You realize that you have been living in a city for too long when you all of a sudden get stuck in a situation which makes you remember that you are afraid of the dark.



Yes, this is embarrassing but I have always been extremely afraid of the dark, and I still am apparently even though I had managed to forget about it for a while. I was going through a dark forest today doing cross country skiing when I got the old creeps and just wanted to get out of there. I started seeing the dark, moving shadows and hear rustling all around me...



When I was younger and ended up in situations where I was alone outside in the dark I would run as fast as I could to the next place with lights and preferably people. Even inside houses I could not enter rooms without turning on the lights first. The most embarrassing part was that I was so afraid of the dark that I even had to sleep with the lights on for few years. I no longer do that, but I have often wondered whether this is the reason I like falling asleep with the lights on to later turn them off.



I guess, living in a city really suits me since there are lights almost everywhere (but at the same time it is annoying). It however annoys me most that I still haven't outgrown my fear of the dark. Am I the only one that has kept my silly fear of the dark or are there other grown-ups out there like me?

A little, 8 year old girl stares with fear in her eyes at her mom as the mom dials a specific phone number. There is a lot at stake. This phone call will decide whether she gets to take music classes to learn to play the block flute recorder like most of the other kids at school are already doing. This is something she wants very much.



The mom greets the person at the other end of the line and after couple minutes of "how are you doing" chitchat she asks, "my daughter wants to learn to play the block flute recorder, but she is completely tone deaf. Do you think it will ever work?". Thankfully, the music teacher smells money in the shape of yet another student and says, "sure that might work".



The little girl is extremely excited and promises to try to do her best, practice, and not make a fool out of herself when her mom gives her the permission to join. She does her best and later starts playing the organ and the clarinet instead of the block flute recorder. She joins the local brass concert band and later gets the opportunity to play in national level brass concert band comprised out of the best from each local brass concert band. She still is under the believe that she is tone deaf and that she should sing very softly or lip sync when forced to sing in a choir at school.



Many years later when the girl has to move to go to another school, she join another music school to keep playing the clarinet. The girl learns that she will have to sing as a part of the music program there. She has always been told that she cannot sing and hence believes she would be kicked out if she tried to sing in front of the teacher. She can't bear the possibility of that shame and decides to drop out.



A decade later the girls starts hearing about Singstar. She has all those year secretly believed she was not tone deaf but has always feared that she is simply too tone deaf to hear that she is. It never made sense though. She wants to try Singstar, the Playstation karaoke, but is afraid.



One day the girl has the chance and decides to face her fears. She sends her boyfriend out to jog and watches him jog away outside the window to make sure he isn't sitting outside the door listening. She also makes him promise to ring the doorbell before he comes in. She sits down, starts sweating, shakes, and is truly petrified when she sings the first tunes of Madonna's Material girl....



To her big surprise the Playstation program tell her that she is a "Superstar". Then on second try she is a "Totally Singstar"... She tries more songs and at higher level of difficulty and still she is manages to be a "Lead singer" few times. After all those years her suspicion is confirmed. She isn't tonedeaf. She just has an extremely boring and a not so pretty voice. That she can live with.



This girls wants to tell everybody one important lesson she learned from all of this.

Never believe anybody when they tell you that you cannot do something. Believe in yourself!



Disclaimer: This does not mean that the girl will ever play Singstar with anyone. She still has some years to go before she can fully regain her confidence.

The year is almost over and it is time to look back and see what I accomplished. Last year I made some New Year's resolutions which I was determined to stick to. Some might think it is a bit too personal to post your resolutions online, but I will keep doing it since this is the first time ever I actually stuck to some of my resolutions and reviewed them at the end of the year.



1. Work less (and maybe improve my efficiency).
Accomplished during the latter half of the year. Started the year out in a bad way but managed to cut down on work towards the end of the year.



2. Speak fluent Norwegian at the end of the year.
Well it depends on how you define fluent but I think I will say I passed this one. I at least managed to fight my real estate agent and get them to admit to their lying all in Norwegian.



3. ** Secret **
Failed. Will remain a secret as I plan on trying this one again next year.



4. Revive my long lost Spanish knowledge.
Passed. Took a class this fall and have signed up for new one in the spring.



5. Become a better friend.
Failed miserably but will keep trying.



6. Find the purpose for my life (tricky one).
Not yet but I still hold onto the hope of finding it one day.



7. Improve my English (especially writing).
Failed. Resolution number 2 and 4 kind of made my English worse than ever.



8. ** Secret**
canceled. Something I wanted to learn but decided it would be a waste of time.



8. Read more books.
Passed. My count says 41 book which I am pretty happy with since the year started out slow.



9. Stop being too nice and be a bit more bitchy (when it comes to work).
Passed with flying colors. It has hurt my karma so I need to find a better balance.



