Month: January 2009

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Tiffany, you have to stop caring so much about what other people think about you, especially compared to your friends. You have to live your own life, and whether other people like you or not comes after you feel content and happy with yourself. There is no use in constantly trying to prove yourself or, even worse, try to prove that you are better than someone else.

School’s starting today. I got up at 7 am again…I guess I’m just excited. Can’t wait to get my student number and classes etc. One thing I’m also really excited about is that I don’t have to get my news from CNN anymore…I mean, come on, Gaza and Israel’s war is really important, but that’s not the only news in the world. According to my Czech roommate (Y), CNN stands for “see nothing new” :P Apparently, CNN once put a map of Europe on and Czech was labelled with a wrong country…

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I got up at 6 am again today. Typed up my journals that I had written in my notebook. Then went for a 20 minute sauna (this might become a daily thing – it’s so nice!).

My flat mates should be coming back today! I’m so excited to meet them.

It’s 10 am..and I’m really sleepy again…but no way I’m going to let the disasterous 4 pm wake up happen again today. So I went for a walk, trying to find the horses again, instead I found the church. Afterwards I went to L’s for lunch. We talked for a few hours. K was there also, and another Norwegian girl he knew. They were chatting for such a long time that it’s hard to imnagine that he was so reserved just two days ago. I really think language is the barrier…we’ll figure out soon enough.

We went to A’s, talked a bit and then watched two movies – Children of Heaven and Hotel Rwanda. Both were superb and touching. Hotel Rwanda reminded me of Schlinder’s List. It’s unbelievable how in all the worst forms of atrocities, the most compassionate and selfless sides of humans are brought out. Josef came over to look at the schedules for the next day, so we all figured out schedules out. Gender and Development is at 11:15 am. We’ll go to SIT bright and early, and then if we have time, get our internet fixed.

I went back to my flat and found two new room mates! One is a guy from Czech who is more of mechanical engineer than agriculturalist. He was really nice and we chatted a bit over dinner. Definitely not an environmentalist…oh well. One is a Norwegian guy, first year Bachelors. He was a bit cold at first, but soon warmed up when I asked him after the smoking smell in my room, and then watched a bit of a movie on tv together.

I went to the sauna again with J and A, Lauren felt a bit of a stomach ache. It was nice…a bit too hot though..my heart was pounding when I came out.

School is starting!!!!

p.s. A UBC student named C arrived….apparently he might know me… I wonder if he’s from GRS :P it would suck if I didn’t know him before we came.

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It’s still strange to type 2009 :P

I woke up at 6 am today and stayed up until 10 am…then I thought I’ll go to sleep for a little while. That little while turned out to be 4 pm…ah, the beauty of student life when on holidays.

Nothing very special today, except we met a new student from Austria. L, A and I invited him to dinner since it was late and the grocery stores would be closed tomorrow (Sunday). We reheated some of the pasta, bread, and rice and made a kinda nice dinner. J (the Austrian student) brought a bottle of wine that he got when he travelled to Monttenegro. We had a chat for a few hours about everything imaginable… long distance relationships, cultural customs, yummy food, travelling, passions, organic farming in Europe etc etc. Josef is studying organic agriculture. He plans to go back to his family’s farm and start an organic farm when he’s ready. Apparently, in Austria, 15% of all the farms are organic! Organic farmers actually earn more than conventional farmers, although it involves more manual labour. Young people going into farming are well respected and there are many who choose farming as a career. Sounds like heaven compared to Canada…

L had a nice long talk with her parents on skype. I really should learn how to use that program…it seems amazing. Apparently you can even phone land lines.

Before J came, we watched Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanmo Bay. “Interesting” Not sure how I would rate such a sexist movie, although you can’t deny it does give some hints of they psyche of some males.

School’s starting in 2 days! I can’t wait to see who shows up in my flat tomorrow (it’s still empty except for me….)

Tip: check out eurolines.com for cheap bus tickets to everywhere in Europe.

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I woke up at 4 am this morning. Couldn’t fall back asleep, so my mind began to wander. For whatever reason, my mind started to think about indifference curves from economics and the hierarchy of needs. There must be someway to combine them…after all, it’s really hard to be indifferent between goods that are from different levels of the hierarchy. After that, I couldn’t sleep at all, so I started working on my theory. I came up with a few different graphs…I’m thinking of making a video to explain my reasoning, and send it to my friends and the Freakonomics website. There’s still quite a few places where I don’t understand, and does’t seem to fit the definition of an indifference curve…but I’m working on it! I was so excited. I think now I know a little bit about how academics shout “Eureka” after they realise the breakthrough of something they’ve been working on their whole lives!

After that, I fell back asleep…and didn’t wake up until 2 pm!! Thank goodness that L also slept in. We went to Aas centre and bought food to make tonights dinner; we wanted to thank A for feeding us with delicious food for so many days. I also finally got an universal adapter! Now I can use my computer and recharge my ipod.

