the world and other issues

Photos Maroccaines

2012-01-17T14:27:00.022Z

Marrakesh

We arrived in Marrakesh on New Years eve. To our surprise, Chris' friend Fia and her friend Hermann turned up on the same flight as us. We spent the last night of 2011 together at the amazing Grand Hotel Tazi. Below are photos from our days in Marrakesh. We'll keep this blog posted with photos and updates from the travel. Christopher and I will be travelling for three and a half months in West Africa followed by a visit to Ethiopia and, in sh'Allah, to Eritrea if the visa-authorities allow it.

New years eve at Grand Hotel Tazi. Belgian woman dancing with her dog and her friend in the corner.

New years eve at Grand Hotel Tazi, with Fia and Hermann

Djeema El Fna: Chis harrassed by snake charmers

Alley from our hotel to Djeema El Fna

Street scene, medina khadima

Chris in the souks

Djeema El Fna by night

Chris loves chameleons

Shoe stall in a souk

Souk

Street collage; marker, newspapaer and map

In the mellah (jewish quarter)

Storks

More text will come, but since the process of uploading these pictures was a true test of patience that has to be later. So long!

Else is going travelling! Sofie's notes

2011-12-30T00:17:00.002Z

Morocco - 3.5 weeksWestern Sahara - underkant av en uke - reise gjennom og besoeke et par stederReise gjennom Mauritania - ikke saa lengeSenegal - just travelling throughGambia - meeting parents on the 4th february, staying for a week. Luxury vacation. Not very charming tourist industry.Senegal - travel quite a bit there. quite interesting and niceMali - the southern parts (unstable north, kidnappings)Burkina Faso - OuagadougouGhana (flying from there on the 12th april, to Ethiopia), visit organisation, gather children paintingsEthiopia (Addis Ababa) - travelling around. No return ticket yet. meeting friend.Eritrea (quite hostile relations with Ethiopia)Crafting your T's and dotting your i's.

Hackney – Where ideas are born and bicycles are (almost) stolen (by knife)

2011-06-16T23:53:00.016+01:00

As our dear readers might know, some of us were privileged to meet up in London last weekend. When Anandita, and her (very sympathetic) boyfriend Zach were planning to go traveling in Wales with her parents, nothing felt more natural for me and my (very handsome) boyfriend than to catch a cheap flight to the UK, and for all of us to merge in the capital!

And what a weekend it has been. We of course did the good old traditional sightseeing: The British museum with all the stolen goods of the empire, Tate Modern with it’s progressive paintings and installations, Brick Lane with its lovely curry, shopping in Camden Town/Market and a stroll along the south bank of the Thames with all the sights that has to offer. Anandita, Zach and Juliane also went to a lecture with Arundhati Roy (!) and “some random Marxists”, where the latter apparently weren’t too impressive. The visiting boyfriends (Chris and Zach) are dedicated Clash fans and made sure we extended to some untraditional sightseeing as well. We went far down south to the (in)famous Brixton. We were disappointed to see such few guns but the number of squeaking ambulances were at least far above average.

Brixton

The main excitement of the trip was of course to see each other’s long missed faces and to exchange recent experiences, old memories and eternal ideas. One of the social highlights was the day when Sofie had arranged the MUWCI (and friends) summer shindigs in London fields (a huge park close to Ant and Sofie’s flat). Here we met more MUWCI people than I had ever dreamed of.

Some of the old friends we met during the stay

Bezzerwizzer in the park. Anandita carry these photos in her wallet.

After enjoying countless beers and conversations in the sun we slowly returned to the flat where more beers were in order, not to mention a delicious meal served by Anthony. The board game Articulate! was also a big hit. As the hours were getting late, people came and went but the core remained.

Acticulate in Anthony and Sofie’s living room.

Eternal ideas. Around midnight the same night Anthony’s (very charming) architect friends came by, and somehow the whole atmosphere became very philosophical. Perhaps not so strange, since Anandita currently is doing her PhD in philosophy at Boston University. Also given our philosophical background from the IB, it was granted for it to become a subject of conversation eventually. At some point Sofie came back into the room, after being absent for a while, when she suddenly became very worried about her architect friends’ well being (read: them being bored). The reason was that Anandita and I were rambling about Hannah Arendt’s (or originally Aristotle’s) distinctions between labor, work and action and the Human condition in general. Though, as soon as Sofie expressed her apprehension one of the architects immediately dispelled it. He engaged in the conversation starting to throw out ethical dilemmas for every one of us to take a stand. In regard to this we ended up hypothetically killing a man on a railroad track to save ten (or two hundred) people, in addition to killing a man in a coma for some other alternative purpose.

The discussion about the common versus the elite was the most intriguing though. The starting point for this debate was a claim that

“the idea of people sitting in their offices doing philosophy is useless or irrelevant, unless their ideas are brought to the masses”.

The extreme example of this would be some French philosophers like the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida etc. Anandita presented a very nuanced and well-grounded argument against the above claim based mainly on Hegel and partly on Hannah Arendt (and her own viewpoint of course). The poor thing was constantly interrupted by Sofie and myself who had countless (ir)relevant insights and digressions. We/I must have been pretty annoying because, due to the large quantities of alcohol that had been consumed, I kept forgetting the main argument and demanded she’d explain the whole thing again and again. Luckily I finally decided to write down the The Main Ideal Argument which goes as follows:

“Forget about Hegel (though it’s all Hegelian)*. When intellectuals dump things down so that everyone can understand them, then all they do is to give the masses a glimpse of the truth, or a certain form of the truth that isn’t the ultimate truth.”

Be aware that this is the ideal argument. The practical application of this could be:

“Given that we need work and labor for the survival of society, it’s important that those who do work and labor are able to at least get a glimpse of the truth, or a certain form of the truth, since they don’t have the time to be philosophers”.

Examples of these glimpses of truth could be the concepts of freedom and democracy. The conclusion of the discourse was, that the path to reach the ultimate state of enlightenment must be the employment of Robots.

Some of the notes from the discussion. Notice the washing machine in the robot's stomach

At this point I stopped taking notes. The good news is that in the future we wont have to live in the shadow of the ultimate truth – because Anandita is now becoming an official contributor to the the world and other issues! So let me pose a question for a potential follow up post to this philosophical debate: Wouldn’t this lead to a complete Marxist alienation (all work and labor conducted by robots)? And if so, is that a problem?

And last: During our stay Anthony caught a rude thief at the outside entrance of their house. The thief was about to steal Ant’s bike, when Ant rhetorically asked the guy what he was doing? The thief replied that he had a knife. Being the man of steel that he is, Ant asked him to show his pockets and surely a knife was revealed. “Fuck off” was Ant’s reaction, and fuck off the thief did – with the parting promise: “I’ll be back!”

I’m sure I’m speaking for everyone when I say that I share the thief’s sentiments (about coming back to Hackney Baths). Hopefully Shane will be with us next time.

*Anandita had first spent a lot of time explaining Hegel – unfortunately casting pearls before swine.

At Long Last!

2011-06-10T02:55:00.009+01:00

Well I have to say I feel quite ashamed about my prolonged absence from this blog. But it's also very encouraging to see that even though our posts get sparse sometimes, they keep chugging along! I was reading back a little bit and I love Else's narrations (you give the best speeches) and Sofie's snapshots (more houseblogging please!). So I thought I would contribute with a combination of the two.

I want ed to share that, at long last, I graduated! NYU's graduation was a very funny affair, they held it at Yankee Stadium. My parentscame but they couldn't even see me because there were so many people. I just sat in my seat and drank a milkshake (seriously!) the whole time, no diploma receiving necessary. Here are a couple of pictures my dad took.

(At least they could see Brett...I'm one of the purple dots. Oh also he got a special hipster haircut just for my graduation, he went to a military barber at a very fancy place where you write your name on a chalkboard... I know, I don't get it either!)

(Bill Clinton was our graduation speaker... Wow! Also, I think this is a really nice photo... my dad has been getting really into photography recently and I think he has some serious talent!)

So I guess that's the major update in my life right now, and with that have come some other changes too! I moved into Brett's apartment where we're going to stay for the summer until we move into our own place and I'm very happy here. And last week I started my new job -- precisely one week ago today! So far I like it and the people are really nice. I feel like right now I'm getting into a new rhythm in my life and I like that. Maybe my new rhythm will include morning exercise?

Now I'm getting a little rambly but I also wanted to share that last night I put my little sister onto a plane for LONDON! Where you and Anandita will be reuniting soon. Sofie, I told her to go find you and give you a hug for me. She said she would so I hope she does! She'll be there until August, living with a friend from AC. Here are some pictures of my sister, taken a LONG time ago when I still lived in Queens (but she hasn't changed that much!).

(Isn't she pretty? And don't these photos look kind of 80's?)

Love you both lots and lots!

I've been hanging out with Shane recently

2011-06-05T12:50:00.005+01:00

I finished my 4th year on Thursday. Everything handed in and ready, and I'm happy with how it all turned out.

I love to use friends in my images, it gives me an excuse to revisit lovely old photos to find just the right pose, activity or light condition. In this case I have been trawling through photos from mine and Shane's trip to Calcutta, Varanasi and Bodhgaya in 2006. Lovely memories! I thought I'd share some of the resulting images from my design.

Wazirpura

2011-05-29T15:07:00.002+01:00

Snapshot from Wazirpura, Agra, where I am doing my design project this year (for three more days!) Amazing colours!

Himalayan Flowers

2011-05-11T10:34:00.005+01:00

Came across these photos from project week no 3, from the lovely hillsides of Chamba, Himachal Pradesh. Thought I'd share now that flowers are cropping up everywhere and summer is coming!

India pt 2

2011-05-08T18:30:00.004+01:00

So, as some of you might know, this year my relationship with India has taken a bit of a professional turn. I am doing my 4th year diploma project in Agra, city of the wonderful Taj Mahal. Here is a little sketch I did of my project as it stands.

I have three weeks left till portfolio hand in, so now it's all about hard graft and long days with lots of coffee!

Easter time is here!

2011-04-19T14:44:00.011+01:00

I know I have been a bit keen on my house-blogging recently... Please forgive me for yet another post. Just wanted to show you a couple of things! Yesterday I finally finished the bedroom, and we could sleep in peace in there (except I was washing the linen, so we ended up in sleeping bags. note to self: save up for some more linen.).

Exhibit 1:
Bedroom

Exhibit 2:
The man's new herb garden

(He has decided to start a better life which he rightly thinks involves fresh herbs on anything. I mean fresh basil on EVERYTHING. He would probably put it on porridge if it wasn't for the fact that he doesn't like porridge.)

Exhibit 3
Neverending Decemberists Love

I got these posters last summer at End of the Road Festival, a wonderful folk festival in Dorset. The Decemberists were unfortunately not playing there (but several other of our favourites were, including the Mountain Goats), but for some reason they were selling these great hand printed posters. They are now adorning the wall above our tiny dining table.

Exhibit 4
Going on holiday!

Finally, I am going to Italy! I am very excited because I've never been there before, and also because it is kind of mandatory for an architect to go to Florence at some point. We leave on Friday and I can't wait! (Our last holiday was more than a year and a half ago, so about time!)

I hope you all have wonderful easter holidays!
Much love from sunny London

DIY, or, Need is the Mother of Invention

2011-04-06T11:24:00.004+01:00

When a poor architecture student and a starter-wage architect move into their first home together, it is very, very easy to spend the limited furniture budget on design classics which we (read I) have always dreamed of having in our house. So, the limited buget got us a pair of Eames chairs and a few tins of paint. But, two dining chairs, surprisingly, wouldn't quite fill up the space. We got a sofa from IKEA, but needed a coffee table. Since I had quite strict requirements for this table (Must be a specific size, not too big, and must have a shelf for books under the tabletop) and limited resources, this one was concocted one late friday evening with the man sleeping peacefully on the sofa, amazingly ignoring my drilling and sawing.

So, take a few bits of "furnitureboard" (pine board from B&Q, the UK's equivalent to Maxbo) and one length of industrial steel angle from said shop, a couple of screws, and voila! Budget coffee table which fulfills all our needs!

In time I will paint it (pine isn't exactly known for aging gracefully), but for now, it adds a nice, somewhat Norwegian exposed wood feel to the living room.

Student budgets don't always have to be (entirely) spent at IKEA!
(I say that, and then I also post a picture of how useful a spare shelf bracket became when we needed to hang up this cool enamel lampshade which the man got from Brick Lane! It's all about the balance, right?)

Dandelion

2011-04-04T14:56:00.001+01:00

Sneak preview of the bedroom!

Get on the floor!

2011-04-02T11:09:00.001+01:00

Finally, we are in the process of laying the bedroom floor. The wood we got is called parawood - cheap, and green, as it is a bi-product of rubber production! Gives me joy to walk on a floor which I know has done a good job in its previous life... And best of all, it looks quite good!

Downside is it is not an engineered timber floor, so every piece has to be glued individually. Time consuming! Also, the walls being kind of squint does not make for an easy job!

Looking forward to showing you the finished room!

Another Sunny Day

2011-03-09T10:29:00.002Z

Finally, the weather in London is turning! My mood is better, my productivity is better, and I sit under my roof window drawing Indian houses in the fresh air.
Blissful! I wanted to share my wonderful view with you...

Spot Canay Wharf and the Gherkin!

Green Home

2011-03-08T18:58:00.003Z

Me and Anthony decided since all the other rooms in our new flat is white, the hallway should be something else... Green!
The hallway doesn't have any windows, so excuse the blurry photos...

At the end you see my little storage corner which I am in the process of making a curtain for. If only this architecture degree I'm doing wasn't taking all my time...
Will post more soon!

Green smoothies and other nice things

2011-03-04T12:46:00.008Z

Hello weekend!

This weekend feels highly undeserved. I’ve had two whole days with nothing on the schedule but starting to write my BA thesis. Not a single word has yet been typed and it is 2 p.m. Friday. It’s an assignment in economics where I’ll be writing about food: Food prices and food crises. I’m starting to think that things related to food really are at the core of my interest.

It’s one of the most basic things of our mere existence, it’s a source of unlimited hedonistic joy, it’s an inevitable part of everyday life and it plays an important role in both my academic fields: Politics and economics. I’ll let you know more about the academic aspect later but for now I want to share a recent discovery I made: The green smoothie. My friend Irmelin was on a long journey in southern Africa this winter. In Swaziland she got to learn about the significance of raw food (if you're also into this I'd love to learn more). After she convinced me I’ve been having green smoothies for breakfast everyday. Below you can see the recipe and I urge you to try it. It tastes great, it has serious amounts of vitamins and nutrients and it gives you a very unique sort of energy. Basically you can use whatever you want but here is my variant:

· 1 banana

· 1 green apple

· A bit of fresh ginger

· Celery

· Ca. 100 g spinach

· Juice from ½ lime

· Some water

But it in the blender with some ice cubes and voila.

Another tip for the weekend is to check out the new Belle & Sebastian album: Write about love.

