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This was the least morbid "Jesus' suffering"-picture I could find that still had James Caviezel as Jesus. And I really think that if there is a God his son would truly be as hot as James Caviezel.

1) He died for our sins and all that, so if you are to believe in him it was important for him to die to complete his mission. (This also makes Judas less of a traitor, and the Romans just one of many pawns in God’s everlasting game of chess, or something along those lines.)

2) It doesn’t matter whether he died or not if you don’t believe in him, so really: To you he’s just a crazy guy from some millenia ago who had the misfortune of making some powerfull guys really cross (this is if you believe in him as a real historian person, just not the religion) and dying in a manner that many died in when found in the same situation. Or he never existed. Either way: His death wouldn’t be much to get riled up over today.

3) The Romans planned their killing of Jesus so well that it gives us hardworking students one extra week (or two, or more, depending on what school and country you are in..) of not having to be hardworking students, mid-semester.

I love these! I always torture them. Bahaha! (No, not really. I wouldn't do that... Probably.)

4) The capitalist-franchises realized that blood, crowns of thorns and big nails wouldn’t do well to celebrate, so they created cutesy bunnies that hands out eggs, either made of chocolate or consisting of chocolate and other tasty treats. Sometimes even the bunny is chocolate, just to embrace some of the macabre feeling of this otherwise cheerfull holiday, and their ears taste so good! (Especially those with white-chocolate layers, or fillings of some sort…)

5) His death gives way for some amazing “Dead Messiah”-jokes. I’m telling you: Way better than those boring and slightly less-morbid ones about dead babies.

Yes people, this year I’m a sucker for easter. And I know you’re all wondering why.
Because I’m going home today, that’s why. Currently I’m *cough* packing my bags *cough* *cough* and preparing for the flight that leaves in less than 5 hours. At least I will do that, soon, after writing this. And having a shower. And then it’ll be me and my man-friend on our way to Bodø to visit my friends and family. So I officially love the fact that Jesus died for our sins, because it means I’ll be skiing and… Well, doing basically all the same stuff I do in Tromsø (boardgames, read crime-novels, see some crime-movies and just being awesome…) but at least I haven’t gone skiing in quite some time.

Also: These past days were nice too. I finally met the last part of my man-friends family, and went on a really nice family-outing to this polar-museum where we watched seals being fed and I nearly broke my back on a slide with his niece. (At least that’s what I thought I almost did for some time, untill I realized I’m just too old for that stuff. That’s right, stuff.)

So all in all: I’m good. You now know a bit more about my personal life, as in “Yes, my man-friend has got a family and he’s not actually hiding me away from them.” I’m taking that as a good sign.

My own lovey-doveyness is now making me so sick I think I need a shower… (Just kidding, I needed one anyways. Have to be clean before I sit on a plane and get gross and plane-dirty again…)

I do kind of wish to know how my fellow bloggers and our readers are vacationing for this easter break. And what is your favourite thing about Jesus dying and stuff?

How some women feel when stepping on the scale...

… is their weight. Some people say it’s their age, but weight is more of a touchy subject to most women as it is one thing that they have somewhat control over through dieting and working out. Age is (contrary to popular beliefs) uncontrollable.

Because women don’t talk about their weight I figured I should talk about weight. My weight, to be more presice. And this brings to mind another question to never, and I mean NEVER, ask one of your female friends…

The big and scary “Are you pregnant?”

Roughly a year and some months ago (right around christmas 2009) I was at the college I went to, in the cafeteria. Here I met a friend I hadn’t seen in some months, because he studied in England. We met, we hugged, we chatted, and then he dropped the p-bomb.

Why should you never ask a girl or woman if she’s pregnant?

1) If she is you just ruined her moment of surprising you. She’s the one with the alien in her stomach for 9 months, she gets to tell you about it.

2) If she isn’t pregnant you just told her she’s fat.

If a woman is wearing this shirt, you may ask her if she's pregnant. I think...

Additions:
1a) While stealing her thunder you are also reminding her that she’s fat. And will continue getting fatter.
2a) You also ruined her day, possibly week, possibly longer, and that delicious dinner she was planning is now ruined.
2b) Important: If she isn’t pregnant this question only leaves for one response (the one I had to my friend’s question…):

No, I’ve just gotten fat.

