Me -- a published writer?

Yes!! I have actually had my second piece of work published. The article I have written is about teaching abroad, and it can be found on page 35 in the very famous magazine "Språk og Språkundervisning" (Language and Language Teaching). I wrote the article in October last year, and it was published in nr. 2/2010. I feel quite proud, actually! It is called "Diktat og disiplin under Spanias hete sol". (My first published article was written for a magazine called "Reporter" in the early 1990s. I wrote about the production of the musical West Side Story in Brumunddal.)

An exotic moment!

Have you ever asked yourself: Where do the avocados come from? Well, I had never even thought about that until a couple of weeks ago, when a colleague told me there are avocado trees in Spain.

Avocado trees? Here? Well, there are trees with oranges, olives and almonds here, so why not have an avocado tree as well? And when I went to a garden party yesterday, in a beautiful, fantastic, astonishing garden about 15 minutes from Mijas (it reminded me of the scenery in the film "Much Ado About Nothing"!!!), I had a great and extremely exotic experience: I picked avocados from an avocado tree!! Wow! I have picked avocados! I have picked avocados! Tra-la-la!

Celebrations!

Dear friends and family in Norway: Enjoy the loooong weekend off! Enjoy it a lot! (For my foreign friends: Many people in Norway leave work today and go back to work on TUESDAY next week...)

There are lots of things that have surprised me with Spain, and one the things are the lack of public holidays. When I moved to this Catholic country I thought for instance Ascencion Day (tomorrow) would be celebrated. But no. And next weekend's "pentacoast" (what is the English word for "pinse"??) does not give a public holiday either ... Anyway -- enough complaints today! I will obviously have to study Catholicism in Spain in more detail... 

Oslo on the National Day (17 May)!

Talking about celebrations: I had a great birthday yesterday! :) Enjoyed presents from Norway and Spain (including nice Norwegian chocolate, ear rings, foot massage, and other stuff -- thanks everyone!), the happy birthday song performed in exotic languages such as English, Spanish and Russian, chocolates, birthday cards, drinks with friends, and at the choir rehearsal in the evening, the whole choir sung for me. A lovely birthday, in other words! (And when my students had sung the birthday song in all these languages, I taught them the song in Norwegian. Quite fun!!)

Monday is the National Day in Norway, the 17th of May! It will be celebrated with children's parades, hot dogs, games, bbqs etc. etc. in Norway. I wonder how it will be to celebrate it here? The Norwegian church in Calahonda has got this programme: http://www.sjomannskirken.no/costa-del-sol/kalender/17-mai-pa-sjomannskirken for the day, and I will go there after work. Hope there are some nice Norwegians there. (I really don't know anyone from Norway down here.)

Here are some pictures from the National Day last year with the teachers and students from Berg videregående skole, and the parade in the city centre.

 Karianne, me, Aase and Jean wearing our bunads (Berg vgs teachers)

 

Karl Johan, the Parade Street in Oslo, with the school children and the marching bands

The Royal Family.  Can you spot them?

And now my question to you is: How are you going to celebrate the National Day? I would appreciate if you would leave a comment here and tell me about your 17th May. Thanks!

GRATULERER MED DAGEN, ALLE NORDMENN!

My favourite song right now.

Susanne Sundfør: "It's all gone tomorrow". Listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dKi6S5uFfQ Haven't really studied the text, but I love the energy, harmony and rhythm of this song!

Sigh No More, Ladies!

One of the things I love about teaching is that I constantly have to learn new things, and revise whatever I studied ages ago. I am now teaching Shakespeare in three of my classes (Year 7, 8 and 9), and I'm loving it!

Picture from the film, copied from this page.

Last night I watched the film "Much Ado About Nothing", and it took my straight back to great memories from the 1990s. I think I must have watched it with my friend Solveig from Gaupen and my sister's friend Liv Marit, aka tante Gran. The film was produced in 1993, almost 20 years ago. The energy in the opening scene is fantastic! Check it out here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIACPr5XEQM This clip is only 10 minutes long! And it will definitely put you in a great mood! :)

Charity Walk for Cancer

I am going to attend the Charity Walk for Cancer on Saturday, 23 May, in Benalmádena. The money goes to the Cudeca Foundation. You can read more about the foundation here. I will walk 10km and try to raise as much money as possible. Do you want to sponsor me? Let me know!

"The objective is for participants to raise funds via individual sponsorship, by encouraging friends to give an amount for every kilometre walked. This year’s funds will be especially destined to save the In-Patient Unit from its financial difficulties and prevent the possibility of its closure by November 2010." You can read more about the Walkathon here.

My choir is also arranging two Charity Concerts for Cudeca this spring. (In Benalmádena on 30 May and in Marbella on 1 June. Come to the concerts if you live in Spain!).You can read about the concerts on Cudeca's Events page here.

Reading about the Charity walk for cancer made me think of the famous Prøysen-marsjen, a walk that my family used to attend every September in Brumunddal when I was a child. This walk was arranged in honour of the local hero Alf Prøysen. Does anyone know if Prøysen-marsjen is alive and kicking? I especially remember walking Prøysen-marsjen with some of my parents' closest friends in Brumunddal. One member of that family is now fighting cancer, and that's one of the reasons why I want to join the Walkathon here in Spain on 23 May.

It's May -- Hurra hurra hurra!

It's been ages since I updated the blog.

This blog entry will just be a short one, but I'll give you a few hints on what's to come in a longer and more elaborate blog entry (with pictures) next week. By the way, the summer has finally arrived, and the weather is gorgeous now. Had my first swim in the non-heated pool today. Refreshing and luuuvly!! :)

Here are some highlights in reversed chronological order:

* Got a new haircut today -- cut off at least 10cm of my long and heavy hair. It's so much easier now as the swimming pool season has started! (The hairdresser I usually go to didn't want to cut off my hair, she said it would be too big. So I went to Karol and Fiona's hairdresser, and he did it straight away.)

* My mum and auntie (tante Marit) are visiting! Lovely to have the two sisters here. We're talking, drinking wine, laughing a lot, and having fun! Went to the market today, and all of us did some solid shopping. (Even though I promised I would never go to the market again..) We're meting my dad and his friends from the tartar club today. They've had a club since the good old days (1987) when all of us were neighbours in Brumunddal. Now the five men are spending five days in Marbella cycling and enjoying the local wine. Got a text from my dad earlier today; they'd cycled from Marbella up to Istán via Monda and back to Marbella. Very impressive!!

* I'm staying another year in Spain!!! Feel very happy about it!

* Went to a village outside Córdoba for a colleague's 30th birthday a couple of weeks back. Here's a picture of me and Elaine on the Plaza de la iglesia where the local kids played a game: they were basically picking oranges and lemons from the trees and throwing them all around. Funny!

* Had two lovely Easter holiday weeks. My friend R. visited the first week. Some of the most amazing things we experienced were Ronda and the Semana Santa procesiónes in Málaga. Unfortunately we missed António Banderas. My sister, her husband and the kids visited the second week, and we enjoyed the pool, the beach, and each other. It was great to spend a whole week with the four of them here in Spain, and fantastic to have some quality time with my lovely niece and nephew!

Pictures from the Semana Santa and Ronda.

Off to a tapas night in Marbella now with my dad and his friends, and my mum and my auntie. Enjoy the lovely month of May, dear friends and family!