My seatmate on the flight from Oslo to Tromsø, an engineer on his way to Hammerfest for work, asked me about my Norwegian, and when I said I could usually understand some of what was going on and achieve most basic survival goals he said, "Ah! Just enough to get into trouble, but not enough to get out of it!" Precisely, Dear Sir.

I just re-read my post about Anna Karenina. So, yeah, the tragedy wasn't all that tragic. [UWAGA! SPOILERS AHEAD!] By the time AK got around to throwing herself under the train I was so tired of her neurosis and paranoid whining that I was basically glad to see her go. I was much more worried that my sentimental favourite, Levin, would be injured or tarnished. But he came out unscathed, unburdened even--of his doubts regarding the meaning of life. So, basically, this book ended well.

But I do think the last chapters were needlessly drawn out, could have easily wrapped that shit up in half the pages.

In other reading news, I'm almost at the end of Gone Girl, which I won't link to because really I don't want to endorse it too strongly. It is adeptly written, no doubt, but I had higher hopes of it after the first 100 pages than were warranted by the following 600 (really? this book has that many pages?? it reads very quickly). We'll see how I feel when I finish it (probably tonight! it is Friday after all!!).

I'm also reading The Jungle Book on my iPhone (thanks again, iTunes!) and I have been liking it, and I am more firmly than ever convinced that I should re-read Just So Stories so that I can incorporate some aspects of those into the stories I have to constantly tell my loveliest of nieces.

I've been having a lot of discussions about religion recently, and today at lunsj (that's how Norwegians spell "lunch"! isn't it adorable!) during a discussion of separation of church and state I had a thought that was coherent enough that I decided to write a blog post about it, but now I can't remember it at all.

So instead I'll write about something else for a bunch of paragraphs.

I'll write about how I was going to go to the grocery store today but have reconsidered since it began to rain (again). The only thing I'm desperate for is milk, and I've been weaning myself off coffee with milk  for a while now (well, specifically, I wean myself off coffee with milk whenever I am in Norway, I suspect because the coffee is better here). The only downside to this is that I will not be able to make oatmeal tomorrow for breakfast (oatmeal, Dear Readers, must be made with milk, don't even suggest that other liquids can serve the same function! NO! THEY CANNOT!).

Originally I was going to go downtown this afternoon to meet up with T, whom I haven't seen in 2 years (except on FB!) but he, as it turned out, has to work today. So we agreed on the weekend. Had I gone downtown I might have a) bought milk, b) reloaded my buspass. That needs doing before any further bus rides are taken. I have been taking the bus more this trip than on previous trips, and do You know why? It's because the Norwegians paid me WAAAAAYYYYY LATE this year, and my bank account is full of moolah!!! Usually they pay me in the spring and by the time the fall rolls around I am not rolling around (in cash) which makes me quite frugal. Not this year! I've been out to dinner TWICE!!

What else. One of my students approached me after class on Tuesday and asked some question, then afterwards complimented my lecturing and shook my hand. So nice! Apparently hand-shaking is not the norm even among Norwegians (I asked) so I guess he wanted to make it more official than just a verbal communiqué but less personal than a hug (which might have made me flinch, heh).

Here's another thing. They renovated the university apartments last year (-ish) and the fresh paint and furniture are quite lovely and all, but one major deterioration of conditions is that instead of a desk I now have a long, low cupboard that I completely, completely don't need. It is much more difficult to create a comfortable workspace at home now. As a consequence, I don't do any writing at home, I just prepare lectures and goof off. I write here (at the university), but I don't get nearly as much done as I should because I never work during the evening. So, boo on UiT for changing that up. They really seem to not have considered the needs of people staying at these apartments. We stay for a few weeks at most, so it's not like we have mountains of clothes. The existing closets were more than sufficient. We really need the desks. Bring back the desks, UiT!! This is not the first indication that these apartments are not entirely designed with work-intense short-term stays in mind (even though that is what they are used for). Like, there is a giant dishwasher, but no microwave.

Anyway, enough ranting. I'm going home.

I've been reading Anna Karenina all summer (thanks for the free ibook, iTunes!). Pretty much the only thing I knew about it before I started is that it ends tragically. I'm now on screen 2603 of 3197, and I keep waiting for the tragedy. Anything that happens in this book I am ready to see as foreshadowing. They go hunting, I anticipate them shooting each other. They go mushroom picking, I foresee the obliteration of a whole family by way of food poisoning. I am trying to talk myself out of this permadread but it's getting worse as I approach the novel's end. Something massively bad must be around the corner.

The other thought I keep having is that I shouldn't prepare myself for a post-modern ironic sort of tragedy--such as the aforementioned mass poisoning--but consider more 19th century Russian types of tragedy, which, of course, must be based in romance, rather than banality. We'll see.

Admissions Interviews, Day 2

Q. Why do You want to study psychology?
A. I want to understand what makes people do the things they do, like head scratching.

Q. When did You first become interested in psychology?
A. When I was 12, I'm sorry to say, I hated women.

Admissions Interviews, Day 1

Q. So, why is it that You want to study psychology?
A. I have a lot of aggression, and I think psychology will help with that.

Q. Do You have any specific interests within the field of psychology?
A. This might sound strange, but I like dead people.

Q. You were saying a little about the overlap between psychology and psychiatry. What do you think the goal of psychiatry, versus psychology, is?
A. Giving people bills.

Today a student posted a job offer on our studies' fb page. It was addressed "Dear Ladies," and went on to indicate that one had to be female and Polish-speaking to apply. I looked at the ad, which was very legally non-discriminating regarding the sex of candidates for the position, and so posted a comment saying that if she was officially representing the company it would be best to reconsider phrasing that could indicate to potential rejected candidates that sex was used as a criterion of selection, and that if any of those candidates were reading they should contact me because I know a good human rights lawyer.

I was pissed, to be honest. I concluded with "because this shit is not cool. NOT COOL."

I hesitated before I posted, and I fumed for a while before deciding to, but I eventually thought it would at least be read by students from my stereotyping and prejudice class, and I would not be passively propagating an atmosphere that condones sex discrimination with my silence.

Anyway when I logged back on a few hours later her post (and my comment) was gone.