All the songs are really nice and catchy. I especially like “I didn’t see it coming” and “I want the world to stop”. When Sofie, Sigrid, Christopher and I saw then this summer they played the first one. It was epic!

I hope you all have a great weekend in your respective corners of the world.

Moving House!

2011-01-26T13:46:00.002Z

Me and Anthony are moving to our own flat on the 3rd of February. I am so excited to blog about it!

Recent happenings

2010-12-07T19:57:00.001Z

Hello girls!

I have finally downloaded BlogPress for my phone so there is really no excuse at this point. And I also have a camera on this phone so there is double no excuse to share little snapshots of my life with you.

Recently I went to Denver. I got a scholarship to attend the American Public Health Association's annual conference and it was great. I love conferences. Here's a picture of Cornel West, the keynote speaker.

He was really fabulous... And here is the YouTube link!

Also, I got to hang out with Rachel, and my friend Adam! Here are some other pictures, all taken at Adam's beautiful GrowHaus.

Well I guess it wasn't that recent, but a month is a short time when you consider how long it's been.

Love you girls.

Me

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

तोगेथेर

2010-09-30T15:23:00.002+01:00

It's doing it again! Hindi type! It should read: TOGETHER.
As in here:

Trying to capture the vibe of the previous post.

Cohabitants

2010-09-22T10:23:00.005+01:00

Finally it must be time for a blogpost. I’m sitting by the kitchen table in my Bergen flat, eating oatmeal and waiting for the coffee to be done while looking out at the grey, rainy sky. It’s a slow morning and I can’t find the motivation to open a book.

We’ve got a new cohabitant since the last time we spoke. The Person is Maja, Christophers sister, and she’ll be living with me until Chris comes back from Syria. Chris is leaving for Beirut Saturday morning. From there he’ll continue to Damascus where he’ll be learning Arabic, which is his major in university. I’m a little worried about my life without him. But I think it could be a good thing, exploring my own self a little bit. Spending more time at the library. And Maja will be a good housemate. When Chris and I came back home last night she had cleaned the house and baked fresh buns.

Now the coffee is ready! I’ll be drinking it from my Mummin cup. Speaking of Mummin – Ella came to visit me in Bergen this May. She was in the neighbourhood due to her exchange program in Helsinki. It was such a lovely visit. She told me stories of all the wonderful Mummin merchandize in Finland and I was in awe. When she came back to Finland she sent me this little parcel full of lovely Mummin things. I was so happy, and I haven’t even written to say thanks (I will soon). That reminds me that I haven’t thanked you either, Shane, for the lovely card I received a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed reading it so much – especially the mix between the drunk and the sober parts. A true post-modern piece of work. It was like hearing your voice. I laughed much.

Shane has also gotten a new cohabitant. I’m very excited to hear how it’s going with Helene in New York. Helene got an arts and crafts scholarship to go to New York and develop the art of cooking (in Norway money grows on trees). You must have a thing or few to teach each other, you also being so interested in cooking Shane. Maybe we can find a time where we all can talk on skype. It warms my heart that she’s in good hands with you Shane.

Sofie has many cohabitants, and is making the habitat look very nice with the artistic lamps and desk and what not. I imagine school must have started in London now. How is it going with the no-more-smiley’s-policy?

Second cup of coffee. As you’ve discovered I haven’t got a clear message in my text, but I just felt like communicating with you my dears. Would it be possible to go for a little trip to the US the summer of 2011? Chris and I are probably going to Japan (!) in the Easter so I’m not sure how the money situation will be. But it is a great dream to go to New York and San Francisco! This should probably be planned in accordance with the wedding though. If the wedding is going to be this spring, then we’ll see each other anyways. I think it’s good that we ration or time together, in order to get the most out of it. But what is the status of the wedding date?

May I also ask, what are your long term plans? I thought I might move to Oslo two years from now to start my MA there. It’s a great probability that Sofie and Anthony will be there as well at that time, and it makes me super excited! Maybe Shane should consider some time abroad again? We’ll all live in a huge house and share everything.

2011/2012 will be the great travel year where Chris and I are planning a trip to North Africa and India. Do you want to coordinate and come to India for some time as well? Spring 2012?

Now I’ll be getting ready to attend my lecture. Could you both send me you post addresses please? Have a good day, both of you. I love you so much.

Lamp project pt 2

2010-09-14T19:54:00.001+01:00

Take one cool metal lampshade from a market in brick lane, one funky coloured power cord, one IKEA shelf bracket, and voilà:

Summer love

2010-08-20T15:30:00.000+01:00

We missed you so much Shane!

New project

2010-08-20T15:26:00.001+01:00

Seeing as i am back in London and, for now, jobless, I've got a couple of projects going! Firstly, making the house look nice after my prolonged absence, and secondly, making a lamp! It's going to consist of a board with holes through which I will poke fairy lights. Got the idea from an Internet article, and thus far I have painted the board a fun colour:

Updates to come when it's done!
In the meantime; a few snapshots of the living room:

I found this curious lamp in my mum's attic, and i love these mega-bulbs from ikea so much that I don't think I'm going to put a lamp shade on it!
The pictures are portraits of random people by my housemate Jack.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Morning exercise and a praying mantis

2009-09-27T16:40:00.005+01:00

Hello. I don’t really have anything much to write but I think it’s a shame that the blog has been inactive lately (and that I have been the most inactive blog-participator). So here are a couple of pictures and updates. I actually really wanted to tell you about last Friday because it was such a nice day. I have experienced some problems lately in regard to the structuring of my daily life. I only have one lecture a week and I’ve thus had a tendency to sleep a bit more that necessary and I’ve had a general lack of routine in my life. But my new project is morning exercise! My friend Maja invited me to join her for 9 a.m. yoga on Fridays, and I have become a great fan of this. So last Friday I went to yoga, where I also met Marte (our 0-year form MUWCI) and Kristian (who is Chris’ friend who Sofie has met a few times). After yoga Maja and I sat in the sauna, followed by a visit to a cosy café. After that I studied a bit in the library and then I had to go to a meeting to plan a photo exhibition about Western-Sahara that we are putting up next week (this is in relation SAIH which is the organisation I am part of: Norwegian Students and Academics International Assistance Fund; www.saih.no). After the meeting I went home and Christopher and I cleaned the whole apartment. I even tidied my bathroom cupboard, which has been subject to chaos. I made a little box, which i decorated with nice pictures of my good friends. When the house-cleaning project was over we made homemade pizza and watched a documentary about marihuana. I went to bed at 11 to get up for work at six (my “truck”-driving job). The whole day was filled with structure and efficiency and I’m still so happy about this day.

The other picture shows our new pet, the praying mantis named Hugo. He is mainly Christopher’s passion but I also find him quite cute because he washes himself just like a cat. We feed him spiders we find in, and outside of, our apartment.

To conclude I want to recommend morning exercise for everyone struggling with getting the day started. Tomorrow morning I am going to attend water-aerobics. It’s fun because everyone just laughs all the time since it’s such a strange activity.

most beautiful cover version

2009-08-20T16:35:00.002+01:00

Click to hear Anthony Hegarty's version of "If it be your will" by Leonard Cohen...:

La Blogotheque

2009-05-22T15:23:00.002+01:00

Now, because my French is confined to 'shettemm', 'shomapell sofie' and 'shesui un fromage' (excuse the phonetics, I simply cannot attempt to spell any of that properly), I am not able to tell you a great deal about the contents of La Blogotheque. I can only merely point you in the direction of the Concerts a Emporter (Concerts on the move?). This website is just wonderful and here in Studio 15 Napiershall, we are hooked, and repeatedly turn to La Blogotheque to get us through the day. Our favourite is Elvis Perkins, walking around in Paris singing 'While you were sleeping' - especially when he walks into the Place Vendome, just as the song reaches its climax.

Just wonderful.

Enjoy!

#66.1 - Elvis Perkins - While you were sleeping
by lablogotheque

The Inner Workings of an Architecture Studio, or, F**K, Only 3 weeks left!

2009-05-07T15:22:00.008+01:00

Oh dear. I thought I knew what hard work was, sitting in the MPH studying for my IB exams.

I didn't.

Now, knee deep in things to be done, me and Naomi decided we had to make the best out of the situation. What better to do than set up a studio in my unused livingroom and invite all my best architecture mates for a three week long party?
Liam has announced his arrival, bearing computer, mattress and espresso maker, and me and Names (yeah, I like to call her Names) are already hard at work.

Here are a few glimpses:

My favourite little setup, with the Ant shelf and all our architecture books close at hand. Note the Lidl bags used to transport all our model making scraps from the Real Studio.

The wall is our friend! It contains all our ideas and scrappy sketches.

The wall is not our BEST friend though, that would be UHU glue (the solvent free kind. We don't want to go completely loopy after all.)

When we get bored, we put the TV on. Watching the news for example. We need to know a little bit about what goes on outside these walls! Note also the stock of emergency food (sugar puffs, jaffa cakes, tortilla chips, granola bars and bourbon creams).

But, the most important feature of our studio is this wonderful view, reminding us what NOT TO DESIGN (Notably the gorgeous St Georges Road tower blocks):

Who knew stress could be so much fun!

Music Box Underway!

2009-04-28T11:59:00.004+01:00

Trying to think of urban strategies for my new project, the 'Music Box' aka some sort of community performing arts centre. Here are my initial thoughts... (these must be regarded as sketches!)

The project is in Stranraer (where the ferry goes from Scotland to Ireland), which used to thrive as a sort of seaside resort but has lost a lot of its charm. Cars have take over the whole town, and i am torn: should we accommodate for the cars (and maybe bring back the 50's drive-in cinema?), or should we provide some areas that are pedestrianized, trying to minimize the use of cars in the tiny town?

Hmm...

The most delicious thing...

2009-04-27T10:32:00.002+01:00

I just wanted to share a recipe that my mum has shared with me, and which I always make if I'm having a dinner party, because it is DELICIOUS! And easy!

1. Make pizza dough:
- white flour
- dash of oil
- salt
- yeast
- water

2. Chop up enough gorgonzola and sundried tomatoes to sprinkle on the pizza

3. Half the dough, use a pin to make two equally sized pizza bases (form depending on your preference)

4. Spread the cheese onto one of the halfs, then spread the sundried tomato on top of that

5. Put the other pizza base on top of the one covered in cheese and tomato

6. squeeze the edges together to stop the cheese from running out

7. use some normal grated cheese (mozzarella and cheddar mix for example) and sprinkle on top of the bake

8. sprinkle some thyme over the cheese

9. put in the oven at about 200 C until the cheese on top is golden and a bit crusty

10. EAT AND LOVE!

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of this bake yet, but I will post one once I make it again...
I always get compliments on this dish, so you should all try it! very easy!

Recent Things of Interest

2009-04-19T11:26:00.006+01:00

Finally a little sign of life from me on the blog.
Seeing as I have been quite caught up in holidaying, reading for exams and trying to finish various academic tasks, I haven't really had time to do very much else of interest. However, I am a big believer in the need for a little break now and then, so one day I ventured down to a second hand bookshop just off Otago Street in Glasgow, and snapped up these books for an impressively tiny price:

Not only do I look forward to reading these books, but also I can't wait to put them up in mine and Anthony's flat in London! We have struck a deal: he makes shelves and I put books on them. I love books! Good both for the mind and the eye, I'd say.
Also good on the eye is this lovely hook (hook??? help me out here, Shane) that Anthony gave me one day:

I haven't put it on the wall here in Glasgow; I am saving it for London, seeing as I only have about 2 months left here.
I can't wait to get down there! Our hope is to get a flat close to Broadway Market in Hackney - which brings me neatly to my next point: I picked up this book one day before easter, from a bookshop in said market, because it was a sunny day, Ant was at work, and I wanted to sit in the sun with a book:

I picked it up not really knowing what it was, but it turned out to be a delightfully insightful novel about people, how they interact, why they act the way they do, what they think, what MAKES them. I found it very thought provoking, and it is hereby recommended to all of you readers.

The sun doesn't only shine on London though, even Glasgow has been blessed with some uplifting sunshine lately. My next post might just be a little photographic story from sunny G. Till then, au revoir!

Taxes, continued

2009-03-27T16:44:00.003Z

In my politics lecture this morning my professor, Frank Aarebrot (the picture), told us what we should say if we ever met an American who couldn’t understand how we could pay the high amount of taxes we pay. Funny, I thought, my friend Shane asked this question last year on the blog I don’t think neither me nor Sofie had great answers. So I will rephrase his words:

Imagine that Norway and USA has the same currency, called “money”. Both the Norwegian and the American earns 100 money a month. The Norwegian pays 44 money to the state each month while the American pays only 20 money to the state. But the American also pays the health insurance company 15 money and puts away 5 money for his or her children’s college fund. So in the end about the same proportion of money is spent on the same things. The difference is that in USA you have the freedom to be irresponsible and the freedom not to send your kids to college. The so-called Free Society based on value choices made by the citizens.

Just a little anecdote before the weekend. Now I’m about to make a “Mediterranean pie” before we have a guest arriving this evening. Thank you both so much for the post cards, they filled my with great joy.

A Fortuitously Delicious Dinner

2009-03-24T17:23:00.002Z

Now, I don't fancy myself a food blogger or anything, but my dinner last night [note: I wrote this in my journal weeks ago!] was so good I just have to tell the whole internet about it. It was also incredibly accidental in its composition. This is what was in the fridge and why:

1) Half a hummus container of orzo with mushrooms, onions, and cilantro, left over from a breakfast quite similar to this.

2) One hummus container of orzo carbonara which was quite accidental in its own composition: I had bought on a whim some halal turkey bacon the week before, and we were slowly working our way through it -- or rather, Brett was. Desperate to do something with the last couple of pieces, I typed turkey bacon into tastespotting.com (best website EVER) and happened upon a recipe for carbonara sauce, which I thought I'd try my hand at. It worked out pretty well, though a little too meat-ish for me :).

3) Marinated feta with roasted red peppers, garlic, herbs, and balsalmic vinegar. I am pretty sure that last Friday was Seniors' Day at Trade Fair, my friendly neighborhood grocery store. Waiting in line at the deli counter, the woman in front of me gestured to her desired cheese with a swing of her cane, and teh woman behind me, walker in grocery cart, complained loudly in an old New York accent about the crowds, the deafness of the other Trade Fair patrons, and her leg. Just as I made it to the front to ask for my half-pound of feta, a babushka-wearing grandmother walked laboriously by in the opposite direction, a traffic jam of three impatient shoppers behind her. I guess my request got mixed up in the kerfuffle, and I ended up with a pound of feta instead of a half (isn't life hard?). Remembering the deliciousness of the rather expensive Apetina feta, I cut up some of the excess feta into cubes, roasted myself a red pepper, found some herbs and black peppercorns, and dropped them all into a jar with oil and a splash of balsalmic vinegar. Every day it gets yummier!

4) A bunch of spinach just days away from going bad.

