No Monday

This week had no monday in it so thought today was tuesday and tuesday was monday. Didn't seem to make any difference lthough would have probably noticed on the way home when i was too early for my flight. I think the organisers would have said something too when I left early. I have one participant who is from Norway, when I was doing the introductions i spoke to her in Norsk then turned to the rest and said "I'm just showing off that I can speak Norwegian" She quickly replied "well I didn't understand a word he said" mm cheers, a good start eh. Did about practical work today, I enjoy this bit best, talking about pl(a)sticene (IB joke) and stuff. Told them about the Van de graaf generator we have at the college, it used to make huge sparks although not quite as big as the ones that I told the group it made. It was pretty evil though, it's probably illegal. Was discussing the college alcohol policy with a teacher from another UWC, said about my idea of having Natt Ugle. She reckoned we were completely bonkers to even consider it. Not bonkers just Nordic. Puts things into perspective a bit, you tend to forget what the rest of the world is like. Going out for an expensive meal tonight coutesy of the IB, have heard that we will have to do Greek dancing, I hope not.

Small Fish

Went for a meal last night in a restaurant on the beach. Had a plate full of small fish (along with some other things) which for some reason I thought you could eat all of, struggled on the tail and decided not to go for the head. Today went well, I think. General IB stuff aren't my favourite topics will be happier when we get down to the nitty gritty. "Nitty gritty" was one of Tony Macouns catch phrases (husdband of Ann macoun of Ann Macouns garden fame), I wonder if he uses the same ones in every school or if he has new ones each time he moves. Another one was "touch base" and that's all I can remember at the moment. Did a bit more sunbathing today but just half an hour, also went for a swim. I remember when I used to sun bath for whole days covered in oil. By the end of the day I'd be completely red but being colour blind would think I had a nice tan. I remember a German tourist coming up to me and saying "you look like a prown". I once spent a whole night lying under a cold shower trying to cool down the raging heat of my nice sun tan. Seems to be the ankles that get hit worst, maybe it's something to do with thinness. So do thin people burn more than fat people?

Athens

Here I am in Athens. It's very hot but windy so sunburn is a real possibility so bought some factor 20. Never bought the stuff before, everyone was impressed when I came out of the shop with Viche. I'm not saying the area I'm staying in is posh but there is a Lambo parked outside the hotel. Haven't heard from Nikos but saw someone who looked like him on the beach, same hair style at least. Had my hair cut this morning, had to ask for more cut off the top otherwise I'd have got the same style too. Bought some trendy swim shorts, first time I've worn shorts for a long time. Had a Greek salad for lunch, not impressed, shows that it takes more than just being in Greece to make a Greek salad. Going out to a restaurant this evening with the other leaders, pity I can't fully appreciate the local wine since I have to perform tomorrow, maybe one glass will be Ok.

Well I'm still here

It's raining again so all of you in hot countries sitting in the sun can gloat. This includes Hilary who is sailing in the caribbean at the moment. She got a cheap deal with a bunch of friends then found out why it was a cheap time of year...... Hurricane season.
Went to Raudbua bolting this morning but was repulsed by a million mosquitoes.
Almost died. Was pulling the rope round a tree and it got stuck so I gave it an extra big tug and it released suddenly, I nearly fell off the edge of the cliff. As I abseiled down I kept imagining myself flying through the air, these type of thoughts are best not had. Luckily I've had alot of these near misses in my life so I am used to dealing with it, no harm done eh. Saw an owl, not often you see one in the daylight, not often you see one in the dark for that matter.
Just had to sort out some complicated business to do with driving to a football match (Rowan is playing not me, I hate football remember), speaking Norwegian on the phone makes me sweat. All I have to do is pick up the phone, say Hei and I'm soaking. Could be useful in the winter.

Silent Room

Just a quick post to say how the building work is coming on around the campus. The silent room has its roof on. This is a building that used to be in Dale, it was taken down and moved to the college. The plan was that it would be rebuilt and used as a silent room where people could meditate. It's probably a fact that most meditation now takes place at smokers corner, the smokers are the people who regularly take time out to have a few moments to themselves, nature and a fag. I don't think that the silent room is supposed to be a smokers room however the family giving the money made it by the selling cigs. Anyway this building was taken down and moved to the college, why was it taken down? Because it was very old, and guess what, it's rotten. Isn't that surprising, a 100 year old building that no one else wanted is rotten. But don't worry we are getting a brand new replica of the old building. It seems that it costs the same to build new as to renovate the old. Here is a pic. Did you know that smoke preserves organic material ........ just a thought.

