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The 22nd of July, 2011

Tue Aug 02 00:00:00 -0700 2011

I guess everyone kind of waits for it to happen. No one wants it to, but everyone expects it. Perhaps in a year, perhaps in ten years. All anyone can do is hope the damage will be limited when it does happen.

Then it happened in Norway.

Myself and all other Norwegians saw terror in a light we have never seen it before. It didn’t strike us close to home. It struck us in our home. And it struck us hard.

What most Norwegians experienced on and after the 22nd of July is, of course, nothing compared to the experiences of so many other Norwegians. Everyone has read and heard accounts from those who survived the shooting on Utøya. The victims and their families have gone through an ordeal very few can even imagine, much less understand. I was lucky enough to be far away from the terror, safe and sound in my living room. Yet I felt terrified. I felt like I was also being attacked.

I have never been very good at empathy. Sympathy I can do. I find myself genuinely feeling sorry for others and what they are going through, but while I may feel sad on behalf of someone, I’ve never really been able to partake in their sadness. This changed on the 22nd of July. Prevalent among the feelings I experienced in the wake of the attacks was a feeling of real sadness. My country had been attacked in a gruesome way, and I took the attack personally, as I believe a lot of Norwegians did. It was an attack on us all, an attack on what we stand for.

The attack consisted of the murder of a large number of people, many of whom were very young. A tragic, unnecessary, and almost surreal waste of life. Naturally and rightfully this is where most of the attention has been directed. However, the survivors from the island have tended to be the first to stress that the attacks were also an attack on something else. It was an attack on Norway.

Every year the AUF-camp on Utøya is filled with young people who want to be part of forming the future. Children and youth who really want to make a difference. Members of Norwegian youth parties aren’t there in an attempt to jockey for positions or to please their mother-party. They are there because they really care. The youth-parties aren’t afraid of disagreeing with their parties, often very vocally. The discussions spawned from these disagreements can sometimes sway the policy of the party as a whole.

I don’t think most Norwegians fully appreciate the accessibility and openness of Norwegian politics. Three years ago I certainly didn’t. Having lived in the UK for three years has changed that. I’ve come to see Norwegian politics in a new light. I have come to think of my Norwegian politically engaged friends in a new way. I can now see the value of their genuine enthusiasm. They aren’t spin-doctors for their party. When they disagree with their party they will say so. They are in politics because they believe that their opinion can make a difference. They are people, not politicians. They define their party rather than being defined by it.

AUF are brilliant ambassadors for Norwegian politics, and they are persistent proponents of the inclusive views on integration and multiculturalism that I believe are shared by the majority of Norwegians, and Norway’s political parties. This is why an attack on the AUF summer-camp was also an attack on Norwegian values, policy and literal political future, all in one blow.

The collective national reaction to the attack has reminded me of what it is that I like so much about Norway. A recurring theme in the international media has been that Norway has “lost its innocence” or “will have to change for ever.” I don’t think we want to change. Norwegians were, are, and will be Norwegian. Before, on and after the 22nd of July, 2011. We are not a race. We are a group of people who share certain values and ideas, regardless of our ethnicity. We don’t even see them as values and ideas. It is just the way things are, what we have grown up with, what we are used to. Some people might not like it, and some may even hate it.

Tough.

The people of Norway have spoken quite clearly. We won’t let an attack change us, be it our policy, our open society or what the BBC calls our innocence. We live under the enormous privilege of not needing to have armed police patrolling the streets. There is little crime. Our politicians are part of society and go about their business like “normal” people, without a fuss being made about it. We have the privilege of living in a place where acts of terror have always been unthinkable, a privilege that I hope and think we will keep in the future.

We have the privilege of having an exceptionally open political debate which generally doesn’t get reduced to the dirt-slinging, headline-grabbing, soundbyte-seeking debate that I tend to see in the UK. A debate the prime minister made an important comment on during a speech he held in parliament yesterday, “we should not go witch-hunting for people who may have expressed themselves in an unfortunate manner in the past.” There has been, as there should be, debates on issues surrounding immigration and integration. Politicians have admitted that unfortunate things have been said in the heat of these debates, and that they will be more conscious of how they phrase arguments in the future. It is important that honest debate on sensitive issues will still be allowed to take place. While I may disagree with the policies of a party such as FrP, it is important that they speak as freely now as they did before the attacks. It is important to accept that, while they may support a stricter policy on immigration, that doesn’t make them intolerant or racist. Those are not words that should be thrown around, and all parties do support a multicultural Norway. They just have different ideas on how best to achieve it. Ideas we will continue to discuss openly, cleanly and honestly.

I was sad on the 22nd of July, and I still am. I was sad that my country was being attacked, shocked at the hole that was blown through the main building of the government and appalled at the brutality that took place on Utøya. In the aftermath I have also felt incredibly proud of our Prime Minister, our king, our government and our people for the way in which we have handled the situation. It might be a cliché, but we truly have defeated hate with love. I see this as a sign that we will continue to preserve the society we all love so much. That we won’t let an attack change our way of life. I hope that unarmed police will still be the norm and that our politics will continue to be as open and accessible as they always have been. Talking heads on televisions in the US and the UK might call us naive. I don’t see it that way. I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t be prepared for any future terror-attacks that might strike us. I’m arguing that we shouldn’t let it scare us or change the way we live our lives.

There is only one appropriate response. The attack was designed to radically change Norway. We ain’t changing it.

Let's fly the flag for... nationalism?

Sat Jul 16 00:00:00 -0700 2011

On a piece of cloth, or a scrap of paper. Painted onto a cheek, or made up by a bunch of pixels on a computer-screen. If it happens to be a flag, it means something special to someone. But does a national flag necessarily represent nationalism?

Me in Edinburgh on the 17th of May, 2011... being Norwegian.

This blog-post originates from an observation by a British friend: “Wow, you Norwegians must be very nationalistic. You sure do use your flag a lot!”

I was taken aback. Sure, on the 17th of May every year I get into a suit, take out my flag, and parade around with a bunch of other flag-waving Norwegians. I have been one of millions doing this in Norway, and one of a few hundred doing it in Edinburgh. A parade like this is bound to look over-the-top nationalistic, and I can’t really argue that it doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of being Norwegian, and I think Norway is a great country. However, I don’t consider myself, nor do I consider Norwegians in general to be excessively nationalistic. The question then remains, why do we prance around, waving the Norwegian flag, shouting “Hurra!” every year?

The main Norwegian flag-related event is the 17th of May constitution day celebration, and I would claim that it is not a nationalistic event. A lot of Norwegians would argue against this. Many describe it as a sickening display of national pride, others describe it as a wonderful display and celebration of Norway and everything that is Norwegian. While it isn’t in my place to tell others what the 17th of May represents for them, I don’t agree with either of these perceptions. I don’t believe the 17th of May celebrations are inherently nationalistic. It is the day on which the people of Norway celebrate the birth of the Norwegian constitution. It is not a celebration of any kind of military victory, nor is it an outright celebration of independence. It is a celebration for the people, by the people, of the freedom and the conditions under which citizens of Norway are fortunate enough to live.

