The autumn semester is just about starting. There's plenty which could be said even at this point, but suffice it to say that the opening ceremony was moving, and that I'm preoccupied with a buddy group (for new language students), as well as the task of procuring books required by the curriculum. In about a week or so I should have just a little breathing space.

The degree will, in fact, be in Linguistics. Further, I will be taking courses in Russian. Hopefully also courses in Philosophy. Specifically this semester, one course titled "Semantics and Pragmatics 1", and a two-in-one introductory Russian course.

Oh, and anything less than straight As will be a disappointment.

“By the law of the excluded middle, either ‘A is B’ or ‘A is not B’ must be true. Hence either ‘the present King of France is bald’ or ‘the present King of France is not bald’ must be true. Yet if we enumerated the things that are bald, and then the things that are not bald, we should not find the present King of France in either list. Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig.”

Bertrand Russell in the seminal paper “On Denoting”, first published in Mind, New Series, Vol. 14, No. 56 (Oct., 1905), pp. 479-493.

It's true -- I'm quite officially a student at the University of Oslo. The real fun (especially language-related such) won't start until next semester, but the obligatory philosophy course is very much down my alley. If you want to know my thoughts on things like Plato and Aristotle (this and last week's topics), they will most likely be found on my blog. Brief and general stuff will probably go in this livejournal. So I am returning, in a sense.

Email: daniewan@student.uio.no
Homepage: http://folk.uio.no/daniewan

Some time before 9 January, I will know whether I will finally have to become a university student.

That sounds almost like there's coercion involved, but if the application goes through, it's going to be the start of an era I've dreamt about for a very long time. At the moment it's looking like a degree in Linguistics with a heavy focus on Philosophy.

Also, Christmas looks like it will be fantastic for once. All my friends will be here, and I'm going to see Mum.

On the whole, life is pretty good.

I am now 23 years old. It will probably be a calm day, unlike New Year's Eve which should be an absolute riot (and there will probably be some adventures in the UK as well very soon). First up, Italian food. Then, who knows?

For the whole story, see my blog. For the short summary, 46 out of 60 points, that's an average of 4.6 with ten exams. Some positive and negative surprises, but I'm particularly stunned to learn that my French is much better than previously thought. On the whole, very pleased considering how little effort has been put into this.

Now, university.

On 13 June, I had my final exam (out of a total of 10). Half of the exams were written ones, and so the grades are not in yet. The oral exams were graded accordingly, lowest grade being 1, highest grade being 6:

English, literary course - 5
Religion and ethics - 6
Norwegian - 3
Recent history - 6
French - 6

The rest are almost certainly passes, and I'm pretty sure I clinched a perfect grade for the English written exam.

I owe you an update. I passed the English oral exams with flying colours, to say the least (that leaves only... eight). Only minor technicalities and a total disregard for all things literary analysis stood in the way of the perfect grade. The exam itself was a breeze (an unknown text on immigration restrictions in the US, a short impromptu speech on political developments in the UK, and a few comments on Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia), the waiting was the real killer as there were few chairs available in the building (which I had just entered for the first time that evening), and it must surely have taken an hour or two at the very least before it was my turn (for a long time it seemed as if I was the only adult candidate, or at least the only non-giggling male one, although I did spot one candidate who must have been in his thirties). The exam itself seemed to be over in a matter of minutes, and the obligatory 30 minutes of preparation seemed fairly unnecessary.

The religion/ethics exam will be on the 29th, and it will again be necessary to line up outside a room and spend the afternoon/evening waiting to be called. Fortunately, I think it's a relatively soft field, certainly won't be my toughest exam. My toughest exam will probably require actual 24/7 studying.

Mum brought the obligatory chocolate (apropos of nothing except having been to the UK again), and even gave me her digital camera as she was getting a new one. No more of that mobile phone camera nonsense! Now all that is missing is for the good weather (which has been plentiful recently) to return, and ideas of suitable motifs to pop into my mind so that I can take my Flickr account slightly seriously again.