Computer Programming

Yes, I had a meeting today and it's the holiday! It was an IT meeting looking at what needs to be done over the holiday or should I say over the time that the students and teachers aren't here 'cos it's not holiday for everyone. It's frustrating having so many ideas about how the intranet could make everyones life easier but not having the knowledge to make it happen. I'm starting to wonder if I should start teaching myself how to do this coding business ( I say teach myself because I know I could never sit through lectures on such a boring topic). Trouble is it's not really my cup of tea, the last time I did any programming was at university some 30 years ago, it was horrible. My programmes never worked and they were only supposed to find square roots and plot best fit lines. I would think things are easier now with compilers and the like. I did a very little bit of visual basic in access and that was OK with a compiler. I think I am too sloppy and this isn't good in programming, use the wrong bracket and the whole thing doesn't work. When I watched Thomas at work it looked incomprehensible. I don't even know where to start, should I take a course? Which language? How long does it take? Anyway I want to be a chef. I had a place on a course to be a systems analyst once. I was teaching in an inner city comprehensive school in Coventry, it was so horrendous that I applied as an escape. Can't remember why I didn't go for it but I'm glad I didn't.
Raudbua again this evening to try the first and biggest line through the roof. Also found a new boulder. How come I never saw that one before?
Watched a bit of football yesterday, that Rohaldino or whatever he's called is pretty good. Read in the paper about him, the main point was that he is very happy and smiles all the time. This is obviously very unsual for footballers. It's because they are all so scared that if their team loses they will be blamed, that's why they get paid so much money. Rohaldino is so good he never gets blamed therefore happy :-) The moral is; only do something competitively if you are really good at it.
I did the route at Raudbua;
Tusen Tak 7b
The name is supposed to some sort of Norwegian play on words, Tak means roof and the route is a roof. Tusen Takk means a thousand thanks. I'm going to name all the roof routes like this. I've just got back from a Jacob Sande evening with Flekke school, he is a local poet who is having some sort of big anniversary this year so i'm calling all the routes after his poems. This one is;
Morgon på kobbeskjeret

Raudbua

I've just got back from the new super crag at Raudbua (see pic). So far I've bolted the central crackline which looks like it will be a superb route. The walk into raudbua is getting more and more boggy, this could be my introduction week project. If I get a lorry load of nice flat stones dropped off at the start of the path then the first years can carry them in and lay them down. I reckon we could carry in about 400 stones, that would make a big difference. If we did this every year then in about 5 years time there would be a raelly nice path. Students and haugland clients could then enjoy the environment as they walk along the nice dry path as opposed to hating it as walk through knee deep mud. Sign me up for greenpeace.

Two Blogs is not better than one

Having two blogs is a bit of a pain, I'm spending so much time making the other one look nice that i don't get time to write on this one, the other one is "Haugland Bouldering.blogspot.com" check it out if you're into that stuff. Weather is scorching today (Norwegian Temp scale). The bouldering was good yesterday although Jaran didn't do any of my projects. The meal I cooked on saturday night over in Jensbua was a big success and they all ate my mayonaise and not the bought stuff :-)
I quite fancy being a chef, I often think that is what I should have done, problem is the hours are bad and the holidays are crap. It's much more creative than teaching and the customers are more directly appreciative. I might take a year off and try cooking full time. This deal at Lillingstonheim/Jensbua is a real good thing. Basically there is a ready made restaurant that I am welcome to cook in when ever I want to, I get a cut of the takings. I was thinking about this food business the other night, I reckon that all the thought and care that goes into making something actualy comes out in the eating. I think the customers could taste the effort that we went to to get the freshest mussels and fish and they could see how much care I had taken to get the pastries right. For now it's going to be the odd weekend but it's good to the possibilty to do something different, saves me from feeling trapped.
Cut the grass in our garden today, i was going to use the motor strimmer but it was such a beautiful day I didn't want to make a lot of noise so I did it by hand with a scythe, very satisfying, no more difficult and more environmentaly friendly. Better be careful with all this environmtal talk and beard growing or I'll end up tied to a whaling boat or something.

New Blog

Blogger has been down for a couple of days so haven't posted for a while. I got in touch with the Greek, hopefully we'll meet up. I've started a new blog, well it isn't really a blog at all it is a bouldering guide to Haugland, I'm just using blogger as a way of posting it. I won't put a link up yest because it's only contains trial stuff at the moment. Tomorrow is that meal I'm cooking at lillingstonheim. It's mainly fish (no mussels yet the guy forgot that we were going to pick them) and seafood, I've made some mayonaise but Are Morten (the guy who runs lillinstonheim) reckons we should get some bought stuff too incase they don't like it. How can anyone prefer bought mayonaise to home made? Also this weekend a climber from Høyanger is visiting to go bouldering, at last someone will appreciate all the hard work that has gone into brushing them. He's pretty good too so it will motivate me to climb harder and maybe do one of my projects, or maybe he'll do them all.
Not many teachers left here now, most leave either with the students or soon after. I can't understand why people put up with living here all winter and then go away in the summer. Apart from the week in Athens I'm staying here. My big project this summer is to bolt up the cliff at Raudbua. For some reason I have ignored it's potential these past eleven years, I abbed down it the other day and it looks very good, some very hard lines over a big roof.
Went to a dugnad last night, this is a Norwegain thing where people do voluntary work to save money or raise money for a community project. I was painting the sports hall. They reckon on saving 60,000 Kroner by doing this. Made me think about the college. How much money could we save if students and teachers painted the buildings? I bet we could afford a new bus. But on the other hand 3 hours was about enough thankyou very much.

