Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
As I sit here in the library pretending to be working on my two papers and presentation (yet not because I totally left all of my books in my mother’s car), I have decided to write a blog for BRBcoffee. I have neglected you, my old friend, and for that I am sorry.
I’d like to start off with some bitching. For the past, oh, 3 weeks I have been getting some incredibly shitty sleep. See, the root of the problem is that my internal schedule does not align with that of mainstream America. Waking up at 6:00 AM just isn’t my style. Like some dark, slimy creature risen from the Underworld with hopes of destroying the human race, it’s simply…unnatural. Having to go to bed by 10 PM is blasphemy as well, yet I try and try and try and try to do it, day after day after day after day, because I have to. I try to use the weekends to recharge, but that has not been happening these past few weeks and that is why I feel like I am losing my mind. Also, last night I dreamt all night about weird ass shit, the only particulars I remember are the following-
being forcefully kissed by this dude:
and then falling in love with this one:
I don’t know these boys, mind you! They are simply members of a band I saw one time, thought, “Eh, they’re alright. That one dude looks like Robert Plant and Jesus,” and briefly mentioned in a blog. You see? My mind is fucked, my friends.
I have found a remedy though. You take a cup of hot water, dissolve into it a nighttime cold medicine tablet, add a shot of whiskey and some honey, and proceed to drink it rapidly because it tastes fucking sick. In my neck o’ the woods, we call these “nighttime toddies.” They aren’t exactly good for you, hence I can’t drink them every night, but my God do they make you sleep like a little baby.
In other news, today is Thursday. That means tomorrow I work at my volunteer job, and then the weekend shall be upon me! Yay! Oh…except I have to write two papers and create a presentation sometime within that joyousness, but that’s okay because it’s the WEEKEND!
[Umm…I just looked over at the computer screen of the person next to me and she was staring hypnotically at a video of a lighter burning…dropping some acid, are we???]
Alas, it is 4:49 and I must leave you all in order to catch my ride. I hope you have a fabulous weekend and dream about making out with dudes who look like Jesus.
Toodles!
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
Mondays are not at all like fridays… not at all! The weather sucks, I overslept a lot because I was up till 4 watching videos about the holographic universe, and this time I really did leave the headset at home. Oh, and to top it off, my buss is filled with annoying little firstgraders. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate kids, it’s just that when they band together, each individual’s annoyingness goes exponential…
Anyway, that’s the intro. It’s a little long, but I’m ready to move on. The only problem is, I really just got on here to whine about how badly my day started, so I’m not entirely sure how I should follow up.
I guess I’ll talk a bit about Israel, it’s been a long time since it’s been mentioned on this here site, which is a bit out of character for us, so someone has to make us predictable again, and it might as well be the chaotic one.
Israel, “the only democracy in the region,” is of course rabidly supporting “President” Mubarak of Egypt, the dictator who has ruled for three decades. This seeming contradiction of a democracy supporting a dictator is very surprising to absolutely no one at all. Why is that? Maybe it’s because Israel is hardly democratic at all. Any country that systematically opresses part of it’s people with a given ethnicity has no right to call itself a democracy!
But Burie, how can you say such horrible things!? There are surely Palestinians in the Knesset! That is true, there are a few, however record shows that they have never had a decisive vote in a single case, in if such a situation has ever been imminent, the vote is not held, and the matter has been decided in back rooms in discussions where the Palestinians have not been present. If that is hard for you to believe, I shall append links at the end of this blog to prove my accusation as soon as I get on a computer.
Furthermore, in order to continue their blockade of the Gaza strip, Israel is completely dependent on Egypt upholding their blockade, as Gaza has a small border to Egypt in the south. If Egypt were to develop into an honest to God democracy, which it will, mark my words, then they might not be so keen on ruthlessly oppressing an entire people any more. So you see, Israel is terrified of democracy spreading in the region. If it can no longer falsely call itself the only democracy, it can’t expect to be the only friend of the west either (although the US did support Mubarak, but that’s a subject for another blog). In Israel’s eyes, no longer having a monopoly on telling us the truth, we, the west might start to hear certain truths that do not agree with the truths that they’ve been feeding us. Most importantly, that Israel isn’t a democracy, and that Palestine is even worse off than even the most liberal media has dared to whisper of to date. For these reasons, the democratic revolutions in the region are extremely exciting.
This is my end station here, see ya!
I love Friday! There are no meetings on Friday, I only have one lecture on Friday, and I realize that my headset is in my pocket after all on Friday! Friday is the day that socail class ceases to exist, cake is free on fridays, the weather is always fantastic on fridays, and Friday is the day when NU saves the world! Ah… everyone loves a good Friday, because everyone remembers that life is good after all!
What do you do on fridays? I just realized that after I’ve had my one class, I have absolutely no plans. Maybe I should just sit back and do absolutely nothing? But wouldn’t that be a waste of such a wonderful Friday? Meh, it’s Friday! Something is bound to come along and make it amazing.
I think that’s all, actually. Hope you enjoyed this short declaration of my love for fridays!
The song of the blog is Friday I’m In Love, by The Cure, of course!
Love
Bjørn
You might be asking yourself, why does Burnie only blog on the bus? Well, it’s because that’s the only time I have to spare. I’m a student, I’m the leader of Stavanger RU, I also hold positions in a slew of other organizations, such as the student organization at my faculty, and still 3 more. This all amounts to meetings almost every day on top of all the school work I need to do. In short: I’m very, very busy.
So what’s the trick to managing my time to make this all work? I’d love to tell you, but the truth is I’m still trying to figure it out myself. I’m desperately trying to keep up with my studies, which isn’t exactly made easier by retaking two classes that I failed earlier, probably due to not knowing the trick. If you feel like you’re juggling like this, the only thing I can tell for sure is that trying to sleep less in order to make more time definitely does not work. I tried it for a while, but I just ended up oversleeping every day and felt increasingly shitty.
The smart thing to do is more than likely to drop two or three distractions. Figure out what’s most important to you right now, and then you can decide how many distractions you can handle. However if you’re anything like me, you’re in too deep to just drop everything, there are people who depend on you getting your shit together. Not only that, you like all the stuff that you do, and you’re damn well not about to give it all up just because you have to do your blogging on the bus, or whatever it is you don’t have time to do in a “normal” fashion.
That’s me as of today; I’m struggling a bit, and some weeks I feel like I’m just late for everything, but it seems to work out, somehow. Let’s briefly examine the how of my case, how on earth has it worked out so far? Turns out, there might not be a trick, but there is a secret: I, you, all of us, need help. I don’t mean a shrink, except for you, Daniel, seriously, go see someone. For the rest of us, a friend will suffice, a partner in crime, or two, if you can find two, but friends like this are hard to come by. Two people can get four times the amount of shit done, honestly, I’ve done the math, it’s perfectly logical, sort of.
And there’s one more thing that we all need to be reminded of every once in a while: it’s not the end of the world if you fuck up sometimes, you just need to learn from it, give the middle finger to the window, laugh, and do better next time.
And with that, I’m out.
Yours truly
Bjørn
Ah, and the song of the blog is Cave In, by Owl City.