Humbug

Winter break is over, and classes have started back up again.

Due to financial reasons (read: tickets are expensive), I decided to stay here in Bø for the entirety of break.  The hope is that I will have saved the $1200 on round-trip tickets in order to 1) afford life in this country and 2) be able to travel somewhere this semester.  I don’t know if either are possible, but I’m going to try.  As I’ve said before, food here is incredibly expensive.  My friend Pierrick even took a four hour drive one-way to Sweden to purchase groceries (primarily meat).  To celebrate Christmas on my own, I purchased a 1,4k ham (3 lbs).  That piece of meat alone cost me over 160 NOK ($28).

Almost no one was here for the majority of break, and there were a number of days where I was the only one in this building.  And in the times when there were people here (that I knew), there wasn’t much hanging out for some reason.  I was the recipient of a lot of pity over the holiday season, but I have to say that it wasn’t as bad as people thought it would be.  I wasn’t personally worried about it, but others were, and for their compassion, I am grateful.

I did get a bit of cabin fever, though.  That’s for sure.  I would be tired and restless at the same time.  My sleep schedule became completely inverted.  There were numerous days where I did not go to bed until between 6 and 10 AM.  I would frequently wake up sometime around 6:30 PM.  There were many days in which I did not see the sun at all (not difficult when it barely comes up in the first place).  It took me a couple of all-nighters to remedy this situation, but now I’m about back on track.  Lately, I’ve been having a different sleeping issue, though.  This morning, for example, I woke up at 8:30 AM – not a bad time to wake up.  The problem, however, is that I went to bed at 2:45 AM.  That’s not enough sleep.  I guess I’ll try to nap later.

I did call my family back home.  The only part of the break where I was bummed out about being here and not home came when I called home.  It was a bit disheartening to hear all of the family gathered into a few Christmas celebrations.  But it was nice talking with them nonetheless.

For New Years, I was invited to Skien to hang out with my friend Gunnar, but ended up turning down the offer in order to save some more money until I get the loan money for this semester.  It’s not much, but it’ll help.  Instead, I opened my curtains and watched the people of Bø celebrate the New Year with a rather impressive fireworks display.  Houses on the sides of the mountains all around Grivi launched their own little displays, and collectively, it was quite a nice sight.

I also participated in an online marathon for charity put on by the folks at ExtraLives.org.  They are definitely doing some good work, particularly when you consider that they’re only high school seniors.  After almost 81 hours of solid Zelda gameplay (they played several different games, including the horrible CD-I games), the guys had raised over $12k.  I was happy to donate my $10 and be part of the marathon.  With the money they donated to Free The Children, they are able to fund the building of a small school house (or build on to an existing school), stock the school with books and furniture, train teachers to run the school, and create a lunch program for the students for two whole years.  Absolutely amazing.  Now if only they could get the triforce on there…

Other parts of my break included (in no particular order):

1. Runes of Magic
2. Misc. video games
3. Reading
4. Writing
5. Movies
6. TV (see below)
7. Ham
8. mam!records

I watched a surprising amount of TV, often while playing games or doing other stuff online.  I watched:

1. Pokemon: Indigo League (the original season, all 82 episodes)
2. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (all seasons)
3. Frisky Dingo (all seasons)
4. Scrubs: Med School
5. MythBusters
6. Modern Family
7. Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil
8. Cheyenne Cinnamon and the Fantabulous Unicorn of Sugar Town Candy Fudge
9. Pawn Stars
10. Devil May Cry: The Animated Series (all episodes)
11. Cavemen
12. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret
13. etc, etc, etc – this list is starting to get embarrassing…. It was a couple of weeks alone in Norway.  What do you expect?

Well, after that whole deal, I’m happy that people are finally here in Bø again.  I had my first classes this week – Norwegian Literature After 1900.  Recently, I had been doubting the progress I’ve made in my Norwegian education, but the start of this class has given me some much needed confidence.  Last semester, I had signed up for this same class (except it was based on literature before 1900).  I attended the first class or so, and found that I could understand nothing that the professor said.  I dropped it in favor of an independent study making up for the lack of linguistics at the college here in Bø.  This semester, I expected to have trouble understanding the teacher, just like last time.  But lo and behold! I could understand her – mostly. Definitely what I needed.

That’s about where the encouragement ended, however…  We started off our Norwegian literature course by reading Swedish, among all things.  It wasn’t too bad, but I certainly did not understand much of what I read.  The story we read was Alexander Skarsgård’s Att döda ett Barn (To Kill A Child).  At only two pages, it was a really great piece.  It certainly inspires me to write more.

The second day of this class was even more discouraging.  This time, we have a different teacher.  I forget his name at the moment, but he speaks a dialect that is very far from the one I learned.  The Norwegian students have even told me that they have trouble understanding him.  He also writes in nynorsk, which is a different writing system than what I learned (bokmål).  Luckily, he writes on the board for us to take notes from.  It would be a great help, but he writes in some of the worst cursive I have ever seen.  Combine that with words you’ve never heard in a writing system you’ve not used much, and it’s all Greek to me.

