I've just had Halloween on Saturday and Thanksgiving on Sunday...how surreal is my life?

Speaking of surreal, Thanksgiving was beautifullly bittersweet. The food was great, the atmosphere was great, the people were great. I always talk about how my favorite nights are so good they make me want to cry, and this was exactly what I was talking about. Maybe I'm just an extremely emotional person, but I can get to this point of overwhelming contentedness where I feel like I'll explode if I don't express it somehow.

Now I've decided it is perpetual Christmas in my corner. My roommates will probably murder me after 3 days of this, but oh well. I've got festive candles and constant Christmas carols so far, but hopefully more decorations to come after November break. I'm also starting to bake cookies for myself and them, so they can't really complain too much. And I talked them into going out into the Norwegian wilderness with me to cut down a room Christmas tree! Haha it's legal in Norway and people on campus do it, so my room's going to join in. It just sounds so funny! One of those "life experience" things.

Completely overly avalanched with things to do this week, but it's all worth it. Just got to keep pushing through it until I can finally get back and hug my family again. I can hardly wait, part of me just wants to die until that moment. And as strange as this sounds, I'm excited to miss this place. I want to realize how much this and all these people mean to me again.

Intelligence is a funny thing. From the people who decide what exactly "intelligence" entails to its utilization in society, the gradual nuances of intelligence are interesting. It must be important to define exactly what intelligence is, although this seems an immense task. I think it's fair to say, however, that there is much more to intelligence than just thought. You could think all of the most provocative or beautiful or revolutionary ideas in the world but if you can't convey them, then your intelligence is useless. Is useless intelligence even intelligence at all? I think that to be truly intelligent, you must have something to say with conviction, you must say it in a beautiful and profound way, and you must be able to gauge how to present it. You have to be the quintessential Renaissance man. If you are truly intelligent, you should be able to captivate even the most elementary audience. Otherwise, society would turn into a small minority of elitists competing and debating incredibly abstract and impractical ideas, which, in the end, doesn't really get the majority anywhere. I fear that some people think abstract things such as philosophy are justifiably only discussed by the elite, when really I think the entire idea should be to say something practical and something that is, on some level or at some point, utilitarian.

Well, I'm not dead. Sorry I've been lax with the blogging, it's just kind of taken a backseat with everything piling up right before November break. Term papers and stuff. Haha all that testing and assessing was something I thought I'd escape when I left the American system...oh well. At least I've been trained my whole life for it.

We had a random show that I had to dance in yesterday. I had to redo the Maldivian dance and the Arabic dance, and on short notice, those two were quite amusing. The music stopped in the middle of the Maldivian dance...if you've ever seen Mean Girls, it was exactly like the Jingle Bell Rock scene. We all just froze, and then I started laughing my butt off. Haha.

I think I've got a mild obsession with this Swedish jeans brand called Cheap Monday. Perhaps the only Scandinavian thing I've taken a liking to besides the people...haha. I mean, to be fair, black licorice, brown cheese, fish pudding, dark days, cold weather, rain...all of these aren't really the most pleasant things on Earth. But I exaggerate, I know I'll be crying to be back at this place one day.

Being away, it's funny to see what kind of things will make you homesick. For me, homesickness isn't a constant state of being (I hope it's not like that for anyone). It's more like a small, triggered feeling of nostalgia that makes my eyes well up for a couple minutes but then passes. The strangest things seem to trigger it though. I think I'd be homesick after eating food from home, or talking to people from home, and basic stuff like that. But it's the stupid stuff that gets me. Like last night we watched The O.C., and as soon as that theme song started playing, I was right back in my living room with a big bowl of cereal, curled up to watch an hour of T.V. And the other day, I was struggling with some math homework and I just had this overwhelming urge to go ask my mom for help with it. It's funny, the things you learn about yourself at this place.

Alright well, I'll try and blog some this week but like I said, things are crazy. And besides, I'll be home in 12 days and 5 hours anyway. Haha

Well, since my last post, not much has changed. Except for the cleanliness of my house, it is once again a sty, but this place is a college, what do you expect? Still infested water and inedible Kantine food though.

Bergen was fabulous. I can't even fathom a place as old as Bergen is...it dates back to 1070! Good lord. Cool time, got to go in some medieval houses and see old church artifacts and stuff. Oh and shopped and got to eat McDonald's, but I was trying to mention the educational parts. I did get to test out my mixture of Norwegian and Swedish that I've picked up here at the college, thought it all actually went quite well and I found it amusing. "Jag vill ha numer fem og ost og lokyringer"...that's me ordering a value meal with cheese on the burger and onion rings in Norwegian...impressive, yeah?

Spent a lazy weekend back at the college, like usual. Not much going on, but nice to be reunited with everyone after PBL and just cuddle up and watch movies all afternoon.