10. ** Secret **
I wanted to increase my knowledge of history, politics, etc. I will say I passed this one or at least made a reasonable attempt.



11. Keep on blogging regularly.
Passed even though I would like to blog a bit more often.



12. Become a better person.
Failed! This didn't work to well with resolution number



Oh well, we live and learn. More than 50% success. Could be worse:-).



Now I need to work on next year's resolutions. Until then I wish you all a Happy New Year and thanks for sharing last year with me!

You knew it was almost Christmas in Iceland when they played the "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" ad on TV. Really old ad with lots of people wearing tacky clothes from some decade I cannot remember. They were singing, holding candles and all you could think of while seeing the ad was world peace.

I remember people discussing the absence of the ad when they stopped showing it on TV. Then the excitement when they started showing it again. I haven't been able to find the ad online but I found a site with some audio. It helped my Christmas spirit a little! I am curious, was this ever known in any other country than Iceland?

Web site with audio.

Lyrics:
I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke
I'd like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love,
Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves.
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,
I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.
(Repeat the last two lines, and in the background)
It's the real thing, Coke is what the world wants today.

I used to love Christmas when I was a kid. I would look forward to it all year and beg my mum to start letting me listen to Christmas music in October. Even if I started that early, I would manage to stay in the spirit until January. I used to have lots of Christmas calendars (the old fashion one with pictures and not chocolate) and hang up every single one of them. Then every morning I would go around the room and open all the little windows and see the cute pictures of apples and baby Jesus. I would get at least one new calendar every year so you can imagine that I had quite a few as I got older. It doesn't always take a lot to make a kid happy. The chocolate calendars were a disappointment though since those were not much fun the year after.



Now I struggle to get into the spirit. I have tried to shoehorn the spirit down my throat but it all seems to come back up. The sad part about growing up is that you get responsibilities and it isn't really socially accepted to enjoy the little silly things that you enjoyed when you were a kid. Now you have to go out and buy thoughtful presents that cost so and so much for people. It can feel nice to give gifts but you usually cannot afford giving the people something they really want and they end up with something they might not even want at all instead. It would be nicer if you could give one, two proper presents a year and just rotate.



There is so much more responsibility nowadays. There is no more mommy conveniently cooking the dinner while you run around the house and look at the Christmas decorations or sneaking a peek and maybe a poke at the presents under the tree. Since we are grown-ups we should be helping in making and preparing or at worst stressing over the Christmas dinner ourselves. We are supposed to clean the house, preferably invite people over for dinner and lets not forget attend few where we have to act proper and appreciative. I miss the days where you could act childish and be unaware that you were!



I am still hoping that I manage to get into the Christmas spirit this year. I remember Christmas as being the best times during my childhood and I would like to relive some of the magic this year.

Do you ever play with broken glass? I do that all the time and I am pretty sure you do to!

I carry an ever-growing bag around with me full of broken glass that I have collected throughout my lifetime. The pieces come in various sizes, shapes, and forms. Some are extremely beautiful, while others are just plain and boring. Then there are those that are razor sharp and dangerous, and yet sometimes have this mystifying beauty which makes you want to play with them, no matter how badly you risk cutting yourself touching them.

I cherish my broken glass pieces. I pick them up all the time and play with them. I will look at them, admire them, watch how the light falls on them and reflects beautiful picture from the past. On a good moment, I can take out a collection of beautiful pieces and enjoy their beauty and feel good and happy. The sad part is that I have to put them back and go back to the real world and not just live on their beauty.

The downside is that sometimes you need to go deep into your bag of broken glass to get to the pieces you want. Instead of just picking up the one beautiful piece you want to enjoy at that particular moment you are bound to bump into other pieces which might scratch your soul and bring you pain. Those might be pieces you are trying to avoid or pieces that you had simply forgotten that ever existed.

My latest problem is that I have collected so many of those broken glass pieces that my bag is overflowing. I can no longer just dig into my bag and take out the pieces I want. They are everywhere now. They are everywhere in my path ready to scratch me if I happen to bump into them, touch them, or just look at them too closely. It seems like no matter what I do there is always a piece of broken glass there reminding me of something.

Without these pieces I would not have had a meaningful life and don't get me wrong I do truly cherish them. But sometimes I wish I could just lock them all in and only take out the once I want to view and play with. Only use the beautiful pieces to relive wonderful scenarios from the past and leave the razor sharp pieces deep in my bag of memories.

Me, me, me, and only me!

It seems like all I do lately is to say goodbye to people. To be honest, I have had enough! I have done a fair share of saying good bye to people after having moved from Iceland to the USA, and then from there to Norway.



