Fulbright Forever!

The Bergen crew flew to Oslo Wednesday night, and made it in to the Foreign Office bright and early Thursday morning. The day was a marathon of fascination and dullness: every Fulbrighter presented their research for ten minutes. We started off with the sciences, and then meandered through peace studies over to the Humanities and rounded off with education.

how many Americans does it take to take a picture?

I have to admit, I dozed off occasionally during the morning presentations. There were a lot of graphs, and some pictures of landscapes turned into research zones, and one awesome thing about tracing bacteria on Norway’s seafloors to the moon. Then came peace: two Fulbrighters working at PRIO (the Peace Research Institute in Oslo) studying water conflicts and predictions of conflicts based on computerized collation of newspaper data. That last one garnered quite a few questions about the reliability of the press, but obviously if scanning the news can produce an 80% success rate of predictions, then either the media is much more reliable than we thought, or the news is actually causing crises. I was bothered all the rest of the day by the moral responsibility one must surely incur, knowing a genocide is likely anywhere, but the researcher shrugged off my question about action quite easily by saying they pass on the information to NGOs. Actual prevention didn’t seem to cross his mind for a second, and after all, I suppose we’re dealing with prophecy here, in a way, and so he’s much more concerned with not being charged with manslaughter for failing to predict a war than with actually preventing them.

There is something a bit condescending about Norway focusing so intently on peace research; that outward gaze could be better directed inwards, perhaps. Or maybe that mind-your-own-business approach is simply the apologetic American in me rising up to distance myself from our world-meddling.

When the first humanities people presented, talking about updating Hebrew Studies at U in Oslo, the rise of digital culture, and something that had to do with suspension (our favorite Fulbright in Bergen prof befuddled everyone with large blocks of tiny text on a slide show, each one gloriously disconnected from the last), the Q&A session was quickly shunted into a humanities-vs-sciences stream. There’s been some tension all year, since most Norwegian Fulbrighters are science researchers, and some have only thinly veiled their inability to understand the legitimacy of other work. It was nice to have it out in the open for a moment, even though nobody said anything really new (Karen, the Hebrew literature prof, gave some nice clean hard answers that made me wriggle a bit with joy).

The view from our hotel. Matt, in case you're blalking
(blog-stalking), yep, I stole it from you. Tusen takk!

I was in the very last panel presentation, with Matt, the Oslo ETA, and Isaac, one of the Roving Scholars. Weirdly, even after teaching all year no problem, standing up in front of that group made my hands and voice tremble a bit. After a moment of it I reminded myself that I love to have attention centered on me, and settled down to enjoying my presentation. I tried to keep it entertaining and brief. I started out by dissing Norwegian Jante Law (“this country is smushing the highest and lowest performing students into a sandwich of average that competitive Americans will eat for lunch”), then spoke about sharing my America (that picture of the Ohio toddler flicking off Michigan filled my whole slide), read a bit of the poem that my student who survived Uttøya wrote, and finished up with a replay of the cheider Beit Hamikdash building and destruction. I got enough laughs and thoughtful head tilts to feel it was successful.

Afterwards, we headed over to the American ambassador’s house for a reception. The best part: open bar. I think it’s a sign of how much my life has changed over the course of the year that that was actually exciting. The standing around part was much more fun this time around. The Norway Fulbrighters this year are such incredibly cool, directed, confident people that a weekend with them has rewritten all my previous notions about the anguish of institutionalized programming (thank you NCSY and midrasha). It was weird to chill with them after six months of slowly breaking into Norwegian reserve; we connected so much more quickly, both because of our American openness and through having the same experiences of living as an American in Norway.

Baby skiers! So adorable!

Petter, the Fulbright director, came over to tell me he enjoyed my blog. Eep! After a quick scramble to remember if I’ve written anything incriminating, I smiled and nodded  without giving away which profs were involved in "The Professorial Smackdown" post (he asked). People kept chatting about it all weekend, and now I’m friends with such a large group of the Fulbrighters on FB that you can all be pretty certain you’re getting an abridged version of events. Also, apparently next year’s ETA applicants asked after me in their interviews—I’m so glad they found the blog! Since that was one of my purposes in writing it. And, dude, whoever you are out there that gets Bergen next, be prepared to have the time of your life. 

