Hi All,
Everything a bit frenetic here. Bill and I have started our Norwegian class. Walter went to his first birthday party where he ate three hotdogs and cake and afterwards raved about how nice the other boys were. Mark is now loving soccer and seems to be getting the hang of it. He's been invited to a fotball party next week. He is also joining the Norwegian version of boy scouts, which has their first meeting tomorrow.
Today Walter had outdoor-class in school (apparently they do this every Tuesday), and the teacher took the kids to look for seashells by the sea, where Walter, to his delight and our chagrin, slipped off a rock and fell in.
In a couple of weeks, his class will be going on an overnight camping trip to the mountains.
Norway is about as close to paradise for kids as I can imagine. The boys have never been happier.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Police Blog in Kristiansand's Daily Newspaper (fvn.no)
Bill and I got a kick out of the Kristiansand newspaper's police blog (translated via the computer), especially considering the dismal, bloody headlines in our local BND (Belleville News Democrat). Here are some recent entries--
KRISTIANSAND: Squat
00.53: A lovers arguing very loudly in Skippergata. The police are called out, but get the understanding that the two have become fond of each other again on arrival.
KRISTIANSAND: Full
1:12: A very drunk person is observed on Egsveien, near Oddernes Bridge and the entrance to Baneheitunnelen. The police ride them home.
ARENDAL: nuisance
01.13: A man is in very bad mood at Long Wharf. The drunken arendalitten taken and put into jail. 18-year-old reported to make sick drunk.
KRISTIANSAND: Bicycling
01.44: A woman stopped in Lund while traveling around on what appears to be a stolen bike. The woman, a 19-year-old from London, arrested.
ARENDAL: Fill
1:59: A very drunk person running the emergency clinic in Arendal.
GRIMSTAD: Angry at nightclub
02.11: A drunk and angry man calls the police and complain that he does not let in on a meeting place. Later calling the spots people. They complain that the man would enter the club. It ends with a sort of compromise, because the man will drop into the jail instead. The person being prosecuted for verbal threats to staff spots. Grimstad man is 23 years.
KRISTIANSAND: Squat
00.53: A lovers arguing very loudly in Skippergata. The police are called out, but get the understanding that the two have become fond of each other again on arrival.
KRISTIANSAND: Full
1:12: A very drunk person is observed on Egsveien, near Oddernes Bridge and the entrance to Baneheitunnelen. The police ride them home.
ARENDAL: nuisance
01.13: A man is in very bad mood at Long Wharf. The drunken arendalitten taken and put into jail. 18-year-old reported to make sick drunk.
KRISTIANSAND: Bicycling
01.44: A woman stopped in Lund while traveling around on what appears to be a stolen bike. The woman, a 19-year-old from London, arrested.
ARENDAL: Fill
1:59: A very drunk person running the emergency clinic in Arendal.
GRIMSTAD: Angry at nightclub
02.11: A drunk and angry man calls the police and complain that he does not let in on a meeting place. Later calling the spots people. They complain that the man would enter the club. It ends with a sort of compromise, because the man will drop into the jail instead. The person being prosecuted for verbal threats to staff spots. Grimstad man is 23 years.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Our visit to Grimstad
View of Grimstad
The pharmacy where Ibsen worked as a young man. Ibsen lived upstairs where he had a sexual liaison with a woman and later conceded he could be the father of her son. He paid child support for the next fourteen years.
Me in front of the World War II War Memorial
The boys in the Grimstad harbor. Grimstad was once a leading ship manufacturing center.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Bill's ruminations...on fotball
Today I accompanied Walter to football practice. He is a member of
the local Gimletroll football organization, which runs kind of a
little league for soccer and handball in Kristiansand. Having never watched a
complete soccer game on television or been to a pro soccer match, I'm
not the best judge of these things, but the other students appeared to
be quite good. Walter participated gamely in the scrimmages, and I
think held his own, despite not knowing the language, which probably
makes the whole enterprise a bit more intimidating for him.
Afterwards, I talked briefly with the coach, who appeared both
energetic and dedicated, and, while Walter was standing there, another
child began chanting the line "born in the USA" several times.
During the practice, I talked with two parents, both of whom I believe
noted that the presence of an American child might help the Norwegian
children learn to speak English.
What I do like about soccer is that it seems to encourage a
cooperative approach, as players frequently have to set aside their
own ambitions of scoring a goal themselves and instead pass the ball
to a teammate who is in a better position to score. Also, the players
get a lot more exercise than in baseball.
Kristiansand is home to the Start football team, which is part of the
Norwegian professional soccer league. I get the impression that being
a member of Start is somewhat equivalent to being a Cardinal in St.
Louis.
Walter still retains his love of baseball, and after school typically
asks if he can visit the Major League Baseball website, where he can
watch highlights of recent games.
the local Gimletroll football organization, which runs kind of a
little league for soccer and handball in Kristiansand. Having never watched a
complete soccer game on television or been to a pro soccer match, I'm
not the best judge of these things, but the other students appeared to
be quite good. Walter participated gamely in the scrimmages, and I
think held his own, despite not knowing the language, which probably
makes the whole enterprise a bit more intimidating for him.
