As I know you were expecting a different post in this spot, I’ll make this short:
Groundhog
Post no. 50 concludes Murmeldyr’s first year of existence. Quality over quantity! The marmot promises to keep posting wry reflections, overuse adverbs and stay different.
A young girl was buried today. As I happened to know her, this revoked all sorts of reactions and set off many slumbering thoughts, some of which worth sending down the Tubes.
I always found it strange how suicide is looked upon as weak, immoral and/or foolish, and I get upset whenever someone characterises it as selfish. If you believe that we stay around in some form until our purpose is fulfilled, it seems only reasonable to ask for a new chance to do your job, learn your lesson or whatever that purpose might be, if the current chance messed up beyond repair.
Isn’t that blaming attitude towards the passed person just as selfish? Sure it leaves a mess behind, but what kind of argument is that - should a wrecked soul be held responsible for the wellbeing of others even after they are gone? Maybe the rest of us even need to have our roots shaken once in a while to remind us what is important, like making sure we care for each other.
So in this country where ending your misery is a legal crime, one is supposed to choose life at any cost. On another hand, we are constantly told to shape our own destiny, we can do anything we want if the effort is big enough, we are solely responsible for our actions and you know the drill. If you follow that idea a few steps further down, it follows quite naturally that our lives are in our own hands. So while I mourn the loss on my own part, I respect the choice totally and would not consider blaming her. The rest of us are poorer than we were, and the girl is possibly in a better place.
(Also the priest’s talking about the sheep mildly following the lord shepherd reminded me why I like the independent goats so much. I cannot get my head around the virtue of blindly depending. It bears such a negative view on humanity.)
A couple of days before, I found a stunningly beautiful flower coming out of a green plant that normally does not flower at all. A good last gift for a rare soul.
May your memory forever inspire others to open their hearts and speak their mind freely as you did.
A few weeks from now I’ll have a very satisfying Bachelor’s degree in hand. Also unless something surprising happens I’ll have a masters’ admittance in the other. In other words, the next couple of years will take me further down the same road I’ve been walking some time already, although I do expect the next phase to be different and better. For one, there’s the postgrad props. For two, there’s only so many masters’ courses in my field where I go now and I realised I’ve done most of them already so I’m applying for a bigger uni.
I contemplated waiting a year for a program that was basically the same but with a cooler-sounding title, but decided waiting is boring. After all, the current plan is staying in Uni forever. As the current wave is that the at one point idolized eternal students should be doing something useful instead, this means I need to get a job there at some point. Also, it means the boundaries of Eastern Norway may become too small -which will be a tough one. The very significant other was fantastic and understanding when I flew away for a term on more windy shores, but anything more permanent could be harder to explain.
Funny thing. To me, Bachelor is the word to use for subtly signaling that a guy, however handsome or charming, is slobby. So, I have a slob degree. Excellent.
What IS slobby, there is no graduation. We asked ‘where is our graduation ceremony’ and the answer was there is none. The diploma comes in the mail. -The ceremony will come in two years when you’re done. So much for module-based educational system! This goes with the “no problem your course will not be on this year, you can do it next year” attitude of the Living University. How about we’re not here next year?
I want my square hat and gown.
Tanzania is hereby official.
Fuzzy 80's sunset photo
It will be simple. A lost and found phone will be my most valuable possession. We will stay in a bungalow (nicer term for hut) with “sort of a bathroom” in the words of the host.
Although Tanzania is regarded a peaceful place in African context; as Europeans tourists we are advised to travel in large groups and not at all after dark. Hard for someone who goes exploring first thing in a new place and a type of rule I would normally be flexible about. But seeing our in comparison staggering prospery, it’s hard to blame anyone for doing like a certain mister Hood and take justice in own hands.
Why go to such great lengths in pursuit of uncomfortable, inescapable heat, new interesting germs, towering barriers of communication and very limited freedom of movement?
It’s been said that you will never be the same having seen the Moon from the other side of the globe. Maybe I will understand things I would not if I stayed in the West. Maybe I can spread said understanding and contribute in making this world a more unified place.
It’s tempting to claim the altruistic aspect (the work part of the schedule) as a rationale for going, especially when people ask and don’t seem too interested in actually listening to a proper answer. That would, however, have been very shallow minded and just as selfish as other grounds. If helping out was the reason for going, the money would certainly be better spent if simply sent.
Someone said that the value for money is terrible when booking everything yourself as I do. I guess if value for money means comfort for money, I would have been better off at a hotel in Alicante. And I would return and not be a millimeter better a person.