5) Half a little jar of Newman's Own tomato sauce -- after reading this article, I decided to stop buying fresh tomatoes in winter to make my own sauce. Don't know if Newman's Own is much better, but I'm hopeful.

And this is what I did with it:

I put all of the mushroom/cilantro orzo and a couple of spounfuls of the carbonara orzo into a container with the washed and torn up spinach. Then, I fished many pieces of feta and roasted red pepper out of my jar of yumminess and threw them in as well. Finally, I added a couple of spoonfuls of tomato and mixed the whole thing up. Then I ate it and was very very happy :).

Musical Retreat pt 2

2009-02-08T12:33:00.006Z

Hello dear friends, I just thought I'd show you what I have been working on recently - this is not the final drawings, not the final design, but it gives you an idea of what I'm up to. I'm drawing construction drawings at the moment, to hand over to my engineer tomorrow... Happy days!
Hope you guys are having a more interesting Sunday!

Tweets and Shelf

2009-02-01T15:13:00.005Z

I feel like my engaging with virtual communication has reached new heights: I have joined twitter, on Shane's recommendation, and also put my twitter feed on the blog. I think we should all do the same, so we can tweet directly to the blog and it'll bring it more to life. Also, I wanted to show you a close up of the shelf Else mentioned, the one depicted behind the drawing board in the previous post - it was my birthday present from my lovely man, home made! And check this, a secret room with it's own little lamp and birthday card inscribed on the wall:

Lovely.

Anyone recognize the lighthouse? :)

VOILA!

2009-01-31T16:35:00.004Z

The Result:

How To Be Happy

2009-01-31T13:43:00.002Z

I woke up this morning, looked around my messy room and felt so depressed I decided to stay in bed. But I got bored, so I looked around for something that could entertain me whilst in bed. I saw my TV, my computer, my shoddy magazine and some architectural history books. I didn't really feel like in engaging in any of these activities, but (seeing as I was feeling pretty lethargic) I turned on the TV to get entertained. Daytime TV is no friend of mine, I soon realized, when I looked through the channels and the most decent thing I came across was one of those nanny shows where a big fat British woman goes to visit an American family to teach them a thing or two about child-minding. Well, I watched it for a while and it just got me more depressed, because the nanny was an absolute power-loving idiot. I did, however, start thinking about how that show is not so much about the nanny as it is about a family needing help. So I thought to myself, "I could need a little help". Not with raising children, maybe with raising myself, or with being the person I was raised to be (I.e. someone with a positive attitude, an active life, not to mention a tidy room. Someone happy.) So I thought, where do I find a nanny? On the internet of course!
So I ventured into the world of self-help websites (WHAT? ME?), and was actually very positively surprised. Of course, most of what was written were things you have heard a million times before: "the only one who can change things is YOU", "happiness is not the same as lack of sadness", "happiness isn't always getting what you want", but I was after concrete advice on how to change things around. I found one which I thought was quite good, and i thought i should share it with you:
"Three components are essential for hope to thrive, Feldman says. They are having goals, as well as a plan and the motivation to achieve them. ... Feldman advises setting personally meaningful goals and checking to see where your hope falters — is it with the plan or the motivation?"
So, keeping this in mind (and knowing it is the motivation that is my problem), I have now made a plan of action:

1) Tidy my room (This WILL make me a happier person)
2) Doing fun things while doing it, so I don't get bored and turn the TV on again (Loud music, singing, dancing etc)
3) Reading my book to reward myself.
4) Posting pictures of it on the blog!

Ok, so now I've got a goal, a plan, and motivation, you can help be the judges of my success by popping into the blog to see when I finish my tidying!

New Hobbies

2009-01-24T20:48:00.003Z

My loves, it's been way too long. I wanted to share with you some new hobbies I have picked up/am picking up/will pick up:

1. Watching videos on the internet!!

Okay, this isn't actually a new hobby, but I wanted to share some cool videos I've seen recently:

2. Writing postcards on the subway!

This started two days ago and it is really fun. You should both expect a postcard from me soon! I got a book of Adrian Tomine cards and I have been using those :).

3. Crocheting using plastic bag yarn!

This one hasn't started yet, but it will soon. I saw this awesome tutorial on the internets, and I am ready to get rid of some of the million plastic bags Raia and I have amassed over the past months!

च्रिस्त्मस

2008-12-03T19:57:00.002Z

Why does my computer automatically do the titles in hindi?? I don't get it. Well it says "Christmas". And so I thought I would share my ultimate favourite christmas music video, it's amazing!
Oh I love the 90's:

East17 - Stay Another Day

Dow Plunges 600 Points as Recession is Declared, or, My Contribution to the American Economy

2008-12-01T23:06:00.004Z

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's official. We are in a recession.

Since we all know that the best way to improve the economy and contribute to the national well-being is to go out and SHOP, I thought I'd do my patriotic duty and share with you three different brands that I am quite a big fan of.

Exhibit A: Moleskine
Oh, Moleskine. The famous notebook of Picasso, Dali, and everyone else. So pretty. This semester, all of my notebooks were Moleskine; I spent about ten to fifteen dollars more than I would have otherwise, and it was WORTH EVERY PENNY. I also have the calendar, which comes with stickers. Stickers! And I have to admit, I coveted the calendar so violently that I bought the 2009 one in July, and have just written the dates in the notebook section in the back.

(That's right. To buy.)

Exhibit B: American Apparel
Now, although I have always labeled American Apparel as an overpriced hipster store(1), I have secretly always wanted to go shopping there. I finally got my opportunity this past Halloween when I decided to dress up as a grape, and needed a purple hoodie to complete my costume. It was a little hard to part with $40 just for a sweatshirt, but it was not at all hard to put that sweatshirt on. And now I wear it every day. Every. Single. Day.

Exhibit C: Le Creuset
Well, this is a brand that I actually do not own anything of, due to its extremely expensive nature, but one of these days, when the economy recovers, maybe...

(1) HA HA HA. I hope everyone grasps the irony of proclaiming that all of my notebooks are Moleskine and then claiming to avoid Overpriced Hipster goods.

Zeitgeist

2008-11-27T00:30:00.003Z

इन होनौर ऑफ़ एल्स'स रेसेंट तेच्नो डिस्कवरी!

2008-11-19T16:01:00.005Z

i have no idea why the title got automatically transcribed to devanagri. oh well. here's a cool video with respect to else's newfound love for electro!

On behalf of the World and other Issues...

2008-11-04T22:44:00.001Z

I cast my vote this fine morning for Barack Obama.

Good luck to all of us. Love you both!!

Is it okay to use the blog for commercial purposes?

2008-10-27T20:07:00.006Z

If you are on the hunt for entertainment of exquisite quality, I have some splendid recommendations to offer:

Dexter gives you an inside view in the nature of the notorious serial killer Dexter Morgan. The protagonist is a very sympathetic blood splatter analyst (we are about to watch an episode now).

True Blood is a series about an American village where vampires have revealed their identities to the public through mass media. The humans involve themselves in the lives of the vampires. This interaction has a number of interesting consequences...

One Hundred and One Cookbooks

2008-10-26T23:59:00.004Z

Friends,

I wanted to write a quick post to introduce you to a great source of joy in my life these days, 101cookbooks.com. After our beautiful night of stuffed peppers back in Glasgow in June, I know you will appreciate it! I'm starting to worry that I'm going to fail school because I like cooking so much. I just can't stop! Today I made chili, cornbread, and eggplant hummus. Yummy. I also went on a bike ride, and read the newspaper. Now, I guess it is time for homework.

But first, here are a few recent favorites from 101 cookbooks!

Beluga Lentil Crostini
Now, I don't know what the heck a beluga lentil is, but I did have the tail end of a batch of French blue lentils that I'd originally cooked up with onions, garlic, tomatoes, and cardamom sitting bored in the fridge, bemoaning me to do something with it. My friend Annie was having a last-night-in-America potluck, so I bought a loaf of bread, cut it into little slices which I then burned terribly, scraped the burnt bits off and put goat cheese and lentils on top, as inspired by this recipe. Both delicious and portable!

Curried Pumpkin Seeds
Okay, so I shouldn't need a website to tell me to toast pumpkin seeds. But it had never occurred to me to do it with curry, and it turned out deliciously! I actually used the seeds of butternut and acorn squash, but it's all in the same family.

Farro and Roasted Butternut Squash
I used whole wheat instead of farro, and, for lack of time, cooked the butternut squash, garlic, and onions in the wok instead of in the oven, and I was thoroughly pleased with the results! Raia and I often have huge containers of things in the fridge, and you've never seen us go through one so quickly. This is quite possibly my favorite recipe out of all of them, which is saying a lot!

Cabbage Soup
The thought of cabbage in soup made me shudder, too, but I'd had such luck with the last recipe that I thought I'd just try it. Plus, I had a huge cabbage from my CSA and I didn't know what to do with it! It turned out to be quite yummy and nourishing, perfect for the sicky I was last week. I think the most important thing is to not put the cabbage in until the very end, and the texture is actually very nice!

Thai Spiced Pumpkin Soup
My christening of my blender, just the other day! I don't have any of this Thai red curry paste, but I put in chilli paste, chilli powder, and paprika-seasoned salt instead, and I thought it was extremely good. Raia and our friend Brett and I ate this along with apple-radish salad and spiced cider, and then we really knew that fall was here!

Well, today I was cooking from imagination, but my next plan is Pepita Salad. 'Tis the season! What are you guys cooking these days?

Book

2008-10-26T19:16:00.002Z

I decided to write a book, mostly for therapeutic reasons, but maybe one day it'll be a book.
Much love

A Peek Into the Slinning/Panagidis Residence or Need to Take Pictures of the Ever So Tidy Room

2008-10-25T13:46:00.008+01:00

My bedroom

My desk

Our love for Venn-diagrams

2008-10-22T10:17:00.003+01:00

Shane has inspired us to utilize venn-diagrams as a tool to analyze our social reality. I thought it might be stimulating to get a debate going on the venn-diagrams presented in this post. Response to the following questions would be highly appreciated (as a comment or even a whole blog post):

(a) Which of these venn-diagrams can you best relate to your own life?

(b) In the diagram you chose in (a), what does A, B, possibly C represent? Are they people, emotions, thoughts, institutions etc.?

(c) In the venn-diagram you chose, what is happening in the overlapping area?

(d) Do you miss an alternative of mutually exclusive circles?

(or you can just write something else)

Have a good day cartoonish cute one and shane shane shane (like in the song "shane, shane, shane, shane is cool" my brother still sings this song pretty much every time I see him)!

Blog Activity

2008-10-16T16:45:00.002+01:00

Hello friends, just showing a little sign of life here on the World and Other Issues.

LETS BUILD STRAW BALE HOUSES!

Ps, check out Knits'N'Bobs!

2008-10-05T11:13:00.005+01:00

My new blog with Naomi!
(There is too much blood in my alcohol stream, remember?)

Click here to check it out. It's only up since yesterday, so no harsh critiques please, hehe.

Can I call you Joe?

2008-10-04T13:55:00.002+01:00

how endearing!!!

For the Number Hungry

2008-10-04T00:30:00.010+01:00

One of those posts that won't get any comments, because it's not about fashion. Except, wait, no, OMG! Sofie! Today I found the exact same H&M skirt that you got on Colaba Causeway on the way back from project week, that Barbara also had, the peachy colored one, at a thrift store in my neighborhood! It was amazing!

We could also discuss Sarah Palin's outfit at the debate last night, because what I really wanted to talk about was politics.

Check out the garish American flag pin. Ew.

Anyway, the debate last night, my mom and I agreed, was HILARIOUS, especially the part where Palin was like, "OMG, you love Israel? I love Israel too!" No, seriously. The exact quote was, "I'm so encouraged to hear that you love Israel too." Kumbayah, my lord, kumbayah. Unfortunately, she didn't sound quite as dumb as I had hoped, and her blatant untruths make good sound bytes, especially for those not poised at the lap top, madly Googling every exaggeration or outright lie.

This has to be short, but I'll leave you with this chart that my dad put together. Maybe these numbers are more eloquent than any argument I could ever make:

Musical Retreat

2008-10-01T21:10:00.004+01:00

My new project brief for this term is to design a musical retreat in Glenluce, Dumfries & Galloway in the south of Scotland, on a site adjacent to the ruins of the old Glenluce Abbey.
It is meant to be a building which offers a "sanctuary" for twelve young musicians and three resident musicians who run the retreat. Seeing as the main aspect of third year is to become aware of environmentally friendly strategies, the site for the retreat is very remote and does not have access to any electricity grid, meaning it needs to be completely self sustaining in terms of heating, lighting, ventilation etc. A pretty "daunting task" as my tutors like to call it, but very interesting and completely in tune with my aspirations as an architect! Of course, also, telling me to design a musical retreat is like sticking a big, fat lollypop into my mouth, seeing as i once was an aspiring violinist (hehe) who used to go to orchestra camps in the summer time. I should pick it up again, considering my knowledge of the violin is pretty much limited to the level of this:

Also, the fact that I did my summer project on sounds is quite appropriate!
I LOVE THIS BRIEF!

In school we are underway with a lecture series with the title "retreat", looking at monasteries, churches etc, and also spas, hotels and the like. Today's lecture was on the "retreat as workspace", and we did a little historic tour of the working spaces of Le Corbusier, Heidegger and George Bernard Shaw. So far, it seems that a huge part of "retreating" is spending time in a pretty austere environment - monasteries and little huts in the mountains. I am quite interested in hearing your thoughts on retreat!
Also, the activities that happen in this building give a lot of meaning to the theme of retreat, seeing as the making and playing of music is definitely quite a sanctuary in its own right.

MANY challenges are coming my way though, in terms of technical strategies for a completely self sustaining building. I intend to start the project with the environmental issues safely planted in my head before i dive into the pool of options of forms and "stylistic language". I was thinking maybe you guys have some keen opinions on sustainability and building that you might want to share with me!

I'll end this post with a picture from one of my favorite buildings, the Mortensrud Church in Oslo by Jensen and Skodvin. Designed within a very strict budget, but so beautiful! This will definitely be one of my major inspirations for this project:

Please share your thoughts on a Sustainable Retreat!

Insane-o Crazy Fashion Discovery, or Foot Fetish v2.0

2008-09-30T03:05:00.004+01:00

As you may already know, over here at Perspective Heaven, we have a passion for fashion (as well, incidentally, as silly rhymes). I have recently acquired a pair of stirrup leggings, and have been wearing them with pride and joy.
Now until very recently, I was under the impression that my fabulous new stirrup leggings were rather unique, more 80's jazzercise (which is awesome) than NYC hipster (which I guess is awesome too, in a different way). However, I seem to have been mistaken, because the other day down at NYU I saw three separate people wearing stirrup leggings! All, incidentally, were wearing them without socks, which supports my earlier hypothesis re: attractiveness of the exposed plane of flesh on the top of the foot. Anyway, I decided to do a little research, and look what I found:
Mary Kate and Ashley designed them! Neiman Marcus is selling them! OMG! So, SHOCKING FASHION DISCOVERY OF THE SEASON: stirrup leggings are in! Fashionistas of the world (and other issues), take note.