More than one year later I still have no problem with remembering the comment from my friend. I will have it said that I am not mad at him in any way, because if it hadn’t been for him I’d might never have started working out and dieting, and I wouldn’t have gotten all the health benefits from it. Also, I met him when I visited my sister in London 4 months later, and he made it all better by telling me I looked fabolous.

Why am I writing this?

First off: To brag! Obviously.
Second: To teach all you guys (and possibly girls?) to never ask you female friend if she is pregnant! I can not stress this enough. If you think she might be pregnant, wait for her to tell you herself. And if you think she has gained weight, and are a really good  friend of hers, you can possibly comment on that, but I would advise you not to go there.

There we go, an entire entry about one of the top subjects a woman “never talks about”. And I’m a woman. How ’bout that!

[poll id="42"]

I hate studying.

Maybe quitting university and going to work full-time for the rest of my life, without any significant education, wouldn’t be so bad. At least it would save me from having to write an essay on whether “Horrors-among-the-hollyhocks and a sanitized sense of evil” is an agreeable statement about Agatha Christie’s Poirot-novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Hollyhocks are, by the way, a kind of flower, brought to Europe from Asia in the 16th century.

How would life as a proletarian work out for me?

I did have to quit one of my previous jobs in a nursing home due to my arms; I have recurring carpal tunnel syndrome in both arms. So working in the health-care-system is basically out of the question. I have recently started working as a waitress at a restaurant, and a bartender at a bar. Both of which I like, but it’s basically only night-time jobs, and that doesn’t work out well with my plans of having a family with 16 kids and a couple of canines. Also: Both of these jobs involve a lot of carrying, pouring and other activities to make my arms hurt.

The biggest problem is this: I know what I want. I want to teach. And that can’t be done without studying. And so I’m stuck writing about the horrors among the hollyhocks, and other terrible tales.

This was brought to you, once again, by the queen of procratination.

(Upon trying to add the tag “University” the bar suggested unicorn. This made me happy, so I kept it.)

I bet you’ve all been wondering to yourselves “Gee, I wonder why Frida hasn’t bothered us with more stupid anecdotes and feminist propaganda lately????”

I bring to you: The answer to your unasked question!

I’ve been drowning in schoolwork. And political work. And just being too cool to hang around on brbcoffee.com. (Just kidding! You can’t be too cool for brbcoffee.com, only not cool enough!)

But like I was saying: I’ve been busy having a life. Also, I kind of broke my computer a bit whilst falling (with perfect form, might I add) on the devilish ice, and now it’s a pain to use for writing longer texts. These days, I basically only use it for Criminal Minds, Special Victims Unit and West Wing (my latest obsession, thanks to my “man-friend” [wink-wink, nudge-nudge]).

So why did I choose today to write this blog? To rub your noses in how my terrible day turned into a great day!

So first I deliver to you the story of my last couple of weeks.
I fell on ice and broke both my computer and my dignity. All wounds heal, I have some laught about it, and then it happens again. Only this time there wasn’t a computer there to break my fall.
I pretended to be a doctor and did my diagnosis based on receiving it a couple of times before (last time: Also due to falling on ice. Go figure…) I came to the conclussion that I had a mild concussion. No need to fuss, just some dizziness, constant fatigue and the possibility of throwing up. Also: I shouldn’t really try to read, work out or drink alcohol in a week. Only one problem: I go to university. I have to read! (This week: Truman Capote-In Cold Blood)

Then, after a couple of days mostly spent in bed and sitting down and stuff, I go to work my first shift in this student-bar. And I did hit my head mildly, again, so I didn’t manage to go into work today because standing up made me sick. And I had this meeting, and it was a massive failure, and a lot of things just plain sucked. I drop by my man-friends place to pick up some stuff (he’s in Oslo again, so I’ll have to go to the Wombats-concert alone. And I still can’t drink. Yay!) and I go home. (Doesn’t really sound like this day is getting better, does it?)

Back home I check my mail.

CA-CHING!!!!!!!! (For those of you who can’t read the pixeled [is that a word?] tickets: Me and 4 friends are going to see Foo Fighters! On our way to Roskilde. Yeah, that’s a big festival. In Denmark.)