Norwegians on the 17th of May in front of the royal palace... being Norwegian.

And I find “by the people” to be an important point. The 17th of May has never been a state-imposed “let’s celebrate our country” event. It began as spontaneous celebrations among students on the streets. Anyone, regardless of their nationality, are more than welcome to partake in the celebrations and wave their own flag. For me it represents a day of celebrating. Not only Norway, but also the value and importance of the freedom enjoyed by free people all over the world. It is a reminder of how fortunate we are to be living in a place where we can take our freedom for granted.

This is all a roundabout way of getting to my point, which is that the 17th of May has formed my relation to the Norwegian flag. For me the flag is a sign of joyous occasions, not of nationalism. We put flags on our Christmas trees, we put them out to celebrate birthdays, confirmations and weddings. Of course, the Norwegian flag is a national symbol, but to me it also symbolises celebration, happiness and gratefulness. My impression is that the British and the Scottish flags are generally used in connection with events of a national nature, be it royal weddings or sporting events. I can therefore understand that such a, relatively liberal, use of a national flag might seem odd. However, when a Norwegian waves a flag at you, it is probably not out of a feeling of national superiority. They are probably just celebrating, and you should wave back. Or, even better, join in!

Norwegian Words about Snow (A list in progress)

Mon Jun 13 00:00:00 -0700 2011

One day I thought, “Hey! I should list all Norwegian words about snow!” Then I did. It has been a work in progress that I have kept coming back to for almost exactly a year now.

So, below is a list of Norwegian words about snow. It is probably far from comprehensive, and some of the translations are probably a bit off, but it is -a- list of Norwegian snow-words.

Note that a lot of the words are not commonly used, and a large amount are regional. However, though I haven’t checked every single one, I think they are all officially accepted as Norwegian words.

I got the huge majority of these words from the great list at http://www.nhdesign.com/snjoord.html, which seems to have set out to make a list like this. However, there are very few translations, and the definitions are incomplete. I did my best at translating and defining the remaining words, and also collected some words from various other sources.

I have omitted a large chunk of words: I am not including words that are, or describe equipment used to interact with snow. I have also omitted words where I think they become a little ridiculous (like snow-dog, snow-bear, snow-bunny, etc.)

The list is far from perfect, but if I tried making it perfect I would probably never get it published at all, so consider this a beta-version. If you find any errors or omissions, please comment. With some time this could perhaps become a really good list of Norwegian snow-words

Words for plain old snow: Snø, snjo, snjø, snog, snjor, sjog, sjo, sny, snjy.
Old Norwegian words for snow: snár, snór, snær
Words for the verb, “to snow”: snø, snøa, snjoa, snova, snøva, snjøa, snøge, snoge, snjóge, snya, sne
Something that is covered with, messed up by, or full of snow: snøut, snøete, snøug

Hailstone: hagl
Small hailstone: eiter, eitersnø
Light, small snow-flakes: fjukr
Larger snowflakes: snøflukse, snøflygse, snøflysse, snøfloke, snøflinte
small’ish snowflakes: snøfjom, snøfjon, snøfnugg
Snowrag: snøfille
Snowflake: snøflak
Very large snowflake: snøfloke, snøflinte, snøflukse
Very, very large snowflage: snøkjerring
Grain of a hail-stone: haglkorn
Snow-crystal: snøkrystall
Grain of snow: snøkorn
Fine hail, fine snow-particles: eiter, eitersnø, eitresnø
Wet, “rainy” snow: slette, sludd, slatter, snøslat, snøslass
Verbs of the above: slette, sludde, slute, slatre
Sporadic snow: fauker
Verb of the above: faukre
Dry, sporadic, light snow: fjautr
Verb of the above: fjautre
Verb for light, falling, snow: snøfluskra, snøfokra
Heavy-falling snow: fana
Adjective for light fluffy snow: fyklen
Sporadic, light, small snow-grains: føyr
Sporadic, light, snow-grains that fall while it is windy: snøslit
Area of spread out snow: snøklesse
Area of very wet snow: valleslette
Area of wet thick snow you have to vade through: valleklesse
Area of a mixture of wet snow and snow: valleslette
Snow falling light and sporadically: snøfluskra, snøfokra
Snow blowing around: drivsnø
Very, very small ice-crystals formed by steam that freezes: frostrøyk
Artificial snow made by squirting water, and freezing it in flight: kunstsnø
Hailstorm: haglskur
Very sporadic falling of very small snowflakes: faukre, fukre
Verb of the above: fjukre
Snowy weather (verb) with dry, light snowflakes that aren’t falling very quickly: fjautre
The name of the flakes falling in the weather described above: iming

A mixture of snow and rain falling: dape, dape
Very cold weather with just a bit of snow: gnastervêr
Very sporadic snow in otherwise very clear weather: heiske
The above, but the snow moves horizontally a lot before falling down: heideskav
A LOT of snow (verb): lave
Very light and small flakes of snow or rain with a very light wind: grim
Snowy weather: snøvér, snøvær
A sudden occurrence of very heavy snow: snøbyge
Average amount of snow falling down: snøfall
Just a small amount of snow falling down: snødett

Very dense snow: snøkyng
Weather involving a lot of snow: snøtjukke
A lot of snow blowing around (may come from the ground): snøfok, snøføykje
A lot of snow being blown around by a VERY strong wind: snøbus
Just a little snow being blown around by a very strong wind: snøføyk
Snowstorm: snøstorm
Snow that is being blown into kind of a wavy formation by the wind: snødrev, snødriv, snødrift
The above done with very strong wind: snørok
Snow which blows along the ground so it looks kind of like a stream of water: snøgov, snøgauv
A gust of wind with snow in it: snøkast
Sudden, strong downfall of hail: haglbyge
Rain with occasional hail: haglbrest
Sudden, not always that strong, downfall of hail: haglskur
Hailstorm: haglstorm
Dry, light snow: flissnø
Downfall of wet snow in a very local area: dapekave
Thick air with snow: kovdam
Very local downfall of wet, big, snowflakes: slettekave
A mixture of snow, wet snow and rain: halvgote
Frozen ground: hardang
Snow coming from above, but blowing around a lot: himmelsfok
Snow coming from the ground, blowing around a lot (can also be used about dust, sand, etc.): jordfok, roksnjo
Wind with some snow blowing along in it: rennedriv, rennefok snøfok
A period of time with a lot of cold weather and snow: illri
Weather involving a lot of wet snow: kleksevêr
Verb for the falling of very light and thin snow: snøhære
Very for the falling of very thin snow: snøravl
Snow is expected: snødrått, snøeleg

