WeHe!

Henderson House is awesome. When I got accepted at Carnegie Mellon (CMU) this spring, the question of housing quickly arose. After spending hours of research on the official Housing site, College Prowler and Facebook discussions, I was left with three options: I could live off campus in an apartment, I could live in the finer of the standard dorms, Mudge House, or I could apply to live in Henderson House, a dorm which offered something called “wellness housing.”

At first, living off campus seemed quite appealing, as I was slightly tired of the dorm-like living arrangements in the army. But as I read the discussions about housing on Facebook, I was contaminated by the enthusiasm (not sure whether that expression is solid or not) that everybody seemed to have about dorms, so I decided to live on campus. Time has yet to judge whether I made the right choice, but the first week has made me a firm optimist.

Henderson House is awesome. The “wellness” –thing is about keeping the dorm substance free and promote a healthy lifestyle in both personal and global perspectives. And since those who live here all had to write a few lines about why they belong in a dorm with such values, everybody are exceptionally great people. The house is one of two silver L.E.E.D. certified “green buildings” on campus, and it has good recycling systems available. And, there is air condition.

There are about twenty freshmen in Henderson House. That is not particularly much. Not compared to, say, Mudge, where there are almost 250 freshmen residents (educated guess). Therefore, Henderson and Welch (the quiet living dorm, which neither have many freshmen) spent much time together during orientation, and we also share the same “Housefellow” and Community Advisor. Welch and Henderson = WeHe.

Orientation, by the way, was probably the most intense week in world history, perhaps second to the seven first days of creation. At the end of the week, we were so psychologically exhausted of meeting new people we didn’t even introduce ourselves to strangers around the dinner table, we just chatted about music, the events and whatnot. I am still having trouble pronouncing “environmental,” though, despite that I have said it hundreds of times (I also find “warrior” to be a hard word).

Talking about pronunciation, Nathan (one of our awesome Resident Assistants) says I have a charming dialect, and will have no problem with the girls. Andrew, on the other hand, a random guy with ancestry from Poland, felt bad when he found out that I “actually talked like that,” referring to my heavily British-influenced accent.

As I am searching for a way to sum up these vague glimpses into life at CMU, I get handed a fresh piece of delicious chocolate cake, straight from the oven. It was tonight’s project for junior Daphny and her boyfriend (whose name escapes me); it was the true incarnation of “wellness housing.” Classes starts tomorrow. Henderson House is awesome.

WeHe!

More:
Orientation 2009: CMUtv

Moving to Pittsburgh

Finally, here comes the blog post you have all been waiting for; the blog post that tells you everything about my new life in Pittsburgh, what I think of my classmates, how the dialect of my roommate sounds, which professor is the most disorganized... But actually, I still haven’t met anyone that I am sure to meet again. So I’ll just tell you the same things I told the guys at the international orientation ice cream social.

Yes, I am moving to Pittsburgh. I checked in to the Carnegie Mellon (CMU) campus today, where I’ll probably be hanging around at for the next four years. I’ll major in either civil and environmental engineering or electrical and computer engineering, but I’ll take both introductory courses in my freshman year. I come from Norway, a country that you can probably place approximately on a map, despite that I am the first Norwegian guy you meet. I have not been to Asia, at least if you don’t count the international orientation ice cream social.

I arrived in Pittsburgh two days ago, after a trip that lasted almost 40 hours; when I landed in Detroit, I had to check my luggage through customs, which made me lose my connection flight to Pittsburgh. So they put me on a plane to Philadelphia, but I didn’t catch the flight to Pittsburgh there either, and I had to spend the night. At least I was in Pennsylvania. I got on the next afternoon flight to Pittsburgh, and by the time I came to Oakland, where CMU is located, it was already sunset. Time had come to find the bed and breakfast –place I had found on Google Maps.

It turned out that the bed and breakfast was not bed and breakfast at all, but luxury suites. However, I appreciated that they had a vacancy; after all, I was walking around in a foreign city in the dark with 30 kg on my back and a big, unmanageable blanket in my arms.

The next day I spent exploring the campus area, setting up a bank account, talking to the student health service about my vaccinations, paying the tuition fee, handing in my final grade report and so forth. In the evening I went to explore downtown, and I found thousands of people dressed up in black and yellow, all gravitating towards a big stadium called “Heinz Field.” I figured I might as well follow them and see what happen. I bought a ticked from a guy who had too many, which saved me $20. More than 28 000 attended the game, but the stadium wasn’t even half filled.


It was a pre-season game between Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, the two Superbowl finalists from 2008. Like then, the Steelers won. I had never seen a game of American football before, but the kind, old lady that sat next to me explained the essentials, and by the end of the game, I’d figured out most of it. I bought a “terrible towel” in support of the Steelers, but I hesitated to use it when I was told that to wave it was meant as a curse on the other team.

My thoughts on American football: Way too much breaks. The players don’t even get tired! What is it about this fighting for four seconds -thing, and then having tactics for fourty? They should at least cut the “waiting time” in half; maximum twenty seconds from the down till the game must start again. And also, there should be fewer substitutes. What are there, three or four different line-ups available for each team? I think tired athletes would make room for more touchdowns, which, no big secret, is the fun part. Let’s call the new game “battleball” or something, and eventually the old American football would die, and even the Americans will forget that they used to call real football for soccer.

