Same same

Trawling through the night markets in Bangkok, every traveler has heard the shopkeeper tout that’s meant to convince you of a good purchase. “Same, same!”

When I visited Thailand back in 2003, I remember negotiating with one shopkeeper over a t-shirt when he spotted my then-boyfriend’s watch.

“Ahhhh… you like Rolex? I have watch for you!” he said.

Always one for a bargain, boyfriend asked to see it. The shopkeeper enthusiastically scarpered to the back room and re-emerged, shoving a little box at us. I opened the box slowly.

“This says Polex…” I trailed off.

“Come on, lady. Same, same!”

Now, there was no doubt that the shopkeeper knew it was not the same, and there was also no doubt that he knew I knew as well. But we went through the song and dance of the negotiation, partly for sport, and partly because I am a sucker.

Fast-forward seven years to last week. I was pushing the pram* past the local school and suddenly found myself in the midst of a gaggle of small children on bicycles. They all wore mostly identical coats** and pedaled mostly identical bikes. I stopped to let them all pass, and the words of that Thai shopkeeper popped into my head. Same, same.

They were all the same, really. But not just on the surface. The fact that an outing for a public school class involved them all getting on their equally expensive bikes would be unheard of where I come from. Economic disparity means that there is never an assumption that someone is the same as you. Teachers would never suggest something like a bike ride, as the assumption that every child even has a bike would never be made.

On the one hand, this is kind of nice. You don’t envy your neighbor as you probably have the same stuff he does. Thus, material goods have less status attached to them. On the other hand, I do wonder if there is a full appreciation that the rest of the world is not same, same.

Building an understanding that Norway is a very fortunate country is important. I hope that parents are teaching their children gratitude for economic and social equality. These are things that simply don’t exist, in varying degrees, in other lands.

Standing in the swarm of bicycles all of a sudden filled me with a sense of immense thankfulness that I live here, and I value the equality that sometimes feels pushed upon me. Any social welfare system has its flaws, and sometimes equality is more egalitarianism, which means someone is giving up something so that everyone can have the same.

But watching those little kids whiz past without a care in the world, same, same felt pretty good.
______________________________________________________
* Even though I recently wrote a post about posting more, I still disappeared for a while. That’s because I finally had the Kid. He’s pretty fabulous, but the recovery wasn’t. A big hand clap for the Norwegian doctors and midwives and hospital, however, as they did some great work in a pretty dicey situation. I’ll blog about it… one day.
** Yes, I know it was August. But it is also Norway. Summer here is a different beast. Coats are year-round, alas.

Four Lessons

This week marks the fourth anniversary of my move to Stavanger. Because I have a lot of time on my hands (maternity leave started but the Kid seems very happy to stay where he is despite my pleas to the contrary), I was reflecting on how my thoughts toward life in Norway have changed in the last 48 months. In honor of my anniversary with Norway, I present to you four of my more salient learning points.


1. This ain’t Burger King.

Although the burger joint promises you can have it your way, that’s not true for day-to-day life here. I have always believed (down to one part cultural programming and another part wild need for control) that if you yell a little louder or ask a little nicer or know someone a little higher up or are willing to pay a little extra, that you could really get almost anything you wanted done. Not true here in Norway. While one of these four criteria might come in handy on occasion, for the most part, the overruling sense of equality (and, I daresay, even egalitarianism) means that I get what you get and you get what he gets and he gets what she gets. In short, there is not a lot of special treatment. And yelling a little louder (or really yelling at all) definitely does not work in ANY situation.

2. Mick Jagger was spot on…

when he cautioned that you can’t always get what you want, but you can usually get what you need. When I first came here, I felt a sense of impending doom when I realized all the worldly goods I could not nip to Target and buy on a regular basis. Four years on and I realize I don’t actually need most of those things. And the things I really want seem to materialize at just the right time. For example, I have been craving a batch of a bestie’s Saltine cracker toffee (it’s a southern thing and only sounds gross to describe in literal terms but is heaven on earth in your mouth). Problem is, no Saltines at the grocery store here. Or so I thought. And then last week I discovered they were here all along in the Asian market. So, Mick, you were right. I might not have Target, but I can get what I need with a little looking.

