Thursday 3 December 2009

Now where are my 12k words?

Arg, work, tiresome, no time for anything else! Will have to start reading books, playing games and blogging when this is done. As well as finding new ways to do my hair. AND further develop my fashion sense. For that, I found some inspiration:



Now excuse me as I get back to my writing.

Thursday 8 October 2009

Alternative Fun

Two weeks into my seven week practice period and I'm starting to get a hang of this teaching thing. It's mostly due to my own efforts, the literature we're given is a colorful mix of philosophy and bureaucracy and doesn't do you a whole lot of good when you're planning classes. I suppose it helps if you have an interest in the subject you're teaching, and when it comes to psychology I rather enjoy educating the young generation about the bugs and quirks of our brain. And so I wonder, is it a good thing or a bad thing that I'm already pushing the limits of the curriculum? Not that I worry much about it, the official document seems to have a problem agreeing with itself anyway.

In other news, it seems someone in Oslo enjoyed reading my job application and wanted to take a closer look at the source. I'm not sure what to think of it myself, yet I suppose a day trip to Oslo would be good for the soul either way. It's always interesting to get to see a company from the inside, and there are no better ways to do so then through a job interview. In my experience you can tell more about someone based on the question he asks then the answers you get, and I'm very curious as to what kind of person they are looking for.

Also, I'm giving it ten to one odds on them reading this.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

Going Full Circle

A few weeks into this semester, unsuspecting pupils will be hit by an avalanche of new wannabe teachers. I am one of those teachers, and a few weeks into the semester was yesterday. I suppose the most common thing to say would be to point out how it feels somewhat odd to be on the other side of things. Truth to be told, I remember only fragments of my days behind the small wooden desks. And being back there, walking the same halls I did more then 10 years ago, doesn't make me feel out of place at all.


As for the kids, they're mostly well behaved. Getting to teach classes in two very different schools, one of the best and one of the supposedly worst, the only real difference I can tell between the two classes is based purely on the age difference. And I consider myself a pretty decent judge of character.

Speaking of character, our two guidance teachers are night and day. One is fairly young, open for new ideas and seems to enjoy his job. The other one, not so much. Snide comments and jabs during the school introduction, the occasional unnecessary peck during class and an attitude which can easily translate into an aura of negativity. Specially computers tend to provoke this attitude. I see conflicts in my future.

On the other hand, The handgun safety course is really picking up. We're divided into smaller groups now, which makes it easier to get to know people. Also, the instructors showed they in fact do know how to instill mechanical behavior in us as they had us fire off 25 rounds over 5 sessions against an unmarked target board. No checking results between sessions either. Good times, and I'm getting better already hitting pretty evenly even under poor lighting conditions and with a mediocre weapon. It's all about Zen and being able to shut of the world and trust your instincts.. something I think most people in the age of information overload should learn.


Coming from a stressful classroom, slipping into the serene meditative state of shooting is food for the soul. I think I'm getting more then I bargained for.

Sunday 20 September 2009

How to Become a Gun Tooting Teacher

The last few weeks has been quite a sprint, but now the lectures are over with and come Monday I'm getting a feel for the every-day life of a teacher. Heading off to two different schools I'll be observing in class the first week or so, then start teaching said classes myself the following weeks. I'll be teaching Social Science at middle school level, and psychology in High School. Looking to be an interesting few months.

In other news, I went to a handgun safety course yesterday with the aim of doing a little recreational shooting. There's an outdoor shooting range not far from here; I didn't even know how close it was until I headed up there yesterday. There's actually a more action oriented shooting range in a bunker underneath the park next to our apartment, but they only admit seasoned veterans who can bring their own gun. I'm not quite there yet, but it's good to have long term goals.

Ruger Mark II, our training weapon.

