Important message

I forgot to say this earlier today. For those of you who have the possibility to watch TV Norge - for God's sake do that this evening at 2140 and then at 2250. They're showing the two episodes of C.S.I that Quentin Tarantino directed, and from what I've heard they're supposed to be really really good. How could they not be good - it's Tarantino!!!!

Bussiness as usual....?

Sorry for being so quiet here on the blogspot lately. It is as I suspected when I moved back to Solör, not that much going on during my life here, and thus I haven't got that much to put up here (except for the ocacional conversation with my knees!!!) This last week I have been working a lot on my first submission for my internet course in Creative writing. It really makes me a bit nervous now that I am about to hand in my first piece in English that is to be read and commented on by people who have English as their native language. Yes, I know I have put up some of my poetry and short stories on the internet earlier, and people could've commented on that if they wanted to - but this is different you know. When I hand something in on this course I KNOW for sure that it will be read and commented, because that is also part of the course - so, yeah, I do worry, some....

Other than that I am preparing a birthday celebration this Saturday. My 35th birthday was in January, but I couldn't really find a good date to celebrate it then and decided to postpone it till the upcoming weekend. I've got about 40 guests coming, and I'm really looking forward to it. So what I've been doing when I've not been working on my first submission is putting together playlists for my birthday. I love to dance, and I know a lot of the people coming do too, so playing the right music really is important.

Next week, probably on Tuesday I'll be heading to Oslo. I have volunteered to help out at the skiing festival in Holmenkollen on the weekend of 10 - 12 March, I'm going to be part of the hospitality crew. One of my best friends has been doing this for a couple of years now, and she's actually the leader of the hopspitality crew this year and she asked me to come help out as well. I thought this could be an interesting experience, so why not? It means that I will be staying in Oslo from Tuesday the 7th till Monday the 13th of March. Hey, it might even give me something to write about in my blogspot.

The weekend after that I was originally planning a trip to Germany with my aunt and uncle, but something came up so now that trip is off, which is kind of sad. I have friends in Germany that I haven't seen since last summer, and I would really love to hook up with them again for beers and all really soon. Hopefully it won't be too long before we'll be able to make the trip there.

So, that's what's going on really.

What my knee told me today!

My knees have been bothering me for, oh, well, as long as I can remember really, but not THAT much, my ankle has been a lot worse, but since I left Oslo and stopped walking for 2 hours on hard pavements every day that’s become a lot better. Since I left Oslo I have also started using aerobic/dancing (only at home to myself, nothing fancy) as one of my forms of training, I try to do this 5 days a week, and end up doing it 3 to 4 days a week.

Anyway, since I started this routine my knees have grumbled, they’ve been telling me that they’re not very happy about this new development – and all the time they’ve been complaining I’ve been telling them “look, I hear what you’re saying, but there really isn’t much I can do with it – really. You’re my knees and I want to do this training so suck it up and deal with it!” They’ve kept on complaining, not in a very loud painful way, but just sort of mumbling in the back of my ear “we don’t like this”.

I guess I somehow knew that at some point they would act on the fact that I don’t seem to listen to them. Five minutes into my aerobic/dance session today, my right knee suddenly made a strange noise and then it told me IN REALLY LARGE LETTERS – HEY THIS HURTS LIKE HELL NOW! I went on for another 3 – 4 minutes, trying to ignore it as I always have, I mean, most problems go away if you only ignore them long enough, right???? But it is really hard ignoring someone who is actually screaming from pain. So, I stopped – to put on one of those support bands (that I had kept since I played handball 16 years ago – come to think of it, during my years as a handball player that’s when my knees first started complaining! Should have thought they would’ve gotten over it by now….) to keep around the knee, then I went on with my training – trying to ignore the fact that even though my knee wasn’t actually shouting at me any more it was still sort of whimpering and crying every time I put weight on it – my God the things someone will do to get attention!

