Ingrid in Hawaii; belated

Still not too up to date, but I guess its better late than never. So I will not write too much, but even though I haven’t been taking a lot of pictures, doesn’t mean she didn’t. So I got a bunch of pictures that I will put up for a couple of slideshows for “all of you” to enjoy.

We went to Kailua Beach; a beautiful beach located on the windward side of O’ahu. We went on a roadtrip with the MC and ended up here where we got some great food and some hours enjoying the sun and the view of one of Hawaii’s most famous beaches.

You can’t be a tourist in Hawaii without going to Hanauma Bay and discovering the beautiful fishes in the Hawaiian waters.

We also had a badass Halloween. Because of my limited economy as a student we didn’t go all out on the costumes, like a lot of americans do, but we had more fun than most americans do. And that’s what matters. We went to our neighbor (the apt my mom is staying at during christmas) as it was my friends birthday as well. We gave her a jack-o-latern as a gift. Handy work by Ingrid and motivational speech given by me to keep Ingrid motivated to do it. Good times. Since we didn’t want to waste all the pumpkin seeds we used them for our dinner. We made chicken with pumpkin, pumpkin seeds and it was really good. A good ole traditional Halloween. Check the pictures.

Got some other fun pictures, but I’ll take them another day, now I gotta go to sleep as I’m getting up early tomorrow to come with Truls to Pepperdine University.

 

Good Night

UPDATE: Pre-Ingrid Arrival

Aloha fellow human beings! It’s a great day to be alive, as it always is! Today my brother is going to win the cupfinal with AaFK (of course they’re going to win), and we are gathering the troops of norwegians here in our cave for a fun game and some snacks, and maybe even some beers. We will see…

Anyways, I wanted to post 2 posts; one on what’s been going on from the time I got to Hawaii, until Oct. 20th; the day Ingrid arrived – a creature known to come out in the knight, when everyone is sleeping. Might also catch a glimpse of her at G-Sport, but she is very shy, so don’t get too close, she might get agitated and attack.

Basically I’m taking a lot of fun courses this semester. Most fun is it that I’m doing my own research. Me and a friend, Mike, another Psychology student are doing research on the compliance technique called “door-in-the-face”. I don’t want to go in to details about it, but in the link you can read about it, it is fun, and it is also a way to influence people.

I really haven’t been taking many pictures this year. But as a quick update, Vegard also joined the soccer team I play for. As well as two other good friends of mine have joined the team, so its going to be great fun to play with them this season. Also, most of our time go in to either going to school, doing homework, partying, working out, playing soccer and beachvolley. Life is good, there’s no doubt about it.

Me and Vegard are helping our friend Toni, who moved to Philadelphia, to sell his motorcycle. For doing this, he lets us borrow it as well, so me and Vegard got ourselves a MC license and can now drive around with a 1300cc. We are having fun, for sure.

This should be enough for now; I wrote it a while ago, so as you can see, it is “old” news, as AaFK already won the final etc…

See you guys later

The first days here in Hawai’i

The last post was about my trip over here, and how it was leaving. Plus some pictures and chitchat on our new place.

Now, we’ve been here for soon two weeks, which have gone by like if it was just a day or two, even though it feels like forever since I left Norway, for some reason I feel like I’ve only been in Hawaii for a couple of days. Anyways, as we moved in to our place, everything was already there, so we didn’t have to buy much of the normal necessities. But what we figured out we could afford to buy, according to my semi-retarded unprofessional made budget that I scraped together in like 25 minutes in Excel is; Scooters!

So we will see how well this budget works, but it worked for me earlier, or “worked”. I got my fullest belief that it’ll kick ass.

So far, I haven’t met too many new people, and most of the people I knew from before are done now, as a whole bunch finished their masters and bachelors this last spring. But some are still here, and the ones that are, are really kicking it! Especially now that my sense of time and day is back to normal (oh, do I hate jetlag) we’ve been having a good time during the day by playing beach volleyball and soccer, and in the nights we’ve been checking out different places to see what’s for us.

And today I played my first game of soccer with Vaiete SC, but it was only a scrimmage game, that “we” won 4-1. I started out as a striker, and had a couple of good chances, and I missed my 100% chance; it was a good save, but man should I’ve put that one! I guess that’s why I’m not a striker… Also, tomorrow morning at 10am we are playing another game against HPU (my university) as their soccer team is preparing for season kickoff in about a month. Will be fun to see how we’ll do. Hopefully we’ll win, but from what I saw of Vaiete today, I don’t think we’ll stand a chance against a well-prepared HPU team.

One thing that I’ve been really bad at since I got here, is to take pictures. I used to take a lot of pictures, and bring my camera everywhere, but now, I’m terrible. So I’ll add what I have to make this a colorful post, but really, I don’t have that many yet.

