E: Status quo February

With heaps of events streaming by the last weeks, I find it appropriate to briefly give a synopsis on what I have been up to lately and how I am.

Overall I feel energetic and motivated with most things. Time off has been rare, but I have been enjoying the actions causing the fast pace. I sleep enough and eat well, but although I start my day with God, I am neglecting giving rest priority. But I see the switching between different milieus and people as recreational in itself.

As a thin fog surrounding all this, is the change of status with Darshini. Being without her is much worse than being single. It has been over a month, but it still feels recent. Most of the time my logic settles with why it has to be this way, but at times I still struggle to find proper rest in the decision. We are in touch now and then and are communicating well and being supportive towards each other. I look forward to the day my presence in her life is not keeping her from complete happiness (this is strictly referring to post-relationship involuntary influence).

Faith:
God is great, all the time. I have gotten ok routines for Bible reading and prayer. And us in my house have started meeting weekly for Bible and talking time, in addition to the gatherings of the complex (which is three houses). I still translate to English at my church. This weekend I have also been a volunteer (night shift guard) at the student worship conference www.studentimpuls.no, held at my church, Storsalen. The next paragraph is an exlusive synospsis in Norwegian on the one seminar I attended: “Bible reading redefined”: the core message was that the Bible does not separate mind and acts. The book has been written for the feet, encouraging us to act on what we take in.

Stig Sundes ”Bibellesing Re:definert” la trykk på to viktige poeng i kristenlivet. For det første er Bibelen skrevet ut i fra en trosforståelse som ikke skiller tro og gjerning. Bibelens ord er skrevet for beina; en oppfordring til å gjøre heller enn å analysere det i senk. For det andre blir det enklere å tenke (og måle), om man oversetter det greske originalordet "pistis" med tillit i stedet for tro. Frykt blir da motsetning til tro (tillit), ikke tvil. Man kan tvile, samtidig som man stoler på Gud. Annerledes var tanken om at det var bedre og handle og meditere på et vers eller ikke lese i det hele tatt, om Bibellesingen og Gudsforholdet ble anstrengende/kjedelig i en periode.


Living:
Last week I attended my first house inspection. Today I went for the second. I am still waiting for ”this is the place” feeling for one of the reasonably priced apartments close to the city or public transportation. It could be soon, and it may not. I enjoy my (highly likely) last semester at the complex, and today I had an extensive cleaning of my room, sorting all my stuff, papers etc.

People:
Samuel Ritchie is an Australian mate who is currently exploring Scandinavia. I had the privilege of hosting him for about a week, before and after his Bergen trip. Rarely do friends from other countries actually take advantage of the open invitation to visit the land of the Vikings, oil, snow, brown cheese and high prices. But I enjoy it when people do, and have by now gotten pretty good at presenting Oslo to foreigners :) Sam, like me, really enjoyed (cross country) skiing.
Else, I have recently enjoyed the company of friends like Maia, Inger, Gunhild, Brynjulf, my brother and sister-in-law, my volleyball team mates, and house mates. Brynjulf and fiance had a house warming on Saturday with marvelous tapas/finger foods and great friends at a cozy residence.

Uni:
My master thesis is advancing well. A couple of weeks ago I turned in the theoretical chapters and the introduction (total of about 35 pages), and last week I got ok feedback for it, and almost finished the methodology chapter. Next week will consist of finally doing the article search, and start the analysis, after being on hold because of a dysfunctional media archive database. I spend a good deal of hours studying every (week) day, if I am not at work (DinSide).

Sports:
My volleyball team, OSI, is still on top in the first division, but have not been consistently convincing in 2007. Personally my shape is picking up and I am bout to properly compete for the outside hitter positions, other than just the libero slot. There is a bit of going to the gym, cycling, squash and cross country skiing (to be). A little backache has reduced the full exploitation of training possibilities lately, but I am recovering.

Various:
Work is fine. I have applied for some summer jobs, but should be applying for full time jobs, I guess. It is still weird to think about the coming unknown semester. As a mean of recreation, I now watch the first season of the TV series Lost (on DVD). I really like it. On the other hand, it does remind me of my missing friend – about whose whereabouts I still haven’t heard.