Locusts and Wild Honey

I have not written here for a while, and many things have happened since. I am very good at these long silences so it seems. I don't mind really. :)

I want to thank God for how wonderful and amazing He has been to me. He has been faithful, faithful in every way even when I do not deserve it. He has brought me through so many weeks of trials and homework and exams, weeks of hopelessness and despair, as I cling on to the little star shining at the end of the road. Each time He never fails me, He walks through the fire with me. I always emerge unscathed.

Tonight is the PUGE concert (Gospel Ensemble) at Nassau Christian Center, and I can't wait to see God move tonight. I anticipate a great outpouring of His love and spirit, touching lives and mending hearts. I want to see some status changes. And I believe that I WILL SEE IT happen tonight.

I pray that many people will turn up and bring friends... and be blessed. God is wonderful. I love Him.

It is three minutes to midnight

We are going to pick flowers

And the sky is blue

It reminds me of some nonsense poem.

- Markéta (5 June 2008)

I thank God for bringing Markéta and I safely to Tromsø yesterday at 11am. We took the bus to the city centre (barely 10 minutes from the airport!) and we met Stig whom we're living with.

He's a university student at the University of Tromsø and he's studying medicine. His exams are a week from now on Tuesday so he is busy preparing for them. He'll be leaving after 5 June...

The apartment is right downtown, the library is a across the street and beside that is a cinema. We have shops and cafes and everything we need just nearby! The apartment itself is spacious, with WIRELESS INTERNET, a well-equipped kitchen, a beautiful sound system, comfortable sofas, and two rooms, washing machine, hot shower and a wonderful collection of books on anthropology, development, economics and lovely lovely fiction. (Lord of the Rings, God of Small Things, A Hundred Years of Solitude...) It is the perfect place and I am very grateful to God that He has blessed us with it!!! :) And between us - it'll cost 750kr per person for one month. Woo!

Yesterday after arriving at Vestregata 30 (where we are staying) we put down our bags, talked with Stig for about half-an-hour, and went to sleep for three ohurs. Then we woke up, took turns to shower and then cooked dinner. Stig went out to a gathering with his friends to revise some work. (Yesterday he was studying nephrology and urology, today he is revising the heart and lungs.) We have alot in common. He did his bachelors in something related to development in Montreal too. And he was a UWC graduate from Pearson College in Canada about... five or six years ago methinks.

Today, we'll be going to the Tourist Information Office at 4pm to begin our guide course. And I'll be heading out in about 2 hours to go set-up my bank account and take a walk downtown with Markéta. The 'post-UWC depression' that is supposed to hit me has not yet done so. It's been a good time here so far and I am very very happy. I think together we'll fight off the blues and do just fine. :)

Here is some captions for the photos.

0289: Markéta at the bus-stop with the pikachu hat!
0294: Dining table with fooood
0297: First dinner in Tromsø - spaghetti with chicken and broccoli and Sri Lankan tea
0298: 'Our' apartment living room (first half)
0299: The kitchen half of the apartment
0301: This morning, our first breakfast in Tromsø with Stig and Markéta
0302: Yum.

Last night I woke up at about 2am to get a drink of water - and the sun was still in the sky. It was a sort of late-afternoon kind of cloudy lighting... But was not dark. How cool is that?

This is something like a dream and a big adventure. I've never imagined myself to be able to 'live and work independently' but now I am doing so! It will be a good time to think, reflect, READ, organise my photographs, plot my life and think about where I will be heading for the next years. Of course, the main idea is to earn enough money to come back to Norway to visit next year. :) And go dancing again.

And perhaps if we can learn to hold even our deepest beliefs with a degree of humility, we will be less likely to kill one another in the name of things we do not fully understand.

- Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma - van de Lagemaat

Moreover, if borrowing is used to finance government expenditure that results in creation of capital assets, growing public debt will not be a burden on the economy because such a debt is self-liquidating.

- From Level Two: Further Insights of Macroeconomics, ACJC Economics Notes 2006

Lee Gerstenhaber on Womens' Roles:

The thing is, times have changed so that women can have equal opportunity in the working field, but we'd be kidding ourselves if we didn't still see the world as a man's world. Plus, now women can take on new challenges, but we haven't been rid of the old ones.

It's like double majoring.

Quote from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/us/girls-emails-txt.html

--

I think, when I am in Tromsø, I will write.

