Month: January 2009

We watched a movie and talked until late in the night on Saturday…
it was hard to get up for the walk on Sunday :P but I did. The other two lazy bums couldn’t get up…:P
but M (from my class) and I had a really nice walk to the large lake near the school. The lake was all frozen so we spent lots of time playing on the ice….writing names, building a snow octopus, falling down, making turns. Lots of norwegians and children were on the ice skating (and wind skating).

It was very nice … many good conversations about Zimbabwe and M’s life. Long walks are really the best way to get to know someone :)

Photos on facebook

the rest of the day was spent making lunch/dinner and researching for my term paper.

F came back…and surprisingly, he was very talkative and nice this time :) He had just come back from Tumse (??) …a place up north in norway where there is pretty much no sunshine right now…but it’s very famous for space and satellite research. F’s brother goes to the University in Tumse

Went to Oslo today with D, M, and L. (D and M are from France…J introduced us :)
Unfortunately, J over slept and we didn’t manage to meet up in Oslo….he apparently went on his own and didn’t find Oslo very interesting….

I thought Oslo looked beautiful. Definitely didn’t have enough time to explore..plus the weather wasn’t super nice. Pictures will be up on facebook.

(Words are patient…Austrian saying….= procrastination :P)

We had lunch at a kebab place in Grønland, Oslo. This is the place where immigrants gather….cheap ethnic food. (and tasty!) unfortunately, I didn’t manage to find a chinese store to buy ingredients for tang yuan (chinese new year food)…:( I’ll just have to make coconut cake.

D knows chinese!! (he has a chinese girl friend..and apparently he loved beijing when he visited last year :)

A’s birthday today!! Lauren bought some cake mix and she and I made a chocolate cake for A. We went over to his place…and he cooked up a storm. His roommate (Ju) was baking a chocolate brownie cake from a cake mix too :P
His room mates (A, H, and Ju) all gathered with us and celebrated his 27th birthday. It was really fun :) lots of jokes and laughter. His room mates are all norwegians too…soooo friendly.
H keeps making jokes (probably?) about needing to be more masculine….:S I originally thought he would be very nice (my intuition)..but I’m not comfortable when people always try to conform to gender norms (maybe I’m talking like this because of my class…^^||)
but I noticed it when we talked about snoosh (I think that’s how it’s spelt)..it’s a tobacco bag thing you put between your upper lip and teeth…very common and popular. A said it was a very feminine thing..unlike tobacco chewing or smoking (tons of people smoke here in norway…). Supposedly..there are “feminine” flavours (I forgot their examples)
either way…it was a really nice evening

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6 hour hike/walk (to and back)!!!! to a beautiful seaside town called Drøbak

I went with J and Y, unfortunately L couldn’t come due to pain in her hip….

walking there, I kept taking so many photos because everywhere you look, everything is so beautiful. Especially today, everywhere was mist, so it seemed all the more magical. We didn’t see the sun peek out until around 11 or 12! Drøbak is a popular Norwegians summer town…so in winter, it’s not so hot. But it was lovely to see the “sea”…in reality…there’s like an island right across the channel…but at least it smelled of sea..and it sounded little bit like the sea. We were joking that if we built a sand castle with the sand, it would be 10 cm high and we would have used up all the sand on the tiny beach :P

We walked around the sea wall for an hour..it was fun to just meander. Then we walked all around town (which took 15 min from one end to the other :P) and settled on a small, quaint cafe/restaurant for food. I couldn’t resist the chocolate cake (neither could Y!)…only J had a proper meal :P. God norwegian food is expensive!!! one cup of tea with a not very sweet but tasty chocolate cake cost me 82kr…which is like 13 or 14 cdn….er…I think I just won’t do any more conversions…we sat for a while…and it seemed like the sun was going down!! we still have 3 hours of walking to get home…@_@ (it was only 3:30 pm ….) so reluctantly we got up…we all hoped that the buses would run today so we could just catch the bus home (especially since we had to go over a big hill before we got to the flat part) alas…no buses on sat and sun…..

we started walking..everyone was so tired and full of food that nobody talked for a while…Y suggested we sing..so we started singing kids songs :P…it all sounds so different in german, czech, and english/chinese

it was all dark by the time we were close to our residences..the full moon was beautiful. And Y and J made fun about my fear of ghosts all the way back……………………..

we got home…I took a shower and passed out with loud heavy rock music on (Janne Da Arc :P)

J came over…we were all going to go to the sauna since we were dead tired…but we were so tired that we didn’t want to go to the sauna :P we ended up chatting late into the night….Y seemed like he didn’t want J to go back ….he kept forcing us to watch parts of bad late night movies on tv :P we gave up after 15 min…

We had our presentations today…seriously, the students in this class are either not putting much effort in, or they really don’t have much presentation skills. It’s really hard to believe this is a master’s level course…I mean the things we are learning are great…but the effort people put in is really minimal.

