Hey,
as you probably noticed, I haven’t written for quite a while. Now, how could that happen? Is it that nothing interesting has happened to me, so that I haven’t had anything to write about? Quite the opposite!
Let me begin by updating you a little bit on what has happened since last time. As you can read in the last post, we from the Left Alliance made quite a fuss about the support of “democracy” in Belarus by quite a lot of Norwegian organizations. And it all ended up with them changing their mind, removing the main reference to the controversial candidate from their website and putting a disclaimer on the main page saying that those organizations that have signed their petition do not support the rest of whatever can be found on the webpage…. sounds quite bizarre to me, and I think it effectively has meant that they can’t go anywhere with that site.
But that was not all…
Secondly, a great debate in the university newspaper has ended. It all started when some time in late November they had a story on the Norwegian military drafting young men out of university. I, in the name of the peace organization Blindern Fred, sent in a statement saying that we perfectly well could understand those youngsters that didn’t want to have anything to do with the Norwegian military, given its current participation in various wars. And then I tipped them that moving to Sweden to study with all likelihood would put them outside of the sphere of control of the Norwegian military, and that clogging the military up with administrative paperwork would be one good idea to protest its current actions.
Since then, we got a few answers, and I had to answer those again. It all ended with them starting an organization, apparently with the only realistic goal of being able to attack whatever we or I might say to the press in the future….
Well, and then on a totally different note, my book has finally been placed in the library of Douglas, which means quite a lot to me, given that it in Douglas I did my research. I haven’t received an answer from everybody yet, but according to the librarian, there is little likelihood that I’ll be “tared and feathered” once I get back there. And I do plan on going back there this summer. If everything works out, that might end up being an even longer journey through Mexico, etc. .
Also, I’ve started teaching again. The two main themes this time are the relationship between production and the development of society (ever heard of that guy called Karl Marx before?), and British history (does “industrial revolution” ring any bells?). When I heard of the themes, I started thinking someone must have been monitoring my activity before they put me to these assignments. But it might also just be coincidence. Anyways, it looks like the next 6 weeks of teaching will be great fun!
At the same time, I will be stressed as I haven’t been for quite some time: within the next 6 weeks, I’ll be flying to Hamburg, Bodø, Tromsø and Bergen (the latter three are in Norway). I can’t make it to Copenhagen and I neevr made it to paris, although I also had people asking me to go there within the last month. In many ways I believe the way that politically active are silenced in Norway is by sending them back and forth so they’ll spend more time on board of various airplanes or in board meetings in obscure little villages somewhere far north of the polar circle, than actually getting to do anything to really change things.
Now I have already promised myself that this will be my last semester doing that kind of stuff. But I think not much short of moving to another country will be able to ground me – at least for a while.
And while I’m at it, I would like to apologize to a very good friend of mine who I classified as something he felt was “lower” than a friend in this blog some months ago. He took that very serious, while I hadn’t given it too much thought at all.
Have you written your book in English? Don’t want to be your editor. Unless you can find a cure for your dyslexia."bizar=bizarre, you didn’t send, but you SENT!(to send sent sent),participatuion=participation, and you want to clog someon up WITH and not IN paperwork.
Hi Mr. Smith (some dude living at Bjølsen student town in Oslo)!
Yes, indeed you’re right. Those are spelling errors that I didn’t fix yet. I simply got too tired yesterday. But I will look at that now. I did spend more time looking at the book of mine though, I can tell you that.
I think your criticism is a bit harsh though, especially given that the sentences in your comment aren’t anywhere close to perfect either.
I believe you missed a subject in the sentence: "Don’t want to be your editor." In the following sentence we seem to be missing just about every necessary element (subject, verb) to make the sentence complete. It would of course be a complete sentence if the word "Unless" wouldn’t be there, but then it would mean something completely different as well. The next sentence starts without capitalization and with a quotation (which never seems to end). Also, the words "send" and "sent" should probably be quoted. Further, there is seemingly no structure in that sentence whatsoever. The same applies to the last sentence. It is also not clear why you grouped the four examples in two sentences the way you did. And when you say "someon" you probably mean "someone".
