Another weekend
It's been a whole week already... I've been working every day this week, as usual, exept that on thursday I spent all of my work day at a cheese course! I'm so lucky to get to work with cheese, and it was really interesting learning more about it. As a matter of fact I didn't know very much about it before. -I just pack and price it, and taste those I haven't tried before. My only judgement of them is either "good" or "not good", or maybe "mild" or "strong". Heehee.

I even got homework. I'm going to focus on one cheese each week for six weeks, and try to raise the sale of it by being creative. If anyone has ideas, please give them to me.

Cheese is fun. And most of them are good too. The only cheese I have tried that I thought was really, really horrible is the Norwegian "Gammelost". It's made of old skim milk and looks like this:
The word "gammelost" means "old cheese". It says quite a bit, even though I learned on thursday that gammelost is actually very young when it comes out for sale. -only about a month.

Perfect weekend.
Early home from work on friday. Cheese, biscuits and a glass of wine with friends on friday night. Sleeping in on Saturday before cleaning the apartment and doing laundry most of the day. Chilling and doing nothing on Saturday night. Sleeping in again on Sunday morning, waking up to sunshine. Having extra time to be with God, and maybe read or go for a jog. Exactly what I needed this weekend.

New semester. New situation. Long time since last time on here.
Done with school, done with studies. For now.
Eventful summer. Both good and sad. Mostly good. The good was very good, the sad was very sad.

Rainy summer here in Norway. Everyone's complaining. But I've spent ten days in Kyrgyzstan, and that was an experience that marked me. In good ways. Mostly. It was my first trip outside the western world. Oh, how I enjoyed it! It will not be the last.

I'm working in a grocery store this semester. I'm surrounded by bread, chicken and fish. It's something I can like. It's a job, but I make myself find it interesting. And my colleagues -they're nice people.

It's interesting really, working in a grocery store. It's one of very few places where all kinds of people go at least once a week. Everyone needs to eat. I like watching people, and maybe have a little chat. Wondering who they are and what they're like. People make the world interesting.

Spring's around! And it's making me feel good. The weather is lovely these days, and it's warm outside. I make sure to enjoy it even though I'm busy with exams these days. I'm done with two small final exams, working on a large third one, and have three more coming after that. This coming weekend the great people from my church is going on a trip. I am looking forward to that! (Yes, I'll bring my lap top and work on my exam. :P ... But I'll almost be done by then anyway.) Well, now I'm off to go for a walk and enjoy the pleasant evening and the lovely green spring!

I’m inspired!

I’ve been to Bergen attending Kristent Fellesskap’s easter conference. It’s been great in every way! I was very inspired, and I got to know many knew people. I stayed with some very hospitable and wonderful girls. They were awesome. I did not know them before I came, but they let me stay with them, and told me to make myself at home and invite people over if I wanted to. That’s obviously how they live. They have an open home with an open fridge. ;) The first afternoon they had about twenty people over for dinner, and the day after there were also a bunch over for dinner. They also had people over for breakfast every morning. –whoever wanted to come. (This works great as long as the guests help out a little.) They simply take God’s word about hospitality and fellowship seriously, and it was truely a blessing to me, and I’m convinced it is a blessing for everyone that comes by their house!
The meetings were great. So inspiring. I think a Christian conference is good when it inspires you to go home and start living out everything that’s been preached and talked about. So many conferences feel great. They’re like a spiritual kick, and when you come home you realize that life is not like that. You just wish you could go back and experience it again. Well, this conference inspired me to go home and live a life lead by the holy spirit and in fellowship with other christians.

It was great to see the holy spirit move, people healed, and hear many testimonies about neighbours and friends that have been saved lately. If that’s how it is in Bergen, it can happen here in Oslo too!! God is awesome!

I'm so glad there is such a thing as cinnamon rolls!

-I think cinnamon rolls make the world just a little bit better. ;)

I've had a great weekend i Risør, a tiny and beautiful town by the ocean south in Norway. My wonderful friend Bente lives there, and this weekend I have been down there to visit, which was really nice! One of the things we did, was baking, and I ate many many cinnamon rolls yesterday. Mmmmmmmm!! Thanks Bente! :)

Kicking it every tuesday...

Yeah! That's right. I've signed up for a funk dance class. Who would've thought that! I've always had a dream of being a dancer. (Just not big enough to realize.) I used to dance around the living room at home when I was little. I would dance for hours...at least that's how I remember it. I've always loved watching dancers, and thought it would be so great to be able to do whatever they do. So this semester my friend Hanne and I are taking funk dance lessons at the Spin Off dance academy. It is so cool! Yeah, cool is the right word. I've never seen more baggy pants than on our sweet instructor this last tuesday! It looked like she had been flown right in from the backstreets of L.A. or something. And she was really good!! Tuesday nights are going to be a blast.




(Picture from http://www.urbanmyths.org/article.aspx?id=39.)

I wanna be a song writer! That's what I wanna be when I grow up.




(Pic from www.flickr.com.)

Im thinking a lot about what I'll be doing after the summer. I'm done with my studies after this semester, and I dont really know what will happen next. I'd kind of like to work for a while. (Maybe I'll go back to studying more later.) But I don't know where or as what. I like lots of things. But I'm also sure there are lots of jobs I wouldn't like... Right now I have two part time jobs. I work in the bakery in a grocery store right down the street. I also direct a youth choir. I really like both. I don't really care whether the job is related to music (which is my education). At least not yet. I can always do musical things anyway. I think I need some ideas. Does anyone have any ideas for what I can start doing after my graduation? Any suggestion is good. :)

New years party


in the old parsonage

Thanks to Eivind and Bård Olav, who threw the party.

