Hi All, This was our favorite of the protest signs in Madison. Bill's dad joined the protesters today. This pic comes from the Daily Kos.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Jens Bjørnebøe
According to Michael Prince, my host, Jens Bjørnebøe is the best Norwegian writer. Now I need to see if I can find his work in translation.
Janteloven
Hi All,
I have been puzzled as to why most of my Norwegian students are so quiet in class, and my seminar leader suggested it was in part due to the culture of janteloven, or unwritten rules young people learn telling them how to fit into Norwegian and Danish society. Here is the wiki translation of the janteloven rules.
Don't think you're anything special.
Don't think you're as much as us.
Don't think you're wiser than us.
Don't convince yourself that you're better than us.
Don't think you know more than us.
Don't think you are more than us.
Don't think you are good at anything.
Don't laugh at us.
Don't think anyone cares about you.
Don't think you can teach us anything.
I have been puzzled as to why most of my Norwegian students are so quiet in class, and my seminar leader suggested it was in part due to the culture of janteloven, or unwritten rules young people learn telling them how to fit into Norwegian and Danish society. Here is the wiki translation of the janteloven rules.
Don't think you're anything special.
Don't think you're as much as us.
Don't think you're wiser than us.
Don't convince yourself that you're better than us.
Don't think you know more than us.
Don't think you are more than us.
Don't think you are good at anything.
Don't laugh at us.
Don't think anyone cares about you.
Don't think you can teach us anything.
Monday, February 21, 2011
On Wisconsin
Go Union! May the protesters prevail. We're with you.
Bill and I just listened to Jon Stewart's take on Gov. Scott Walter and the prank call. Quite funny.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/stewart-scott-walker-prank-call_n_827551.html
The boys are off next week, and I am off for the next two weeks, but I have a mountain of papers to grade.
Martha and Bill
Bill and I just listened to Jon Stewart's take on Gov. Scott Walter and the prank call. Quite funny.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/stewart-scott-walker-prank-call_n_827551.html
The boys are off next week, and I am off for the next two weeks, but I have a mountain of papers to grade.
Martha and Bill
Sunday, February 20, 2011
pics from Oslo and Lillehammer
The Viking Museum
Norsk Folkemuseum, February 16, 2011 Norwegian Folk Museum, Oslo
Vigeland Sculpture Park
Lillehammer, Thon Hotel Skeikampen
Norsk Folkemuseum, February 16, 2011 Norwegian Folk Museum, Oslo
Vigeland Sculpture Park
Lillehammer, Thon Hotel Skeikampen
Friday, February 18, 2011
Oslo to Lillehammer
Hi All,
On Wednesday we flew to Oslo for meetings with Fulbright and our ski trip to Lillehammer. On the bus to the Viking Museum Wednesday afternoon we met a satellite salesman for Lockheed Martin, who remained with us during the afternoon and evening and kindly answered the boys' questions about commercial satellites. Upon entering the Viking Museum, we faced the prow of the Oseberg ship sweeping to the ceiling; the grace of its design belying the Vikings' marauding mission. The oaken ships in the museum were so well preserved because they also served as burial chambers in the blue clay near Oslo. In preparation for the afterlife, men and women of high rank were buried with weaving and agricultural tools, gold and silver (which had been pillaged long ago), sleds, and cooking utensils.
Next, while Bill went to a lecture on global warming at the American embassy, we went to see the art deco Gustav Vigeland sculpture park in Oslo. Male and female figures, babies, old men and women carved out of granite line the boulevard culminating in the central obelisk of intertwining figures. We all touched the shiny bronze fist of Vigeland's petulant baby stamping his foot in protest.
On Thursday, Bill took the boys to the National Museum and I went to hear the ten-minute reports of the Fulbright participants' projects. Some of the many topics that fascinated me--passive houses that require no outside heating source, preservationist rhetoric based on human rights rather than intrinsic rights logic, the eugenics movement in Norway where approximately 44,000 people were sterilized over a 40 year period, and Friluftsbarnehagen, or the outdoor classroom mandated by the Norwegian government for all Norwegian children.