 

The trip back over

Most of you probably know that I’ve been in Hawai’i now for 2 years, and last week I got back again from 3 months of summer vacation, well-spent in Norway. To be honest, it feels good to be back. Of course it’s always hard to leave friends and family behind to go pursuit your dreams, but as long as I know within myself that I’m heading towards greater achievements and successes by doing what I’m doing, I don’t really feel that bad for leaving.

This time, I’m even bringing a friend with me, Vegard.

My stay in Norway got cut down quite a bit as I was certain that my plane was leaving Aug. 13th, but instead I was actually leaving the 11th. Because of my scattered brain, I didn’t realize this until the 8th of August, so instead of 5 days left, I now had only 3 days left in Norway.

So that was some last days of packing, goodbyes and whatnot, but now I’m here in Hawai’i with Vegard, and we found a great apartment that both me, Vegard and Eirik (not Erik) Aarseth will reside in for the next year. Luckily we got set up with a nice apartment within two days, and now we are mostly vacating until school starts the 8th of September. And I’m really glad we went down as early as we did, because if we didn’t, there would be no chance of finding such a great place to live, with such a nice view and at such a sweet location for the price we pay today. Also, it took us 1 day to find it, instead of battling every apartment with 10 other willing students, like it usually is when you look for a place to live a week before school starts. And those days we were apartmentless, we stayed at my friend Liss’ place, and I’m really glad she let us stay there in one of her rooms, that was much appreciated by both Vegard and me.

So, I’ll also put up some pictures from our apartment for those of you who haven’t seen it yet. And also I will put up some pictures from the summer that I’ve taken so that you guys who are not on facebook can see what my summer was like? :)

And as I come to think of it, I will just post a new post about my summer…

The summer of desire, and what not!

So this summer has been a blast. The 3 months I was home were over before I even knew it started! So I don’t want to write too much about it. Mostly I’ll give some slideshows of different pictures from various events throughout the summer.

First of all, there will be a lot of pictures of me, and a new friend I’ve made, Ingrid. We are currently boyfriend-girlfriend, and as the pictures will show, and you will soon understand, she is not just a normal girl, but a very special. Since my field is psychology, I got a great interest in understanding people that are, how should I put this delicately, less fortunate than “us”. So she is suffering from a severe brain damage, and do not function 100% properly, but she got an amazing character that is really easy to like, unless she’s drooling and her tourette syndrome kicks in. But as the picture will show, she’s a lovable character.

 

But that aside, she is not to be laughed at or anything. But lets continue on with some pictures!

 

From my trip to Geiranger

 

Misc. pictures from the summer

Vacation

So it is vacation time, so I can’t promise any updates during summertime! I got back to Norway last week, and will be enjoying the next 2.5 months here, so I might not post anything. We’ll see – whatever happens, happens!

Short Reassurance

I don’t know why I started to think about this, but I guess it was to postpone a walk to the 7th floor to do laundry… But I started to think of when did I feel bad / sad / depressed last or something along those lines. And it hit me… I don’t think I’ve ever been feeling bad / sad / depressed in my whole life for more than 1 hour, or maybe 2 hours. I really can’t think of any time I was feeling down, I pretty much feel awesome all the time.

I guess this is good stuff for you people back home as a reassurance that I’m having a good time, but on the other hand, I would probably have a good time if someone put me on the North Pole to live amongst the Polar Bears, so maybe it’s not that informative. Who cares, smile and be happy :D

Now, I have only one lecture again before final exam week, which will be pretty ok as I have two of my exams on Mondays and Tuesday. Then one exam online from Monday to Tuesday. One take home project that needs to be turned in by Wednesday and an exam on Saturday. Soon done, and life is good!

Lets end it on a fun note;

Intercultural Day of 2009

Preparation
So me, Ida Killingberg and Stine Natten were planning to perform at HPU’s 25th Annual Intercultural Day. By knowing that Stine won the national in Norwegian Folk Dance, I just went out on a limb and added us to the lineup of performers, and then Ida came along without knowing that we were performing, so we just made a mega show out of it all. It started out good, a couple of days later, me and Stine was practicing “Gangaren” and this was 4 weeks ahead of the event, so I was pretty positive about the whole thing. Then Stine went under the ground for 3,5 weeks so we didn’t practice anything until the last 3 days before the event. And at this time I had no experience whatsoever with Folk Dance.

Luckily we are back in business and are able to get together a “Gangar”, a “Reinlender” and a traditional “Polka”.

The day before the event, me & Ida went down on Kalakaua Ave. (the main street) in Waikiki and did some street performing. In about 1 hour, we made $6.50 each. YES! It was fun and it bought me a Subway the next day. Some people came up to me and told me I was lucky for having such a cute girlfriend. Ida is cute, but is luck the right word? Come on! Luck is just a term used by people who suck, who envy those who knows what they’re doing :)

The Performing part
I was planning on inviting Camilla, Sara and Heidi, but I knew they were going on a hike, and I didn’t want them to choose between the two, as the hike would be much more relevant to them as tourists here. They would get so much more out of it, plus then they got to hang out with some local people who knew their way around here on this small island.