Went home, watched news, went over to L’s to make dinner (spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad). Met her room mate, K, a Norwegian masters student. We had a lot of trouble saying his name..Apparently “Americans” no matter how hard they try, can’t pronounce his name. I thought about telling him I’m not American…but thought that was a bit rude on our first time meeting. L had invited him to dinner before, but refused. Norwegians really are quite shy and not very social in the Canadian sense.

I had nice chats and discussions with L while making dinner at my place. We invited A over when we were done. He was really tired today from dealing with all the new students coming. It’s just going to get more and more busy these coming days. I hope he’s going to be alright. We looked through A’s photos of his stay in Norway after dinner; his room mates are really fun and interesting…now I understand why he likes them so much.

We went to the sauna after dinner. It was really fun. I had a tiny bit of beer, but my head was buzzing when we came out. I have a feeling I’ll be going to the sauna quite often from now on.

P.S. I watched an interview about the organization Playpumps Internation. It combines the simple concept of water pumps with one of those roundabout things kids play on. It’s basically a wheel turned by kids to pump water…but the kids looked like they were having a lot of fun. What a great idea…

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I have been thinking about what A said yesterday: he explained how he was so angry when his muslim friend’s luggage was searched twice at the airprot when he just cruised through the customs. Difference in treatment. Of course, we should all be angry at this kind of discrimination based on silly criteria like race, colour, and of course religion. But then I realised how we women get this almost daily and it’s looked as a social norm. Even I, who try to be really careful about equality between genders/sexes, often make statements that generalize a gender/sex. Although sometimes I feel it is justified, sometimes I wonder how much of those generalizations are just entrenched notions that I’m helping spread by refering to them?

Today, I didn’t do much. A and L were supposed to come over to get me to go to the centre. They didn’t come until early afternoon, and I had gotten up quite early, so it felt like a long time. I was watching high school musical 2 and 3 when they came over. They were going on the same walk A and I had done yesterday, so I told them I wanted to finish watching high school musical. It turned out to surprisingly nice…a bit cheesy, yes, but the but the music was fun to listen to. It seemed like Bollywood was trying to become more Hollywood and now Hollywood is turning into Bollywood.

I went over to A’s place afterwards. L and him were making an Indian fried rice of sorts when I arrived. It smelled nice. We spent a comfortable evening eating (Indian curry and rice), talking (about everything), and watched a movie (Serendipity). It’s fun to just relax after all that happened last term at UBC.

Actually, tomatoes, onions, and coffee doesn’t taste as bad as I remember them. Or maybe A’s just good at adding delicious spice.

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The last day of 2008. It’s been a year with all kinds of emotions and feelings on the spectrum. Many firsts, with hopefully more to come. And many hopefully lasts to my bad habits etc.

This morning I went on a walk with A around campus, unfortunately, we couldn’t find L to go with us. Campus is really beautiful, with old and new buildings, interesting animals sculpture (you can really feel it’s an agriculture university), and a serenity that only an empty camps can give off. I learnt a little bit about A’s homeland, an area in India called Tipura (?) surrounded by Bangladesh.

Afterwards, I went to the village to get food, but I couldn’t find adapters or phone cards because almost everything was closed. I went back to my place, and slept until they woke me up with the door bell. We had our new year’s eve party at A’s. Some times I’m really confused about A…he sounds so passionate about helping people in developing countries, yet, seems to shy away from long discussions. It feels almost as if he feels sad or hurt when we discuss too much.

A taught me about small scale fisheries and how there is real potential in increasing the depth in production systems so it could accomodate different types of fish that live in different depths. I thought it would greatly help different kinds of urban agriculture.

We watched another Swedish comedy…I must say..it was a bit slow for my tastes althought it was quite funny.

We then went to L’s friend’s party …nothing very interesting happened until we decided to go to Aas centre to celebrate new years with everyone else. We passed new years on the way, with amazing fireworks going off in all directions. It was quite a different new years than I normally have. For one, it was cold! Then in Aas centre, we were surrounded by Norwegians shouting in a language I didn’t understand. Most surprisingly, there was not one bit of pot smoke in the air :P both L and I marvelled at that impossibility. A met up with some of his friends from Bangladesh. We went to their house for a small after party. They were all Bengali, one was Muslim, and two Hindu (I think). We talked about how the media portrayal of muslisms and hindus not getting along well was false. In reality, these groups have lived together relatively peacefully for over 1000 years.

