the world and other issues

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!