Afterwards, I talked briefly with the coach, who appeared both
energetic and dedicated, and, while Walter was standing there, another
child began chanting the line "born in the USA" several times.
During the practice, I talked with two parents, both of whom I believe
noted that the presence of an American child might help the Norwegian
children learn to speak English.
What I do like about soccer is that it seems to encourage a
cooperative approach, as players frequently have to set aside their
own ambitions of scoring a goal themselves and instead pass the ball
to a teammate who is in a better position to score. Also, the players
get a lot more exercise than in baseball.
Kristiansand is home to the Start football team, which is part of the
Norwegian professional soccer league. I get the impression that being
a member of Start is somewhat equivalent to being a Cardinal in St.
Louis.
Walter still retains his love of baseball, and after school typically
asks if he can visit the Major League Baseball website, where he can
watch highlights of recent games.
The roots of gender equality in Norway, Ibsen
I've been interested in the roots of Norway's leading role in the struggle for gender equality, especially as reflected in the work of Henrik Ibsen, and over lunch I asked May-Brith Öhman Nielsen, a 19th-20th century Scandinavian and European history specialist, her thoughts. She noted the importance of Camilla Collett (1813-1895), whose 1854 feminist novel, The District Governor's Daughters apparently had a profound impact on Ibsen. A large blow-up photo of her hangs in the Humanities Building. (Have I mentioned that I love this place?:)
But May-Brith also noted that the roots of Norway's commitment to an egalitarian society have much deeper roots. Given that there is so little arable land in the country and that the majority of Norwegians made a living by subsistence farming or fishing, there was little opportunity for a landed aristocracy (which depended on tiered social classes of aristocrats, merchants, serfs, etc.) to develop.
May-Brith's latest work is on the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, and it looks like she and Bill will get together to discuss WWI and the possibility of giving additional lectures in American history.
Later in the afternoon, I had a delightful conversation with Michael Prince, the Americanist to whom I am indebted for bringing me here. He told me that the interest in American studies was particularly strong at the University, and urged me to develop a course of my choosing for the spring. I'll be teaching two next semester, a large lecture course in American studies and perhaps a course in the New Woman or something on the Harlem Renaissance.
I'm determined to finish up the Harlem Renaissance newspaper book, but, gads, it's like untangling 40 different kite strings. I've got files that refer to other files that refer to other files...
On the family side, we're struggling about what to do with Mark and soccer. The other kids on his team are really good, and Mark is a novice and feels increasingly frustrated. Even Walter, my loves-every-sport-on-the-planet kid, is feeling the pressure. When Norwegian kids aren't wearing their skis, they're wearing their "fotball" shoes.
But May-Brith also noted that the roots of Norway's commitment to an egalitarian society have much deeper roots. Given that there is so little arable land in the country and that the majority of Norwegians made a living by subsistence farming or fishing, there was little opportunity for a landed aristocracy (which depended on tiered social classes of aristocrats, merchants, serfs, etc.) to develop.
May-Brith's latest work is on the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, and it looks like she and Bill will get together to discuss WWI and the possibility of giving additional lectures in American history.
Later in the afternoon, I had a delightful conversation with Michael Prince, the Americanist to whom I am indebted for bringing me here. He told me that the interest in American studies was particularly strong at the University, and urged me to develop a course of my choosing for the spring. I'll be teaching two next semester, a large lecture course in American studies and perhaps a course in the New Woman or something on the Harlem Renaissance.
I'm determined to finish up the Harlem Renaissance newspaper book, but, gads, it's like untangling 40 different kite strings. I've got files that refer to other files that refer to other files...
On the family side, we're struggling about what to do with Mark and soccer. The other kids on his team are really good, and Mark is a novice and feels increasingly frustrated. Even Walter, my loves-every-sport-on-the-planet kid, is feeling the pressure. When Norwegian kids aren't wearing their skis, they're wearing their "fotball" shoes.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Language, Feminism and Translation
Hi All,
Today, I gave a mini presentation to the humanities faculty, mostly German, English and British lit instructors. The lone Americanist, Michael Prince, specializes in the Beat movement. (The University, in fact, has the single largest collection of artwork from the period outside the U.S. In the 1950s, a Norwegian dentist collected the work as payment for performing free dental work on Beat artists in San Francisco.)
In any event, as I spoke I saw that everyone in the room was, at least, bi-lingual if not tri or quad? lingual, and I felt keenly self-conscious of my own, characteristically WASPish American monolingual solipsism. (Okay, a mouthful ....I'm retreating to big words to compensate for my own sense of linguistic inferiority:)
In any event, everyone was gracious, and I learned that the University includes a "Center for Excellence" on Gender Equality. As part of Norway's effort to become a leader in higher education in Europe, it has developed various Centers of Excellence at all of the major universities. Next week, I'll have lunch with two of the faculty who teach in that program. As we made arrangements to get together, I commented that Norway seems to have won all of the battles that American feminists are still fighting (reproductive rights (abortion is fully covered by the national health care system), generous maternity and paternity leave, affirmative action measures that help remedy past discrimination(what they called the 40% rule--any Norwegian governing body must contain at least 40% of the underrepresented gender.)