D had spent 3 years in Afghanistan (which has a surprisingly good relationship with India. Considering both Afghanistan and Pakistand are Islamic countries, it seems true that religion is over cited as a reason for conflict. He said that the poppy trade was thriving even before the Taliban. The only reason why it’s suddenly become such a hot topic is because the media picked it up. The adventures in 3 cups of tea were all true: the people, kommander Khan etc. It’s such a good book…I really recommend it. The Taliban really wrecked havoc in the two and a half years they were in power. Most of the people in Afghanistan hate them. The government is trying to gain back power from the regional war lords (kommanders). But it seems like a pretty impossible task right now with some of the warlords even capable of collecting all the tax.

I learnt an important lesson today.

The three hosts weren’t really inviting me into the conversation, and their eyes seem to just flick past mine. The usual ‘stare-at-them-until-they-look-at-me’ tactic didn’t work. Frustrated, I decided to steer the conversation, at least, into one I’m interested in (actually I always do this and I admit, some people think I’m a party pooper…but I really have low tolerance for small talk). Somehow, I steered the conversation into Pakistan and Bangladesh and India (by now, most of the talking was done by the guy in the middle). His eyes literally lit up and started looking at me to explain that the media in the West does a really poor job in representing the people. These different religions have beeen living peacefully together for over a 1000 years, people don’t hate each other

When there was a lull in the conversation, I turned to ask the really quiet guy on the left (D). What does he study?

Turns out he did 3 years of development work in Afghanistan. He had near death experience from the guns and bullets for 3 times but survived. Really interesting, I pressed for details. Then it struck me, Pakistan and Afghanistan are both Islamic countries, why is India on such good terms with Afghanistan and not Pakistan? This question really set them off. They explained that it really wasn’t about religion. They really appreciated my questions and the discussion just flowed.

Anyways, the lesson is that gaining respect can be done this way. Men (and women I’m sure) appreciate intelligence in women. And that people always want to to tell their stories and views, you just have to find the right questions to ask. When you see their eyes light up, pursue with the probing.

This has been very eye opening and I think this lesson will stay with me for a long time. Although I’m a bit worried that some men would get intimidated by my (superior ;P jk) intelligence. I guess now I have to learn how to gain respect and express my views without appearing threatening so they shut me out. Non-threatening yet firm and not a push over. Definitely easier said than done.

So at the end of the night, L and I decided to write down our goals for this trip.

Mine are:

1. to not think any question is stupid. ASK THEM. a.k.a. Learn how to phrase questions so they sound intelligent.

2. To keep in touch with new and old friends. I really need to send out new year greetings.

3. To learn to live on my own. Cooking, washing, walking around in the dark and not get scared!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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I went to Aas centre for the first time today. I was buying food for myself for the first time, it’s a really strange feeling – I didn’t what and how much to buy at all. I bet everything was really expensive…but I only tried to compare prices in NOK, and not think about how much they are in Canadian. I passed by library so I decided to go see if they had internet. They did! Free for 30 minutes, twice a day. I also got a library card (which was a fun process, seeing that I didn’t have a student number, address, or phone yet). I borrowed a book that teaches you Norwegian and thought maybe if I have lots of free time, I could at least learn some Norwegian. The librarian seemed happy I was willing to learn :)

I couldn’t find the police station to stamp my resident permit. I hope they don’t kick me out of the country.

I got a text invitation from M for dinner with his family and another Canadian girl who has arrived! Ate a badly cooked lunch and then fell asleep until dinner. In the middle, I remembered that I forgot to tell M that I’m vegetarian…so I texted him saying I’m sorry if that causes any trouble. It turns out that he’s also vegetarian (and vegan for some time before)! I met his sister and his parents. They were all very nice, but his parents didn’t speak much english (and I zero Italian) so I didn’t get to know them much. The other Canadian girl’s name is L and I felt it wouldn’t be hard to be good friends with her :)

The food was delicious and the very interesting conversation continued until after dinner. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of so many great discussions about different cultures and what students are studying here! UMB seems like a great university, I’m excited to see it full with students and sample some of its classes.

After dinner, I went with L to meet with her friend A. He’s super nice. Originally from North East India, he has seen a lot of poverty, but seems a bit reluctant to talk about it. He has on the ground experience in bumping against all the bueaucratic walls, and it’s understandable that he doesn’t want to face those again anytime soon – it can be demoralizing for anyone.

We watched a Swedish romantic comdy “Jalla, Jalla” (Now, Now). Lots of nudity and adult topics, not very popular in puritan North America. The theme was around love, with a subtheme in interracial love. Quite funny.

I found out there is a stable at UMB…I even started stretching (which I painfully hate because of my leg), just in case the horses are for riding.

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Finally arrived in UMB, Aas.

My Vancouver to Chicago flight was delayed for 4 hours (yes, we sat on the plane for 4 extra hours). Due to the delay, I had to stay in the Chicago O’hare airport for over 13 hours for the next SAS flight to Europe (Stockholm). From Stockholm, I would fly to Oslo.

