An American Deja Vù: Being Back

So I'm back. And for most of you, this is the only sign of life you have received from your favorite future doctor in the exact month (that's 30 long days to those of you with a longing for Christian and a passion for numbers). Whether you're reading this on Blogger or Facebook, man, do I have news for you. Sit down, grab your most comfy blanket, a box of tissues, and your biggest jar of nitroglycerin, because this post might just alter the course of your life.

Okay, I'll be sincere. This isn't about you (it's about time you start your own blog, I guess), it's definitely about me. And while we're on our way, let me first recap the past month of my life to you. Briefly (yeah, right).

Alicia and I landed in Sioux Falls (often referred to as SooFoo or Sucks Falls, the latter being more derogatory than it deserves) on August 11th, and her family greeted us at the airport with (silent) screams and hugs that couldn't have been more genuine. We went out to eat (count 1 of multiple fast food visits these past weeks) at Fuddruckers, and had the most amazing burgers (and my first Cherry Coke) over pleasant conversation with the family and one of Lish's friends who had tagged along. I immediately got along with her parents (I am a parent favorite, not surprisingly), and my somewhat crude, sarcastic sense of humor seemed to fit right in with the Coggins crowd. Now, our getting along was technically also the only option, because of the week we had ahead of us.

On the 13th of August we all ventured, by car, up to Grand Marais (Minnesota) and the Boundary Waters, with everything from tents, food packs, canoes, paddles, sleeping bags and matches to bug spray. We spent our first night at a camping ground at the edge of town (our last showers of the week), before we embarked on the 5-night trip into the wilderness. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has a no-littering, no-motors, no unauthorized fires, no toilets, and no other people policy, which means the most rustic camping around. The entire rest of the week it was life as only Rambo would have preferred it: up at dawn, preparing all our meals over the campfire, 4-5 hours of intense paddling to find our next camp site, making poopsies in the woods or specially engineered latrines 150 ft from the lake, and about 14 portages (that is, carriages of 4 kevlar canoes, several oversized backbacks and food packs, paddles and so on, from one lake to another, oftentimes through dense vegetation or up steep hills). You'd be surprised, though; I ended up loving it. The camp fire bonding, healthy physical exercise, incredible starry nights, sleeping on the rocky ground, and being without a shower or shave for a week all turned out to be exactly what I needed. Disconnecting from society, from the Facebook monster, from Mr. TV, and from all our ridiculous comforts is an amazing feeling, and I'd go back and do it all again tomorrow, if I could. As aching, smelly, hurting, and tired as my body was after the trip, my soul couldn't be happier. That, my friends, is the meaning of good pain.

Returning to Beresford, Alicia's hometown, we spent our next weeks relaxing and being spoiled. Dawn, Alicia's mom, cooked us incredible meals every day, and the evenings were spent playing Rock Band (on X-Box) or Dice (the Coggins dice game that truly grows on you after a while, as simple as it is - and it doesn't hurt when you ROCK it completely every time either). One of the nights Alicia and I went back to Sioux Falls, with one mission on hand: Wal-Mart. We spent about 3 hours just walking around, taking in the atmosphere that is Wally's World, and concluded they were the exact WM dosage we'd been craving ever since leaving the US last time. You might not appreciate it now, but believe me - Wal-Mart is up there with apple pie and peach cobbler when abroad.

On the 2nd of September, I moved into the dorms, and got my room set up. Thanks to Alicia and her decision to save money (on car insurance?) and precious time on living at a friend's house, I now have the sweetest room around. I bought a black fridge, I have a black loft, a black (coooomfortable) couch, huge TV, and even my own bean bag chair. I bought a blender (for those Men's Health smoothies and occasional Jimmy Buffet nights) - and yes, that is black too. I brought 5 (!) suitcases of personal belongings and clothes (and thanks to a mistake made by United Airlines, I only paid $100 for the 3 that were both overweight and in excess - remember, technically just 2 bags of 50 lbs each), so now I have almost all my stuff in one cool room. Classes are hard (I'm taking Organic Chemistry, Terrestrial Plant Ecology, and Genetics), but I'll survive. I'll have worse later, so this is a good time to prove I can do it.

Lastly, I'm single again. But you probably knew that one. And there's nothing I feel like saying about that on a forum as public as a blog, so I'll just leave it with that. Let me just, incredibly, quote Usher: "Breaking up is a natural evolution when you try to figure out what you want in life. If you're with an individual who isn't moving in the same direction and at the same rate that you are, it ain't going to work." And I suppose it didn't.

Labels: Breaks, College Stuff, Major Updates, Personal Issues, Vacations

posted by CK @ 06:36

My Self-Destructive Nature

Since I've been more than a little abscent from this blog lately (read: this past year), I have decided to start taking this literal vent more seriously and make myself write more. To start things off, I will take some advice from another blog I stumbled upon the other day, and sit down every single day for the next month and write up a post right here. And just so we're clear on the rules, this one will count as number one, and every post from now on containing more than a picture will be a consecutive post. Contents or length don't matter, as long as it's done every day and they contain little tidbits conveyed by the alphanumeric alphabet.