3. Norwegians will never be able to navigate roundabouts.

Sorry, Norwegian friends. You’re cool and all that, and there are lots of things you are extremely good at, but driving just isn’t one of them. This lesson is not new information, but my reaction to it over the past four years has certainly changed. The first months were spent with me gently honking when someone veered in front of me as I just assumed it was a wee mistake. When I realized it was not a mistake and was a deliberate move to enforce the mentality of ‘he who enters first, wins’, my honks became louder and my gestures a little… grander. When out driving with Husband last week, he gasped as I entered the roundabout and cut someone off without even making eye contact. ‘When in Rome, darling!’ I told him.

4. Not right, not wrong… just different.

This is a mantra I live by when teaching about cultural differences. I don’t think I have ever given a seminar or class where I have not drilled this phrase into the heads of the attendees. Truth be told, for a long time it was just a politically correct thing to say, and I didn’t really believe it myself. It’s hard when something is different and feels wrong not to judge it as such. But today I observe these differences less in terms of good or bad and more in terms of better and worse. We can never fully eradicate from our minds a reference point of ‘back home’… so why try? There’s lots of Norwegian ideals I will never be on board with. And that is okay. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a happy and productive and integrated life here. As long as I am open to the different, me and Norway might survive another four years together.

The Break Up

There's someone in my life I am considering breaking up with.  He takes up too much of my time, spreads gossip about me to other people, and embarrasses me with bad photos and even more cringe-worthy comments.  He forces me to acknowledge people that are probably best forgotten, and he forces people to remember me when I'd probably prefer some of them didn't.  He makes me feel like that awkward high school kid and a coming-up-on-middle-age fogey all at the same time by jamming almost every social relationship I've ever had into one tiny cyberspace.

Yeah, I'm talking about you, Facebook.

I was a latecomer to Facebook, only signing up about 18 months ago after much effort to avoid.  And at first it was bliss.  I could be a voyeur in the lives of people I had always wondered about.  I could accept a friend request, peek at someone's photos to see how they aged, check out who they married, and what they did for a living.  Problem is, my curiosity really ended there.  But instead of a tidy and brief 'through the keyhole' interaction, I spent the next months blocking pokes and flair and hugs from people I'm certain I will never see in person again.

So I went housecleaning.  I've always loved a good clear out, so I started defriending that guy who went to another school who I couldn't really remember but swears we met at a debate tournament in junior high once.  I defriended anyone that I knew in  my heart of hearts I either was never really friends with to begin or would never see again (and didn't regret the fact). I even managed to figure out how to block all those annoying applications that were desperate for my details.  And peace reigned... for a while.

Then I went messing with my privacy settings.  I locked my profile down so heavily no one could see anything.  Which, frankly, wasn't a huge problem for me.  Until it was.  And I started getting flack from others asking why they couldn't see my wall, my photos, my status updates, etc.  I'm usually pretty good at managing to offend people myself in real-lifesies, so I sure don't need the added complication of unintended cyber offence*. 

I really wish I had the cahones to just quit Facebook altogether.  But as a stranger in a strange land, it plays a role for me of keeping me in touch with my people**, and that's important.  I like keeping up with my high school peeps and those friends I've made around the world.  But I do wish some of the recent trend to be offended by Facebook activities would cease, as it is making what is supposed to be a fun way to keep in touch seem like hard work.

And, really, if you think about it, the stuff we share on Facebook with the people that don't really know us is quite astounding. This video from BBC3 summarizes it perfectly (and gives a giggle to boot):


_________________________________________________________
* Heck, if I'm being honest, sometimes offence probably was intended.  Which makes me like Facebook even less as it makes me do petty and impetuous things.
** And to my 'people' - don't be miffed with my diatribe. I may want to break up with Facebook, but not with you.  So no hurt feelers or looking for yourself between the lines in my message.

Stopped

This has been 72 hours fraught with nerves. On Monday morning, Husband and I stopped smoking.

And it hurts.

A lot.

The craziest thing is that we have both been here before. I smoked all through university, then quit when I moved to Scotland in 2002. I remained smoke-free for 3 years, until a bad breakup with the reason I moved to Scotland sent me scuttling for the Marlboro’s.

