The Icing

Months ago, I read this article about a town in Norway, Longyearbyen, which is located on Svalbard island in the Arctic. I hoped that I would have the opportunity to travel there to see the Northern Lights but also because it's a place that I could never have imagined visiting. A couple of days ago, I received an email invitation, and it looks like I'll be traveling to Longyearbyen in January during the time when it has 24 hours of darkness. I'll talk to a small group of students, the 15-20 kids who are in upper secondary school. I'll be really curious to hear more about what it's like to live there.

This week I was at two different schools: Mailand, a brand new school in Lorenskog, and Berg, which is here in Oslo. I really enjoyed my visits to both schools. The English teachers at Mailand were very fun to talk with at lunchtime (Janne Brit, are you reading this?) and they gave me really useful feedback on my presentation. The students at Berg were well informed about the election and asked interesting questions. I think I finally have a solid presentation; I've made some changes (adding information about political parties, simplifying summaries of the candidates' stands on specific issues) and I continue to read all the New York Times articles about the election so I know what's going on (this was such a fascinating week!). Yesterday, I heard James Thurber talk about the elections at the U.S. Embassy. He's an expert on presidential campaigns--and he answered a couple of questions that I'd been asked by students earlier that day. I think I'm obsessed with this election.

I know some of you forget about my food blog, Click here to read more about the fun stuff I did this week. It's fall break next week (meaning no school), so be prepared for some blog entries about a trip I'm taking. How mysterious. Any guesses about what I'm doing and/or where I'm going next week?

Today I went to the Norsk Folk Museum, an open air museum here in Oslo that contains structures from medieval times to the present. The oldest building is the Gol Stave Church, built sometime in the 1200s.

Like many of the other structures at the museum, people tried to make the building beautiful with carvings, painting (inside) and elaborate designs. Repeatedly today, I thought of how we often create art out of the things we use every day: toys, storage chests, clothing, structures.

Two experiences were especially meaningful. I love public history--and the museum transplanted an Oslo building, Wessels Gate 15, to its compound. There were displays reconstructing the history of the building, the people who lived there, the kinds of rooms they lived in. I was moved by the loving research that went into creating this exhibit and the attempt to capture the multidimensional histories of urban living spaces. Here's one of my favorite rooms (please excuse the flash reflected from the doorway's protective covering).

I also happened upon the herb garden that represented what each pharmacy/apothecary was required to have on its grounds. It was tucked away behind some buildings, so I had the garden pretty much to myself. I sat on a bench and wrote a little, thinking about how much I love herb gardens and getting inspiration about what I could do in my own backyard.

I also saw pigs and a horse, wild flowers blossoming here and there, rusty farm equipment and a little garden with a scarecrow.

I thought about my grandfather, a proud farmer from Utah who passed away last year, and my nieces and nephews who seem to be interested by just about everything. I thought about the love that I feel for so many people--and about how lucky I am to have this experience of living in Norway.

As I try each day to make something meaningful out of my life, I want to hold onto this moment of peace, this desire to create and see beauty in every day experience.

This week, I went to Rosenvilde Videregående Skole in Baerum to do my presentation on the elections. Rosenvilde, a vocational school for such trades as foot massage therapy, butchery, etc., is in a fairly affluent area about 40 minutes outside of Oslo. There is one track of students who will likely go to college, but the majority of students won't. The school has great facilities, including a large auditorium with good projector, screen, and audio system.

I spent three days at Rosenvilde, presenting to two different groups each day. I've worked hardest on my election presentation since so far the majority of schools have asked me to do it. My Keynote presentation is much more polished than anything I've ever done before--it includes visuals, lists, discussion questions, and video clips. I have a remote control that allows me to change slides, play the video clips, or progress to the next item on a list from anywhere in the room. I think it's pretty impressive--but maybe I just don't know what else can be done with Keynote.

Still, I wasn't sure what to expect this week--and my experience was different each day. Because I was at the same school several times, I was able to reflect on what worked and what didn't work . . . and I revised my presentation each night so that it would be a little better for the following day. I had ups and downs this week.

I'll start with the most extreme down. On Wednesday, the teachers warned me about the second group of students beforehand--five students who didn't speak any English, several students with ADD, many students who didn't care about school at all, and kids who were excited (an understatement) to be in the same class with the opposite gender. At the beginning of the presentation, I asked how many students were interested in the election--only three hands went up. As you might guess, this ended up being my least successful presentation. Kids were texting, sitting on top of each other, one student slunk so low in his seat that I think he might have been on the floor. At the end of the day, I felt like a horrible teacher--but as I reflected on the experience I realized there wasn't much I could have done given the situation. Norwegian schools don't place the same importance on behavior as American schools do--teachers don't necessarily feel it's their responsibility to encourage politeness. Norwegian society doesn't promote conformity in schools in the ways that American schools do.

I thought a lot about what went well and what didn't. Last night, I made a few changes to my presentation, hoping to finally get it just right.

