Finished Essay & Excursion

Alright! I just finished my first essay for this class! I'm so excited! I hope it's good. I haven't written one since the end of the spring semester. It's a good thing that this essay will not be "graded" with a letter grade or anything like that. The message I got about this was that it was for a feedback and and getting a feel for it. I hope that's true, because if it's not too good, I'm ok! But I'm sure I'll do ok. I've written many essays before and have not had trouble with any of them. Never below a B grade in an essay; that's pretty deccent. Anyway, I sent my finished draft to Inger. Hopefully she has some time tomorrow morning to look it over and give me some feedback, so that I can revise and edit in time to turn it in on time. Speaking of which, I'm not sure which time is the correct due time tomorrow. The hand out says 1400 (2pm) but on the Fronter (online classroom database) it says 1615 (4:15pm). In any case, I am aiming for the earlier time; it's better to be early than risking the chance of being late, especially for turning in a paper!

I've also have a few chapters in the Work, Oil and Welfare book. I think I will finish up that book tomorrow! Since I have some time after turning in my essay! That makes me so happy just thinking about finishing up important "to do's".

Inger gave us the itinerary for next week's week-long excursion. I'm so excited for it!!! Although, I am not too excited about the train, boat and bus rides since I get motion sickness easily. But I have medicine and Emily has motion sickness patches, so I should be ok. If not, I can just sleep or something. Below is a brief schedule of what is planned for next week!

On Monday we are going to have a 3.5 hour train ride from Hamar to Roros, followed by 2.5 hours of a walking lecture tour of Roros including the Roros Church and Mining Museum, followed by another train ride to Trondheim lasting 2.5 hours. We are staying at Trondheim Vandrehjem (Hostel)

On Tuesday we will wake up bright and early at 7am, have breakfast, have a walking lecture throught he city of Trondheim at 9am, and then lunch. At 12 noon, we are going to Nidaros Cathedral Arch Bishop Palace - The Crown Regalia Exhibition. After that, we have the afternoon and evening free!! This is my chance to buy some souvenirs and learn more about other cool places!

On Wednesday We will wake up at 7am, again, have breakfast and lock up our luggage. At 10am, we have a potential meeting with politicians of Trondheim, talking about challenges ahead. We have lunch at noon and at 1630 (4:30pm) we will be on our way to Kristiansund Harbor on a 3 hour boat journey. This is going to be interesting because I have to be conscious to take in the oil platforms and continue to learn, while dealing with motion sickness. Well, at least I will be in the sea; I can just stick my head to the side and throw up if I need to. After we reach the harbor, we go to our hostel. This is supposed to be a cool place because we booked the rooms around a communal area (shared living space with stove and stuff I think).

On Thursday we wake up early at 7am, yet again, for breakfast. At 8:30am we will walk through town as a class through the old ship building. By 10:30 through 12 noon, we are supposed to pass the Petro Center, and Town Center. Then we'll have lunch, and go to West base at 1300 (1pm). At 1430 (2:30pm) we will be at OSNOR, a local oil based company where they recycle oil drilling equipment. This part of the trip, (well, started from when we were at sea) is kind of one of the main points of the trip; learn about oil and their economy and such. Then we have no more planned activity for that evening. I'm thinking that with all the planned walking, SLEEP is the best activity for this free evening!

On Friday we will have breakfast at 7am, bring our gear into town at 8:30am so that our luggage and such will be ready for departure at the end. At 10am we have planned Interacting with Politics or Production 2008 (Oil developments). Then we have lunch at 12 noon, and then another walk through town to the church and the Outlook Tower Water collectors. At 1530 (3:30pm) we will have individual time for 2.5 hours before a group dinner with the class in town at 1800 (6pm). At 2014 (8:14pm) we will depart Kristiansund for return to Hamar by BUS for 9 HOURS!!! For this trip back home to Hamar, I'm really going to need to knock myself out so I don't get too sick. Oh yea, I'm planning on it! Unless my group decides that this is a great time to discuss our group presentations for the trip.

We have a group presentation about an aspect of Norway that we observed on the trip. We are going to a lot of churches, so religion might be a big and popular issue to address. Or the issue of oil and the economy, and such. There are, of course, other topics since it's up to the group to decide. I guess I kind of want to observe how the minority population (immigrants) is interacting with the Norwegian throughout all the places we are going. I'm pretty sure that my group would not wholeheartedly agree to this, so I won't be forecefull about it. I think we, as a group, are aiming towards religion as our topic for discussion. However, I will still continue to do this observation on my own and come up with my own conclusions, or no conclusions, depending on my findings. This can be my own little project leading up to my research paper at the end.