If you're interested, check out:
http://www.norway.org/aboutnorway/society/Equal-Opportunities/gender/politics/
But the women I spoke to also felt strongly that sexism still exists in Norway. Several of the women said that they had felt, on occasion, taken less seriously as female academics. Another said that equal pay for equal work was still a problem. With the exception of one graduate student, everyone in the room was white, and I would expect experiences with sexism would be significantly greater for the growing percentage of Pakistani, Polish and African immigrant women.
On the home front...Walter has discovered that the way to become a self-sufficient eight year old in Norway is to look for left-over money in the vending machines. Apparently, a lot of Norwegians don't bother to retrieve their change, for Walter has already found 30 or so NOK and spends it immediately on Diet Cokes (ah well). Mark enjoyed his cooking class yesterday (when has school sounded so fun). Bill posted an ad today in the Kristiansand newspaper for bikes. He is also doing heavy duty Norwegian language teaching to the kids and trying to carve out time to write his proposal for WI.
When I sat down with Walter tonight to work on Norwegian, it didn't go so well. He's doing a unit on comic books and had to write a sentence in Norwegian using "snakkeboble" or talk bubble. So I had the great idea of going to the web so we can see how real Norwegians would use it in a sentence. Here it is:
Med våre topptrente snakkebobler kan du og dine ansatte prate mer for mindre!
So Walter dutifully copies it down. But when I hit the translate button, we get "With our highly trained speech bubbles, you and your employees to talk more for less!"
Ugh!! I need to get a serious Norwegian dictionary, or maybe just a live-in Norwegian.
Today, I gave a mini presentation to the humanities faculty, mostly German, English and British lit instructors. The lone Americanist, Michael Prince, specializes in the Beat movement. (The University, in fact, has the single largest collection of artwork from the period outside the U.S. In the 1950s, a Norwegian dentist collected the work as payment for performing free dental work on Beat artists in San Francisco.)
In any event, as I spoke I saw that everyone in the room was, at least, bi-lingual if not tri or quad? lingual, and I felt keenly self-conscious of my own, characteristically WASPish American monolingual solipsism. (Okay, a mouthful ....I'm retreating to big words to compensate for my own sense of linguistic inferiority:)
In any event, everyone was gracious, and I learned that the University includes a "Center for Excellence" on Gender Equality. As part of Norway's effort to become a leader in higher education in Europe, it has developed various Centers of Excellence at all of the major universities. Next week, I'll have lunch with two of the faculty who teach in that program. As we made arrangements to get together, I commented that Norway seems to have won all of the battles that American feminists are still fighting (reproductive rights (abortion is fully covered by the national health care system), generous maternity and paternity leave, affirmative action measures that help remedy past discrimination(what they called the 40% rule--any Norwegian governing body must contain at least 40% of the underrepresented gender.)
If you're interested, check out:
http://www.norway.org/aboutnorway/society/Equal-Opportunities/gender/politics/
But the women I spoke to also felt strongly that sexism still exists in Norway. Several of the women said that they had felt, on occasion, taken less seriously as female academics. Another said that equal pay for equal work was still a problem. With the exception of one graduate student, everyone in the room was white, and I would expect experiences with sexism would be significantly greater for the growing percentage of Pakistani, Polish and African immigrant women.
On the home front...Walter has discovered that the way to become a self-sufficient eight year old in Norway is to look for left-over money in the vending machines. Apparently, a lot of Norwegians don't bother to retrieve their change, for Walter has already found 30 or so NOK and spends it immediately on Diet Cokes (ah well). Mark enjoyed his cooking class yesterday (when has school sounded so fun). Bill posted an ad today in the Kristiansand newspaper for bikes. He is also doing heavy duty Norwegian language teaching to the kids and trying to carve out time to write his proposal for WI.
When I sat down with Walter tonight to work on Norwegian, it didn't go so well. He's doing a unit on comic books and had to write a sentence in Norwegian using "snakkeboble" or talk bubble. So I had the great idea of going to the web so we can see how real Norwegians would use it in a sentence. Here it is:
Med våre topptrente snakkebobler kan du og dine ansatte prate mer for mindre!
So Walter dutifully copies it down. But when I hit the translate button, we get "With our highly trained speech bubbles, you and your employees to talk more for less!"
Ugh!! I need to get a serious Norwegian dictionary, or maybe just a live-in Norwegian.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Police Station
Spent six hours today waiting for my turn to get officially processed as a permitted resident. If it weren't for the kindness of a Eritrean political asylum seeker, who gave me an earlier number he had gotten, I would have had to come back on Thursday for another long wait. While waiting I finished reading Skellig, a chilling and beautiful children's book about liminal moments between life and death, and read bits on the political subversiveness of children's literature. Hmm... a whole new Pooh.
The wind is blowing fiercely. Mark has soccer today. Have you seen Bill's blog?
http://hellofromnorway.blogspot.com/
The wind is blowing fiercely. Mark has soccer today. Have you seen Bill's blog?
http://hellofromnorway.blogspot.com/
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