When in Norge, do as the nordmanns do

Well, I finally got to use my rented cross-country skis today! I went with my friends Lixian and Mila, and man, was it ever a trial by fire!

I have been cross-country skiing before, but certainly not in the last 10 years, possibly not in the last 15. Where I went skiing before was peaceful and devoid of people. Oslo? Not so much. At least, not on a Sunday afternoon. Holy shit, do the Norwegians love them some skiing! The trails at the north of the city were crowded with people, and went down and up and sometimes CURVED on the way down and it was exhausting!

So, knowing this, did we go for an hour or two? No, we went out for 6 hours, from which we only took a 1 hour break at a chalet along the way. We skied almost SIXTEEN KILOMETRES. Remember, this was essentially my and Mila's first time out! (I think Lixian over-estimated our abilities a bit since she's already gone a few times this year...)

I did really enjoy myself, but man was it difficult and frustrating at times. Allow me to make two lists, first of the things that sucked, then of the things that were great.

Things that sucked:

• Well, me. At cross-country skiing. This is fine though, cuz it was my first time out in a long time
• My gloves -- I had snowboarding gloves which kept my hands warm but aren't really good for gripping ski poles
• Too many other people -- I really have no problem making an ass of myself, but going down a steep hill I was more concerned about crashing into complete strangers. This meant waiting til the coast was clear, but with the number of people around that sometimes took several minutes. Also, it's not a very relaxing trip through nature when you're surrounded by others and terrified of hurting them
• Glasses -- I was producing so much heat that my glasses kept fogging up in the cold making it hard to see. This didn't help when I was already frustrated at falling over so much
• Soreness -- I honestly don't know if I will be able to MOVE tomorrow
• Getting passed by 7 year olds -- seriously, there were kids flying by us who were amazing! So disheartening! But maybe it's like learning a language, it's easier if you start at an early age
  
• Brand new skis -- you think it would be a good thing that my rented skis were brand new (still had the price tag on them!) but this meant that they weren't waxed properly and I sure don't know how to wax skis! I didn't apply enough in front of the foot area which meant I kept sliding backwards on hills for the first half of the trip, even when I did the V-walk thing
• Lack of food -- I woke up late so I only had a bowl of cereal before leaving. That is not enough food for a 16km ski!
  

Things that were awesome:

• Flat skiing with no people -- we did find a trail for a little while that was mostly flat with no one else around and that was great. We got into the rhythm and really enjoyed the view.
• Long underwear + Snow pants -- my mom got me long underwear for christmas (both top and bottom) and it was perfect! I wore my snow pants over my legs and rain jacket over top and it kept me warm without being too bulky
• Exercise -- WE SKIED SIXTEEN KILOMETRES! I used muscles I didn't know existed. That's probably healthy for me (what's probably not so good is the double whopper with cheese I had for supper immediately afterwards!)
• Going downhill -- when the way was clear, going down the hills was lots of fun! It didn't matter if I wiped out and sometimes I actually managed to stay vertical!
• Cute Norwegian girls -- there were lots of them out! But there was another group of 2 girls and a guy who sucked as much as we did, so we kept running into them along the way. I chatted with one of them at the chalet where we took a break, but lost track of them after that :(
• Faceplants -- yes, believe it or not, getting a face full of snow bank was kind of fun (after faceplant number six I stopped counting). I was frightened off by stories from Camilla and my mother of breaking their tailbones by falling backwards so I always made sure to go forwards. There was lots of snow and it was very fluffy so it didn't hurt very much. And once people knew I was ok they seemed to laugh along with me
  

I've got these skis until May, so hopefully I will get many more opportunities to practice! Although next time I think I will try somewhere that is more remote and level.

I end with some photos that Mila took:


Us in the chalet (lens got a little bit foggy!)

What I looked like for most of the day.

The Daily Show in Iceland

My Life

Sorry for not writing more expository entries recently, but the reason for that is because nothing overly exciting is happening. That's not to say life is bad -- in fact, far from it! The new semester has started, and I like most of my classes. I'm getting into a weekly routine and enjoying it. I've met some new folks and am enjoying getting to know folks from last semester better. Other than that, it's just homework, movies, video games, and the occasional pint or two of beer.