I am so excited!!! However, I am a bit worried about money. Lodging and dinning are covered by the program, so I'm sure I won't starve. But, knowing my appetite for cool new foods with the combination of being in a foreign with new foods that I might never have a chance to eat again... I might be very tempted to eat to my hearts content... which means MONEY! How ironic that we are talking about Norwegian economy and their wealth while I am here having my own problems with money. Also, I'm worried for my camera; it might have a heart attack with my addiction to taking surplus amounts of pictures... I also have to buy another 1G memory card for my camera so that I don't have to take my laptop with me on the trip since I wont be needing it. Again, more money. I hate spending so much money, espcially in such an expensive country! And not to mention the souvenirs! I think I'm going to buy postcards. I've been sending postcards from Hamar, so I want to send some from my trip as well. And some cool Norwegian souvenirs that is totally Norwegian with no globalizaiton influence... it'll be like magic when I find the perfect souvenir. Then I'll not need so much. I don't want too much. Just enough for the people I promised (which is abut 5 people, not bad).

Ok! So that's pretty long. I wonder who's going to read it, but that's what's up!

Reading books

I'm half way finished reading the first assigned book of this module for the Society and Culture program. This one is called Work, Oil and Welfare by Knut Halvorsen and Steinar Stjerno. I didn't enjoy reading this at first because there are so much facts in there. I, as some may already know, am not a big fan of memorizing facts. But after the first chapter, I got pretty involved with the book; mainly I was amazed at how sucessful the Norwegian welfare system has been. We have a group discussion meeting today. I am leading the discussion for chapter 5, which is "Security in old age: Protecting the frail and elderly". Up to this point, I have taken notice that the Norwegian as a whole put significant value in family and the wellbeing of the family. I was very impressed of this and even more at how developed their programs are for old age pension and other family benefits (especially children!). Having a family in Norway seems to be such a comfortable thing. I have also noticed that there are a lot of baby strollers around, so the people here are definitely enjoying the system when it comes to family wellbeing.

There are also a few other books for this module as well as articles. I'm reluctant to buy these books because I've roughly calculated the costs, and they come up to about $300 for this module. If I assume that that is the average, then I'd have to multiply that by 3, which comes to about $900. That's $900 for one semester. For now, I'm just going to borrow the books from the library as I need them, and make copies for the books where were aren't reading the complete book (although it would be nice to read the complete books). I'd select a few books that I reall like after reading and just buy those few. That's my compromise for that expense. And I've taken greater care at my other expenses as well.

For the general part, things are going well. Classes are GREAT! I really enjoy our discussions. Although I'm happy and content about this aspect of the stay, homesickness keeps growing and now it's pretty bloated. If only I could cook as well as my mom or dad and have the familiar foods here.

Eidsvollsbygningen: The Birthplace of the Norwegian Constitution

Our class had a field trip to Eidsvoll today; to the location where the Norwegian Consitution was created and signed! It was a very exciting trip. I can surely say that this is the best fieldtrip I have ever been on!

On the way there, I had a very pleasant conversation with a historian (his name is Morten, he also gives lectures to our class) about languages, globalization, nationalism, and books! It was a great train ride. And during the transfer, I bought a postcard and High School Musical trading cards! So the day already started out really well!!

Eidsvollsbygningen house was amazingly beautiful and old. It has been preserved very well. Our class had a guided tour through the house where representatives met to discuss the Constitution and later on signed it. Of course, I took detailed notes during the whole guide, just to discover that there is a brochure with all the information! I also read some information about the place before hand, so I didn't really need to take notes at all. In any case, I'm glad I took notes, because now I can remember it better.

After the guided tour, we went to the building next to the mansion. This place was a cafe for the museum, as well as a more informational museum (the house serves as a historic monument, to look pretty). There were displays, posters, videos, and many more informational set ups that were very catchy and detailed, as well as meaningful. We had a PDA to listen to the naration of the whole museum as we walked through. I of course, messed up. I tried to lock the touch pad, and ended up poping out the battery and it all shut down. I couldn't open the program again, so I had to improvise and find the audio files in the memory and listened to each individual one. I survived! When I returned the PDA I bought a feather ink pen to add to my pen/pencil/writing utensil collection. I collect pens and pencils when I go places.

After that, I went to the gift shop and bought some choclates; small pieces to distribute.

When we got ready to leave, we took pictures with the statues in the front of the location. It was very fun and it was our first class group picture that was complete.

I will have pictures up when I can. Right now, I just want to finish Breaking Dawing (The end of the Twilight Saga)! I'm only in the first 100 pages but the story is already progressing at lightning speed!! I plan on finishing thing book today so I can start on my book for class tomorrow without being distracted. I hope I can finish the Breaking Dawn today, since it's really thick. But I do have more or less 7 hours, so I could try to read faster! So when things are more settled, I will take some time to post pictures!

Finished reading Eclipse

This book is so AMAZING! I just finished it last night! I couldn't put it down; I had to finish it!! Thanks Olesya for buying me the book! You are the best! I love the book! And the Saga!! It's AMAZING! I started the 4th book and just finished 5 pages, but I'm so into it already!!!! Thanks again so much Olesya! I really appreciate it!