Clouds that contain snow: snøbakke
Cloud from which it is snowing: snøsky, snøelte
Very big cloud from which it is snowing: snøhamar
General weather with clouds that look like they are going to snow: snøhimmel

Words for snow lying on the ground:

A mixture of snow and water: sørpe, surpe
Wet snow: slaps, slafs, slatter, slass
Wet ice and snow in which one can vade: vodl, snøslaps
Water containing snow or ice: stroppe
“Snow” created through steam being frozen onto solid surfaces: rim, hele
Hard, compact, icy grains of snow: borr
Snow from last year: firn
Snow with a hard surface with loose snow under it: skare
Wet snow which has frozen: avrange
Hard surface of snow which has frozen: hjårn
An uneven surface of snow which has frozen to ice: gadd
Slippery and hard snow or ice, often on roads: hålke
Adjective for wet, often recent, snow which sticks and is ideal for snowballs: kram
Ice, or the surface of ice and snow on water etc (or “Ice Cream” in fact): is
Newly fallen snow: nysnø
Snow from last year: fjorårssnø
Loose and dry snow: mjellsnø
Dry, powdery and light snow: tørrsnø

Words commonly used about snow on which one goes skiing:

Loose snow: laussnø, løssnø
Powdery snow: puddersnø, pulversnø,finsnø
Compact, small grains of snow: kornsnø
Snow with a strong hard surface: uppstøding
A flake of a strong, hard snow-surface: skaraflere
Newly fallen snow with an icy surface: jøkleføre
Deep snow with a consistent consistency: kjellføre
Annoying snow which will bulk together and build up on the underside of your skies: klabb, klabbe
Snow which has been compact and is now broken to pieces: mylsnø
Wet snow with a “porrogy”-consistency: snøgraut, snøgopel, snøgrop, snøgyrje

More general descriptions of snow, or areas with snow:

Small lumps of ice or snow: krap
Snow blowing strongly in the wind: fokksnø
Snow which has blown into a bunch with other snow: drivsnø
Snow on glaciers: bresnø
Glacier-ice: breis
Blue glacier-ice: blåis
Areas of water on snow, or snow that is full of areas of water: blåstøde
Bug area of heavy snow: slette
A very thin layer of snow: snøfån, snøhela, snøhim
A hardly visible layer snow snow which will soon dissapear: snøskrimsel

About the ways in which snow can arrange itself without interference from humans:

Glacier: jøkul, isbre, snøbre
Snow which has been arranged very thickly by the wind: snøfonn, snøfann, dunge
Something which is covered with snow (adjective): fent
A very heavy cover of snow: folge
A packed area of snow with with a sharp/steep edge: skavl
A crust of snow or ice on the edge of a mountain: bræne
Adjective describing very patchy snow with clear spots in between: skjerja, skjerven
A bunched up mass of snow on the side of a mountain: æke
Snow on branches: raunsveig, lavsnø
An edge of snow, often along a road or bath: bard, barde, brøytekant
Completely covered with snow, without any bare spots: snøfast, snøtekt, snøfast, snøheil
Adjective for something that has been covered with snow: nedsnødd
Adjective describing ground with snow on it, but not quite enough to cover the stones: steinberr
Very deep snow: djupsnø, dypsnø
A bunched together pile of snow that is hanging off something: snøskute
Ice which is covering a large inland area: innlandsis
A very thin layer of snow: snøfar
An adjective describing snow that very evenly and consistently covers a large area: randheil
The edge of a glecier: brekant
A crack in a glacier: bresprekk
A cave in or under a glacier: brehole, brehule
Iceberg: isfjell, isberg
A drifting flake of ice: isflak
A packed up area of ice: pakkis
Ice covering a river: isgang
Ice or snow which gathers up under ice covering a river, sometimes stopping the water: isdemning, isplugg
A path which is left after an avelanche: snøgote,fonnefar
A narrow path left after an avelanche: fonnestrek
Snow lying over a river: snøbom, sigleleid
Snow blocking the flow of a river: snøkork
Thick blob of snow floating down a river OR thin layer of snow on soild: snøfor, mylske, snøkrape, snøkrave
Adjective describing a geographical place with a lot of snow: snøhard
Adjective describing a specific place with a lot of snow OR weather when it is almost about to start snowing: snøtung
A place where the snow floats to, bunches up, and stays until spring: fonnestøde
A place with snow and ice… and not much else: isøde
Very slippery ice, under a layer of snow: underhål, svikhål, blindhål
Snow or ice that is almost transparent due to rain: glarhålke
The altitude that the snow starts appearing at: snøgrense, snølinje

Events involving snow and/or ice:

Avalanche: lavine, snøskred, snørås, snøskote
Small avalanche: snøras, snørap
Avalanche consisting of snow and ice: jøkleræs
Avalanche consisting of part of a glacier: brefall
Avalanche consisting of tightly packed snow: kramskred
Branches cracking under the weight of snow: snøbrot, snøbrot

Changes in the snow:
Snow melting: tøya, bråna, tina, tine
Snow becoming “sloppy”: vodla
Snow becoming wet/loose when the weather gets warmer: snølosing, snøløysing, snønåm
An old word for mild weather that melts snow in december, while one is baking Christmas cakes: kakelinne
Same as above, but with “Lefse” rather than Christmas cake: lefsetøyr

Actions one can take in snow:

To plough snow: brøyte
To fall in snow so that one gets it in ones nose and mouth: nysa, snysa
Playing/rolling around in snow: base, tumle, baske
Pushing and grinding someones face into the snow: kryne
Vading through very deep snow: vodla
Vading in snow: grynne
Vading in snow that reaches you to the knees: knegrynne

Words describing the condition, or characteristics of the snow:

Very think layer of hard snow and ice that is too thin for it to be able to carry any significant weight: lettang, berrfrostsnøen ber
Adjective describing snow that is deep, and very hard to travel through, be it walking or skiing: vabbete
Trapped inside by the snow: innesnødd
Snow one has to lift ones legs very high to walk in (as one sinks back down for every step): stolpesnø
Describing the condition when there is enough snow for it to be significant with regards to getting around: snøføre
When there is enough snow to use “snowshoes” (truger): trugføre
When there is enough snow to ski on: skiføre
When there is enough snow to sleigh on: sledeføre
(and a lot of other -føre describing the state of the snow…)

Skiing conditions where you may risk falling through the snow: naudbraut
Snow where tracks, footprints, etc. are very easy to spot: sporsnø
Wet leyer of snow which freezes on the ground, starving small cattle: smaladrepar
The state of the light when it is slightly cloudy with snow on the ground, and it is impossibly to see contours on the ground: snømørker, snømørkt, blindføre

