Okay, so I totally suck at updating this blog. Luckily, I
have a good memory. The Norwegian beer hasn’t completely depleted my brain
cells just yet. And speaking of Norwegian beer/alcohol, I can no longer proudly
say “I never get hangovers”. This makes me oh so very sad. Mom, if you’re
reading this, sorry.
Well, I guess I’ll go update month-by-month in the most
concise way possible. Let’s see...
December – Exams and Melbu!
Given that the education system here is a bit different in
the sense that many classes have 100% exams, this promotes a lot of cramming.
And I mean a lot. I don’t think I’ve studied so much since...maybe third year
when I was close to failing Organic Chemistry before the final. Not that I felt
like I would fail, but with no midterms or any kind of mid-semester assignments
in many of my classes, I was not caught up with the readings. It was painful,
but it made the last day of exams feel so much better. We finished our
Immunology exam at 1pm and off to Mormors for drinks! I can still fondly recall
my friend and I going in, and him ordering 4 beers for the two of us in the
middle of the afternoon. Mind you, tables all around us had students studying hard.
Jealous bastards. J
Word I learned that I will probably never use in
conversation: trommestikkespikker
After exams, I had a few days off before departing up North
to Melbu! Ivar, one of the friends I’ve made at Samfundet was kind enough to
take me in for a week over Christmas. I was determined to see the Northern
Lights and try moonshine. Only one of those goals were accomplished.
 |
| View of Melbu at night. |
 |
| The sun tried to come out.. |
In short, Christmas in Norway is quite a bit different from
what I’m used to at home. There are traditional dishes that his family made
such as ribbe (pork), pinnekjøtt (lamb), risgrøt (rice..porridge) among other
traditional foods served over breakfast/lunch. I’m used to my family usually
roasting a huge turkey with 31315 different side dishes (my family eats a
lot..ha), but in his family it was more “basic” with one protein, one vegetable
and one carbohydrate option. Not that I’m complaining, since it was all
delicious, but it was a nice change. I was also driven around the island with
my durable camera in hand taking pictures of everything. It wasn’t until a
couple days there that I realised there are no
traffic lights... Melbu is a small town of roughly 2000 inhabitants. My high
school almost had that many people. I don’t know if I could live in a small
town, but something about being in such a tight knit community (it seemed like
everyone knew eachother or had a mutual friend regardless of age) makes
it..cozy. Yes, I started to use the word ‘cozy’. All in all, a very low-key, eye-opening
Christmas spent somewhere I never thought I’d get the chance to see.
Oh right, there was absolutely no ‘’daylight’’. The sun
tried its best, but the most it could do was illuminate the fjords. My last day
there it was raining and that’s when there was 0 daylight.
 |
| In about 3 hours, this much snow accumulated. I thought it was a ''snow storm''..my friends just laughed. Vancouver snow worries are going to piss me off when I return. |
January – New Year’s and Experts in Teamwork (EiT)
I went back to Trondheim on NYE to celebrate New Year’s
since a friend was having a party. It’s strange for students (unless they’re
from Trondheim) to spend the holidays there since it’s predominantly a student
town. The city’s a ghost town at times... NYE was fun, we went up near her
place to watch the fireworks! They were amazing. Vancouver needs fireworks on
NYE, seriously.
School started soon after where I took an intensive course
called Experts in Teamwork. Basically, any 4th year level student at
NTNU (their equivalent of 1st year Masters) had to take a course
where they combined students from multiple disciplines together, group them off
into teams, and have them make a project/product based on the “village” theme.
I don’t know why they decided to use the word village to describe our group,
but whatever. Most people complain about how much it sucks because you’re
forced to work with people you (usually) don’t like very much and there’s one
common grade given, no exceptions.
However, my village, “Trondheim as an International Student City” was
really engaging. I won’t blab on about it, but I came out of there, yes,
frustrated at times, but honestly had a really good time. Even though I took a very similar course to it back home at
UBC, it did not prepare me for all the frickin’ diversity in my group.
February – ISFiT
 |
| Walk of Peace. Over 800 people walked through Trondheim. |
As mentioned in previous posts, ISFiT was the one commitment
I put myself into that I was really looking forward to! I think this deserves a
post in its own, but I fear this is turning into too long a post. I only have
positive (but very tiring) memories of those ridiculous ten days. Along with
three others, we led a workshop over 10 days. From about 7:30am – 11pm (on a
good day) I would be out of the house running around with our participants. In
the morning, we had activities and methods aimed at helping them explore the
theme of social movements. Then, dinner. Afterwards, speakers and events at
Samfundet that easily went late into the night. I wanted to see and do
everything, but holy, my body was dying at the end of it.
 |
| It's hard to put in words how freakin' amazing this night was. |
There were incredible concerts, dance parties, speakers,
unexpected lessons, and even a billionaire who treated us to breakfast. I still
remember all 30 of the participants in our workshop (who represented 26
different countries!), and I hope I can see some of them in the near future.
Hearing their stories about the struggles they go through in their home
countries makes me feel so lucky that I’ve grown up in Canada. Seeing all 450
participants at the closing ceremonies representing over 100 countries was very
special. I don’t think I will ever get to experience such a festival again. Okay,
sappy Nelson over.
 |
| My Workshop! :) |
March/April
The highlight of March by far was FINALLY seeing the Northern Lights! They were all over Trondheim one night, it was gorgeous. I'll just leave this picture up, it obviously does it no justice but that was one of my "Norway Bucket List" items I can now finally cross off!
No comments:
Post a Comment