I'm sure come February or March I'll be sick of the weather (I always am by that point), but for now I'm doing all right! And the days are getting longer...I still saw sunlight at 5pm today....FIVE PM! You have no idea how exciting that is 'round these parts!

Oh man...

This is just horrendously, hideously, amazingly awful. It is (I imagine) the result of what happens when Christians who spend their entire life sheltered from the rest of the world eventually try to engage it on its own terms. If you can get through the agonizing opening sequence, you are in for a great surprise. I will quote the author from Kotaku who first drew my attention to this monstrosity:

"Based on Noah's Ark (we think), the above clips opens with characters in a library. These characters are then turned or "re-shaped" into animals. Those animals then race around a track, run up ladders and are shot out of canons. Then they race around the depths of hell. Then a horse jumps on a rocket. There is more, but watching this clip made my brain hurt."

Y'all ready for this?



Man oh man, where to even begin?? How about that sweet, sweet soundtrack. Or the incredible voice acting by 'God.'

I would also like to point out the many awards they have listed for the game on their website, including "100% clean, no spyware, adware or viruses" and "Fast download, 5/5 stars"

And Christian leaders are wondering why so many young people feel alienated by the church these days....

Oxford Redux

Man, time and memory are weird things. I'm not even sure this is going to be a coherent post, maybe just a list of impressions / observations, we'll see.

Well, I'm back visiting Oxford nearly 3 years after moving here for the first time. It's weird to see what's changed and what's the same. A bunch of my favourite small shops have closed (though not all), and that's sad. Equally sad are the homeless people I recognize who are still sitting in the exact same spots, selling the Big Issue or begging for change. I had hoped that some of them would have pulled life together by now.

On the other hand, so much stays exactly the same. I mean, it's not as if they're about to pick up Magdalen College and move it to a different part of the city. There's some 1000+ year history to parts of this city. And while walking the streets today I ran into one of my regular customers from when I worked at coffee republic -- an aussie guy whose name I can no longer recall. Also on the plus side, I'm still friendly with the managers of Krispy Kreme and the Phoenix Picturehouse, which means I get free donuts and movies whenever I'm in town :)

I guess what always shocks me is how places which were once so familiar go on living and changing even when I'm not there. I guess that speaks more to my own self-centred worldview than perhaps anything else, but there you have it. I feel the same way when I go back to southern Ontario these days...life goes on even though I'm off experiencing different things.

I suppose Oslo will feel like that one day. Maybe 5 years from now I will return to Norway to see friends and have these same conflicting feelings of nostalgia and remorse. Or maybe I'll be used to those feelings by then. Or maybe I won't end up leaving Oslo, who really knows.

One thing I can say is that spending time with my friends here in Oxford is as if I've never been away. Even in the case of Matt & Pip, who have since had a CHILD and had their life dramatically altered in the past year, it feels as if I've never been away. Rich was a bit more flustered cuz, well, the guy got MARRIED (my main reason for visiting) but I could tell the bonds were as strong as ever. And Jim remains the kind, wise man that I have always known. It is wonderful to be in their company again -- I will have to make more of an effort to return to this place over the next two years.

UPDATE: Perhaps wisely, they have finally changed the code on the door to the office at Coffee Republic. I tried the old one on my way back from the toilet but it no longer worked :(

In My Head

I had a dream where I discovered that southern Sweden directly bordered Mauritania and Northern India, so I immediately started to plan the road trip of a lifetime! (For the record, Mauritania was to the east, and had a slightly longer border with Sweden than India did)

I awoke to find, somewhat disappointingly, that this is not actually the case. No offense Denmark.

Just for fun, here is a mock-up that I made of how it would actually look. The borders fit quite well together, I must say, especially India and Sweden!

Fascinating

The 21st century is a weird and wonderful place to live.