Man-made constructions or formations of snow:

Snowball: snøball
A bit snowball, that you would make a snow man from: snøvelte
A very big ball of snow, that you get from rolling a snowball for a long time: snøku
Snow angel, made by lying down on the ground, then waving ones arms and legs: snøengel
Patterns and drawings made in snow by walking around, making paths: trakkarhus
Snow cave: snøhole, snøhule
Ski-track, ski-course: skilåm, skiløype
Tracks left after ski or sledge: dyrgje, braut, ekkje, skilåm, skiline
Deep tracks: skistolp, staupe
Track after a sledge, wheels, timber being dragged in the snow, etc: meidd

Other:

Temporarily losing your sight due to the bright light reflected off snow (snow-blind): Snøblind
Damage to grass that has been covered by snow, and burned by the sun: isbrann
Adjective for when the snow has melted: tøya
When one would normally expect snow, but there isn’t any: berr, snøberr
Frosty ground, but no snow: berrfrost
Lack of snow: snømangel
No snow: snølaust, snøløst

British politics as seen through my Norwegian eyes

Wed Jan 05 00:00:00 -0800 2011

I have now been fortunate enough to have lived in Edinburgh for two and a half years. During that time, and annoyingly in the middle of an exam-period, I was fortunate enough to witness a UK general election. I have never been extremely engaged in politics, however, I do take an interest in them. This is not a political post. It is a post containing some of my personal thoughts on UK politics as a whole.

Before I came to the UK I would occasionally download and watch Prime Ministers Question-time. I loved it. There were real issues, the people speaking seemed genuinely engaged, smart and as an added bonus they were funny. There are a lot of theatrics involved, yes, but who doesn’t love a bit of theatrics? Of course, it would be impossible to form an opinion on British politics as a whole based only on PMQT, but my impression of the whole thing was that it would be pretty interesting. Real debates on real issues. However, British politics have let me down.

One rather significant disclaimer has to be inserted here. I am a student, and therefore engage mostly with a fairly young generation. Edinburgh can also probably be considered quite a left wing place. Either or both of these circumstances have probably coloured my personal perception of British politics.

So, what exactly is my problem with British politics? I have a few, but one definitely stands out. There seems to be a general lack of nuance. Politics in the UK seems primarily to be a competition in who can make the opposition look the worst. Very rarely do I hear anyone admit that whoever they oppose are right about anything at all. Also, people will go to almost absurd lengths to defend or shoot down anything that may make the party they support look bad. There is not much ‘Sure, they may have a point here, and they might be right about this, but I disagree with this and this because…’ and a whole lot of ‘They are wrong about everything! They will effectively destroy our country within a week!’ It is frustrating. I have my own principle values and I am capable of independent thought. I hope that is the case for most of the British public.

When I listen to someone speak on a political matter I want to hear an opinion and a justification of that opinion. I want to hear the conclusion drawn by the person speaking, and I want to hear the steps and reasoning leading up to that conclusion. If this is done I can either agree, constructively be put in a position to rethink my own opinion or respectfully disagree on the basis that there is a fundamental disagreement on one of the premises. I do not want to spend the majority of my time listening to how wrong the opposition are about everything. It is up to me to decide whom I agree with. Don’t insult my intelligence by telling me the way you see things is the only possible right way to see things, it obviously isn’t. A reply to this might be ‘But it is important to highlight the differences so people can know what to vote!’ I don’t buy it. Negative campaigning is lazy and patronising, and I’ve seen way too much of it in the UK for my liking.

I am not sure whether it is a cause or an effect of the above, but there also seems to be very little understanding and acceptance of the fact that different people fundamentally have different values and opinions. No matter how strongly you feel about something, no matter how clear cut something seems to you, someone will disagree. That doesn’t necessarily make them wrong or stupid. It makes them different from you. That’s the whole point of a democracy. People with opinions different from yours have the right to have them represented. This brings me to my last point; stigmatisation.

As far as UK politics goes, personally I stand quite comfortably left of the centre. This seems to be fortunate, as I might otherwise have risked being labelled as a “conservative.” Shock and horror. I am sure the Labour-side are not alone in doing this, but since I live in a generally liberal place the “conservative” or “Tory” label is the only one I have witnessed personally. I understand that a lot of the time it is probably done in good fun. There are a lot of jokes and comedy with the premise of grouping people into boxes depending on their politics. I don’t mind this. What I object to is the usage of the term “conservative” in a genuinely patronising and almost degrading manner. There seems to be a general, mostly unspoken, truth that anyone voting for the conservative party should be ashamed of themselves for daring to do such a thing.

In my opinion using shame as a political device is despicable. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and to vote for the party they feel represents them. No one should have to feel ashamed of what they vote, and trying to guilt someone into a way of voting, no matter how much you disagree with them, is wrong. That is not how a democracy is supposed to work. I therefore think it is a pity that general political stigma seems to be as widespread and accepted as it is.

I am not saying any of this is specifically British. The same themes probably occur everywhere. The British version of these problems just happen to be the ones I have witnessed the past two and a half years. If you feel like it, feel very free to use the comments to tell me how wrong I am. Perhaps I have just been given the wrong impression. Nothing would please me more.

Edit: As an afterthought, perhaps I should add a few sentences on how I feel Norwegian politics are different. In Norway my experience has been that people tend to say ‘I disagree’ rather than ‘You’re wrong.’ There also seems to be a lot less of a social divide caused by Norwegian politics, as well as a greater tolerance of people who disagree on some things being able to agree on other things.

En tidligere korgutt om bråket rundt Domkirkens Guttekor [Norwegian]

Sun Nov 14 00:00:00 -0800 2010

Publisert i Stavanger Aftenblad 13. November, 2010

Stavanger domkirkes guttekor betyr mye for mange. Det har kommet tydelig frem på Aftenbladet sine debatt-sider i det siste. Det som ikke kommer frem i debatten er hvor mye guttekoret betyr for guttene som synger og har sunget i det.

Man kan diskutere i det uendelige hvordan et kor ideelt sett bør drives, i hvert fall hvis man leter etter et fasitsvar. Alle vil selvsagt det beste for koret, men når mesteparten av diskusjonen baseres på upresise fakta og misforståelser blir debatten veldig fort meningsløs og misvisende. Ettersom Stavanger Aftenblad benyttes som en arena for denne debatten tør jeg nesten ikke tenke på hva slags inntrykk lesere sitter igjen med. Dette er urettferdig mot sangerne i koret som har grunn til å være meget stolte av å synge i Stavanger Domkirkes Guttekor.

