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17 October 2009
10 October 2009
09 October 2009
04 October 2009
03 October 2009
08 June 2009
The Return
And we're back. After three great months of working, meeting, and enjoying life in Norway, I have returned to the homeland. I thought this jumping around would get easier, but somehow the culture shock seems stronger this time. Maybe it's because I could be here awhile, or maybe it's because I'm getting older and am getting a better idea of what I want and where I want to be...or maybe it just goes in waves. Whatever the case may be, I feel small things jumping out in neon color at my eyes. Cross necklaces seem larger than life, the lack of electronic music and over-abundance of health and food ads jump out to my eyes and ears, and sudden urges to spend all day walking downtown from cafe to cafe is difficult. Suddenly when I go out, people from my past magically appear. Randomly running into artists and fashion gurus doesn't happen. Going out every night and meeting beautiful, interesting, international people isn't my current life.
I've always had this pull between enjoying and doing. On one hand I want to enjoy life and the people that share it with me, while on the other hand I feel a strong pull to do something in this world, to leave a positive mark on the world and the people that share it with me. I want to combine these passions and know it is possible...so that's the current goal. I'm swimming with thoughts on how to make an impact and leave a mark, but not sure yet if it's possible to enjoy while my mind and heart drift back across the ocean. I've been told I'm the most wanderlust person in the world, but I don't think it's wanderlust, it's the fact that I refuse to live with regret and miss opportunities. Unfortunately, my opportunities for enjoyment and action seem to take me across the globe, continually leaving me with something lacking. I'll figure this stuff out. I'm just torn at the moment and am ready for an evening of confusion, tea, and good music.
I've always had this pull between enjoying and doing. On one hand I want to enjoy life and the people that share it with me, while on the other hand I feel a strong pull to do something in this world, to leave a positive mark on the world and the people that share it with me. I want to combine these passions and know it is possible...so that's the current goal. I'm swimming with thoughts on how to make an impact and leave a mark, but not sure yet if it's possible to enjoy while my mind and heart drift back across the ocean. I've been told I'm the most wanderlust person in the world, but I don't think it's wanderlust, it's the fact that I refuse to live with regret and miss opportunities. Unfortunately, my opportunities for enjoyment and action seem to take me across the globe, continually leaving me with something lacking. I'll figure this stuff out. I'm just torn at the moment and am ready for an evening of confusion, tea, and good music.
04 April 2009
Clean Your Boardgames
One of the best parts of living in a foreign country are the funny situations you can get into in another language. I have been working as a bartender at Circa in Tromsø, and one of my favorite parts of the job is that I am totally immersed in Norwegian for 7 hours. As I've learned, if you can communicate with drunk Norwegians you can communicate with anybody. After every night of work we clean up and have a beer together afterwards to wind down a bit. Tonight I was going through the cleaning list with everyone who was just sitting down to have their beer. I came to the item that said we had to clean the "spillbrett" which means (as I learned later) a type of tray that holds our dirty glasses. When I got to the word however, I some how interpreted it, and said it out-loud, as the Norwegian word I know that was most similar: brettspill, which means boardgame. So as I was reading out-loud I said, we have to clean the board games? Who is willing to do that? Everyone of course burst out laughing and told me that I had to wash each letter in the scrabble game before moving on to every horse in the risk game. It was a good laugh and a nice ending to a fun evening. So, as I drank my beer at 5am and watched the sun rise I learned a new word I don't think I'll ever forget.
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