From the comments of the previous Money as Debt videos I came across this guy:




He has 126 (!) videos on YouTube, which he posts in response to other people's videos. All of them are about the same length and contain basically the same rant/information:

• he is a US armed forces veteran
• he claims his old boss was murdered but it was framed as a suicide
• he claims he was abducted and forcibly injected
• he claims someone tried to 'assassinate' him
  
• he doesn't trust the government and wants them out of power (through violent revolution)
  
• he believes we're in the middle of a technological war an doesn't trust technology (despite using YouTube to spread his message)
  

He also apparently wants to attend a local city council meeting again some day since he was (perhaps unsurprisingly) barred from them.

Now, I'm not laughing at the guy...he's obviously got serious issues. Who knows what exactly caused them or when they cropped up. But man, what a fascinating case. How many thousands of people must exist like this in the world? Does he feel like he's accomplishing anything with these videos? Man, the whole situation just blows my mind. The only reason I know about this guy is because he's chosen to make and share these thoughts on the web (I just watched a new one where he says he'd like to move to Iran) -- and yet now, because of the Internet, I have a partial glimpse into the bizarre life story of one individual whom I otherwise would never know existed. I wish I could offer the guy some help, but I really don't feel like there's a whole lot I could accomplish from across the world (I have a hard enough time keeping in touch with friends and family, let alone crazy strangers). And now the only reason you know about him is because you choose to read the thoughts that I share and publish on the web.

Wow, I love new media.

EDIT: Man...the more videos I watch, the more weird quirks I learn about the dude...I mean, it's pretty much the same material over and over again, but every now and then he'll just a drop a sentence here or there and it will completely come outta left field (my favourite so far is how he wouldn't have bombed Hiroshima because of all the beautiful japanese women there). What an incredible character!

EDIT 2: There's a new idea he seems to be advocating lately: a control child. Have one child that gets injections and medicine from the government and goes to public school and have another that avoids all of that and is home schooled. I'm not convinced either of them would turn out ok...

Money as Debt

Holy shit, this is informative. Sometimes I really wish I had studied economics...

Watch this, and then go watch the other 4 parts as well.

The Night Before Christmas

Sometimes I love xkcd.


Dude also just put a ball pit in his room. That's amazing!

Courtesy of TimeAndDate.com

For some reason blogger doesn't agree with the use of tables. Scroll down.

Location:	Date:	Sunrise:	Sunset:	Length of Day:
Toronto	Dec. 18/07	7:46am	4:42pm	8h56m01s
London	Dec. 18/07	8:02am	3:52pm	7h50m26s
Oslo	Dec. 18/07	9:16am	3:11pm	5h54m42s

BBC Bonanza

I'm taking a break from my final exam (which is discussing the jovial issues of Structural Violence and AIDS in Africa) and I came across another BBC article that made me smile:

One-fifth of Canadians Immigrants

I found this one funny but for a different reason than the last one. Although it accurately states all of the facts, it does so in such a British fashion. I realize that they're talking about first-generation immigrants, but really, in my mind, 99% of all Canadians are immigrants. With the exception of Natives (who, in all probability are actually immigrants from Asia thousands of years ago anyways) all Canadians 'come' from somewhere else. In fact, a large part of our national identity (which is a work-in-progress itself) is the concept of the 'mosaic' - many smaller pictures combining to make up one larger picture.

Maybe I'm reading my own biases too much into it, but it seems very, well, European, to differentiate between foreign-born and national-born residents. As I've mentioned here previously, the best friend I've made in Oslo is a Chinese-Canadian girl from Vancouver. Her family moved to Canada when she was 6 years old (I'm pretty sure?) but I don't think of her as any more or less Canadian than myself (or than my Anglophone roommate from Montreal or than the 2 bilingual girls I know here from the Unversity of Alberta).

I guess it just seems to me that the article places a large difference on 'immigrants' versus 'Canadians' which does make sense because it's an article about immigration, however I just don't get the feeling that the majority of Canadians would view the country through such a dialectical lens. Also, it frames statements in the negative (i.e., "People speaking neither French nor English as their native language now make up 20% of the total population, the highest recorded in the recent past.") Rather than the affirmative (something like "People's who native language is something other than English or French now make up 20% of the total population.")

In fact, compare the BBC article with the equivalent article on the CBC. The CBC article uses terms like "settling in" and "choosing to make their hometown," and opting for phrases like "newcomers" and "residents born outside of Canada" rather than the somewhat blunt and clearly differentiating "foreign-born."