(Post on Greek Mythology to come soon.)

God of Wine

2008-09-27T11:34:00.002+01:00

My first post in the greek mythology series will be dedicated to the God of Wine (because we all love it so much), Dionysus.
Dionysus was also the patron deity of agriculture and theatre, and was often known as "The Liberator", promoting freeing one from one's normal self by means of madness, ecstasy or wine. His Roman parallel was Bacchus, here depicted by Caravaggio:

Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, a human mistress (and the daughter of king Cadmus of Thebes).
When Hera, Zeus' wife, found out about Semele's pregnancy, she decided to befriend her to get to know the real truth and manipulate Semele. Semele indeed confided in Hera, and was fooled into asking Zeus to show himself before her in all his godliness, to prove his status.
Semele begged and begged for Zeus to do this, and when he finally did, draped in thunder and lightning, she died because humans were not meant to see the gods without disguise.
Zeus hurried to rescue Dionysus out of Semele's womb, and sewed him into his own thigh. A few months later Zeus gave birth to Dionysus on the island of Ikaria.

The stories about Dionysus are plenty, so I will just encourage you to read about them here

Apparently he loved traveling, and at one point he went to India and didn't want to leave. Much like us, hehe.

There was also a list of names deriving from Dionysus which I found quite interesting:

Dion, Deon, Deion, d'Eon
Denise (also spelled Denice, Daniesa, Denese, and Denisse)
Dennis, Denis or Denys (including the derivative surnames Denison and Dennison)
Denny
Nis (as of the Nordic surname Nissen)
Nils (Nicholas is another origin)
Dénes (Hungarian)
Bacchus (Roman)
Dionisio, Dyonisio (Filipino), Dionigi (Italian)
Διονύσιος, Διονύσης (Dionysios, Dionysis; Modern Greek)
Deniska (diminutive of Russian Denis, itself a derivative of the Greek)

NILS!!!

Imagine having one hundred eyes...

2008-09-18T17:32:00.004+01:00

Darling readers (especially Shane and Sofie), here comes a post from a ghost. Ha ha, that was a completely spontaneous rhyme, which made a lot of sense in this context. I have been a blog ghost and for that I am sorry. I’m not going to make promises of writing every week from now on etc., but I WILL try to be a better blogger now that summer is gone and everyday life is back, which tends to include more internet time. Shanes’ philosophizing in the facebook-video made me realize and re-remember how inspiring and perspective-enhancing our communication from our different parts of the world is, and that I don’t want to be the blog-pooper (?).

Perspective heaven, it’s time to talk about Argus: my favourite Greek mythology character (credits to the Norwegian wikipedia site).

Argus Panoptes was a huge monster, with one hundred eyes covering his entire body (pan=many, optes=eyes). As we all probably know, Zeus – the king of the greek gods and the god of heaven and thunder – was a god with numerous feminine sexual acquaintances. One time Hera, who was Zeus’ very jealous wife, made Argus guard one of Zeus lovers. Zeus did of course not approve of this and Asked Hermes (the messenger of the gods and the god of trade and music) for help. Argus always used to let some eyes sleep while keeping some awake. In this way he could see all day and all night, letting nothing come past his vision. Hermes however had his silver flute, which had the power of putting things asleep instantly. He played his flute in front of Argus, and Argus’ hundred eyes fell asleep all at the same time (some versions say that Hermes put Argus to sleep with boring talk). This gave Hermes the opportunity to cut off the poor monsters' head, so that Zeus could have access to his mistress.

Later, Hera took all of Argus eyes and put them on the feathers of the peacock.

This story explains the expression “argus eyes” and well as why peacocks’ feathers have eyes on them.

Worries, Hockey, and Arugula

2008-09-03T03:48:00.006+01:00

Dear Friends,

There's been some silence from my end on this blog too! I suppose no longer being unemployed in San Francisco has something to do with it. Anyway, it's school time again, but there was a wonderfully full and fun month in New York beforehand, and I'm confident that this year will be just as full and as fun, if a little bit more of the former than the latter.

Anyway, as maybe you know already, I worry a lot. Much of the time, it's unwarranted, but sometimes, it's warranted. I hate it when it's the latter case. These days, I've been worrying quite a bit.

I went to Toronto right before school started, which was lovely; before I left, I planted beets, carrots, arugula, lettuce, and chives in little milk crates in my front yard, a fall vegetable garden! (I planted them in the crates because of the possibility of lead contamination in the soil, which I have yet to send for testing.) When I got home, a mere four days later, they had already begun to come up. As I told you both, and as I wrote on my new Official School Blog (which is exciting but which will never replace Perspective Heaven), I took this as a good omen for the new school year. I think it was, because I biked all the way to school and back the next day without almost getting hit by a car even once.

But these days, Hurricane Gustav has struck quite mightily, and my poor little vegetable sprouts are drowning. I should have just taken them inside, but I didn't think of it in time. And the problem with calling something a good omen is that when it changes, you begin to think of it as a bad omen. As the rain pounded down yesterday, I watched Sarah Palin's RNC speech on Youtube. She's a good speaker; she was sarcastic, funny, and confident. I understand her appeal, to a certain demographic.

She's also a fucking psycho: believes that Creationism should be taught in public schools, is against abortion even if the mother is a victim of rape or incest or both whose life is in danger, supports off, has an environmental policy "so toxic it would make the incumbent, George Bush, blush," is gun-happy and (obviously) pro-war, and promotes converting gay people to heterosexuality through the power of prayer. Et cetera.

It's obviously a very particular demographic she appeals to; the very demographic Obama has so offended with his arugula and bitter comments (the latter of which Palin alluded to in her RNC speech, predictably). I think the question is just how important that demographic is going to be in this election, and that, I suppose, is the million dollar question. It was certainly important in the last election. A little shining hope I have, though, is that it's been very clear from the start that Obama has been mobilizing people to vote who have never voted before, people who have felt so disenfranchised by American society that they didn't consider it worth their time to show up at a polling booth. We have a very low voter turn-out rate, after all, comparable to India's at the time of Independence when something like 70% of the population was still illiterate!! So the demographics of the American voting pool are changing, with this election. I hope they change enough.

Sometimes I wonder if in my worry, I might be committing the same Obama-esque elitism and underestimating a great many people in small towns across America. I mean I'm from San Francisco, I live in New York, and I grow arugula in my own garden! I hope that I am, and come November, the majority of the country will see that this woman, whether you agree with her policies or not, is in no way fit to be one heart attack away from the most powerful position in the world. But I don't know. Unfortunately, Simon Woods agrees with me, and there are also letters like this one, which strike me as particularly ominous:

To the Editor:
Many of us who feel that Hillary Rodham Clinton was treated very poorly by the Democratic National Committee and Barack Obama’s campaign are delighted to see Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as John McCain’s choice for vice president.
And yes, we are voting for Mr. McCain, because even though we are Democrats, we do not feel represented by the Obama-Biden ticket. There are 18 million voters who just might share this thought.
Joaquin Etcheverry
West Palm Beach, Fla., Sept. 1, 2008

We'll see, I guess. I miss India a little bit (like always), so I'm going to go eat Maggi and watch Monsoon Wedding. Love you guys.

Silence

2008-07-27T22:51:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends and Other Readers,

I apologize for the major lack of blogging lately. I am working 9 - 5 every day, and when I'm not, I tend to stay in the sun, where there is no internet.
Also I guess the fact that we all met up in early June sort of caused the blog to get a bit superfluous for a while, considering we debated the world and other issues pretty much around the clock for a whole week. But now the longing for the good conversation has kicked in yet again, ironically because I was sitting outside my aunt and uncle's summer house where I am staying at the moment, alone, listening to the extreme silence of the waves hitting the shore a couple of meters away.
I love the silent sounds but I also love the good conversation.

I have been thinking about this lately because I have a summer project for school where I have to record how an interior changes from sunrise till sundown based on some external (environmental) factor and I decided to analyze sounds. It was amazing how sitting in my boathouse listening for a whole day made me realize that there are silent-sounds and noise-sounds. Like birds are silent sounds because they're always there, like the water against the boats, like the wind in the trees. Unlike the construction work our neighbors are doing at the moment and my mum's footsteps on the floor above, the noise-sounds.

Anyway, what do you think girls, do you listen to things? Like the cars on the street outside your flat, do they make silent-sounds or noise-sounds?

Here is my noise laboratory:

Shane Crochets

2008-06-30T03:40:00.003+01:00

maroon&green peek-a-boo, originally uploaded by shanecrochets.

Well, I guess you already knew that; as Else and I recalled, I typed that very phrase into her cell phone the infamous night of "There's too much blood in my alcohol stream!" Anyway, all the delightful crocheting I did in the UK with you guys, as well as my current unemployment, has prompted me to take my hobby to the internet, and now I have started a new crochet blog for myself. I have also started a shop on Etsy, but so far, so bad. We'll see though. I guess it just takes some time, and in any case, it doesn't hurt to put things up there!
So I just wanted to share that. It most definitely does not mean that Perspective Heaven isn't my first love, though, just to clarify. And you should let me know what you think about the crochet blog and shop!
Love love.

Travel Guides for the Lost!

2008-06-27T04:48:00.002+01:00

Once upon a time, Sofie and I dreamed of creating our own guide to India. We wrote it on notebook paper in Varanasi, beginning, most logically, with Paud.
Now, as I have told Else on Skype today, a friend of my dear friend Emily is going to spend next year in Pune! So I have excitedly scribbled this out for her:

pune - Upload a Document to Scribd

It's a little unclear, because such is my spatial awareness and memory, but it was so fun and I thought maybe it would be fun for you guys to see it! Additions? Corrections?

Artemis, or, All about my Sister

2008-06-26T03:48:00.002+01:00

Remember when we were going to make a series of posts about Greek mythology? I think we still should. Therefore, today's post is going to be about Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, and also about my sister, Jil, because it was her birthday on Monday and I'd like to celebrate her, and also because if Jil were a Greek goddess, she would be Artemis.Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto (a daughter of the Titans and one of Zeus' many lovers), and the twin sister of Apollo. She was all about contradiction: the goddess of the hunt, she spent her days chasing down animals and killing them, but was also considered their protector. This was a role she took seriously; for example, after Agememnon killed a stag in her sacred grove, she punished him by stalling his ships on their way to Troy and forced him to sacrifice his daughter in order that they might sail. More contradictory still, Artemis was a vehemently virgin goddess, yet was also worshiped in cities as a goddess of fertility and goddess of fertility and childbirth. Even in within the realm of the latter, she's paradoxical -- she's the protector of women in childbirth, but it's said to be her arrows that shoot them down when they die in labor.
Why is my sister like Artemis? Well, I guess she's contradictory too -- anyone interesting is. Artemis was the goddess of purity and, while hunting, she ran a lot, and Jil has recently embarked on a mission of purity that involves a lot of running. She's trying to detoxify herself in order to spend two months hiking through the New Zealand wilderness in the fall. According to pantheon.org, Artemis' "main vocation was to roam mountain forests and uncultivated land." Sounds like Jil alright.
But enough about Artemis. More about my sister. One thing you should know about my sister is that she's HILARIOUS. Cases in point:
1. Last winter, we were driving home from Lake Tahoe. My dad and I were sitting in front of the car and Jil was sitting in the back, filling out university applications. She was a little frustrated: "Fuck college!" she said. "It's not like I know my GDP or shit!"
2. A few days ago, my sister and I were in Santa Barbara visiting my grandfather. We were at the graveyard, looking at my grandmother's tombstone. My grandfather stood on the empty patch next to it and said, "Well, this is where I'm going to be buried." "Oooh!" said Jil. "Let's take before and after photos!"
3. That evening, my sister and I were hanging out at my aunt's house. I was sitting on the couch, crocheting, and she was lying on the bed with her legs up against the wall. She told me to think of a topic of conversation, and I asked what she wanted to talk about. "I don't know," she said. "Honestly, I'm only thinking about one thing right now." "What's that?" I asked. She replied: "How FUCKING tan my legs look against this wall!"
4. It's Pride week in San Francisco right now, and Jil was trying to convince me and her friend Cristina to accompany her to the dyke march this coming Saturday. "Come on, Cristina," she said. "I know my calculus. It says YOU + ME = DYKE."

Notes from the CSD

2008-05-26T14:38:00.002+01:00

Hello my loves!

This is just a small note to let you know that I've been slowly posting notes about my experience at the sixteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development up at the blog of Real Food New York, in case some of you might be interested in hearing about it. They're pretty dry, but interesting nonetheless!

I'm in London; I absolutely love it. That's all for now.

Book Club?

2008-05-10T23:32:00.002+01:00

Hello dear girls, I cannot believe I am only 20 days from seeing the two of you.
I was just browsing through the blog and I came across a blog post where Else suggested reading the same books, and I was wondering if we should start it now, and what books you guys suggest...

I hand in my project on monday, cannot wait.
More pictures will come, although most of my drawings are done by hand, so the ones uploaded will inevitably be slightly more lacking in personality, feel and tactility.

Bharatanatyam Centre Nearly Finished!

2008-05-06T11:57:00.004+01:00

And Andrew is the happy picnic tourist!

A Wee Sun Dance in the Form of Pictures

2008-05-05T21:53:00.006+01:00

Let summer arrive!

Fashion?: The Sequel

2008-04-30T18:02:00.004+01:00

Dear friends and other readers (who are of course also friends).
I have been surfing around the blog world for a while now, and i am always surprised by how many good blogs are out there. It seems though, that the ones i like the most are always picture blogs, and most often fashion picture blogs. so, considering I cannot contribute anything of my own wardrobe to that cause of looking good and being well dressed, I will contribute to the world of fashion blogging with some pictures i took of my personal fashion guru, David (well known for uttering frases such as "I love animals, but I love fur more' and 'isn't this just sooo equestrian chic?' in a ringing Northern Irish accent):

Sisters in arms

2008-04-27T00:19:00.002+01:00

When you finally sit down to write a blog post to your dear friends, and the world, it is quite disconcerting to discover that you do not have an issue that you are truly eager to put out there. I am apologetic that I’ve been a lousy contributor to our cyber community. I have been thinking that I should write around the issue of the Olympics in Beijing, from my little Amnesty point of view. But then I thought the media covered that in such depth, that I didn’t feel like it after all. And then there are all sorts of issues that you think you could say a word or two about, but no. Well, the truth is that I am not entirely sober in this authoristic moment (world spelling does not approve of “authoristic” but I like it. What do you think?).