Reading lists turned in, as required by the deadline. Turns out I have not one oral presentation, but two. One of them in French (on the now chosen topic of the French language in Canada) which means I have to brush up on those skills, the other on the history of North Germanic languages. These will be taking up most of my 24/7 (as it now will have to be) studying. I also have to make sure that I am familiar with things like the native literature, in which I have little interest normally, but now I do have all of the motivation to maintain it. And then forget all about it when I've passed.

In English I'll be paying particular attention to two books which I must be particularly familiar with, one of which is Animal Farm (a relative breeze, have already read it and Orwell is one of my favourite authors), the other The Buddha of Suburbia (because I had to choose one from the post-1970 period, and possibly because it apparently handles interesting topics like pre-Thatcher Britain and identity issues). Apart from the dreadful stuff that is literary analysis, the rest is elementary. I also figure that if I read a chapter in my history textbook daily I can run through the curriculum in a mere couple of weeks, and frankly with my abilities to memorize dates and the like as well as talk my way out of comparatively limited knowledge on a given topic, this should be fine but nonetheless demanding. Religion is even easier to get away in. Physical education even more so. Besides, I did go through all of these classes halfway through, it's just that it's solo this time and I'll actually have to perform.

If I don't pull through this, it's not for lack of trying!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/obituaries/18cnd-fischer.html

Madman, but genius. May he for all of his appalling faults rest in peace.

---

I'm no longer in a self-imposed limbo, the day had to come. I have four months to pass ten exams with no tutoring, a pure solo effort. Fortunately, quite a few of these are language-related. The remaining are mostly quite easy as well: religion/ethics and recent history in particular, physical education too for that matter. I have no problems with English and it's going to be nice to brush up on my French (the pronunciation is just fine), but it is my native tongue which is going to cause the most trouble. Not because I have any problems with it you see, but because a thesis of sorts is required. That and we Norwegians can't decide on how to write our language, so basically I have to take an extra exam since there are two written languages here. That's what you get for living in a relatively small Northern European country. Well that, and excellent healthcare.

There is a chance I might be updating this journal to match the progress of this very serious project, which will probably take up my life completely!

I never did get around to the whole Happy New Year bit, but I hope you've all had a good start to your year so far! I spent Christmas with Mum and her lesbian friends, and New Year's at home getting only slightly drunk, preferring to stay indoors to avoid fireworks exploding in my face, and the cold of course. I might even have sushi soon, more about that later.

Here's a classic clip from 1983 where presenter and computer expert John Coll has his BBC Micro (which he assisted in developing) hacked into on live television. Can't have been the most difficult feat since his password was no longer than two keystrokes, apparently. To start with he couldn't even log in because the lines were jammed. Poor guy. The "Hackers' Song" is pretty hilarious too, at least if you share my sense of humour.



There are few, if any good movies about hackers. Although lately I'm rewatching (I'd rather not really admit it) WarGames, the one with Matthew Broderick as the teen who inadvertently gets access to a military computer and suddenly finds himself in danger of starting World War 3, and of course Ally Sheedy as his rather attractive but also rather clueless companion.

"Connection terminated. How rude!"

Neglecting your livejournal is not very nice, but I seem to do it anyway. It's not that I forget about it or can't be bothered; it's just difficult to come up with good posts, and I have always tried to value quality (well, my idea of it anyway) over mere quantity. There's not much personalization to simply constructing sentences and hitting the "post" button.

I had planned to come up with a big post summarizing what has been going on recently, but since I never jot down my ideas and I'm rather easily distracted, that's apparently going out the window. The latest couple of distractions, however, merit a mention here and now. I now have a PC that isn't incredibly shitty and ancient! It must be confessed in the same breath that it runs Windows XP, and that this technically conflicts with my strong dislike for Microsoft products and practices, but who gives a fuck? It works like a charm! Mum bought it for a downright embarrassing bargain price, and handed it on to me. Evidently, parents do have a practical function. Being able to play games like Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory, or even just being able to use Skype (userid: uchifuzumi, if anyone cares, which is unlikely but not impossible) to talk to friends properly without having to actually face them (the internet is one big excuse to avoid such chores as socializing, a fact for which I and so many others are undyingly grateful), on the whole being able to actually use a computer without having to constantly make sure that the machine is not about to breathe its last right when you need it the most... is sheer brilliance.