The immigrants immediately become Canadians, they are Canadians, they're not separate from us.

Not that the BBC article is bad or wrong by any means, I just find the difference in tone and approach interesting from a cultural perspective.

Bahaha

It's nice to see reporters for the BBC having a little fun at work. Here's a direct quote from one article:

"It says the tiny bitch was whisked away under an assumed name after receiving about 20 threats."

Intrigued? Read the rest of it here.

Michael Moore on Life in Norway

Props to Gwyneth for pointing this one out to me.



Seeing Vigelands Skulpturparken and Karl Johans gate made me smile.

This is what happens when I'm forced to write 7000 words in a formal, academic style with footnotes and other proper citations:

Here we all sit,
in our blue jeans.
Poring over books and notes and doodles we have left in the margins.
Like soldiers on a battlefield,
we bond over a shared sense of hardship:
the pressure of the next exam,
the stress of rewriting those final two pages.
It seems all too present now, yet I can't help but think that in 20 years we will barely remember these times.
20 years from now...

We are young, we are white, we are rich.
We are tomorrow's leaders (or so they keep telling us).
The guy on my left - where will he be 20 years from now?
How about the girl who just walked through the door?
Will we have accepted our responsibility as stewards of the planet?
Will we use our wealth and education to eradicate climate change and global poverty?
The realist, who is also called the pessimist, inside of me says "no, nothing will ever change."

But it's got to.
It's the only thing that keeps me going.
The potential to alter the course of human history with
Love and Grace.
and Hope.
Why am I alive if not for this purpose?

20 years from now...
I'm not entirely certain how the whole thing will roll out.
And frankly, I'm a little scared.
But I do know that it starts here,
sitting in my blue jeans.

Homosexuality

I've been working a lot at Lixian's place lately in an effort to finish my final essays for the semester. Tonight, she went to bed early but I stayed up chatting with her friends/roommates and eventually realized that I was alone in a room with 3 gay people (2 guys and a girl).

As I thought more about it I realized that, perhaps sadly, this was the largest number of homosexuals I'd ever knowingly been in a conversation with. They are all great people, and I will make an effort to get to know each of them better.

Story of my Life

6000 words til Thursday.
Party on Friday.
3000 more by next Wednesday.
Month off.

Addendum

Today I also came across this article about Canada's role in Afghanistan and thought it nicely complemented my previous post.

11-11-11

It's Rememberance Day. Or at least it is in Canada and the UK. I kinda forgot cuz they don't celebrate it here.

My friend Matt from back home suggested that I write something about it, so here it is. 'This Bud's for you.'


The point of Rememberance Day is to honour the veterans of wars. This is typically displayed by wearing a red poppy. The problem is, I don't believe in violence. I never asked anyone to harm another human being on my behalf, so for this reason I don't show visible support for such actions.

I recognize that this is a rather controversial view and as such, when discussing it in real life, I tend not to be as blunt as I was above. Nevertheless, people go on about how brave their relatives were and how if it weren't for them we'd all be speaking German right now. And maybe that's the case. For the record, my own grandfather served in World War II and had a shell land right beside him which damaged his hearing for the rest of his life. He died almost 10 years ago now, but I have a feeling he wouldn't agree with what I'm about to say either.

The thing is, I believe that when Jesus said "Love your neighbour," and more than that, "Love your enemies," he actually MEANT it. Not in a theoretical, abstract way but in a conclusive, down to earth fashion. And if this results in your personal subjugation or even destruction, well y'know what? There's more to existence than just this life. At least, I hope to God that there is. That's the whole point of martyrdom. It's not easy, and it's certainly not desirable, but I don't understand how followers of Christ can, in good conscience, harm or kill another child of God.