My parents are visiting in Tromsø this week. They both lived here in the seventies. 70’s! Tromsø is actually where my parents met each other, and then got engaged and moved to Mandal (my father’s home town. This night he proclaimed the seven reasons why he left Tromsø for Mandal). So, in the occasion of visiting me, my parents are living with their old friends from the days back then. This night, and then night before, we had dinner and wines with these old friends, and I got a deeper acquaintance with my parents youth-life. What comes forth (which I already know) is that my parents were so politically engaged. And so engaged in general! And while sitting there as the little child and bystander (who is about the same age as the one they are reminiscing about), I feel like a vital potential hardly exhausted. Is this because my youth is not taking place in the 60’s and 70’s, or is this because this generation/individual (me!) is dull? I want to be out there on the parole. But can I do better than for example engage in Amnesty international, when the political parties are more and more “catch-all” parties as the political scientist like to call them? I guess I want a discussion going back to the broad lines of how we can make a contribution to changw this ever worsening world (outside from doing our recycling, fair-trade ++ micro scale efforts)! Shall we go political comrades?

Pimp My Blog!

2008-04-20T22:09:00.000+01:00

Ok, so it might just be that I am suffering from severe procrastination syndrome, but what better to do in such a situation than revamping the blog!?

Hit me with your appraisal or hatred, I shall try and accommodate for everyone's opinion; this is after all the Democratic Republic of the World (And Other Issues).

Much love.

fashion?

2008-04-20T20:13:00.001+01:00

today i read an article on dagbladet.no about the young, up and coming fashion bloggers of norway, and i must admit i was a little tempted by the idea of starting a fashion blog. maybe a nicely sarcastic one like www.gofugyourself.com, or just a nice little thing of inspirations. so i looked through my photos to see if this was feasible.

clearly not:

Bad Music

2008-04-17T04:20:00.000+01:00

So, as you all may know by now, on Saturday my poor little computer had a bit of a catastrophe (no one knows why!) and when it finally woke up in the hospital, it couldn't remember shit. As in, there's not a note of music in my iTunes library anymore. Therefore, I have been using the "Shared Library" dealio that iTunes have, and I have discovered that I have really truly disgusting taste in music. Like really really terrible, I would never own this crap awful (actually I think I used to own some of it); I LOVE IT!!

Highlights include:
1. Gasolina (Daddy Yankee)
2. Dhoom Machale (?)
3. Wonderwall (Oasis)
4. All the Things She Said (Tatu)
5. Girl's Not Grey (AFI)
6. Does your Mother Know? (ABBA)
7. Sk8er Boi (Avril Lavigne)

What are your favorite awful songs?

the new oslo opera house

2008-04-15T19:09:00.000+01:00

dear friends, now that we have discussed issues of both smell and olympic torch relays, i feel it is time for me to get into my field and discuss a little architecture.

the occasion is the opening of the new opera house in oslo, designed by norwegian architects snohetta (picture from saturday's opening galla)

following the opening of this massive new opera house comes, of course, much debate about whether we need an opera house, whether everybody should pay for the opera house (it is financed through taxes and cost approximately 4 billion norwegian kroner, or approx. 800 million dollars.) etc.

it is built in the harbour area of bjorvika in oslo, in front of the central station (when seen from the sea), and takes on the shape of an iceberg rising from the water. this whole area is one that is under development at the moment (anthony is doing his thesis project on the site right next to it, designing a new ferry terminal and hotel). i find it quite astonishing that, from what i can deduce from the debate pages on www.dagbladet.no, nobody seems to understand the importance of this building in terms of regenerating this area.

to enlighten you a bit more, the area around the central station has always been a major hang out spot for the drug addicts and hookers of oslo (the drug addicts have moved elsewhere after a government initiative was implemented a while back, but the hookers were definitely lined up two weeks ago when me and anthony went for an evening walk down there) and whereas most of the motorways in oslo are underground in tunnels, at this tricky place the road comes back up from the tunnel and separates the whole harbour area from the rest of the city.

in order to make the opera house work they have built a pedestrian bridge over this motorway, connecting the opera to the central station.

having studied issues like this in my "built environment" lectures, i found it incredibly interesting when anthony took me down there a couple of weeks ago. the whole area is rather cut off from the rest of the city, which was clear to me because it took an englishman doing his thesis to drag me down there (i had never been before, and i am from there. uhoh.)
i have since developed a burning interest in the development of the harbour area, because it is one where nothing has been done for years and years and there is so much land which has been left derelict because of this incredibly disruptive motorway (and also the train lines from oslo central).
i am very excited to learn from anthony that work has already started on building a tunnel for this road to go in. there is also a project called the "barcode" which will be a business park of high rise buildings organized in a "barcode" way behind the opera house. the first one has already been built and i happen to think it is an excellent building.

so i guess my concern is that people only seem to think of this as a building which has cost way too much money for everyone that is not going to use it (the common man doesn't go to the opera etc, but in fact let's say we have 4 million people in norway, so if you do the maths the opera will, if it stands for 100 years, cost each of us about 4 kroner pr year. which after all is pretty much the price of half a pack of bubblegum), but i think most people fail to see the real point of this. not only is it the first time in YEARS that a major new cultural building has been erected in oslo (i believe the last one was the national theatre in 1899), but it is also oslo's very first landmark building which will undoubtedly speed up the process of the urban renewal of oslo's harbour which it so badly needs.

also, i have real doubts that it will only be used for opera - rock concerts are already scheduled.
also, (again) i've already immensely enjoyed this building simply by walking around it and taking it in. also, the installation in the lobby by olafur eliasson is VERY nice.

On a lighter note...

2008-04-10T21:15:00.000+01:00

One thing I have been struggling with recently is the concept of perfume. My roommate feels the need to spray it all over herself, and it is a very sweet and jarring smell to wake up to. I don't quite understand why she wishes to change the way she smells, because she bathes regularly and has pretty good hygiene habits, but I guess that's her business and none of mine.

I had attributed it earlier to the fact that my roommate is kind of a "fashion diva," by which I mean she has about twenty pairs of shoes in a nice straight line under her bed, and a cacophony of shiny, flimsy material in her closet. It's pretty admirable the way she puts herself together; it kind of makes me feel like a hobo.

But it turns out that this smell-changing phenomenon of changing one's natural smell doesn't stop at my roommate, and that's why I've decided to write about it. The other day I was cramming myself into a crowded elevator (as usual, for that is the way of NYU) on my way to class when a wall of musky cologne seemed to wash over me. This was a boy! And he did not seem like a "fashion diva" at all. Intriguing...

So, let us delve into the concept of changing one's scent! As I was saying, it's something I don't quite understand. I mean, I use deodorant, but other than that I don't really smell like anything, at least not anything I can detect. I've tended to quite like the unadulterated smell of the boys I've dated (maybe it has something to do with why we dated?), and been off-put by boys wearing perfume. We're animals, after all, and we learn a lot about each other and our potential compatibility from the way we smell.

That's my side of the story, anyway. I think I need to interview my roommate to get the other side of the story, because if I remember correctly, neither of you guys alters your smell, either. Readers? Scientists?

speechless.

2008-04-07T12:37:00.000+01:00

so, after huge protests in london yesterday, the olympic torch relay has come to a finish in paris, with the torch actually being extinguished and transported though the streets on a bus rather than by foot.

i was sat in my bed yesterday, watching the bbc news from under my array of green, yellow, blue, red and white flags, following the torch on its way from a modest ceremony at some stadium to the streets to stop by gordon brown back to the streets and finally back into some other stadium. i am really torn about this. is it right for the olympics, the ultimate arena for peaceful (though rather sweaty) interaction between nations, to become the ground for political conflict? or is that just what the olympics should be; a way of highlighting relevant issues and pushing for change?

i am excited that the whole world seems to be engaged in this issue (except for inhabitants of beijing, it seems, answering with questionmark-like faces when asked by a bbc reporter yesterday about the protests in london) but also i am sad that the olympics have become an arena for world politics rather than sport.

as an avid olympics fan, who at 11 woke up in the middle of the night for two weeks in february 1998 to catch the action in nagano, i remember when the torch relay passed my house in 1994, how excited i was, and how proud we all were to organize the olympics. lucky for us our government was not torturing and depriving the lapps of their culture at the time.

thank god for the deserved publicity the tibetans struggle is getting.
i'm just upset it took the flame of the olympic torch with it.

The World in the Most Obvious Pictures

2008-03-08T19:53:00.000Z

The other night, Ola & his friend Gautam were passing through New York on their way to Spring Break in Brazil (bitches). Over some over-priced hookah, we got to talking about national stereotypes, and I mentioned the photo to the right that Else had posted on Facebook that was just stereotypical Norway, in my mind. I described it and Ola said, "Yeah, that would be like the very first photo if you looked up 'Norway' on Google Images." Thus the idea for this blog-post was born (actually it was Gautam's, originally). So here are the first pictures, excluding maps and flags, that you find when you type in the names of the following countries.

Norway: The real one.

Uzbekistan: My friend Adam and I gave each other assignments over winter break to each research a country; he was supposed to learn about Switzerland and I Uzbekistan. We didn't really follow through, at least I didn't, so now I am -- visually! Now this is random.
Our Beloved Mother India: Gee, this one's a shocker.
Mali: The Mosque of Mud.
Yemen: Wow that blond woman is really a good Samaritan.
Ecuador: Now that I'm not so exhausted, I see that it really is a stunningly beautiful country.
Brazil: In honor of our intrepid friends. Oh man they are going to have an awesome time -- this comes up even before the map or flag!Samoa: There's a place in Humboldt County (Northern California) called Samoa, because so many Samoans live there, or they used to anyway. They have a cookhouse for lumberjacks, and I ate breakfast there once, even though I'm actually not a lumberjack. Not to be confused with this Samoa, the real Samoa.
Lichtenstein: Poor little guy. I actually had to search "Lichtenstein country" because when you type in Lichtenstein, all that comes up is the art of Roy Lichtenstien (which is, after all, amazing in its own right).
U.S.A.: Last but not least, the land of the free and the home of the brave. You have to wade through a number of flags to get to this one, but OMG. Thanks for representing me to the internets, lady!

**Amendment!!!**
Switzerland: Looks like Adam did his research too!

the glory of the story

2008-02-26T22:29:00.000Z

I think most of us in the prosess of growing older gradually uncounsciously supress the creative part of our intellect. Meaning that we don't use the ability to make up stories as much as we did as children. I've started working as a substitute kindergarden assistent! It's stressful and tiresome but gives so much energy at the same time. And the other day when I was there I became aware of how the children constantly made up random little stories with no connection to reality. Do you make up stories? Should we write some stories on the blog?

My nerves are wracked, or, Last election post for awhile I promise

2008-02-05T04:19:00.001Z

For those of you who don't obsessively check my Facebook:Just thought I'd put that out there. One last time. And we'll deal with John McCain when the time comes.

Ann Coulter: Hillary is "absolutely more conservative" than John McCain

2008-02-01T19:10:00.000Z

Okay, so dramarama, brazenly conservative pundit Ann Coulter has come out and said that if it comes down to John McCain vs. Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton is the best choice for Republicans. Why? Because she's "absolutely more conservative" than he is! But what about all of that business about nationalizing health care and pulling out of Iraq? Coulter doesn't thing she actually will -- "she's running in a Democratic primary," after all, so what else would she say? Coulter reminds us of Clinton's Bush-like answer to a debate question as to what she would do if three cities were attacked: "I will find who did it, and I will go after them." (Sound familiar?) So, not only would Ann "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans" Coulter vote for Hillary Clinton, she would campaign for the former first lady.

ZOMG. I think this says a lot about Mrs. Clinton and her... broad-based appeal?

in response to brazilian militia woman

2008-01-30T16:35:00.000Z

Obamarama, or, Shane Comes Out in Support of a Candidate

2008-01-29T20:58:00.000Z

Well guys, it's time. I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe I'm not quite as high-profile as Oprah, eloquent as Toni Morrison, politically descended as Caroline Kennedy, or Democratically iconic as her uncle, but I'm joining them all in supporting Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. Maybe you would like to know why. Maybe not. Either way I'm going to tell you.

First of all, consider the alternatives. I used to like John Edwards based on what I had read about his past as well as his humility to admit that he had been wrong to support the Iraq war, but he's basically not in the race anymore and in any case, he hasn't said or done anything to particularly impress me since I've begun following the election more closely. I don't trust Hillary Clinton, not one teeny little bit I don't. In my mind, she's two-faced (or maybe more like 18-faced), dishonest, ruthless, and calculating. Of course, this is to be expected: she's a politician's politician, and besides, I hear she hasn't been a bad senator. But as David Brooks pointed out in the NYT last month, a good president has different qualities from a good senator. A good president must not only have political savvy and experience, but she/he must also have character, integrity, optimism, and a certain ability to inspire her/his people. Hillary Clinton's politics of cynicism inspire nothing but the same in me, plus more than a little bit of apathy, and I think I've got enough of those on my own.

On a more sinister note, I also think that a Clinton victory in the primary would be Christmas for the G.O.P. Compared with Obama, she has next to no support from independents, and is far more hated by Republicans. If McCain (who is the only Republican I consider to not be 100% crazy), or even Romney, wins the Republican nomination, I very well imagine many fence sitters hopping over onto the Republican side for the final election. My dad's a case study, and these fence sitters are who will, eventually, determine the next president.

Of course, Obama as a candidate is much more to me than the lesser of two evils. While I certainly do not agree with every one of his ideas and policies and do not seek to deify him (after all, he is not Correa), he seems to me to be wise, dedicated, tenacious and brave. I am impressed by what I see as his humility and integrity in this campaign; his intelligent, eyes-wide-open optimism inspires hope in me as well. Certainly, one should select a candidate based on more than personal virtue, but in many cases, the candidates' proposed ideas are very similar. Therefore, as Caroline Kennedy wrote in her now-famous NYT op-ed endorsement, "qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual."

Ability is also important, and although his detractors often try to paint him as inexperienced and therefore incompetent, I believe that Barack Obama is just as able as Hillary Clinton to function effectively as president, if not more so. Most likely more so, because not do I believe believe him to be more open-minded and ready to take advice (from an impressive team of advisers by the way), I also see him as being less entangled in the often corrupt political mess Washington can be (ie, he has fewer ties to lobbyists, has burned/built fewer bridges, etc.).

Now, as you know, I am, in many ways, a sentimental little bitch (1), but until Obama's speech following his Iowa win, I had never before cried or even gotten teary-eyed at a political speech. I mean come on. But when he thanked the Iowa voters, praising them for believing "in the most American of ideas -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it," I have to admit, my eyes got a little misty. I have never been proud of my country, my nationality. I am sure you understand. But I would like to be. I am ready to be. I am ready to support a candidate because I actually believe in him/her, not because I hate him/her less than the rest. I am ready to hope that perhaps someday we will not be a global villain, that we will be more like how we were intended to be -- a city on a hill, a global leader, or at least benign. Just to hope, because that's all I can really do, and I'm optimistic.

