May 1st, 2012 — Oslo
Siden jeg flyttet til Stovner i fjor vår har jeg tenkt en del over dette med drabantbyer, og hva jeg mener fungerer og ikke fungerer med disse stedene. Jeg trives foreløbig godt her på Tokerudberget, og oppholdet her viser meg andre sider av tilværelsen enn det jeg er vant til fra før. Men samtidig ser jeg at det er mye jeg savner fra mer sentrumsnære områder – bl.a. tilgangen til gode kafeer i nærmiljøet.
Drabantbyene i Oslo kom i stor stil frem på 60- og 70-tallet med utbyggingen av for eksempel Tveita, Ammerud, Haugerud og Haugenstua. Men denne tendensen kom allerede på 50-tallet med steder som Lambertseter.
Byutviklingen i Oslo i disse årene ble i stor grad ledet av arkitekten Frode Rinnan, og jeg har de siste uker lest litt mer om han og den utviklingen han og hans kolleger stod for. Jeg forstår ideologien bak disse drabantbyene, og jeg ser også utfordringene som kom etterhvert.
Jeg har i det siste blitt gjort mer oppmerksom på de muligheter som ligger på Rommen, et område her i Stovner bydel som kan se for seg en stor del utvikling de neste årene. Hvordan vil vi bygge ut dette området, som vil bli liggende mellom Romsås og Rommen/Tokerud? Kunne vi gjort noe som er både spennende og allsidig, og som er med på å minske statusen til disse områdene som sovebyer? Kan vi foreta en utvikling som bærer preg av at vi har lært av de erfaringene vi har fått de siste årtiene?
Jeg vil se nærmere på byutvikling i Groruddalen de neste månedene, og gleder meg til å lære mer om dette spennende området.
April 18th, 2012 — Life
På vei hjem for å lage mat til konen og meg – makrell, mandelpoteter, rømme og persille.
Guttungen er 16 måneder nå, snart 1.5 år. Herlig tid å være sammen med ham. Se hvordan han vokser fra uke til uke. Hvordan han blir mer Bevisst.
Når det kommer til bevissthet: Breivik-saken er blitt dørgende kjedelig. Jeg synes hans forklaring slår sprekker, som vi regnet med at det ville. Han sier helt åndssvake ting. Det er så lett å gjennomskue ham, han er avkledd med sitt smil, sitt blikk, sin håndhilsen hver morgen.
Det blir bare spekulasjoner å tenke seg til hvordan han ville blitt behandlet av media dersom han var en radikalisert muslim.
Han er ikke nasjonalist, men ultranasjonalist, sier han. Åh ja, da faller jo alt på plass…
April 18th, 2012 — Life
The Breivik case will go its course the next ten weeks. it seems like other news will take a break in Norwegian media these weeks. Some journalists are even taking a vacation now.
How will we as a people handle all this? Every day more headlines about what this person has said…
I just hope we can balance it out. Not focus too much on him.
April 17th, 2012 — Life
Jeg vil prøve å blogge oftere her. Formålet er todelt: Trene meg i å skrive, og logge litt av der jeg er nå slik at jeg senere kan se tilbake og huske hvor jeg var.
Det er altså midt i april. I dag begynner Anders Behring Breibukk sin forklaring.
Jeg har mest lyst til å ikke følge med, men føler samtidig at det er min fordømte plikt å følge med. Især følgende punkter er interessante:
* Hvordan Breibukk svarer på spørsmål fra påtalemyndigheten.
* Hvordan hans forklaring utvikler seg etter et par dager med slike innspill fra omverden, slike spørsmål som søker å krasje disse meget forskjellige verdenssyn.
Men jeg vil prøve å ikke gi dette for mye oppmerksomhet. Det blir utfordrende.
April 16th, 2012 — Life
Sirkus Breivik er begynt, og den vil vare de neste ti ukene. Selv om vi ikke har kjøpt inngangsbillet vil sirkuset omgi oss med overskrifter, saftige uttalelser og drama.
Selv husker jeg de skjebnesvangre timene den fredagen i fjor sommer. Min vrede, uendelige vrede, og min hjelpeløshet. Vår hjelpeløshet når det kom til å stoppe denne mannens myrderier.