That evening we had a dinner of hors d'oeuvres at the ambassadors residence, a mansion west of the city center. When I returned to our hotel I walked through an outdoor black metal concert and was so eager to get away from what sounded like amplified belching lions that I took a wrong turn and ended up in the parliament building.
Now we are in Lillehammer where Mark and Walter had their first downhill skiing lesson! It's a lovely resort with swimming, iceskating, cross-country skiing.
Update: Mark and Walter love downhill skiing, andthey are quickly becoming pretty good at it. Aunt Jenny and Uncle Dan, Mark and Walter would like to come and see you for a skiing adventure.
Mom and Dad went cross country and we were both comically hopeless, ending up on our backs, skis in the air, flailing like Gregor in "The Metamorphosis."
I'll post pics when we return home.
Yours,
Martha et al.
On Wednesday we flew to Oslo for meetings with Fulbright and our ski trip to Lillehammer. On the bus to the Viking Museum Wednesday afternoon we met a satellite salesman for Lockheed Martin, who remained with us during the afternoon and evening and kindly answered the boys' questions about commercial satellites. Upon entering the Viking Museum, we faced the prow of the Oseberg ship sweeping to the ceiling; the grace of its design belying the Vikings' marauding mission. The oaken ships in the museum were so well preserved because they also served as burial chambers in the blue clay near Oslo. In preparation for the afterlife, men and women of high rank were buried with weaving and agricultural tools, gold and silver (which had been pillaged long ago), sleds, and cooking utensils.
Next, while Bill went to a lecture on global warming at the American embassy, we went to see the art deco Gustav Vigeland sculpture park in Oslo. Male and female figures, babies, old men and women carved out of granite line the boulevard culminating in the central obelisk of intertwining figures. We all touched the shiny bronze fist of Vigeland's petulant baby stamping his foot in protest.
On Thursday, Bill took the boys to the National Museum and I went to hear the ten-minute reports of the Fulbright participants' projects. Some of the many topics that fascinated me--passive houses that require no outside heating source, preservationist rhetoric based on human rights rather than intrinsic rights logic, the eugenics movement in Norway where approximately 44,000 people were sterilized over a 40 year period, and Friluftsbarnehagen, or the outdoor classroom mandated by the Norwegian government for all Norwegian children.
That evening we had a dinner of hors d'oeuvres at the ambassadors residence, a mansion west of the city center. When I returned to our hotel I walked through an outdoor black metal concert and was so eager to get away from what sounded like amplified belching lions that I took a wrong turn and ended up in the parliament building.
Now we are in Lillehammer where Mark and Walter had their first downhill skiing lesson! It's a lovely resort with swimming, iceskating, cross-country skiing.
Update: Mark and Walter love downhill skiing, andthey are quickly becoming pretty good at it. Aunt Jenny and Uncle Dan, Mark and Walter would like to come and see you for a skiing adventure.
Mom and Dad went cross country and we were both comically hopeless, ending up on our backs, skis in the air, flailing like Gregor in "The Metamorphosis."
I'll post pics when we return home.
Yours,
Martha et al.
Arctic pics from the Arctic Chair, Mark Hermanson
Hi All, We're on the bus to Lillehammer and Mark Hermanson, the Fulbright Arctic Chair, who is stationed in Svalbard, shared these photos he took in the Northeast Barents Sea in April-May 2009.
Near Hornsund
Northeast Barents Sea. Lance research vessel. Experimental oil burn. After adding oil to the water to measure how the oil decomposed, researchers set the oil on fire.
Near Hornsund
Northeast Barents Sea. Lance research vessel. Experimental oil burn. After adding oil to the water to measure how the oil decomposed, researchers set the oil on fire.
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