I remember right around when this blog got started, I wrote a post about an angel I met on the subway, who told me to follow my dreams, to hope big things; he was very inspirational and etc. But actually what really inspired me was his pragmatism: he told me that if I followed my dreams, I would most likely be disappointed, but that there was a sliver of a chance that I wouldn't be, that I would be delighted and amazed, and that that chance was worth everything. With Obama, I feel like although the odds are so terrible, there is a rather formidable sliver of chance that he'll do something amazing, necessary, and unbelievable for this country, and that chance is worth everything.

(1)Sofie remember that time when we watched A Walk to Remember and we both ended up sobbing and Cookie thought something really bad had happened?

2008, at last.

2008-01-24T15:43:00.000Z

dear friends. thank you shane & else for sharing your reflections on 2007 and your intents for 2008.

here are mine:

2007 started out on the worst note a year has ever started for me. coming back to glasgow after holidays was like coming back to prison even though all the other prisoners had been set free. oh maybe not that bad, but still pretty bad.
i watched movies a lot.
things didn't really pick up until march, when i went to the US of A to travel around and feel like i was actually alive, after all. i found i was very much alive, and the trip, even though sometimes pretty exhausting (travelling alone, buses, flights, parties, being lost on manhattan for 12 hours) was like a very much needed vitamin injection. back in glasgow, i now had a more positive outlook on life, and it so happened i made some friends and eventually even a wonderful boyfriend.
school was going well also, i was enthusiastic and did pretty well because i put in a lot of work.

summer came around and it was nice, but you know, it's a bastard.

in august, back in glasgow, i felt slightly relieved to be back "on my own".
new flat, new circumstances, clean academic slate, all that jazz. it was good. and it's remained good, except for the academic part, which has proved to be unbelieveably stressful, not because of workload but because i struggled to understand the point of my briefs, and thus all i did seemed to be in vain and i didn't like any of my designs. oh well.

but, all in all; 2007 began on a horrible note and ended on a very very good one.
i feel like i am in charge of my life again.

so, how about 2008?

well, so far i've had:

1. a good final review for my much hated and cried over design project
2. an amazing birthday party
3. few, but good friends.

2008 will bring:

1. exciting travels (going to lisbon in 2 weeks and berlin in march!)
2. shane and else in june!!
3. challenges that i will try to face positively
4. changes,
and
5. the start of my last year in school before i leave to work in an office for a year!

Sofie in 2008:

1. a good communicator (at least better.)
2. healthier.
3. more enthusiastic.
4. productive.

much love for this year, ya'll
IT'LL BE A GOOD ONE! (inshallah)

2008-01-22T22:35:00.001Z

Thank you Shane, for sharing your reflections on the year 2007, and for giving the world insights to your inspiring prospects. I also wish all readers a happy year 2008. May it be a more peaceful one.

Year 2007 was, like most years, a highly eventful year. And in order to be true to the theme of the blog I'll mention some events from the world in addition to my personal voyages: Kofi Annan was replaced as UN Secretary-General. Serbia won its first victory in Euro vision. A 2100 year old melon was discovered by archaeologists in western Japan! Gordon Brown as prime minister in the UK. An escaped tiger at the San Francisco Zoo killed one person and injured two others (Inspired by the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007). This was news to me. Anything to add to that Shane?

I personally welcomed this Chinese year of the pig - which is associated with fertility and virility - by making my last phone calls in the telemarketing company. To close that era of my life was a blessing. I lost 7 kilos the fall of 2006 because I was dreading to go to work everyday, which made me loose my appetite and almost die. So now the path was open for a year for fertility and virility. And the year of 2007 truly was exactly that for me! Not fertile in the sense of physical reproduction, but in the sense of producing new and inventive ideas. Or, at least discovering new and inventive ideas of others.

I went of to Vietnam to realize that there were beautiful people, and beauty in general, to be discovered in South-East Asia. Here the MUWCI nostalgia finally started to let go of its tight grip. I'd like to characterize this time as 'emancipation'. During this priod I also decided my plan for fall. This was a rather rushed decision, since I one night came to realize that the application deadline for Norwegian universities was in two hours! This realization came to me while I was sitting in a pub, and after I had consumed more than a reasonable amount of beers. But I still consider my choice rational.

Fall in Tromsø was characterised by 'independence and responsibility' in the sense that I found myself in the real world where one has to cook ones own food (both as a metaphor and a hard fact). Life is dialectic, and the two forces driving my life forth now was the hard challenges of the real world and the loveliness of being part of a larger framework as an individual and not a group member. And as a group member, but in a different way than before.

2008 resolutions for me:
1) (Also) to be a better communicator
2) To be an active participator in more things than before and an active people-seeker
3) To be a consumer of culture
4) To make happy plans for the future - for myself, my beloveds and for the world

Let's hear it from Sofie!

Ringing in 2008 with Perspective Heaven

2008-01-22T04:20:00.000Z

Hello world,

Fashionably late as usual, welcome to the New Year on perspective-heaven.blogspot.com!!! I'll kid myself that we have readers other than my fellow bloggers and myself(1) (actually, we do -- my dad reads sometimes) and wish you all, on behalf of Else, Sofie, and myself, a very happy and scrumptious 2008, with lots of love, footwear, and chocolate covered licorice. Mmm, chocolate covered licorice...

So New Year, dear readers, let's talk! A time for new beginnings, etc, etc, etc... On New Year's Eve, my friend Ingrid and I went with my (HIPPIE) mom and my spiritual half-(HIPPIE)-sister Kate to a raw food and Biodanza New Year's Eve celebration at this ashram (think Osho) in the Mission(2). I won't get into the details. Suffice to say, Ingrid, I, and a group of GROWN ADULTS closed our eyes, stood in a circle, put our arms around each other, and swayed like bamboo in the wind to Enya. That's right, TO ENYA. It was utterly ridiculous, but the people were nice so politely we slipped out to get drunk and robot-dance to Architecture in Helsinki. Anyway, the point is that before we got into the swaying to Enya, we all went around in a circle and reflected on 2007, giving it a characterization, and shared our intentions (aka, New Year's Resolutions in hippie terminology) for 2008. This, I thought, was productive, and I'd like to repeat the process, here, with you. I'd be obliged if you would do the same, because I think it's nice to share.

2007 for Shane:
Well I rung in 2007 with gritted teeth, on an airplane back to Ecuador. I didn't want to go back, but I was determined to; I was determined to finish the year. I eventually did, and Sir Edmund Hillary couldn't have been happier that he kept climbing up, up, up. Along the way, I met some kids I'll never forget, as blurry as they become. So my characterization of the first half of 2007 is "blessed determination".

I'll need a different characterization of the second half, which can be nothing else but "transition" -- coming back to my country to stay, then moving to an unknown part of it and trying to find myself among the Ugg boots. Also, my Grandad died, so I know it's cliche, but adjusting to my life without someone so important in it was a big transition too. I know it's cheating to use two different characterizations, but I can't not.

2008 for Shane (hopefully):
Yippee. Clean slate time! This year, I resolve to:
1. Be aware of what I am doing, why I am doing it, and to what end. Be mindful, essentially.
2. Focus more on the positive aspects of my surroundings, rather than hating and criticizing and judging everything.
3. Be a better communicator. Post EVERY SINGLE DAY on Perspective Heaven (just kidding).
4. Learn to speak French.
5. Not get herpes(3).

How about you guys? Really, please do share. I want to hear.

(1)Would Grammar Girl consider this to be a proper use of the word "myself"? I'm pretty sure, because used "I" earlier on in the sentence. Read the episode yourself. What do you think? Am I right or am I wrong?
(2)SF's Mexican neighborhood.
(3)Sorry Ingrid, I know I essentially stole your joke. But it was a good one. And I substituted "herpes" for "pregnant". Herpes is grosser.

Overgrown Frat Boys

2007-12-10T22:44:00.001Z

Does this freak anyone else out? The Republican candidates for America's presidency, at a debate sponsored by a Spanish-language TV channel -- essentially their only pro-immigration audience. Anyway, just look at them! Look at the camera angle! We look up at them, their reflections on the shiny floor make their frighteningly uniform be-suited figures look even taller. They look down at us like some sort of malevolent Big Brothers' club, promising to be Tough on Crime and eradicate social evils like gay marriage. Oh dear lord help us...

Six Reasons to Love Rafael Correa

2007-12-08T17:13:00.000Z

Maybe you guys know that Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, is the love of my life. Maybe you don't. Anyway, he was elected president last year while I was in Ecuador to the great celebration of the people around me and all over the country, minus the rich ones who would have preferred Alvaro Noboa, the wealthiest man in Ecuador and George Bush's wet dream of a presidential candidate. (I suppose there were also some badly deceived ones who voted for Noboa, because he did manage about 44% of the vote, but the point is, Correa won and decisively too.) One of Correa's main platforms was that he would call for a referendum to create a Constituent Assembly to rewrite Ecuador's constitution and reorganize its political system, because the current one obviously wasn't working -- 9 presidents in 10 years, political instability, etc. This referendum passed last April with about 80% support, which leads me to my first reason why we should all love Correa:

1. Everyone else does; at least everyone who matters (the Ecuadorian people).
Not only did the referendum he called and which had been central to his campaign get 80% of the vote, when the elections were held to form the Constituent Assembly, Correa's party, Alianza PAIS, won 74 of the 130 seats. If that is not enough to indicate that everybody loves him, check out his approval ratings: depending on where you look, from 76 to 90%!
2. He speaks four languages. (Our president barely speaks one.)
Right, so how? Born and raised in coastal Ecuador, obviously he speaks Spanish; after college he did a year of volunteer work in Cotopaxi, a Sierra province right near where I was, where he learned Quechua; he got a Master's in Belgium and also learned French; finally, he got a Ph.D. here in the little ol' USA, where English is king.
3. He stood Bush up and called a speech he made retarded.
Back in September, after my illustrious president made some apparently smolderingly offensive comments about Cuba, Correa didn't go to Bush's UN dinner, explaining that he bailed in protest of what Bush had said in his speech, that "[Bush] has no right to give such a base, retarded speech now in the 21st century." Thank you!
4. He's rather dashing.

(Photo stolen from borev.net, as well as, like, everything.)
5. He proposed that Ecuador build a military base in Miami.
Our desperately unfortunate military has been rather outraged that Ecuador is not going to let them renew their lease on an air base at Manta, on the coast, come 2009 when it expires. I mean, ridiculous -- who wouldn't want the US military in their country?! So Correa, in the spirit of compromise, announced in Italy in October, "We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorian base." Sounds fair enough to me. What do the good people of Miami say? Exactly what I would: "Absolutely YES!!!!"
6. He's way ahead of the Bali Conference.
When last April, Correa suggested that the international community help Ecuador preserve the air we all share by compensating this small, poor, relatively oil-rich country to leave the oil in the ground, we didn't hear much of it up here in Estados Unidos. (Norway, however, expressed interest, another example of how you Norwegians are more enlightened then us boorish Americans.) These days, it would seem that at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, an international carbon-trading plan called REDD is quite the hot topic. REDD is a plan, according to the New York times, that "would involve payments by wealthy countries to developing countries for every hectare of forest they do not cut down." Okay, so it's about forests, not oil, but does it sound at all familiar? Richer countries helping poorer countries save the planet by compensating them for not harvesting their natural non-resources? Too bad Correa's one of those dreadful Anti-American leftists, so he can't be in the New York Times...

things that should be blogged

2007-12-03T20:25:00.000Z

first, i need to mention a new discovery i have made. you might already know about this show.
it is called 'trapped in the closet' and it is basically a soap opera in the format of a musical. r kelly wrote it, sings it and he is the man 'trapped in the closet' who can see everything which is going on, in a fly-on-the-wall kind of narrative.
if you're in the mood for something extremely silly, look it up on youtube.
we've had a bit of a debate going on here, whether r kelly is really stupid, or really a comedy genious, or something in between that results in a really funny show. i would like to hear your opinions on the matter.

on a more serious note, i have read a book lately, called 'louis i kahn - conversations with students', and this book is made up of questions that students asked him and his answers. (louis kahn is a famous american architect).
it makes me want to be smart, and it makes me think that maybe i should have studied philosophy instead. well at least louis kahn has some great thoughts about architecture that i wish i could be smart enough to implement into my designs at some point. i especially liked this part, where he is talking about the design of a school:

'i do not think that there should be rooms designated for seminars in a row on a certain floor, because a seminar is really an inspired thing, and you hold a seminar like this one, you sit around and hold it. as soon as you make it on the second floor, with all the seminars lined up, it is no longer a seminar. there isn't the spontaneity in the back of it.'

i wish i could be a bit more philosophical in my thinking about activity, and why and where and how events happen.

else, have you read any heidegger? he is next on my reading to do list.

Foot Fetish Anyone?

2007-12-03T18:15:00.000Z

This is a hectic time of the year, and laundry has not been very high on my priority list. The situation has not become so very dire that the dirty laundry has become a teeming mass of mold as it did one monsoon in the Mulshi Valley, but it has reached the point where socks, especially tasteful ones, have become a rare luxury. This has led to some interesting anthropological discoveries.

Now, I assume you all know about the (hipster) trend of wearing cute little flat shoes with no socks and skinny jeans. It has been a sort of fall uniform at my (hipster infiltrated) school; I myself have partaken in it. To an extent: I always wear socks.

Well, almost always. Due to the current sock shortage, for a couple of days last week, I wore my cute little flat shoes with no socks (and leggings under a pencil skirt -- see, I can play the hipster game too). I was bewildered by the effects of this minute change: I got so much more attention from the opposite sex than I did with my socks on! There were boys opening doors for me, talking to me, smiling at me; I am not saying that there were so many of them, but certainly there were far more than usual. A couple of days later, my toes were cold and the socks went back on (under black wide-leg pants -- I know, I know, not quite keeping up with the hipsters). I had to open every door I walked through myself: it seems that bare feet are way sexier than socked ones.

So here are my questions:
(a) Am I imagining this phenomenon? I would like to propose a scientific experiment in which we each wear cute little flat shoes without socks for a week and then with socks for the next week, all the while systematically measuring the attention we get from stranger-boys. However, the snow has come (yesterday!) to New York, and I imagine to Glasgow and Tromso as well, so the cute little flat shoes will have to hibernate for the winter and going without socks is ludicrous. Perhaps next spring -- but then the little flat shoes won't be fashionable anymore, omg.
(b) Assuming that I am not imagining this, what is it all about? I have heard about foot fetishes, but I always thought they had to do with the overall shape of the foot. The plane of flesh left exposed by a sock-less flat is just mildly sloping, bony, and in my case, pale. I do not see how this can increase one's desirability. Then again, I also do not see how the numbers and letters my teacher is scratching on the blackboard imply a non-standard shifted ellipse. But apparently, they do.