And today was a great day. I had one large group that was just as engaged and thoughtful as the best group I taught on Wednesday. The auditorium was packed, my presentation was more formal given the large number of students--but the kids responded well to the ideas I presented. It was a real treat to work with this group. Kids asked me questions during the break in addition to during the presentation itself--and several thanked me for coming when they left.

However, I was dreading this afternoon. The teachers told me that the afternoon group would be very similar to the worst group on Wednesday. But then, deus ex machina. The auditorium had been double booked--we had to move to a classroom. I had a few minutes to think about the location and the teachers' description of the students . . . and I chucked my presentation.

Instead, I started out using the good old white board. I asked the students to tell me what they had heard about the election and we started making a list. They knew very little about the election--but felt proud when they were able to identify the candidates and at least mention the name of an American political party. I questioned them to extract as much information as I could. Then, we watched video clips of the candidates' convention speeches and discussed them. We didn't go too deep into the content--mostly talked about their impressions of the candidates. And, at that point, it was time for their break.

During the break, a small group of us were talking. Several of the students said that they had questions they wanted to ask, but they were too embarrassed about their English skills to ask them in front of the group. When we reconvened, I asked everyone in the class to write down three questions. There were some kids who never got out a notebook, but there were a number of kids who did--and who were eager to ask one of their questions, even in front of the whole group, since I'd given them time to formulate the questions and an excuse to ask them. One student asked me to give three reasons to vote for McCain and three reasons to vote for Obama, and she took careful notes when I responded. Then, we looked at some images of the candidates, some that typified how the candidates represented themselves (McCain the war hero, Obama, the new hope), and then ways that they played with that representation (McCain with a crazy look on his face and Obama posed in front of a Superman statue). The kids did a great job of interpreting these images--and they were engaged as we tried to figure out the jokes in the more editorial images I used.

This was really fun--and this was supposed to be the group that would be bored and apathetic about my presentation. Afterwards, one of the teachers told me that a student who had never been interested in politics before told her that this was the first time she'd cared about the election. Another teacher told me how much she admired my ability to be flexible about the situation.

Me? I was just really glad for the change of room that allowed me to do what I do best: talk to kids, listen to kids, be interested in their ideas, and be respectful of what they know.

If you've made it through this entire post: thank you. I think I needed to process this experience--and describing it is one way for me to do that.

When I learned I was coming to Norway, I looked at Flickr, travel books, and google to find pictures of Oslo and the rest of the country. Certain images popped up wherever I looked; they seemed to be iconic images that somehow communicated the "feel" of the country: deep blue fjords, picturesque rural homes, colorful rows of buildings on the edge of the water, and the urban landscape of Oslo.

While I was out running errands the other day, I took some pictures that replicate the images of Oslo to share with my friends back home.

National Theater with statue of Norway's most famous writer, Ibsen

Karl Johan's street looking towards the King and Queen's residence

A beautiful building that now houses the Hard Rock Cafe

Stortinget, home of the Norwegian Parliament

The Freia sign on Karl Johan's street. Freia is a brand of chocolate

Having lived in Arizona so long, I have a tendency to think that all grey clouds mean rain. Here in Oslo that isn't the case. There have been several cloudy days this week, with only a little bit or no rain (except for a deluge on Thursday).

Friday I took the ferry to Nesodden (a peninsula jutting into Oslofjorden) with Pattie Belle, who lives there with her husband and daughter in a home they call the Dragon House. I took a number of pictures of the sky both before and after the trip. To me, these looked like rain clouds . . .

Less than two hours later, this is how the sky appeared from Nesodden looking towards Oslo.

Yesterday was another overcast day, the coolest day since I arrived. Still, aside from a very brief sprinkle, there was no rain. From my apartment windows, I see clouds most mornings. Although I miss my Arizona blue skies, I have to admit that I actually like cool weather. As Oslo moves from an average temperature in the 60's to an average temperature in the 50's this week, I'm not sure if my newfound affection for cool weather will endure.

When I first began doing research about Norway, I read about the Sami, the indigenous people of Scandanavia, also known as Lapplanders. Since so much of my academic career has been devoted to American Indians, I suppose it was natural for me to become interested in the Sami. This summer, I read a book of Sami poetry, copying the poems I liked best since the book was so difficult to track down. I've also specifically identified American Indian Literature as one of my presentations, in hopes that I'll be invited to schools that might have Sami students.

Thursday, Kirsten invited me to join her and some of her friends to see a free movie at the Norwegian Film Institute about the Sami, The Kautokeino Rebellion directed by Nils Gaup who also made the beautiful film, The Pathfinder. Kautokeino tells the story of an 1852 Sami rebellion against a store owner, Ruth, who, in an attempt to force the Sami to buy his goods, has had several Sami unjustly imprisoned and who threatens to take much of their reindeer herd. It's beautifully filmed and acted.

After the film, Jeff told me about the Sami scholar whose lecture he had attended that day, and Kirsten praised the music of Mari Boine, probably the most famous Sami musician. Here is a music video that includes clips from the film and the haunting music of Mari Boine.