The Office

Hi peoples...so since it seems to be a trend that i begin posts with comments on the weather in Bergen let me first tell you that we have been blessed with some gorgeous spring weather in the last couple of days. Clear blue skies and beaming sunshine. It has really made J and I smile and we realise just how fabulous it will be here in summer. When it is sunny, everyone just gets out and enjoys it. The town square is packed with people, all the outside seats at pubs are full and the shores of the lakes are surrounded by lazy sunbakers. I even took half a day off work yesterday to hang out in our little sun swept garden with j and the hounds. Really beautiful. But...speaking of work, today I thought I would post some pics from the office so you can all get a sense of where I am spending almost all day everyday. Okay then, let's begin the tour with a photo of the office building from the angle it greets me on from my walk into work each morning. The windows you see in the roof are mine! It may seem strange to be in the attic, but the angle of the windows actually allows me to get sun nearly all day, which is awesome.

Then we have a shot of the entrance to my office. To get to it I walk through the office of the PhD student working on the project with me - the fabulous Kamilla. The notes on butchers paper that you see to the left of the frame are Norwegian phrases for me to learn, things like "I am sorry I don't understand" and "Have fun at..." (or what literally translates as "Have a cosy time at...") etc

The next shots are from within my office. It is hard to give the sense of space shooting from within but you get the idea nonetheless. The ferns on my meeting/creative space table were in the room the first day I arrived, placed there by my totally out there but lovely project manager Roger. Nice welcoming touch I thought.

The next shot is just the view out the window from my desk. The main mountain you see is the biggest in Bergen - Ulrikken...mmm...must climb one day!

This next shot is of the time plan for 2007 that I have been working out over the last couple of days. Note that each colour corresponds to a different part of the research project. I hope you can appreciate how much work will be involved in following this through and how much fun I had playing with coloured pencils for the hour or so it took me to draw this up!

The last photo I have for you today is one taken as I walk from the office to the bus stop. While I always walk into work, some days I am too tired to be bothered walking home and then I take one of the super mega fabulous Bergen buses. I never have to wait more than about 10 minutes for one to swing by and there are so many bus stops along the way, I can usually start walking and just catch one as it passes. The public transport here really puts the rail services in the gong to shame, although there is something far more romantic about a train than a bus. Lucky I have such a romantic view on my way to the bus stop!


Now you have been totally spoiled for photos so hopefully that will get you all through the weekend. I hope they have managed to give you a good sense of where I work - the fabulous Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen, Norway. Kisses til next time....

C?

So just a note on the weather before I begin the post in earnest...You will be happy to hear that the rain has cleared and that on the weekend we managed to have both snow and sunshine within hours of each other - truly fabulous. I love waking up on a Saturday morning, seeing snow cascading outside the bedroom window and knowing that I can just roll over and go back to sleep completely guilt free...mmmm lovely!

Now, I want to move on from the weather and talk about language again. This time though, I want to make an observation rather than request a translation. It seems as though the Norwegian language has almost no words that begin with the letter C. Strange but true I tell you!

As you can see from this shot, the total sum of C words does not even take up one page in a rather substantial dictionary. And if the resolution is good enough, you can see that the majority of these are actually english words anyway, words like camping, calypso, celluloid, champion and champagne. In contrast, words beginning with S take up over 70 pages! So tell me, what are some of your favourite C words (except that one peoples!) that I can use to convince the Norwegians of the value of starting words with the letter C??

rain

Yes so it is raining again. J has been recording the days it has been raining and we have hit the magic number of 10 days straight! Woohoo. Today I thought I would do the Norwegian thing and just walk home in it anyway. Need those rainproof pants they all wear though, I got saturated! And forget the umbrella idea, I had one and got soaked anyway, and you constantly battle it being blown inside out. When you are as wet as you can get though, it does start to become fun, well almost...The walk still felt like the longest yet.

Hooray for the ipod nano...see nanotechnology can solve all the world's ills! Well at least the ones related to the need for distraction from discomfort during trudges home in a downpour! As Roger my project manager told me yesterday though, you can't get around the depression brought on by the weather, you have to get through it! So please, write and remind me about all the good things about the rain - I need positive affirmations! Pics from the view out my window as i sit here and write....kisses til next time....

it's the little things...

So welcome to what I hope is a series of blog posts called 'it's the little things...'
The title comes from that fabulous piece of Pulp Fiction dialogue about the little differences in Europe (you remember Le BigMac etc). So today's post comments on two small differences in Norway, both related to food...

The first difference is the eggs. Have you ever seen such a pearly white egg? They simply glisten! Now maybe it is because I have been raised on a farm and therefore believe that eggs should really come covered in a little bit of shit and straw, but these Norwegian eggs seem surreally white even by Australian supermarket standards. They also don't come in shades of brown. Do they not have brown chickens in Norway? I must investigate. They are also incredibly fragile. It is almost impossible to crack one and have it come away shell free. Does someone scrub them until only the tiniest of outer crusts remains? I know not.

The next difference is peanut butter. You know how in Australia we are blessed with a range of peanut butter choices? Kraft, Dick Smith, homebrand etc. Well the stange thing is not that Norway does not offer those brands, but that there is abolutely no choice at all. If you are not eating Mills' grov type then you are not eating peanut butter. Not even a choice between crunchy and smooth for crying out loud. Their position on this seems to be to make the one type on offer a mix somewhere between the two, not totally smooth but not particularly crunchy either. We have even checked out various supermarkets to confirm the matter and all the evidence points to the existance of only one species of peanut butter in Norway. They do offer cashew butter though and my question to you is, is that enough?