Holidays

Haven't written anything for a few days but it's not because I'm busy. We used to call this time may-june, that's a sort of rcnuwc unit of time a way of creating more time by fitting something between the months. It's not exactly the busiest time of year (although I'm not complaining) since second years have gone and first years just have one class a day. This is great for doing long practicals and there is a lot of time between. I have to keep explaining to my neighbours that the holiday hasn't started yet, "life of Riley". I suppose I could fill my time with work related activities but when I am asked if I would like to be involved with x I answer honestly and if I would not like to be involved I say so. That's not to say that I am not at work at all, in fact I've spent a lot of extra hours in the lab supervising some interesting "extended essays" (IB stuff). For those into physics one is about the rate at which gas comes out of a small hole related to molecular mass of gas. Another is on the pressure wave caused by a closing door and another to do with measuring the force when a platicine ball hits the ground.
Went salmon fishing yesterday but didn't catch anything. I did get one on the hook for 5 minutes but lost it. A student caught a 5.5Kg fish, I'll post a photo if she lets me (she did, nice photo eh?). I think this is the first time an rcnuwc student has caught a salmon.
So I can't really say I'm looking forward to the holiday because it's pretty much started, however I am looking forward to some of the things I'll be doing. One of those is going to Athens. I'm actualy working there for a week teaching teachers about IB Physics but I do get some free time. Not sure what I'll do though, I'm not into fallen down buildings. Hopefully I will meet up with one of my advisees from last year, Nikos, I've emailed him but haven't got an answer yet, which isn't surprising since it was only an hour ago that I sent it. Not sure what we'll do if we do meet. I can't see him sitting in a quiet restaurant eating a nice meal, drinking fine wine and watching the world go by, and I can't see me break dancing on the floor at an underground rave party. We'll see. What ever happens I'll blog it (maybe).

Pebbles and shoes

It's raining, most of student's are at Svanøy (an ecology field trip) except the ones doing physics (well if the physics students don't go I don't see why the physics teacher should). Went climbing yesterday, felt rubbish, maybe it's my new found strength. A bit like driving a powerful car for the firts time, hard to handle the power, well I hope so anyway (remember think positive). Trying out a new bread recipe that I might use next weekend when I'm cooking for a group of hill walkers. Cooking is one of my interests which may seem strange for someone who has to keep his weight down, it's actually not strange at all though, all of us serious dieters are obsessed with food.
Ben has a quite annoying habit, he likes to drink water from the shower in the bathroom, the problem is he can't turn on the shower himself. So he stands in the bath barking until someone comes, he then jumps out and waits for you to turn on the tap as in the picture. It's strange what animals learn. That goes for humans too, when we lived on "teachers hill" we had a neighbour with a small son, he was about 2 years old and sometimes used to wander into our house with handfuls of pebbles, I thought it would be fun to teach him that pebbles went into shoes. He'd come round and I'd say pebbles go into shoes and drop one in a shoe. Some years later I told this to his parents, they'd been wondering for years why he always filled their shoes with pebbles. By the way, don't try this with your own kids.
Why do I find friends so funny? I think south park is funny too.

The Book and two types of muscle

The strained shoulder muscle (type 1) doesn't appear to be serious since it hasn't stiffened up over night, so off to myggveggen this evening for the first time this year. Just been up to the book for gthe 110th time this year. Almost everyday I walk up there and sign this book, my ambition is to sign a whole page (it's good to have achievable ambitions). Problem is everytime I get close someone jumps in. The page in the picture is the closest yet. I suppose I could hide the book for 20 days but what would be the point, I'd be world famous but inside I'd know that I'd cheated. (If it had been March then that last sentence could have been the I'ds of March).
I have to buy 10kg of mussels (type 2) today for a meal I am helping to cook in 10 days time. This is not as easy as it sounds because you can't buy them in a shop I have to ask someone who owns a "mussel farm" he will have to go and pick them so I hope he has time. Buying things in a foreign country can be a problem if you can't speak the language 100%. I once managed to buy 2cm of chain in the hardware store, that amounted to 1 link. I'm not sure on this occasion if it was my fault or the shop assistant, in Norway they have the policy of giving people with special needs proper jobs. I think this is a really good thing but it can be problematic when special shop assistant meets customer who can't speak Norwegian. Another thing about being an outsider is that you find that some people who want to be my friend are people that have no friends, sometimes this is for a very good reason. This can be a good thing since I am not prejudiced by things people have done in the past, however maybe sometimes I should be.
I realised today that one advantage of typing with one finger is that if I ever had my hands cut off I'd just have to have to tape a short pencil (rubber pointing out) to each stump and I could type normally.