Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
I’ve been working on this blogpost for days, and it’s turning out more personal than I first planned to make it. Readers and co-authors, please forgive me for this.
When it comes to politics, I believe in revolutions. The sudden and dramatic change, hopefully from worse to better, seems like a good idea to me. It’s a fantastic concept, like ripping off a band-aid; It’s quick, effective, and almost painless.
Now the question seems to be: Does this theory apply to regular life? Does it apply to my life? Should the changes be quick, or is it smart to wait and think it over?
For the past years I have wanted to live many other places than Bodø. I stayed here for reasons I can no longer understand, and for a person who broke my heart. So why stay any longer?
I thought I was staying for another year to give me closure, and realized after some time that the closure I was looking for I already had. So now I have mixed emotions, and butterflies going crazy in my stomach.
I realize that this isn’t making much sense, so let me explain:
I was in Tromsø (The Paris of the North) last weekend, for a conference. It has been my plan to move there in 8 months with a friend, to continue my studies. And then the thought hit me: Why wait? In 2 months I will have finished my first year of political science (I started in the spring-semester), the plan is then to retake 2 exams and add a third subject. I can do that in any school, including at the University in Tromsø. I have nothing to lose by leaving Bodø, and a whole lot more to gain.
I have found something, or rather someone, that makes me happy. And why shouldn’t I take a leap of faith and go for it?
I have been playing with this thought for some months now, and the weekend made it all so clear to me: I need to do what’s best for me.
What’s best for me, right now, seems to be change. I need a big change. A new place. Some new people. I need clean slates. These are all the clichées, I know!
So what say ye, readers of the blog: Should I jump? Rip the band-aid straight off? Have a revolution of my own? Or should I stick to the plan, and stay put for 8 more months?
[poll id=”24″]
Music to suit my mood: Maria Mena – I’m In Love
Love,
Frida
Last night I was at a friend’s house after work, for way too many hours, and to clear my head I decided on walking home. Seeing as I live quite far north, this time of the year is really dark. Especially at night-time. And I love it. To make it even better: It was snowing, the air was clean and it was too late and/or early to be a great rush of drunk people and their drivers. (Meaning: It was after midnight, so people were allready downtown, but it was quite some time before 3 a.m., so people weren’t planning on going home anytime soon. This = hardly any traffic outside of downtown.)
So I was walking home, in a very straight line, with an incredibly sober head. (Yes, seriously.) And I saw everything with brand new eyes. Walking home in the middle of the night sober is not something I do very often, especially seeing as it was cold as fuck, and it always is in Bodø. But I was dressed for walking outside (still in the clothes I had worn to work…) and it all looked so nice. Except for one thing:
The few people I actually met.
I met a couple of cars, and they all stopped for me, and that was nice. Drunk guys in the car-windows making faces and/or gesticulating in a very french manner were still busy trying to score downtown, and the people that passed me on the street were too drunk and cold to bother me. But they still bothered me!
First of all: They were not dressed properly.
People being drunk and falling asleep in ditches has caused deaths in the past, and will continue causing deaths, and do you know what doesn’t help? Going to parties without bringing jackets, scarfes, appropriate headwear, mittens and shoes for walking in the snow when it’s snowing outside! Come on, people, do you want to freeze to death?
Second: They were really drunk.
I think I met 4 or 5 people on the short walk who were all so drunk that they couldn’t even keep on the pavement. They kept crossing the street, maybe 3 times back and forth. And they tried using phones to call people because they clearly had no idea where they were, and so they dropped their phones, or walked back and forth on the same street or stopped for longer periods of time, often in the middle of the road.
And the thing that made all of this even worse: They were all dressed in black, with no shiny objects to make them visible to the human-eye approaching them in a car driving 30-60 kilometers an hour.
Combine this with walking in the streets, sleeping in ditches (this is only speculation, I know…) and not paying attention due to alcohol: Accidents waiting to happen.
The thing that annoys me is that there is this great invention for walking around in the dark and still letting people see you. It’s called reflectors (I think… Refleks in Norwegian, and according to Trygg Trafikk/Safe Traffic it’s reflectors…) and it’s quite genious. They sell them everywhere, they hand them out for free some places, they come in nice and funny designs, they are easy to wear and to hide when indoors, and they make it safer to go raving around drunk in the darkness. How about that?
I actually wore 3 re
flectors, and I like them. I think that they’re awesome. You wish you had reflectors as awesome as mine! (And you can! This place sells some almost just like mine, and tons of other cool ones!)
So: Questions for the readers (I haven’t figured out the polling thing yet…):
-Do you own at least one reflector?
-Do you wear it/them?
-Is it cool to wear reflectors and survive, or is it so lame that you would rather get run over and die, or maybe not be found in the ditch you thought was your bed, ’cause it was too dark, and freeze to death?
Moralizing greetings,
Frida, with her awesome reflectors!
Today is the 5th of November, and eventhough I don’t care much about the Gunpowder Plot or old history in Great Britain, or care much about the difference between a monarch ruling in a way that is bad for the people or a catholic leader doing the exact same thing, I do like this day very much.
Why? you ask! It’s simple: I do love bonfires, firework and V for Vendetta.