Friday morning we set off for Lillehammer (yep, that’s the home of the 1994 winter Olympics). The bus trundled past snowy mountain scenery and spent a while beside Norway’s biggest lake, Mjøsa, which was so long everyone assumed it was a fjord until Rena clued us in. It was frozen solid, and there were ice skating paths and ski tracks cut into the snow. I sat in front of Andrea, who’s a veterinarian practicing animal capture techniques for research purposes, and she identified moose tracks for us.

Our ski resort behind Lillehammer showed craggy snow-covered mountains bristling with pine in every direction, adorable red cabins with four feet of snow cupping the roofs dotting their slopes. I kept thinking how, if I had never seen Norway before, it would be just incredible, but at this point it was merely magnificent.

Friday afternoon a group of us walked around for a bit. I got in some laps in the pool before shabbat, and then settled down to a lovely evening of reading and talking in front of the fire. The Fisks, a professorial husband and wife who just arrived in Bergen in January, proved to be darling company, and her good humored delight in landing in Norway while her husband researches gave me a warm glowy feeling. In fact, that was one of the nicest parts of this weekend: seeing the families who had come to Norway together. The older couples snuggling together or skiing in tandem, the reserved Minnesotan family with a high-school aged daughter who seemed so utterly comfortable and content in each other’s company, the Rover Sarah who I think is possibly the Best. Mom. Ever. (okay, so she reminds me of mine) and her husband juggling their young kids. I’ve missed family while I’m out here, and seeing all of these in various stages of life was such a pleasant pick-me-up.

After dinner that night Amanda (Ås ETA), Karen (young Hebrew literature professor) and Ann (probably 60-something-ish year-old writer who presents as both fierce and kind simultaneously (I can say that because we’re not yet friends on FB)) sat discussing the stigma against singlehood for women. It was fascinating to see all of their perspectives. Ann humorously apologized for not solving all that for us years ago, Karen seethed against the assumption that there’s something wrong with single women, Amanda mentioned society’s inability to understand that single women can be happy, and I laughed because I know that when I come home from the most incredible year of my life in which I’m doing work that I find extremely fulfilling, at least one person will ask me about boyfriends. And I have my response all ready: “yes, I found a virile Viking and had a love child with him which I left in Norway because let’s face it, the social welfare laws are better.” Just dare to ask.

Shabbat morning Sarah Johnson (Bergensk flutist) and I went for a walk, and ended up at a small church in the area where the queen of Denmark had bestowed a painting of the ski-slope as a gift. It sits on the altar behind a huge bible, its blue painted landscape quartered by the golden cross that somehow landed on the mountain. I spent the rest of the day alternately reading and dozing and playing bananagrams with the other Fulbrighters—what fun to play with Americans again! I awkwardly made havdalah down in the sitting room because I figured I was less likely to set off the smoke alarm near other candles, but thankfully Joey (Tromsø researcher) was sweet enough to joke about singing the nay-nay-nananay tune and made me feel less weird. Camp Ramah-ers and Bnei Akiva-niks pop up in the most unexpected places.

Saturday night dinner was a formal affair instead of the usual ski-pants and t-shirted proceedings, with each plate costing 500 kroner. It was also annoyingly problematic for me. In the regular buffet, I could just pick out the bits that I can eat and concoct lavish salads for myself. But an appetizer of shrimp followed by a course of deer finished up with some gelatinous-looking quivering blob was not going to work. My table coached our poor waitress through my dietary restrictions and I think heartily enjoyed finishing up my enormous plate after their pathetic three-shrimp servings (probably the chef felt bad that I was just having lettuce and lox, so he gave me a lot of it).

Finally, on Sunday morning, I screwed my courage to the sticking point and strapped on some skis. Andrea and Kirsten (kinesiology researcher studying the effects of stress on young athletes training for the Olympics) helped Sarah Johnson and I with the basics, and we headed out with Sean Taylor and his family (the Minnesotans) onto a cross-country trail. Sean is a ski team coach back in Minnesota, and an excellently patient teacher. When we got to the first hill, he told me to keep one ski a few inches ahead of the other, bend my knees, and keep my back straight so that my body would catch the wind and slow me down a bit. I followed his directions and, to my surprise, found myself zooming down in a glorious adrenaline rush. I couldn’t help it, I let a few whoops out into the countryside. It was such a blitz of happiness. I thought it would be like the time my adrenaline-junkie friend Yoni took me mountain biking (a completely out-of-control near-death experience which still managed to be helluva lot of fun) but weirdly, I have strangely good balance on skis. As a first-class klutz I’d expected to find myself plowing up snow with my nose pretty frequently. Maybe all that time hiking on Bergen’s icy mountains has improved my balance. And lessened my fear of falling.

