E: Quality hotel

Every now and then there is time for self-examination. Reoccurring issues for me are time consumption and ways with social relations.

I lead a life of great efficiency jammed with various activities, responsibilities, interests and people. I enjoy being involved all over all the time. I never have time to be bored, and I get to experience a whole range of things. However, there are more than one backside to this kind of lifestyle – some of which I have encountered already. All of them are interlinked.

Time
a) Time shortage. If your schedule is too crammed up, you are extremely vulnerable for unexpected happenings, sickness, delays or other problems. One thing is filling your time. But what to do when you have activities worth more hours than a week actually contains?
b) Inflexibility. The more tied up you are, the less spontaneous you can be. Sometimes there are surprises and short-term options you have to turn down, other times there are crisis or issues. Chances of a break down may be unavoidable.
c) Lack of presence. A feature I have possessed is to lose a bit of touch with present, while there is always something to do or someone to meet in the future hour or two. In this way you are ripped for enjoying the moment and relaxing. It should be unnecessary having to break off from something way cool just because there are other (possibly less appealing) appointments lined up.
d) Lack of insight and right value. Linked to the previous point; with less time to relax and think, it can be harder to figure out how one is and why. Moreover one’s life should be valued for who one is, not what one does. This can be tough if there is action around the clock.
e) Bad consciousness. For all the things one has to turn down, leave or miss, negative feelings can arise.


Relations
f) Too many friends in circulation. There is only a limited number of people one can keep in touch with on a close basis. If one wishes to depend on and be depended on, sufficient time and depth are required. With a great number of contacts, the contact hours needed grow proportionally. Point a)-e) may apply.
g) People must live according to your premises. This is what made the alarm go off this time. I can beat myself up for trying over-pack bag of existence. But when I notice that friends struggle to cope with my time slot schedule, which has been a fact, I am reminded that no man is an island. The last thing I want is to produce bad from the relationships that are created and kept for good.
h) Sending/giving the wrong signals. Combined with point f ) is the message that the loaded life spreads. No matter what I say, feel or mean, what people hear is that I do not have time for them or anything else. This can reduce the willingness to make contact and thus weaken our friendship connection. What I found equally bad, maybe even worse, is if this means that people are not approaching me if they have problems they need to share or with which to get help and do NOT ask me because they think I will be occupied.

My ideas for solutions
1. Pray. This is not a joke, as I believe God is almighty and in control. Then there is time to act.
2. Apologize. Sorry to all you who know me and feel put down by my ways, even if there has never been my intention.
3. Say no. This is a lifelong lesson to learn, at least for people like me too willingly letting go of positive replies to requests. More is not necessarily better, sometimes worse.
4. Focus. I am only one person who cannot do everything. To accept this and commit to less may ease my everyday and make it more pleasant. I must stress that I enjoy life and what I am doing. Sometimes though, there are too many enjoyable things.
5. Quality hotel. Unlike the Facebook mania where the goal seems to be gathering as many “friends” as possible, I think the key is to possess a fairly reduced number of individuals more frequent, serious and comfortably. My best friend, Thor Oskar (who turns 25 tomorrow), used an analogy of the quantity and quality hotel to describe in what kind of “buildings” our lives can be in terms of friendship masses and importance. We both know “the quality inn” has more stars.

Hopefully I can practice what I preach on this one.

X: Easter thesis/Påskeskole

I recently read a blog entry from a Norwegian bishop igniting the thought of how the world had been if Jesus was not crucified.

To be frank, I have spent more time thinking about what would happen if I took a Easter break and did not study full fill time every day from Thursday, after returning from my trip to Italy and San Marino, and Tønsberg (city in Norway where my best friend is from). My Easter days have been spent at my faculty, with the exception of Easter Sunday at a church service.

What these two lines of thought have in common is that I am not too concerned about what could have happened for neither one. In the same way I have laid down some time to complete my thesis before deadline, I believe Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice on the cross was a divinely timed action to save believers on time.

My presence in the study hall can be acknowledged from checking the log on who has been swapping the access cards at the institute buildings recently, in spite precious few eyewitnesses. Jesus’ death is also funded on a historical event, with more witnesses and accounts than my past few days, and based on no abstract belief out of the blue. The resurrection and Jesus walking about until the ascended into heaven (the Ascension) also have numerous documented encounters. And this in a time where the Roman empire had complete control of the media and whatever was released in the public sphere, orally or in writing. The Romans could easily have stopped or falsified the risen news by displaying the body or explained how hundreds of people were hallucinating simultaneously. They did try to seal and guard the tomb to stop the rumors of someone returning from the dead, but “fell asleep” on duty (which meant death penalty in those days).