Sometimes I feel like the classes drag on for way too long. L and I both agreed that some of the topics could have been taught in half of the time taken. Maybe it’s just January block classes. I really hope so…

That being said, I’m having a lot of fun trying to understand the cultural differences and meeting new and exciting people from around the world.

some of the differences I noticed:

– there is a lot of respect for people coming from poorer countries. in fact, i don’t feel any difference at all in the way people participate in discussions etc. In Canada, although we try to be accepting and all, there is still this strange tension when discussion issues about development. We can’t really freely discuss because it’s so sensitive and we try to not offend anybody. But atmosphere here is so relaxed that it seems like we can discuss anything and nobody will be offended. I have no trouble using development without quotation marks here.

Norwegians may appear cold and shy at first…but once you get to know them…they’re super nice. At least the ones I’ve met so far. It’s also such a great chance to meet people from other countries…so far, as far as I know, there are students from Ethiopea, Zimbabwe, Nepal, New Zealand, China, Canada, Norway, …..etc etc in my class of less than 20 people…it’s amazing how much people know and have experienced. And I’ve only just talk to them for a short time!

The instructor really isn’t that inspiring…I wish he was better at facilitating discussions….thank god for guest lecturers..

it’s insane to think that I only have 17 days till my final paper is due….I’ve only just started!!

The readings are insanely long and a lot…but the assignments are quite simple. Group work…so lucky that I have a good group this time…some group members never showed up for the presentation in other teams!

It seems like I would be able to get a bank account if I get a tax number…if only I can get my resident permit stamped @_@

I had a really long chat with my Czech room mate Y tonight. Strange guy…we seem to have totally different opinions on lots of stuff (state/private, Israel/Gaza etc etc)

speaking of Gaza, Oslo had a huge (15,000) protest yesterday…a march for peace. One of the Norwegian friends of A was so angry about this one politician in Norway who is for Israel. Apparently all the politicians and parties in Norway are for Palestine.

going to go check out the student bar/dance place tonight…and then a long hiking trip for tomorrow!

my cooking really sucks :P but I’m enjoying experimenting in the kitchen. I’ve barely used any oil or salt in my days here :P I try to eat vitamins when I remember…for those who always pester me to eat them!

I haven’t been able to write everyday since school started. A one month course is really intense…we have at least 3 hours of class each day…plus 2 hours of discussion groups sometimes. Everyone tried to assure us that a masters course and a bachelors course in Europe is about the same level of difficulty…but this course is definitely more intensive than what I’m used to. The readings are longer…and we have a group project due in 3 days from starting..@_@

anyways…I really hope this kind of work load is not going to affect my stay too much. Today to finish my part of the project, I needed to stay in the whole day…not much fun if you ask me. If I were at UBC, it would have been fine…but…I’m in Norway for goodness sake! :P

Class has been ok so far. This course was taught by someone else last year…and I have a feeling it was much better last year. Our instructor is knowledgable..but quite boring as a lecturer.

I miss seeing my new friends…there’s gotta be a way to keep in contact with them during classes.

I think I’m going to go to Turkey for spring break! One of my friends from Japan in 2005 lives there..and he said come whenever I want :D

I got a letter from my parents the other day. It was very touching. Thank you. I love you too.

Gender and Development is a really good course to take in terms of content. It’s such a big part of development that is often neglected or only given lip service. btw, it seems like people here don’t have the aversion to the word ‘development’ compared to in BC. The friends I’ve talked to from ‘developing’ countries have no problem with using the word. I tried to explain how we avoid using because it implies the only way to develop is to become like the ‘developed’ countries. They agree that it isn’t the only, and definitely not the best way, but what other word can you use? I guess global north/south just doesn’t cut it…

My flat mates are really quiet…we have conversations..but it’s all so formal..@_@