On leaving the U.S., again

Let's start at the beginning: what does a pop tart really taste like? I have been in the U.S. long enough that I should have had plenty of opportunities to find out, but honestly, I've never tried one. And never really felt like trying one either. Especially not for breakfast. I have vastly different ideas about what a good breakfast should and should not entail than what most Americans do (judging only from the breakfast aisle in any given grocery store, naturally).

Well, even if I am leaving I have made sure I'll get the chance to figure out this mystery. I've bought a box of pop tarts. I fully expect I won't like them very much, but at least now my expectations aren't too high...

Don't get me wrong, I approve of a lot of breakfast related things here too. For instance the concept of going out for breakfast (even if I normally would choose a different dish than pancakes, but even I get that this only makes me weird...). Or even better, brunch. One of the restaurants in the vicinity of my hotel in Atlanta advertizes that they serve bottomless mimosas* or Bloody Marys for Sunday brunch. Even if that makes me think of Kenny Falmouth of Monkey Island, it does sound like a sweet deal.

My own breakfast routine most days while I've been in the U.S., however, has been quite a bit more sober than that. I've been in two different hotels in two different parts of the country, but I could always find some channel that showed reruns of old shows - especially "Charmed". Interestingly I never really watched "Charmed" when it was a big deal way back when I was a kiddo (many of my friends did, and I can't remember exactly what made me not watch it, though I suspect it might have had something to do with the fact that we didn't have cable or satelite, and thus a very limited range of channels). Anyway, with all these reruns - and not just this time, but last time I visited the U.S. too, as well as when we went to the U.K. for vacation in November - it seems I have the show pretty much covered. But then, yesterday, the seemingly endless string of reruns ended. The very last episode of the show! Now what will I do for breakfast? I suppose it was only fitting as I am leaving today. Also, I am ignoring the fact that they started over again with the very first season this morning, so I really could watch it all if I only stayed a couple of months more - with three episodes per day that should probably cover it...

Even if I haven't watched it religiously in the past, however, I still know the show well enough to have the benefit of rewatching, as the best thing about watching old shows, of course, is that you don't have to pay very careful attention. So I could walk back and forth, take a shower, get dressed, eat, or even work a little while it ran in the background. While this has been a perfect mode for the minial task of sorting through archive documents as afterwork from my visit there during work hours, I am relieved it is over. My back aches from being slumped over my laptop for long stretches at the time, in uncomfortable seating positions in a hotel bed. My eyes are sore and my head hurts from trying to remember archive codes and sorting the files into their right place. My fingers have paper cuts from old documents, and I am sick of working twelve hour days (even if portions of them have been accompanied by "Charmed"). I even missed out on vacation days during my stay here, as most Norwegians take the whole week of Easter off.

Another good thing about ending my TV-meets-work streak now is that I don't have to watch commercials anymore. We have commercials on most channels in Norway too, but first of all I don't watch all that much TV at home (I have Netflix and HBO Nordic, after all), and secondly, last time I checked our commercials were less disturbing than many of the ones here.

What mostly baffles me are the medical commercials. This and this drug will help you with this and that disease. It will have the following side effects: [insert long list of terrible things that almost always ends with DEATH for good measure]. Talk to your doctor today!

Talk to your doctor? Why would I, as the patient, go to my doctor and explain about some drug? Isn't it the doctor's job to tell the patient what the best treatment for whatever disease or ailment they have should be? I realize doctors in the U.S. are frequently sponsored by the medical companies and thus might have preferences for specific drug for other reasons than what works better, but if that's the case you really ought to find another doctor with a better sense of ethics, rather than presenting the one you've already got with a lecture based on a TV commerical.

But that set aside, back to the commercials themselves. Can we all agree that they are pretty disturbing? Listing all those side effects is obviously something they are obliged to do for legal reasons, but I still find it amazing that someone would take them up on the offer of talking to their doctor after having heard all the horrible things this drug might inflict, presented to them in a voice of an actor you can *hear* is wearing a fake smile (how can you hear that, you ask? Well, just listen the next time one of those commercials are on. You can hear it).

Secondly, why are they always walking on the beach in these commercials? Strolling along the shore, or in a forest, or playing in the garden with a pet or child. Always the same setting. Fake smiles. Super disturbing.

