Snusmumriken

(If you haven’t seen the films “The breakfast club” and “Ratatouille”, there are some spoilers. Picked them because they are good examples, and because they are films “everyone” has seen)

This is not me being one of those artsy, voluntarily depressed types, - rather it’s me being a bit hard to fool. I can’t go from arguing with someone, to becoming friends with them, have a cosy chat and a cup of tea ten minutes later. I don’t work like that. And if someone yell at me, I will remain a) sad and guilt ridden for days, if I felt they had a reason for yelling. Or b) Be angry and annoyed for days, if the yelling was uncalled for. My mood don’t change that quickly. My character don’t change that quickly either, and judging from experiences, that goes for other people aswell. Mean and selfish people don’t stop being mean and selfish in an hour. There aren’t any lightbulb moments where they suddenly realise the error of their ways, and suddenly become nice and fluffy. If they say “I can change”, they most probably can’t.

Take for instance the film “Ratatouille”. In theory it should be my favourite film ever. I like rats. I like cooking. Set in France, and with more than a touch of the american dream it actually should be the perfect companion for a rainy afternoon. And I watched it and was happy and all furry inside until the film reached it’s negative climax 2/3 into the film, and the little rat’s human friend took all the honor for the little rat’s work. And the little rat’s face showed the kind of disappointment that includes a whole world falling apart. They reached the ideal happy ending 30 minutes after that. Did it feel cramped? Oh yes. Did it seem reasonable that the big human friend got all nice again, after being mean and bigheaded 30 minutes earlier? No way. Saying you’re sorry don’t make you a nice person. Still hanging with the bad person doesn’t make a happy ending.

And what about “the breakfast club”. It’s slower than ratatoulle allright, - the film actually stops just before the negative climax happens, but it’s luring somewhere in the shadows. The concept is gathering people who, - partly because of personality, but also because of high-school structures don’t get along. The viewer knows that the characters are all going to become friends sometime in the course of the film, but in a wider context it’s really improbable that it’s going to last. And it happens. They bond. They become friends. And when facing the society again, they swear to always be friends. And protect eachother. After knowing eachother for a few hours. The ending is fluffy and sweet, and gives me this rancid aftertaste. Cause the negative climax is coming. Within a week. Some of them will handle the fall, and some will fall badly. Three hours on a Saturday morning can’t fight a life full of impressions. Saying sorry don’t make you a nice person. Returning to the world and all it’s mean structures doesn’t make a happy ending.

I guess the people who call me a pessimist has a point. But it happens rather often that we go out of the cinema, - me stating that it’s the most tragic tale of all time. The other people saying that the film was “almost too happy”.

(where i guess i could have used my fathers nor in the sofa-computer…)

I’m babysitting my part-time-siblings in Fredrikstad, and they are sleeping. It’s a Saturday night, and I really don’t want to work, so I tried to find something funnier. “The internet!” I thought. “The internet has all kinds of fun things!“

I’ve been trying to guess my way into the family wireless connection for an hour. I should give up, but every ten minutes my mind flash back onto “I should ask my fellow Maskerade-players about our relationships” (interlude where I try to find the secret internet code, and where I fail.) I give up, I start reading about guilds and male bonding in early modern europe, and suddenly think that “I should check if they have that book about early modern masculinity in the library” (interlude where I try to find the secret internet code, and where I fail.) I derail, and think I should do yoga “I wonder how the downloading of the crappy yoga videos are going” I ask myself: (interlude where I try to find the secret internet code, and where I fail.)

I’ve been trying to guess my way into “Speider” (boyscouts), “Bandidos-fredrikstad”, “hack-net” and “Rwanda”. What kind of world is this, where hack-net is unhackable and bandidos have an awsome internet connection that’s for bandidos members only?

Nevermind all the times it’s stopped working. Of course that too is bloody annoying, but the worst part is how sensitive windows vista is. I tried to amend it by installing xp, but the harddisk actually broke after a day or so, and I gave it up. Everytime i’ve installed programs that require restarting of the computer, makes the computer go completely insane. As a result, I have no iso reader, for instance, which makes it remarkable hard to download computer games.

Today one of my classmates had uploaded a textfile in an unknown file format. I downloaded open office, hoping that would be able to read the file (it wasn’t). Of course, when I started the computer in class, it (as usual) refused to start, not even in security mode. It took half the lecture to actually be able to start the computer.

Although heavy; Although insane; Although completely without a battery; - the old computer was my friend. This one, however, is constantly trying to get the best of me.

Whenever I’m doing something big, i end up thinking i should write about it, but more often than not i end up postponing it and therefore ends up not writing anything at all. Therefore i’ve decided not to write about england, or finland, or easter holidays, the larps i’ve attended, the magazine we’re making, the exams that are coming, the work that i’m doing, the books i’ve read - or anything else. Use your imagination and i bet you’ll come up with something that’s as interesting as real life. Perhaps it will lead to me actually writing something in here.