After about 25 minutes of not very effective training I must say, I obviously misjudged once more just how mad my right knee was at me because suddenly it just gave in – it just wouldn’t let me put any weight on it all! “Right!” I thought “you’re not going to get away with this just like that, if I’ve said we’re going to exercise for an hour, that’s what we’re going to do!” – so I turned to my exercise bike and had one hell of a time getting on it because my knee still wouldn’t be supportive of this action, but got on it finally.

20 minutes later my knee informed me that it was completely fed up with me not listening to it so now it was going to go on strike – and it did! That’s when I finally realized that this fight I was having with my knee, was one I was probably not going to win, not today anyway – and limped to the shower asking my knee “happy now???” – My knee just kept mumbling its complaints without really responding to my question.

And it really sticks with this complaining you know, not loudly, oh no, but when I sit in the chair and watch TV or by the computer – it just keeps reminding me, all the time, in this low irritating way that it really doesn’t feel well at all – and every time I get up to do something it screams very loud, and very short, and goes back to mumbling again.

Me? I’m still hoping that I’ll wake up tomorrow and discover that my knee has forgotten all about it – because the weather forecast for tomorrow says sunny and I’m actually planning another skiing trip – I just haven’t dared to inform my knee yet that that’s on the schedule for tomorrow. Maybe I’ll manage to surprise it so much with my boldness that it will forget to complain???

What I have done today!

And this is exciting news, really, it is! I've been out skiing for an hour!!!!

Yeah, and so what you might think, well, the thing is, I haven't been cross country skiing in 20 years!! Most Norwegians are born with skiis on their feet, and so was I, but after having been forced to go skiing for almost every gymnastics class during winter all through my first 9 years in school, I sold my skiis when I was 15 - 16 years old and made a wow to never EVER go skiing again. That wow has stuck with me ever since. But in the last couple of years this thought has on occacions come up in my head that perhaps I should try it, just once again! Today I finally acted on the thought, borrowed my father's skiis and went out for a whole hour!

I found that I have almost no balance at all, no strength in my arms and absolutely no skiing technique what so ever - AND I got absolutely exhausted. However, I DID have a really good time, and the weather was excellent - I think I might actually be trying it again sometime soon - I might even go ahead and buy my own skiing equipement.

Me Me Me! (1984 - 1992)

When searching for something today, I didn't find what I was searching for (doesn't that always happen when you've moved recently? You know you've got the thing you're looking for, you just can't seem to find it!) - what I did find however where some old photos of me. And to prove that I don't take myself very seriously I thought I'd share them with you:

Here's me in 6th grade, spring of 1984:













1985 January:












1986 spring:













1986 July:












1987 May:













1987 June:













1988 Spring:













1988 November:













1990:













1992 July:













So, that was 8 years of my life, maybe when I'm searching for something else some other day I'll come across some photos that'll document the time from 1992 till now. Don't get your hopes up though, I guess around 1992 was the time when I stopped walking into every photo machine I'd pass (either alone or together with one of my girlfriends) to have my photo taken - so while there are a lot of photos of me from just before and after 1990, there aren't that many after that.

It is so strange watching old photos of yourself though, isn't it? I see them and I realize that I have changed quite a lot since then, I just don't feel that much older and changed, if you know what I mean. It's sort of me, and in a way not, at the same time....

Updated profile

I realized this morning that my profile was outdated, so I've made some (minor) changes to it.... And now I'm off to watch some more sports.....

Not much to say really....

After all the complaining earlier this week about how bad Norway's done it so far in the Winter Olympics I guess you might have thought that I've gone and killed myself since I've been quiet the rest of the week - well, obviously I've not!

There's not that much going on, really... There's the Winter Olympics that keeps anyoing me, to the point where I luckily to day started laughing about it all. For the men's 15 km cross country competition, we had no less than 3 out of 4 who should have been good enough to win the Gold medal - and because of bad skiis, the best of them ended up as number 17 or something. Two thirds into the race the commentator said something like: "this MIGHT look like it's going to be another catastrophe for Norway!". Really, you think???? That's when I started laughing, I know it's their job to keep the spirits up and all but at that point the best Norwegian was like 1 or 2 minutes behind the guy that was leading, and it was 3 or 4 km left before the race was finished. So, I turned off the TV and went back to my computer.