I think we were all depressed to leave. It’s hard to meet this many awesome people for just a blip and then say bye as they wander off into the fastnesses of the Norwegian wilds for the next few months. Hopefully some of them will drift by Bergen over the rest of our year. Guys, if you're reading this, that's a standing invitation.

Lunch with the Rektor

The UiB rektor. Nah, just kiddng. There is no possible way
Faulkner could look like more of a clotpole in this picture.

I had a great session with my students today on Faulkner. There were, of course, moments where I checked on simple plot points to get “uhhhh…”s from everyone, but since Faulkner buries his key action deep in parenthesized side points, that was the very reason I was checking. Towards the end I allowed some of my vitriolic hatred of him to seep out. The truth is, it’s as much directed towards the professor who first taught me this book as to its author. I have plenty of “static, impotent rage” towards the guy who was such a man’s-club kind of jerk, he used to invite a select couple of the guys (the ones who said maybe Eudora Welty’s heroine wanted to be raped) back to his office for drinks. And who actually said “she’s a mature feminist” of Toni Morrison. Afterwards I could have kicked myself for not sneering, “I’ve never yet met a mature misogynist, why must we needs be mature feminists?” I’ve sneered it a thousand times in my dreams (yes, my best dreams are of repartee unrealized). Anyhow, I offered the students Beloved as a panacea to all Faulkner’s offensive yet intricate assholery (the man who wrote that woman lead lives "not only divorced from, but irrevocably excommunicated from, all reality" can be nothing but a jerk) and was proud of setting aside my rage for most of the discussion so we could play with all his brilliance instead of dissecting his woman-hating.

One of my high schoolers wrote a facetious comparison of the US and UK and, at the end, apologized “for being troll.” I’m not sure if that’s a Norwegian expression, or if he meant “droll.” Either way, it earns a =) -plus.

Today the rektor (equivalent of president) of the University in Bergen had all us Bergen Fulbright folk over for lunch. I was exhausted, having skyped late the night before and then planned my lessons, which started at 8am this morning. At midnight, reading an entire chapter on the concept of “the uncanny” just doesn’t mean a whole lot, and even now I’m still inclined to exclaim at the surprising amount of nothing the author fit into a whole lot of words.

Me in a week. 

Anyhow, all eight of us Bergen Fulbrighters met up for the first time since orientation. Embarrassingly, there was a setting with a bright yellow card with “obs” printed on it for me, to clue in anybody who hadn’t noticed my strange eating habits. At first our American instincts commandeered the conversation, as we all cheerfully chatted and caught up on the past few months. Then the rektor took control and steered the conversation back into an introduction routine where we explained where from, what doing, what the university could fix for us…  I meant to give a simple review of my activities (ETA in Bergen, love it, thanks so much, Mr. Rektor, sir) but somehow got us all sidetracked into a discussion of the pros and cons of equality in education (Norwegian egalitarianism versus American competition). It was actually kind of fascinating to sit in a room full of academics and listen to their perspectives. Also, normally with that many smart people in one place, someone gets peacocky and struts their stuff. But we all have Fulbrights, so everyone pretty much pleasantly assumed we’re all tops and just enjoyed themselves. It was a nice preview of the Fulbright seminar next week—I’m starting to look forward to it. They’re taking us to Lillehammer to ski. Winter Olympics, anyone?

Profaning the Sacred

I woke up early one morning, after it had been snowing all night, and walked to Løvstakken to ramble about its base. As I shimmied and shuffled through the powdery heaps of white, my footsteps became the first to imprint on the landscape. I was here. I was here. I was here. Each print an affirmation of self-in-place, of joy in the dawning day and intrepid slip-proof courage.