The performing went really well – considering the little amount of time we’ve put in to it. But Stine and Ida already knew what they were doing. I lost the timing and rhythm a couple of times during the 10 minutes we danced, but luckily no-one seemed to care, or even notice. As we got #2 price after #1 China, who had a large festival kind of thing, you know the Chinese dragons and all that fantastic stuff. We didn’t deserve 2. place, and it sucks to be #2, because then you are so close to being #1!

Enjoy the pictures and video – if the video work properly.

Mads and Heidi at the Waterpark

 

Splash Bash 09 was the name of the event. Hawai’i Pacific Universities own Student government hosts this event every year, were for only $15 you get a ride, entrance, concert and dinner at the Hawaiian Waterparks which is on the westside of the Island. This is an awesome deal, so I was really looking forward to it, as I missed out on last years event.

 

Unfortunately for Camilla and Sara it was the same day as their departure, so it was only me and Heidi who went with a bunch of my friends from school. We were a whole bunch of people there. I think all together we were about 300 students. Good stuff!

So we ran around like kids at this place, trying all the ‘cool’ rides. The most fun rides were actually closed because they are rebuilding that part of the park, which sucks for us, but its all good. We still got to do the tornado, shaka and the flow rider.

Enough talk about it, enjoy the pictures & videos!

Riding the artificial wave with a bodyboard

 

One of the rides; The Tornado – I think it was called

[external link to album with higher resolution pictures]

Camilla w/Friends

The rumors are true. Camilla is back. This time not with Jonas, her ex-boyfriend, but rather with two friends, Heidi and Sara. They are staying for three weeks this time, and when they get out of their jetlagged routines, we are going to have a blast, for sure!

So far we’ve planned to go out every night so far, but it all ended up with them falling asleep sometime between 8 and 10:30 p.m. Well it’s alright, I kind of expected it, as last time Camilla was here, she was jetlagged for about 2 weeks. Awesome stuff.

Hopefully they’ll get over it soon, so that we can do stuff in the evenings too, as that’s the time I got open. During day time I’m mostly at school, does homework, at the gym or playing soccer, so with my really tight schedule it doesn’t really fit well that they spend their afternoons/nights sleeping.

 

As a side note; I got accepted to Psi Chi; the national honor society for Psychology students. This is the first semester that I’m eligible to join, so I was excited about it. Also, we only have one game left of the season, and our last game ended in a 1-0 to us (scored by yours truly with a shot from about 20-25m, and the goalie stood chanceless; felt good; as I don’t score often!)

What else is new?
I have only two days left on the treatment for acne’s that I’ve been on for the last three months. And I guess it has been working pretty well; I’ll also put up a few pictures taken just this minute to show myself, because I love myself. Irony aside, that’s pretty much what’s new right now. We are planning on doing some hikes the upcoming week(s); so I’ll be sure to put up pictures with some text on that as well, if I am only able to get hold of the pictures!

 

Happy now, mom? :)

Well, that’s all for now; I’m going to sleep and it is way too late for me to be up now (as you can see from these brand fresh photos). The pictures was taken by Camilla and posted on facebook. I’m just the middle-man! I’m such a thief.

Cheers.

Tweet Tweet

Hola! So I updated the left panel on the blog to have my latest Twitter.com status changes. It will be helpful to see what I’m doing (all this useless stuff that is not worth blogging about); most of you probably don’t care, but if I'm good at updating it, it will tell you what I’m doing at any time.

Tweet tweet,

Mister Nation

Seriestart

Today was quite a big day for Norway; the Norwegian Premier League started, and AaFK played versus Tromso. I was all hyped to get up to watch that game on TV2 Sumo and cheer loudly at 7 A.M. (in the morning). But you know what sucks? Even more than getting up at 7 AM? Getting up at 7 AM to a TV2 Sumo (web TV) that doesn’t even work. So I had to listen to the game on a webradio hosted by Sunnmørsposten (the local newspaper in Aalesund).

Luckily I also got some socializing with Silje, Julie & Tante Karianne; that was cool. They were crazy, but I already knew that, so no surprise! And they got to see me bake my soccer socks and make me some Black Mango Tea that I’m drinking in this very second, yummy!

Too bad I couldn’t see the game, because I get so motivated by watching soccer, and we are playing a game at 11 AM today, and I’m not really feeling it. I got a weak ass cold coming after driving to Waikiki yesterday on my roommates scooter. The second I got out of the garage it started to pour down. So I was so freakin’ wet, and now I’m partly sick. Damn, I don’t wanna… Hopefully the tea will help me to get better. Also, I bought Green Tea Extract the other day, maybe that’ll help aswell – who knows!