(Also: I was going to use paper-clips or staples to keep the two sheets of tickets together, but couldn’t find any, so enjoy my sparkling blue hair-clips.)

Oh, and by the way: My hair is red now.

Zooming in and out of focus,
This was Frida.

This is the second post in two days written by me. Why? Because I am supposed to be writing a paper on not being born a woman and another on linguistics, and read two Raymond Chandler-novels. And as you may know by know: I am the queen of procrastination.

Right now I’m in the library with a friend, and I must say: I love Tromsø! This is the best library I’ve ever been in, and the view is amazing. But do you know what isn’t amazing? Writing essays.

I wish I could write this paper in a more humoristic way. Seeing as it is a paper on philosophy, and I am supposed to show my own opinions and views in the writing of it, I guess I could write it like that, but it is supposed to be in preparation for my exam, and I most certainly can’t do that when writing my exam, so I guess I should just get used to it right away.

My last post did actually get comments, so I guess I should write about radical faminism more often. So now I will write about it some more.

The Simone de Beauvoir quote that I ended last blog-post with is the quote I am writing an essay on. And it is found in her most famous book: The Second Sex. This is actually two books, published as one, with many parts and chapter. It’s huge!

I haven’t read all of it yet, and maybe I never will, but I am reading the chapters on gender vs. sex, and how girls are treated differently than boys, this resulting in the different qualities that are associated with the different genders. It is an evil circle of girls being made submissive by the society, and therefore the society continues to expect girls to be submissive.

I was never brought up to be like that. My mother, being the strong and wonderful woman that she is, thought me to stand up for what I believe in, and she allowed me to dress in the way I wanted to and play with the toys I liked. There was no question of forcing me to wear dresses and pink, I got Legos and toy-cars when that was what I wanted, and I climbed trees and had playfights without anyone telling me that it wasn’t “suitable for a girl”. For this I am thankfull.

This doesn’t seem like a very radical up-bringing, I am sure, but I am also sure that my mother and fathers liberal gender-views were important for me to become the woman I have become. No-one ever told me I couldn’t do something just because of my sex, and so I never believed it to be impossible for me to do anything. And yet many girls and women react to my way of being, and even become biased towards me because of it. Do I view myself as any less of a woman for it? No. I know that I’m a woman, I even want to be a mother someday, I just don’t believe that women are naturally more “soft and fuzzy” than what men are. Men are just as capable of love, wimsiness and care-giving as women, and women are just as capable of entrepeneurship, intelligence and sexuality as men. And yet these qualities are still by many linked to one gender alone.

I say to hell with genders, we are all humans. The only thing different between women and men are reproductive organs, hormone-levels and muscle strength. Doesn’t seem quite as important as the human qualities of feelings, intelligence and sexuality, does it?

-Frida

There are two significant causes leading to me writing this particular entry on this particular evening:
1) In less then two weeks it will be the 8th of March, also known as the International [Working] Women’s Day.
2) I am currently writing my first essay in Feminist Philosophy.

The past years I have been active in the planning and celebration of the International Women’s Day in Bodø, so it felt natural for me to be active in the group planning the celebration “Ladyfest” in Tromsø. (That’s right: Tromsø have enough people to actually have an entire festival… In Bodø we had a march for women’s rights and hardly anything else…) I’m glad that I joined the group to plan it, especially because the other women in the group are incredibly nice and supportive.

So, why do we demonstrate for women’s rights? A lot of people ask me about it, and especially in Norway where women are supposedly equal to men. And yet they make lower wages, work more part-time, are the victims of nearly all sexual assaults, have higher rates of eating disorders, and the list goes on. These are some of the reasons why I feel it’s important to keep working for women’s rights, and what’s more: It isn’t all about the norwegian women. It’s called the International Women’s Day.

Let’s face it: This is a man’s world. The dictators in Egypt, Libya and the rest of the world are men. The people who will get the power when these dictators are gone are also men. And they will decide the faith of women in their countries.
In South-American lands such as Nicaragua and Venezuela women are denied abortions. Even if they were raped, or victims of incest. In U.S.America Justin Bieber says to Rolling Stones-magazine that abortion is murder, while rape happens for a reason. Chavez [Venezuela] and Ortega [Nicaragua] are men. Justin Bieber is supposedly male. And they still get the right to speak about and rule over women’s bodies, rights and reproduction, when the women themselves aren’t granted the same chance.