I rejoined the main path only to leave it again, following the trace of a track through the woods eastward. The strip of white led me under pine boughs laden with winter, past delicate twigs twirling white, and into a clearing. I sat on a fallen log to watch the snow fall. It spun dizzily into the grove, lacing the firs’ deep piney richness with pure pearly cream. When I looked up into the grey sky, the world imperceptibly slowed to the pace of the snowflakes’ descent, an unhurried dreamy drifting.

I reached the bottom and, my mind still immersed in the clearing, trudged down the main path towards Gamlehaugen. Slowly, something strange began to impede on my consciousness. I looked up. To the left of the path, there was a swathe of barren ground, trampled and broken. I swung around to my right. A truck, laden with the corpses of trees, was tucked half into the woods as though in shame. Logging. The American in me forgot that I’m in Norway, that Norwegians prize the meadowland aesthetic above woodlands, that they have plenty more timber where that came from. The American was unreasonably angry for a moment. That anyone could dare to disturb the peace I’d felt on Løvstakken, fail to understand the near-holy sanctity of trees, flared a momentary and deranged spark in me. Then I saw the humorous side of the situation, and seconds later was bombarding the truck with snowball after snowball in what I believe is called a childish fit of pique. Finally, I heard voices approaching, and subsided to continue down the mountain, hands in my pockets. Would’ve whistled if I could.

As I was passing through the English department hall at UiB after a meeting Friday afternoon, one of the professors called me in to meet her husband, a professor of religion. He’d just given a lecture on the new Norwegian translation of the bible: this one is better because in certain places instead of saying “brothers” it says “siblings,” and other such politically correct improvements. I suggested that such a disingenuous cleaning up of the Scriptures may obfuscate the true nature of the Holy Word. Zeljka (another English prof) joined us and they began talking about a recent editorial in the student newspaper—a much-needed response to some crazy fundamentalist venting his Islamophobia.

“They shouldn’t have booed him to silence—they should have answered him with argument, and shut him up!” announced Zeljka.

“The booing is dangerous, with these people,” answered Øyunn, “then they just feel as though they haven’t been heard, and then who knows what they’ll do.” We all nodded solemnly. “Hannah, Norway has such a problem with fundamentalists.”

The Fantoft Stavkirke

“I thought you were all meant to be so secular,” I answered. Some unruly part of my mind was thinking, “burn the fundamentalists!” but I shut it up firmly.

Zeljka laughed. “Yes, that is the image we want to give. But there are some crazies here. Oh, don’t look at me, I’m a lapsed Catholic.”

“Hannah, are you religious?” Øyunn’s husband wanted to know. “We should find out before we say anything.”

I squirmed. “Jewish.”

“Practicing?”

“Yep. Practicing.”

They began to decide what that meant. So no cheeseburgers? Kosher and all? And the sabbath? But it’s Friday? Oh, two hours from now? Orthodox or Reconstructionist, or what’s that one in the middle? What does post-labelist mean? A joke? Ah, I like that you included feminist in your religious definition of yourself!

It was sometime right after they were trying to trap my exact degree of religiousness into a label, while Øyunn’s husband was still engaged in listing the names of every Jewish sect he could think of, and Zeljka, her arms crucifix-wide-open, began singing “always look on the bright side of life” and faux tap dancing across the office, that I decided was an opportune moment to disappear. I headed back to my apartment, which was soon full of shabbat smells and my lone voice singing Yedid Nefesh out into the snowy evening. 

Hark, Hear the Bells

I don’t know how to talk about the beauty of Bergen at night. Every evening, as dusk sets, fairies tiptoe up the mountains leaving their glitter along the creases in the slopes. The hills are strung with lights and the fjords and lakes in the valleys shimmer with their reflection. Walking through a wild Norwegian night, the wind billowing out my hood and the rain gusting strong against my face, those lights signal cheer and home steadfastness and rosy golden safety. Bergen, where it gets dark by 3 pm, is always a city of jeweled lights on the water.