Easter came and went. This year, apart from a delicious and ooooh so bad Easter egg filled with too much (hm, lying) candy, Easter didn't get the usual significance it should have. Sure, I watched the gruesome (Easter themed) movie Passion of the Christ, but on the spiritual/religious side, that was as far as my efforts went. I didn't go to church, but then again that part of Easter isn't mandatory, and really shouldn't be either, but I somehow felt I should have. Alicia and I went to church the Sunday when she was here, which was nice, so to some extent the church-going for this year has been done, at least when excluding my Christmas visit. And sadly, the extent of my church participation is actually typical of the average Norwegian, all citing 'personal religion' and 'a personal relationship to the higher powers', and thus eliminating the need for a church to pray and worship. I'm of that opinion myself, to some extent, but when I visited the main city church with Alicia a couple of weeks ago, and when going to church with the US family in December, I definitely felt a calm, a warmth, and a peace, that I think is the reason why people do go to church. Churches have remained important to people throughout the ages, and are still so today, and logically I think there must be a reason why so-called educated and modern people seek out a building topped by a cross every Sunday, and sit there for an hour or more listening to one person. And thus I think houses of worship must serve some purpose, fill some important voids, in people's lives, that they can't have filled at home, no matter how good their relationship with the Almighty might be one-on-one at home on their bedside. I will, is what I'm trying to say, take my religion more seriously, and try to attend church more often than I have so far. Who knows, maybe I'll even enjoy it?

The main focus of my post this time wasn't really the individual's practice of religion, believe it or not, it was more my time management skills. This last break has thrown me totally off my normal schedule, and turned my day upside down. On a normal day last week, I'd wake up around 5 or 6 pm, have dinner by 10 or 11, and stay up until 7-8 am. And have I corrected this incredible, yet so comfortable schedule by now, you ask? Hardly. Actually, as we speak (and I type), it's 4:30 in the morning, and I have school at 9. I suck. The hard thing about having to change schedules like that fast is that you either have to stay up all night and all day to pull it off, or you have to accept having a 7 hour day before forcing yourself to go to bed again. And obviously none of the alternatives are very comfortable, so I have resisted until now..

Don't worry, I won't let this ruin anything big, I just enjoy imagining being on break for longer than I should sometimes.

.

Labels: Breaks, Everyday, Personal Issues, Ponderings, Religion

posted by CK @ 03:59

The Summer That Never Happened

I've been dreading this post for a while, but I guess there's no escaping it in the long run. "What did you do this summer?" people ask, and I ponder the answer I will give to that for a moment. Usually I give myself three options, including a long version with depressive sob stories, a short version that basically saves everyone's precious time and doesn't waste mine more than it has, and then there's the version where I swear a lot and maybe yell a little just to point out how bad it really was.

I present to you; the short version. Imagine me slowly being choked by my own boredom, trapped in a house in Oslo, on one hot summer day after another. Oh, what the heck, this is turning into the long version, and this crappy summer doesn't deserve it. I will present the main, uneventful events in a short list.

A. This one is actually the only bright spot. I went to London, with JuJu, and got to see Jason Mraz in concert. Great fun, and the only fun I had the whole summer. We were there for 4 days, and that was even a day longer than planned since we miscalculated and missed the initial flight. Fun though. See previous post for pics.

B. I... Stayed home. The weather got hotter than it's been in years, and I stayed home. From May until August. I'm getting depressed from writing this. And ashamed.

C. End of pathetic list.

See? I told you that was all this horrific summer deserved. Now one blog post summed up the entire 4 months. Now, THAT'S effectivity.

Labels: Breaks, Complaining, Minor Updates

posted by CK @ 01:57

The British Council London Excursion 2006

Believe it or not, here I suddenly am. I was thinking I would reappear on this blog (mine, yes, so it IS very logical, you pedantic piece of snot) on some meaningful date or day like October 20th (the 5 month anniversary of my return to Norway, and coincidentally Julie's birthday),

- HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY, JULES!!

or maybe even a week before my threatening first exam this semester, but no. All clever dates passed me by since my DSL never arrived (until now), but now I'm back at least. Kind of.

I have a lot to talk about from my 5+ months since the last post, but that'll have to be next time. Now I'm in Trondheim at my dad's and trying to study for the previously mentioned scary (forget about Halloween - this one's a real massacre) exam, which is on Wed. the 8th. Meanwhile I have what has come out of the only place I went this summer, a movie from my trip to London with JuJu, for you to chillax with. That's gonna have to be it until after the exam, when I don't have to think about pulmonary embolisms, reading ECGs or even myelomatosis anymore. Now I'll get off my dad's neighbor's wireless network before he knocks on the door.. Enjoy this film!

Here is the video I've made from mine and Julie's trip to London this May. I will be back soon with more interesting tidbits from this summer. :)

Labels: Breaks, College Stuff, Medical, Vacations

posted by CK @ 12:24