A few weeks before Husband and I married in 2006 (it was a short engagement, as mentioned previously), we agreed to stop again. (I think it was mainly because he was scared of his mom finding out. She’s a formidable woman.)

So stop we did, and it was a little easier as we had the excitement of a wedding, reunions with old friends, and an Italian honeymoon to take our mind off things. Incidentally, we started again almost immediately after his mother was out of earshot (or 'smell-shot' I guess would be more apropros).  So I'm not sure that time really counts as quitting at all - more of a little break.

This time is markedly more difficult. We actually decided to stop last Friday when we went on holiday. We lasted about 6 hours, which was the time it took to fly from Stavanger to Athens, check in to our hotel, and situate ourselves at an outdoor café.

We ‘stopped’ again every morning of our holiday, for approximately 5 hours, until we both got the post-lunch/ no-nicotine shakes, and went scrambling for a pack at the cruise ship bar. We finally pinky-swore that when we got on the plane to return home on Monday, that would be it. So we inhaled our last fag* at a hotel in Barcelona Monday morning.

Monday night was not too bad as we were busy travelling all day, and by the time we got home we were so exhausted all we could do was collapse into bed. Tuesday morning we both woke up feeling what I can only describe as seasick and hungover, rounded out with a touch of the swine flu. We mutually agreed speech was not necessary and both stumbled around silently, only stopping to frown or grunt at one another.

I’ll spare all the other details, but suffice to say, while it is not quite as dramatic as a detox scene from Trainspotting (oh, you know it if you’ve seen it!), it is rather unpleasant. Today I no longer want to shout at people, so I feel this could be the turning point. Onward and upward!

But why did we decide to stop?

Sure, there’s all the health reasons, and I am not minimizing them, but if they alone were enough then no one would smoke… ever… as we know cigarettes lead to bad things in your body.

We stopped due to simple economics.

In Norway, a pack of smokes costs about 80 nok. Since I smoked about a pack a day, multiply that 80 nok over 365 days. That’s 29,200 nok a year. But wait! Husband smokes the same amount, so that’s actually 58,400 nok. At today’s FX rates, that’s about $10,500.

I ask myself how likely it would be that I would set fire to $30 every morning when I woke up. I think we can all agree that just seems foolish. But I was effectively doing the same thing in the form of a cigarette. While that might not be an altruistic or health-concious reason to stop, it's my reason, and it works for me.

So, yes, kids, smoking is bad for you. But it’s not just bad for your lungs, it’s bad for your bank account as well. When I consider the entire cost of my MBA was what I spend on cigarettes in a year now, it helps put things in perspective (although smoking was decidedly more fun than the MBA, and it gave me more to talk about at parties).

So here I am, yet again a non-smoker. If we know each other in real life, it’s probably best to let the beast lie another few days before prodding its cage!
__________________________________________________________
* As a point of cultural trivia, a ‘fag’ is what some Scots call a cigarette. Imagine my surprise. It led to all kinds of confusion, some funny, some not.

College by Computer

I’m in Paris at the moment. You might wonder why I’m blogging while on holiday, but holidays are not the same for Husband and me as for most other folks. We spend our ‘real’ lives talking and thinking and explaining, so when we go away, we want to do none of those things. So here we are, in the most visited tourist spot in the world (Honest!), and we are doing nothing.

Actually, that’s not true. In the 24 hours we have been here, we did visit a supermarket to buy copious amounts of cheese and wine, and we have watched more pointless TV than either of us has seen in the last month combined. And now Husband is sleeping while I listen to my iPod and read trashy gossip rags.

On our way here we bought a stack of magazines from the airport, and, once I had finished OK, Hello, and InStyle, I was forced to move on to Husband’s reading material, which included decidedly more highbrow fodder. I reluctantly flipped open Popular Science and was slightly horrified to find that there was stuff in there that was... you know… interesting.

Despite my holiday resolution to be an intellectual slacker, I was drawn to one article in particular about online education (It’s in the September 2008 issue, pages 54-59, should you be so inclined to read it yourself). I was interested for two reasons: first, there was nothing else to read, and second, I myself have been an online instructor for various universities for the past four years, so I had a frame of reference.

