29 november 2008

dark and sleeting saturday mornings of oslo winter call for returning to the dreamstate.
i slept in this morning and it felt great.

by 10:45am, though, i felt anxiousness begin to set in as i realized that there'd only be a brief opportunity to experience the day. i pulled myself outta bed; did some stretching; made a deeeelicious saturday morning breakfast (open-faced fried egg and onion sandwich w/ blue cheese and mustard and pear slices... and come grated carrot and lettuce); cleaned up; ...then made it outside into a cold and rainy norwegian day.

...and what a dang fine day and night it turned out to be: top notch oslo december saturday.
1. i went to "julmarked"--a holiday sale w/ used books and knitted things and baked norwegian treats and craftiness. there i hit the jackpot with a 30 kroner (6 USD) bag sale for used books! i had to pick through all the norwegian texts, but found these literary jewels: a sizeable norwegian-english dictionary, alduous huxley's "fagre nye verden" (the norwegian version of brave new world, which i'll gift to some native speaker here), huxley's "those barren leaves", huxley's "time must have a stop", whitman's "leaves of grass", claude levi-strauss's "the savage mind", arne næss's "økologi og filosofi", two henrik ibsen plays (to be gifted to my pal johanna, the ibsen researcher), and a 1916 paper print of oscar wilde's play "the importance of being earnest".
what a thrill! i've been wanting to collect some reading that doesn't compell me to take notes in the margins...a little lighter than, say, the philosophy of a theory of meaning, or other homework from this semester. i am pleased with having some options on my bookshelf now.

2. after the "julemarked" i took the tram through the city and then walked to the National Museum of Architecture. Oslo is fully illuminated by holiday lights now, which makes for nice sauntering. at the NMoA i took in part of an exhibit on "museums of the 21st century". i wouldn't have guessed that i'd find an exhibit that primarily focuses on archictectural design of museums to be so interesting, but this was! apparently the past 10 years have seen a boom in building/remodeling of museums (at least in europe, the US, and japan, which this exhibit featured), and there's current construction and plans for continuing this trend. the Art Centre of Basel, Switzerland organized this traveling exhibit that brings focus to this. and, oslo has some of this museum growth happening, so the exhibit is appropriate in context. what's being considered is the role the museum is playing: in its location (some are built into the natural lanscape, some at city centers), and cultural function. some interesting questions raised: are these buildings becoming some kind of cathedral for our time? are they high-profile iconographic structures, which don't serve the exhibits or the audiences? or, (as was suggested by the incredibly inspirational Museum of the Hellenic Age, to be opened in athens in 2012) are the structures striving to create an entirely new cultural experience?...trying to erase the distinction between curator and audience....
hmmm.

after a pitstop at United Bakeries for a "hveteboller" (cinnamon heavy, traditional style norwegian bun) w/ a small cup of chocolate sauce for dipping and a cuppa coffee, i returned to the student residence hall.
i took oscar wilde off the top of my new stack of books, and began reading. what followed was unintentional. i proceeded to settle into reading the full 246 page play. it's a small book, so really, that ought not to impress one with my great speed of reading. but, it was engrossing and totally entertaining! okay, oscar wilde. kind of a funny guy for his day.
so, cross that one off the list. AND, no notes taken in the margins (...ok, confession, only a few notes taken in my journal. there were some quotes worthy of copying down! such as Jack saying, in reference to his dear Gwendolen, that she's "...as right as a trivet". if only i would be compared to a table device...).

then, i made some vegetable soup for dinner.
and now it's late and i should be sleeping.

good night then.

...and i forgot to mention...

...that we played some drawing games too. these are the two "exquisite corpse" montages that we made. i don't know who drew what, because people didn't sign their work.

if you want to view them more closely, go to my picasa web album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/meteorite.magnolia

24 november 2008

Today i awoke before the sun (which isn't difficult to do at this time of year in Oslo, Norway).
I bundled up early and walked to school in a bitingly cold wind.
In my backpack: 2 pencils, 2 pens, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, my student ID, cell phone, a banana, and some bread and brown cheese.
This was all i needed for my day on the University of Oslo's campus. Today i took my third (out of 4) final exam. It was a 4 hour written essay exam for "Philosophy of Language, Understanding and Action".
I think i did alright.
...All my writing these days is giving me a gnarly, nerd callous on my right hand's middle finger.
But before the morning even began, i was completing my sweet dreams, which had accumulated in sleep, post Thanksgiving Dinner.

Last night I hosted 11 students in my tiny kitchen for a potuck Thanksgiving meal.
when: 6:00pm until 10:00pm
who: international students from my master's program and some american students for good measure
why: to represent the most delicious American holiday of the year! (albeit, in a non-traditional way...)

the Menu:
an assortment of olives, and stuffed pepperoncinis (from our Turkish representative)
celery stix (my gramma's tradition in Missouri)
garlic mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage (from the native Californian)
cooked, and pickled red cabbage (from the German)
roasted and spiced potatoes (from the German)
tomato + potato + carrot + kidney bean stew (from the native Louisianan)
chickenchilinachochipcheesepie extraordinaire (from the Staten Island, NYer)
"jordskokk" soup (from one Norwegian)
"lapskaus", and flatbrød (from another Norwegian)
desserts...
carrotcake (from our Serbian)
gluten-free chocolate cake--surprisingly tasty (from another Norwegian)
pumpkin pie and whipped cream* (from Magnolia!)

*this, i am very proud of. i acquired a winter squash from the oslo farmers market a month ago and was saving it for the occasion. i baked it then scooped out the guts and mixed it with eggs, cultured milk, some sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and a bit of wisconsin's finest maple syrup. i tried a press-in-the-pan pie crust--for my oval-shaped baking dish--with super results! the recipe calls for flour, butter, cream cheese, and salt and suger.

success all around!
Food shared, happiness had, and Thanks given.