So, Saturday night, when friends told me about the Bergen Lysfest, or annual Christmas light festival, I was happy to walk up to town and experience some more of the magic. We made it to the Byparken just as they lit the Christmas tree floating out on the lake in the middle of the city. It was simple, a large pine decked with strings of lights and a star at the top, swaying in the wind out on the water. The trees around the fountain had also been festooned with white lights. A huge stage was erected in the plass, and a youth choir soared carols out over the heads of the crowd. Every child had snap-lights and every few adults clustered around a torch that blazed into the rain. In the high-rise buildings around the lake, we could see people on the top floors looking down the same way Americans do for Thanksgiving day parades and the Fourth of July. It felt… like Christmas. Not perfect Christmas, exactly, not Christmas with my family where we go to the zoo and watch the lights along the lake change in time to “Carol of the Bells,” but it was close. Then, the fireworks started. Great, glorious, elegant fireworks that had a shimmering fairy dust sprinkling along the lower edge and exploding pinwheels of color up above. And there were happy face fireworks, which neither Nina nor I had ever seen before. Not to mention it was fireworks in the rain, a feat that I’d believed only the Weasley brothers could pull off. And yet, somehow, it didn’t feel very different from normal Bergen. This city blossoms into a radiant Christmas splendor in the dark every night. Winter night lasts from October to February, and the brilliant glimmer of Bergen’s lights keeps it illuminated, keeps the dark a mere accessory to sheen and shine.

Great news: I just bought my tickets, and I will be in Oslo for the Weekend of Peace. Doesn’t it just thrill you to read those words? I’ve been grading my high schoolers’ latest essays on “their responsibility, as Norwegians, to global democracy,” and I’m all tingly with hope for the future.

Ohio in a nutshell

I gave my guest lectures at Katten today. The Ohio presentation, to Norwegian immigrant high school students, went very well—I had them singing “hang on Sloopy” and shouting “O-H!” “I-O!” at me. The teacher was boggled. She’d never seen them speak that much before, let alone sing and chant Ohioan propaganda. I love my job.

I also gave a lecture on “A (brief) History of Judaism: the Past 4,000 years squeezed into 40 minutes,” to the oldest high school religion class. At one hundred years a minute, I think I got all the major events in. You know, the discovery of monotheism, the beit hamikdash, the Haskalah, and of course the fact that I’m descended from the Alexander rebbe and that Gloria Steinem is Jewish. I left out the names of all the Hasidic dynasties that I memorized in 7^th grade. They'll have to learn those somewhere else.

I was particularly nervous about the last slide: the creation of the State of Israel. I wanted to do a number of things: To leave them with a history of modern Israel that would give them an image of something besides the war-torn Middle East, to help them understand that Jewish is not the same as Israeli (a concept a lot of Norwegians have problems understanding), and to be unapologetic about Israel’s right to exist without presenting an entire argument about politics in the middle of my Jewish history presentation. So, this is what I did: I put a gorgeous picture of the Israeli flag billowing in the wind up on the screen, along with the date 1948. I told them that in 1948, the UN voted on the partition plan which created a state of Israel. Then I said that obviously modern Israeli history is not the exact same thing as modern Jewish history, so I’m going to focus on the part that most affects world Judaism. Which was: the Right of Return. I explained that every Jew has a right to citizenship in Israel. Then I gave them a list. I told them about Operation Flying Carpet which rescued 45,000 Yemenite Jews in 1950. I told them about Jews who fled or were expelled from Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, Kurdistan, and Tunisia in the years between 1949 and now. I told them about Operation Moses and the airlift of the Ethiopian Jews. And the Soviet Jewish immigration. And the recent immigration of French Jews who are fleeing recent anti-Semitic attacks. In short, without discussing a single Middle Eastern war or concentrating on one ethnicity, I made a compelling argument for the existence of the state of Israel that was in no way politically charged. I felt pretty proud of myself. And you know what? The kids were fascinated. They leaned forward in their seats. They laughed at all the right times. They asked questions afterwards about my personal observance of Judaism. And I knew I’d pulled off quite a good deal. Guess what? I love my job.

I had a meeting afterwards with the professor in charge of the Britlit survey course at UiB next semester. He’s a slouchy, personable Englishman who I like because every so often he pauses and lets me throw in a clever off-the-cuff comment. I’m not sure how the topic was raised, but we went through the basic difficulties of the Norwegian education system. Stuart spoke pretty hopelessly about how profs aren’t allowed to demand student attendance in class—it impinges on students’ rights— and about how there’s not enough resources to create a desperately-needed freshman writing class, and about how little power he as a professor has to teach effectively.

