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“while 3 hours might seem a bit long for answering 70 grammar questions, writing a dictation and an essay, we have a long tradition in the liberal arts and humanities, even in high school: it should be a composition, not a reproduction of something you have read somewhere- points will be taken off if the examiner notices you have copied a sentence. a student of political sciences once learned his professor’s book by heart for the exam, and pretty much managed to copy big parts of it. he got a C. the professor’s explanation was- it’s from the book, and the book didn’t merit more than a C.”

that’s what our Norwegian teacher said, in exam preparation, before she gave us the three massive cakes she had baked for us, all organic, with berries from the woods surrounding Oslo (“bløtkake”).

now hey! in Austria I get a C for writing my own thoughts and not copying the professor’s book at the exam! awesomeness. also- in the library of Universitetet i Oslo, there is a big selection of newspapers and journals- one of them is called Klassekampen- “class struggle” or something similar. O_o omg! a state-funded institution actually facilitating the circulation of a critical instrument!

in Austria, protests against extreme right-wing organizations are prohibited because of the appearance of a feminist flyer… (who knows why these said extreme right-wing organizations may host balls in the president’s traditional residence in the first place)

in Rania Ajami’s movie Shadows of a Leader on Qaddafi’s female bodyguards we learn how hard it is to get a filming license in Libya, and Moustafa 1 and 2 have to follow you around all the time to make sure you don’t get the wrong thing on on film. tough stuff? in Austria, filming makes you a potential terrorist as well. being an art student consolidates the suspicions.

when did a terrorist become someone having guts, soul and passion- and a burning need for education and fair and equal treatment based on the universally accepted fundamental human rights?

I never thought I’d find passion in Norway. to be honest, I had no idea what I would find here. I certainly didn’t envisage people with such passion for their jobs, for their relationships with other people, for everything they do. the few Norwegians I’ve met so far all struck me as people who knew exactly what they wanted to do, and did it, too. they seem happy and content. I find this fulfilling and inspiring.

let’s take the boat out, wait until darkness, Fever Ray singer says.

our guide in the Munch museum, an old lady who talks about Munch as if she had known him all her life- and maybe she has, infecting a room full of exchange students with her exuberant joy. laughing whole-heartedly at her own stories, about the ridiculousness of one situation or another, laughing at the memory of a group of bishops reacting to her interpretation of “the Madonna” in a similar way Munch’s contemporaries had reacted: with utter shock and hypocritical amazement at the way he had depicted a woman from the point of view of a man having intercourse with her (“pov” in pornspeak)- but not any woman, and not any man. she is not a prostitute, she’s not a common woman, she is not a maid or peasant. she is The Madonna, and she is incredibly sexy. erotic in a straightforward, self-determining and self-determined way, not complying to something but wanting it and doing it- the Norwegian passion manifesting itself once again. the man, he’s the viewer. he’s you. he’s me. we’re him. and we’re having sex with the Madonna. The Madonna, mind you.

at the moment of conception, when the sperm enters and you know, when a baby, a new life is formed, she is holy. she is sacred. and everybody is holy. we are all sacred, the Munch guide says. now I’m not so sure about the implications of this kind of statement on the beginning of a new life in the context of abortion discussions, and the exclusivity of the sacredness to that one exact moment, but I do like the conclusion very much: every life is sacred.

I want to learn more about this, I thought. I’ve always liked Munch, but she filled me with extraordinary inspiration. it made me want to study art- but I kind of felt that couldn’t really be the case, it was her passion that really caught me.

I want to be this passionate about something, I thought.

and then Mrs. Refugee and Asylum Law entered my life.

Viking ships, ancient, old and/or reconstructed. all dark and with curly parts. dark day, dark rooms, dark ships. too dark to take a picture without the flash. with the flash, it’s too bright to see them like they really look, imposing with their old scratched-up wood, throwing creepy shadows on the wall. shitty camera, shitty photographer. the norwegian vikings were called “the rowers”, the tour guide says.

I know nothing about photography, even though I wouldn’t mind. so I use automatic flash. it’s only good for taking photos of generation facebook making hot goofy faces, smiling blowjob smiles practiced in the mirror so many times it looks too real. I don’t take too many photos of people. so my camera and I don’t really go well together.

the ships look all flashed out, not dark enough. fleshed out would look better. then the battery dies. so I just look. close my eyes and keep looking, soaking in the atmosphere. trying to reach the atmosphere behind the glass vitrines, with its perfect temperature- not the one in the room, guys giggling and girls whispering about previous nights. the varnish is the only thing holding them together, tour guide says. touch it and they fall apart.

ships, weird sticks, and many accessories. artefacts. am I imagining the indonesian elements in the decorations? no, dutch girl from surinam says, I see them too. everyone likes the ships, tour guide says. they’re on the coins, they’re on the stamps and postcards. but what I like best is this bucket. how did the buddha figure get there? and really, there he is. skinny buddha sitting cross-legged, smiling from the handle of a bucket.

it’s the way you call me another guy’s name when I try to make love to you, led zeppelin singer says.

when I woke up this morning for the first time. around 8 am. it’s pitch-black dark outside at this time, I thought. it’s so dark that when you happen to be coming back from one obscure party or another, and forgot your cellphone, and don’t have a watch, and are too tired/ scared/ hungover/ still drunk or not interested enough to ask a stranger for the time, you’d guess it was the middle of the night. and be surprised the subway was running already, and even more astonished at all the people running to catch it. at this time of the night! or maybe morning. but definitely not 8. as in, sleeping-in-it’s-still-later-than-7 eight. never ever would I get up at eight here, or at least I haven’t managed to, so far.