Today I moved in to my dorm, and I took the bus to “Waterfront” on the south shore of the Monongahela River to buy bed linens. I also got slightly lost when I tried a new route to the suite where I had my bag, but not more than what common sense and friendly Pittsburghers could handle. I have learned that 5th Ave and Forbes Ave are the two most useful references for getting around, and that CMU is located about as far from the shopping district in Oakland as it is from the shopping district in Squirrel Hill. My dorm is also on the completely opposite side of campus of the building where I’ll have my early morning classes in math and physics. I’ve decided to get a bicycle. I still haven’t seen a grocery store.

Read more:
Pittsburgh: Best place to live
Tartans: Carnegie Mellon University
Wikipedia: Heinz Field
Wikipedia: American footballl

The Infantry

My national service is ended, and time has come to summarize the year. How was it? Do I recommend the next high school graduates to apply for the infantry, or do I not? I’ll tell you my answer to the last question right away: I do not know. As for the first question, I’ll need a few paragraphs to express the wide spectrum of feelings and experiences that make up the minimum of a decent answer.


Let me start off by telling you that a year in the Norwegian infantry is varied. It is actually very varied; two days are seldom alike. Or, actually, two days may well be very alike. But the year as a whole has been quite varied. It started with basic infantry training for a few weeks, before we got into specialising within our field, learning how to drive the unnecessary complicated military vehicles, and attending other courses that teach us how to act our role in war. Then a series of increasingly complex exercises started, ending with the famous, international NATO exercise called Cold Response. Famous in Norway, anyways.

These exercises taught me a lot about – everything. A little about myself, a few things about God, a great deal about Mother Nature, but most of all about man. It should be said that I have been lucky in such aspects, being even allowed to lead a squad on my own on one occasion, which gave me much valuable insight and experience. We didn’t accomplish our mission, though, as our power unit went out of oil, making our electric oven and liaison equipment stop working. On top on that, I destroyed our Optimus Primus (a gas oven) while trying to improve its mediocre performance, leaving us completely without heat in the cold winter night. The human mind acts in mysterious ways on such occasions.

After the period of exercises, we had quite enjoyable weeks with close combat, war technique and urban warfare, and also theoretical courses in international law, ethics of war and gymnastics. We went searching for unexploded ammunition, had different hikes in the local mountains, and ran different military races, like, for instance, the 30 km run with an 11 kg backpack (including weapon). And, of course, we cleaned and washed the barracks for the next contingent before we left the building (which is actually quite a job).

What most people appreciate concerning their year in the national service is the friendships that are built in the barracks. And I too made some good friends; yet I can’t agree that the atmosphere was that unobjectionably amazing. People were always complaining about something, life was never kind enough, the officers were shit bags, the exercises were pointless, and so on. I’d prefer the atmosphere in my class in high school; there, nobody threw shit at people, and nobody talked behind other peoples back.

Btw, which is the best word: Objectionaryless, objectionlessniary, objectionlessly or unobjectionably?

There wasn’t much to do in our spare time, so I spent much time in the garrison chapel along with fellow Warriors of Agape; we had a choir, a conversation group, quiz nights, and evening services. While the services were all Lutheran, the audience had a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs. This made room for many interesting conversations, in particular at the conversation group were also the non-Christians felt at home. We called ourselves the “friends of the priest assistant,” and in May, a few of us were lucky and alert enough to join the Norwegian delegation in the International Military Pilgrimage (PMI) to Lourdes, France, even though none of us were Catholics. The experience was overwhelming!

The best parts of the infantry was the exercises and the so-called “green days;” surviving snowstorms, driving snowmobile, working on the technical finesses of liaison, hiding in the forest and shooting blanks at the enemy. The memories of challenging runs like the 15 km and 30 km are also worth appreciating. Besides, some of the courses we had were kind of interesting, and the trip to Lourdes was awesome.

The downsides were the dreadful music that was played in the barracks and the slight tendency towards an unpleasant atmosphere in the platoon, with the mentioned whining and humour on the cost of others. It should be said that these tendencies never became more than tendencies, and that most of the soldiers thought that we had a pretty decent atmosphere.

I am glad I spent a year in the infantry.

More on this blog:
Experience I'll remember: Dangerous Mountains
A fun course: Snowmobiling
Thoughts on the ethics of war: Perfidy and Max Manus
A serious matter: Going to Afghanistan

Song of Frustration

Since I didn't get a summer job this year, I've had a great deal of extra time these last weeks. A few of those hours were spent recording an old song of mine (written in 2006, give or take) in GarageBand. It is the first time in the studio this year, and the first new project since February 2008. It feels good to be back! Here it is:


If you find it as awesome as I do, you even download it and put it in your iPod for motivation during puffing uphill runs in Stoltzekleiven. (When you reach the top, you send your time, for example 14.34, as a text message to 1933 with codeword STOLTZ . And when you go home, you stare with reverence at your personal Stoltzen statistics page as your times make a graph less predictable than Dow Jones)

More: (remember to open in new windows if still listening)
Free download: Song of Frustration
Stoltzekleiven Opp: Min statistikk (Norwegian)
Apple: GarageBand

Dangerous mountains

During my time in the army, Mother Nature has made its powerful impression on me on two occasions in particular. On one of them, the situation came inevitable upon us, while on the other occasion we brought the situation upon ourselves. One of the events were in a military context, the other was in our spare time. One was in the black night; one was under the midnight sun. But they both included a mountain.