Jeg er en av de to korguttene på bildet fra 2002 som ofte illustrerer innlegg angående guttekoret. Da bildet ble tatt hadde jeg sunget i koret i seks og et halvt år. Etter at bildet ble tatt sang jeg i koret i seks år til før jeg for to år siden flyttet til Skottland for å studere. Under bildet blir jeg sitert på at det er “jysla kjekt å synge.” Strengt talt tilhører nok akkurat disse ordene Klaus, som også er avbildet, men jeg står fullt og helt inne for dem likevel.

Det har betydd enormt mye for meg å ha fått være en del av guttekoret så og si opp igjennom hele oppveksten min. Jeg husker fremdeles da jeg som en nervøs, forventningsfull åtteåring trappet opp på min første kor-øvelse. Jeg ble tildelt en tykk mørkeblå bok med veldig mange noter og veldig mye tysk tekst. Vi bladde opp på side to og begynte å synge: “Jauchzet frohlocket. Auf preiset die Tage.” Min første av uendelig mange strofer som korgutt. Noen måneder senere var jeg med på å synge denne strofen, og resten av Bach’s “Juleoratoriet,” i en fullsatt domkirke med orkester og et storslått kor. En kraftig opplevelse for en åtteåring. En opplevelse man sent glemmer.

Mange har som juletradisjon å se Reisen til Julestjernen og Tre Nøtter til Askepott på tv. For meg er tradisjonen å synge. Om det så er i morgengudstjeneste i Domkirken på julaften, høymesser utover juledagene eller julekonserter. Dette gleder jeg meg til hvert år, og julen er bare ett av mange eksempler på hvordan koret alltid har vært en fantastisk del av livet mitt. Igjennom koret har jeg fått være en del av et veldig åpent og aktivt sosialt miljø, ikke bare lokalt men også nasjonalt og til dels internasjonalt. Korsang er en stor del av livet mitt, en del jeg ikke kan se for meg å ha vært foruten.

Jeg vil derfor gi en sterk oppfordring til foresatte med barn som liker å synge: foreslå kor. å synge i kor er noe man får veldig mye glede av resten av livet. Det sosiale båndet man knytter til folk ved å synge med dem, ved å skape musikk sammen med dem, er unikt. Mestringsfølelsen man får når man vet at koret har sunget kjempebra er utrolig. Med på kjøpet får man også utviklet seg både musikalsk og personlig. Man får en selvdisiplin og en respekt for andre mennesker som er uvurderlig i det videre liv.

Domkirkens kormiljø er fantastisk. På tross av at guttekoret gjennomgår en liten overgangsperiode i disse dager kommer Domkirkens Guttekor selvfølgelig til å bestå. En fantastisk gruppe mennesker, sangerne inkludert, gir veldig mye av seg selv for at guttekoret skal bli så bra som overhodet mulig for alle som synger i det. Jeg er ikke i tvil om at det å synge i guttekoret alltid vil være “jysla kjekt.”

Christian Leoonard Quale - Tidligere korgutt

The internet really isn't that great... Comparatively

Sat Nov 13 00:00:00 -0800 2010

Milan Cathedral. Picture by Jiuguang Wang.

Don’t tell my insurance-company, but sometimes I engage in one of these hazardous new-age activities known as “thinking”. When I get around to doing this, I often find myself thinking about how great the internet is. After all, it is so young, contains just about all the information anyone would ever want, and allows almost everyone to communicate with anyone regardless of where or who they are. An idea can be turned into a million dollars in a week, the barrier of entry is so low that a 13 year old with an idea, some skills and the willingness to put in the effort has the opportunity to create the new Facebook or Google. However, the other day something weird happened. I started thinking about something else. I started thinking about everything that isn’t the internet.

Really. Look away from your computer. There are probably some buildings close to where you are sitting. In fact, you are probably sitting in one. See those power-lines? Think about the power-grid! Imagine the organisation that has gone into designing it, the effort and thought that goes into making sure it is supplied so that your computer can function.

Public transport. Imagine how many wheels are in motion at all times, literally. How well all of it is organised most of the time. Skyscrapers are being built. Drawings, no, visions are created. Visions that may some day become reality. It would be impossible for one human being, even given an entire lifetime, to realise the dreams of the architect. But when a lot of people work in a coordinated way towards a common goal - you don’t even have to imagine what could be achieved. You just have to look at what we have.

Image by Wikipedia-user, "Someformofhuman."

Look at the extensive network of roads and railways. We take them for granted, but we would be helpless without them. New roads and railway-lines are constructed all the time. When a new stretch of road is created it might take a few years. This seems painfully slow, doesn’t it? The internet has made us all horribly impatient. We are too used to getting everything right away. If it takes you more than a few hours to respond to an e-mail you are obviously not in touch with the world around you. We want, no, we need all news as it happens. If someone somewhere kicks a ball into a net we demand to be informed of it instantly.

Surely, nothing that takes all of a few years to finish can be worth the time it takes. It’s so sloooowwww… Yet, the roads created today may well still be used 150 years from now and will probably be taken for granted in the same way as we take our roads for granted.

It might just be me, but sometimes I get a feeling that I am all too ignorant about the “slow” things around me. Sure, I am “wired in” to the world through the internet. I know how to automatically make an alarm-clock trigger based on when my calendar tells me I should get up, I know how to look up almost anything using Google, I know how to use technology in a wide range of ways I am sure a lot of people don’t. It’s all too easy for people like me to judge people who perhaps don’t know all these things. After all, computers and the internet is our future, right? Surely one would have to be stupid, or at least without a realistic outlook to brush it aside without further thought as unnecessary and pointless… right?

Or perhaps not. Perhaps someone who doesn’t use Facebook, who has a mobile phone that can only make calls and send texts, who doesn’t use the computer every day, perhaps they are realising something we are too distracted to realise. Perhaps we are all too busy playing with our fancy gadgets to really look at the world around us. I know that I am. In 400 years, what will be remembered? The website or the iPhone app that made the maker a famous millionaire in a week, or the iconic building it took 200 anonymous workers 5 years to build?

It sometimes occurs to me that the internet is a great arena for a lot of money to switch hands without anything of real value being created. Huge chunks of our lives are dedicated to volatile pieces of data stored in magnetic hard-drives in locations unknown to us. I just hope there are enough people out there actually doing something more permanent than moving data around. Some day I might too. I really hope I will. Perhaps the internet and my knowledge of technology will assist me in this. I really hope it will.

But if you will excuse me, I have to get back to writing a report on how I designed circuits that add and multiply numbers in a way that allowed me to type “Hello!” on one computer and have the message go through a series of electronics before it appeared on a screen. Hopefully you are doing something a little more worth while.

Image of New York by David Iliff.

My Best First Job Ever

Sun Aug 08 00:00:00 -0700 2010

As I mentioned in the previous post, this summer I am employed as a summer intern at Opera Software in the department of Quality Assurance on mobile devices. This post is about the first four of my eight weeks there.

