Summer in The City

April 25th 2006: a cloudless sky reigns over Tromsø, temperature has risen to 15 degrees celcius and not even the sporadic gusts of wind sweeping over our veranda from time to time could be characterized as cold.

These facts made me make two decisions, which in turn led up to a third.

Number 1: all thinking and reading for Thursday's oral exam should be cancelled for the rest of the day, in honor of the surprisingly early visit by Her Majesty the Summer.

Number 2: the energy generated by late April's extraordinary contribution to summer should be used for the benefit of running (here you should recall that on April 29th 1997, we had 2,40 meters of snow).

And so I went running, and upon returning to our veranda after 45 minutes of sweat I decided to take this summer-thing seriously and go for a swim.
Which of course would be decision number 3.

And this is the whole point of today's blog post: to record that I have officially taken the summer's first outdoor bath! Although I have to admit that I didn't really get to the point of actually swimming, I can by first-hand experience report that the water temperature is quite a bit lower than that of the air.

On Salad and Security

As I'll be going to Israel/Palestine for fieldwork in a couple of months, I figured I should start searching for some advice regarding how to stay safe. We all know that violence and terror are part of the daily schedule in the oh so Holy Land, and I thought some detailed security information could help me make it back to good old Norway with all my body parts intact. And so, for a start, one of the things I did this morning was checking out the internet pages of Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, knowing that they provide up-to-date official travel advices for Norwegians going to troubled regions.

And hurray hurray. Under the heading 'Israel and the Palestinian Territories' I could read the following:

'Travellers should be prepared for lengthy personal questioning and baggage searches by security officials on arrival and departure from Israel' (ok I knew that); 'when travelling around Israel and the Palestinian Territories you should carry identification at all times in case it is requested by the local authorities' (ok, blabla, knew that too); 'Norwegian citizens are granted a visitor's visa upon arrival' (well that's convenient, already checked that out); 'Israeli hospitals generally keep a high standard but the medical costs could be higher than in Norway' (blablabla)

- and then, a couple of sentences further down on the page, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs provides me with the following vital piece of information regarding travel in Israel and the Palestinian Territories:

'Normally no problems are associated with eating salad.
It's important to wear sunscreen.'

Thank heavens! I'm glad the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs takes their advisor role seriously.

I guess I'll be ok; salad and sunscreen will surely do the trick.

Tussilago Farfara

Among all the words I know in the world, these are definitely the most beautiful.

Tussilago farfara.



The sound of it tastes like a secret.
Something whispered, wise and hidden. A memory long forgotten, a treasure buried in a happy childhood.

Tussilago farfara: a magic spell that make the cold go away.
Spring's first courage, the smell of hope and sunny nights.

When I die, I want to become a tussilago farfara.

Easter Happiness

Apparently, Easter holidays have now officially come to an end. Unofficially, however, I am still busy doing Nothing.
Anders and I spent a week on the deserted island Tindsøya in Vesterålen, where my parents have lived for a couple of months. Skipnes used to be a small and busy fishing village housing about 150 residents in the peak season, but now there is only an 80 year-old lady left - and, untill last Sunday, my parents.
However, the holidays spoiled the soothing solitude of the inhabited island when too many families with too many children decided to invade the place for Easter... so we had to climb the mountains to get some space for ourselves.
Which, after all, was not a bad solution at all.

After some relaxing days filled with lots of gourmet food, black coffee, sunshine, red wine, blue skies and beautiful hikes in the area (including a rather unsuccessful boat expedition with the intent of finding some snow that could provide me with an oppurtunity to test my brand new and super-beautiful pair of mountain skis - the partly snowcovered sump we found on a neighbouring island didn't really do the trick), we set out for Tromsø with my father's almost hundred year-old fishing vessel Signe 1.

The two-day trip was nothing but stunningly beautiful and ulitmately relaxing, the sea showing itself from its most calm and soothing side, constantly mirroring a cloudless sky, a bright sun and an endless row of wild snow-covered mountain tops.
There is no longer any doubt whatsoever: paradise
is north
and
all around.

Add a couple of beers, some fish and the smell of coffee, and voilá, happiness is complete.

