HAIR!! Of course I realize just how bad the show really was, but still, I used to love it!

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3. Pacific Blue

The bike cops of Santa Monica beach was a staple of my childhood and tween summers. It’s still somewhat a tradition of mine to watch a few episodes every summer, once the reruns start. And yes, I always get the theme song stuck in my head.

And of course, it doesn’t hurt that most of the male cast is absolutely gorgeous.

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4. Power Rangers

The grief was great in my household when TV3 canceled Power Rangers. My brother, my sister and I used to get up early on saturdays just to watch the Rangers transform and battle evil…things. This is another show I don’t really remember much of, except bad guys dressed in gray catsuits, and the fact that the Power Rangers were always almost exposed by two guys from their school. And the main bad girl that I remember had a very elaborate, over the top costume…

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5. Pokemon

Still freakin’ epic. Enough said. Now sing with me: I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was…

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To be continued….

What if?

Everyone has their big What If”s. What if you had turned right instead of left while driving? What if you had chosen a different career, or had the courage to go for that seemingly impossible goal?

My What If happened when I was about to turn 12. We moved to Belgium due to my fathers job, and I changed a lot during the three years we spent there. Ever since we moved back, I’ve been wondering what would have happened if we had stayed in Norway.

I probably wouldn’t have been the colaholic I am now. Sodas were cheaper than buying bottled water, and the cleansed water from the tap tasted stale and full of chemicals to someone used to the pure water we have here. Thus we bought a lot of coca cola, and I became hooked.

Maybe I would be a party-girl? I’m certainly not one now, but who knows? Maybe if I had spent my early teen years in Norway, I would love clubbing and drinking.

I might not have been a Tolkien fan. My love for the Lord of the Rings was awakened by my English As A Second Language teacher, and  once again, who knows? Without that, I might not have discovered Middle Earth at all, or Fantasy-literature…Who knows if I even would have liked reading at all? A Luinriel without her books? *shudders* The very thought chills me to the core.

I might never have seen London or Paris, or experienced all the wonderful things there, or traveled as much as I have. That’s the good thing about living such a short distance from a lot of major cities and vacation spots. We drove to Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland and loads of other places too, and I loved it.

I would most certainly be more prejudiced against different people and cultures than I am now. My school in Belgium was filled with people from all over the world, with beliefs and traditions quite different from my own, and I had nothing but positive experiences with them. In fact, it was the Norwegian community that was the least welcoming and open.

High School might not have been so tough. Transferring schools in the 10th grade ( our last year of middle school) was not exactly great. Everyone already knew everyone else, and there was no room for me. I think all of two people spoke to me my first week at my new school back in Norway. A very nice, warm welcome, huh?

So what are your big What If’s?

Escape.

This past week has been so strange.  After the bombing in Oslo and the massacre at Utøya, the entire country went into mourning. I’ve been feeling a mixture of numbness, shock,sadness and gratitude that no one I know was hurt. Things are slowly returning to normal now, though. I took part in the memorial in Levanger this Monday, which was sad, nice, moving and heartbreaking.

I had to get away from all the headlines and news everywhere, it was driving me crazy, and I was exhausted from being close to tears for three days straight. I got on the train and spent the week with my aunt, her kids and my grandparents. It was great getting a few days with my grandmother and granddad before they drove north to their own home. I don’t get to meet them very often since they live quite far away, so every moment I get with them is precious.  Before they left, we had a nice little lunch outside in the sun.

Caramell-cake, bread,cheese, rolls and crackers. A perfect lunch. I love having relatives who don’t live on a student budget!

My 16 year-old cousin bought himself a cheap, old, wooden rowing boat a while back, and almost every day since he’s been outside, cleaning it, oiling it and preparing it for the launch. Said launch happened on thursday afternoon. It was quite uneventful really. The boat didn’t sink and it was too hot outside. While tying up the boat I discovered a hidden little gem of a place though: The docks! It’s just a tiny wooden platform, but still..It can’t be seen from the road, it’s by the water, and big enough to bring a blanket for a day outside with a good book and some tanning…even if I hate tanning.

Pretty, or what?

Rowing away in the boat!

This picture reminded me of Hamlet, for some reason. Well, Ophelia, I guess.

Pretty waterlilies.

I could barely resist picking a handful of these yummy looking wild rasberries..But then I saw all the cobwebs and stuff on them. I found a strawberry on my way home though. It more than made up for it.

Mitt Lille Land

This song speaks volumes right now.

“No one can bomb us into silence”

I am writing this with tears in my eyes, and I’m unable to sleep. Today, at 15.20, Oslo, Norway, was hit by a bomb, and a following shooting at a Labour Party youth camp. 17 people have been confirmed dead so far, most of them young teens, and the death toll is expected to increase as the rescue goes on. A 32-year-old Norwegian man has been arrested,suspected of being behind both attacks.

I was at the grocery store when I heard the news. I rushed home to turn on the tv, grabbed my phone and called everyone I know who lives in Oslo, to make sure they were okay. Thankfully, they all were.

It was such a surreal feeling, seeing the videos, news and photos. It looked more like a war-scene than anything else. None of it resembled the Oslo I know.

Then came the news of the shooting at Utøya, and everything just got so much worse. A man dressed as a cop had walked up to a summer camp, pretending he was there to give the kids information about the bombing. A massacre then started.  Kids ran into the water, trying to swim over the shore some 500 meters away. Some of them were shot and killed. Others hid behind rocks, bushes and boulders, hoping to avoid notice. The brother of an acquaintance was there, and he had to hide in a boat, being shot at while trying to escape. He got away unhurt, thankfully. The rescue is still in progress, and people are still missing.

I’m still in shock I think. Things like this just does not happen here in tiny, safe, little Norway. My uncle lives not far from the bomb-site. One of my best friends work in the same area some times. Everything just hit so close to home.

I don’t really know what to think, or feel. I never thought this would actually happen here, though a part of me always suspected it was just a matter of time. Right now, everything is still so confusing. They have, thankfully, caught the man responsible and he’s being interrogated.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg gave a beautiful speech, encouraging us to meet terror with openness and humanity, and I’ll close this blog post with some of his words. Them I’m going to bed, hoping the world will make more sense tomorrow.

“Today,we have been hit by two savage and cowardly attacks. Tonight, we all stand together, taking care of each other.”

“You will not destroy our democracy or our commitment to bringing about a better world.
We are a small nation, but we are a proud nation.
No one is going to bomb us into silence.
No one is going to shoot us into silence.
No one is ever going to frighten us away from being Norway. “

(Photos from http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/07/23/nyheter/innenriks/terror_i_oslo/17421146/ )

 

UPDATE: Oh, God…84 teens have been confirmed dead in the shooting at Utøya. 91 dead in total with the bombing..And that’s not even the final numbers…I have no words.