Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and Wilfred Owen's "Dolce Et Decorum Est" are two great war poems. I really do like them. But why, why, why did I choose to write and analysis of the two - and how they "respond FORMALLY to the emotional stress linked with war"? Apparently I have not paid attention in the lectures. How does a poem respond formally to emotional stress?

Gawd.

I'm frantically reading trough my book list for university - last week Macbeth, this week Frankenstein, next week ... Shirley? And I seem to have caught an unhealthy obsession with the Twilight-series. Yes, yes, I know. Seeing as I'm older than fifteen (having passed my 21st birthday last week) I have no ready excuse, but I just can't help myself. (And I haven't watched the film ... Yet ... Damn. What can I say? I'm hooked!)

And as a possibly warning: I might just end up killing myself next weekend when I'm going skiing for the first time in several years. My legs strapped to skis equals my body slammed against a tree trunk. Maybe I'll just skip the actual skiing part, and just stick to my forte - after ski boozing!

Having spent much (well, all) of last winter in glorious Oz, completely forgetting the concept 'cold' in the process, I am now starting to wonder if the concept 'warm' is slipping away. (The idea being terribly frightening in itself.) I'm dreaming about a quick escape to warmer European countries - the key word being 'dreaming', seeing as that's not quite as easy as it sounds on a students budget - but spring (and, by default, eventually summer) is getting closer and closer every day, so I expect I'll survive.

My trusty under-water camera, my constant companion for last years nine-month 'holiday' Down Under, has finally passed on. For unknown reasons (though I'm not sure it did it a world of good to be filled with water after a couple of times of being not-quite-properly closed up, even if it -did- work for a couple of months afterward) it just won't work anymore. I've finally bought a new camera (and my student's bank account was groaning in agony as I did so), and hopefully I can start documenting my life again. And maybe something will make it's way to dA again soon? Well, I wouldn't be holding my breath.

I'm also hoping to go to York in March, on a study trip. But there being only twenty students actually going, and some fifty of us wanting to go, I'm not sure what's going to happen yet. Still, there's always hope.

Life is good. Bergen has had uncharacteristically good weather for the past week, but that's only because I finally got a bright red raincoat (a fab birthday present, I might ad) to help me fight the rain off. It's just doing it to annoy me, and to throw everyone off. The weather seems to do that a lot, I've noticed. Just when everyone stops dragging their umbrellas everywhere (as the people of Bergen do religiously - it being known as the rainy city) it'll start pouring down heavily. I can just feel it.

Recently I've had a bit of a fling with comic books. I've always been a fan of the genre (having been exposed to them through my childhood years - Donald Duck, Beetle Baily, Lucky Luke, Tintin, Asterix, Spirou, Gaston Lagaffe, Calvin and Hobbes, the Phantom, Spider Man, Archie, Tarzan, Bizarro and many others being frequent guests in my childhood library), so naturally I started exploring. My newest companions are Fables, Y: The Last Man, Blacksad, Modesty Blaise, some of Frank Miller's best work and a couple others. I just couldn't get enough of them for a while.

Still working at the Bergen Museum (actually at work at the moment - it's painfully slow today), though not as much as before. Having lectures every weekday I'm only able to work Saturdays and Sundays. It's an unbelievably easy (though maddeningly boring) job to have when somewhat hung over after Friday or Saturday's night out.

All in all, life is life. And life is very good. I hope your lives are good as well! A very delayed 'Happy New Year!' to everyone, and I wish you all speedy days until spring reaches you with glorious sunshine and plenty of love, happiness and the cutest little kittens imaginable!

It's been snowing. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, but I don't think it won't take me nearly that long to start disliking it.

Being in Australia last winter and Christmas was nice, but now I'm really looking forward to a proper Norwegian holiday. I've been a student at the university in Bergen for a couple of months now, living a pretty relaxed life. Doing good. I'm actually in a very good place right now, which only makes a small voice in the back of my head clear its throat and remind me it might all suddenly change for the worse. I hope not. Because I really, really enjoy life when it's good. I mean, I've hardly got anything to complain about at the moment. Can't even complain about it being cold! I want the snow and the cold to hang around for the true Christmas-y feeling. So why do I have that tiny worry that everything will just suddenly change?