April 5th's Blog of Records

Amount of coffee consumed: 5 cups
Number of pages written: 6
Number of words written: 2053
Number of exam papers finished: 1
Number of breaks: 4
Number of sighs: 13.349
Number of flowminutes used on writing exam: 1030
Number of clouds in the sky: 0
Number of clouds inside my head: 537

Number of days left to Freedom: 1

Rewards I will give myself when I eventually finish this shit:
New mountain skis (on sale!)
A bunch of cartoons
A novel
A huge glass of beer (or two...)

Solutions to the lack of Time and Inspiration

Ok guys, I've previously mentioned my fascination for this fantastic invention called The Internet. But this is just unbelievable! It just gets more and more amazing! Listen here: After Hanne posted a quest for Inspiration, Words and More Time on her blog yesterday, Marjaana reminded us we could always try The Internet again. Which I did. The results are just mind-blowing.

First, after trying a search on 'Recipe for Inspiration' I found exactly that (!). Again: lo and behold! Here it's how it works:

in the depths of your mind are thoughts profound,
In quiet reflection they are to be found,
then with a sharp thorn, pierce your heart deep
take the blood and agony and tears you weep,
when you have all these together,
dip in a quill, of a dove's white feather,
then let your words on paper flow,
immortal, making hearts and minds glow.
(http://allpoetry.com/Poem/239085)

Just like that: 'Quiet reflection', piercing of heart, dipping of quill in blood and agony, and voilá!

But this is not nearly as fantastic as result number two. Amazingly enough, a google search for "an invention that would make the day last for 48 instead of 24 hours" (quote Hanne) provided us with a solution for the time problem too! Haleluja and amen! No need to panic!

The trick is to switch to Flowtime. This is a new system with 100 minutes per hour instead of 60. Likewise, every minute will now consist of 100 seconds. Unfortunately, the number of hours per day will still be the same. But hey, why worry about that when you in fact will get a hell of alot more minutes! Quote:

when you switch to flowtime, you will almost immediately become more productive. The reason is quite simple. You have more minutes at your disposal. Let's say you have a group of tasks to do, like making three phone calls and writing two letters. Under regular time, you might give yourself 45 minutes to do these five tasks. Under flowtime, you have 75 minutes to work with. So you can allocate 20 minutes to the phone calls and 40 minutes to the letters, giving you a total of 60 flowtime minutes. You've saved 15 flowtime minutes, which is the same as 9 regular time minutes. Of course, the duration of 45 regular time minutes is the same as the duration of 75 flowtime minutes, but psychologically you will work faster if you compress the amount of time you allow yourself to do a project. Flowtime allows you to compress time because you have 100 minutes to work with while previously you had only 60.

(You can read more on this fantastic invention here.)
This means that while it is now 72 hours till our exam deadline, switching to flowtime would give us 7200 minutes for finishing up instead of only 4320! True, this didn't help us double the day from 24 to 48 hours, but still... such a huge addition of minutes is clearly a step in the right direction!

April Fool

In the continuing absence of Mind and Inspiration, let me entertain myself a bit here in our lonely reading room by telling you something funny.

On Saturday (April 1st, mind you), I recieved an sms from my friend Arvinn in Oslo going something like this:
"Hi Silje. I really need to talk to you, but my phone is almost out of battery. Could you please call me at 22048700? Ask for Harald, he will know where I am. Urgent!!!"

I read it, wondered what this could be all about and thought 'oh well, I will do it later'. But then I read it once more and the word 'urgent' caught my attention. Liking to think of myself as a good friend who wouldn't let anyone down in a case of emergency, I then dutyfully dialled the number, expecting to come to some kind of office or any other kind of public institution where my friend for some reason would happen to be. Desperately needing to talk to me. About something Very Important. I didn't really think that much prior to the dialling, but it's beyond doubt that I had the feeling this had to be something really exciting.

But no!
Imagine how stupid I felt when I heard a voice on an answer machine saying "Welcome to the Norwegian Royal Palace..." - which is when I quickly hung up and felt very relieved I didn't come to the point where I actually asked for.... well, you know, good old Harald.

The funniest part of the story, however, is that I forwarded the message to a couple of other innocent victims... (The best remedy for feeling stupid is of course to make somone else feel stupid too.)

Thanks for the fun, Arvinn! But be warned...! You're up for a revenge next year....

Haiku on a Sunday

Midway through my list,
Baked beans, bread, potato crisps,
I remember death.

(unknown)