Whatever, Asshole; or, Funny Things that Have Happened to Me at NYU

2007-12-03T17:04:00.000Z

You know, it seems I am becoming a regular old Miss Manners. I am slightly worried about how bitchy and judgmental(1) I seem to be:
- Every time I go into the lower level study area of the library, I remark disapprovingly to myself about the way people leave trash on the desks -- unspeakable, I think! I mean it is sort of a universally basic principle of EVERYTHING to clean up after oneself. Jeez.
- Last night in that lower level study area of the library I certainly did raise an eyebrow at a girl plugging her laptop into the unoccupied plug on my desk without a word to me, then just leaving the computer there with a whispered, "I'm just going to leave this here while it charges." "Okay..." I whispered back, but she was long gone. Of course, it was fine; there was no problem. Her laptop was not in my way and in any case my charger was in Brooklyn (oh absentminded me) so I wasn't going to use the plug anyway. But usually you would expect someone to ask, out of courtesy. I mean I would just never do what she did. It's amazing how much the four little words "Do you mind if..." would have changed my wrathful feelings to the Entitled Laptop Girl.
-Entitled Laptop Girl is right up there on the sneering shock scale with the time I saw a girl in one of the dining halls break off a chunk of one of the cookies on the common plate, and walk away, munching on it happily. The rest of the cookie sat there looking like a rat had munched on it, her greasy little finger prints allover it. Now this is not just disrespectful to everyone else in the cafeteria, it is gross.
-A more overt and funny form of rudeness appeared in my social work class last week, when a girl with a permanently sour expression on her face was bitching to the oh-so-sympathetic teacher (the one who says that there are eight million people in Norway) about the evil New York public school system(2): her desperately unfortunate eight-year-old brother is forced to practice cursive for "like three hours a day," and she did not see any good reason for that. I pointed out that at his age, learning cursive is also about developing motor skills not just learning an archaic style of writing. She cut me off: "Oh, I know. I'm going to school for occupational therapy. Believe me, I know." Excuuuuuuuuse me.

Aaaaagh what is going on here? It's the demise of common courtesy. Bitches.

----------------------
(1) This is an interesting word. It has two acceptable spellings! "Judgmental" is the more common one, but "judgemental" is also technically correct according to my dictionary, although the Blogger spell-check disagrees. I use them both, but I have recently started to favor "judgmental", because many people might mistake "judgemental" for a misspelling. Another word with two different spellings that I particularly like is "kerb" -- or should I say "curb"? I think that technically "kerb" is British and "curb" is American, but they are both considered correct over here. I learned this incredulously during a game of Scrabble with my dad. Now I use "kerb" exclusively (even though my Blogger spell-check continues to disagree) because I think it is cool and it is so different from the common spelling that it could not be interpreted as a simple error. Hoho, bringing back the footnotes! Sofie, remember when we got really into footnotes? And how I had like 3000 words of them on my EE?
(2)The NY public school system is, if I may add, one of the best in the country, with an average student:faculty ration of 13:1 as opposed to California's 21:1. These numbers are from my sociology teacher, who actually does check his statistics before broadcasting them.

Dance in the street

2007-12-03T17:01:00.000Z

So, what has been up beloved ones, in the big apple and in rock city? I'll start this post by trying to create a little atmophere discription of the Paris of the north. Key words are darkness, snow, northern lights and Christmas decorations. That's for the visual description. This Saturday we had a little party, (a three-people-party, so can hardly be called a party but anyway) and then we went to town to get some drinks and see some peeps. I hadn't been out for a long time because of my exams, so it was really nice. And the nice thing about Tromsø is that it's such a small town, but still kind of big, and all the pubs and bars are concentrated in one small area, pretty much. This Saturday the street was full of people everywhere and there were street musicians with accordions and guitars and everybody were dancing around in the street! That was my perception anyway, but I was slightly drunk. But people were dancing, that's for sure, and it is just so nice; darkness, snow and the warmth of people. But now it's time to travel down south again. This Saturday I'm flying to Oslo, but before I go home to Mandal I'm going to visit Sigrid and Christopher in their homes. And then comes family time and Sofie time around new years eve.

Exams aren't over yet unfortunately. This week I am writing my home exam in philosophy which is far far beyond me. So that is what I should be doing this very moment, but in stead I'm writing a rather lousy blog post which doesn't really evolve around important issues of the world. But one ting I can tell you: if you don't have one already, get yourself this device (which I don't know the name of in English) to steam milk with! It increases your life quality to have steamed milk in your coffee (especially if it is espresso coffee). But I think my coffee consumption, which has been rather extensive lately, is giving me yellow teeth.

And it you haven't guessed already – the picture is of the transsibirian railway which I definitely think we should hop on and go to India.

In a way, I am like Larry Craig

2007-11-12T02:49:00.000Z

Really, I should be studying for the mid-term exam I have tomorrow: Pre-calculus. I'm pathetic. I've only done one section of the review questions so far, and out of these questions, I've been unable to answer a good three-quarters of them! Factor this, graph that -- I can't. My brain was simply not built that way. But I'm not stupid! I'm good at other things: just now, I've been straying from the immediate math to read up for a sociology essay that's due Tuesday; I'm doing well in my social work and writing classes. No, I'm not stupid -- I'm just an utterly stereotypical girl, and it pisses me off.

(Here comes the rage: Are you saying, Shane, that girls can't be good at math? Or politics or economics or physics? No, of course not! Many are; many excel in these male-dominated fields. I don't.)

Once, our friend Jordan and I were talking about the gender composition of our respective fields of study. He studies interior design, I study social work; they are both heavily female-dominated fields. He was telling me that often, it's possible to see the difference between his designs and those of the girls in his class -- not that his are better, simply that they are different. People will look and be able to say: "A man designed that," or "a woman designed that." (I wonder if you have had that experience Sofie, and how you felt about it.) I said, "You know, it would bother me if someone looked at something I designed and was able to guess correctly my gender because of it." He said, "Really? It doesn't bother me." Hm.

Now, my mother is a staunch feminist. I am too: I use her last name as well as my father's; I know that I am as capable and entitled as any man; once I got in a fight with a guy in Chandigarh because he called me "honey" (remember Else?). I know that our cultural devaluation of the feminine is wrong! I know that traditionally female fields are just as intellectually and practically valuable as traditionally male fields! I've seen the Vagina Monologues three times! So I can't explain why it bothers me so much that in my social work class of twenty, there are no male students, and in my sociology class of about the same number, there are two. Nor can I explain why when choosing courses for next semester, I have purposely and consciously disregarded courses I find interesting that I know will be filled with girls. It's not because I want to meet guys, no! Despite my feminist consciousness, I absolutely hate it that my interests and my strengths are so stereotypically feminine.

Paula England, in an article about gender desegregation in US universities, writes about our "cultural devaluation" of all things feminine. I guess I'm a good example of its effects -- although I know intellectually that women are as smart and as capable of men, I devalue my own self and interests on basis of their femininity. I know that's bad, but I can't help it. I also feel that there are bigger issues in this world for me to think about, but it seemed particularly relevant to me after reading this article. Sofie, you're in a field I associate more with men -- what do you think? Else, what is your philosophical view point?

Back to pre-calculus, time to whip my feminine brain into shape.

Legitimate blog-passiveness (?)

2007-11-08T23:59:00.000Z

These days I am studying for my exams like a little propeller (I am more studious than ever before in my life I think)! So that unables be to spend much time blogging. But I'll come back strong in very few weeks. However, I can report that Max Weber was a nice man, Keynes is a role-model and Karl Marx was misinterpreted in many ways. Peace out dear friends - for now.

(Hannah Arendt had to join the company to compensate for the male domination)

Viva la revolucion! One tray at a time...

2007-11-07T04:32:00.000Z

I found this picture on the internet, but it could very well be taken from the downstairs dining hall in NYU's Weinstein residence hall. Every time I visit this all-you-can-eat dining hall, I am absolutely shocked at the amount of food people throw away -- slices of pizza with one bite taken out of them, melting ice cream that's hardly been picked at, hamburgers that have been ever-so- slightly nibbled. It's decadent and disgusting, and I'm truly bewildered by it. Earlier this evening, I went to a discussion on sustainable dining at NYU (part of Footprint Forward); NYU head chef Jeramie Garlick said, if I understood him correctly, that in just one NYU dining hall, students throw away about 300 pounds of food waste daily. Didn't anyone else's mother tell her not to put any more food on her plate than she thought she could eat? If we keep on like this, pretty soon we will be drowning in garbage, wading through half eaten slices of pizza to get to class and slipping on melted ice cream on our way home. Shock, shock! Horror, horror!

Seriously, though, this wastefulness is pretty darn atrocious. So what can we do about it? This weekend at the Real Food Summit, I learned that when they got rid of trays in the all-you-can-eat dining halls at St. Joseph's College, food waste decreased two to three ounces per student! It may not seem like much, but it certainly adds up. It makes sense: when you can only take as much food as you can put on one plate, you will think before going back for seconds, and be more likely to finish all that you take. The water saved by not having to wash the trays is merely the icing on the cake.
It's time for all-you-can-eat NYU dining halls to go tray-less. So simple, so subtle -- and a considerable decrease in wasted food!

I brought it up in the discussion I mentioned earlier, and Jeramie Garlick said that they had actually talked to the NYU about this idea before, but that it had been shot down out of consideration for people with disabilities who might have a hard time without trays. I do not fully understand this, but in any case it's important to take into account. However, I think it's an obstacle that could be pretty easily avoided if there were a few trays available on request behind the counter at the entrance to the dining hall where meal cards are swiped. This way, students who needed trays would be able to use them, and students who didn't wouldn't simply take them out of habit.

So this is my new plan. This is my new revolution. Maybe it is petty and insignificant, but is important to start small. Next stop: ANARCHY.

2007-11-05T12:39:00.000Z

hello friends,

yesterday i went to see elvis perkins and it was great. the venue is really small and so it was nice and intimate.
today, i am pissed off and sad and frustrated. i guess i have myself to blame, but now i'm blaiming the fucked up janitors of my school, who refused to let me in to the studio today, because it is "bank holiday" and so the school is closed. i didn't know that it would be closed, and so i had left all my drawings, my drawing board and my drawing utensils in the studio. thing is, i have my final review for this project tomorrow morning, and i fucking need those drawings!!! i tried to expain the situation, but they said no, no, no, and then i started crying and went and sat in the car while anthony tried to persuade them to let him in to pick up my stuff. then one guy said yeah, i'll let you in when the other guy comes back. the "other guy" turned out to be the one we had talked to first, and he said: "when i said no, i meant NO!" and so now i am sat in my room, trying to squeeze out one months worth of work in less than 24 hours. and what am i doing? writing on my blog. i am a loser.

but, at least i am not an authoritarian fucker of a janitor!!!

"Eating Breakfast on the Moon"

2007-11-02T17:39:00.000Z

Lately I have been quite amused by my own dreams. A few nights ago I dreamt that I was in India, but with no permission to be there, so I was constantly hiding and running form the government.

I recently made a new acquaintance with whom I had a conversation about dreams - in general. He recommended that I wrote down my dreams, since this after a while would make me able to consciously design my own dreams and thus being able to do really funky stuff; like flying. He had personally acquired this ability after keeping a dream journal for some time. The dream had to written down the moment you woke up. Not after for example eating breakfast, because then you have forgotten so much of what you dreamt that it no longer would be any use.

This morning I woke up quite puzzled by the dream I had just dreamt. I was not in the mood of getting out of bed, so I decided to write down my dream in my diary. I created a new section in my diary labelled: Dream diary. Here follows a short summary.

In my dream it was possible to visit the moon. Sigrid and I decided to go there. We packed food and clothes and flew up to the moon in a funeral casket. When we reached there we were met by Ella and one other girl. We exchanged a few words. There was no gravity on the moon, which made me scared of disappearing into the universe. Sigrid told me that the moon existed long before anything else: all the stars, the earth and the sun. On the moon there was a digital device which informed us of how far away form the earth we were. The moon (or the earth) seemed to move around fast because this number changed in the speed of the light, up and down. We ate the food we had brought with us, and then we travelled back down to earth. To get down again one person had to sit in front in the casket and put forth her arms, just like when you're diving. If you wanted to go up again, you had to stretch your arms towards the moon. I sat in front. It was fun so I kept doing this for a while, going up and down, up and down.

Back down on earth we met a big group of people, amongst them many MUWCI people, who were all talking excitedly about this new phenomenon of going to the moon. I was especially happy because I was going to make my new blog-post be about this (I thought this in the dream). I was going to call it: " Eating Breakfast on the Moon". I felt so content, because this was really going to be about the world AND OTHER ISSUES. I met Neta among all these people, but he didn't find the possibility of visiting the moon very intriguing.

Later in the dream I was required to do two assessments for some sort of educational institution; one was written and the other was practical. For the written one I handed in my blog: "Eating breakfast on the moon". The practical one was about how I handled life on a ship. I spent some days on a ship, where there was an examiner who observed the behaviour of me and the rest of the group that was also there. A few days later, when the ship had gone back to shore and the test was over, Sofie and I went to check our scores which had been put up on a board. Sofie had scored '6' in both assessments (which was out of the IB 1-7 scale), while I got an 'F' (A-F scale) in both the written and the practical! I was devastated. The examiner on the boat told me that I hadn't put the hood on my safety vest on properly and that he didn't approve of the soup I had had been drinking every day during the trip.

My ambition is to keep up the dream log, and if the theory works, maybe I'll be able to conduct miracles in the end.

so many lovelinesses

2007-10-31T00:01:00.000Z

this is very exciting indeed. i love living in glasgow.
on sunday i am going to see elvis perkins at nice'n'sleazy (a bar), and i just found out that his opening act is andrea, a guy from my class! how cool is that.
also, andrew bird is playing on monday, and beirut is playing on wednesday. should i ditch volleyball practice on monday and go catch andrew bird in the oran mor, a church turned bar/nightclub/concert venue?
wohoooo

what is going on in the further northern hemisphere and on the merry east coast of the usa?

About World War III, or, Assorted Memories

2007-10-18T02:49:00.001+01:00

It's funny because when I was little, we used to learn about World War II and pantyhose rationing and patriotic women working and the like, and I thought it seemed a little bit glamorous. Of course, it frightened me too: to imagine that my father could be drafted; to imagine that my life could become like Annemarie's in Number the Stars. But war, in general, was a far off and mystical concept, a bit like Queen Victoria. It was just another story. I never would have dreamed that my country would have gone to war within my lifetime.

Then again, it's not like I've really noticed it. It's been more than four-and-a-half years now since the usually-silent television turned on to bring us news we'd been expecting with consternation, reluctance, and dread for quite awhile: that we had finally begun our attack on Iraq. The next day, San Francisco's streets screamed; I left school at lunchtime to add my voice to the choir, to tell whomever could hear that hell, no, I wouldn't go, I wouldn't fight for Texaco. Then I went home to the suburbs for supper, and my life went on. It's been four-and-a-half years and I haven't heard a single air-raid siren, thank god. No one's been drafted; I don't know anyone, closely, who's in Iraq. Much less anyone who's died there. My food has not been rationed, nor has my pantyhose (not that I wear pantyhose), no! On the contrary! We've been told to buy more, more, more: after all, the way the common man can support the war effort is to Keep America Open for Business. Is this wartime life?