Finally, the most disturbing thing to me isn't the medical commercials themselves, but in combination of another type of commercials: the mass lawsuit ones. "Have you or your loved ones experienced [insert terrible side effect caused by medical malpractise]? You might be entitled to compensation!" I realize there isn't a coherent line from people suggesting to their doctors what medicines to take for their ailments to them suing the doctor (or whomever) for having suffered consequences of malpractise. But it seems to me there is something strange about where the system puts liability. The patient is supposed to advice the doctor, while the doctors and other parts of the healthcare system are forced to focus on covering their butts legally rather than providing the best possible option for the patient. I'm not saying it's necessarily different elsewhere or that I have a solution to this, but I am saying the frequent commericals serve to give a creepy reminder of what a nasty world it can be.

I'll miss things too, though. I might have issues with certain parts of commercial America, but I don't think I'll ever stop marvelling at the selection in stores here. Whether it is grocery shopping or browsing for dresses, I keep finding myself enchanted. It's dangerous for my wallet, but it's making my little shopping heart burst with joy. Every time I visit the U.S. I seem to end up with a new wardrobe and don't even get me started on bookstores. When I came here in 2009 the selection seemed wider (I miss Borders!), but give me a good Barnes & Noble any day, and I'll be lost that day. They even have coffee in there! Why would you ever want to leave?

More important than the things I leave behind (good or bad), though, are the things I'm going back to. I miss my home, I miss my friends and family, I miss the regularity of my daily routine (the normal one, not the one involving "Charmed"), Norwegian language, food and weather (!), Oslo, my apartment, all the things I know and love. Most importantly, I miss my boyfriend. Four weeks is a long time to be away from everything, and even though I've enjoyed my stay in the U.S. I can't wait to go home.

Now I'm going to make the hotel cat who has been keeping me company this morning go back out into the corridor so I don't accidentally pack him, and then I'll finish stuffing my suitcase. Somehow, it gained weight during this trip (see section about "shopping" above).











*Huh. When I googled "bottomless" to find the link for Kenny, Google automatically suggested "bottomless mimosas atlanta". Apparently, this is a big deal here!

On the transvisual transgressions of the transatlantic tranquilizer trajectory.

I spent all my creative energy on that title, so now all that is left is for me to pretend I really meant to and compose a short text devoid of any creativity whatsoever.

It shouldn't be too difficult.

I am, after all, trying actively on a daily basis to subdue creativity to get non-creative things done (insofar there exists such a thing as a non-creative anything). I am getting good at it. Well. Not necessarily at getting the non-creative things done, but at subdue creativity, at least! Hooray!

Now, let's not be bleak. This is a good thing.

Creativity is overrated.

Well, no it's not. I don't actually mean that. I already revealed that I at least on some level believe creativity takes a part in most anything human beings do (not that this belief necessarily demonstrates the importance of creativity, though).

And it's not even true. I don't subdue my creativity. It just feels like a natural part of the process. A process of "growing up", "having a job", "writing a PhD-thesis", "being a normal human being" (except for my belief that "normal" "human beings" actually are "creative" all the time. Except everything, really).

This text turned bleak despite my intentions not to let it. I meant to have it cheerful and happy, in order to present a joyous view on the world (of which there are too few, generally, I think), exemplified in the fact that it's spring (yay!); that I get to go abroad for a month, tomorrow (yay!); that there exist such a thing as semicolons (yay!); and that today we had a solar eclipse (though I didn't see it due to clouds and general indoorness, so yaaeii?).

I'm going to the U.S.

For a month.



I have in the past been eager to travel.

I have in the more recent past been less eager to travel.

I have this time again found that eagerness, but then also, the less eagerness lurking behind.



I get to travel but I have to travel.

I get to see lots of interesting documents but I have to see all these documents.

I get to be all by myself but I have to be alone.



But there are more redeeming factors this time around. I get to hang out with an old friend. I get to visit a new part of the U.S. that I have been eager to see. I get a preview of summer before returning home to full spring. And when I return home I get to stay home. I can travel more, but I don't have to.




Away, away, o'hoi and away!

On metrogiraffe

It's been years since I last visited Paris. I think it's time to go back. 

On pretense

Let's pretend this is a blog you still read with some regularity - in fact, let's pretend it's a blog I write with some regularity.

Let's pretend Albert Einstein was a duck. Might as well.

Let's pretend the below picture isn't photoshopped.

Let's pretend the reason I am not writing here regularly is because I am so busy living a fabulous life. Let's pretend I'm never tired of the fabulousness.

Let's pretend. That nothing no one never said was true or false.

Let's pretend that winter is not coming.

Let's pretend that I am not worrying about work and not work and the potential of not having to worry about work.

