Long time no post!! aka I'm still alive!

While you were gone...
Apologies all round for my tardiness. It never surprises me how easy it is to simply lose interest in something. Then again my attention span was nev

I am now in a flat, with furniture, heating and all the modern comforts. After some agonisingly complex organisation my belongings have finally begun the shipping process. Only the dreaded weekend keeps my toys (and clothes) in a warhouse somewhere south of Hull, awaiting my completed passport and custom details. One hurdle after another. By the way, I recommend Tuder freight, very accesable, though as with any freight service, take the qoute they give and double it when planning ahead. Learn from my mistakes.

Had a bad surprise the other day too, in the same week I discovered that my freight cost wasnt 220, but £470 I learned that my English bank had decided to freeze my account so my direct debit from my credit card bounced causing unnecesery charges. Dont even bother with HSBC's customer help line, unless you think a poorly paid Asian worker can empathise with you about your situation in Prescot. I understand out soarcing and all that but sheesh, get a grip!
Anyway, a few phone calls, internet access and fantastic parents later all is coming together.

I love you guys.

So after living for almost 9 months out of a suitcase (plus what I brought over on my last trip to sunny, ahem, Liverpool) I will soon (should) have my things!!
Some of you may understand what Im talking about.

Job hopping (With the occasional skip)
Toilets to books. They say that job hunting in Norway is about who you know, more than what you know. There is some truth in this. SO far in Norway Ive worked as a commentator on the local matches (less said about that the better), security in a Norwegian "pub" (its not a real pub, not really) and barnehage vikar. I recently got a part time contract working as a cleaner. Not exactly exotic but it paid well and the people there where fantastic. I really got into that "Immigrant" attitude, not the percieved one of blatant ignorance and laziness but the truer one of hard work (/discuss). Now, Ive recently acquired a vikar work with a book store! Talking to customers! OH dear god! (read the section below for more details about the OMG)

The point Im tryng to make however, is that all of these jobs only happened because of connections. Networking, is a common activity in Norway, as far as I can tell. Though not the cold and cocktail studded, party ridden whoring one might think of in the acting circles of Hollywood, oh no. In Norway it seems more natural, more of a side affect of making friends. Do I feel lucky? Hell yes, I have many great friends in Oslo.


The language barrier Vs the high jump.

Learning a language is a funny, thing. Especially when you go from feeling thick headed and useless one minuite to realising how far you have truly come. Far from the obligatory "your Norwegian is really good/ du er så flink med norsk!" I'm talking about the moments when you note that some words have stuck, have been learnt even. Its a good feeling. The point is that learning a language takes a lifetime. Learning to communicate doesnt.

Its all in increments, scratching a word or two at a time. I do believe that even if you dont try, sometimes you can't help but pick up on something. Its nothing to do with intellect (thank god) but rather a natural instinct we all have since the time we learnt our first language. Sound, word = meaning. Multiple words means a concept, etc.

For me though, while I can prattle away like a proper hill billy, hearning the Norwegian is still my weak point. Hopefully a combination of radio, constant conversation, reading and the usual studying will make the difference I need for this new job.
Did I say usual studying? I lied. In truth I had a ahem, break for a month or so while I became distracted by more mundane things like work, money and snow. Remember: Reward yourself for every victory.




Anyway, its good to be back, and maybe next time, Ill tell you a secret....
:)

Missed you!

R

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!

Internet is back! Bad facebook, good blog!

HEY YAAALL! God jule og en godt nytt år!

We finally managed to acquire internet without setting up a line which would make us have a TV License issue (Cant stand TV, computer only thanks). SO!
Its christmas, and for many of us here in Norway its no big deal. This is my first norsk xmas and after the julebord I was dragged too Im really looking towards it! Ive been told many things and it seems to me, at least in my experience here, that christmas hasnt become the dried husk of capitalism worship it is in England.

Ribbe, check.
Pina kjøtt, check.
Grøsris, check.

On my way!! Still, Im going to miss my family this year, like never before. Though, my mum, ever the wonderful being has sent me a "care package" via mail. Dont know whats in it until it gets here, but I know, I know, what a woman. Love you mum!
Need to send my family their stuff next...

Norwegian or Polish electrics I dont know, but, in our lovely new flat, I accidently nearly killed myself. Luck played with my life that day, as our cooker stopped working. I look under to check why and find a lose high voltage plug set. Trying to get a closer look I press two fingers on the exposed part and get a nasty shock. Later, when the landlord sent an electricion around, I was told that two fingers got a shock and a sore hand, one finger could have easily killed me.
Heres a photo of the plug before it was fixed (For free!).



BAD FACEBOOK!
I didnt really apreciate this until I read an article revealing the secret trade of your pictures over the net. Any pictures you put on facebook, legally become their property. So, a picture of you might end up on those horrible pics of girls or boys that are single and want to have sex with you. Well, if your good looking anyway...this is making me sound very arrogant, but still my point is THEY CLAIM OWNERSHIP!!
No thanks, fascist gits.

SO!

BEHOLD THE HALLOWEEN MADNESS! (I did promise pics didnt I?)

The Dubliner, is a very high end Irish themed pub near Stortinget Station. It has a fantastic weekly session crew of folk singers, fiddlers and more. Im proud to say my girl is one of the singers welcomed there. However that night although the music was still themed, the patrons were more towards the darker side...(The pic on the bottom is me and my girl, Ingrid.)

In other news, the xbox is back and is being well used. I have now officially lost my girlfriend to KOTOR, a game as addictive as crack. (So not as bad as World of Warcraft). Im now creating a batch of flashcards to add new words to my norsk repatoir. My application for a work permit is under way after some seriously tragic beaurocratical insanity (More later) and I should be trying two job agents.