Opera. Chances are you have heard of them. What about Statoil? Telenor? DNB NOR? Hydro? Unless you are Norwegian I doubt you will have heard of most of them. Why would you? They’re only Norway’s four largest companies. Opera is not one of Norway’s four, or even fifty largest companies, yet, chances are you have probably heard of them. Of course, relatively speaking they have quite a small market-share, but I would still say Opera is a significant actor in the play that is the technology-industry on the stage that is the internet. Sure, Microsoft, Google and Mozilla may be the father, mother and son, but Opera would at least be the cool, slightly quirky, uncle who just returned from the jungle having found a long-lost treasure. You know, the character the audience wishes they were more like. I digress, but the point I am trying to make is that being a bit of a geek, working for Opera is cool. Very cool. Aside from everything else, just having a job in a company like Opera is something I hadn’t at all been expecting to happen, and being given the opportunity to see a company like Opera from the inside is amazing. Turns out, actually working there is amazing too.

Aside from everything else, the educational value of the past weeks has been immense. Granted, this is my first job, so I probably have quite a bit to catch up on. I knew it was going to be a learning-experience, but the way in which it has been was far from what I expected. It’s hard to think of, let alone describe, exactly how it has been educational. It’s like having been dropped into something rather familiar, but completely new.

One of the less obvious aspects of having a job is that one actually has to work. The first days I naturally spent getting to know the place. By day three I had found out how to actually exit the building, and could focus on getting my head around the work that was being done there. I fared well, had three weeks of fairly relaxing, consistent, bug-finding and general Quality Assurance’y stuff. Then week four came along.

My desk on Thursday of week 4. During Friday the post-its became even more plentiful, until I finally transferred them all into a note-book.

A bit of a back-story is needed to understand week four. Apparently some people, especially those who work permanently at Opera, like going on vacation to places that isn’t Opera, and doing something that isn’t work. At the end of week three my mentor, the other QA-guy working on the project I was working on, went on holiday for a week. Also at the end of week three, the project manager went away for a three week vacation. As a consequence of this the head QA, who had returned from vacation a week previously, was temporarily made Project Manager. The net result of this was that I was the only guy working as a QA on the specific project for the week. On the top of this, Thursday of week four was a milestone for the project, i.e, it was bound to be hectic.

I have signed an NDA, so I probably can’t really go into specifics about what I did, but I was doing stuff related to a thing running on a gadget thingy-thing and another thing. It’s not that I didn’t have things to do the previous weeks, but a lot of time was spent “randomly” looking for bugs. Week four wasn’t like that. Week four was busy. Very busy. I spent a lot of time trying to do stuff I had never done before in a way that wasn’t too wrong. I didn’t really have the time to worry about if I was doing it correctly or not, I just had to do it. I even think I did ok. It was a very busy week, but it was also the most fun week I have had in a long time.

Overall, being half way through my summer internship, the conclusion is that I have really, really enjoyed myself. The working environment is wonderful and inviting, and the people are great. I’ve basically just come in and crashed their party, but I feel like I have been welcomed and even kind of integrated into the team. I feel like I am actually adding some value, and while I am still trying to get over the confusion of someone being crazy enough to pay me for doing something, I at least feel that I am doing some work for my salary.

I would go on with singing Operas praises, but I spent all my energy thinking of that pun. I won’t go into detail on the great canteen, assorted free hot and cold drinks and the other general wonders and perks of the office. It is all very well and nice, but not really important. The important thing, at least to me, is that after four weeks I still look forward to going to work every day, and I think that is pretty much the highest praise that can be given to any job. I am very thankful to Opera for making my first job-experience this good. Quite a significantly placed yardstick has really set by which I will rate my future jobs.

The one in which I go to the Opera

Sun Jul 18 00:00:00 -0700 2010

I’m lucky. Very lucky. Before summer I applied for a summer internship doing Quality Assurance in the mobile devices department at Opera Software. I had no real expectations about actually getting the job, but to make a long story short, I got it. Now, a week into it, I am happier than ever that I did.

The job is in Oslo, one of those towns in which I don’t live. Luckily my grandma is kind enough to provide me with shelter for the 8 weeks I am going to be working here. The minor snag is that she lives outside of Oslo. However, the trains are frequent and quick, and unless someone was to decide to do something silly like shutting them all down for three weeks for maintaining the railway lines, it would be no problem at all. Of course, that is what they did, leaving me to engage in the mighty battle of the busses. This may not seem too bad, and really, it isn’t. There are a lot of busses and trams in Oslo, probably a bit too many. In advance I had taken note of a few busses which went from the general area I wanted to travel from, and in the general direction I wanted to go in.

This photo is relevant because Oslo Central Station is in it.

Saying that I felt well prepared would be an overstatement, but as my uncle was kind enough to give me a lift to Oslo for ten to nine, I was pretty confident that I would somehow get to work by 10am. Having acquired a 30 day all-access card to public transport in Oslo I was still left with 50 minutes for the 4 minute subway-trip to the bus-stop, and the 8 minute bus-ride to Opera Software. Quite content with my strategy I happily walked towards the subway station. I asked a smiling subway-ticket-attendant which metal box I had to go into for it to take me in the right direction. She was only too happy to point me in the wrong direction, and I swiftly walked down to the wrong subway line and into a train that went the wrong way.

I sat on this train, half wondering how the birds that woke me up at 4am were likely to be spending their morning, when I realised that something was wrong. I scrambled out of the train, and with the air of someone trying too hard to look like he knows what he is doing, I set about finding my way to the other side of the tracks, a task which is harder than one should think it is. I eventually started moving in the right direction, but it was obvious that my casual journey was now becoming more of a squeeze.

Now, the two stations I was travelling between, Oslo Central Station and Nationaltheateret, are not that for from each other, and provided you get on the train in the right direction, almost every train from one station also passes by the other station. The one I randomly got on was the one that didn’t. The train I got on stops between the two, at the parliament. It was time to run.

What I look like according to Opera, aka. me after having sprinted through Oslo.

Of course, it could have been worse. I knew where I was, and I knew where I had to go to catch the bus. It took me something like eight minutes to run to the bus-stop, and three additional minutes to realise I was waiting for the bus on the wrong side of the road. I mentally made some estimations, and calculated that if a bus were to arrive within three minutes I would be fine for time. The bus showed up five minutes later.

I was so busy checking the time every thirty seconds that I hardly had the time to irritate myself over the fact that the bus also conveniently stopped right outside of the subway-station I had been running from quarter of an hour previously. I then had to engage in another sprint before I reached the building in which Opera have their headquarters. I walked into the Opera reception one minute past ten, warm, sweaty and slightly disoriented. The woman in the reception decided that that would be a wonderful moment to take a picture of me for my access-card and my intranet staff-page.