Violence is the least creative solution. It takes no imagination to punch someone in the face when I'm angry, but it takes much more creativity to work through problems and come up with a way that both parties can leave a conflict with a sense of justice and dignity. Where is that sense of inventiveness? Where is our compassion for our fellow human beings? Although it does not make it any more acceptable, I can see how in days past it would be quite easy to demonize the 'Other,' and see the enemy as less than human; but in our increasingly globalized world, now more than ever it is a travesty that people from one culture would want to kill people from another and not see them as brothers and sisters. Equality. and Love. We need to believe that love conquers all evil because if we lose that then we are hopeless as the human race. If we can't come up with a better solution than killing one another off then we might as well pack it all in right now.

Now, I recognize that after these comments a lot of people will think that I'm naive and idealistic, and I'm fine with that. To further add fuel to that particular fire, consider this: war is declared by countries but made by individuals. If soldiers chose to put down their guns, if pilots refused to get into their bombers, if the guy sitting in the base 5000km away didn't push the button to launch the cruise missiles, then war would cease to exist. I believe there are better alternatives, even if that means dying in a way that our culture considers inglorious. Because ultimately we aren't judged by our society, but by the Big One Upstairs. I don't see courage in blindly following an order that is handed down to you by a commanding officer; I see courage in those who challenge the existing norms and dare to dream of a brighter future for every single human being on this planet, which we all share together.

This is why I don't wear a red poppy on Rememberance Day.

From the ends of the earth

Last night I went to Chateau Neuf and sat through an hour and fifteen minute long interview with my favourite Norwegian author, Erlend Loe. The whole thing occurred in Norwegian, naturally, which made it a bit tedious (given that I understand almost no Norwegian), but I still think it was worth it! I got to chat with him a bit afterwards and got him to sign my copy of Naive. Super. (Which I told him was one of the best books I've ever read and he responded "Really?! Well that is nice to hear.") He was a gigantic man (nearly as tall as me!) and really soft-spoken. Not what I expected at all, but awesome nevertheless!

Now totally unrelated, check out this video of seven guys beatboxing on the subway, it's amazing! I need to give credit to Oria for bringing it to my attention. Almost better than the performance itself are the reactions of the passengers around them!



And actually, in many ways it reminds me of the folks at Improv Everywhere, which I have mentioned before and clearly think are fantastic.

Courtesy of Burlington, Ontario

My dear friend Matthew Nigel Howell sent me the following message on Facebook and I thought that it was too good to keep to myself. Thus I asked his permission to share it with the world, and permission was granted. So without further ado:

"Last night was 'devil's night', typically a great night of adrenaline and mischief for young folks. Jody and I were sitting in the living room, which has a rather large window with an unobstructed view right to the road (Drury Lane), watching TV when SPLAT, an egg appeared on the window. We arrived at the front door just in time to see a little red car drive off. Slightly bitter, more because in our old age we had let our devil's night guard down than because of the egg on the window, I stood out front with the hose washing the window off.
I then prepared for round 2, now realizing how tempting our window was, by placing a tomato near the front door so that we could return the favour to our next eggers.
About one hour latter the second SPLAT came and I was up and gone like a bat out of hell! I exited the front door with enough time to see two young souls turning down the side street (courtland).
Now let me intervine in this story and explain that the street they were parked on was a dead end... yes a dead end. So as I rounded the corner and stood in front of their car, enjoying the intense looks of fear on each face, they had nowhere to go. I menacingly signaled for them to exit the vehicle to no avail. Not realizing they were on a dead end they reversed down the entire street right to central park, only giving jody enough time to put his shoes on and join the fun.
The car returned trying one final time to make an escape but with my body planted in between their front bumper and freedom they knew I had won. Jody told them to get out of the car, which they did... well all of the girls at least, the little bastard boy (who I am sure up until this incident had been feeling like the 'cool guy' 'mr. badass' driving around town egging houses with a bunch of girls), the one who actually threw the egg stayed cowering in the back seat.
Any way we had a laugh with the girls (their friend thought I was going to 'kick the shit out of him' - I then told them how violent I tend to be... and then the girls thought we would call the cops, to which we responded " BAH HAHAHA ya right!"), as they cleaned the window we explained to them that you should never turn off your engine when egging a house, let alone park on a dead-end street, along with this we taught them the drive-by technique of just pulling to the side of the road opening a door firing an egg, hopping back in and driving away, as a much more effective means of egging a house.

Another lesson taught by Jod and Matty"