School's kicking it up a bit right before November break, have a couple major assignments and papers due coming up. Which brings me to the point that I'll be home in 2 weeks and 5 days! Ha, I have a feeling these are about to be the longest weeks of my life.

I get back today to learn that all water on campus is undrinkable for an indefinite amount of time as it is infected by some vague "bacteria". And my house has gone on a crazy cleaning spree and has decided that all surfaces must be practically lickable before they pass cleanliness standards. This on top of the fact that I've grimly discovered that Kantine food is still Kantine food.

Aw, it's good to be home. Well, sort of home.

There are more than enough sayings expressing the same sentiment that you can't really appreciate something until you are separated from it. That seems to be the story of my life right now. I never appreciated being an American until I was away from my country. I never understood just how important my family was to me until I couldn't see them every day. I didn't know how amazing my best friends were until they kept loving me even though I went across an ocean. And now, being in Bergen for a week, I've begun to finally appreciate the other home I've found myself in for the past 2 months. I've accidentally fallen in love with so much about RCN. The people, the atmosphere, the landscape, even my room and my corner. I've started putting so much of me into that place that it's difficult to be away from it for the first time since I've been there. I'm content that now I feel grateful for everything that I have or have had. Perhaps missing something is the best way of loving it.

So it's finally big city time for me. I'm leaving for Bergen (pop. 200,000) in about an hour. I'm incredibly excited, I mean they have actual restaurants and shops there. And it looks really cool. But on the other hand, this just makes me think about how hard it's going to be to leave this place for good in about a year and a half. Right now it feels strange to leave and I'm only going to be gone for five days. It seems unfair to stick me in this amazing place for two years and then suddenly make me leave it all behind. No where else can ever be this to me, and the finality of it all is a bit sad. But hey, I'm going to eat at a Vietnamese restaurant today in a real city, so I shouldn't be complaining too much now, yeah?

demon liquor

So me and my roommates are sitting here on the eve of the eve of the cabin party (confusing, right?) discussing different alcohol policies around the world and here at school. Every time this subject comes up, it makes me feel stupid about my country. The rest of the world trusts their citizens to be mature enough to control their own alcohol consumption from almost any age, but in the U.S., where we are apparently more "free" than anywhere else, we can't buy alcohol until 4 years after we can vote. That means we could have technically decided two presidential elections before you could go to a bar and get a beer. Seems a bit silly, yeah? But according to Inara, my roommate from Uzbekistan, as long as you can walk and speak you can buy yourself alcohol there. Also seems a bit silly. I wonder if they have very many drinking problems because of it, or if they have less because it's not a taboo? I think that's part of the American problem, we make it such a taboo, something that is portrayed as incredibly fun but "not until you're old enough". Just makes people want to do it more. Kind of like the alcohol policy here on campus. They say, "We're going to treat you guys like adults. You take care of yourself, you make sure you get to class, you make sure you eat and sleep and survive. But we're not going to trust you enough to drink,". What kind of message is that? Like, "Oh look, we want you to think we trust you, but we actually don't,". Maybe that's a bit harsh. Maybe there is no right answer. Maybe we're just all doomed to forever fight the issue of that demon liquor :)

Do you know that your life is truly sad when you realize that Cheez-its are perhaps one of the best things you've ever tasted? Or is it even worse when you realize that, in the place you are, Cheez-its aren't even a known food? I'm not sure, all I know is that without Cheez-its and Everwood, I wouldn't be as happy as I am.

I had an okay weekend, not the best. I think homesickness affects everyone differently, and for me, it makes me lethargic. When I get upset or stressed out or homesick, I have an irrational tendency to think I can escape it if I just hide under the covers like I did when I was little. So I'm implying that I spent most of my weekend just hanging out in bed, watching movies and eating and trying to do very little thinking. This is however obviously a twisted method of coping that doesn't really leave you anywhere new on Monday except perhaps a bit more well-rested and well-fed. While these aren't necessarily bad things, especially here, they're also not the ideal outcomes of two entire days. So last night I decided it was necessary to get my lazy butt out of bed and head over to my favorite place on campus, Snikkarbua. I think I owe some kind of thanks to the gods of distributing campus responsibilities because they've saved me a couple of times by giving me Snikkarbua. Anyways, I headed over there with a huge mug of cocoa and my iPod and just sat at the edge of the dock and thought. I think it's so perfect because it's a place that doesn't force you to think about anything. The fjord below you is perfectly still and black, the sky above you is clear and inviting, and the mountains around you are empty abysses that somehow look as though it would be more caring than violent if they decided to swallow you up. I realized for the first time that I am alone, and at the same time I became content knowing that I recognized this and that I was okay with it. All in all, it was a really fufilling experience.

Alright, back to that English essay I've been procrastinating since the last entry. By the way, a perfect week coming up. No homework, free day on Wednesday, Forde and a cabin party on Saturday, then Bergen for PBL. Mm. Okay, peace and love.