Boys Night Out

This is the night were all the men turn in to boys. I’m not talking about myself, since I perceive my self as a boy 24/7; I’m talking about most of the other guys on my soccer team. There’s a couple of young guns on our team, but the majority is 30+, and this was without a doubt men turning boys. Married, engaged or in a relationship; it didn’t matter! Tonight it we were rocking Waikiki FC style. We started out at Chris’ place, with his 5 year old son and wife. Some delicious pizza, homemade guacamole and tortillas; sweet. His son was fun, running around being all crazy, made me miss Kasper for a bit, but then again, I’m going to have fun, and I’m trying not to think of people back home, as it only decreases the mood. If you go around worrying and missing people, you are going to miss out on the good time you can have right here, right now. So we played Fifa 09, ate Pizza, smack talked and just horsed around. As it was getting late we hit town. This was the first night out for me and Andy so I had no idea what to expect, but I’ve heard some rumors of a certain “Spidermonkey Dance” that is performed by Chris; so I was looking forward to it.

We also went out in our soccer jerseys, and to all the girls that came and asked “What’s up with the jersey’s?” etc. we just told them we were a professional soccer team from Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) and we were vacating. For some weird reason everyone believed us, even though we really pushed it. People are too naive, that’s my conclusion! The only soccer jersey I had was a 1980 Ireland jersey that is way too big, so I decided to go out in an AaFK “jersey” I had, to represent. One of our the guys on my team took like 200 pictures + 20 videos, so I’m still waiting for him to get his finger out off his ass and send me those pictures, until then, all I have for pictures is this one little thingy;

Later on that night, supposedly the Spidermonkey dance and everything else also happened, I hope I’ll get my hand on the pictures, and I will post them. But the rookie, Andy, he ended up throwing up when he got home, all over his African Rug (that he had to throw away; good job buddy!) and Jaz fell asleep in his car, the guy with all the pictures was sober, so he got home safely luckily, and that’s pretty much it. And poor Christian, he had to serve us all the drinks as he was the bar-owner and had to work that night! At least I got my water fast and everyone else got free drinks so it was good for something. On our next game on Sunday we are having a BBQ afterwards, I really enjoy these guys, it is a good way to get out of this segregation that’s going on with the Scandinavian people here; to get out of that little bubble and see everything else and meet new people.

And I’m officially done with all my midterm exams and term papers now; so from now and ‘till infinity, I’m going to relax, and I know how to do that! Actually, I got one more, but it’s not that hard and I’m going to write about a movie; so it’s all good in the hood.

CIAO MUCHACHOS!

First Game of the Season

Last week I signed with Waikiki FC, the team I played with last year to play with them. They are great guys, so I’ll rather play here with some random people. Anyways we had our last game, and me & Frank (he is a new guy that I hang a lot with these days) are both playing with them. We play our games on Sundays which is too bad, since Saturday is a day for going out, so I went to Ocean’s, a place really near my place. And it was STUNNING.

After finishing up there at 4 o’clock; I headed home to get some sleep. And I got up at 7 to meet Frank, Truls and Diana for a surfing session. But only me and Frank met. It’s all good. We went in to the waves, and it was freaking cold. I’m shocked that I’m not sick right now as I was mostly shaking. But luckily, even though I haven’t surfed much the last year, I actually got it pretty well. Caught some good waves and had a lot of fun, before we had to get home to get ready for the game @ 11am.

We went back to my place, had some pancakes that my roommate Kane’s girlfriend made for us (sweet!) and a proteinshake, and we were ready to play the game. The game before our game was a playoff game for girls (age: 8-9) and they played on a big field, I was shocked. Those small girls looked like ants on that huge field, poor people. It went all the way to penalty kicks, so our game was delayed. No worries. When we started we were all fresh and had control from the first minute, and won the game 1-0. I think they had 1 corner, and one shoot on the goal in the whole game. Too bad for our goalie who used to be on the US Olympic Development team as a youth, as he didn’t get much practice from this game!

Coldest Winter

The last days have been the coldest days in Hawaii that I can remember since I got here in August 2007! I never used to be cold, even if it was raining; every day was a day for t-shirt. But yesterday, when I went out to Waikiki, I had to wear a Blazer to keep myself from getting cold. I think it was 21 celsius degrees, and crazy wind, bzzzz..

I don’t want to ‘solve the problem’ or think of why it is so cold, but a homeless person or just a weirdo I met on the bus told me it was because of Alaska is melting; I just nodded at him like “yeah” so that he could get the feeling of being a smartass. I don’t know why, and I don’t really mind getting a couple of ‘cold days’ a year…

Shortie: The King & Queen

So, Hawai'i got a lot of beauty. That's also what it is known for, that and surfing. But what Hawai'i also got a lot of is homeless people. Around Downtown Honolulu where I live, there are quite some homeless people. Some of them walk around with their shopping cart filled with their belongings. But today, I've noticed it before, but I decided to share it with you. I found "the king and queen" of the homeless. Now, I'm not sure if they know it themselves, or if it is official, but I've never seen a homeless person with that many belongings. Now I don't know if all the plastic bags and bags are filled up with air or what, but from the size of it, I'd guess they are the "wealthiest of the homeless"

Lunch with the “elite”

Today was a good day. Today, the Norwegian Consulate General from the Norwegian Embassy visited Hawai’i and HPU. He is in charge of the 13 most western states in the United States, and came mainly to Hawai’i to talk to members of congress and leaders in business & entrepreneurship to promote "Innovation Norway". But he was also kindly enough to visit us at HPU and give the Norwegian students a little informative speech with a Q&A part towards the end of the speech he held.