but suddenly the birds were singing. that’s odd, I thought. even though we live right next to the forest, I’ve never heard birds before- I’d been wondering about that… so I got up. I had to check if the night was as black- it was. I went back to bed, when I woke up around 10, no birds were singing. everything back to normal. maybe a dream? maybe spring is coming, my roommate said. she’d heard them too.

about twice a week the sky tears open, and we’re blessed with magnificent sun, making the heaps of snow along the road salivate. we have seen more sunrises and sunsets in the short time we’ve been here than ever before- the sun rises and sets in the middle of the day. the day is actually like one continuous sunriseset. on days like those I run to fetch my camera to finally take some pictures. I want to show my family and friends how beautiful the weather is when it’s not depressing. only my batteries are dead. I’m keeping my sunsets to myself for now.

every two weeks, at some random time in the night, the birds start singing.

a laptop

a black pseudo-vintage alarmclock

a knocked-over picture frame

a roll of scotch tape

a calculator

le déménagement

moving out of my old dorm, to move into a new dorm, 1.722 km away

only now realizing the potential of the dorm I’m going to leave, what with the sauna I only went to once in three years, two weeks ago, and surprisingly liked very much; the steam bath I would have like much more but never found; the “common room” that turned out to be a great party room with its own kitchen. I intend to make the most of the discoveries I’m going to seek out during the next semester. what with having to fit all this emptiness into five square meters of my own.

When you’re at work, at university, or out shopping. When you’re still asleep or sick in bed, I come back later. Just like you, I enjoy the silence, and being alone.

Your home may be your castle, but I’m the silent mouse no one notices. The one who empties your trash, washes the linoleum floor, vacuums the carpet, scrubs the bathroom. Airs your sanctuary when it’s all smoky. Sometimes I wait a while, and read your smoke. The tales it tells. Of goodbye-parties, of random sex with strangers picked up in a bar or simply on the street, of sorrow. Sorrow so deep and senseless, it can’t really be told. So I look at the lingering shadows of your addictions. The patterns they form on your drapes. You can’t fight fire with fire, didn’t you know? Or you can try, but nothing good will come of it. Estrangement from your family, from friends who don’t know you anymore, who think it’s a joke, or a phase. I know better. I also read your post-its. “Your mind is too beautiful”, “athlete, writer, jurist, anthropologist (…)”, “no food after 6pm”, “quinoa/carbs”. Is that who you are, or who you want to be? Vain attempts to find reasons why not to do it. To hang on to what? You chose the slow way because you can’t decide yet. Get better or leave it? But how do you want to get better when there’s always another setback, another disaster, another accident, another estrangement, another disappointment just waiting for the right time to strike, just after you thought you’d gotten better. So fragile. Where did your substance go? No solid matter left, only wisps of smoke, of thought, of feeling, of unbearable insecurity. Oh how I wish I could help you. But I can’t touch your stuff, only clean around it. I would like to leave you post-its, too. The things I would write. You know that people would miss you, people you care about, people who care about you right now. You know all that, but it doesn’t make any sense. Not right now. 2010 was a pretty bad year, in some ways, for all of us.

I read the titles of the books on your shelves. Did you read all those? What a curious collection.

I don’t love you anymore. we’re not family, we’re not friends, we were lovers, or I wanted us to be. it ended because the continents were too far apart, or it never even started, or because you rejected me out of a whim after an intense relationship.

I loved you with all my might.

you wrote me a poem that still makes me smile, we frequently exchanged something we considered “texts” and I won a literary prize with a love letter I never gave you, or you weren’t that writer kind of guy.

when I think of you, I think of happy moments, I think of how we met years later and the spark was gone, or it just makes my heart crunch- literally, I can feel my body closing up, it’s too soon.

you all gave me moments of joy, and devastation- some more than others. I don’t know if I believe in love, or what that’s even supposed to mean. all I know is I offered myself up to you, I became open. I kept no boundaries of my self- I trusted. no matter how messed-up you were, kid, or still are, you were everything to me. my world revolved around you so much I forgot about myself. so yeah, can a heart only be broken as many times as a piece of paper can be folded, is there a limit?

so humble. if you think you didn’t learn anything, maybe you didn’t have to?

sometimes you have to compare yourself to others to know you’re not flunking. you got 11/14- you could have done better on 3, but you got one question right when nobody else did.

so what? that was my test, anyway. my whole life, I can’t think of any question you got wrong.

you don’t pry, you just let me come to you with my pain. maybe you can’t answer my question, but you offer consolation. you bring me bagels that are better than NY itself. you bake cookies that taste better than betty crocker would, if she were a cookie. or a snicker doodle. or a cream puff. those are gross anyway.

you inspire me with your divine writing, and sometimes I just enjoy reading it. divine in its simplicity, curiosity, humility. making me laugh when I want to cry.

for me, you will always be my perfect dad. I love you- and I always will.

I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I know you always want to do even better- you’re fine the way you are, because you make me fine. you make everyone around you feel better. and those hour-long political rants on our car drives to Vienna you’re always apologizing for afterwards? well, maybe they have inspired my critical thinking, and I can’t think of a better way to spend my mornings.

orange ribbon, lying on the floor.

my reflection in the window of some supermarket- it’s way too expensive for local standards, by the way

my own reflection, walking faster than me.

green light, blinking.

ashes glowing- growing cold- falling

in a puddle of dirty… dirt. grime.

beautiful stranger, walking past me.

plastic bag, flowing in the wind. with the wind?

remorse- long gone.

chewing on a stalk of Asian coriander

I walk by them all

taking pictures of a “ritual” on Bali, then realizing it’s a funeral.