Let's pretend that I write. Occasionally.

Let's pretend that placebo is as good as Placebo. Let's pretend you could watch that video without having to watch a commercial first.

Let's pretend that all it takes is a good night's sleep, and that you will get just that, tonight.

On words I have yet to decide the meaning of

I have invented the following words, but have not yet decided what they should mean. Screw etymology (even though, or perhaps just because, I love it). Suggestions are welcome.



Ksnø (alternative spelling for the less Scandi-inclined: Ksneu. The k is not silent).

Yuips (best uttered when slightly tipsy, so the meaning should probably be related).

Geddlelog.

Pouiyrtre (not to be confused with Poiuytre).

Whhsnosis (thinking this might be something for the medical communtiy?).

Fogbliggerfoullervat (most likely a rather literal translation of something German).




Thank you for your attention.

(For the record, I did not invent these last 23 words. Nor the first 29 of this post.)

On old acquaintances

The previous weekend I got to hang out with some old friends. One of them - let's call him Ken* - is Japanese and I met him when we were both attending university in a remote city of Japan, almost seven years ago.

Since we last saw each other our lives have taken very different turns. I returned to Norway to finish first my BA and then MA degree, I've had two other short-term stays abroad (one of them in Japan, but somehow we never managed to meet then, even though he didn't live very far from Tokyo), and I eventually started working at my alma mater here in Oslo, where I currently teach history.

Ken, on the other hand, graduated to become a somewhat classic Japanese business man, working for a big firm in Yokohama. He got married and he's got a son. Then, his company purchased part of a Norwegian shipping company, and as a result of this, they made Ken come work here. "Here" not meaning Oslo at all, but a small town on the western coast of Norway.

Even if it's on the other side of the country from Oslo, Ken is now living a whole lot closer to me than Japan, so we decided that it would be fun to meet up and hang out like the old days.

From our days at the uni in Japan I remember him as a boyish, charming, fun guy. We had a few classes together, and we'd frequently have lunch in the school cafeteria or go out drinking with a bigger group of friends. Meeting him again all these years later he had "grown up" more, but he was still fun and charming, and as easy to talk to as I remembered. For him, coming to Oslo after having lived the small town life for a few weeks was something of a luxury, and I think it's safe to say that it was a very successful weekend for all those involved.

When he was here we obviously wanted to show him not only Oslo by day (the Holmenkollen Ski Jump, the Opera, the Royal Palace and the Vigeland Park), but also Oslo by night. So we went out for dinner and later drinks on Saturday night.

Oslo by  night isn't classy. It can be - there are places where the drinks are too expensive to get ridiculously drunk no matter how rich you are - but for the average Joe we go to places where the drinks are "only" expensive enough to make you have to mortgage your house after a drunken brawl. I'm only kidding a bit. (Foreigners tend to complain about the price level in general, but for alcohol in particular.)

Anyway, we managed to find several places that were okay, and we managed to make ourselves eligible for mortgages (had any of us been house owners). Eventually, after having been to a few other places first, we ended up in a bar I've never visited before. The place was packed, and the noise was almost unbearable. Since it was getting late and we had plans for Sunday morning as well (last chance for sightseeing!), we decided to only stay for one drink and then leave.

As I went to get mine, I passed a group of girls where one of them suddenly went into squeal mode. "OMG, it's you!" she exclaimed.

I knew her face. I knew where I knew her from. We went to high school together. I even knew the two girls she were with, also from high school. We exchanged some pleasantries, and then I quickly made an excuse and went on my way, even though she seemed eager to stay and chat about everything that had happened in our lives since we last met. I was more eager to get back to Ken and my other friends.

I didn't remember this girl's name, and it took me well into the next day (and perhaps a little Facebook research) before it came back to me. We were never close in high school; in fact, I'm not even sure we ever had a proper conversation back then. She was in a different crowd than me, and from the little I knew of her,  I didn't much care for her. After not having seen her for almost ten years, neither of those things had changed.

Still, it hit me. This girl is my own age. We are from the same hometown and now we live in the same city. Looking at her Facebook profile (or the limited version of it, as we are not friends there either), we have approximately 60 or so friends in common. Some of which I count as good friends of mine.

Yet, despite having so much things in common, I have no desire to get to know her, and I don't care what she's made of herself. It makes no difference to me whether we see each other again in the next ten years or not.

Whereas Ken, whom I clearly do not have so much in common with - in fact, I have more or less nothing in common with him apart from the fact that we once attended the same university - I enjoyed seeing again. I hope to see him more times soon. I would like to meet his wife and son (who will move here from Japan soon). I think it's interesting to check out what he's been up to via Facebook, and I enjoy talking to him.