So, after spending a few hours in the club house going through very simple safety rules and routines, presented in quite possibly the worst possible way you can when trying to teach people mechanized behavior, we headed off to the shooting range to fire off some rounds and getting a feel for the weapons. It was a somewhat interesting crowd that walked up the small dirt road gun in hand, age ranging from 13 to well over 50 and with backgrounds equally diverse. Sadly the social aspect of the club hasn't delivered at all so far, but we'll see how that develops as the weeks progress. More guys then girls, yet more girls then you would expect. According to our instructor, shooting is the second most practiced sport in Norway with only soccer rated higher. Makes sense I suppose, seeing as there are more guns pr. person in Norway (and Switzerland, interestingly enough) then any other country in the world. Not that you would know this from the media coverage.

Handling a gun again, and I say again seeing as the last time I fired a gun was 10 years ago back when I was in the Air Force, was surprisingly mundane. Maybe it was the cold weather, the old fashion barracks they called a club house, or simply the fact that we had spent hours going through rigid safety regulations and being fed a description of shooting which made it sound about as interesting as playing solitaire, I don't know.

What I do know is that these people are running around with guns, and they need to be socialized.

Tuesday 8 September 2009

Work, work

I remember when being a student meant reading a bunch of books, showing up at a lecture or two a week, hanging out with fellow students and party during the weekend. Seems I've been out of the loop for a while, because now, being a student means trying to find the time to read a bunch of books, going to two or three lectures a day, constantly writing some assignment and talk to fellow students as you move from lecture to lecture. Weekend are spent doing what you didn't find time for during the week.

I did manage to sneak away to catch Gamer at the cinema tonight though. To my defence I found in a pocket a pair of gift certificates that expired this weekend, so we kinda had to use them. Games being my field and all I figured I should catch it, and seeing as it was suppose to be a dark and edgy comment to video games in general it should right up my alley anyway.

Moving through the pouring rain down towards Magus Barfot, we didn't have the greatest expectations for the movie and it didn't deliver either. The dialogue was dull, neither funny, cool, or smart, exemplified with the fact that IMDB doesn't list a single memorable quote. Almost a feat in itself. It seems to take itself too seriously, lacking any kind of edge. There are some cool ideas and concepts in there, but it doesn't seem to know what to do with them or how to develop them further. It should have borrowed some tricks from Shoot 'em Up, a quality flick which plays of the game aesthetic perfectly.

Next time I have an hour and a half to kill I'm totally watching Shoot 'em Up again.

Thursday 3 September 2009

Mr. Politically Incorrect

Ever since the DnD song found it's way into my Pen and Paper RPG group many years ago, I've been a fan of the musical genious that is Stephen Lynch. There's something about the combination of boyish charms and inappropriate jokes which really works, and being entertaining and talented doesn't hurt either.


So when I happened to see a notice for his show in a student newspaper I picked up a pair of tickets right away. Jostein wasn't hard to convince, and as the word spread more friends found that they wanted to tag along to Grieghallen.


Crowd was decent, and only one guy got thrown out, which I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing. Two hours later and with grins plastered over our collective faces we headed for beers, high on jokes about aids, jews and dubious sexual intercourse. Quality night all around.

Monday 31 August 2009

Shopping Elsewhere

Finding the lectures at the University to be somewhat lacking when it comes to practical examples and instrumental knowledge in the field of teaching, I didn't hesitate when I saw that a childhood friend of mine was hosting a weekend seminar through Mental Helse Ungdom on how to hold good presentations. Finally something I could use!

15 hours spread evenly between Saturday and Sunday meant no lounging around the apartment during the day and made for a somewhat different weekend then I'm used to. While leaving Batman: Arkham Asylum behind was somewhat hard and getting up after a hardcore Harley Davidson party at Ricks Saturday night was even harder, it was well worth it. Getting advice from someone with hands-on experience from holding and watching lectures is golden. He gave us directly applicable pointers on how to structure a lecture, what to watch out for and how to pace our voice and use body language. Then we got a chance to apply what we'd learned by preparing and holding a short presentation and get feedback on our performance.

All in all a weekend well spent, leaving me with quality notes I will be referring to when preparing my own lectures in the future.