Before this, me and two other students (Liss Maria Myrvang & Andreas Hetland) were lucky enough to eat lunch with him along with the Vice President for Acadamic Affairs Dr. John Kears, Dr. Cathrine Linnes (the advisor for the Norwegian Student Association) and Dr. Brian Metcalf (advisor for the Psychology Club, and advisor for HPU’s Psi Chi chapter – the psychology honor society) so it was a great lunch. The Consulate General (Sten A. Rosnes) had a lot of questions to the students, how we felt about Hawai’i and how Norway as a nation could advantage from sending students abroad, and also how we are able to use our experiences her to our advantage when we are going back to the Norwegian job-market.

What we all agreed on, is that the greatest thing about studying abroad, and especially Hawai’i and HPU is that it is like you get two educations. One in your major, and one in cultural understanding. As most of you know, Hawai’i is a segway between America and Asia. HPU got students from every state in the US, and from over 100 countries, it is an international school. The small classes are supportive for a “discussion forum” instead of normal lectures. This makes students understand different cultures better as you often enter a classroom and you have students from 10 different countries in one class of 30. It is nothing but amazing. So what did I mean by getting two educations? Well, first of all, we are at an university to get a degree in whatever field of interest you’ve chosen. But at the same time, by meeting and interacting with people from all over the world, you’ll get a perspective you can get nowhere else and you will also be able to understand cross-cultural differences on a whole new level. This is knowledge you can only get by being there first-hand; you may read as much as you want about different cultures, but before you actually experience it hands-on, you don’t really know much. And that is also the reason why Sten A. Rosnes and others are trying to encourage people to study abroad or take their whole education abroad. Because the last ten years the numbers of students abroad have stagnated, and that’s something the Norwegian government don’t want.

For more information visit those two links:
- From HPU.edu's site
- The official site of the Consulate General

Weekend Special

Warning, long post ahead

So the weekend is now officially over; over the seas, Monday is a day off (oh big ol’ Presidents Day); thank you George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for making an extra holiday for me. I’ll pay you guys back somehow.

This weekend was a good one. A lot of fun experiences, and meeting new fantastic people, and that is always a great thing. It’s like discovering a whole new favorite meal; at least almost. Meeting new cool people is at least just as cool as when I discovered that I could use Turkey Burgers as ground beef (or ground turkey, whatever). That made my life so much easier, and also so much cheaper. I’m was a happy man the day I discovered that, and I’m a happy man now. I’m always a happy man so I guess that logic is faulty. Anyways.

The Saturday was the day for the Traffic Light party hosted by two Swedes; Martin and Urban. They did a great job promoting the party, so they filled about 300-400 college students in the club, and people danced and partied the whole night. It was a night of great fun! To the party I took my roommates scooter since he was staying with his girlfriend, and I’m not going to drink anyways. It saves me the $20 it costs for a taxi from Waikiki to my place! And in time of need, I’ll ride that scooter without thinking twice about it. And that hit me hard in the head. It is now 4 am (that’s in the night) and the club closes. I have to get up at 7:30 for a beach soccer tournament, so I’m heading home to sleep. 3 hrs of sleep is better than none. So I go to where I parked the scooter and the scooter won’t start. No chance. And this happens to me EVERYTIME I’m in Waikiki with it. It starts on the first try when I’m in downtown, safe, in my building. But when I’m away from home, trying to get home, that stupid scooter won’t start! At first I get a bit angry (not too angry though) but I shake it off pretty easily. Then when I try to start it some more, the Securitas officer comes over. He thinks I’m trying to steal the scooter. He asks me all those stupid questions, and I don’t really feel like answering him, he got no right to ask me stupid questions. So I just tell him to stop asking ridiculous questions, and look at the keys I’m holding in his hands. But talking sense to a Security guard doesn’t really do the laundry for me. So I have to take out the key, show it to him, put it back in the scooter, turn it around, to show that it works, but all he says is:
”Well, the scooter doesn’t start so why should I believe its the right keys?”
Even though I just took them out, put them back in (it fits) AND turns the key around as of the scooter to start. After a while, going back and forth, I told him I don’t have time for this so if he want to make a big case out of it, get the cops so I can get my ass back home to sleep, because I don’t want his bullshit, I got enough to worry about.