I haven't even got three weeks left of school now, and then I'm free to travel the three-or-so hours home to my mum and my dad and my stepmother and all my brothers. And celebrate Christmas. It'll be good. I'm also working at the moment. At the museum in Bergen. Which can be depressingly boring, but still all right.

It's all good. And why shouldn't it be?

(Though - why should it?)

Sorry. I'll be positive. It's sunny outside, gleaming off white snow. How can I not be happy?

Hi. I’ve been in Australia.

And it was good. So unbelievably good.

Flew to Sydney in the middle of September, and lived there and out on gorgeous Bondi Beach for the following month. Ate BBQ’d kangaroo. Was introduced to 30+ sunscreen. Saw the Opera house.

A week at Leconfield Jackaroo and Jillaroo School in Tamworth followed, before I caught a plane to Cairns.

Having done my bit of relaxing, the three weeks were spent at a banana farm in Cardwell. I have never been so well acquainted with spiders in my life.

Next I stopped by Townsville for a couple of days. (And who knew they had a massive army base?)

Airlie Beach and a two-day sailing trip among the Whitsunday Islands followed. Having never heard of schoolies week before, my first couple of nights in Airlie came as quite a shock. But I managed. Whitehaven beach is unbelievably beautiful, by the way.

Next, after a good 16 hours riding the Greyhound, came Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island – the latter being the biggest sand island in the world. No Dingoes, though.

Brisbane, Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay (where I scuba dived and saw sharks!), Coff’s Harbour and Newcastle followed in the first weeks of December.

Christmas Down Under was spent in a small town called Manildra in New South Wales, thanks to a mate from up the coast. BBQ and sun was decidedly very odd for Christmas. Had Jim Beam and the Sydney fireworks for New Years.

And then I headed west to Mildura, where I spent a month peeling, sorting and packing garlic eight hours a day. Yes. Garlic. I celebrated my twentieth birthday with Bundaberg Rum, ice cream and being tossed in the hostel pool.

Stopped briefly in Adelaide before heading to Melbourne and St Kilda. Having never ehard of the St Kilda festival, I felt quite surprised to look out the window one morning to find over a quarter of a million people filling the streets.

One day was dedicated to the capitol Canberra before I returned to Sydney and my favourite beach. Lived for a month or so at Bondi, living the good life. Went to the Syney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras wearing a Viking helmet. I never knew Vikings were that popular.

Unfortunately, the time had come for me to leave my new favourite country. Spent ten days on a Kiwi Experience bus touring New Zealands north island, before flying out into the pacific to visit the two island groups Tonga and Samoa. Spent a month in pacific paradise, drinking coconut milk on deserted beaches and scuba diving into caves to see baby white-tipped reef sharks. So unbelievably cute I wanted to pet them.

The comparative cold in Peru came, in other words, as quite a shock. But wrapped in layers and layers of alpaca wool clothing I made do. Saw the Nazca lines, visited Colca Canyon, went to Titicaca Lake to see the floating reef islands – and travelled on to Bolivia. Returned to Peru for the trip to Machupicchu. The Inca city is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever visited, hands down.

Flew on to LA for a couple of weird days, before I headed back to Europe and London. Spent a couple of drunken days there before returning to good old Norway.

And here I am.

I thought I made the right choice when I returned to early June with sunshine and heat. But now it’s raining, so I’m undecided.

*sigh*

I’d rather be in Oz.

In less than nine weeks I’m going to Australia. On Monday 18th of September I’ll fly from Norway to Sweden to Malaysia to Australia. I’ll be exited. Nervous. Scared. Absurdly happy. Eager. I’ll probably get bored. I get bored on a regular four-hour flight. And now were talking one hour from Norway to Sweden, eleven hours from Sweden to Malaysia, and seven hours from Malaysia to Australia. But I’m actually going to Australia. I just can’t seem to get my head wrapped around the fact. That I’ll be working. Jobs unknown. I’ll go to a Cowboy School. I’ll see Ayers Rock. I’ll travel up the East Coast. Great Barrier Reef. I’ll be in Sydney for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and the Body Art Ride in February. Just because I can’t miss it. In March I leave Australia for New Zealand. Though I’ll only be staying there for ten days or so. And after that come a couple of weeks each in Tonga and Samoa. I didn’t even know that Tonga and Samoa existed before I decided to go on this trip. I don’t quite know what I’ll be doing there. After that I’ll stay almost a month in Peru (where I’ll see Machu Picchu!), but I’ll also visit Bolivia and maybe even Brazil. A few days in LA and London, and I’m back home in Norway again by the end of May. That’s over eight months.