And the computer really is this week's good news. I know I told you about buying a new laptop in the middle of January, well, for various reasons I didn't get it till yesterday. It's excellent. Earlier I've had to use my father's computer in their upstairs flat whenever I needed to use a computer, but since yesterday I've got a computer of my own - and I even managed to set up the wireless network, with encryption and everything - am I good or what??? So, now I'm in my flat writing this, and, oh, well, even though we suck at winter sports - I've still got my own excellent computer and that's just great!

And on Monday I talked with a representative from the university of Chichester on the phone, and that just made me so much more eager to go there. I've paid the deposit, and I'm just waiting for September to come (the first gathering of students for this course is on the 2nd of September) - as I said - not much going on here in Solör really....

I've been working on the 4th assignment for my course. It's a synopsis of my novel. And I think I've done fairly well, I've written a 4 pages synopsis - only problem is that the synopsis isn't supposed to be more than 650 words, so I'm struggeling with what to leave out and what to include. I'll find a way to finish it somehow during the weekend. I'm quite happy about the story I've put together for the synopsis - let's hope I'll still be happy when I try to write it! It looks like a really great story - inside my head - but getting things on paper is always a completely different story!

And I who though I really had nothing to write this evening.....

Dissapointed III

So, it's official, we suck at winter olympics, that too..... The men's biathlon competition is over, and we ended up with no Gold Medal this time either, ok so we did get the Silver AND the Bronze, but as I've said earlier today, we've got plenty of those, it's the Gold ones that count! They said this was going to be the best Winter Olympics ever, and now I don't think that's possible anymore.

I don't really know why this seems so important to me, it must be that, well, Norway hasn't really got that much going for it. Oh, yeah, if your a foreigner you might point to the fact that because of all the oil, we're one of the richtest countries in the world - much good THAT is doing us. We can't spend any of the money because that would cause an inflation that could possibly ruin the economy of the country. So, while we in theory are the richtest country in the world, in reality: hundreds of people die in line waiting for critical treatment in hospitals, old people in nursing homes don't get the care they need and live in awful conditions (they don't get single rooms, some have to live in the hallways, they get to shower once every 2 weeks, and get their dinner served at 2 in the afternoon and are put to bed at 5 in the afternoon because there isn't enough staff to take care of them) we've got the most expensive cars in the world because of all the tax we're paying on them (they're actually about twice as expensive as they are in Sweeden), we've got the most expensive beer in the world (in Oslo you now have to pay about 9 Euros or 6 pounds for half a litre of beer), come to think of it we've actually won "the competition" of being the most expensive country in the world several times, we used to be the peace loving country that would do anything to try to negotiate between other fighting countries in the world - after the Muhammed cartoons no one would want us to do that anymore and we live in a cold mountany country (and the last 4 - 5 days we've had around - 20°C every day) where we've mostly got both bad winters and bad summers.

We suck at football, we used to be good at women's handball but now we suck at that too, we suck at most summer sports (except for a couple of persons who know how to row a boat pretty fast and throw a spear quite far!) - so really, all we've got are the winter sports - that's what makes us proud - that's something we know how to do. Well, used to, anyway - now, obviously, we suck at that too.....

Dissapointed II

And we lost again....

The men's cross country sprint team final is just finished, and it's the second Gold medal we didn't get today. We got a silver, but we've got plenty of both silver and bronze medals from before, I don't want those. And Sweeden has won both the women's and men's competition today, which means that they actually pass us on the medal statistics. It's not that I don't think the Sweedes should get some medals, they haven't had a gold medal in 12 years or something, so I do think it's a good thing that they get one or two, but not in the two competitions where I was sure that we'd get at least one Gold. This sucks big time - and right now I'm thinking should I even bother to watch the men's biathlon competition in an hour? I'm bound to get another dissapointment, yes?

Dissapointed...

I'll keep writing about the Olympics, some of you might find that rather boring, but it's my blogspot so....