In biology, outgroups are used in distinguishing characteristic features. If studying flies, adding an ant can be useful (Comparing them you can say that having six legs is an insect property, while having wings is not). Maybe discovering a very different way of life can tell me something about human traits. Could some of the things I reckon as distinctly Western be universally human? Or the other way round?
In my otherwise thorough History class in High school, one page of a fat textbook was dedicated to Africa. As far as I remember no one questioned the striking skewness. Since, the pattern has been upheld and in the country where “looking at your navel” is a commonly used phrase, international media coverance is either missing or horribly sensational (and the next person to mention swine flu is in risk of getting a fist. Obvious hype is obvious). When we never hear of something, we conceive it as less important and further away, not a part of us. To break the mental pattern, I realize I need to go get a glimpse myself.
People and societies aside, I look forward to feel a different air, walk on different soil, drink different (although filtered) water and climb some different trees.
To sum up this brainstorming shortly and a bit bombastically, I strive to expand as a human being and that is why I go outside of the yellow brick road.
It's a gnu life!
As a bonus, the change of plans gives more time for recruiting and plotting destinations on the Interrail route. Flipping coins is good, but there needs to be some anchors as well.
So; travel partners wanted for backpacking in India, tracking in Scottish high plains or abovementioned Interrail! Leave a comment if interested.
Lately I have engaged in very mundane activities, such as planning on Interrail for summer (there will be a separate post. In the meantime, please comment if you are interested in backpacking throughout Europe some 3 weeks in July), repeatedly informing rabbits keyboard cords are not edible (another reason for the offlineness but a very good lesson in fusing cables!), failingly persuading James (the support guy with the distinctly Engrish accent) that performing a 2h memory test is outstandingly bad advice when the problem at hand is the friggin’ computer rebooting every ten minutes!, catching up with what network theorists would call my dead network (they turned out to be alive and well) and reclaiming the rabbit fort (I am now the posessor of a fully functioning sleeping couch armed with chicken wire).
I still love random oddities and brackets.
Murmeldyr was started as means of letting people like yourself in on what life brought while I was off to faraway for what then was a substantial part of my close future. Partly to avoid forgetting what I’d told who and repeating myself too much, partly for broadcasting pixelated evidence and partly for looking back later. Close future very rapidly transformed into recent past, Aggy is back in homely lands and Murmeldyr has fulfilled its purpose?
Undoubtedly there will be more travels. In the meantime, your happy Marmot will be busy typing rants and wry outlooks in the Murmle (”grumbling”) section.
As any social blog is incomplete without a section for “hey look what I found!” I created it and called it Findings. I am sure there will be more findings as well.
Till next time, have some duckling on acid!
Norway: Cold in more than one way
The people of this country scare me sometimes. Since I came back, I have been trodded on, sneaked past in shops several times, been ignored by service personnel and generally been treated as Norwegian people treat their neighbors. Compared to the caring strangers I met in Aberdeen, my countryfellows remind me of zombies. The emotionless crowd really freaks me out.
I did not mind before. Now I am not used to it anymore. Everyone acts as though they are alone, even on a crowded street, taking great care to not ever look anyone in the face or in any other way acknowledge their existence. And, as they are alone, there is no need to keep a passage open where space is limited, or wait for their turn where there is no ordered line. It seems unnatural. I am having nightmares about being attacked in the middle of Oslo and empty-eyed people wander past without ever interfering, watching the scene indifferently for a second as they pass. Then I am left bleeding on the ground and the gray mass of people fill the gap, walking right through me.
Stand out in the crowd!
I know that we are a shy people and do not want to bother others. But do we need to treat everyone as though they were invisible? The peer pressure to do so is intense; the other person’s uneasiness if you are as rude as to break the pattern is so visible and it is so much easier to conform. But respect comes to the one who dares to stand out, and I still believe we are a caring people - just why do we not dare to show it and make the world a happier place?
This post is not about you. It is about everyone else. I know you can think of several times when you treated a stranger well. Actually I don’t think many people at all will feel this is about them. Still, this is a very real experience I have. If you feel the tiniest bit touched by this, please regard it as food for thought.
It may well be that my head is in a funky state from exams and the floaty existence that surrounds them, but I’ve seen so many outright awesome headlines on my tour de web today that I will collect them for future reference. These are from renowned sources, it’s not April fools’ day and they are, as far as I can tell, completely true. Some are serious stuff, but forgive me for laughing - it is too absurd.