How about a mutual partnership?
Nah, just kidding, I know that's naive.

Now, all this nonsense about students’ rights is really adorable, but the truth is that Norwegian university students, while all have the right to government-funded college education, lack the basic right that American students pay thousands of dollars for: the right to have a professor kick their butts into high gear and challenge the hell out of them. Professors go on and on in the States about how American students treat college as a consumer product and expect to get exactly what they want because they’ve paid for it, but that is nothing to the Norwegian system, where Norwegian students expect, as their legal right, that professors not inconvenience them by demanding too much from them. After teaching a literature survey course which was really more of a methodology course, I’m aching from having passed so many of those students on their papers when I know they’re going to fail the exam. If I could have demanded that they come to class, that they write and rewrite and rewrite their papers and attend special seminars on citation, I could perhaps have brought them up to scratch. But the Norwegian system won’t let. 

I love my job, but sometimes, it gets complicated. 

The Professorial Smackdown

This blog post is dedicated to the Masters lit students at UiB, who have just discovered my blog

Scene—early afternoon. A seminar room at UiB filled with Masters literature students and the UiB lit profs. A student has just finished presenting the beginning of her thesis, and another student has offered criticism. Below is the inner monologue that played in my head during the class:

Wow. She’s so extremely diplomatic. What an amazing gift. How nicely she phrases her criticism. Okay, now she’s beginning to sound diffident. Come on, girl! Don’t be cowed by the other woman’s age, you’ve got heaps more brains. I wish that woman would just sit quiet and take it. Otherwise this is going to be more like a ping-pong match than an academic discussion. Now, is anyone going to say the much-needed and obvious fact: that this thesis lacks any idea of its own? Oh, good, you can always trust Randi to articulate the unpleasant. It’s her professorial prerogative. Walt Whitman as eco-poet... or not. If you stretch his "I contain multitudes" that far, lady, you'll be left with "Walt Whitman: Poet." Gosh, Jakob may have just saved her thesis with that idea. I wonder if she’ll be smart enough to take it. Oh Jesus, no, why is the American prof speaking? Maybe if I just duck my head down like this I can pretend I’m in a different room. Or country. Why does he always start out with, “If I were writing this…” Dude, why must everything be twisted around until it reflects you? He’s Charles Tansley from To The Lighthouse, only neither marriage nor tenure can cure him. [American Prof: If I were writing this, and I know I’m coming from a different cultural background, I’m an American—] No, don’t say that! Don’t bring attention to it! You want her to read Milton? What part of her-thesis-already-lacks-a-focus did you not understand? Okay, yes, good, mention that book. And that one. I know, we all know, you’ve read everything. I hate academics—Jesus! Did you just tell her to learn French? Oh, shit. Oh, shit, did I just moan “oh, shit” out loud? Oh good, the British professor’s jumping in. He should clear things up for her. Thank you, yes, she doesn’t have to learn French. And needn’t read Milton. NO! American prof, DO NOT respond! You are at a decided disadvantage here. Oh my gosh, this is horrible. They sound so polite and so irate. WASPs in a scuffle. My left hand neighbor wrote, “clash of the Titans” on a paper and passed it to me. More like clash of the lanky grizzled pedants who both need haircuts. What utter agony it is not to burst out laughing right now. The student to my right is chuckling. He has written “intellectual mud fight” on his computer and angled it at me. How on earth do people find academia boring?

*There is a prequel to this scene, from last night’s professors’ dinner at which my limbo half-student half-teacher status gave me the privilege of presence so that I could once more imagine bashing my head against the table. I’ll share it in a later post when I have more time to do it justice.

** My dad is going to want me to take this post down in case the prof sees it and I get in trouble, but Abba, do you really think that a guy like that is going to spend time surfing the blogosphere?

Smartsocks and Sighs

I LOVE my rain boots. I haven’t taken them off in three days.

I LOVE my thick woolen Smartsocks. I haven’t taken them off in three weeks. I’m going to thrill my dad by asking him to buy me more (he gets a weird joy out of sock purchases).

I LOVE the Norwegian custom of taking off one’s shoes when you enter a house. Combine thick socks with the hard floors that every Norwegian has, and every single day is like Risky Business.