Altogether it means that of the 6 sentences you wrote, 5 were incomplete. The remaining sentence, while grammatically correct, sounds rather Norwegian, as you probably meant to say: "Did you write your book in English?"
Overall, I’d give you an E in English grammar proficiency for that comment of yours. And I probably wouldn’t employ you as editor for anything. However, I do not agree with grammar fascists in the importance of it all. As long as meaning is transmitted, then who cares? This is the internet, man! This is where people write stuff like: "H! u wanna d0 goodz? coz I ain’t not hanging around here no more!!!! Im gonna get down tonite! Luv yallz! Laterz!"
I think it is much more important to stress the importance of being able to adopt a reading style that is more accepting of errors rather. Even today, no-one would be able to read nor write SMS messages if it wasn’t for the fact that people have started going away from the strictest interpretations of various grammatical rules. And as also you did that in your comment, I can’t quite see what right you have to demand from me to do anything else in what I put on the net.
oh my .. Johannes, don’t spend so much of your scarce energy on a comment like that. Seriously. Its crap.
hmmm.. of course you’re right. I just wanted to get it over and done with. I’m not particularly fond of reading my own writings to check for spelling errors. And then it’s probably also a bit of my pride as and English teacher (for Norwegian high school students).
ANyways, advice has been taken.
Yeah how come teachers always are expected to be <i>ohn’ Fehl und Tadel</i> ? 🙂
I read you are going to Hamburg. Its a quick ride from Bremen. In case you’d like to be shown Hamburg’s best Falafel shop or the most delicious portugese coffee bar at the place, just give me a shout in time.
ah, too late… I’m taking off tomorrow already. But I’ll be back in Hamburg within the next few months. I’ll make sure to contact you in time when I’ll be coming down here again.
Bem, meu nome é mirian wilm, moro no brasil, talvez por causa da tradução ficou muito difícil entender seu texto, e também porque meu interesse é outro. entrei no seu site pelo nome, e achei curioso, meus bisavós vieram para o brasil fugidos da guerra, quem sabe não existe algum parentesco entre nós. espero que responda as minhas curiosidades…até mais
"AND English teacher"? Nice Bushism there. A Wilmism.
Hej Johannes!
Det er dejligt at se, at du bruger det engelske, du har lært på danske skoler i Sydslesvig så flittigt. Din taknemlighed for en god grunduddannelse lader til at kunne ligge på et temmelig lille sted, men at du bruger de indlærte kundskaber er da også dejligt.
Til gengæld er jeg meget lidt begejstret for dine billedtekster, hverken under billedet af undertegnede eller billedet af ungpionererne. Tor du ikke, at det ville være på sin plads at revidere de gamle billeder/teksterMange hilsner
Henrik
Hi Henrik,
(he is a former English teacher of mine and he writes in Danish. He basically says that I’m apparently very little thankful for the foundational education I got and then he asks me to remove parts of the internet page in which I’m complaining about the institutions of the Danish minority in Germany, which I created in 2000 just before moving away as he is on one of the pictures).
You seem to be saying that if I had not been educated in the Danish school system, then I would not have been educated at all. However, in the absence of a Danish school, with all likelihood I, as most other Europeans, would have been educated through some or other school system. And also in the case of complete absence of any state structure we would not just suddenly loose all knowledge of math, languages and the social sciences. Other ways would be found, I am sure.
The problem with using your logic is that no criticism of any institutions one has ever attended would ever be possible. And in many ways no criticism at all of anything in this world would ever be possible…
In concerns of that old web page: as you probably noticed, the web address http://www.danmark-til-ejde… expired a long time ago, and most of the contents have spread all over the internet already. Nevertheless, I can try to reformulate things. Could you find some alternative sentences that you’d prefer?
your spelling sucks big time man… yeah.. just kidding wilm. what up detroit? u done with that novel yet? the one you’ve been working on now for three years? yeah?