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There are two significant causes leading to me writing this particular entry on this particular evening:
1) In less then two weeks it will be the 8th of March, also known as the International [Working] Women’s Day.
2) I am currently writing my first essay in Feminist Philosophy.

The past years I have been active in the planning and celebration of the International Women’s Day in Bodø, so it felt natural for me to be active in the group planning the celebration “Ladyfest” in Tromsø. (That’s right: Tromsø have enough people to actually have an entire festival… In Bodø we had a march for women’s rights and hardly anything else…) I’m glad that I joined the group to plan it, especially because the other women in the group are incredibly nice and supportive.

So, why do we demonstrate for women’s rights? A lot of people ask me about it, and especially in Norway where women are supposedly equal to men. And yet they make lower wages, work more part-time, are the victims of nearly all sexual assaults, have higher rates of eating disorders, and the list goes on. These are some of the reasons why I feel it’s important to keep working for women’s rights, and what’s more: It isn’t all about the norwegian women. It’s called the International Women’s Day.

Let’s face it: This is a man’s world. The dictators in Egypt, Libya and the rest of the world are men. The people who will get the power when these dictators are gone are also men. And they will decide the faith of women in their countries.
In South-American lands such as Nicaragua and Venezuela women are denied abortions. Even if they were raped, or victims of incest. In U.S.America Justin Bieber says to Rolling Stones-magazine that abortion is murder, while rape happens for a reason. Chavez [Venezuela] and Ortega [Nicaragua] are men. Justin Bieber is supposedly male. And they still get the right to speak about and rule over women’s bodies, rights and reproduction, when the women themselves aren’t granted the same chance.

Simone de Beauvoir, one of the best known feminist philosophers, critiqued psychoanalytics (such as Freud), scientists and biologists for using the male as the rule and the women as the exception. Freud even went as far as to say that all women at some point in their life feels like a mutilated man, and that something is missing about them. This is the well-known theory of “penis envy”. [Oh my god, she said penis, right?]

One would think that more than 50 years later this will be better. That the woman is an equal, and not just seen as a secondary creature with a secondary nature, but no. Today, if a woman chooses not to give birth (like Simone de Beauvoir did herself) she is often spoken down to for it. And if a woman, or a girl, chooses to speak up for her beliefs she is automatically labeled a tomboy or a problem child.

The problem I see with the world, and that Simone de Beauvoir also saw, is that women are confined to a certain way of life and thought that people try explaining with science, but that really is nothing more than a social construct. And men uses this social construct to keep their power. This is gender, not sex, and women who don’t fit in are pushed out and away. No wonder it’s hard being a teen-age girl, right?

-“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
-Simone de Beauvoir
And now I’ll return to my writing.

-Frida

As of this January I am studying at the University of Tromsø, and this semester I have “blindly” chosen three single subjects to study while waiting to start my real degree come fall. The subjects I chose first were Feminist Philosophy and English word and sentence structure. One is due to my interest in feminism and the other is due to my interest in studying english. So I needed one more course to have a full schedule, and I wasn’t quite sure which one to choose.

My “boy”friend suggested Model UN, which I concidered. That was until his friend mentioned another subject: British and American Crime Fiction. A subject involving a lot of reading, a lot of talking about the books and re-reading them, and a written exam that I am dreading. And also: One of the most amazing teachers I have ever had. (This is saying something as I have had some pretty great teachers.)

Last week, which was the first class I attended after missing out on discussing Edgar Allan Poe when I was sick, we talked about the Arthur Conan Doyle-book “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, and the three hours spent in a classroom with a class in which I know no-one and a teacher who is most entertaining and educating had me inspired. I practically ran to the book-store to buy the next book: Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, and I started reading that very night.

I have never concidered myself a big fan of murder mysteries, other than CSI and other similar tv-shows. This class is changing me. I love the Agatha Christie-novel, and I even enjoyed the story about the obnoxious Sherlock Holmes and his push-over accomplice Watson. And I can’t wait for todays class, when I will be better prepared than I was for the last class. Not only have I read the book, I also did some online research and read the chapter handed out to us on ideology in writing.

So: How amazing does this class sound?

Hyperactive greetings from a Frida who couldn’t sleep last night, and just has a cold shower to wake properly up.

Morning tunes: Katie Melua – Call off the Search

Lately I have nauseated the people around me, and probably to some extent the readers, by being insufferably happy. The reason for my happiness is both simple and complex.

Simple version:
I’m in love.

More complex version:
The change in my life, when I moved to Tromsø, gave me a new kind of energy. The new subjects I’m studying are perfect for me. The feeling of finally being in controll of my life and getting somewhere gives me reason to get up in the mornings. And the man who is the object of my most obvious love is kind, caring and (for some reason I still can’t quite grasp the concept of) in love with me as well. Shortly: I’m in love with my life, my subjects and a man.

Oscar Wilde said to “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.” And being a man who sacrificed his social standings, his career and his health all for “The love that dare not speak its name”, another man (which was a criminal offence in England in the 19th century), I’m guessing he knew a little something about love.