None of the hindrances were complete then, and have scientifically been done until this very day. As the phenomenon cannot be explained without taking supernatural powers into account, something that a creator of the world possesses, there will always be someone not willing to accept the core happening in Christianity.

In the first letter to the Corintians (chapter 15, verse 14), Paul writes:

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

Wishing you a happy Easter which you can remember for the good things that did occur, not the bad things taht could have happened.

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Jeg leste et interessant innlegg fra biskop Sigurd Osbergs blogg kalt ”kontrafaktisk påske”. Dette er en diskusjon om hvordan verden hadde vært om Jesus ikke hadde blitt korsfestet.

For å være ærlig har jeg tenkt like mye i det siste på hva som hadde skjedd om jeg hadde tatt påskeferie og ikke brukt hver dag etter at jeg kom tilbake fra Italia, San Marino (torsdag til tirsdg) og Tønsberg (tirsdag til onsdag) til å jobbe med masteroppgaven. Mine påskedager har blitt tilbrakt på universitetet, med unntak av påskemorgen på gudstjeneste i Filadelfia.

Felles for disse to kontrafaktiske tankerekkene for meg er at alternativene til hva som kunne ha skjedd ikke så viktig. På samme måte som jeg vet at jeg har lagt ned en betydelig innsats for å fullføre oppgaven i tide, tror jeg at Jesu offerhandling på korset var guddommelig timet til å redde hver den som tror i tidsnok. Gjort er gjort, punktum.

Min tilstedeværelse på lesesalen kan spores med bruk av mitt IP nummer på macen og bruk av adgangskort i dørene. Selv om jeg har få øyenvitner, vil det ikke bli for vanskelig å redegjøre for mitt alibi. Jesu død bygger på en historisk hendelse og ingen abstrakt tro ut i lufta. Oppstandelsen og Jesu virke frem til himmelfarten har også en drøss med dokumenterte vitner og nedskrevne levninger. Og dette i en tid der Romerriket dominerte og hadde full kontroll over det som slapp ut i det offentlige rom, muntlig eller skriftlig, og kunne lett motbevist eller forhindret spredningen av nyheten ved å vise frem et lik eller forklart hvordan flere hundre personer hadde den samme ”hallusinasjonen” samtidig. De forsøkte å sette segl og vakter foran graven for å unngå påstandene om at Jesus ville gjenoppstå, men ”sovnet på vakt” (som betydde dødsstraff i de dager). Ingen av disse delen ble gjort, og er heller ikke motbevist vitenskapelig like til denne dag. Ettersom fenomenet ikke kan forklares uten å ta hensyn til overnaturlige krefter, noe Gud er og har, vil det alltid være noen som ikke kan gå med på kristendommens viktigste hendelse.

Paulus første brev til korinterne 15:14 (1987-oversettelsen):

Men er Kristus ikke stått opp, da er vårt budskap intet, og deres tro er meningsløs.

Med ønske om en god påske der du vil huske tilbake på de gode opplevelsene, og ikke de fæle som kunne ha funnet sted.

E: On(line) my face

A few weeks ago I had never heard of Facebook.com. The site features ”a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.” In other words; a huge online database of people who know each other. This is a home page supplement for those without a blog, and a great way to catch or keep up with people near and afar.

Normally I am pretty updated with movements and trends online, but this time it took over 112,000 members before I was one of them. In Norway the connection finder has not been that known or popular until very recently. After signing a little more than a week ago, my profile is already linked with 62 people from around the world, and the number is rising.

I have not explored all the opportunities and possibilities with this free service. Nor have I tried to search for every single person I may have had something to do with once upon a time. Although I joined because I found the offer interesting, there can be some downsides with this kind of service. First of all it may take heaps of time, either searching, updating or replying everyone. Secondly, as the number of people grows, it is one big puzzle to keep track of everyone if you use this to keep in touch. Third, adding friends will for many become a sport or competition to see who has the most, and destroy the whole purpose of linking one’s close contacts and join the groups which one affiliates. Fourth, for people with fewer friends it may be a way of meeting people, but could also be a new way of being exposed for a limited circle of friends (few good ones are better than many loose ones, but you know what I mean). This disadvantages aside, Facebook.com is seemingly a fast, convenient and appealing without delays and spam (so far).

I will stick to updating this blog as a primary data sender source, but probably still poke my face in the online book every so often to check on people I know. So if you are a friend of mine on Facebook, do add me now or when/if you decide to join (take the tour). If you want to keep in touch though, I recommend calling, writing, e-mailing or checking on this blog before using the site to message me. Absolutely best is if you wanna hang out or visit me – in real life.

E: 10000 @ mastermind!