After this exam madness and the bountiful sorrow of parting with friends come May 24, I will sit down some nice sunny evening (yes- midnight sun.) and think about where I am heading. I'm standing on the brink of the rest of my life, and I want to watch the view a little while before the rollercoaster goes over the top. :) Quite an exhilirating feeling, although there are exams still. Haha. At least God knows where I'm heading! And I trust Him. So that is enough.

I want to be rooted somewhere. I want to belong somewhere. I want a place in the world to be a little part of me, and I want to carry it with me to other places.

- quote from Esther Mobley's essay (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/us/girls-esther-essay.html)

I think I've found the place. Or one of the places. Not just Singapore, but I know that this little part of western Norway will sit in my heart for a long long time to come. And I will carry Flekke with me wherever.

Math HL Paper 1 yesterday - I went in without my faithful/cumbersome friend (?) the calculator and it was just me, God and the Math paper. And we did well. I think I finished about 97% of the paper and left only 6 marks worth of questions blank. Today however, I think I will lose about 50 marks out of the 120 in total. :( I panicked, and my brain stalled when it was early in the morning. Oh well... I did some calculations with regards to the overall grade boundaries etc. and if I do really really well on Paper 3 (which should not be too much of a problem, God-willing) I will sit very comfortably with a 6 for sure.

Now, sitting bleary eyed in front of my computer screen. Going to study Env Sys soon. After making a cheesecake at Angie's house. :) I won't go to Dale today - although I WANT TO. Too tired for that... maybe tomorrow.

Study programme for the next three days:

Today - finish Env Sys
Tomorrow and Saturday - finish all of Econ
Sunday - Focus on English HL Paper 2

Monday morning: Do well on English HL Paper 2
Monday afternoon: study Econ and Spanish

then I go fight my battles (not alone of course!).

God is good, all the time.

I came to UWC in 2006 and we had to write our aims on a piece of paper. Academics-wise, I hope to fulfill them. I think I will be able to! :)

There is one happening right now.

Just as I am considering how fleeting time is and how I want these three months to last forever.

I always get snow when I want it. :D Thank you Lord. haha :D

Next week is exam week, the last day of reading week is today. Got to finish up my Mathematics today!

Last night, Pinkie, Bagdat, Marketa and I were dancing gammaldans in the lower cantina and Ali and Ashok walked in on us hahaha. What fun. Then Anupong and Adrienne joined in.

This place is lovely. Long live Flekke.

I was eating dinner at my host family in Leikanger. And as I glanced down onto my fork, I noticed some words enscribed on the back. STAINLESS STEEL SINGAPORE. I started laughing, being slightly awe-struck. So I related what just happened to my host mother. And it turns out that that was the first set of cutlery she bought when she left home when she was 19 and she has been using it for the past 30 or so years. And I'm turning 19 this year.

Long live globalisation.

Don't worry, there isn't one today.

But it is Sunday morning and I am sitting at my corner in my room at Norway House 202. The phone keeps on ringing outside intermittently for about three rings. Everytime I rush out to pick it up it stops. So I've given up trying to pick up the house phone.

My corner is messy haha - I will admit to that. Last night I finished my Geography Internal Assessment on the carbon emissions by the first years' first air travel to Norway. Sent it in to Daniel last night, but he is ill so I hope he gets better soon!

Was reading some Spanish in my bed just now - I love it how there is a light in the bed so you can do some evening reading without disturbing your room mates.

My roommate from Poland just went out to pick up the phone - and no one responded. I think someone is prank-calling the house. So she put the handset off the phone.

There was major snowing yesterday - lovely. I was walking to Flekke (3km away) through farmland, and beautiful snowscapes. I love this place. I sincerely hope I can find a job here in summer so I can actually learn Nynorsk before I leave this place. I can't afford to do that now since I have my Spanish orals coming up in two weeks and I always somehow mix up the languages sometimes. Haha...

Chinese New Year in a few days. Going to make pineapple tarts and also make some for the gammaldans people. <3
Tonight we will dance gammaldans in the Hoegh Centre with the music on my laptop. And before that at 4pm we have Christian gathering in the Silent House. One last thing - today I must finish up my Environmental Impact Assessment for Env Systems and also find an article for Econ Commentary - due next Saturday which is also HOST FAMILY WEEKEND. Woooo! LEIKANGER here I come!

;) Sab