Simone de Beauvoir, one of the best known feminist philosophers, critiqued psychoanalytics (such as Freud), scientists and biologists for using the male as the rule and the women as the exception. Freud even went as far as to say that all women at some point in their life feels like a mutilated man, and that something is missing about them. This is the well-known theory of “penis envy”. [Oh my god, she said penis, right?]

One would think that more than 50 years later this will be better. That the woman is an equal, and not just seen as a secondary creature with a secondary nature, but no. Today, if a woman chooses not to give birth (like Simone de Beauvoir did herself) she is often spoken down to for it. And if a woman, or a girl, chooses to speak up for her beliefs she is automatically labeled a tomboy or a problem child.

The problem I see with the world, and that Simone de Beauvoir also saw, is that women are confined to a certain way of life and thought that people try explaining with science, but that really is nothing more than a social construct. And men uses this social construct to keep their power. This is gender, not sex, and women who don’t fit in are pushed out and away. No wonder it’s hard being a teen-age girl, right?

-”One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
-Simone de Beauvoir
And now I’ll return to my writing.

-Frida

As of this January I am studying at the University of Tromsø, and this semester I have “blindly” chosen three single subjects to study while waiting to start my real degree come fall. The subjects I chose first were Feminist Philosophy and English word and sentence structure. One is due to my interest in feminism and the other is due to my interest in studying english. So I needed one more course to have a full schedule, and I wasn’t quite sure which one to choose.

My “boy”friend suggested Model UN, which I concidered. That was until his friend mentioned another subject: British and American Crime Fiction. A subject involving a lot of reading, a lot of talking about the books and re-reading them, and a written exam that I am dreading. And also: One of the most amazing teachers I have ever had. (This is saying something as I have had some pretty great teachers.)

Last week, which was the first class I attended after missing out on discussing Edgar Allan Poe when I was sick, we talked about the Arthur Conan Doyle-book “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, and the three hours spent in a classroom with a class in which I know no-one and a teacher who is most entertaining and educating had me inspired. I practically ran to the book-store to buy the next book: Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, and I started reading that very night.

I have never concidered myself a big fan of murder mysteries, other than CSI and other similar tv-shows. This class is changing me. I love the Agatha Christie-novel, and I even enjoyed the story about the obnoxious Sherlock Holmes and his push-over accomplice Watson. And I can’t wait for todays class, when I will be better prepared than I was for the last class. Not only have I read the book, I also did some online research and read the chapter handed out to us on ideology in writing.

So: How amazing does this class sound?

Hyperactive greetings from a Frida who couldn’t sleep last night, and just has a cold shower to wake properly up.

Morning tunes: Katie Melua – Call off the Search

Lately I have nauseated the people around me, and probably to some extent the readers, by being insufferably happy. The reason for my happiness is both simple and complex.

Simple version:
I’m in love.

More complex version:
The change in my life, when I moved to Tromsø, gave me a new kind of energy. The new subjects I’m studying are perfect for me. The feeling of finally being in controll of my life and getting somewhere gives me reason to get up in the mornings. And the man who is the object of my most obvious love is kind, caring and (for some reason I still can’t quite grasp the concept of) in love with me as well. Shortly: I’m in love with my life, my subjects and a man.

Oscar Wilde said to “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.” And being a man who sacrificed his social standings, his career and his health all for “The love that dare not speak its name”, another man (which was a criminal offence in England in the 19th century), I’m guessing he knew a little something about love.

My life felt like that sunless garden for some time. It is a cliché to say that love shone a new light, but guess what: There’s a reason to clichés becoming what they are. And the greatest part of it is: The more I love my life, the better it seems to get.

This incredibly happy and optimistic submission is not only my way to force my happiness down your throats, but also an attempt to outweigh my previous life-categorized posts of a more emoistic character (not a word, I know, I made it up…) and to let you all know that I have found happiness. For now, at least, and hopefully one that will last, no matter what the future holds.