Bergen in the rain: view from Fløyen

Have you ever tried to explain American slang to people who call the restroom, the “toilet”? I wrote a list of the words for “bathroom” on the board today, in order of politeness:

Ladies’ or Gents’ room

Restroom

Bathroom

The Facilities (facetious)

John

A pit stop

The can

I have a fun job.

While working my high schoolers through some poems, we navigated the multiple reasons a person can sigh (because, you know, no doubt I’ll be telling this with a sigh ages and ages hence… but why?). I made each kid act out their suggestions, and the room was in stitches as each gave lovelorn sighs, or regretful sighs, or disappointed sighs… the classroom boomed with twenty high schoolers all ballooning out the world’s teenage grief through angsty lungs. I also gave them my mnemonic for iambic meter, which runs, “I tried-- to tell --the tea--cher to -- shut up.” They intoned it enthusiastically, clapping their hands at all the right parts. Then they started writing their own poems, on themes we’d seen in the poems we studied. Some are quite ambitious, and I’m hoping to get them to share next class.

 Masculinity Studies and Hemingway at their finest...

I’ve met more of the literature grad students. They’re a fun, chummy group that seem to spend most of their time chatting on the couches outside the graduate reading room, instead of at their desks researching. They’re all very deer-in-the-headlights about their theses. One’s doing something on hiphop, another analyzing linguistics in Dawkins’ Selfish Gene, a third looking at differences between Eastern and Western literature in the States in the 19^th century.  Of course, the guy I spoke to most in depth-ly (not a word, but the permissiveness of Norwegians towards any neologism I feel like creating has me completely heady and flexing the English language in any direction I can make it go in. In fact, I’ll probably return to the States speaking some variant of English that is so far removed from the original, nobody will be able to understand me except my sisters, who don’t require actual verbal communication to know what I’m thinking) is writing a thesis on masculinity and Hemingway, which figures because while writing my honors thesis, I got stuck for a peer review with the guy writing on masculinity and Hemingway (you guys are both writing on Americans, right? And, you know, gender is the same no matter your perspective—basically noticing that it’s there means that you belong in the same peer review group), which makes me wonder if I’ll ever escape, or if guys looking to emulate drunken misogynists will follow me for the rest of my life (sorry for the dizzying use of parentheses in this sentence, won’t happen again, I promise).

All of the American literature profs went out for dinner. We talked about American politics, department politics, and wine. At one point, one of the profs looked up at the ceiling, and mused, “I really like these lamps… even if they’re phallic.” The apology for appreciating phallic interior design made me choke on my food. Let’s be honest, when you’re an English prof, everything is phallic. She’d have to throw her Gerard-Manley-Hopkins-labeled man-pen away, or preferably jam it into V.S. Naipaul’s face, to rid herself of all phallic surroundings. Bitter? No, not much—I don’t really care if Naipaul thinks women can’t write, because let’s face it, neither can he. But it really bit to read Hopkins’ opinion of female authorship, and assumption of the pen as a male instrument. Made me want to head to where the green swell is in the havens dumb and shout “asshole” to the stormless skies.

Of course, I need to keep track of the fact that while I’m teaching English and disseminating the glories of the language of Whitman and Woolf to young minds, I’m also learning Norwegian. My first trip to the library, I eyed the Ibsen section longingly. Since then I’ve set more realistic goals, like being able to understand the graffiti in the English Department bathroom by December.

My first Norwegian class was both easy and daunting. The words are so easy to remember. At least half of them are cognates. But their pronunciation is an entirely different matter. An entire classroom of foreigners saying “ooooh” and “iyuu” and “ø” sounds towards the teacher, our lips pursed in ridiculous emulation of hers, is hard to take seriously. Still, I’m hoping to be able to eavesdrop on unwitting Norwegian colleagues by the middle of January. You’ll know when I’ve become fluent; I’ll blog a bit in Norwegian for fun.

Introductions

On Monday, I walked into the old, old, old building that houses Bergen Katedralskole. The front doors open on a broad, ancient wooden staircase, that doubles back and divides into two staircases up to the next level, and continues to rejoin and divide in a river of creaky wood until reaching what I can only imagine are turrets that the students use as lockers. Unsure of where to go after I’d climbed the first set of stairs, I looked about for some sign or information desk or object from the twentieth century.

