Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
Earlier this week, earth crossed the equinox. Days in the northern hemisphere are longer than the nights now. Here in Norway, the sea change between winter and summer is always so dramatic, and around the equinox daylight change is the fastest. We're headed into sun and light. We've had a smattering of beautiful clear days... Continue Reading →
The school where I teach in Norway is part of the United World College movement. There are eighteen UWC schools around the world, united by a common mission, to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future. In these last seven years, I've been lucky to get... Continue Reading →
Since coming home from the ski trip with students, I've had some time on my own. Students have been taking part in a Red Cross first aid course, followed by a Model United Nations simulation. I'm alone at home too because my husband is traveling, and so I've had a different kind of week--away from... Continue Reading →
Saturday morning, I boarded a bus. With fifty students and several colleagues, we headed north to Stryn, where we will be cross country skiing for the next four days. Some students have been skiing their whole lives, and others had never seen snow before this year. This annual tradition is always something I look forward... Continue Reading →
Since my last post two weeks ago, we finished term, we packed, we journeyed down to Bergen and over the ocean, eight time zones across to Billings, Montana, visiting my husband's parents. Travel went smoothly, but after a few days here, I began running a fever. I tested positive for Covid-19. For the last few... Continue Reading →
With the end of term on Wednesday of this week, I have been busy with grading assignments and writing reports. I still have quite a lot to do. I'll keep it a short post today. I'll just share a bit of the winter that has now arrived. I grew up in Minnesota, where there is... Continue Reading →
A tension has been on my mind for a while, between the stories we tell in fiction and the question of meaning. It was on my mind in September 2020, then again two years later, December 2022. It seems that perhaps every year in autumn I find myself thinking about this theme. Here I am... Continue Reading →
Two weeks ago, I missed making a post. I was hurrying that weekend to revise the essay I had written in the nature writing workshop I took part in last summer. I was reworking scenes and consulting academic articles on the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet. I was reading aloud in a whisper to... Continue Reading →
Every October, our school stops classes for a week. We devote the time to special projects--some students are organizing a march against human trafficking in our nearby city of Førde; some are helping out on a local farm; others are job-shadowing in Bergen; a few groups are on three-day hikes in the mountains. My husband... Continue Reading →
School is busy. I'm behind on grading. A lot of my work time I'm needing to devote to lesson planning, and then there have a been a lot of additional meetings with students recently. And on top of it all, this last week, everything was put on hold because of the annual UWC Day celebration,... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 