Jeg husker at jeg tenkte at jeg må gjøre noe, og denne prosessen ledet først til min aktivitet i SiA Norge, og deretter mitt gamle parti Venstre.
Nå sitter jeg her og leser analysene og klarer ikke å tenke. Denne terroristen kommer til å fortsette med å terrorisere oss de neste ukene og årene. Kommer ustanselig til å henlede vår oppmerksomhet mot seg selv. Og jeg vil helst slippe å høre mer om han, hans motivasjon, tanker, verdensbilde.
Sirkusforestillingen er bare såvidt begynt. Jeg vil helst slippe, men klarer ikke å slippe taket.
February 25th, 2012 — creativity
This morning, I watched this talk by Bret Victor:
Bret Victor – Inventing on Principle from CUSEC on Vimeo.
[Via Kottke]
There is something here which I need to think about further. Will report on it. :)
January 3rd, 2012 — Philippines 2011
I hate poverty tourism. At the same time, I also hate it when people from the western world visit countries that have poverty issues, and they just hide in their resorts or hotels, and make sure to always book a private van or taxi whenever they are going places.
Today, my wife and I were walking around Guindulman, which is her home city in The Philippines. At some point, the road passed this house standing lonely, and an old woman was standing beside it.
Since I don’t know Visayan yet, and she didn’t know English, my wife spoke with her, and the woman repeated how hungry she was and that she didn’t have money for food. At the same time, there was an air of dignity around her. I ended up giving her 100 PHP, around 2.28 US$, and told her via Lira that it was a small Christmas present, and I wished her a happy new year.
I asked her if it was ok if we took a picture of her, and she accepted. I took the picture, and I then said to myself silently “Damned poverty tourist”.
After that photo, this whole evening, I have been thinking about this woman, living in this little nipa hut, on her own. Having no children, a husband that died. She might have siblings or other relatives, but I don’t know.
I felt bad, for a few reasons.
I felt bad because it always is a shock to realize just how much other people may lack basic amenities. Not numbers – anyone can throw numbers at you, but to realize the story of a person you are meeting on your walk.
I felt bad because I realized how jaded I am, despite my sensitivity to these issues. At the end of the day, I tend to just say to myself, like most others: “You can’t save the whole world”.
No, we cannot save the world. Sometimes we also can’t stop ourselves from being a damned tourist. But we can do something.
As a side-note, this blog post and particularly the discussion in comments has some good thoughts about this whole poverty tourism thing.
January 2nd, 2012 — Philippines 2011, weather
The weather here in the Visaya region has been quite bad most of the time we have been here on vacation, and now it is raining cats and dogs again outside. I guess we have had a total of two days with mostly sun altogether the two weeks we have been here. Next time we go to The Philippines, we will go in July, which should mean better weather. But the drawback of that is that then there is also summer in Norway, and Norwegian summers can also be pretty good.
One of the great feelings during this vacation is that while we are basking in the rain in 28 degrees celsius, Oslo is just above the freezing point, and the weather is mixed, to put it mildly.
I had wanted to spend a lot of time these remaining days to be on the beach and work on that tan, but I guess I just need to accept defeat, and stay indoors in airconditioned rooms that sometimes feel like winter.
January 1st, 2012 — meta
Every travel begins with a first step, and then more steps. Sometimes, the journey will feel like it is going in one general direction – that you are following a path – while other times it may feel like a meandering river which seems to go nowhere. My life has surely been a bit of both so far.
This year, 2012, will be long, and it is important for me to view the different steps and to make sure that I keep tangible goals where I can track where I am going.
It is almost midnight here in The Philippines, where we still are on vacation. We had a good new year’s eve celebration yesterday, and today was also good for me, particularly because I managed to use the few hours of sunshine this afternoon and went snorkelling at Anda with Gibran, my brother-in-law.
A lot of my thoughts today has gone to this year and what I want to achieve with the year. It is easy to have lofty goals and New Year’s Resolutions™, but more important to plan for the changes I want to implement, and find routines that can lead to the change I want to see.
I will write about two of my goals for this year, which are: To learn Visayan, and to be creative.