I start walking home. It’s now 4:30. I’m walking there with the scooter, and I’m on my way downtown (that is 3.7 miles = 6km) and dragging a scooter doesn’t make the job easier. You would probably guess I was pretty angry, pissed and upset at this moment. But I actually kept laughing. I just though this was too ridiculous to be true. That I am walking all the way to downtown with this scooter at 4am in the middle of the night. To then, get to Waikiki Beach to play the beach soccer tournament again. I thought I was running out of time. But halfway there, I called Andreas for an after party, I didn’t feel like walking anymore. So I went over to their place which is on the way. When I get there, they are all so drunk they can’t even talk straight, I think its hilarious and I regain some energy. Then, 5 minutes later, they are all asleep. So I turn on the computer and goes on MSN. That’s when I got told that AaFK is playing, and they are streaming it live on smp.no. Awesome; they are down 0-3. At least I got to see the part were Jonatan scored his first goal for AaFK (but quiet frankly I didn’t see the goal, as I was just in the MSN window at that time). Anyways, congratulations if you ever read this blog Jonatan! I was happy and proud. And it was getting close to 6pm. I decided, I could either go to Waikiki again with the scooter, or back home. I’m heading downtown as a zombie. Finally I get home, and I get the call that I need to be ready in 15 minutes to get picked up for the sand soccer, no sleep for this guy. Probably a good idea, seen as I would’ve slept for days if I went to sleep at that time. I chugged half a pack of Oreo’s and 1.5L milk (half a gallon) and one scoop of N.O. Xplode (a energy kind of nutrition thing I got) and boom, I’m ready to go.

It is time for beach soccer. Wee. Never really played too much of that, all I know is that I’m not usually the technical kind of player, and I thought that’s the ideal in playing sand soccer. My realization was what it didn’t seem too many of the other guys understood; I’ll come to that later. I meet up with my team, I knew a couple of the guys before, but some new faces, good people, we had a great time. Not too much to be said; it was the biggest sand soccer tournament in Hawaii; and the winning ceremony is held by Miss Hawaii, so I wanted to be a part of that. I was at this time regaining some energy, good team spirit, a lot of water to get hydrated got me going. I don’t want to say too much about this; but we won our first game 7-0, and it really got my confidence going. I scored 3 of the goals as a defender, playing half the game. I was as stoked as I could be; but the bad news was that our next game was 2 hours from now and I was getting tired. I got some food, and it helped a lot, but I never got back that insane energy level I was at during the first game. But when the 2nd game started, the adrenaline kicked in and I became the guy who knows what’s up and I did what I had to do. We tied, 4-4; being up by 4-1. Was a horrible match, the team we played were younger than us, but they played dirty and for a guy who never had a bruise had about 3-4 bruises after this match versus kids that were younger and twice my sight. I didn’t let it get to me though; I just whispered to this one kid, if you don’t get your shit together, I’ll loose my shit, and you don’t want that. I said what was needed to be said. But we still tied. We got our way to the final as one team dropped out, and we were playing a Brazilian team. The Brazilians plays together in the Hawaii Premier League as well, so I was sure we were going to loose this game, and I saw some of their games, they were good; they ruled the field versus every team. Good, enjoyable Samba Soccer, as they are well known for. Obviously they’ve played more beach soccer then us. But the game started, I was stoked, the adrenaline was pumping, and the time was 5pm. I’ve been up for about 36 hours at this time, I don’t know what’s keeping me up, but I’m up. I got an early goal, so we got the lead, I cheered so loud for myself that the referee had to give me a warning (well, part of my cheering was mocking the Brazilians over how easy it was, and I’m going to do it again); I kept my promise. I did it again. Pretty much the same kind of goal. So long suckers. We were up 3-0, and I felt we had this in our hands. I subbed, because I was so sun-burnt and my wrist was in pain (super sunburned) so I decided to stay out. All of a sudden one of the guys on our team does 3 handballs (in not too much time) and they were all within the penalty area. So that leads to 3-3. 3 goals on penalty (from their goalie) at this time I’m mocking them about how their goalie is their top scorer, and how embarrassing that must be for them. I’m just too much in the moment, but its fun, it gets them laughing, and it gets my team laughing, we need a good spirit. When I say mocking I mean jokingly mocking of course; as I know most of the guys on the Brazilian team, because I practice with some of them on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Anyways, we lost; 3-4. I didn’t care too much, we did our best; we played better and got further than what I believed we would, so I’m happy about that! We got our silver-medals handed out by Miss Hawaii, and we took a team picture with here; “weeee, big deal” I didn’t really care. I just wanted home to sleep. Got home. Slept for 12 hours, sweet Moses it felt good as my head hit the pillow. I put on an episode of Seinfeld when I went to sleep, but I didn’t even get through his opening act, before I fell asleep.