I'm actually letting the games get to me. Now the women have just finished their final in the cross country sprint competition. I was hoping for Gold, and was convinced that we'd at least get a medal - and we ended up in 4th place. Our Gold winning team should have been Marit Björgen and Hilde Gjermundshaug Pedersen. Then during the weekend Marit Björgen got ill, so then the new team was Hilde G P and Ella Gjömle, then yesterday Hilde G P got ill, and Marit Björgen got better - so the team we ended up with was Marit and Ella. I am happy to say that Marit seem back in shape, but Ella was just too bad today - it was her fault we didn't get a medal. Just too bad that we have to suffer from illness. I'm convinced that if it had been Marit and Hilde in the race we would at least have gotten a medal. I mean, a 4th place, what's that? That's nothing! Really truly dissapointed - and now it's the men's final - and I don't know if I dare watch it. I am convinced they're good enough to win a Gold medal, but what if they too end up not getting a medal at all? I've been hoping for medals in both the cross country competition and the biathlon today, and at least 2 of those medals should have been Gold - and now we've already failed. What a bad start to this day's competition.

And yes, I do know I shouldn't let it get to me - but it does.....

Winter Olympics and then some....

So we're on day 3 of the competitions in the Olympics, and Norway's still only got 1 - ONE - Gold medal (we have of course got 3 Silver and 3 Bronze medals but...). We have failed in several diciplins where I was certain that we'd get a Gold. The Men's 20 km biathlon on Saturday, I was so sure we'd get a Gold medal, and we only ended up with a Silver and a Bronze. The women's cross country competition yesterday, once more, no Gold - not even a medal. And today, the women's biathlon competition, no Gold no medal at all actually. You think I have high demands? Why shouldn't I, the newspapers and the media and just about everybody who's got a say have been saying for the last months, or even years, that Norway will do better in these Olympic Games than ever before, and we did get 13 Gold Medals in the last games four years ago (and was best nation) so I know we've got to do better than that - which means that we'd better start winning medals in Gold really soon! I'm really hoping there will be at least 2 for us tomorrow!

Other than sports? Well, I ended up going on a 24 hour trip to Oslo on Saturday afternoon, and spent the evening (and most of the night!) drinking beer with some friends that I don't get to see very often - I had an excellent time! AND was a bit tired on the bus back to Solör yesterday afternoon - but it certainly was worth it - I find that most times it is! Drinking beer and socializing with friends I mean, it doesn't botter me being tired the next day then (and sometimes slightly hang over - but not yesterday).

This week? Oh well, there's the olympics... And I will most deffinately have to finish the 4th assignment in the work shop of the course I'm doing. I will also be working on my new novel, where I'll have to hand in a piece of about 1500 words by the beginning of March.

The Olympic Winter Games

The Olympic Winter Games opened yesterday, and today the first competitions start. I've been waiting so long for this, and I'm very excited that it's finally here! I'm afraid this will get most of my attention and focus in the next couple of weeks.

Official letter from the university of Chichester

I got a letter from the university of Chichester today, stating the following:

Course: MA Creative Writing; Month and year of entry: September 2006
It is with pleasure that we can offer you a conditional place on the above course.
The offer is subject to the following conditions:
Pay 25% deposit on Tution fees.
The tuition fees for the academic year 2005/2006 are £6,900. The deposit for this course will be £1,725.

Great, isn't it? I'll be going to the bank on Friday to pay the deposit - and then I guess it really is official - I'm deffinately going to spend a year being a student in England. I can hardly wait!

Writing your novel: getting started via the internet, part I

So, I'm now enrolled as a correspondence students at the university of Lancaster, and by the beginning of this month my course "Writing your novel: getting started via the internet" started. It lasts for 6 months. By the beginning of every month, for 4 months, I'll have to submit a new piece from my novel, about 1500 words - that'll be evaluated by the teacher and the other students on the course. In the beginning of the 6th month I'll either submit a revised version of the 4 parts I've written in the last months, or a 5th part. Before I do all this I have to do 4 shorter assignements, and I'm working on the first now. I'll in about 650 words explain what narrator I will choose and explain why. That's what I'll be finishing this evening.