That’s enough for now.

Years For Beards

I have been thinking about doing some music reviews and starting a music site for a while.  Well, I finally decided to just go for it the other day.  Corey Murphy is helping me out with this endeavor, and he was nice enough to tweak his reviews from The Badger Herald to give us some more content as we work on getting the site off the ground.

For those who’d like to check the site out, you can visit http://www.yearsforbeards.com.

As for the name…

1. “years for beards” comes from the lyrics for the Why? song “Sanddollars”
2. there is a running joke that the awesome potential of a band is directly proportional to the quality and quantity of facial hair

Right now, we’re focusing mainly on album reviews and some show reviews.  In the future, however, we plan on adding news, interviews, site-exclusive releases, city-specific content and most importantly, BAND BEARD REVIEWS.

At the time I am writing this, Corey has posted two album reviews and a summary of some highlights from Lollapalooza 2009.  New content will be uploaded on Tuesdays.  Some things we’ve got planned for this week:

• Bon Iver – Blood Bank
• Erik Enocksson – Man tänker sitt
• Flight of the Conchords – I Told You I Was Freaky
• The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
• Earth Died Screaming (a tribute to Tom Waits) – show review
• Sufjan Stevens – The BQE

We might have some more content if we get another staff writer or two.  If you’re interested, let me know.  Otherwise, Corey and I will be adding new content every Tuesday.

First Snow

“What the hell is that…?”

That is basically what was going through my head this morning when I woke up. I was told that Norway would not really get snow until maybe as late as February. But here we are, the 3rd of October, and there lies a thin layer of snow on the ground. My only consolation was that a steady downpour of rain was slowly melting the snow.

The snow took several hours to actually melt, but the rain is still falling. Having talked to a few other people, it is going to be like this quite often now until the actual snow starts in earnest. Snow during the chilly nights; thawing during the day. I guess I can live with that. I am from Wisconsin, after all. I was just a bit shocked to see this today – the leaves just started really falling two or three days ago.

After getting over the fact that I would be cooped up in my room all day, it was actually kind of nice to sit on the balcony and watch the rain. It is not often that you get a chance to witness three kinds of condensation in work at once. It was foggy, snowy and rainy. Perhaps it happens more often than we think, but it was nice to notice it.

I am becoming increasingly surprised with how much of a day I can waste and how quickly, at that. A nap, a meal and a few episodes of MythBusters, and eight hours have already passed since I woke up. Without being able to really do anything out side of my dorm, I am finding it a bit difficult to get anything done inside my dorm. And it surprises me that I feel so much “cabin fever” today. Normally, I have no problem being alone. But lately, I have wanted less and less to be by myself.

I guess lately I have been feeling an exceeding amount of loneliness. I feel a blatantly unfounded sense of being left out. And it bothers me a bit, not so much because I know that I am wrong, but more because of these angsty teenage feelings. I am better than that kid stuff… I have friends both here and back home, so why would I feel this?

Perhaps the worst is that these feelings manifest themselves in strange ways. I can sometimes get an odd feeling in groups, which is the exact opposite of how I am used to being. Even worse are the dreams / nightmares. Always of things I can not have, in an emotional sense more than material; they usually start off amazing, with a sense of elation, only to end in a deafening sense of rationality. It is a sinking feeling waking up to that.

But enough of that unwarranted depression….

There are a lot of things I can occupy my time with, even if I have difficulty doing so. I have this next week off. Unfortunately, my trip to Amsterdam fell through – we could not get tickets soon enough to make the trip very affordable. I will instead maybe take the train or bus out to some place in Norway that I have not visited (which would be any place in Norway, basically). Probably, I will end up sitting in my room or taking a walk, though. Hope and some of the other American girls are off to Ireland and other cool places like that, and later in the week, Marco and Jesus are going to London. Money is tight, though, so I am actually not too upset about not going anywhere – just a bit bummed. I am planning to save as much as I can for now, and instead, take some nice trips next semester when I have a better idea of where my money sits.

Thanks in large to conversations with Kelsey, I have started to pick up writing again. I am making my first true attempt at writing a book of some sort. A real book, not the things I have done in the past. It is going to be based a lot on my experiences here, but in a sort of bizzaro way. I can not imagine what people will think of my personal experiences here if they read what I have in store.

I am also working on more music, as always. I had a really great talk with Corey the other day, and we are finally going to try some true collaborative stuff now. We have some ideas and some sketches to go on. In the end, I do not know what we will have. But Corey is great at what he does – I have no doubts about his ability and drive. I am fairly confident that we will come up with something respectable.

I have been picking the tempo up with my label lately. The other day, we were approved for a Content Distributor account at mininova.org. We have had 480-some downloads in about a day with our first two torrents. I think it is already starting to lure in some new artists for the label.

And whenever all of the above fails, I guess I have this blog to turn to.

Mr. Albright’s Seat

Last night, I had a wonderful conversation with my friend Kelsey, who is also studying here in Bø from the United States. We talked about writing and lots of things dealing with it. It was nice, really.

