Dilemma

I'm supposed to go back to Bergen on Thursday.
Saturday there's this.. I'm not sure what to call it.. this small, very local, music festival in town

The entertainment seems to consist of our dorky neighbour playing the piano, which he seems to do pretty well. (In his defense he was only dorky because he was my best friend's older brother growing up and, well, he was pretty dorky.)

It would be fun to go, to meet people and just hang out.

But I'm supposed to go back to Bergen, sort things out, get my stuff ready to be moved out of the apartment.


So what do I do? Postpone going back to Bergen, or skip the thingy and pass on meeting people?

Pros and cons, anyone?

Getting outta town

Going back to Bergen in a few days to pack the rest of my stuff and bring it all home.

I'm looking forward to spending a week in the city, although I did get bored with it in the end, I did live there for five years. It'll be strange to leave.


As for right now, I just wish something exciting would happen. But I guess life doesn't really get more exciting than you make it yourself. What to do, what to do... :)

...here we go again...

I'm feeling I'm a little too old to get yelled at.

...then again, I'm probably also too old to occupy a room which looks like it was hit by a tornado two months ago and never got cleared.

I take my mother's fury over the state of my sister's room to be partly due to the state of mine.

...and the downstairs living room...


Anybody got a spare room?

Satori says...

"The difference between you and me apples, is that people like me would endure any manner of torture to avoid a planet full of people like you."

The election is a month away and nothing makes people bitchier than others having different views on what's best for the world and the people in it.

Swine Flu : 3 ways to avoid it

Malaysia - masturbation
Avoiding masturbation and homosexual activities reduces the risk of contracting the virus, according to a Dr. Palaniappan. This because these activities cause friction, which in the body becomes an acid. According to news agency Bernama, the doctor emphasised that "normal sexual union between members of the opposite sex was absolutely safe."

Israel - flying rabbis
Contrary to Malaysia, various forms of blowing is encouraged in Israel. Rabbis engage in praying, blowing in ram horns and flying across Israel to prevent deaths in the country. The rabbis are convinced this will have stopped the epidemic and that the danger is over.

Egypt - slaughter all pigs
It's as simple as it sounds. Slaughter all pigs in the country and the virus will stop spreading between people. It might seem to have worked though - the only confirmed death from swine flu among Egyptian citizens is a 25 year old woman - in Saudia Arabia. I doubt if they have many pigs there.


...and finally, an explanation of how and why the virus came about in the first place;

The Netherlands - the Jews?
According to a Israeli newspaper (ahem...), Dutch journalist Desiree Rover claimed that the bird flu, which is related to the swine flu, is a conspiracy dating back to when the Khazars in the Caucasus converted to Judaism 1200 years ago. These days the descendants are "praying to another god; Lucifer, Satan", and the goal of the conspiracy is to reduce to world's population.


Who knows - maybe they're all right. The one from Malaysia does seem to solve the problem with the one from the Netherlands though...

Suu Kyi in House Arrest

The media reports that Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Price laureate and opposition leader in Burma, has been sentenced to 18 months of house arrest after helping an American man who swam two miles across a lake to her house in the beginning of May.

Sui Kyi was supposed to be set free May 27th, having spent 14 of the past 20 years imprisoned, being considered an enemy of the military junta in the country. Now she has been found guilty in violating the terms of her house arrest.

64 year old Suu Kyi was first sentenced to three years of hard labour. Suddenly reporters were invited into the court room to witness the greatness of Than Shwe, the leader of the junta, who had changed the sentence of three years into 18 months of house arrest.

This, of course, conveniently prevents Suu Kyi from participating in the Burmese elections in 2010.


Rarely has the line been drawn so clearly between good and evil, right and wrong in politics. Unlike Iran where they recently held elections and imprisoned the opposition after the votes had been cast, Burma avoids arguments over the results by simply imprisoning the opposition before the election takes place.

Maybe we should do the same in Norway in preparation for the election next month - if nothing else it would cut the lies in half...

Forgotten Memories

We went to a football match today, the lil town's football team played the one from 20 years ago. Before the second half, my sister and I moved away from the crowd and over to the other side of the field.

After a little while a man walks up to us. He says hi to me, asks how I am and what I'm doing these days. Nothing unusual there... except I'm not sure who this man is. He seems to know me and after a couple minutes I recognized him as our science teacher from my first year in high school. He killed some rabbits so we could look at their hearts and lungs.

But that was eight years ago. I was one of over a hundred kids he taught each year. If he remembers every single kid I'm seriously impressed. Especially if he remembered me - even I wouldn't have remembered me back then. I was easy to miss. Easy to ignore. But for some reason he still remembered me.


I know I remember people who never knew who I was, but over the years I've realized there are people out there who for one reason or another seem to remember me too. I wonder... who are all those people I've forgotten through the years? Who lives on in my memories, while I have vanished from theirs? And whose memories am I still a part of?


“We do not remember days, we remember moments.
The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”

Cesare Pavese

Along came global warming...

November 7th 1993
Lumberton, North Carolina

[...] a small A-frame cottage sitting right on the water, surrounded by fir and birch trees. The weather was near perfect. Indian summer, later than it ever ought to come. Global warming marches on.

James Patterson, Along Came a Spider

If global warming was a fact 16 years ago, why has it taken people and politicians so long to react? If it was already something everybody knew had been going on for a while, something casually mentioned in a novel like that, how come nobody seemed to care?

It's raining bugs!

This is friggin weird...

Several times today when I've been in my room I've heard a soft thud!

Looking around to see what it was, I find a bug on the floor, the bed, the desk, anywhere.

They seem to climb around in the ceiling, then suddenly fall down.

It's raining bugs!

Sweden?

After a slightly messed up and rainy July it's been rather boring just staying in town. So how about a road trip? Just a few days and not far across the border, but it's better than sitting around here.

Sweden's a cute country, and I haven't been for a while. For some reason it always seems to be sunny over there... We're only staying a few days, coming back for the weekend. The annual fair in town (if you can call it that) starts Friday and I haven't been the past three years or so. Might be fun, hoping to see some old friends.


Unfortunately, there's been another death in the family, my father's cousin this time. He was in Sweden with his wife when he went for a walk and never came back. Like my uncle three weeks ago, he just died for no apparent reason. Unexpected deaths, although they can shorten the pain, they only seem to bury it deeper inside you...