I guess if I were from Baghdad and not San Francisco, I'd have a pretty different story. My contributions to this blog would probably be a little bit less along the lines of "so like omg the other day on the elliptical machine..." and a little bit more along the lines of, "We then decided it was time to go out and wait for dad. On our way downstairs we heard a loud explosion, seemed like a close bomb car. We went out and saw the smoke, everybody was saying the explosion was in region A, exactly where I'd usually wait for dad." And maybe if my life were like that I would feel a bit more like the people in this video, and maybe if I felt so invaded and subjugated and angry, I would really resent someone like me.

But that's not the point. (Coherence has never been my forte; anyway this is perspective heaven, not the IB.) The point is that we Americans, even those of us who spend all their time reading the New York Times on the internet, have no real tangible sense of being at war. It's rather unfathomable, so headlines like "Bush: 'World War III' Possible If Iran Goes Nuclear" are more than just slightly surreal. World War III. It sounds like a bad science fiction novel. Listen to my illustrious president: "I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." And how might we prevent that, Mr. President? If weapons of mass destruction can be found, so can "knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon". If war with Iran is deemed opportune, we'll probably find a way to word it.

In a way, I feel like the Iraq war is a bit like a mild urinary tract infection: you know it's there, but it doesn't bother you much, so you go about your business and try not to drink too much coffee in hopes that it will go away soon. The notion that it could become something as serious as a kidney infection is utterly absurd, kind of like a bad version of winning a raffle. One night, you wake up shivering, you can't sleep because you're so cold, you've got a tremendous fever, you try to drink a glass of water and throw up from the effort; the next day the doctor orders a CT scan which shows that your inflamed right kidney is wreaking havoc on your body. Sometimes I feel like I'm sixteen again (I don't mean in that I'm terribly, terribly awkward but that is true too): every now and then I get a sense that something very strange, very unfathomable, very distant, and very sinister is going to happen before too long, but for the most part, all I care about is boys, and Iraq and Iran are just names of places I read about in the news. I hope that the Iraq war will not spread to our kidneys, but I guess it will not be a surprise if it does.

'energy vibrations' or 'dear friends'

2007-10-16T13:29:00.000+01:00

yesterday i spoke to gavin, anthony's flatmate, and he told me (out of the blue) that gyms around the world are being powered by the people running on treadmills and elliptical machines. this is very cool. even cooler is the fact that, according to gavin, there are nightclubs which derive power from the vibrations in the dance floor which happen when people dance! how cool is that! this gives me a reason to dance more; it is environmentally friendly. and it gives me some cool ideas for how to design environmentally friendly buildings. imagine all the things we can do!

dear friends;
i miss you to fucking pieces and i am about to go insane.
yesterday i had a bit of a bad night. i had two glasses of wine, but they made me tired and emotional, and i was supposed to finish this cubist drawing thing that i presented in school today. i didn't finish the drawing and i didn't really sleep either.
and it didn't help that anthony seemed to be in the mood for a DTR*. this resulted in me crying and crying, basically because i want my friends back. HERE, NOW. i want to go to fishing parties and i want to sit in my room with the two of you, crying because sufjan stevens songs are so sad. i tried to tell anthony this, and he said that eventually i will make friends and that i am not a stupid friendless person. i think the worst feeling in the world is to be lonely, and right now i am.
how can this be, i've been here for a year, and still i can't sit down with anyone and cry to sufjan stevens. i am a sociable person! this is weird! and it sucks!

hmm... i guess the whole world can read this, so i won't go on.

i will, however, tell you about something amazing that happened today! approximately 1 hour ago i went down to the canteen (the refectory) to get my daily panini (they had a new version today, roast chicken and veggies, mmm). as i was waiting for my coffee to brew and my panini to heat up, i turned around and i saw...who? PER! do you know per? the swedish guy from RCN, who organised the human rights forum?
well, it took me a couple of seconds to realize where i knew this guy from, and then i was extremely happy that a little UWC just popped into my day in an extremely random fashion. turns out that his first year, silja from the faroe islands, is studying here in the painting department. weeee, i have another UWC person!
also, i don't know if i've told you this, but our third year eduardo is in the year above me in the architecture school, and we're in the same studio! very nice!
i have a picture of else, daniel and daniel, pedro, arthur and sebas on my wall, from our trip to the holy beach, and one day eduardo came over and then he said; oh, daniel daniel and sebas! aaaah, i miss muwci! and then i realized how many friends we have in common, and how amazing all these people are, and i don't know. it gave me a bit of hope that one day, we will all be together again. i miss muwci.

so on saturday i'm going to a party with per and silja and simon (from south africa, he was also at roskilde, and now he lives in edinburgh!)

i love that there's a little UWC network forming around me.

i love you guys and i think else is right, we should move to a kibbutz and raise each other's babies.

Norwegian College of Fishery Science

2007-10-14T15:52:00.000+01:00

This branch of my university amazes me. It has been a new experience for me to meet people with a burning interest in fish. This was previously not a part of my horizon. Last night I was at a party arranged by ”The Norwegian College of Fishery Science” and this Sunday is very much marked by the fact that I had a little much to drink there. So I am afraid that will also mark this post. But I’ll do my best. I shall now tell you some incoherent stories related to the Norwegian College of Fishery Science.

Earlier this fall me and my friend Sigrid joined ”fjellgruppa” – the mountain group, and went hiking in Indre Troms. It was stunningly beautiful. Two of our fellow hikers on this trip studied deseases of fish (at the Norwegian School of Fishery Science). I don’t think their whole degree was only about this matter, but I got the impression that this was the main thing. One of them was a Swedish girl who came as an exchange student to study this in Tromsø because they are experts on this here. So I asked her what in heavens name got her interested in fish and more spcifically their diseases? She answered: ”Jag vil bara at döm skal mä bra liksom! Jag vil inte at fisken skal mä illa.” which means: ”I just want them to be okay! I don’t want the fish to feel bad.” I found this very charming, and I think about this often. She had a fishing pole with her on the trip.

Funny thing about the Norwegian College of Fishery Science is that it is full of African students. I don’t know the number but they are so many. They come all the way form Africa to educate them selves about fish. Which makes sense since fishing is an important industry in coastal African countries.

Norwegian College of Fishery Science is the prettiest building on my campus. It looks a bit like a ship and inside there is an artificial waterfall. I take my economics classes here (all economics courses are run by the Norwegian College of Fishery Science, so to be a student there doesn’t necessarily involve studying fish so much). So this weekend some enthusiastic students initiated a spectacular party. They put up posters of all over advertising ”FÆST!” which means, ”PARTY!” in the funny northern Norwegian dialect. The menu looked amazing so Sigrid, her friend Hannah from home who were visiting and I could do nothing but show up. Full of expectations we came there, with our nice big box of white wine in one hand and pleny of prejudgies about what kind of people we would meet this evening in the other. We entered the building and saw that (even though we were an hour late) there were approximately twenty guests there and the atmosphere a little pressured. We met a cute welcoming committee that insisted that we drink their welcoming drink, which was homemade licqour. A good start. We helped our selves at the buffet, which had all sorts of fish, and shellfish and other heavenly dishes. Even whale! It was delicious. After a few minutes two gentlemen kindly asked if they could sit down at out table and so they did. They didn't really meet with my pre-made picuture of the geeky ’Norwegian College of Fishery Science’-student, since one of them was a trash-metal musician. A little disappointed that the picture had been spoiled we decided foster the geeky atmosphere our selves, and invited the others of join us in a maritime drinking game. The game was in the form where one person makes a statement and the others say whether they believe this statement or not. Usually this tends to evolve around sex and such things that the youth like to talk about, but we confined the scope to things concerning the ocean. Examples of statements were “I am a fish” and “The fishes’ inner wish is to evolve to be come a panda”. This went on for some hours. At the end we all held hands and danced around in a circle to the tunes of Bruce Springsteen. Even though the organizers came by all the tables every fifteen minutes with nostalgic complaints such as: “Dænne fæsten e en fiasko, det kom jo ingen mænneska. Å, fæst på fiskerihøyskolen for noen år sia: da var det liv! Da kom det hundrevis av menneska!”, which means “This party is a fiasco, no people came. Oh, party at Norwegian College of Fishery Science a few years ago: that was something different. Then hundreds of people came!”, it was a memorable evening.

Republican militiawoman training on the beach outside Barcelona, August 1936

2007-10-13T05:04:00.001+01:00

by Gerda Taro

this blog seems to be all about norway

2007-10-10T13:59:00.000+01:00

and here comes another post on the topic.

this weekend, anthony and i went to norway. we flew from "glasgow" (prestwick) to "oslo" (sandefjord) - that's right, ryanair.
so we spent quite some time on buses/trains to and from airports. then we walked around oslo, friday was a beautiful day. we had dinner with mum and then got on the night bus to aalesund (10 hours). in the middle of the night the bus stops in "mors kro" ("mother's inn"), in the middle of nowhere, and "mother" provides us with waffles and hot chocolate and various norwegian specialities such as "vestlandslefse". we opted for pizza though.
anthony was amazed that we can pay by credit card on the bus.
then we came to aalesund, and basically we spent the whole of saturday and sunday visiting people and having food and wine and beer and more food and more beer. saturday night was my dad's 50th birthday celebration, so we went by bus down to the beach where we made hot dogs on a bonfire (another very norwegian experience for anthony). then we got back on the bus and went to a mountain, took the ski lift up, and had a big party at the top. the party involved wellie boot throwing, nail hammering, music quizzing, drinking, eating and even a visit from elvis in the late hours.
very strange, yes.
the best part was taking the lift down in the middle of the night, together with a bunch of drunken 50 year olds. the wind was strong and we bumped into bushes/trees on the way, but it was such a beautiful night and we could see all the way out to aalesund town and all the lights were nice and bright.

we took the night bus back on sunday night, so it was quite a travel-intense weekend, but also a lot of fun.

norway is rather weird.

how do your parents celebrate their birthdays?

Digging in our Heels & Giggling

2007-10-10T04:55:00.001+01:00

I think that when you are putting off editing a terrible terrible midterm essay, it is nice to find a morbid little reason to giggle. These Norwegians have come up with an "ingenious solution" to get at a gas field called Snow White, & before too long Snow White's black, oily blood will be "crossing the ocean in specially designed ships, feeding into the pipeline network for the American East Coast." (It makes me feel a little bit closer to you, Else, all the way up there beyond the Arctic Circle: at least we are connected somehow.) But the best part is, it's got potential! Lucrative, lucrative potential! Thanks to global warming, the Artic is fast becoming "more accessible for oil and gas production" -- so really, it's self-sustaining, at least in the medium-to-short run.

Oh, you sweet, shrewd Norwegians & your natural gas.

Living Politely

2007-10-08T04:36:00.000+01:00

The other day, after a lovely elliptical machine session, I was walking home and I passed a homeless man on 14th Street stretching out for the night; propped up next to him was a cardboard sign reading "Live Politely". At the risk of sounding even nerdier than I already do, I thought that I definitely agreed with him, that we should all be more polite, especially nasty border officials. After all, courtesy is the jelly that makes the pb&j swallowable, right? And I patted myself on the back for being, in my own opinion, generally quite polite.

So imagine my shock and dismay today on the elliptical machine, happily listening to a Grammar Girl podcast, when Mr. Manners came on to instruct listeners about the most polite way to correct someone else's grammar. Mr. Manners emphasized that you should make sure that the person whose grammar you are correcting would "welcome and appreciate the correction". This, I must confess, is something I am very, very guilty of neglecting.

It's not that I'm some sort of expert; in fact, I'm not even sure if I placed the period correctly in the penultimate sentence of the above paragraph and until I read it over I didn't notice an extremely egregious error I'd made regarding the proper spelling of "whose" in this context! (Swallowable, on the other hand, I looked up: it's correct.) And while bad spelling irks me to no end (especially if the person writing to me is writing in THEIR native language which is not MY native language), small grammar mistakes and pronunciation idiosyncrasies really don't. So why do I keep correcting? Have you guys noticed that about me? Does it bother you like it bothers another Norwegian I know?

Maybe because it makes me feel smart; maybe also because I feel like I would wish to be corrected if someone knew my wording to be incorrect. But maybe I should learn to respect other people's wishes to live in ignorance, I mean, not be corrected. It's important, after all, to live politely, and not step on too many unnecessary toes.

(PS: Sofie, a couple of weekends I lost a game of Scrabble drastically!)

Oh Mahogany! Oh Ikea!

2007-10-07T01:42:00.000+01:00

So the other night, I attended a presentation about the illegal timber trade called Faces of Forest Loss. In NYU School of Law's beautiful, mahogany-paneled Lipton Hall, we heard from such impressive forest defenders as Anne Kajir , of Papua New Guinea; Julio Cusurichi , of Peru; and Arbi Valentinus, of Indonesia. Each of them told us a little bit about the disastrous effects of illegal logging in their countries and what is being done to fight against it.

Here is the general story about illegal timber trade according to Ari Herkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council , who moderated the panel: an armed, often state-backed mafia, enters a forest that is ostensibly off-limits to harvest timber for the international market. This is, of course, an environmental issue: 18% of global greenhouse emissions come from deforestation, Cusurichi told us, but it is also a very serious human rights issue. Illegal forest destruction tends to have the worst, most direct impact on indigenous communities who call the forest home; furthermore, those who try to speak up against it often become the victims of serious intimidation and violence from those who stand to make a profit from the illegal timber trade.

Arbi Valentinus emphasized that the responsibility for this falls both on the supplier and the consumer -- these timber mafias wouldn't be making such profits if we weren't buying their stolen wood. The US is a major market for illegal timber, because due to a loophole in the Lacey Act of 1981, which focuses on plant and wildlife protection, it is not illegal to import illegally harvested timber into this country! An importer could literally announce to a customs officer that he had a load of illegally harvested wood, and there would be nothing the official could do about it. In August, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon introduced the Combat Illegal Logging Act of 2007 , which would amend the Lacey Act to actually prevent illegal logging practices. Valentinus said that it would be up for debate in October, but I couldn't find anything on the internet about that.

Legislation sounds fabulous, but we as consumers also need to think about our power and our impact. A man from the organization Rainforest Relief raised his hand to point out the irony of all of progressive-minded folk sitting on mahogany chairs there applauding this good work; he added that New York City is the single largest consumer of tropical hardwoods in North America! We should also remember that illegal logging happens not only in order to create timber goods for the international market, but also in order to clear lands for agribusiness.

When I worked at Greenpeace a couple of summers ago as an intern for their forest campaign, I did a lot of research towards putting together a 'wood-purchasing guide' for conscious consumers who did not want to participate in the illegal timber trade in any way. I'm not sure if the guide was ever finished, but I remember being particularly excited that Ikea, as far as I could tell, had a pretty good reputation timber-wise. Yay Ikea!