So, with that in mind I encourage everyone to spend this evening lighting stuff on fire, blowing things up, watching V for Vendetta (as I will do tonight when I get home from work…) or reading the amazing comic-book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd!
And if you go to a party this weekend: Don’t be without the incredibly fashionable Guy Fawkes-mask. As made famous by V and anonymous(es?) all over the world.
And remember kids, scientology is evil!
“Remember, remember, the 5th of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot.
I know of no reason
The gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!”
-V
-Even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you, I love you. With all my heart, I love you. Frida.
So, I like reading. And I love sharing what I’ve read. And one of my most recent reads left me very undecided as to whether I actually liked it or not, but I think that it has somehow influenced me. At least the way I read, think, write and talk after reading it.
The book is said to be the most bought and least read american novel in the past half-century, and I can say I understand why. It’s a typical “Oh, I’m so smart, and I totally got it, and if you don’t get it you’re so stupid”-book for all the besserwisser-douchebags of the world, so everyone buys it, starts reading it, and puts it away. (Maybe I’m only saying this because I don’t think I got it? Or because I wanted to put it down and not open it throughout the whole thing?)
The only reason why I bought the book was because I was at a bookstore, and I was buying two books, and there was a 3 for 2 sale on books written in english. And my Language Arts teacher from when I went to American High School always told me that this was a book I would like. And she was always right with me: Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, Romeo and Juliet and Antigone. All books she told me to read, all books I loved. And she always mentioned this one. So i bought it, and figured I’d read it.
I kind of liked the book, but kind of hated it. It’s hard to follow (stream-of-conciousness stuff) and I never managed to feel sympathy for the main-character (stream of conciousness in the mind of a snobby, stuck up, rich teen-age boy in New York. What’s not to like?) but if the goal of the book is to make me feel something then it did succeed. I felt hatred, pity and general dislike throughout the whole thing. And the book kind of made me think, some, and the way it’s written is a bit captivating. Especially the part where you keep wondering “Who the hell is this asshole talking to, anyways?”
Because the book is like a monologue, about the passing of the recent days in this jackasses life, about stuff that happened before, and about how he feels sorry for everyone for being poorer, stupider or in any way inferior to him. And it’s a good analysis of some peoples personalities, I guess.
I don’t regret reading the book (I rarely do…) and I would advice people to read it, I guess. Mostly because it’s such an “important” piece of litterature, but I hate it when people tell you to read books because they are important. Who decides that anyways? But maybe you should read it just to feel the same confusion that I’m feeling towards the book. ‘Cause a part of me really didn’t like it, but I want to read it again to understand it better. And I think it did shed some light on some things.
Maybe you should read it just to explain to me what it’s really about?
So just to end this with a couple of questions (I’m still not sure if I’m writing on this blog to get answers and comments, or just to vent. I think mainly just to vent, but that becomes easier when you get comments, to process things more… Maybe, shit what do I know, right?):
Did you ever read The Catcher in the Rye?
Do you think you will read it?
Did you “get it”? And if so: Can you please explain it to me?
For the readers – With Love and Squalor
-Frida
I was applying to a college, and the big essay asked me how college admissions have made me reconsider myself. I wrote this, but then I decided that it was stupid and started over. I did, however, think it had enough merit to go in a post instead! Needless to say, it is too insecure.
College admissions have seriously made me rethink myself. Once upon a time, I was pretentious, cocky even, until I began working at my future. I realize now how unsure of myself I truly am. I don’t know if it is even worth it applying to prestigious schools such as Harvard or Brown because I don’t know if I can get in, or after that if I can pay. I am eighteenth out of a class of two hundred fifty-one. I am in the 93% of my class; the problem is that it isn’t the 99% of my class.
I feel that colleges, especially prestigious colleges, look far too much into grades and scores. My grades aren’t stellar. I have a 4.0, but I haven’t been through high school without ever seeing a B. I take the hardest classes, but I am rarely at the very top of them. What colleges do not look far enough into are the extra-curricular activities. What I lack in grades, rank, and test scores, I make up for in extra-curricular activities. I have been an active member of 4-H since third grade, being both President of my small community club and Vice President of my County-wide club, an avid band member since fifth grade, the vice president of both Youth Alive, our Bible school, and Key Club, and the Secretary General of Model UN, which I have been a member of my entire high school career. My grades aren’t because of laziness, they are because of business. I am too busy to make straight one hundreds on every single test in AP Chemistry or AP History. I am too busy to study for the SAT or ACT with band competitions and football games every weekend.
But maybe, just maybe, I am making up excuses for myself. This is where the insecurity comes out! Should I have worked harder in high school? Should I have quit band, 4-H, Model UN, youth alive, Key Club, CIU, and National Honors Society to pursue higher, more elite education? Is it my duty to serve my community or to serve myself? Should I try to benefit the school or my future?
With these college admissions came, in an emanating crash, a series of mistakes and problems that I had no idea even existed when I was thirteen years old, when every choice I made started to become tracked.
Most would say that college admissions have made them find themselves; however, I am experiencing the antithesis of that. College admissions make me worry, worry about my future, my choices, my life. With each application sent in sends out another emanating feeling of discontent.