My life felt like that sunless garden for some time. It is a cliché to say that love shone a new light, but guess what: There’s a reason to clichés becoming what they are. And the greatest part of it is: The more I love my life, the better it seems to get.

This incredibly happy and optimistic submission is not only my way to force my happiness down your throats, but also an attempt to outweigh my previous life-categorized posts of a more emoistic character (not a word, I know, I made it up…) and to let you all know that I have found happiness. For now, at least, and hopefully one that will last, no matter what the future holds.

Buddha told us that happiness never decreases by being shared, using the metaphor that “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.” I try my best everyday to make people around me happy. I smile, I try not to be mean, and I try to be the best person I can be. I believe that it is everyones shared duty to make the world a better place. And now I feel it returning to me: The joy and the happiness I wish for others are filling my heart, making it even easier for me to smile and be nice. And I can tell you something: This is the best way to be happy. Be happy, share happiness and it will return to you.

Those are my words of wisdom and sickening smugness for the night. I actually did mean for this post to be funny and upbeat, but I guess you’ll have to settle for what you get.

-Frida

As I was updating my personal “About”-page to fit more recent events in the location-like department (i.e. bragging about finally leaving Bodø to go live in Tromsø, which is way cooler!) I came to think of a political cause that I care greatly about, that doesn’t get enough focus in todays society, that the politicians deprioritize time and time again, but that is also really important…

Based on the title and this introduction there are two important political causes I could be writing about. Before we continue, would you like to venture a guess as to which one I am going to write about?

[poll id=”38″]

To avoid cheating i will fill some space with a big, old and edited picture of me with crazy hair, so that you can’t see the upcoming text. Do not cheat, capiche?

So… All the reasons why I love trains:

• Trains are old-fashioned, and thus romantic.
• There is no stressing when it comes to train-travel. No security check-points, no boarding and take-off and landing and what not. You get on, you hang out, you get to where you wanna be.
• People are nicer on trains. (Probably because of the romance and lack of stress thing.)
• I always meet the nicest, funniest or most interesting people on trains.
• Trains are better for the environment.
• You’re never as rested after a nap as you are after a nap on a train. (At least I ain’t…)
• Trains are means to traveling that aren’t airplanes. Airplanes suck. Logically: Trains must be amazing.
• Last but not least: How can you NOT love this:

There is only one problem when it comes to my current living situation and my love for trains… Tromsø doesn’t have a railway.

Bodø is the last stop on the norwegian railway. Everything north of Bodø and Fauske  is train-less. (Except for the stretch between the norwegian town Narvik and the swedish town Kiruna, originally used to transport ore, or something…)

Why is the north of Norway without trains? Because the only one ever to actually bother building railway in the north of Norway lost all power before he finished. I am of course talking about Hitler, so it isn’t a bad thing that he lost all his power, but it would have been nice if the norwegian government had continued his work in this general area. Like they promised to do. Time and time again. But never did.

There is a railway-station in Tromsø, actually. And 4 metres or something of actual tracks. They were promised a railway by the government, you see, and celebrated this by building a station. And aquiring 4 metres of track to pass this station. The train never arrived, and the station is now one of the pubs in Tromsø with probably the highest age-average. (Oh, and I’ve been there and will be there again, because I loved it a bit…) As for the 4 metres of train-tracks, they are leant up against some wall. 4 metres of train-tracks aiming for the sky. A true railway to heaven.

Anyways, I’m clearly trailing of, and I’ve lost all track of time, so I think this will be it for today….

Forever yours,
Frida.

(Ps.: None of the facts in this entry have been checked against accurate sources. So it may be 8 metres of railway and not 4… Please don’t choo me! And I don’t think there’s any big mistakes, I’m just covering my tracks…)

I’m laying around in bed feeling sorry for myself. Why? Because I’m sick.

This thursday I went to a concert (Kråkesølv, think I’ve mentioned them before…) and I was feeling kinda sick, but figured it was nothing. To make a short story long: I woke up in the middle of the night running a fever, I slept for 10 hours straight, I slept some more, and I’ve seen the entire second season of True Blood since yesterday.

There is something that makes being sick worse, and that is being alone and sick. So the fact that I’m in a new town kind of makes this bad timing. And the fact that my old man (this being my man whom happens to be old, not my father…) is in Oslo for the weekend doesn’t help.

So what could make the “sick and alone”-scenario worse? How about living in a student housing building, on a floor with a high “party the same weekend Frida is sick”-rate. Last night it woke me up, tonight it is preventing me from sleeping.

Oh, yeah, and missing out on my plans with a friend, just to stay in bed and eat pizza and have waking fever dreams. Big fun, I tell you!

So yeah, I’m feeling sorry for myself. As should you! And also: If you haven’t seen True Blood yet you should do that too. (Don’t worry, you can do both at the same time… I know I do!)

Infectuosly yours,
Frida.