Press freedom and religious cartoons

I had originally decided that I wouldn’t comment on this, but, well, those who know me also know that there’s not way I can keep my mouth shut and DON’T comment on hot political topics – I always have to have an opinion.

The freedom to write and say whatever you want, and the publishing of these satiric cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. First of all, I haven’t seen these drawings, I’m sure if I searched for it on the internet I would be able to find them, but I don’t feel the need to see them, because seeing them published will neither please me or make me outraged. I am not a very religious person, I do believe in a God, and if someone asks me about it I might tell them about it – but most of all I believe that religion is a private thing – something that people should keep to themselves. I would never ever try to force my believes on anyone, and I don’t want anyone else to force theirs on me.

I truly believe in the right to speak and write almost anything you want, as long as it doesn’t violates or hurts another person. What I don’t believe in is some small CHRISTIAN newspaper from the Southern part of Norway publishing these drawings to make sure that we will still in the future have the right to write and say whatever we want. I DON’T believe that those are their true motives for publishing the drawings. To me it seems like a typical religious contest, who can say or do the worst thing to other people’s religion? I suspect that Magazin (the name of the paper) has published these drawings to offend and provoke Muslims, so that they now can sit back and say: “hey, watch these crazy Muslim people and what they’re doing. They’re very dangerous, and we’re the good people because we fight for your right to speak and write whatever you want!” I guess they got what they wanted. They did manage to offend and provoke possibly the entire Islamic world, so I hope they’re happy about that – I mean, be careful what you wish for and so on…. I’m sure they got the result they were aiming for, but perhaps even a bit more than that.

Now that this “thing” has happened I’m sure that there will be parties on both sides of the conflict who will use this for whatever it is worth to make the conflict even worse than it is now. I think there are truly bad people in all religions, but I don’t think all religious persons are bad. I think there are a lot of people without a religion who are bad too, but I don’t think that all non-religious people are bad. But there will always be people who take advantage of a bad situation because they’ve got something to gain on it getting worse that will unfortunately also happen in this case.

In this debate, where most Norwegians who speak their mind these days say that “oh yes, we must defend the freedom of speech”, it is interesting also to remember that it is only 27 years since the movie “Monty Python: Life of Brian” was banned in Norwegian cinemas because it could offend and provoke Christians. 27 years isn’t such a long time, but most Norwegians seem to have forgotten about that already when they criticize the Muslims for being outraged in the very same way that some people were about “Life of Brian” ONLY 27 years ago.

I will always defend the right of free speech, because the reason why we need free speech is to ensure that we will continue to live in a Democratic and free country. But I suspect that the publishing of these cartoons hasn’t got anything to do with the right of free speech, it’s only done to hurt, harm and provoke people! And then I’ll admit I just don’t get it! Then I think the publishing of these drawings are wrong, and it’s just sad!

I will also say that I think burning embassies and consulates, and killing people over this is also completely horribly wrong. Violence will never solve any problems, it will just make them larger, which is exactly what is happening the very moment I’m writing this. And that’s sad too!

Two good things

There are two good things I want to share with you at the start of this weekend:

• About an hour ago I finished (the first) editing of my manuscript for my novel "365 days". The original manuscript was 272 pages, the edited one is 232 pages. The publisher wanted me to shorten it, to make it shorter between the partying and drinking scenes, I don't know if cutting 40 pages is going to be enough. I've emailed it to a friend of mine who's been my consultant in the past, and has agreed to do so now as well. I'll be waiting anxiously to hear his verdict.
• Yesterday I got an email from the university of Chichester letting me know that they would today send me an unconditional offer for a place to study with them in September this year!

What can I say, so far this seems like an excellent weekend! And now it's dinner time (fish, for those of you who might be wondering!)!

Editing

I am rather quiet here in my blogger site because I'm working hard on finishing the editing of my novel "365 days", and now I'm actually seing some sort of end to it. I think I'll have finished the editing, well, this first editing anyway, before the weekend and then I'll email it to a friend of mine who's sort of been working as a consultant on my work for me in the past and has agreed to do so this time as well.