The funniest, weirdest and most memorable christmas gift this year...













Angel face...


















I thought I might let it lighten up the bathroom or something... :)

Working on that photographing skill, and it's getting better...

A couple of friends of mine were talking about photographing last night. They have really fancy cameras and everything, which I don't. (Not that fancy.)And I thought: I want to take more pictures again. So I went home and took some pictures of Inger Kari's candles while she was watching Hercule Poirot on the telly. I don't think they're too bad for a beginner. (I've been a beginner a couple of years now...hehe.)

It's already December 5. And I haven't even started my exams, while others already sleep in and enjoy the christmas preparations. Today I'm turning in my music production assignment. On friday I'll turn in another essay, and next week will be packed with exams. I wish I could go christmas shopping, make christmas cookies and watch the movie Love Actually to get the christmas feeling...
Well, it's not like I don't enjoy what I do though. Last night I had choir. I tought them O holy night in Swedish. We sing it in Swedish here in Norway. I guess no one bothered to translate it into Norwegian. :) I don't mind. I think the Swedish words and the message in it is great. It's actually better than the English text.

O helga natt, o helga stund för världen,
då gudamänskan till jorden steg ned!
För att försona världens brott och synder,
för oss han dödens smärta led.
Och hoppets stråle går igenom världen,
och ljuset skimrar över land och hav.
Folk, fall nu neder, och hälsa glatt din frihet.
: O helga natt, du frälsning åt oss gav. :

Ty frälsar'n krossat våra tunga bojor
Vår jord är fri, himlen öppen nu är
Uti din slav du ser en älskad broder,
och se, din ovän blir dig kär
Från himlen bragte frälsaren oss friden,
för oss han nedsteg i sin stilla grav.
Folk, fall nu neder, och hälsa glatt din frihet.
: O helga natt, du frälsning åt oss gav. :

(Picture from webshots.com)

Mom's birthday


It was my mom's birthday yesterday. She and dad came into Oslo to take Einar and me out to eat at Big Horn Steak House. (As a typical girl I had chicken, which Inger Kari pretended to be really upset about later, hehe. "You can't go to a steak house and have chicken!"...) Afterwards we went to my place to have some cake. :) It was very nice.

I almost always need to have a pillow in my lap when I sit in a sofa. I've heard that's a girl thing. Does anyone have any ideas why we do that? :)

Mu.prod., my favorite...
I should be working on that music production assignment I have due on tuesday. So far I really enjoy the music production class, but i got stuck with some challenges on tuesday while I was working with that Pro Tools program. I don't have much experience either with Pro Tools or Macs... But except from that, Mu.prod. is probably the class I enjoy the most this semester. :)

Platon and music philosophy
I've been working on an essay on the subject music filosophy. I've been writing about Platon and his thoughts about music. It's actually interesting, except that we read from a book that has tooooo long sentences and too many odd words. It's been really hard to concentrate, so last night I gave up on it, and today I have talked me through his strange thinking together with Anne Grethe in my class. After doing that I understood a little more of the book as well. :)

Platon thought music was a divine thing (just like the rest of the greek people at that time.) He also thought that if you hear good music you will become a good person.

I also wrote an essay on my own filosophy about music according to my beliefs. That was even more interesting, because I looked up every scripture in the bible that used the words music, singing, playing and dancing. Then I made a list of music's functions in the bible. That was more than I thought. Maybe I'll blog about that next. :)

It's been a while!! Too long...
So what am I up to? Hmmm, school... working... choir... hanging out...with friends and Jesus. :) Sleeping. It's difficult to get up in the mornings! Does anyone have any good advice on how to get up early when you love to sleep and love your bed??? ;)


By the way, I'm getting a new bed tomorrow! It's a birthday present from my mom and dad. I'm looking forward to that! And I'm also getting a new stove for the kitchen. How many times in your life do you go shopping for a new stove?!?! It's my first time. :)

(Picture from Scanpix.)

Oslo KF (my church) went on a trip last weekend. Twenty some people set course for Uvdal, where we have a growing tradition of going every fall. Åge and Ingrid's (leaders of our church) parents (in law) have a cabin there. Of course it wasn't big enough for us all, so we had to rent another large cabin. Really it was a big house... :) We had a great time there talking, laughing, playing games, hiking, praying, worshipping, sharing, eating, eating more and so on. It was great. Here are a few fun pics from our hike on saturday. It was rather short, but VERY steep.

Trying to beat Isak on the way up to the top.
Steffen was a great cook making us "lapper".
Later the gas container set on fire!




Isak and Åge relaxing in the grass.

Hiking in Jotunheimen.
I went hiking with mom, dad and my brother this weekend. We stayed at Maurvangen, which is very close to Gjende. On saturday we had a four and a half hour trip, which was very nice. Not too far, but that was ok. We had planned to hike on sunday as well, but it was pouring rain... Too bad! Here are some pics from the trip.

My brother Einar and I were both home for dinner at our parents' house yesterday. Mom took this picture of us. We kind of look like we don't want to be in the picture, he he. Anyway, I think the following is my favourite picture of my brother. It's taken at a restaurant in Florence last fall. :)