And now, two months before I’m leaving, I’m working. Summer apparently decided it didn’t want to hang around anymore, though, so it’s not as if I’m missing out on a lot of great weather. Yet. Because I’ve still got three more weeks doing this job. It’s the same one I’ve had for the past two summers, where I answer phones and pay bills and do accounting stuff. Not very entertaining, but not very demanding either. It’s something to do from eight to four, five days a week. I don’t quite know what I’ll be doing with myself for five weeks before I’m leaving. I suppose I should find a job. But who’ll have me for five weeks?

Anyways. The great focus is Australia. And there’s a lot to do. I have to get shots, because I’m going to South America. And though I’m not a great fan of shots, I’ll face two rounds of one in each arm. I’ve bought a large backpack. I still need to buy a camera. I’m thinking of this new one that can take photographs under water as well. Hope I can afford it. I should begin to think about packing soon. I just can’t be bothered to begin.

One thing, though, that’s sure to take my mind of Australia for a while, is the new Harry Potter book. The last Harry Potter book. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It reaches the shelves on Saturday. Not at midnight, no, not here. But at ten A.M. or something. Not that it really matters. I have to baby-sit my stepmother’s sons, half-an-hour away from the nearest bookstore. Half-an-hour in a car. Which I don’t have. Still, I guess I’ll manage to get my hands on the book during that day. If not, I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with myself. I’ll shy away from everything. I won’t read the paper, I won’t listen to the radio, I won’t watch TV, and I’ll run away screaming gif anyone around my decide they want to discuss it. It’s a frightening thought. But I feel sorry for the people who couldn’t care less. It’s exiting to care so much, about so little. And it pains me to call it little. Just because I care so much. Anyways. I’m all exited. And nervous. I can’t believe it’s the last one. These books have been such a great part of my reading for years. They’re the ones that really made me read books in English instead of translated into Norwegian. Because I simply couldn’t wait the months for the translated edition. Hopefully it won’t get spoiled for me. I wish I had a few days off to finish it. But I don’t. I could probably read it in one day. But I won’t. I can’t let myself finish it that quickly. Not when the books have been an era of my literary world. The mass-media world we live in be damned. I’ll do my best to make sure it’s not spoiled for me.

So, that’s what’s in my mind. Australia. Harry Potter. And also all of my friends. The ones who will be leaving me as well as the ones I’ll leave. Most of the people I know, people I’ve been spending time with at school and outside school, who’ve partied with me as fellow Russ, are leaving. Soon they’ll be scattered all over the country (and some outside it), attending the schools of their choice. They’ll be leaving in August. But I won’t leave until September. It will feel lonely, in this small town, without all the people I care for. Maybe that’ll make it easier to leave? Because I know we won’t all be together again until people come home for the holidays. Hopefully people will be here next summer, and then we can get together and share what we’ve done. I’m guessing I’ve got enough to share from my months in Australia. I’ll probably bore everyone else with it. And I’ll have these stupid inside-jokes with the two I’m travelling with. But that’s fun. I hope there’ll be a lot of people I’ve missed at a concert in June, Sommerfesten, which is a fairly young, annual concert in our town. This year we had the Norwegian artists CC Cowboys and Turbonegro. It’s a very entertaining kind of concert, because it brings together all age groups. I’m there, and all my friends as well, but also my parents, and everyone aged in between and older. Hopefully.

But that’s months into the future. Almost a year. Now I’m working. Australia is two months away. And I can forget everything for a little while, in worrying about the last Harry Potter book and whether or not it’s going to be good (which I think), or if people I like will die (which I’m pretty sure of), or if someone spoil it for me before I finish it (which I rather hope not).