Fortunately, the United Airlines phone agents were super nice in helping me rebook my flight. (I really have to get over my fear of phoning people I don’t know on the phone). I kept wondering if the story in “The World is Flat” is true…are these agents working from homes in the midwest USA?

The Chicago airport is really hard to sleep in…the lights didn’t go off (of course)…but at 6 am, these bunch of really, really noisy tourists (in a tour group probably) showed up. They were really excited to go to Mexico for their holidays…but for goodness sake…I arrived at 2 am, please let me have some kind of sleep.

On the plane to Chicago, a really nice couple from North Carolina sat beside me (Karen and Tyler). We talked a bit about how it is like in the southern states. According to them, sleeping over night at the Chicago airport is a rite of passage for the North American traveller.

I got on Scandinavian Airlines for my next flight. The crew was super nice, especially when I asked for a vegetarian meal (because the flight transfer forgot to transfer my request). They even gave me the business class meal once! The crew was the oldest crew I had ever seen, plus there were quite a few male flight attendents. It’s really nice to see such a company not conform to the norms.

Surprisingly, I slept all the way to Stockholm, except the last 3 hours, I spent watching “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “The Mummy 3”. Some nice distraction from the monotomous staring of the back of the chair in front of me.

All the airports except YVR had no free wireless internet…definitely something to be proud of being Canadian :P (seriously…)

I felt so bad that I couldn’t contact M (who was picking me up in Oslo). I really hope he’s not going to be mad at me when I phone him…

At Stockholm, the airport was so nice and quiet. Even some of the chairs were nicely designed. They were big, comfy, red, swivling chairs. I didn’t look, but I bet they were IKEA creations…everything seems to be from IKEA here.

It struck me as odd because I was pretty much the only Asian in sight on the plane from Stockholm to Oslo.

People here really don’t make any small talk. The airports and train stations were soooo quiet compared to what I’m used to in both HK and Canada.

I got to Oslo airport and phoned M. Of course he couldn’t pick me up today because he wasn’t in Oslo. So I took the train to Oslo S (the central station) and waited for 2 hours for the local train to Aas. I arrived in one piece, but I had no idea how to get to UMB from the station…M said take the taxi..but there were no taxis! I asked some people at the bus station and it turned out two of them were going to pentagon (student residences…yes, don’t ask me why they named it after the USA defense ministry building). All three of them were from Ethiopea, and one of them was a masters student in ecology. They told me that I don’t need to buy a new ticket if I had my train one. And they showed me all the way to M’s room.

I said I was really sorry and that I tried to send him sms messages..but it seems like they didn’t work (darn Rogers). He didn’t seem to be mad at all. He said that when he first arrived in UMB, the girl who was supposed to give him his keys was late for two hours because of a dance class. He was so mad he could have punched her :P well I said he could pretty much have punched me for being a day late!

I got my keys, used his internet for a while, and he gave me some “chocolate from Italy” (he’s Italian) and sent me off to my room. I got to my place, but it seems like nobody else is there. I unpacked and took a shower and fell asleep. I was feeling a bit sick….

I got up the next day at 6:45 am…so I went and left M a note. I got back to the dorm and met Shresta, who is a student. I guess she works for the housing company because she was cleaning the room next door. I offered to help and we chatted a bit. She’s from Nepal and is also a masters student (it seems like everyone is a graduate student here…). She told me where to go get groceries etc. So nice!

Some things I noticed:

When I tell people I’m Canadian, they always ask where I am originally from. This is kinda annoying, since nobody assumes that in Vancouver. I can understand the cultural difference, but just for fun, maybe one time I’ll tell them that my family has been in Canada for generations. Just to demostrate that many people who don’t looke “Canadian” are actually more Canadian than everyone else.

People here are soooooooooo quiet. There’s no small talk at all. I sat at the Oslo S for 2 hours…and rarely noticed people talking…

When I was people watching, I noticed that there are quite a few “ethnic groups”. Of course, not as many as in vancouver. But these groups generally don’t mix….there’s no stares or any kind of discrimination that I could see, but people just generally keep to themselves. (heck, even the people who look native Norwegian don’t mix)

The conductors on the trains come over and check each of our tickets…something impossible in more busy cities…Also, the electronic signs in the trains display the time as well as the temperature! I guess they’re equally important for people here :P Remind me to never, ever go out to the train platforms early again. Everyone smokes!

There are lots of graffti near the train tracks…even a city as safe and as crimeless as Oslo has it’s own problems (well I don’t really see graffti as a ‘problem’ in that sense)

Almost everyone speaks english…but the trains don’t have english announcements.

There was a Burger King! Smack in the middle of Oslo S. A lot of the ads were also in English. People didn’t seem to mind or feel it was unpatriotic…

It’s still dark around 9 am…and it gets dark by 3 pm…