Since my master degree commenced in August of 2005, I have been sharing my thoughts, experiences, ideas and pictures on this blog. From relatively early on, I added a counter service to have a look at how many net users who visited my page, and where they were from.

Yesterday at 1:10 PM the number of visitors exceeded 10,000. I celebrate with writing a little entry on it. Unlike many other counters, sitemeter.com only summerizes one hit per computer (possibly per day), rather than keep adding on the number every time the page is refreshed/reloaded. This does not mean that there have been 10,000 different peoeple reading, but rather a reduced number who have kept coming back. That people care to return is far more important to me, than how many there are.

Knowing that, I am content with and have been motivated by a relatively steady flow of an average between 15 and 20 visitors per day. That I find suprisingly many for a personal blog – which does not have any special conflict, unique writing location, known author or a spot for heavy controversies and rough opinions. I believe content and regular updates are keys to have anyone interest, and not so much fancy graphics or superlong stories.

That the there is a low number of page views, the number of different pages a visior enters, is logical. Most of my content is textual, and all the recent stories is gathered on the front page for conenience.

Before I go on to describe some statistics of my visitors, I want to thank you all for caring to come by and check on me online. I started a blog much to avoid people having to receive my constant need of writing in their e-mail inboxes, and rather pursue content when/if they please. There are obviously many I know not using my blog, but there are enough for me to see the point in making my written rambeling public.

Some statistics from Mastermind’s soon to be two year history (data from end of March):

4 out of 5 users share my time zone. Though I know there are some from South Africa, Germany and other parts of the axis, most are definetely Norwegians.

Based on proximity, the greatest amount comes from within 1000 kilometers.

Country-wise, Norway holds 70 percent of the visits, the US 7, Australia 6 and Malaysia, Germany and ”unknown country 3 percent. Europe has 78 percent of the visitors.

As for operating system, 87 percent are Windows users, 12 percent originates from Mac platforms, while linux has only one.

In terms of browsers used, Internet Explorer dominates with 73 percent, followed by Firefox with 23, Safari with 3 and Opera with 1.

Another cool feature, is looking at recent visitors placed on a world map.

X: Grazie Italia & San Marino!

Times spins away when enjoying traveling. Tuesday was the sixth and last date with a physical presence in Italy on this first journey to the boot country – and probably not the last.

With greater urge to experience than need to relax, the amount of impulses are heaps greater than number of hours actually spent sleeping and resting during the tour. My temporary impression of Italians in Italy (I know a fair bit from before) showed me a friendly people with stark opinions, dark hair, fair skin, access to a scooter (type of moped) and arm-swinging gestures. The foreign language skills (English, German, Norwegian and even Spanish) appeared limited, but I believe they are better than most people are willing to admit (or try). On the other hand, those who did understand rarely answered “I do not know”, even when they didn’t – for instance in terms of giving directions.

What surprised me was how few of the cinema movies that were run in the original language (other than those produced in Italian), how quickly a pizza can be made (often when you watch) and still taste so good, how seriously the siesta is practiced, and how cheap and good the public (train) transportation is – especially compared to the fairly expensive living costs (at hostels/hotels).

Much of our voyage took place underneath dense and sometimes watery clouds, which reduced both temperature in the air and quality of the pictures. But it did not prevent my travel companion Kjetil and I from enjoying the trip to the full. We have experienced five Italian cities and the stamp-sized country of San Marino within five days, gotten to know each other better, and perceived those rows of smaller and bigger episodes that only occur while underway.

Our suggested travel route was almost kept as planned. Pisa’s leaning tower is really uneven, Florence is loaded with stunning art and architecture, Vinci has sources of genious inspiration, Rimini has kilometers with sandy beaches, San Marino is a medieval attraction spot, and Venice is a one of the few places I have ever visited which can be called unique (120 small islands connected by about 400 bridges over nearly 150 rivers and canals).

See a few selected pictures as a visual supplement to my ramblings.

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Tida farer avsted når man nyter reisen. Tirsdag var den sjette og siste datoen med fysisk tilstedeværelse i Italia på denne første reisen til støvlelandet – neppe den siste.

Med større trang til å oppleve enn til å slappe av, er mengden impulser uttalige ganger større enn antall timer brukt til å sove eller sitte stille i løpet av turen. Mitt foreløpige inntrykk av italienere i Italia (jeg kjenner flere fra tidligere) viste meg et vennlig folk med klare meninger, mørkt hår og armsvingende gester. Fremmedspråkkunnskapene (engelsk, samt tysk, norsk og selv spansk) er begrenset, men ofte bedre enn hva de selv vil innrømme, som ofte gir avslag eller ett ”non capisco” (”jeg forstår ikke”) på forespørsler. På den andre siden var det svært få av de som svarte som ikke visste å svare – selv om de ikke visste, for eksempel retning eller rutetider.