Once again, thanks for reading this little blood stain of my ireverent labours, hope you all have a fantastic xmas!

Rik.

Sinsen, Julebord and xbox.

Sinsen

Sinsen is an ok place to be. Good people, local transportation and the heating is free. The flat now has full lighting, curtains are up, furniture is in and all we are missing is the rest of the boxes. There is a few more things that need fixing, but the landlord has been more than compromising with us. Still, I cant wait to get my teeth stuck into improving this place...
Muahaha! But now we can finally have our house warming party with snacks and stuff!? Did I mention Ive done the choosing a curtain thing now? It was a horrible but necessary ordeal. Hot coals was looking good. Still, now their up we have privacy which means I don't have to squat while I run around half naked.

Julebord

Had my first julebord yesterday. For the uninitiated, julebord (translated as christmas table), is a work party set strictly around three tenants. Christmas, cheap beer and free food. I indulged in all of it. Including much dancing, verbally abusing my colleges in the parlance of my people (read scouse accent) and somehow tearing off my birthmark on my hand.

Strange night. Yet, it was a delightful experience and I was well looked after by good friends and colleagues alike.
Word of warning though, watch the akuvitt. Bloody stuff hits you like a double decker buss filled with WoW players.

xbox

Lastly I just want to briefly rave about my new old toy, which my gorgeous girl got for me, the classic xbox. I know, its old, (not that old, but old). Still, something has to be said about the purity of retro gaming. Plus, my girlfriend hasn't played KOTOR before (if you know what that means lol), so she has been playing it nonstop today. I thought that thing was for me.....

Sniff.

Anyway, still busy, going back to do some more volunteer work at the barnehage tommorow, then some much needed christmas shopping before IKEA trip!
Busy but better. Still waiting for that blogger meet! Come on people!

Thanks for reading.
x

New flat, new problems...

Far from another moan, the expression "may he live interesting" times comes to mind. On my birthday I got a few presents, non more surprising than to be told by our new landlord that we could move in that evening.
Right there and then, I new something would go wrong. Though bless her, my girl Ingrid was an unstoppable supply of smiles and small giggles.
The single mother who left did so with speed. I can understand why, with two kids, 32m2 was no place for them.
Within five minutes I had already worked out what I affectionately call a "shit list." This is a list of "shit" things that need addressing. One of which was a lack of working lock.
Thankfully the next day I stayed in the flat for seven hours while a locksmith was called and new locks installed. I met the landlord, but did not get a chance to tell him about the other problems:

• shower and taps coming away from the walls,
• toilet seat broken,
• shabby and unsafe shelving in the cupboard,
• painted over light switches,
• exposed electric socket,
• exposed bell (talking visable electric contacts)

The list goes on.
Still, we managed to fix the toilet seat, locks are good meaning we can now leave the place. Then of coarse the hot water stops. Now I realise we are on the top floor, but after leaving the tap going for around five minutes? I could hear Bob Geldoff screaming.

Meh. Ingrids mother keeps telling me to stop moaning and work on it and I am trying to do just that. I think maybe that I am just sorely disapointed with the disapearance of Norwegian high standard of living you know?

Anyway, its cheap, free heating, good position and the kitchen? Oh dear gods the kitchen is awesome. Very Ikea.

Oh, and theres this very strange thing attached to the wall that noone can Identify. Ill get a pic of it for you but it kind of looks like a small slate screen attacthed to an exposed (albiet painted over) cirtcuit board.

Thanks for reading.

R

A curse on both your plumbing!!!

HATE PLUMBERS! They make chains of badness!

Allow me to explain. As you might already know, me and my girl are currently living with her parents. Its not so bad, but we have been led along. Led along by people being led along. Unfortunately for the young mum (two kids), who is currently waiting to move into a bigger home, she is at the un-tender mercies of plumbers.

Ever heard this line?
"Oh yeah, it will be finished today/tomorrow."

We'll they've told her this nearly five times now, and as a consequence she has told us this.
We still have no certainty other than the finality that we will at some point in the near future be moving in!!

ANyway, this post is more of a moan than anything else. Obviously it could have been much much worse, but it isn't, so I'm moaning about this. So there.

Well I feel much better.

On the good front, I got paid recently! With more coming! Its not much, but coming from nothing its a hellalot!!

xx

News from the front...

SO things are coming together albeit very slowly.
Sadly my barnehage job has been delayed while the boss goes on a holiday (she did have two other part timers to sort out, but still...). So, I find myself facing the great enemy: Boredom.

Thankfully I've not been tooo idle. Returning to my Norwegian studies has been easier than I thought, right now I am re-digesting some notes on norsk preposijions (gotta love em) and recalling the worlds I learned through conversation. Im still finding more difficulty in hearing norsk, but I am getting there. As usual, speaking isnt the biggest issue for me. :p

Also, my other job working the doors has offered me some work in the interim, which is nice. Beginning to love drunkan Norwegians, especially when they join me in singing to Billy Joels Piano man. Thanks Jonas, I needed that. Good people there.

The move is going along, today we move the last bulk to my girls parents house. She's got a good family there, honest, loyal and kind. Hell theyre footing the bill for the damn deposit! Litt hjelp min rumpa! Add humble to that list.

So! We should be moving into our new place next week, around the middle. Its going to be damn messy when it starts but there is something pure about actually having a place! After 6 months of living out of a suitcase and not buying a single luxury item (well, maybe alchohol...), I really appreciate the small things.

Thanks again to anyone following my little misadventure, especially those that leave me little comments. Its good encouragement. I'll try to return the favour.

R