The article was explaining how the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has made a unique move by creating a free online catalogue of almost all of their course lectures whereby the non-MIT worthy (they only accept 12% of applicants, so don’t feel bad) can view real lectures by real geniuses for their own personal edification.

This got me thinking about the educational opportunities available to expatriates in Norway (and anywhere else really). Last week I had a new expat couple in my office asking about master’s programs in English. The trouble is, outside of Oslo, there are not that many. I felt bad sending them away with only a few options that I gathered seemed less than interesting to them.

So what’s a knowledge hungry expat to do?

Go to school from your laptop, that’s what.

I personally have taken a few classes from American universities to brush up on a lackluster skill set, and I can highly recommend it. But there’s a cost for most courses as for-profit schools have until very recently dominated the market. After reading the Popular Science article, I decided to do some digging for some free options. You won’t get credit, but you also won’t have to write a check.

If you’re looking to learn for learning’s sake (or you’re just bored and need some academic stimulation without the hassle of exams), check out some of the sites below. I’ve listed them from most general to most specialized. The first three are especially good as you can access lectures in every subject under the sun from every university, Ivy League to local community college.

YouTube EDU
iTunes U.
Academic Earth
Big Think
MIT Open Course Ware
Google Code University

Me & Him

Last week Husband and I celebrated our three-year wedding anniversary. And I'm smug about it. Not in a Bridget Jones 'smug marrieds' kind of way. But in a 'no one thought we'd last three months, let alone three years' way.

Husband and I met in August. We got engaged in October. And married the following July. All after having spent a sum total of about 5 weeks in each other's company. After we got engaged, we started the round of excited phone calls to friends and family. The range of responses we got was this:

• "I hadn't realized you were dating anyone."
• "And you said her name was.. what, again?"
• "This is...sudden."
• "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
• "Have you lost your @!%&! mind???

None of the above was said with a trace of excitement or happiness, for the record. And I can understand. Both Husband and I had come out of long relationships in the months just before we met, and neither of us was really on the lookout for a spouse (quite the opposite, in fact). But met we did, and we both realized early on that we just didn't want to be apart one more day longer.
When you're in the first flush of new love, you overlook a lot of things... or you simply don't worry about them because you trust that Captain & Tenille were right that love would keep you together. Turns out Tina Turner had the wiser advice - sometimes love just ain't enough. And I say, hand on heart, fresh from a wedding anniversary, that Tina was spot on. Love isn't enough.
That's not to say I don't love Husband. I do. A lot. More than I have ever loved anyone else.. or more than I have loved the everyone else's all rolled into one. I won't gush, but suffice to say he is a warm and gentle genius with a wicked sense of humor who isn't afraid of hard work. And he's pretty cute, too. But love isn't what got us to the three year mark. It was a conscious decision on a daily basis to stay together, no matter what.

If I'm being honest. I share the surprise of the aforementioned friends and family that we made it this long. Frankly, I am surprised we made it past the first year. It was touch and go some days. A lot of this had to do with the fact that, although I was perfectly aware I would be moving to Norway when we got married, I didn't think about what that reality would look like when I said my vows.

For the first 12 months of our married lives, every argument would either begin or end with me hissing "And I am only in this PLACE because of YOU!" And poor Husband would just look at me helplessly because he knew it was the truth. But you know what? It wasn't.

When I married Husband, I wasn't just marrying another person, another family. I was marrying another life. And while perhaps I should or could have considered how this other life was going to fare with me on board, I made the conscious decision to pack my wordly goods, put them on a boat, and wing my way to Stavanger courtesy of KLM. I came to Norway because I made a decision to come to Norway. And I made that decision because I fell in love with someone who was already here. So I wasn't in this place because of Husband. I was in this place because of ME.

That realization was a bitter pill to swallow at first because it meant having to own up to being the captain of my own ship, master of my own destiny, blah blah blah. It meant I had to get off the couch and make a life for myself... and that is no mere weekend project! It also meant that I couldn't hurl that accusation around anymore, because it was only hurting the one person who was my partner in crime in my new life. I had to pull up my bootstraps and start living this other life.