Overraskende var også hvor mange skutere (mopeder) som finnes i gatene, hvor få av kinofilmene som er på originalspråket (annet enn de italienskproduserte), hvor fort pizza kan lages og likevel smake fremragende, hvor billig og bra kollektivtransporten er – særlig sammenlignet med de dyre bokostnadene, og hvor seriøst siestaen opprettholdes midt på dagen. Jeg er sikker på at noen av de næringsdrivende må kjede seg i løpet av den ventetiden.

Mye av turen forløp under tette og delvis våte skyer, som holdt temperaturen og billedkvaliteten nede. Men det forhindret oss ikke i å nyte hver en dråpe av opplevelsen. Kjetil og jeg har blitt bedre kjent, og fått med oss en rekke attraksjoner, og ikke minst opplevd de små og større episodene som blir til mens man reiser.

Den planlagte reiseruta ble fulgt nokså slavisk, som ga oss ett innblikk i fem italienske byer og frimerkenasjonen San Marino på drøyt fem døgn. Se et utvalg bilder, som et visuelt supplement til den korte gjennomgangen av de faktiske destinasjonene.

Pisa har virkelig ”skeivet ut”. Ironisk nok har en konstruksjonsmiss under bygningen av et tårn på 11-tallet gjort byen berømt. Å bestige Torre Pendente di Pisa (det skjeve tårn i Pisa) og ta den tilhørende katedralen og baptisteriet nærmere i øyensyn er alt man strengt tatt må få med seg her, men er verdt turen.

Firenze er et av verdens høydepunkter for samling av legendarisk kunst, kultur og arkitektur. Med kort tid å avse kan det gå inflasjon i mesterverk, men man kan ikke dra hit uten å få med seg noen av de 42 rommene med over 1555 mesterverker i galleriet Uffizi. Michelangelo, Raphael og da Vinci er eksempler på kunstnernavn representert de fleste kan komme på i spørrespill.

Sistnevnte har gjort hjembygda si Vinci berømt. For undertegnede har universalgeniet Leonardo da Vinci vært en jordlig helt siden ungdomsskolen, og det var med stor fryd jeg spratt opp trappene til museet og senere enda mer andektig entret huset han ble født i.

Rimini skulle kun være en mellomstasjon, men siestaens konsekvenser forsinket turen til San Marino fra lørdag til palmesøndag. Å leie en firehjulet dobbel tråsykkel var en gøyal måte å få med seg de historiske monumentene her. Et fåtall av kilometerne med strandlinje ble jogget på i kveldsmørket, før vi til slutt tok forfriskende dukkert i Adriaterhavet.

En presset tidsplan levnet oss med tre timer i San Marino. Det av interesse ligger innenfor de middelaldrende bymurene, og her hadde vi nok tid til å tråkke landet gatelangs og -tvers før returen til Rimini. Av suverene stater, er San Marino det femte minste i areal og folketall i verden, i Europa bare slått av Vatikanstaten og Monaco.

I framtida vil jeg være forsiktig med å bruke ”unik” til å beskrive geografiske momenter. Etter å ha vært i Venezia, ser jeg at det er få andre byer som skiller seg like mye ut som denne. Folkene ser likedan ut og maten smaker den samme, men historien bak og måten byen har blitt konstruert er helt spesielt. Over 120 små øyer bygd på mudderbanker knyttes sammen av rundt 400 bruer over nærmere 150 elver og kanaler full av båter og gondoler. Vannet er ikke det reneste, men det våte element gjør den bilfrie lokasjonen til noe av det vakreste og stiligste jeg har sett av bykjerner.

Bildene.

X: R.I.P./Hvil i fred, Kristell

My former classmate from junior high, Kristell, went missing a couple of months ago. Today came the message for which I was not hoping; Kristell does not live no more. That the newspapers inform that there was nothing criminal involved reduces the need for aggression or rage, but does not remove the terribly sad in the implications of the news.

My condolences, thoughts and prayers are sent to the family, the friends and other next of kin.

Rest in peace, Kristell.

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Min tidligere klassekamerat fra ungdomsskolen, Kristell, forsvant for et par måned siden. I dag fikk jeg med meg beskjeden jeg ikke håpet på; han lever ikke mer. At avisene skriver det ikke er kriminelt, reduserer behovet for aggresjon eller raseri, men tar ikke bort det forferdelig triste i nyhetens innhold. Mine kondolasjoner, tanker og bønner går til familien, venner og andre pårørende. Hvil i Fred.

Budskapet ble lest på nettsidene til Nordlys og Folkebladet.