photo contest

So, my employer had a recent photo contest for its employees. We can submit multiple pics, and the winning ones will get blown up, framed, and hung around the building.

I submitted all but a few of the ones found here. I'm not sure how many entries they had, but out of the ones I turned in, the judging committee selected the following 4:








They're ok, but those aren't my favorites.

trivia

My Norwegian teacher's gasping is starting to irritate me.

Norwegians have little conception of shared space, it seems. They don't move if you're trying to squeeze by them in a bar or walk past them in the street. As a result, you have to force your way through groups of them, and although it hasn't happened to me yet, I've heard several stories of Norwegians walking into people on an otherwise empty sidewalk.

The Norwegians apparently don't have (or use) a word for "love". Rather, they use a phrase that is the equivalent of "fond of". I believe they use it for food and inanimate objects as well as people.

scientologists

There are Scientologists in Oslo. It's disappointing. I walked by a group of them this weekend. They had set up a booth in one of the public squares and were offering free "stress tests" to passersby. They had exactly the same look and setup at the 'tologists who hassled passersby on 4th and Market in San Francisco -- same card table, same pile of "Dianetics" books, some sign proclaiming free stress tests.

In the stress tests, the hapless passerby is instructed to hold two metal cylinders in each hand, and then the Scientologist guides the person through some memory or other. From what I can piece together, the cylinder apparatus is a primitive measure of galvanic skin response, which is often used in psych experiments. The basic idea is to pass a small electric current through two electrodes attached to a person, and then present that person with something that will stress them out. Under even minor stress, the skin sweats a little bit, reducing the resistance between the two electrodes. As a result, you have a somewhat objective measure of how stressful some task or thought or other activity is to someone.

I think the cylinders try to do the same thing by passing a current between them, but I have no idea. Either way, while the Scientologist is guiding the passerby own Memory Lane, he or she notes points at which the device seems to register stress on the passerby's part. What happens next, I think, is that the 'tologist returns to whatever the passerby/victim as talking about whenever the machine indicated stress, and they talk more about it. The dialogue is probably peppered with the same kind of generic statements you might get from a psychic -- statements that could apply to anyone but sound like they're specific to you. The Scientologist will also likely play upon fears common to most people, providing some generic but useless platitudes to indicate that the passerby is not alone and that help and a better life is possible.

With that, the Scientologist will invite the suitably impressed passerby to the local Scientology "church", after which the passerby will turn over all of his or her money and will never be seen again.

For some reason, I hadn't expected Scandinavians to fall prey to the same kinds of insecurities that make Americans vulnerable to such cults.

smoking

The Norwegians smoke like chimneys, and very unself-consciously. There's no smoking in the workplace, though, so there are often clusters of people standing outside building entrances doing it. That annoys some people, so some businesses have constructed smoking booths outside for these people, so that they don't have to stand out in the cold but they're also not cluttering the entrance.

My lab placed its booth out in a corner of the parking lot. The booth is about 4' x 5', smaller than a garden shed, and made of clear plastic. The only object inside it is an ashtray on a pedestal.

The booth is somewhat amusing because the one or two people standing inside it -- silently smoking, standing in place and looking out the clear plastic walls -- look as if they're an exhibit. Or like they've been given a time out.

odds and ends

I started a new Norwegian class yesterday. The teacher is a gasper. It's distracting.

On another note, I believe I have the Norwegian Death Virus (the malignant strain, not the benign). I don't have a doctor, so I just went to urgent care. I spent 2 hours there before giving up and heading home to write my will. Another guy had been there for 5 hours before giving up. The clinic had to handle emergencies first, of course, but it doesn't give me much confidence in this state-funded health care system...

congenial

For some reason, the movie "Miss Congeniality" in Norwegian is called "Miss Undercover". I don't know why. Perhaps there's no word for "congeniality" in Norwegian.

leftovers

I learned that the concept of the doggie bag is apparently an American invention, and on that hasn't really spread outside the country.