Visayan
Visayan, or more specifically Cebuano, is the language of my wife’s family and is the language/dialect most commonly used here in the Visaya part of PH. I have always had the intention of learning the language, but didn’t get into the habit of actually doing the daily work it takes to learn a new language. This will change this year, and I will use the following habits:
* Agree with my wife to only speak in Visayan or Norwegian at home after we get home from our vacation. (She also has a goal of learning Norwegian).
* Have a weekly check-up of where I am
* Explore the language here on this blog, and engage in online debate with others of a similar goal if I have the time.
Creativity
When it comes to creativity, it is more abstract, and doesn’t relate directly to things like paint paintings. I know that I need to be more creative in my approach to challenges in my life, more eager to look for alternative solutions, and above all be creative in how I actually implement those solutions. As such, this is about creativity within processes. I have always aimed to be creative, so in that sense there is nothing new here either, but I am re-committing myself to work with this on a daily basis.
Part of my creativity process earlier has been to document things, on a blog or by using video or screencasting. The problem then was that I was not very systematic, and I didn’t manage to harvest all the benefits that I could get from this, especially in moments of frenetic activities on sites such as EvilVlog. Now that I am beginning to get into the habit of blogging again (which I honestly doubted I would be able to), I need to keep that self-reflective distance to things, while looking at examples of best practice.
How do I stay creative?
A simple google search gives me this video:
29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.
For most of the non-work related things, I will use this blog to document my progress and also to engage with others who are going through a similar process. Because surely, staying creative in our daily lives is not something I am alone in doing, and I guess tens of millions are having the same goal for 2012. On the other hand, I need to be more systematic about my blogging, while still keeping that freeflow form that works for me (as much as I sometimes want it, it isn’t that easy to completely re-wire my brain).
I hate lists. I really do. I think lists are creating a false image of reality. Nevertheless, I know that I need to use lists in my life.
Ways I plan to be creative in 2012:
* Write. Not just non-committing blog posts about whatever, but also pieces for the local newspaper, etc.
* Read. I need to read more, and I need to set aside time for this on a regular basis, even with all the other things that are going on. Oh, and I will have a reading list published :)
* Categorize. This is the missing link. Far too often, I keep information in the miscellaneous folder, and I don’t properly sort and categorize it.
Details on what I will write/read/categorize will come later, but it will have to do a lot with the areas I am involved in: Local politics in Oslo, the situation in Afghanistan, and family life.
A step has been taken. More to come.
December 24th, 2011 — Philippines 2011
Today, I finally managed to go to the beach! It is almost a bit comic that it took this amount of days before I plunged into the water, but then again – what better place to do it than Anda?
Here is a picture from today – not from Anda but a view from the shore of Guindulman:
Tatay Rodolfo, my father-in-law, took me to Anda this afternoon on their motorcycle. I enjoyed the trip going there, and I enjoyed the white beach, and I enjoyed the water. I didn’t bring a camera there today, but will next time I go there.
Otherwise, I spent the day a lot outside today, managed to get pink and tender skin on arms and ears, figured that sunblock lotion is impossible to get in this town (well, they have one with SPF 20 but that hardly counts), and met lots of locals.
Anywhere I go, there are children, and before I know it, other children have heard that there is a ‘kano’ around, and more are appearing. Kano is short form of ‘Amerikano’ and is the word most Filipinos use for foreigners – whether we are actually from USA or not. After trying to convince them that I am not actually American, but from Norway, a cold place on a different continent, I end up accepting defeat and just smiling whenever they say ‘oh! kano!’
I spent a lot of time with some guys who were drinking rhum and singing songs in front of this videoke machine.
They were very friendly, and I look forward to getting to know them more the coming weeks. After I took a walk around the area, I came back to see that they were ready to cut up a tuna fish that a local fisherman had caught. The tuna had a weight of about 130 lbs.
More pictures from the day have been uploaded to this flickr-set.
In an hour it is midnight here on Christmas Eve, and the people who went to church for mass will come back, and we will have midnight feast here. I don’t really feel hungry, but I guess there is no chance on earth that I can avoid eating a lot.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas! :)