Having waited in reception for about twenty minutes (human resources was running late) I got to sign my contract. As of that moment I could call myself an employee of Opera Software, and it’s wonderful. Expect a post about it in a week or so.

Why singing in a choir is a lot more fun than you think it is - Denmark, part 3

Thu Jul 08 00:00:00 -0700 2010

This is a continuation of part 2.

This will be the final post in this series of Denmark-posts, I promise. I didn’t want to make the other posts too long, for the sake of the few of you who will have read them. This post will be about the choir-competition, the amazing people I’ve sung with, and how I feel singing in choirs is an experience no one will understand until they have tried.

Elisabeth Holte receives the third prize on behalf of Uranienborg Vokalensemble. Photo by Jacob Mathiasen.

First things first, the choir-competition. Parallel with, or rather, as a part of the festival, a choir-competition was held with six great choirs from around the world. Uranienborg Vokalensemble from Oslo happened to be one of them. They also happen to have the same conductor as Cantus Aeterna, Elisabeth Holte. They sang brilliantly at the first two concerts, one of which I witnessed, and managed to qualify as one of the top three choirs, earning them a place in the final. The final became an interesting, rather unusual, but very engaging and fun experience for us in Cantus Aeterna. Someone had bought face-paint and flags. This resulted in almost all of us showing up to the formal, serious, high-brow, broadcast-live-on-radio choir-competition-final waving Norwegian paper flags and having Norwegian flags painted onto our faces. Despite us pulling off multiple Mexican waves (when nobody was singing of course), Uranienborg Vokalensemble only placed third in the competition, with the two other choirs jointly winning. Of course, we all thought UV did very well and should have won. Judging by the amount of people who came up to us, having somehow guessed what choir we were supporting, we were far from alone in thinking they were the best. Still, it becomes a matter of opinion, so congratulations to Ekatarinburg Municipal Choir from Russia and Kammerkoret Camerata from Denmark on winning.

Now, some words about the social aspects of being in Denmark with Cantus Aeterna, hanging out with the other choirs, and generally singing in choirs.

Male singers during the workshop. Photo by Jussi Mattila.

People from all over the world sing in choirs, and I am sure singers in all of them have similar experiences, no matter what kind of music they are singing, regardless of where they sing it. They all feel the thrill of singing in a concert and the satisfaction afterwards when the choir has performed well. The same subtle unspoken messages are passed between singers of the same voice everywhere, “yup, that note is a horrible one”, “Yes! We finally managed those five bars without any mistakes!”, “Ooops, my bad”. I hesitate to say that a choir is like a well-oiled machine, because it’s not and I don’t think it should be. It’s too human for that. It truly is a group of people playing on a team, all doing their utmost to make the choir as a whole as good as possible.

A lot, of course, depends on the conductor, a department in which I consider myself to have been very fortunate. This is of course open to debate, and I am far from impartial, but I firmly believe that I have been fortunate enough to sing under two of the best conductors Norway has to offer, Arne Hadland, who has now retired, and the afore mentioned Elisabeth Holte. They are both brilliant in very different ways. Having sung under Arne for 12 of the 13 years I have spent in choirs, having had Elisabeth conducting Cantus this past year was quite a contrast, and an experience for which I am very grateful. Having read a description given of her during the live radio-broadcast of the competition-final, it is hard to put it any other way; she doesn’t conduct the music, she paints it. Elisabeth really believes in the wonder and excitement derived from music being a unique product every time it is performed. A piece really may sound completely different from concert to concert depending on how she, in that specific moment, decides to conduct it. As a singer this is of course rather challenging. It relies on the choir being good, and is completely dependent on every single member of the choir paying close attention to the conductor, but when you finish a piece you have sung dozens of times and think “Wow, I never imagined it sounding like that. That was wonderful!” it really is worth it. I am very grateful to Elisabeth for having “used” Cantus Aeterna to do this, and the results of it have been fantastic. The confidence she puts in the choir when making them do something “live” which they have never done before is amazing, and the risks pay off almost every time.

Hanne, Ingrid and Johanne from Cantus Aeterna.

As for Arne Hadland, it would take 3 blog-posts of their own to even begin to describe him. He is considered a regional treasure within the Stavanger choir-community, is the first and so far only person within his field to have been awarded with a royal medal for services to society, and has an unparalleled ability to make everyone who has ever met him feel like his closest friend. Having sung almost weekly with him for 11 years I am still not quite sure of exactly how he does it, but he manages to extract the same enthusiasm for music from everyone, be it 8 year old boys or 55 year old men. He has, and will continue to mean so much to so many, including myself. Even though he has retired I am hopeful that he will still do some choir-related stuff here and there, and I will do my very best to be there when that happens.

The conductor aside, most importantly, a choir is a group of people who genuinely love singing. What happens when a group of people who love to sing get together? They sing. That is one of my favourite things about socialising with other choir-singers, the collective random singing that happens almost automatically when a bunch of them gets together. I have experienced it a lot when being at gatherings with Cantus Aeterna, and I was interested to see if it would also happen in a more international setting. It did.

There generally wasn’t much time for socialising with the other Nordic youth-choirs. However, on our last night in Denmark we managed to make something happen. After the Swedish and Finnish choir had sung a few pieces at the festival-wide evening social at Ridehuset (Most of Cantus Aeterna weren’t there, so no singing from us), a few of us who were there from Cantus decided to try something. We were going to teach the Finnish choir one of our songs, a Swedish folk-tune we have used at the end of our concerts. The Finnish choir were, of course, up for a bit of fun, so it didn’t take long for all forty-odd of them to assemble outside Ridehuset on the lawn. We had barely started teaching them the tune before something somewhat predictable happened. Shockingly the Swedish choir also knew the Swedish folk-tune, so they came onto the lawn and started singing along with us. In no time the Finnish choir had also picked it up, and we stood on the lawn, probably 70 or so youthful singers, singing loudly at about 11 pm.

The youth-choirs on stage during the workshop concert. Photo by Jacob Mathiasen.

This got the ball rolling, and the Swedish folk-tune glided over in one of the songs we had been taught in the workshop. Pasi would have been proud. Then it continued from there. Various popular music started getting sung, and we were on the lawn singing Bon Jovi, Queen, Greece and various other singalong songs. Having a large group of competent singers singing something like Bohemian Rhapsody becomes very interesting in a very cool way, and it is a very good way of spending a Saturday night.

When the singing had broken up I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with a large group of Finnish people. There is this old saying, “Never hang out with a group of Finnish people without having at least one other Norwegian person with you as a backup”, so I teamed up with Ingrid from Cantus. There isn’t much to say other than that I really had a very fun evening just sitting and talking to quite a large number of people from the Finnish choir. I’ve never really spent much time with Finnish people before, and there are a lot of different prejudices to discuss and jokes to tell.