I was with my squad at the Cold Response military exercise, and we were on the very top of a big, Norwegian mountain when a snowstorm suddenly occurred. It eventually became slightly disturbing to our peace of mind; the sight was limited to a few feet when using a flashlight, and I was at observation post more than 300 metres away from the tent. By pure luck, I had bought two simple walkie-talkies just before the exercise, so we could actually communicate through the storm. A tremendously brave teammate came out with a flashlight, which lit up just enough for me to navigate in the right direction. If he hadn’t done so, the trip to the tent could have been fatal; we were on an average steep mountain after all.

We were both somewhat distressed when we finally found the tent, after a couple of everlasting minutes moving undetermined around in the storm in what we assumed was the right direction. His steps were impossible to retrace – the snow had already covered them. Unwise as we were, we didn’t even move together (we didn’t decide to withdraw the observation post before I had found the tent and informed the sergeant about the disadvantageous weather conditions).

Such an experience ought to change you. My teammate became sort of paranoid, and began waking up at night in the belief that something evil and fatal was about to happen. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest reaction; but it sure was healthier than mine. My subconsciousness had painted the event in amusing colours, making me unable to realise the gravity of it.

It wasn’t until recently, actually, that I got to know how I should have felt. I should have been afraid – terrified. I should have been almost as terrified as I got when a group of us soldiers ascended a local mountain called “Hattavarri.” We hadn’t assumed that the mountain would be so steep; suddenly it was more dangerous to look down than it was to move up. Only the sight down the mountain could make one faint, fall and die. All our attempts to be wise and calm ended up in some kind of hysteria. And when it finally became my turn to go mental over the frightening situation, I began running as fast as possible to a place as flat as possible, smashing my boots into the snow to make small steps in the icy crust. I just went on. As it turned out, I found the flat plateau just beneath the very top, and we could all calm down for like – half an hour, before we dared to think reasonably again. I spent the time calling friends and family, asking them to fight with me in prayer.

We did find a safer route down. We even took some pictures before we left.


Read (and see) more:
Flickr: Kristian Pletten
Tipskey: Mountain hiking tips
How stuff works: 10 ways to survive a snowstorm

Awesome, Ole!

Today, I’ve been studying the international laws of war. The subject raises many interesting philosophical questions, and can be basis for intense discussions; the curriculum, however, is probably the most boring read ever created by man. Thus, I’ve spent half my study time sleeping, playing Tap Tap Revenge on my iPod Touch, and surfing the Internet.

It was while reading my local newspaper Bergens Tidende online, I found this article about a guy, Ole, who got best grade on all his 21 subjects through high school; a truly impressive accomplishment. Made me proud of Bergen (not the point). He thought, as I do, that engineering would be awesome. So, of course, he also thought he’d be going to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Just like I did.


But then I suddenly thought this: What about Stanford? How awesome wouldn’t that be? I didn’t get best grade on all my high school subjects, though, so I wasn’t admitted at Stanford. However, people supported me so much during the application process that I decided to explore the options abroad further while doing my national service.

Now I am enrolling at my first choice, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this fall; I can’t wait to get there. It will be awesome.

According to the QS World University Rankings 2008, there are 143 universities worldwide that do better than NTNU within the field of technology. Only five does better than Carnegie Mellon. I hereby strongly encourage my fellow Bergenser to consider studying abroad. Bergen needs top engineers. It will be awesome, Ole!

Read more:
bt.no: Fikk 21 seksere (Norwegian)
Tapulous: Tap Tap Revenge
QS World University Rankings 2008: Technology
Define: Awesome

Keeping up with programming

How many times have you told yourself to do something, bought the book that tell you how to do it, started to read it, and then given it up after a few sessions? For instance, I tried to learn programming; I bought the book, read a few pages, wrote a program, and then... I never opened the book again.

That was a few years ago. Now I’ve started over. I attend a Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE) course called “Programming Methodology,” which is a very recommendable introduction course in java. It is quite handy; I carry the lectures around on my iPod Touch, and I get all the software and handouts I need from the SEE website.

Right now, I’m at a critical moment – it has been a while since I last attended a lecture, even though I find the lectures to be really interesting and engaging. I also couldn’t remember what my last assignment was about when I was talking about it with a friend.

It is obviously time to get a grip, and convince myself that programming is fun. Not as an attempt to deceive myself, but rather as an effort to recognise the truth. Actually, I believe most of us sometimes have to sit down, take it easy and tell ourselves the truth about our daily warfares. It is so easily twisted...


Read more:
SEE: Programming Methodology