Oh, and the Harley Davidson party was totally sweet. Those people know how to party!


Thursday 27 August 2009

Defining Twitter

Social media is becoming an integrated part of our daily lives, a way of keeping in touch with our social circle on a day to day basis. But as with everything else people are resistant to change. When I was a kid it was a social stigma to own a mobile phone, but as they became more available people caught up and now it's hard to live without one. Few people install hard lines in their homes these days, and most people have color TV's.


Twitter is the latest addition to the social media scene. But compared to email, blogs and Facebook it's slightly more complicated in it's simplicity. With its 140 signs "it's like a Facebook status update and a blog merged into one" as people tend to explain it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It started out as a simple idea, the SMS of the Internet; a way of exchanging brief messages with friends. However, anyone could pull out tweets (Twitter posts) from the network and sort them in whatever way they wanted. You could browse for keywords, read the trending topics and follow random people. Then some clever fellows figured that if they used a hashtag (#) and a codeword, they could easily sort out the tweets they wanted. A myriad of supporting sites started popping up, and a simple tool became a community.

It takes a while to wrap your head around what Twitter actually is. Here's one way of looking at it. Imagine you walk into a party with millions of other people. Everywhere people are talking, some talk to their friends, some talk to large groups, some about specific topics and some about their lives. As you step into the room, you realize that you have no senses or mental systems for navigating at this party.

Twitter is that system. It allows you to focus your attention towards what you want to hear. You can chose which people to listen to by following them, which topics to listen to following hashtags or search for keywords, and see what discussions are currently taking place by looking at trending topics. As an added bonus, any time someone mentions your name you will hear it.

Facebook is for your old friends, Twitter is for your future friends. Use it well.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Great Expectations

In many ways our expectations guide our perception. When you go to see what critics have named "the best movie of the year", it doesn't always live up to your expectations. The reverse is also true; a movie that's supposedly horrible and unwatchable isn't always that bad. Maybe it has something to do with the concept Dan Ariely discuss when he talks about filling in the blanks. When you have sketchy details about something you fill in the gaps in a positive way, and so the good movie is expected to fill your criteria for a good movie, the bad movie fill your criteria for a bad movie.

My expectations for PPU was a mixed bag, a hoping for the best while expecting the worst kinda deal. So far I've been very positively surprised by my seminar group; the students are an interesting bunch and the seminar leader knows how to stimulate discussions. I'm still curious as to what the lectures bring, though I expect to figure that out soon enough. Answers to the question "what will we learn" is still sketchy, but judging from the seminar group it seems people will be pushing for hard facts on how to deal with concrete situations. I know I will.

Most concept has an inner and an outer component. The outer component when it comes to expectations is what you expect from other things, the inner component is what you expect from yourself. Supposedly, Henry Ford once said that "whether you think you can or you can't, you're probably right". There is power in belief, be that one way or the other. These are subjects best discussed over beer.

Friday 14 August 2009

Back to School

I've always been interested in the mechanisms which shape the human mind, a quest which has taken me down many different roads. One of these are teaching, or to be more specific; teachers. Whenever I meet someone who work as a teacher, I make sure to ask what they learned during their education. I have yet to receive a decent answer.

As with all things, if you want something done (or in this case, answered) you have to do it yourself. This, and a desire to give Bergen one more chance before going somewhere else to get a job in the gaming industry, led me to what the University of Bergen has dubbed "Practical Pedagogical Education". In short, it's a one year addition to an existing bachelor or masters degree which gives you the tools you need to be a teacher. Or so they claim.

Lectures start next week, and the introductory information meeting was held last Wednesday. After being lectured on the values of being a "moral person" and the importance of "treating people as people", I feel slightly dumber then before the meeting. There might be a very good reason why people with a teachers degree can't tell you what they learned..

Sunday 9 August 2009

Bachelor Party

This weekend spelled bachelor party as Daniel, an old friend of mine I haven't seen in ages, is getting married these days. His best man Arne had rented a cabin in the middle of nowhere, rounded up Daniels friends from then and now, and off we went.