I really am extremely grateful for a lot of things in life, and what I have experienced through choirs is certainly one of them. I can’t think of a way in which I would otherwise have met so many brilliant, genuinely talented people as I have through choir-music. A lot of people say I have a very positive outlook on the world, and for me it is not hard to see why. Through singing in choirs I have seen so much greatness, genuine kindness, caring and dedication that it seems ridiculous for me not to have a positive outlook. While I will probably end up being an Engineer, Computer Scientist or a combination of the two, I will always endeavour to continue singing in choirs.

Even though hardly anyone will still be reading this I want to give my sincerest thanks to every single person I have ever been involved with through choirs, the conductors I have had, and the people I have sung with. I also want to extend thanks to the choirs from Denmark, Sweden and especially everyone I spoke to from the Finnish choir for making my trip in Denmark what is was. I want to thank everyone in Cantus Aeterna, Arne and Elisabeth for giving me the experience that has been Cantus Aeterna.

I’m a choir-boy, and whatever happens, I always will be.

Jacob Mathiasen’s website.

Music, heat and hens - Denmark, part 2

Tue Jul 06 00:00:00 -0700 2010

This is a continuation of part 1.

Having arrived and settled in, it was time to delve into the many charms of festival life. While the previous-post was more or less a chronological description of events, this post will be disjointed, discussing general aspects of the afore mentioned festival life in Denmark.

People eating in Ridehuset.

I am sure a lot of the festival-attendees would claim to live on the artistic satisfaction, joy, pleasure and cultural nourishment that is achieved through creating music, but if you decide to push the point, or if they are hungry, most of them would also admit to needing actual food. At a catered festival as large as this choir-festival there are a lot of mouths to feed. I was therefore cautiously sceptical of how meal-times would play out. The first dinner seemed to validate my scepticism. Before the opening concert on Tuesday we were all very hungry and needed to eat. Using our collective sense of smell the choir walked hungrily towards the building in which people seemed to be eating, Ridehuset, or, “The riding house.” At the door we were politely told to go away and eat where we were supposed to eat, in a nearby building called the “red pavilion.” We then set off, much like a flock of happy sheep, to the red pavilion. Imagine our shock, dismay, disappointment and deflation at discovering there wasn’t any food there and being told to go back to Ridehuset. With an air of children having been denied their strawberry and chocolate ice-cream with sprinkles on the top we walked back to Ridehuset, and were admitted after some polite discussion. Ridehuset turned out to be a huge hall with hundreds of metres worth of long tables in it. It was also almost empty. Our ancient survival-instincts led us in the direction of the serving-place in the corner. Having picked up our takeaway-boxes consisting of overcooked noodles with some meat unenthusiastically slobbered on top of them, we politely asked a guy who seemed like he might be in charge which one of the tables in the huge empty hall we were permitted to occupy. We were told to take our food and go back to the red pavilion.

To summarise, the first meal was not exactly ideal. Luckily this turned out not to be at all typical of the festival. Sure, there were a few minor problems when over 150 people tried helping themselves to a buffet at once. Apparently some choir-people just don’t know how to conduct themselves when queuing. (conduct themselves… get it? get it?) However, overall the meals all turned out to be a lot better than I expected them to be. Despite the few hitches here and there, meal-time became something to look forward to.

Pasi Hyökki

A thing one does at a choir-festival, apart from eating, is sing. Whilst in Denmark I was part of two lunch-concerts with Cantus Aeterna, and a workshop with Nordic (read: mostly Finnish) music along with all the other youth choirs. Before the workshop commenced we were curious as to what it would be and how we would find it. Would the music be simple? Would the workshop be boring? Would we be allowed water? Having stumbled into the Rythmical Hall we were greeted by our conductor for the week, Mr. Pasi Hyökki. Now, this is very hard to describe, but there is something inexplicably charming about hearing Finnish people speak English. Don’t get me wrong, their English is very good, but there are certain consistent intonations which just makes one want to go ”d’awwww”. Of course, in addition to being Finnish, Pasi was also a great conductor, and has also won awards for it according to a brochure we were given. When he is not conducting choirs he is a professional within the field of singing soprano.

Then we had a look at the music. A lot could be said about the music, but some of it was close to the most difficult music a lot of us had ever seen. And most of us have seen quite a lot of difficult music. There was a “Nordic Suite” by Bo Holten which included melodies from Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. The tune from Norway, and the conclusion of the piece was “Pål sine høner”, in English: “Pål’s hens”, a traditional Norwegian song about a guy losing his hens, the hens getting eaten by a fox, and his parents getting angry at him, which I can’t help but think was arranged a little sarcastically by Bo.

Pasi The altos to my right trying their best to sing approximately the correct notes, at approximately the right time while trying to pronounce Finnish.

Sarcastically arranged, fancy-sounding, Norwegian folk-tunes for 5 voices? I loved it. Apart from the Nordic Suite there were also other pieces in Finnish and Danish. Singing in Finnish was an… interesting… experience, especially as we had to sing at a rather breakneck speed. Despite no one knowing anything properly, the workshop concert on Saturday was pretty good, and more importantly, really fun for those of us who sang in it. A lot of credit has to be given to Pasi Hyökki for navigating over 100 singers through all the pieces in only three days, and making the concluding concert sound really good.

As for the concerts with Cantus Aeterna, they were fun as always. There is this really amazing feeling one gets when one feels like one has just been part of a great concert, and one feels the audience really likes it. As has become a habit with Cantus Aeterna concerts, I got those feelings after both concerts. The first concert was held in århus cathedral, a very, very, very long church. Imagine you have a cup of normal church-acoustics. Then those acoustics are echoed through another church. Then again through another church. That is what the acoustics in the Cathedral are like.

The second concert, in St. Pauls Church, was Cantus’ last concert (for now). My feelings about it were rather mixed. On one hand the concert was great, the audience loved it and gave us a standing ovation. On the other hand, it made me realise more than ever how much I will miss the choir.

At the last social gathering in Ridehuset one of the people in charge joked along the lines of: “And let’s all thank the staff of the cathedral and other churches, for doing their part in giving us this fantastic weather!” And the weather was fantastic throughout the week. Brutal, but fantastic. Based on the week we had one could be forgiven for thinking one had accidentally travelled to Spain, or as I put it to some Finnish singers, for thinking one had walked into a giant sauna. I found it a little too sizzling, but I am sure the majority quite enjoyed it.

Once again I am running long, so this concludes part 2. Stay tuned (using a fork if required) for the third and final part in which Uranienborg Vokalensemble almost wins a competition, I actually speak to people and I attempt to explain why singing in a choir is probably one of the most fun and enriching things one can be a part of. Part 3 can now be found here.

Photo by Jacob Mathiasen taken from here.