New Year, New Rules.

As Im writing this I keep looking outside at the "torn duvet" snow storm. Its truly beautiful, when your indoors. Heh. Ive been thinking long and hard about how far Ive come over the past seven months and although Ive been told its good, I dont feel its enough.

Apathy is death.

Its easy to unconsciously give up. As a man (Yes I used this line), it hurts not bringing in the majority of the moneys in a relationship. Call it what you want, primative hunter gather instincts, masojionistic upbringing whatever. The point is, I still dont feel like Im trying hard enough.

So. This year will be a fresh start, a second wind if you will. With a diet, excercise regime, a planned Norwegian acquisition system (if it sound complex it will work right?) and push on the job seeking front. All these things are connected. If your in another country languishing on partime or vikar work while you figure out what to do, waiting for a lucky break; you should know what I mean. As usual its all about attitude. Now I know that this blog is about me (average joe brit) trying his luck in Norway, but keep reading and you will see how its all connected. Its something I call the "immigrants spirit."

Diet and excercise?
These are things I dont actually need, more want. Its the discipline really. The excercise every morning, 30 minutes and pushing more and more each day with a break on sunday. If I dont sweat, I wasnt pushing hard enough. At least, thats the plan so far.
Food wise, Im giving up all sorts and trying new things. Nothing insane, only stuff I know I should be able to give up on. Chocolate, beer, carbonated drinks, carbohydrates halves and a list of food swaps.
Last night the hunger aches finally stopped. Not sure if this is a good thing but its not like Im starving myself so we shall see!

Apathy is death.

Norwegian and job seeking.
Right now I can have basic conversations in Norwegian, even so far as to use past tense, future tense, perfect tense and eiendoms pronomens. All good. But I realised that Im falling down on my vocabulary. If I dont know the word I wont recognise it when I hear it, nor be able to write or say the damn thing! So, flash cards. Yup, cheap card rectangles, English on one side, Norwegian on the other. Taking about twenty words every three days Ive been able to memorise the parts of the body and locations around the flat. Using them in conversations is REALLY important, think of it as reinforcing it. I was aiming for 100 words per month but I seem to have hit onto something, so we shall see.

Irregular verbs and nouns are going to be the bitch.

Although a friend keeps telling me "I can get you a job, when your Norwegians good enough", that is the long term aim. RIght now, two job agencies are my target. See if asking them to help me out is a good idea. Worse they can say is no. Oh, and dont bother with NAV. Unless you expect to be disapointed and leave feeling like your a hated bloody immigrant. Lovely people. Probably just the luck of meeting a particular set of people, but... no.. this is a subject for another post.
Good news is that I can now start perusing Finn.no with some hope! As usual though, its not what you know (language being the exception to this rule), its who you know. Still, every angle needs to be covered.

Apathy is death. This is my moto for this year, I hope you like it. I keep repeating it to myself, to remind myself that lounging around not developing as a person is apathy and if thats all you do, you might as well die. Harsh but true.

Again thanks for reading. I apologise for the soberity of this post, as I mentioned before, attitude is everything. These days I seem to be very serious.

Right there with you,
Rik.

PS
Really looking forward to the mentioned future blog meet, if someone could forward me the contact details again I will try and get involved, thanks!