Exam season (not to be confused with spring)

The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in.
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by a cliff,
The cliff being backed by a continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean water broken
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

Robert Frost


Yes you guessed it correctly! I am studying for my Oceanography exam...and I am very bored...-and uninspired. 2 weeks and 2 exams to go before I can start enjoying this season called summer. I hope those of you who are also studying, are doing better than me.-May A's flourish!

Ive updated the photoblog with some pictures from the constitution day..that will have to do for now. I have to go be a good student...or atleast try.

Happy summer to those of you who dont go to school. -And dont get lost or sick in India to those who get to travel soon.

Spring and creatures

Spring has finally come to Bergen.

I realized this the other day when a confused and groggy bumblebee crashed into my forehead. Ive always been amazed by bumblebees...their anatomy does not suggest they should be able to fly. But they really are cute...especially right after they've woken up from hibernation. I have no idea how many times Ive had to duck or jump to the side, just to avoid frontal collision with a bumblebee. They fly wherever they want, whether you are standing in their way or not. -Not because they are arrogant, but because they have no idea how to turn.

Wasps on the other hand are vicious and evil creatures, put on the planet to terrorize happy and content human beings drinking lemonade and ice tea in the heat. Although I have to admit Ive never been stung by a wasp...-as far as I know... I still fear them. My baby sister had a nice plan for saving the world as a kid. She was about 2 years old and decided she could de-wing all the wasps. She would pluck their wings off when they were resting in the shadows on the ground in the middle of the day...sometimes she would amputate their legs as well...Surprisingly enough she only got stung once, for which she mumbled; "ouch" while looking at her finger. Tough kid indeed. Although her plan clearly failed, it was a good initiative.

Along with the bumblebees and the wasps, the warm weather also brings out my archenemy. The queen of all feared beings (for me anyway); the spider . And I am at this very moment looking at the mother bitch of all spiders outside my window...Many have wondered why I have such an irrational fear of spiders but I have been through ordeals that most will never experience, and few realize how lucky they actually are in life...I have never been bitten by a spider, I honestly dont think we have many species that do bite in Norway, although I know we have a few, cause my high school teacher told me about a time he got bitten and his hand swelled up...but personally I have never physically been scarred by a spider. Mentally however is a different story.

I was tortured once.

It was my second year at the university. I had zoology as a chosen subject and we were at an excursion that took place over 5 days. I thought it was going to be a nice trip with forest hiking and sunbathing by the fjord, but in reality we were shipped off to a zoology concentration camp...

5 students were packed into one room with one tiny bathroom that had a shower over the toilet. Breakfast was every morning from 7-7.30...and if you were late, you could kiss goodbye to lunch, as lunch had to be made during breakfast. The entire day from 7.30 to 5pm was spent in the field…be that a forest/meadow/salt march etc...which would have been nice, had it not been for all the slave work we were forced to do. At 5pm we would return to the camp, and we (if we were lucky) had 30 minutes to get ready for dinner (imagine 5 students fighting over a toilet shower....6 minutes each). Dinner would end at 6-6.15 and thats when the real torture started. Thats when it happened...what made me so afraid of spiders. We were forced to spend the next 3 hours staring into all 8 eyes of different spiders and draw them and determine species. The first time was ok....the second was ok...but after having stared into the eyes of several individuals at a period of 3 hours each day for 5 days...You will get scarred. You will have nightmares. You will never be the same again...

I thought I liked spring...now Im not so sure anymore. I think what I need is a personal spider squasher...and by that I mean a man.

Happy spring everyone.

http://www.bumblebee.org/

Spring outside my window

*Hangs head in shame*

I just realized that I havent updated my blog in months! Ive been a bad...very bad blogger. My excuse is life. Sooo busy...sooo many things to do...so few hours in every day. Uni has been a bitch, one exam down 2 to go. And this thing called "friends"...has required a lot of attention as well. Good thing I love having the friends-thingy around. Theres nothing like a good party amongst fun people.

I would write something silly and completely uninteresting right now, had it not been for my sneepy eyes and heavy hands...Ive updated the photoblog...and I plan to update the movie blog...and a decent (or at least semi-decent) entry in this one should be in the works...but right now its sleep-time.

Uh oh! Getting sneepy...

Sov godt.

The Revenge of the Trees

So, Ive previously mentioned this lecturer I have…the one who has some minor language problems. She is a wonderful person and knows her stuff, she just has some issues with making herself understood. Today I was attending her class, a class that Im starting to really enjoy, mostly because of all the foreign students, and she was talking about trees and cultivated fields. I have to admit I was very tired…not enough sleep the night before, and the subject was slightly (read: very) boring. In these situations I tend to daydream a lot, and find myself wandering the streets of New York City or skiing downhill a nice snowy slope. But anyway, she was talking about grazing and how animals can affect the landscape, and she got my attention with a very simple but mind-boggling sentence: “When animals graze on trees, the leaves and branches on the trees are left at a certain hate” Now of course I knew right away that she meant “height” and not “hate” but it got me thinking…

What would happen if the trees suddenly became able to hate us?

Would they seek revenge for what we are doing to their cousins in the Amazon rainforest? Or what about the massacre you find in forest areas that are being removed to make room for city development?-or for the paper industry? Can you imagine the terror of having a full grown trunk of a tree chasing you? That’s a perfect Hitchcock horror-theme for you right there.

Ive always thought of trees as wise…I mean…I know they cant reason or think at all, but if they could, they would probably be very wise. Some of ‘em are old…very old, and they could probably tell you a lot. There are redwood trees that are more than 2000 years old! 2000 years of wisdom…I bow in awe.

Imagine the sneaky plans a 2000 year-old wise tree could make in order to catch you…the traps would be impossible to escape. Just look at those trees! They are HUGE! It would be like being chased by King Kong or Godzilla! I say no thanks.

Now that Im thinking about it, they sort of have made a movie about trees…although the movie only included trees, but Im sure you’ve seen Lord of the Rings? Remember the Ents? I might get some LOTR fans on my neck now, calling them trees…I guess they were shepherds of the trees? Anyways…they were kind of scary looking creatures…and I wouldn’t want to piss off one of those…









I guess we are lucky that trees cant hate us…or who knows? Maybe they can, they just cant show it to us…and if that is a fact, we will probably have to face their wrath at some point…Maybe at Armageddon. So I suggest that you all start being nice to the trees. Next time you come across a tree, give it a hug and don’t let your dog pee on it.

Save the rainforest: Race for the Rain Forest

Why cant we all just get along?

Whatever happened to dialog?

My apologies to you all, but I have to get serious for a moment here…

How did published newspaper-drawings of Mohammed the prophet in two small countries in Scandinavia, lead to the burning of embassies in the Middle East? - And a 5 kilo gold reward to anyone who kills a Norwegian, Danish or German soldier in Afghanistan? -A reward that will be paid by a Taliban commander…And are the rumors of suicide bombers in Afghanistan, ready to bomb Norwegian and Danish targets, true? If so the world is nuts…

I am not going to get into any politics here or a long debate…but I couldn’t not mention this. How can any Muslim believe that burning and destroying a country’s property or harming or even worse killing another person is the way to respond to something like this? How can they get any respect at all with that kind of behavior? ‘Cause ultimately, isn’t that what they are asking for? -Respect? I feel bad for the less extreme Muslims living in Europe right now…They might end up suffering for what a few extremists do.

And let me ask you this: If you are Christian, and some country other than the one you are living in, printed a provocative picture of Jesus Christ…how would you respond?

I am shocked. I am sad. I am scared of what comes next.

May Allah/God/Jehovah/(add your preference) be with us.