Now when I am staying put in Norway I see the people around me leaving all the time. There are of course the normal promises of staying in touch, visiting, and all of that. Having learned from past experience I know the staying in touch is going to be difficult. It is sad, extremely sad!



Occasionally you manage to say proper goodbyes but more often than not people just disappear out of your life without you getting a chance of really saying or doing much for them.



The latest of my friends leaving is Daniel. I actually managed to pull together a little suprise for him. The Book of Daniel. A simple book containing pictures and some comments from his friends. I have put the pictures online since some of them are worth seeing! Big thanks to everybody that helped (and especially Robert!). And Daniel to you: Good luck in Finland!



But I have really had enough of saying goodbye! Please don't any more of you my darling friends leave me! It is too much work making new friends for the non people person me:-(. And to be honest, you are irreplaceable!



And since I know many of my readers are travelers living far away from home. How in the world do you manage to stay in touch with all your past friends?

I made my first grown-up wish today.

Have you ever wished upon a star? Well not only have I wished upon a star, but also upon an eyelash, and while blowing out the lights on my birthday cakes. I guess these little wishing moments differ between cultures but I do honor the ones I know. Ever since I was a kid I have made a wish at every opportunity I have gotten.

All through my life I have made starry-eyed childish wishes. When I am feeling the least selfish I wish for world peace and then are all the variations of wishing to live happily ever after or that a special someone at that point in my life will love me forever. Then I have of course always honored the golden rule to never tell anybody about my wish, since then it will most definitely not come true...

Today after work I noticed that an eyelash had fallen off and was sitting lonely on my cheek. I clumpsily tried to nudge it off while pondering over all my worldy problems. I then remembered that of course I had to make a wish. I was tired, caught up in my worries, and battling the eyelash that didn't feel like venturing into the world. My wish ended up sounding something like the following: "Oh, what the fuck, screw eternal love and happiness, I want money. Then there is at least one thing less to worry about".

A little later it struck me that I had never used any of my special wish moments to wish for something so tangible and boring. Money!?!? I had always wished for something ideal and so unrealistic. I guess I am a grown-up now when it comes to making wishes... Or maybe I need to stop making wishes before I am truly a grown-up in this area:-).

What about you guys? Do you still make wishes and at which occasions? And are your wishes grown-up or still in the childish fantasy world like I used to nbe until today?

Eirik wrote about an interview question, he once got, in his last blog entry. What would you bring with you to a deserted island? His response was that he would bring an Ipod loaded with music. My first reaction was: But how are you going to recharge the batteries? Then I started pondering what I would take with me.

I decided that any smart-ass answers like a boat or an airplane were out of the question. My first thought after that was something that would entertain me. Maybe I could bring something to read or something to write on? Wait! How would I be able to avoid ruining that in the first rain? I can be really practical and boring sometimes! My next idea was even more practical. Wouldn't it be best to bring poison to be able to take myself out of the misery of being stuck on a deserted island? Then I quickly made a note to myself to never say this in a job interview:-).

At that point I didn't really think it was so smart to bring music but I did actually change my mind later that same evening. I was watching Idol and deeply envying the people because they could sing (well most of them). I have always wanted to be able to sing but was unfortunately born such a bad singer that my mom felt compelled to call the music teacher before letting me start playing instruments to make sure that I would even be able to play.

Thankfully the music teacher convinced her that it would not be a problem and I enjoyed around 8 years of playing music and even being a band geek. But I still remember being approx. 8 years old, standing next to my mom waiting for the verdict from that frightening phone call she was making.

While I cannot help thinking that my mom did me a favor every time I see people on Idol make absolute asses out of themselves on public TV, it is also the reason why I in the end gave up playing instruments. When it became a part of the music classes to learn a little bit of singing I quickly dropped everything to avoid being humiliated. While I was above average when it came to playing instruments it was mostly practiced talent and not real talent. So the loss was most to me and not to the world:-).

But all of this sits in me and I wish I still played and more than anything that I could sing! After Idol yesterday I got into the spirit of listening to music that I enjoy and after being in seventh heaven for a long time it I dawned on me that the moments I actually listen to songs that I like are some of my happiest moments. There are some songs that manage to bring out feelings and memories that lift my mind to heights that it otherwise doesn't reach.

This made me realize that maybe Eirik was onto something...

Yes, I think I would bring music with me (lets just ignore all recharging issues). Maybe not an Ipod but some other cool gadget loaded with mind blowing music. Then I could at least lie on the beach, while starving to death, and gain some mind orgasms.

Or should I maybe bring what I have always wanted to try. It is after all a deserted island with nobody anywhere nearby:-D.