But the trick, I realized, in sand soccer is easy; be a bit ego. I know what I’m about to do, so I settle my feet for it and I won’t get surprised by my own moves – that’s common sense. So why not use that to your advantage? The defender on the other hand, is clueless about what you are going to do, he got some ideas of your possibilities, but he is not certain. And on sand, that is crucial. By tipping him off, he will be on his ass, it is so easy to fall in the sand. It is “slippery” it is no stable ground, like grass. Also making passes is often hard and unpredictable. So by being a bit ego at times, I became the top scorer in the tournament. Even though I’m not technical, I’m not good on small grounds, and I’m not good at scoring goals. Somehow, by this easy realization, my possibilities were endless, and I didn’t misuse my chances. And no mistakes were made by doing so.

Today, my day “off”, I got up at 9 and I went in to Waikiki for my first surf of 2009. It was a lot of fun. I went with Diana and Frank, that made for some funny mental pictures. After that we ate and got a beautiful view of the ocean from Duke’s Bar & Grill. Then I went to play beach volleyball, so I played for about a good hour and I left for home. I needed some food, and relaxation, it was my day off. I hit up the gym to do my routine there, and after I watch GoodFellas. An old movie from 1990, and I can’t believe I haven’t seen it yet. It was a great movie, and just as I felt after watching the Godfather, I had NO idea to why I haven’t seen it before! So now, Scarface is next on the list.

Well, goodnight, and enjoy the pictures!

Hiking Manoa Falls

So, we decided to do a hike Sunday morning. I got up at 7 o’clock just to do this. We were planning to go to Maunawili Falls. The other wanted to go to Diamond Head, but I told them it was a lame hike, and Maunawili Falls was much more fun. They were convinced, so we headed towards the waterfall. I put Diana in charge to find out where we had to take the bus etc. so we ended up totally stranded on the hike to Manoa Falls. Whatever; it is still a hike I haven’t done yet, so not a total waste of time.

Great people, great fun. We had a really good time walking/jogging up the steep hills to Manoa Falls and the Manoa Cliff. Also, no one brough any food, only water so after a while we all got so hungry we couldn’t risk continue “to the end” since we had no idea where the end were at, so we turned around, lost in space. We had a good time, and decided to rather go to Maunawili Falls the next weekend instead; good idea!

So here are some pictures from a great adventure. That’s also the argument I used to get the people we were with to go further; “Come on.. We are explorers and adventurous! You are too right?” – “So let’s go then”

Good times!

Welcome Picnic and BBQ

So this upcoming Satuday there will be a Welcome BBQ and Picnic that me and the rest of Borealis NSA is hosting (the Norwegian Student Association at HPU). We created an event on facebook for the happening, and already we have 80 people attending, and most likely, more people will be attending it, so it is a grand event.

On rare occasions, I bring my camera, this is one of those rare occasions, so I will be taking photographs during this event to get up here on my blog over the weekend.

What else is happening that day? Well, since the Swedish Student Association is also hosting a BBQ at the same place as we are and at the same time, we will organize a volleyball match played 6vs6 Norway vs Sweden, and hopefully we will smash their asses to the ground and get a revenge from last year when they beat us with a couple of points. This year is more of an official game, and we will do whatever is in our power to beat them.

Later on the night there will be some plans that are still to be discussed, but it will without a doubt be a very enriching day of activities and fun.

Stines Birthday BBQ

So here are some pictures from Stines Birthday BBQ that Arthur was so very nice to host for her at his great place in the center of Waikiki. It was fun, also it was fun, because I got to meet a lot of the new Swedes and Norwegians there, and I haven’t had the chance to do that before now because my major jetlag that lasted a bit longer than what I’d expected.

After the BBQ we continued at Tiki’s Bar, that’s a bar that belongs to one of the nice hotels in Waikiki, and it was fun, but I guess no-one had pictures from that place, they probably got too drunk; and I’ve just stopped bringing my camera when I go out, it takes up too much space in my pockets and I’m not going to start using one of those “man purses” – no matter how practical it might be!

But it’s all good, and now I’m back in my normal routine. To be honest, I might have the most awesome schedule this semester, in the whole world that is! Every week day I start school at 2 and I’m done within 5 every day. But I do have a Saturday class at 11 in the morning that lasts for 3 hours (Educational Psychology); luckily it’s a fun class with a really fun and good teacher; Bernie O. as he wants to be called. He is a bipolar fun guy who swears a lot! I had him last semester too, he teaches in a way that we have to do a lot in his classes, but we get a lot from it. Since he is really in to how the brain works and learning patterns, his way of teaching is very effective and I get a lot out of his classes, maybe more than any other class, which is really great!

Updates that is coming

More formally than really information on how life in Hawaii is, but it is important, atleast for myself.

This blog have so far been mainly me writing on what I do when I'm here in Hawaii, but what I'm going to add is a blog (as one of the tabs on top of the page) where I will write more about scholarly things and non-travel things.

It is a good way for me to write about other stuff, and I don't always feel like writing about how I'm doing, because I'm the kind of guy who haves a lot of fun even if I'm locked inside a bowl of water or a torture chamber, so I have fun most of the time, and when its not too much changing, I don't have so much to write about.