Still a fairly sloppy language student, although I'm beginning to think I may have to recant at least one mythical view. Semitic languages are not that difficult. Arabic isn't French, but once you realize that grammar is grammar and therefore isn't all that terrible while the Japanese writing system (actually, systems, all bloody three of them) is the Japanese writing system and will always remain an incredibly cumbersome (though exceptionally beautiful) way of expressing an otherwise quite logical language (it certainly is as soon as you chuck away the idea that Eastern languages are Western languages, while realizing that languages all have the same job of conveying human concepts by transporting them from one brain to another). The most logical Asian script must be the Korean Hangul, surely.

Finally, my best friend whom I have known since first grade, the geeky dual national of Norway and Australia and so forth, is off to the States to fulfill his dream of becoming a pilot. Technically he is one already, but flying by my veranda in a small plane is understandably not going to cut it for this guy. He'll be in Conway, South Carolina and I will still be in the same old place, for at least a couple of years. This will not prevent us from keeping in touch and we have obviously been doing the whole celebration/farewell thing, although it still feels slightly unreal. I will actually have to... get friends. Since everyone seems to be in a different part of the world and everything. Frightening, but frankly about bloody time.

With too many hobbies, there will never be enough time. Too much time on your hands, and it's just too tempting to do nothing. Procrastination comes naturally because it requires the least possible effort, or the most effort to get the least done, depending on how you look at it. Such problems can be remedied rather easily; my family is a whole different matter. You can't fight DNA, try as you might. I do love them to death, as I should, but my sister is (again) proving quite the trial.

Now in her early thirties, she has grown but she still seems more prone to take three steps backward than one step forward. The latest news is that she is afraid of the guy she's living with, her one-time "acquaintance" (with whom she engaged in highly risky ventures, to put it less explicitly) is in hospital, and she might want to seek refuge here. Dad is characteristically lenient, Mum the exact opposite, while I won't protest though I find it provoking that she has avoided me for so long in spite of my repeated invitations, but is perfectly happy to use us as some kind of convenient escape route. My family will never be the same after all that has happened, but there's always a hope for some sort of recovery in the distant future. It's not something I think much about, because quite frankly I don't feel that my happiness ultimately depends on it all. My happiness depends on having a present and a future, not a past.

On a hopefully lighter note, I will revert to my favourite geeky topic: languages. See, most people study languages because they think they might be useful. They might even be reasonable enough to understand that English, contrary to popular myth, will not get you anywhere outside of the business world. In Britain, America, Canada, Australia, fine. In Italy, France, Japan? Good luck. They might even simply be required to study them because school says so, and find the classes about as useful as I found having to deal with trigonometry. I only found maths genuinely interesting if I could determine a practical use for it, like working out the odds in a poker game.

Not so with languages. I can't stick to a single one (which would have helped me become fluent) and I keep juggling (at least right now) Russian, Japanese and Arabic without making great headway in either. The advantage to such an approach seems to be that I can increase the amount of information I take in. Basically, this means that I can read newspapers in languages I couldn't hold a half-decent conversation in. Therein lies the problem, too. It's apparently not about communication so much as it is about entertaining my brain with what it seems hardwired to absorb. I can't think of any natural, biological purpose it could serve because it certainly hasn't helped me getting laid and I don't want to have children.

The university is my final shot at a semi-normal social life, I think. Fingers crossed.

Alright, let's get the library business out of the way swiftly so that I can pretend that I have other things in my life to tend to.

I figured it would be a good idea to return certain books that were a few days overdue, all extensions expired. It's hardly my style to do so, but it did seem appropriate. So, naturally I check them online... and find that one of the listed books is one that I never had. I then remember that I did try to borrow it (a language book, of course) many, many weeks ago at least, but the copy was marked such as to forbid it. Obviously, the sloppy librarian never told the computerized system that I didn't get the book in the first place. So I had to explain the situation calmly, and it fortunately worked out. I'm a reasonable man and I don't often open my mouth, but when I do I know I am right (meaning I have double- and triple-checked with all available sources) so you had better agree with me or face the consequences. Besides, as a member of the general public I am, like the proverbial customer, always right anyway. Then I grabbed a computer for half an hour and probably would have added another if it hadn't been for a very disarming girl of the sort you only ever see in libraries and cafés, walking up and signing her name on the list. The full hour isn't really permitted anyway, but bending library etiquette is what I do. Social mores are rubbish anyway.