Albeit a bit stressful, being back to my real everyday life is really nice. I always forget how nice blindern is when i’m away from it. I forget how empty and quiet the study hall is before nine in the morning, and how nice all the people are. I forget how hyper more than a litre of coffee a day makes me, and sometimes even how interesting my curriculum is.

I ended up ditching the yoga of tonight and rather went to the pub with some other people. I felt very healthy for drinking water all night, slightly less healthy for ditching the yoga, slightly messy for having left my wallet at work and for not having a phone, but at least having caught up with people i know, i know i’ll be efficient tomorrow.

I’m reading Jubel, which is lovely, and which makes everything feels a bit like an episode of twin peaks.

Since my last post, i’ve been to finland, and to england, and i’ve ben high and low doing loads of stuff that I’ve been either planning to write about later, or just pushing to the back of my head. I just came home from Solmukohta and Finland where i and Martine made a larp, and where I got all kinds of inspiration for stuff i don’t really have the time to do, but sorely want to. I might write better about it later on. The real reason why i’m updating, is to tell everyone that I can’t find my phone. It’s probably somewhere in the luggage, seeing as i had it on the plane, but if anyone needs to get hold of me, it’s probably easier if you contact me here, on facebook, on mail or skype or even call my neighbour, Mikael. I’ll get back in touch as soon as i manage to.

I was going to work out today, I really was. I’ve been carrying my gym clothes around, and I was mentally prepared for it this morning. But then something happened. It might have been because I’ve had a wonderfully effective day up at riksarkivet from 9-18.30 (that’s the opening hours), where I’ve transcribed a nine pages long interview from gothic handwriting to machine, where I’ve read and included 20 interviews in my nifty database, and where i’ve written two pages of the chapter that needs to be written this week. It might be because I wanted to go home and write more, because weird and fun contradictions and agendas suddenly popped out of my source material and wanted me to write about them. It might be because it was 6 and a half hour since lunch and I had forgotten to bring any extra food. No matter what the reason was, I decided to go home, make myself some dinner and get some writing done before going to bed. I’ve gotten into a habit of doing an hour of marthe-yoga before going to bed every night, which helps a bit with the sleeping, and i told myself, very convincingly that that would suffice.

I headed home, searched the dustbins, floors and seats of the t-bane for newspapers, and managed to get through three of them on the way. Dagsavisen had a long article about how problematic it is that so many people start working out after new years, and then stop after a few months. “You don’t have to work out much, - start by going twice a week” said the random work out-expert in the paper.

First: whenever I have convinced myself that whatever I decide to do is good and right. The world shouldn’t feel the need to make some sarcastic comment about it.
Second: In what paralell universe is working out two times a week not much? What kind of lives do people have? Don’t they have hobbies, friends/family, jobs that for some reason never finish when the hours are up?

I got up at eight today, threw on a jumper because I don’t believe in heated houses (that’s a lie, I just can’t stand high temperatures) and drank my morning coffee in bed while reading test-chapters that two of my fellow students had written for a group meeting with our study adviser today. It took a bit longer than planned, and I ended up getting dressed really quickly, making lunch even faster and packing my bag faster than I thought possible. For some reason I couldn’t find my rucksack, i guess I must have thrown it into a closet or something in an act of tidyness, - and I ran to school.

While running, I realised I hadn’t put my bra on, but I didn’t have the time to return home.

Different people, and especially different generations have different views on what’s considered decent. My mum thinks you can be decently dressed while not wearing a bra, but that for instance showing too much of your breasts is less decent. I don’t care about how much of people’s thighs and breasts I see, but I feel practically vulgar when my tits are jumping up and down (usually making my jumper ride upwards). Today, i’ve been oddly concious of my appearance. I’ve even been wearing my (rather thin) jacket indoors to prevent people from noticing this act of not being properly dressed.

This could have happened on a day where I didn’t have a full program until eight in the evening. Of course it happened today. Stupid world.

After having been “repaired” for three months or so, I finally got my old phone back, unrepaired. The repairing firm wrote that it was water-damaged which isn’t convered by the guarantee. And no. I haven’t been dipping the phone in glasses of water, not even tea (although, being diuretic and all, perhaps that would drain hte water out of the phone.) The phone really wasn’t even moist when it broke.

Seeing as the phone I’m currently using insist on turning itself off everytime I speak to anyone, even when the battery is full, i started looking for the cheapest noki (those are hte only ones i understand) phone i could find online. The chess web shop doesn’t have any cheap ones anymore, and i think the cheapest one I found online is the nokia 1200. But it doesn’t say if it has a wirdlist-function. Does all phones have a wordlist function these days?

Please say that it has. It looks nice and low tech.