Ahhh, you see, it's the little differences....

say what?

At work searching databases for articles relevant to my research and suddenly realised that I have fallen into a world that is both scary and close to incomprehensible. Since you were all so good with working out the Norwegian words I posted, I thought you might like a crack at translating some of these opening lines from articles relevant to my work. It sure would help me if you could work them out because I am sure as s?*t lost...and these are in english, believe it or not! So...

Article number 1: A fringe-pattern analysing interferometer with a resolution of 1 x 10(-9), stability of readings of about 0.1 nm, and an uncertainty owing to optical effects of less than 1 nm, has been used to study some systematic effects in gauge block length measurements…

Okay...Number 2: Based on the principle of measuring the property of micromechanics by means of nanoindentation, the authors clarify their views on the influence factors of type I and type 11 to measure-the property of micromechanics of materials by nanoindentation…

And number 3: The uncertainty in the measured fluorescence decay lifetimes of 30 nm particles of YAG:Ce was used to evaluate the predictions of a novel form of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle suggested by de Sabbata and Sivaram, DeltaTDeltat greater than or equal to (h) over bar /k…

Anyone? Anyone?

Comments??

Okay so I am not sure how I feel about this whole blog thing...On the one hand it is great, I get to leave messages for all my buddies so they know what I have been up to, and I get to leave pics so they can all see my new surroundings etc. What I don't like is that it is largely a one way passage of communication (the exception of course being you Kylie, a truly magnificent human being who I love, respect, appreciate and adore!) I know lots of you are visiting because you tell me you are, but what I would love, is if you could leave some kind of comment to show me that I am not doing all this for no one (except of course miss kylie who I love, respect, appreciate and adore!) Even if that note just says hi, I stopped by! I know I am sounding bossy and well, that is because I am bossy, but I am starved for news from home and love in this foreign country and want to hear from everyone! Anyway, that is my rant...

In news...I booked a flight today to spend three days in April in Phoenix Arizona. Seems a long way to go for 3 days I know but you can rest assured that it will be three hard days of smoozing. My job at this meeting is literally to network, I don't have to give a presentation or actually do anything other than impress US bigwigs in the social study of nanotechnology. Now that I think about it though, that seems like quite a task in itself, considering the size of my fish and my supremely limited knowledge about things nano...To indicate the importance of this meeting let me drop a few names,...other invited include Sheila Jasanoff and Jerry Ravetz (of funky rabbits fame). Jerry couldn't go so he invited Silvio Funtowicz, Silvio couldn't go so he invited me (because he is friends with my project manager and met me one time at band camp). This probably means nothing to anyone, but those in the STS know will understand why I might be freaking out slightly....

Anyway that is my big news for today. The pic is a shot of me in Bergen's town square, in the hope that seeing my face may guilt you all into leaving a comment :) ;) :) xxx

Norsk kurs

Okay here is one for all the smarty pants...since so many of you managed to work out that koselig effectively means cosy (although the director of my research centre explained it as 'cosy in a Jack Nicholson kind of way'), I thought I would post another word for you all to have a go at. So what do you think this means???

We had our first language class tonight, but unfortunately this word didn't come up. Poor J found it all a bit overwhelming but being the studious beaver I am I had done some preparation and found it not so difficult. I think already knowing German helps too. I will keep you up to date with our progress but I don't think we will be writing mountains of compelling novels in Norwegian any time soon.

Had a super chilly day today, coldest yet, with super strong winds nearly blowing me onto the road during my morning walk to work and some horizontal rain thrown in for good measure later in the day. Hopefully with spring on the way things can only get better...

Ha det bra til tomorrow!

the flat...

So I promised some people pics of our flat...This first photo shows the track leading down the side of the house that we have to take to get to our entrance. Not so exciting but should give you a sense of the outside of the house.

Next is a shot of the main bedroom. It still feels strangely empty without our pictures or personal effects (still making their way over here on the ship). What you can see from this shot though is the lovely scandinavian sauna look our bedrooms have...mmmm....saunas....the two little mats on the floor are our makeshift beds for the dogs. Of course the dogs are not stupid and when we are not home they make themselves comfortable on the real bed!

Finally I have included a shot of our second bedroom/study, and of J being cheesy! Through the window here you should get a glimpse of our view. Note again the lovely sauna effect. Fortunately the whole house is not decked out like this...most of it, but not all. I think it is to try and give you the allusion of warmth, and to remind you that you are in scandinavia.

So that is our little flat, not exactly modern, but certainly 'koselig' as the Norwegians would say. Anyone who can tell me what that means gets a big gold star!

one week...

So J and I have been here a whole week now and while discussing it last night J said that it felt like much much longer! Having spent the week working perhaps I agree. I am still not sure what it means to be researching the ethics of nanotechnology and am certainly not sure how one goes about such a task...most of the time I am just trying to look busy, highly unethical I am sure!! There is talk of sending me to the US for a meeting of bigwigs in the field next month - I would apparently be going as the European representative...are they joking?? (Coaly people you know the accent on this phrase!) Anyway it is great to feel important even if it is just a ruse....
Since I don't like to post without a pic here is one J took on his phone on one of our other walking tracks - around the local lake (frozen in this case). Note the blue sky though...very exciting!


Very much looking forward to the weekend so i can have a sleep in...working 8-4 5 days is tough, props to all those who have been doing it for so long!! J and I are having dinner with another Aussie expat here on Saturday so it will be nice to be able to say things like g'day, cobber and crickey again. Did I ever say cobber??? Kisses til next time and miss youse all....