So, hopefully, one of these days, I will add to the blog this 2nd blog with other stuff than just my experiences in Hawaii.

Peace out world! :)

Blog Update

As you can all see, I’ve updated my blog. Not with too much new information, but with another layout that I thought was a bit more satisfying to look at than the old blue crap I had before.

Also, I’ve added some new neat features:

• Tab for my Picasa (where I got loads of pictures)
• Tab for Videos from Picasa
• Tab for Vegard’s blog
• Tab for e-mailing me
• Opportunity to follow the blog;
• This means that you will get an e-mail everytime I update the blog with a new post, or there is a new comment.

Hope you’ll enjoy!

So far there is not too much new to tell. I’ve been jetlagged since the day I got here despite my heroic shot at trying to stay up late. Even if I went to bed at 2 in the morning, I would get up at 6. I guess it’s my biological clock.

For those of you who didn’t know, I got one extra day in Oslo on my way home because I messed up. I got this stupid idea of pulling an all-nighter before the travel so that I would get to sleep on the plane, thus the trip would go much smoother and faster. So to make a long and interesting story short and less interesting, I will say this; instead of falling asleep on the plane, I fell asleep on Gardermoen on my gate (2hr before the plane was leaving, waiting for the plane) and it changed gate 30minutes before departure, thus I missed my plane.

No worries, I made some calls, and I got to meet up with Thomas and Magnus who shares an great apartment on Grønland in Oslo. So we just chilled in their apartment having a small MadsLAN #2 for the Christmas. Later that night I met with a Moldenser called Ulrik and his friend, Mats. Two really cool and fun guys, so we just sat at this place and had a coffee and talked regular bullshit. Later that night I went to Bogstadveien and visited Anja at her place, it was cool. We had a great time calling 1881 and asked the most ridicilous things and befriended the guy there; it was all good!

After all this, I said hi to Kølle and John Kolvik before I went back to Thomas and Magnus’ place to relax a couple of hours before my plane to Gardermoen left Oslo S.Let me tell you I had an interesting walk from Grønland to Oslo S at 4 in the morning. Its not too long of a walk, maybe 5minutes, but it was 5 minutes of weird people asking for speed, weed and what not! I just laughed along with my earplugs in my ears listening to a audio-book.

Cheers!

Update on Christmas in Norway

So, as I guess most already know, I’ve been celebrating Christmas and New Years in Norway. It’s been great and instead of writing too much about it, I’ll rather post some slideshow’s of different events from this Holiday in Norway.

Its been great hanging out with friends and family, but after three weeks and looking out my window to the rain and the cold, I’m actually looking forward to play volleyball at Fort DeRussy, steal pineapples at the Dole Plantation and swim with the turtles at Hanauma Bay.

But basically what I’ve been doing when I’m home is to hang out with friends and family, snowboarding at Bjorli (one of the greatest places for Snowboarding for my skill-level, the park was ideal with 4 jumps, 4 rails – one rainbow, one S-rail, one triple-kink and one “up-straight-down rail” and a shitty, icy half-pipe, but who likes half-pipe anyway, I know I don’t.

The only camera we brought to Bjorli was out of battery so there’s no pictures available, but I guess I’ll try to get my ass up there at least two more days before I leave and then I’ll bring the camera for some smooth pictures.

New years Eve
To celebrate in to a new year, is a big thing, we do it once a year, so we have to make it big when the day arrives. So this New Years we decided to start out in Espen’s Crib at first and then extract to whatever was coming up, we wanted to keep an open mind and be spontaneous, because that’s the most fun you can have. So when it was getting closer to 12 we got ourselves out to LIPP where someone had a party and we rang in new years there. But the crowd was too young, so we decided to head over to another party. This was really good times, and I’m glad we left LIPP for this party, because this was a really nice crowd to celebrate new years with, I enjoyed it and everyone else did too. When the host’s parents got home we all bounced. Some bounced to an after party at Åse, but I decided to go to MH’s after party with my closest friends. It was laidback and people was eating and just enjoying the company of good people, the way I like it. After some time at that after party, I decided to pick up Torgeir in town, so I drove and got him, on our way back to the after party we stopped by another afterparty. It was of the crazy sort, one dude sat downstairs hitting himself in the face for some irrelevant reason no-one knows and one was carrying a startrooper-helmet (from Star Wars) in his boxer shorts saying ridiculous shit, it was FUN TIMES.

We also had a well-received and well-known MadsLAN at my place this winter. We all know that the winter is not the same without a MadsLAN. It brings back the kid in us and we played Counter-Strike, Worms Armageddon, Starcraft: Brood War and Quake 3. Also we had some great swearing and LOL’s during the LAN which we did not get on tape or picture, bah. Since everyone had a great time at New Years Eve we decided to keep the goodtimes up, so I hosted the LAN Party on the 1st of January to the 2nd of January.

AND THAT’S ALL  FOR NOW FOLKS