Lily Rong Cong 丛榕

Read twenty or so articles on a certain subject, pick out bits and pieces, and then glue them together. This is how we are expected to write mini-papers at teachers’ college. This past semester is the first time I have done this, and also the first time I fully understood what Robert Pirsig meant in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

Schools teach you to imitate. If you don’t imitate as the teacher wants, you get a bad grade. Here in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in a way to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A’s. Originality on the other hand, could get you anything – from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.

Anyone still wonder why inspiring teachers are hard to come by?

Historical city with castles, churches, and stunning architecture, some dating back to the 12th century. Other features include strong wind, lots of bikers, and good pastries.

Rosenborg Castle, which houses most Danish royal treasures

Bikers at the square outside Christiansborg Castle

Reflection of National Museum

A 16th-century house in the historical town of Helsingør

Helsingør Castle

Little Mermaid by the sea

Copenhagen castles, churches, and rooftops

The Church of Our Saviour

I will mention only the two most important tips which helped me effectively learn two languages:

1. Listen and speak before reading: If the textbook comes with recording for example on a CD, listen attentively and repeat after each line or phrase as best as you can until there is no longer stress. Only then, open the book.

2. Don’t stress about remembering words: When encountering an unknown word, look it up, make a mental note of it, then move on. It is neither necessary to stress about not being able to remember a word after you have seen it seven or eight times nor painfully cram vocabulary.

This site offers many good tips.

A simple story about an ordinary person was told on the Norwegian national radio last month. Somehow I can’t keep my mind off it.

It is the end of June, and most Norwegians start to go on vacations, many travelling to other places. But some cannot travel due to physical constraints, for example the elderly people at nursing homes. So, a nurse who likes riding motorcycles came up with an idea – bundling a sidecar to his motorcycle and offering residents personalized trips, with comfort and fresh air.

It’s a beautiful day in June and it’s an elder lady’s turn to travel with the motorcycle nurse, Michael Raaberg. Michael is a strong man, and he lifts her up and puts her down in the sidecar like a child. During the ride, Michael asks how she does. She says, “Good, very good, never better!” with a youthful and cheerful voice. They drive through the Oslo city centre, they talk about different places they pass by, like old friends who haven’t seen each other for a long time.

The issue of safety, especially with residents with heart diseases, has popped up in the heads of the staff team once, but they decided that it’s much worse “locking up” the residents all year long. So far, there hasn’t been one single incident and the residents have never been happier.

Michael talks about himself. He was educated as a graphic designer and designed catelogues for Ikea. At the height of his career, he found his work lack of meaning and decided to become a nurse instead. Now he’s a happy nurse, bringing happiness into other people’s lives.

When people follow their hearts, they easily come up with simple and yet ingenious solutions to big problems, they naturally make a difference. I hope more and more people follow their hearts like him. I hope I become like him.

If everyone just had one single person in his life who says, “I will love you no matter what”, then we’ll never end up in mental institutions.

- Leo Buscaglia, “Living, Loving and Learning”

I passed by the centre of Oslo today, the day after the tragic events. The streets are fairly full again, although the never-before-seen armed soldiers guarding the parliament building bring people ever closer to what happened yesterday. There is nothing in the news, or on the national TV channel, other than coverage about the incidents. The nation, which had not hated anyone since WWII, has one enemy today – Anders Behring Breivik, the (or at least one) culprit, a native Norwegian who grew up in Oslo, and who is described by his neighbours as being “sometimes overly polite”.

But right now, I’m thinking of Anders Behring Breivik.

Who is he? Did his parents spend time with him, both playing and learning, when he was young? Does his family still live close to him, visit him and laugh with him? Did he, or does he have a mentor he could talk to when he’s stuck? Did he ever meet someone who would love him unconditionally, instead of saying “I will love you, if …”?

I thought of these questions when they said in the news that his schoolmates remember him but have not kept in touch with him. I found out that Timothy McVeigh, who detonated a bomb which killed 168 people in Oklahoma City (Oklahoma, USA) in 1995, did not feel he had a home and was rejected by women he sought relationships with. I found out that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the high school students who shot their fellow students at school in Columbine (Colorado, USA) in 1999, were bullied at school and turned to bullying others as a way out. I wonder what Breivik’s life was like.

Of course, everyone has had bad experiences and some people can shake them off better than others. But as family, friends, and fellow citizens, it is our responsibility to minimize these bad experiences and to help those who have had a bad experience to come out of it. I feel that we, especially those in Western developed countries, are not doing a very good job at it. We are not doing a very good job at preventing these incidents from happening.

Tonight, I’m thinking of Anders Behring Breivik.

Military guards behind the parliament (“Stortinget”) building in Oslo on July 23, 2011.

Where fishermen from Northern Norway traded dried fish with the rest of Europe for hundreds of years …

Where art fills the air …

And where the wharf keeps all the sweet and bitter dreams of the thousand-year-old city …

Learning Norwegian in the last while, my interest in languages has been re-ignited. Among other things, I’m been noticing the small words, or maybe non-word sounds in the three different languages – Chinese, English and Norwegian. One of them is confirmation interjection (I’m actually not sure if that’s what they are called), that is, the sound people make when they confirm something someone else said, instead of saying “Yes” or “I agree”. I would love to learn about variations in other languages; send them to me or teach me how to say it so I can add them to the list!

Here are the confirmation interjections in the three languages I know (click to hear them):
Chinese (Mandarin)
English (North American)
Norwegian
German (no weak confirmation interjections similar to the ones above – Thanks, Sophie)

I saw someone today and realized how lucky I am.

It was at the ceremony for the Abel Prize (a prestigious annual prize awarded to an internationally renowned mathematician by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters). There he performed one of his most common job tasks.

When everyone was seated and the door was closed, the door opened again and he came in. Everyone stood up. After he sat down, everyone sat down again. After some speeches and some music, he went up the stage, gave the prize to the laureate and said “Congratulations”. Then there were more speeches and more music. The ceremony ended half an hour after he came in. He stood up, everyone stood up, he exited the hall, everyone followed.

Since he was born, his destiny was determined. He could not choose a career he desired and could not freely express his opinion. He attends ceremonies, shakes hands and says “Congratulations”. He may be one of today’s typical workers – he has to do a job that he does not particularly enjoy; but his situation is worse than the others – he can’t decide to quit.

He is the King of Norway.