So I decided to share with her one of my plays. This one is actually a monologue, but I’m rather happy with how it turned out. As always, your comments are welcome, and you do not need to sign up for anything to leave them on this blog.

MISS LOVEHILL, a young nurse, walks on stage
pushing an empty wheelchair. In the empty
wheelchair is the invisible Mr. Albright. She
feigns his existence, never giving in to the fact
that he is not there. Soft, whimsical music is
playing in the background. The stage is lighted
in soft hues. MISS LOVEHILL is sad in a nostalgic
way. It is the kind of sadness that brings a
smile to her face.

She pushes Mr. Albright to the corner of the stage
and looks up and away. She smiles and looks
around, eye to eye with Mr. Albright. She walks
to the other side of the stage a bit, picks a
flower to smell, turns, and breathes in as though
she will speak.

MISS LOVEHILL cuts herself off, tilts her head to
the side, and walks over to Mr. Albright. She
turns his chair and walks around, facing him. She
squats so that she is eye level with Mr. Albright,
still holding the flower.

She is contemplative.

What are you thinking, Mr. Albright?

What are you ever thinking about in that head of
yours?

You’ve got to be thinking something.

All these years we’ve gone for our weekly venture in
the park, and you’ve never made a sound. Every Sunday,
just after one – me in my Sunday shoes and you – you,
in your seat.

I can’t imagine your head to be empty. I know that is
not the case. Do you know how I know that Mr.
Albright?

She smiles at Mr. Albright.

Because I see it in your eyes, Mr. Albright.

Whenever I look into your eyes -

Deep into your eyes -

I see them:

Little thoughts, swimming around like fishes in a
pond. Perhaps the water is a bit cloudy, but those
fish swim on nevertheless. It doesn’t bother them in
the slightest.

Occasionally, if I look really hard, I catch a glimpse
of a great big fish – an angry old catfish – as he
gobbles up one of the little ones.

She stands.

Here, this is for you.

She sets the flower on his lap.

It’s your favorite, Mr. Albright.

It’s a peony. I know you love them. Look at how
wonderfully shaped it’s petals have become. They are
especially beautiful this year.

Do you remember what month the peonies come out, Mr.
Albright?

We always pick them in June.

I’m sure you knew that. You don’t show it, but I see
through you, Mr. Albright.

I see that twinkle in your eye when May comes to a
close, and you know the peonies are almost perfect.

She walks around, grabs the wheelchair handles,
and continues as she pushes Mr. Albright to the
other side of the stage. All the while, she looks
at the bushes and trees scattering the park.

She takes a deep breath inward as the two stop.

I wish you could pick one for yourself, Mr.
Albright. They give such a satisfying little sound
when you pull them from the bush.

As if they were saying “thank you for picking me, Miss
Lovehill!” They don’t mind at all, now do they?
They were planted there by little faeries just for you,
Mr. Albright.

And you know what I think?

I don’t think it is really you who gets a twinkle in
your eyes when the peonies bloom, Mr. Albright.

I’ve always fancied the peonies to bloom when they see
that twinkle in your eyes.

You speak to them, don’t you? I can hear your voice
now, strong as ever.

“Smile for me, my friends.

For I cannot.

…

Turn your heads skyward,

And let the sun strike your beautiful teeth-pedals!

Do it for me, my friends.

For I cannot.

…

Spread your arms

And hug the clouds.

Fill your breath with honey and star beams!

Give them to my love, my friends.

For I cannot.”

She pauses at the thought, staring off into the
sky. She smiles, big and bright.

You are such an eloquent speaker, Mr. Albright. You
have always known how to use words like they were in
your mouth the day you were born.

No one can teach you how to speak like that.

Gentle yet strong, with a kind of sadness that makes
you smile. Such a funny way to look at the world, Mr.
Albright.

“See every day through the eyes of the grass,

And you learn quickly to avoid stepping where you ought
not to.”

You told me that once, remember?

She grabs the chair and pushes him to the center
of the stage.

The funny thing is, Mr. Albright,

I know what all those words mean,

But together they are lost on me. Perhaps I am looking
too deep for a meaning. The best stories have no happy
ending, Mr. Albright.

The best fables have no moral.

Once again, she squats eye to eye with Mr.
Albright. She smiles at him, almost longingly.

Do you know why I say your name so often, Mr. Albright?

It is because of something you told me once,

When I was a little girl.

You said to me,

“The thing people like hearing the most,

Above please and thank you,

Above God bless you and you’re welcome,

Above anything else -

The one thing people like hearing the most -

Is their own name.

She has grown sad. Very sad.

Mr. Albright.

She looks down at the ground.

I would love to hear you say my name again.

Just once, Mr. Albright.

Just once,

“Little Miss Lovehill,” you’ll say.

Just once…

Nothing. She almost weeps.

Perhaps…

Perhaps next Sunday, Mr. Albright.

Perhaps we can find our…

She cuts herself off. Nearly weeping,
MISS LOVEHILL places her head on the armrest of
Mr. Albright’s wheelchair.

Silence.

The lights go out.