On my way home from town, I had today's cultural experience. Living in Oslo I'm perfectly used to multiculturalism, but you don't often get to see slightly raucous Eastern Europeans in a train packed with somber Northern Europeans who just want to be left the hell alone. My so-called language ear established that it was most definitely a Slavic language, and furthermore something along the lines of "Serbocroatian" (hey, that's what it was called when my sister took it pre-junkie stage for missionary style work, so you super-correct politicos can piss off). It was definitely not the smooth language I know as Russian! I like to expand on my cultural knowledge (having been slightly scarred with a bad impression in or around second grade when Stojan [last names redacted] decided to chase the girls in school with his favourite knife) beyond the fact that Slavic (and Asian) women are generally drop dead gorgeous and physically desirable (I need not go into the meaning of that euphemism). This little group of happy people consisted of two women and a man. The two women were... not appealing in any way whatsoever. The man was even more drunk than I have ever been. At least I can always stand up. You might not like what happens when I do, but that's a different matter. They stumbled all over the place, and they had to physically drag the man out of the train. "Is he alright?", asks the driver. The answer comes back in exceptionally mangled Norwegian: "ja, han ar bare fooool" ("hhe jast drohhnk!").

What did I get out of it all? A new DVD packed with Norwegian comedy, thus obscure to most of my remaining readership (if any), but maybe one or two of you will know what I'm talking about when I say Åpen Post. That's right, that kind of humour. A bit puerile, rude, controversial, and loved by the population.

I know I keep returning to the subject of libraries, but I honestly don't know what I'd do without them. I need information to thrive, hell, even useless information will do! The scorching heat today was very much unlike anything we could hope to even dream of for the average Norwegian summer, so some people probably went off and did something social and physically active. I reclused myself in the library.

I ended up hogging a computer for a full hour just to listen to a portion of a recorded 1988 debate on US foreign policy post-WWII where Noam Chomsky absolutely destroys none other than Richard Perle. I wasn't sure whether to be delighted or just disappointed at the feeble resistance (I had honestly expected better). I'll reserve final judgment until I hear the latter part of the debate, but my word, what an enormous difference in debating skills. Basically, you have one guy who is a walking encyclopedia of historical data (dry but erudite), and another whose magical card to play amounts to logical fallacies like "I've actually been in government, so you don't have a clue".

Then, to fulfill my imaginary quota of geekdom, I picked up one book on Japanese grammar and one on improving your chess game systematically. I fought my way through the scorching heat, had a good dinner, and finally got home. I have quite a few books now that I really want to read. My new cheap Oxford Russian mini-dictionary will come into use a lot as well.

All in all, I'm pretty damned satisfied.

One of the most recent pictures taken of me.

This time, the book quote is from River out of Eden:

Next time you are with a large group of people—say, in a concert hall or at a football match—look around at the audience and reflect upon the following: if you have any descendants at all in the distant future, there are probably people at the same concert whose hands you could shake as coancestors of your future descendants. Cograndparents of the same children usually know they are coancestors, and this must give them a certain feeling of affinity whether or not they get on personally. They can look at each other and say, «Well, I may not like him much, but his DNA is mingled with mine in our shared grandchild, and we can hope to share descendants into the future, long after we're gone. Surely this creates a bond between us.» But my point is, if you are blessed with distant descendants at all, some of the perfect strangers at the concert hall will probably be your coancestors. You can survey the auditorium and speculate about which individuals, male or female, are destined to share your descendants and which are not. You and I, whoever you are and whatever your color and sex, may well be coancestors. Your DNA may be destined to mingle with mine. Salutations!

Yesterday was not quite as uneventful as I expected it would be. It was still quite uneventful, just not as much. The early part of the day seemed a self-fulfilling prophecy. Returned books, borrowed new ones, stopped by the bookshop, went home to enjoy myself with freshly procured books (ranging from grammar to games to science).