So I made some new friends, both local and expat, I got a job that I liked, and I started leaving the house (the length of that sentence belies the amount of time all those things actually took me to do). I learned a smattering of Norsk, and I quit focusing on everything that was wrong and started reminding myself of what was right. And it worked. With a bad year one behind us, there was nowhere to go but up. And we have, year after year. I look forward to future anniversaries - not just as a celebration of our wedding day, but as an annual reminder of celebrating the choices we make in life.

I don't think I ever apologized to Husband for "I'm only in this PLACE because of YOU!" And I won't now either, because I will probably just say it again at some point, thus rendering the apology meaningless. But instead, I guess I should tell him this: "If I'm only in this place because of you, then thank you for giving me the opportunity to have a life better than anything I could have imagined."

Choices vs. lack thereof

This week I am on a whistle stop tour of the US to visit friends and family and to stock up on all the consumer goods I miss from the States. I spend most of my time visiting and eating and shopping - literally gorging myself on company and consumables until I can’t see straight.

I love a good shop, me. But since I have been living away from the US, every time I return for a supermarket sweep, I am left with a sense of emptiness. To be more precise, my suitcases are full and my wallet less so, but there has been a strange shift for me when revisiting the United States of Shopping. I feel like there is too. much. choice.

Don’t get me wrong – I like to sort through 22 fits and 17 colors of a pair of jeans at the mall. At least I used to. Now, though, the thought of shopping fills me with a sense of anxiety and dread. When I go to Houston, I usually only stay three or four days before moving on to somewhere else. Because I know where the shops are in H-town, I do a mad circular dash from the Galleria to Target to the outlet malls to Central Market, frantically shoving things into shopping bags until I want to slit my wrists with a credit card. There’s too many colors, sizes, fits, washes, fabrics. Just too much everything. Ten years ago this cornucopia of ‘too much’ would’ve been music to my ears. Today it is just sensory overload. How did this happen?

According to psychology professor Barry Schwartz in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, choice and satisfaction are inversely related. The more choice you have, the less satisfied you are. This seemed counter-intuitive to me, but after some reflection, I think I get what Schwartz is on about.

Let’s say on my bi-annual Target run I am stocking up on dryer sheets (Seriously, I do. They’re cheap and easy to pack and good for a multitude of things). If I have 20 choices of dryer sheets (There really are that many.. at least!), I have 20 opportunities to feel I picked the lesser option. I can have mountain fresh scent OR I can have easy iron. But I can’t have both. Now I WANT both, so I am dissatisfied with each individual option. This cycle repeats until I have exhausted the 18 other options and am left, broken and teary in the aisle of Target, wishing I hadn’t selected the onerous task of choosing dryer sheets.

In Norway it’s a different story. I go to one of the only two stores that even sell dyer sheets, I walk to the aisle where the dryer sheets live, and I pluck a box and put it in my basket. Done and dusted with no drama or gnashing of teeth. I don’t know what super fancy options my dryer sheets possess, but it doesn’t matter as it’s the only option I have. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that I wouldn’t like a little MORE choice in Norway sometimes, but the lack thereof makes my life a hell of a lot simpler. It leaves me space to focus on the choices that do matter and less on the ones that just don’t.

I’m certain this seems melodramatic, but for anyone who's ever lived for an extended time away from home, you might be able to relate to what I'm talking about. Most expatriates complain about the lack of choice in Norway – they do this in the same tone of voice as discussing a dirty hotel room or a less than gracious dinner guest. But I think this lack of choice is something that should be embraced (mainly because, let’s face it, there’s sod all you can do about it).

If I don’t have 6,000 choices of where to go to dinner (fact check it – that’s how many eating holes there are in Houston!), then I worry less about picking a place and instead focus on enjoying the company I keep while I gnosh away. If I don’t have 1,428 choices for body lotion (the number of options you find on drugstore.com), then I choose one of the 10 options I do have, slather myself up, and get on with life.

None of this is to say I am overly enlightened. I still like to have a good moan about all the things I can’t buy in Norway as well as the lack of options when I do have to make a purchase. But it does mean that, after living in Europe for almost a decade, I realize there is not one single consumer good I can’t live without.

That all being said, I will still participate in the twice-a-year shopfest when I go to the US. But on a day-to-day basis back home in Norway, I will secretly relish that I can reserve my decision-making skills for more substantiative things. Like when to go back to Houston for more shopping.