Woman exchanged 2000 Monopoly dollars into 1400 danish Kr in the bank, at an exchange rate of 0.7. But it does not stop there: Next day she went back to the same bank to do the same thing.
Blagojevich planned to sell the empty Illinois senator seat to Oprah Winfrey (who has never been in politics)?!
Car stuck, in church roof 35 m above ground. Used slope to launch.
No case files exist for Guantanamo detainees. Wait, what? That’s even crazier than I expected.
Man accepts other people’s speeding fines -goes to jail.
I promised to write only about important, essential things, no personal jabjab that makes some blogs so tideous. Rabbits are important.
My place is now a bunnyplace. I didn’t realise how much I’ve been missing companion animals. How calming it is to work in the home-office to the eager sounds of rabbits busily minding their own business. How much they make me smile when they run across the floor and can’t stop when they reach the other end. A bunnyplace is a happy place.
We picked up Lilo and Luna from a shelter organization yeasterday. It was snowing so heavily that black rabbits were white before we even got back to the car. Sure getting snowed on is not a bunny’s favorite pastime, and two sulky rabbits stared at us from the far corner of the cage the rest of the day. Although the door was kept open and we tried our best to trick them out on the floor with treats, they only wanted to lay there like some amorphic fur heap with ears. Today is another matter altogether, they seem to have moved to under the couch and arrange expeditions to the other rooms from there.
In their previous home they lived with cats, and rabbits were bossing the cats around. Bunny got guts! It broke my heart taking them away from their cosy home and their feline frenemies, but at least they get more jumping room here!
They’re already doing the funny, weird things rabbits do, like hiding their food bowl under a heap of hay and a number of other rearrangements that seem perfectly random to non-rabbits.
They absolutely love that carpet. Guess it reminds them of a grassy field.
Embarrassingly enough, I can’t tell them apart - but they don’t seem to care what I call them so using the wrong name should be forgivable.
Wow! I am going to have to moderate yesterday’s post substantially. While I’m still as puzzled by the selective blindness I’ve seen many times, the people of Oslo have proven that there’s still solid numbers of people who care. When a city of half a million can present 40 000+ people for a procession, there must still be hope. Alas, as I was hindered from participating and the media seem to focus solely on a different, violent demonstration the same night, I haven’t been able to find pictures from the procession.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government is still ignoring the UN and blocking the border, even for Redcross!
In danger of reducing Murmeldyr to a collection of links to good causes, I give you a few channels to show concern:
Call from Palestinian human rights organizations to UN, EU and the Geneva Council
Avaaz’ petition to the UN, EU, Arab League and USA for negotiations instead of force
I turn on the news. I can’t watch and turn off again. I turn it back on, it’s too important, too big to be ignorant about.
I’m of course talking about the war on the edge of Europe. This is no political blog, but I can’t hold my peace on this. But instead of commenting the things that are going on, which many have done better than I ever could, like in The Independent, I will rather express my profound wonder regarding a quite common reaction to these news: “Meh.”
As we walked past a newsstand, I said to my friend, -have you seen the headlines? She shrugs,
-There’s always a war somewhere. There’s no way my friend could care less, and I see the same mentality in a lot of people when the issue is brought up; in lunch at work, on the bus. The information we get is truly hard to relate to and people tackle it in very different ways; some cry their empathic hearts out, while some lock it all out and deny the existence of the whole situation. The latter case puzzles and fascinates me and gives me some very low thoughts on humanity. It seems, the more terrible the violations, the less do people care. Sure the Middle East conflict is as old as Israel itself, but this is different, this time the people have nowhere to escape and that is what makes it so exceedingly inhumane. 30 years ago there would have been a massive uproar, but there have only been scattered demonstrations in response to this.
A simple explanation would be that people protect themselves from pain by relating to a difficult problem simply by not relating to it. That’s an accepted psychological fact. But isn’t that still too simple? How is it possible to ignore such a massive fight, so close and so well documented in media?
Are we really ready to accept anything with a shrug and a frown? Where will that take us? How much are we capable of accepting and ignoring without ever reacting?
To those who have given in to the hopelessness I quote Avaaz: Our efforts really can make a difference — Israel’s own foreign minister admits that international pressure, if intense enough, could ensure a ceasefire (våpenhvile).
In the meantime, I’m glad to see that some ordinary people still keep their hopes. Jewish teenagers with a conscience are going to jail for refusing to participate in this war. Please sign this petition to free them: December 18th campaign