Now, Dad normally likes to watch his football (the international variety favoured particularly in Europe where you generally kick the ball with your foot) in the evenings, and I like to keep to myself for the most part, especially from him. But then he, unbelievably, has a somewhat original idea. The Stones are playing in town, and although he is more of a Beatles fan and I'm more the Led Zeppelin type (both bands conveniently defunct), we decide to go have a look at them at the stadium, the last few songs.

Of course, we're also too cheap, lazy, and clever from the outset to bother with expensive tickets (50£/100$) since the acoustic effect is massive and the music can be at the very least sensed if not heard from miles away. After looking for non-existent parking space, we wandered with some anticipation through the dark night (the concert was to stop at 11 sharp) as the music grew louder and louder and before long, we were on a strategically placed hill with a good view of the big screen, and as it happened, pyrotechnics and fireworks. Needless to say, we were far from alone. Mick Jagger tried his best not to fuck up Norwegian phrases and came out of it alive, if sounding a bit like a Hollywoodesque mafioso. And, if I'm not mistaken, Keith Richards was also alive if not at all well.

We haven't done anything quite like that since the mid-nineties when Mum came along as well. I very vaguely remember Pink Floyd too, but this was long before I had decided that the music was actually very likable, since that only happened very recently. Being with Dad can be a hell of a trial, but it was surprisingly nice to share a moment like that.

I spend enough time as it is deciding on what to do every day that it's quite frankly a bit of a relief to be phoned and asked to drop everything and hop on the train. Maybe I should have had the presence of mind and sense of time management to check the weather forecast so I didn't end up with a few articles of clothing too many in the boiling heat, but there you go.

Off I went, enjoying the beautiful sight that is downtown summertime Oslo and thinking I was going to die from either the scorching heat or the questionable street music by the pier, specifically everything from Peruvians trying to mimic birds (my best guess) to someone playing Lambada (the world hit that we all wish would die, it had its run) on the accordion and another on the same instrument acting as if trying to mimic Bach, to which Arthur could only reply that it was a good job he didn't try to do Rachmaninoff. For this failed music geek, it certainly resonated well. Ultimately, pistachio ice cream saved the day for me.

Next I went for the most thorough library book hunt I've perpetrated for ages. I couldn't find any of the books I wanted by either Richard Dawkins (British-educated, Kenyan-born Oxford evolutionary biologist of high distinction and great no-nonsense clarity, if a bit over the top), Noam Chomsky (the world's foremost expert on linguistics, one of the most cited living scholars, and much to my delight a die-hard left-winger) or Aldous Huxley (known either for books like "Brave New World" or for his dabbling in and thoughts on psychedelic drugs like mescaline and LSD, depending on your perspective), but I did find a book comparing Swedish and Japanese syntax. For reasons unbeknownst to the rest of mankind, I find that sort of thing fascinating beyond belief. I just have to return my other books first...

I thought the strangest events of the day had passed, but as I leave the library (for the second time that day, actually) I spot someone racing around in a vehicle that appeared almost tractor-like. That's the best description I can give, quite honestly. It could be that it defied description, but it could also be that I am shit at describing vehicles of any sort. Possibly both.

And then, as I am sitting on the bench, at the station, ready to go home... a man walks up to me and starts speaking in English. I determine by the accent that he is obviously British, from the South (basically the educated, well-off, generally populated part of the country), and almost certainly a Londoner (there's nothing sophisticated about a London accent, though). Last time I checked, people from Oslo went to London, not the other way around. When I realized that I was expected to open my mouth and be helpful towards a total stranger in my second language, I struggled to avoid freezing up. Successfully I churned out a few sentences with a sufficiently authentic accent that he seemed to be taken aback somewhat. "Do you speak any Norwegian? You actually live here?" (mate, I grew up here). For some reason, I found having my English complimented by a native speaker very reassuring. Then again, not only have I been in the UK an awful lot, most Norwegians fuck up their accent so badly that it molests my ears, and probably everyone else's.

Then I went home and did absolutely nothing, except for continuing to tend to my newfound interest in works by Douglas Adams.

I'm still reading the book, but this classic quote must be posted here.

“ ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’
“ ‘But,’ says Man, ‘the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.’
“ ‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn't thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
“ ‘Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”