Personal chemistry is important, of course. I have that with the people I count among my close friends, several of them from high school. And I don't necessarily think I would have as fun with all my friends from Japan or elsewhere that I technically don't have very much in common with today, should I get to see them again.

But still, it intrigues me that it is so much easier to stay in touch with some people than others, and that with certain friends you don't have to talk with them very often - maybe once every seventh year - and things are still as they used to be. Fortunately.

Sometimes friendship is like a ski jump without snow. Mostly, it's not.
(I'm in this picture. Or my foot is. The first person to find it gets a prize!**)

*Actually, his name is Kensuke, but I noticed he introduced himself as Ken here in Norway, presumably because Norwegians would have trouble pronouncing his name. It's supposed to be "Ken-ske" rather than "Ken-su-ke" as we would say.

** The prize is to jump from the top of the Holmenkollen Ski Jump without skis or snow.
Still want to be that first person?

On survivor's guilt

I'm home.

It feels positively surreal. If I felt uprooted when I arrived in Japan, it was nothing compared to my departure. Within 40 hours of having decided to leave, I arrived at the airport in Norway. I feel as one of those toys in the arcade claw game machines where a metal hand pulls them up and dumps them into a slot from which they emerge on the other side of the glass as if in another world. This new world I've come into should be familiar - it is after all where I was born and grew up - but it is as though I haven't actually arrived properly, and my mind definitely hasn't shifted back to this reality.

It's funny how in all of this the people I communicate with seem to be divided into two very distinct camps: those who assume I will return to Japan as soon as I get the chance, and those who assume I most certainly will never want to do so.

The truth is, I am torn. That is, "never"  isn't really among the options I consider. I already loved Japan as it was, and the last week have only strengthened my feelings. I feel as though I packed in such a hurry that I forgot to take my heart back home.

But even if I know I one day will go back, I don't know when. Right now, there are practical issues. I have to wait for the situation to be clarified. I have to rest. I have to stay home long enough to warrant having gone at all. I have to figure out if and when my employer wants me to return, and what use I can be there then.

On top of this, however, are my own feelings. The notion that I somehow "deserted" is hard to fight. The sadness for what has happened is overwhelming - perhaps even more so when I no longer have my own security in mind. The fear for what might still happen - now only provided to me through the media (I am more than a little disgusted with some of the angles they are using) - is all-consuming. Only a very little seed of happiness to be safe, at home, with family, closer to friends, is pushing through all the gloom.

I notice that today - for the first time since Friday - I have laughed a little at other things than earthquake-related gallow humour. I caught myself "liking" a few status updates on Facebook that had absolutely nothing to do with Japan. I enjoyed walking outside today, even if I didn't enjoy the snow and cold (for someone who has had spring for weeks, Norwegian "spring" was difficult to readjust to). And I'm sure I'll gradually start to appreciate being home again.

My friend Tami has been talking about survivor's guilt, and I guess it is similar to what I am experiencing. While I don't feel "guilty" for surviving, I guess I do feel guilt - or, more accurately, shame - for having this reaction at all, when others are so much worse off. My experiences were not traumatic enough to warrant leaving, my safety was not sufficiently compromised, my hands could still have been needed to help. It isn't survivor's guilt, but rather, "abandoner's shame". Everyone - including myself - explains all the very good arguments why I have no reason to feel this way. Unfortunately, my feelings aren't inclined to listen to reason.

One of my friends suggested I let this rest for a while and allow Japan to recover from the immediate shock and start to rebuild. Then they might need me, and then I can consider returning, to look for my heart among the debris, as she put it.

Thus I have decided not to decide whether to return, at least not for a while. It depends. It depends on so many things - most of them out of my control. My primary focus is to rest, to recover, to not drown in all my mixed feelings.

On cruises

This morning, my parents left for a cruise in the Mediterranean.

Am I jealous? Yes.

Do I think they have deserved it? Yes.

Is it a compensation that I get to babysit their house while they are away? Definitely.

For a week I will eat their food, sit by the fireplace, take long baths, watch their giant TV, and generally have the time of my life. Oh, and I mean to work some too...

So even if my parents get to see Italy, Greece, Croatia and Turkey; even if they get to dine on board of a luxury ship; even if they are on vacation and I am stuck with my thesis - it's almost okay. In fact, I think it might be just fine. Swell, even.