Not a single blog post in over a month! There are a few different reasons for that, the most important one being that I haven’t felt the same urgent need of expressing myself that I felt at the beginning of the year. This post is dedicated to those other reasons.
Not that there has not been plenty to write about, of course it has. For instance, I participated in a great exercise called “Cold Response,” in late March. Forces from several different NATO countries participated in a giant attack against my battalion and the Danes. We were the “enemies” in the exercise. My squad was at a point stuck in a storm at the top of a mountain 500 meters above the landscape. A frightening experience that I’ll tell my grandchildren about; a story that may well have been published here at the blog. But at the same time, we had no Internet access on the mountain, and I didn’t bring my laptop either. So I couldn’t write anything then.
When we came back, I was kind of tired. But I had to hand in an assessment in philosophy before the end of the week, as a part of my exphil exam (I am taking a university course in philosophy while being a private in the army). These philosophy assessments are of course interesting – I enjoy thinking about stuff like that, and my toughs on such matters kind of belong on a blog like this. But when I am done writing my assessments, which inconveniently enough are in Norwegian, my need to express myself is kind of fulfilled. Besides, I don’t feel any excitement at the though of translating all those difficult words into English.
I was of course home for my Easter holiday – as a warrior of Agape, I would indeed love to write a post about Easter – but there was this bunch of unfinished paperwork waiting for me, as I am currently applying for a US student visa. Even though I spent hours reading about, and filling in, the application, I didn’t manage to post it before yesterday – a trip worthy a blog post of it’s own. All this visa stuff caused me a little stress, and if I were to use the computer, I would always read the visa application instructions one more time, rather than writing some sensible blog post.Additionally, I have a hard time finding the online housing application at the university I am enrolling at. I still haven’t figured it out, and the application due is approaching... I guess I should have called for some assistance before I leave for the next exercise tomorrow. But then again, it’s Sunday.
Just so you know, I didn’t spend all Easter stressing around – we took a vacation from Maundy Thursday to Monday, spending time at the Internet free zone of my grandfathers’ farm. We went for a cross-country skiing roundtrip in the surrounding abrupt mountains, and brought the dog. Which didn’t turn out to be the best of ideas, as the dog wasn’t as up for the challenge as it used to be, and the snow wasn’t excatly dry. Besides, cross-country skies in abrupt mountains is only a good idea on the way up... Sunburnt, exhausted and tremendously satisfied we returned to civilization after five hours at almost 1000 meters height above sea level.