Today I’ve been to the dentist and filled my first (albeit tiny) cavity since I was 18. I’ve also checked my eyesight, and although my eyesight seems to be the best on this side of town, which is relieving, my head hurts. Off to study, I guess, and i’ve picked up the unrepaired phone.

Two weeks ago, I went to Stockholm and uppsala to visit a girl in my class a school. I tried to write a bit about it, but it all turned documentary-y and weird, and I ended up deleting half of it and never finishin the rest. But old or new. It’s still text. Here it is.

Uppsala/stockholm 1. Getting there and getting home.

I’m on the train home from Uppsala, where my friend Maria is an exchange student for a couple of months. One part of me wishes that I had been there too, which I could have if it wasn’t for the fact that I chose to stay in Oslo. Fortunately there is another part of me who is incredibly happy to be where I am, nowhere temporary, but rather good old permanent Oslo.

I brought books over, planning to read my way to Sweden and back. I should have known beforehand that this would fail miserably, but I guess I am the naïve kind who never learns from experiences. Trains have this weird effect on me. I end up zoning out. Even though this was a six hour drive, I spent part of it reading a novel, part of it sleeping and most of it just zoning out and staring out of the window while looking at the landscapes and the houses gliding by.

The wagon I was in was jammed with a group of free masons in their fifties, and they managed to add a whole new set of prejudices to the ones I already had against free masons. There were three young mothers in the wagon, and as none of the children can have been more than a few months of age they needed to sleep. One of the mothers had gotten a seat in the middle of the free masons, and asked one of the frontmost free masons if they could swap seats, but he was completely unwilling, stating that “If we keep swapping seats, chaos will ensue”. After this the free masons downed five bottles of Aquavit, (60%? liquor), got really loud and started smoking in the bathrooms. At the same time, the kids kept on waking up whenever they fell asleep because of the noise, but oddly enough didn’t start screaming. The mothers were starting to get that desperate “oh fuck my day is going to become a nightmare if the kid doesn’t get some sleep soon”-look in their eyes, especially the one who was seated in the middle of the crowd. When a lady who was seated next to me asked the masons to please take it a bit easier, they started yelling that “she had to have some problems that she was taking out on them, and what a bitch she was who wouldn’t let them have any fun”. Arguing with someone who has downed half a bottle of hard liquor isn’t too much fun, and for some reason people in their 50’s and sixties manage to be worse than most in that aspect, possibly because they can say that “hey, I’m older than you, thus I am right”.

Now, on the way home, there aren’t any masons. I won’t be writing about the actual trip until tomorrow, because this is turning into a rather long body of text.

I think the train just hit a moose or something. There was a thump, the train braked really quickly and stood still for quite some time.

Uppsala 2: Actually being there.
(the part I never really got around to write)

Maria lives at a place called Flogsta, where the houses are tall and eastern block-ey, and where the corridors are incredibly long. Where twelve people are sharing one kitchen, and where everyone screams as loudly as they can at ten o’clock every night. Apparantly they have been doing it since the sixties. I can understand how sharing a kitchen with eleven other people creates a need to get rid of some built up aggression. It felt weird. It was a place like I explected student housing to be like, but completely unlike how it was when I lived in a student house myself.

And then I stopped writing. I was sitting on the train in the middle of the night, it was chokingly hot and I couldn’t sleep. Yeah. So the rest of the holiday, even the nice photos that were supposed to make the text less lonely will be my secret. Haha

There once was a man called Elling Pedersen, a sailor who was happily married to a girl called Marthe Thorsdatter. His father, who was called Peder had died a few years before, - thus his firstborn son, born in 1750 was called Peder Ellingsen (nr1). Unfortunately he died before he was christened. Three years later, the couple got a new son, named him Peder Ellingsen (nr2) and he dies before he’s christened. In 1756 they got a third son, called him Peder Ellingsen (nr3), and christened him in the local church in Lyngør. Three years later, they got a new son, named him Nils Ellingsen, and having two living kids they must have been happy for some time, - until something happened and both the wife and both sons died.

Elling waited twelwe years before remarrying in 1773, and in 1774 he got a son and christened him Peder Ellingsen (nr4), but unfortunately he died the year after. Only one year later he got a new son. He was called Peder Ellingsen (nr5) and lived to get married and have kids. He also got a daughter, and named her Marthe, after his fist wife. She got to be twenty nine, but never married.

I’m writing about a food riot in 1801, where both Peder and Elling receivs a barrel of wheat. Fortunately. If the only surviving of six sons, or rather the only surviving of sive sons named Peder Ellingsen had died of starvation at an age of 24, it wouldn’t have been too nice.

I’m not sure if it’s a victorious story about the guy who never gave up, or if it’s a story about the guy who didn’t realise that the name of Peder Ellingsen really was cursed.