Picture stolen from Facebook. Share it there, share it everywhere.

Most of us know Daniel from a from a pen-and-paper RPG background, and the first part of the day was spent running the groom through different trials with various personal references. The second half was spent drinking and on subsequent shenanigans.

These things call all sorts of social oddities out of the wood works, which is what makes them interesting in the first place. It's the perfect place to analyze human interaction, as people who don't know each other are friends for a day, locked together far from civilization in a cabin filled with alcohol. Drinking tends to remove the usual filter people use to judge appropriate behaviour, and entertainment ensues.

Thursday 6 August 2009

Dear Funcom

How many applications have you read so far? Are you getting tired of the same old lines? Age/sex/location. Education? Yes I have that! Who doesn't in this day and age? Academics are a dime a dozen, and lets be honest, most students spent their time at the university drinking anyway. I did, you did, yet here we are. You don't want papers, you want social skills. You want flare. And most of all, you want a friend.

Someone with a sense of humor. Who can brighten up the office and bring cookies on a rainy Friday, who sends you funny links just before lunch and tells inappropriate jokes by the water cooler. The guy who turns the company into a place that's better then your own home, and before you know it you're telling your wife you will be working overtime when in reality you're racing office chairs down the hallway. The winner gets his name on the hall of fame. Screw employee of the month.

All this is within your grasp. You can always tell your boss I wrote a nice and formal cover letter. It will be our little secret, and I'll cover for you when that cute new intern pulls you away at the christmas party.

Because that's just the kind of guy I am.

Sincerely,
Frank

Monday 3 August 2009

Friends in Odd Places

Saturday night Odin made a strange comment; "you don't have any friends like yourself". I'm not really sure what to do with this information, but it got me thinking: what makes for a good friendship, and how do people connect with those they consider friends? Sunday morning spelled workout for Kristine, Jostein and me, as well as reflecting over the night before in between sets. In reality this means Jostein and I immersing ourselves in a discussion while ignoring the rest of the world, which put us on to our particular brand of friendship and why it works.

It can be summarized as follows. We are both the type of person who tends to speak passionately about things that catches our interest; that being a book recently read, an idea had or observation made. We are also both decent listeners in that we are genuinely interested when people talk passionately about their own interests. In effect, our conversational styles match and add to this a foundation of similar opinions approached from somewhat different angles, and it's easy to see why we get along as good as we do. An unwanted side effect of this is that we have a tendency to block out other people when we start a discussion, much like the way people immerse themselves in movies, books and games while becoming oblivious to the rest of the world.

Much like many people simply accept their family, I wonder if people also tend to just accept their friends instead of considering why they are friends and how they became friends in the first place. Romantic relationships will grow stale when you start taking each other for granted, and I don't see why friendships should be any different.

Here's a thought for you. Get to know your friends again. People change, but rarely does their surroundings keep up. Bad friends can hold you back if you want to improve yourself because they enjoy feeling superior to you. Hopefully you don't have too many of those hanging around. Which brings me to my end quote, one I've always been fond of.

Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.

Sunday 2 August 2009

Reboot

Ok, that was fun, but it didn't lend itself to more blog posts. Having gotten so used to writing a travel blog, unless I do something special I feel I don't have anything to write about. Then when I actually do have someting to write about I still don't due to being out of sync. So I consider this a reboot of my blogging.

Summer so far is pretty good except for the fact that Bergen changed back to it's usual gray and rainy self. Yet another reason to hang out at one of our many small cozy pubs with random friends. That pretty much sums up my summer so far, which I don't consider a bad thing.

Other then that I'm doing grunt work at Tine awaiting the start of the semester. Unless something else shows up I'll be taking PPU at the University of Bergen, a one year teachers degree prompted by a new found interest in human interaction patterns. Having several friends who are either working as or studying towards becoming a teacher, I still haven't been able to figure out what they actually learned during their studies. I'm curious as hell, and it seems I will have to figure this out myself.