Buddha told us that happiness never decreases by being shared, using the metaphor that “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.” I try my best everyday to make people around me happy. I smile, I try not to be mean, and I try to be the best person I can be. I believe that it is everyones shared duty to make the world a better place. And now I feel it returning to me: The joy and the happiness I wish for others are filling my heart, making it even easier for me to smile and be nice. And I can tell you something: This is the best way to be happy. Be happy, share happiness and it will return to you.

Those are my words of wisdom and sickening smugness for the night. I actually did mean for this post to be funny and upbeat, but I guess you’ll have to settle for what you get.

-Frida

As I was updating my personal “About”-page to fit more recent events in the location-like department (i.e. bragging about finally leaving Bodø to go live in Tromsø, which is way cooler!) I came to think of a political cause that I care greatly about, that doesn’t get enough focus in todays society, that the politicians deprioritize time and time again, but that is also really important…

Based on the title and this introduction there are two important political causes I could be writing about. Before we continue, would you like to venture a guess as to which one I am going to write about?

[poll id="38"]

To avoid cheating i will fill some space with a big, old and edited picture of me with crazy hair, so that you can’t see the upcoming text. Do not cheat, capiche?

So… All the reasons why I love trains:

• Trains are old-fashioned, and thus romantic.
• There is no stressing when it comes to train-travel. No security check-points, no boarding and take-off and landing and what not. You get on, you hang out, you get to where you wanna be.
• People are nicer on trains. (Probably because of the romance and lack of stress thing.)
• I always meet the nicest, funniest or most interesting people on trains.
• Trains are better for the environment.
• You’re never as rested after a nap as you are after a nap on a train. (At least I ain’t…)
• Trains are means to traveling that aren’t airplanes. Airplanes suck. Logically: Trains must be amazing.
• Last but not least: How can you NOT love this:

There is only one problem when it comes to my current living situation and my love for trains… Tromsø doesn’t have a railway.

Bodø is the last stop on the norwegian railway. Everything north of Bodø and Fauske  is train-less. (Except for the stretch between the norwegian town Narvik and the swedish town Kiruna, originally used to transport ore, or something…)

Why is the north of Norway without trains? Because the only one ever to actually bother building railway in the north of Norway lost all power before he finished. I am of course talking about Hitler, so it isn’t a bad thing that he lost all his power, but it would have been nice if the norwegian government had continued his work in this general area. Like they promised to do. Time and time again. But never did.

There is a railway-station in Tromsø, actually. And 4 metres or something of actual tracks. They were promised a railway by the government, you see, and celebrated this by building a station. And aquiring 4 metres of track to pass this station. The train never arrived, and the station is now one of the pubs in Tromsø with probably the highest age-average. (Oh, and I’ve been there and will be there again, because I loved it a bit…) As for the 4 metres of train-tracks, they are leant up against some wall. 4 metres of train-tracks aiming for the sky. A true railway to heaven.

Anyways, I’m clearly trailing of, and I’ve lost all track of time, so I think this will be it for today….

Forever yours,
Frida.

(Ps.: None of the facts in this entry have been checked against accurate sources. So it may be 8 metres of railway and not 4… Please don’t choo me! And I don’t think there’s any big mistakes, I’m just covering my tracks…)

I’m laying around in bed feeling sorry for myself. Why? Because I’m sick.

This thursday I went to a concert (Kråkesølv, think I’ve mentioned them before…) and I was feeling kinda sick, but figured it was nothing. To make a short story long: I woke up in the middle of the night running a fever, I slept for 10 hours straight, I slept some more, and I’ve seen the entire second season of True Blood since yesterday.

There is something that makes being sick worse, and that is being alone and sick. So the fact that I’m in a new town kind of makes this bad timing. And the fact that my old man (this being my man whom happens to be old, not my father…) is in Oslo for the weekend doesn’t help.

So what could make the “sick and alone”-scenario worse? How about living in a student housing building, on a floor with a high “party the same weekend Frida is sick”-rate. Last night it woke me up, tonight it is preventing me from sleeping.

Oh, yeah, and missing out on my plans with a friend, just to stay in bed and eat pizza and have waking fever dreams. Big fun, I tell you!

So yeah, I’m feeling sorry for myself. As should you! And also: If you haven’t seen True Blood yet you should do that too. (Don’t worry, you can do both at the same time… I know I do!)

Infectuosly yours,
Frida.