“Kan…?” A man who had been walking across the landing turned back to ask if he could help me (I think. It was in Norwegian).

“I’m looking for Anita, or the English department,” I told him.

“Ah, you’re not, are you, you’re not Hannah?” he asked. Upon my admitting I was, he introduced himself—the headmaster of the school. Lucky hit. And very friendly, just as the English teachers turned out to be.

There are seven of them. We sat in an informal departmental meeting, brainstorming for the coming year. The teachers have varying accents: some, like Anita, speak near-perfect English. Others were difficult for me to understand—which perhaps makes it easier for their students to grasp English. I liked their laidback friendliness. The meeting was an oddly two-tiered experience: I listened to their accents and grammar and the books and movies they suggested, and knew I was making a few of them uncomfortable, or at least hesitant, because I’m so culturally literate as a born-and-raised English speaker, but I also sensed immediately that their competence as teachers and enthusiasm for their students places them miles above me. It feels like the perfect alliance: we’ll all come out with something valuable. After the meeting, one of the teachers asked if I’d help her work out a project about America’s current political situation. I of course agreed, but man will it be embarrassing to explain Michele Bachmann to Norwegians!

On Tuesday the university had its grand opening ceremony. It was picturesque and charming. The entire student body of the University of Bergen crowded into the plaza in front of the University Museum. There were less people than in my graduating class at Maryland.

They sang the Norwegian anthem. Then the Rector –Norwegian for Dean or President— (who was very funny, and invited me to a lunch when I met him at the US ambassador’s in Oslo), began by speaking about the July 22 attacks. He memorialized a student who ought to have continued her education at UiB this year, but had been killed, and affirmed the need to stand strongly united in our diversity. His words chilled and yet uplifted. Then he called for a moment of silence.

As I stood with bent head, trying to imagine what sort of thought could mean anything in the face of such tragedy, I wondered about the sign language interpreter on stage. What had she told her audience? That there would be a moment of contemplation? A moment of normalcy? How do the deaf feel about the non-deaf using their everyday element as a symbol of grief?

The Graduate Reading Room for Foreign Languages

On Wednesday Lene ran an English orientation for all the students in the English department. Pretty basic, except that moment when she introduced me to the class, and I made a quick joke, and they all laughed, and I felt a shiver of excitement run up my spine. I can’t wait to start! I love-love-love a captive audience, learning the liquid loveliness of literature and language-play… or, alternatively, alliterative agony…

I met the other English masters students at a department meeting. They have a limited number of course offerings, but there is one class on literature and science in 19^th C Britain that I am going to take if I have to wreak havoc with every plan that has been made for me (looking at the Katedralskole teaching schedule, I will). Then Lene, Øyunn (an Amlit prof here at UiB), Nat Wallace (the visiting Fulbright prof for the year), Ingrid (another instructor for the Amlit seminars), and myself sat down to plan the American literature seminars,  which the five of us will be teaching in various modes.

Professors and students have very different ideas of the college experience. As we ran over protocol for exams, papers, attendance, power point presentations, laptops, and plagiarism, I couldn’t help but smile at the gap between the teacher and the taught. Some profs have a pretty canny grasp of what’s passing through students’ minds, and teach accordingly. Others look at students as the enemy, to be caught cheating or playing on fb during class or absent throughout the semester. And the funny thing is, most professors are right. If you treat students as straightforward individuals, adults who are present to learn and contribute, they’ll act as such. If you treat them as recalcitrant children, you’ll be surprised at the willingness with which they take you up on it. Anyhow, we ironed out our plans for the seminars, and I’m psyched to start soon.

The cultural surprises of the past half-week:

Not all my Katten students will be taking exams: only a quarter of the class actually take exams. Huh???

Narcotics in the Park (No, that’s not the title of one of the UiB welcome week activities, it’s the reason that all the bathrooms require a swipe card to enter)

People are overwhelmingly friendly here. Perhaps it’s because things are on a smaller scale, so a camaraderie grows up. Either way, I like it.

Jogging in Norway is rather different from jogging in Ohio. Mountains!

This country does not seem to eat tofu.

And man do Europeans wear tight pants!

Some more pictures from Bergen:

 

The whole place swarms with quaint architecture, mountainscapes, and public gardens. You can tell which of us just arrived: we can't put our cameras away!