This also marks a shift in my blogging focus, and I'll be moving towards writing about ideas, news and interests, as well as anything interesting that should come up. Summer is slow in that regard, but there are handgun and unarmed combat training coming up as Norway wakes up from it's summer slumber.

Also, there's an election coming up and things doesn't look good for the Kingdom of Norway. Soon it will be every man for himself.

Monday 6 July 2009

Where time stands still

And so I brought Kristine, Pål Are, Jostein and Rune along for a trip away from the city, expecting the place to be just as I remember. It seems my memory served me well for once, and my optimism was duly rewarded. The surrounding area and the cabin was exactly as I remembered it. The mountains, the forest, the lake.. untouched since my last visit. It seems our cabin is actually the newest building, dating back to 1985.

Our cabin.

The view.

The cabin itself has 4 bedrooms with 7 beds total, and an unwritten rule that nobody sleeps in my grandmothers room. So in effect, that leaves 3 bedrooms of 2 beds each, one of them being a double bed. Lots of floor space though if we really want to fill it up. Running water, a shower, indoor toilet and electricity makes for a pretty comfortable place. The three windows you see lead into the living room with an open kitchen solution, a dining table and a couch. All in all, comfortable and spacey.

Arming the fly-swatter.

Just down from the cabin lies the lake, which is somewhat cold this time of year due to the snow melting. This did not stop us from plunging in several times over the course of the weekend.

Taking a swim.

On Saturday we went for a walk up the mountain, hoping to find a mountain lake where I remember fishing when I was a kid. Not being to sure where the trail went we followed the one trail we found, took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in the middle of the forest. Parting ways, Jostein and I just went straight up the mountain side while Rune, Kristine and Pål Are went back down to where we took a wrong turn. 40 minutes later the two of us was at the top, looking down at the three of them. Look closely and you can see three little dots.

Us.

Them.

And of course, we rewarded ourselves with meat and a bath when we came back down. Jostein, apart from bringing a decent camera also brought his cooking skills. It's good to have friends with a skill set that differs from your own.

Tasty tasty murder.

On Sunday, clouds started rolling in and the idea of a last swim didn't seem as tempting as the night before. Instead we went for a drive around the surrounding area, checking out a few of the waterfalls and taking some pictures before trying our luck fishing in the lake. Rune didn't get anything, I got a small one which I tossed back in.

Rune fishing.

Afterwards we made some food, cleaned the cabin and aimed for home. It's not too far from Bergen, roughly a 3 hour drive which includes one ferry. If we get more weather like this I'm definitely going back before the summer is over.

Reflecting.

It was a nice trip, one that I'd love to repeat when the sun returns. And next time, maybe I'll try bringing even more people.

Friday 3 July 2009

Childhood Memories

So, new blog and everything. It needs some customization, but I figured it's better to just get started writing again and take the layout and setup as I go. Also, I wanted to do write this out before I left.

When I was a kid, we used to go to my grandmothers cabin in Sunnfjord. It was a nice place to spend parts of the summer, down by a lake where we could fish or go swimming, a forest clad mountain where we picked blueberries, a farm next door where we used to visit the piglets. I have some good memories from that place. It's always green and it's always sunny. And in the evenings, we played board games and read Care Bear comics my cousins brought with them.


I haven't been there in 15 years, yet for some strange reason I expect it to be the same as I left it. I remember the cabin itself as being pretty big, more then enough room for two families. A small road going along the lake, our cabin somewhat secluded on a hill moving up towards where the lush forest comes creeping down. Neighbors, but not a lot, and nice and quiet except for an angry dog named Wolf. An area untouched by the cabinization of Norwegian lakes.

This weekend I've gathered some friends to go back to the cabin for some quiet relaxation. People say it's going to be completely different from what I remember. Overpopulated. Some claim I won't even be able to recognize the cabin, leading us on a wild goose chase around the lake.

Lets see how well my childhood memories serve me.