Slow Progress

Well I may have finished my Economic history paper on the economic growth of Mozambique fairly fast, but this environmental economics paper on municipal solid waste and governmental design with respect to the Ontario/Michigan case is going soooooooo slow. I've been researching and formulating my arguments for 2 days now (only productive about 30% of the time, but I'm supposed to be on holidays anyways). Today I think I will finally start writing it, so that will be a quasi relief.

I Was planning on going for a hike this week of all 7 mountains of Bergen, but the weather took a complete 180 and had a snow storm instead of a 10 degree sunny day. The forecast for the rest of the week is between 0-10 degrees and raining straight through. Lets just say my hiking plans are taking a rain check.

I place of where I should be writing or hiking ive been experimenting in the kitchen. I figure its the holidays and I'm at least going to eat well in place of a vacation. So I've managed to concoct turnip fries and I guess what you could call Kentucky fried fish (less the batter) really its just ghee (boiled butter) and garlic sauce smothered on ground fish and turnip fries and baked in the oven. It tastes like fast food only it wont give you PMS (post mcdonalds syndrome) and wont make you puke your guts out for a 2 hour walk home from a KFC (mark knows what I'm talking about).

I also managed to make what I'm calling egg cake. Its basically like making an omelet in layers and baking it in an oven. absolutely delicious and the eggs really help with recuperating from crossfit football.

anyways thats my break so far, I should probably stop procrastinating this paper and just write it

Pics and details of how I made my food are at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157623247661256/detail/

good day

Its a Sunday on the easter holidays, school is closed and I've snuck into school with a girl from Latvia using one of the teachers access cards. We got into the teachers lounge which is a pretty sweet deal. I'm currently writing a paper on the economic growth of Mozambique and enjoying a sans-cafeine tea looking out over a view of the fjord while Alla (girl from Latvia) plays beautiful Latvian pieces on the piano. Yep days don't get much better than this, well other than the fact that Alla brought pizza, really hard to watch her eat that. I suppose it doesn't help that I missed grocery shopping yesterday because of easter hours and have nothing to eat for today :s

The weather is supposed to get sunny and warm on Wednesday, about 10 degrees. So I think I will get a major head start on my environmental economics paper over the next couple days, then pack a tent and see how many mountains I can walk over in 1.5 days. I have to do something, easter holidays last 2 weeks out here and no one is left at school or in town. all the exchange students (including nick) are traveling and all the norwegians go to the mountains during easter. I would travel but I'm poor and don't have a G to drop on a vacation like most people out here.

good news is that I have the gym all to myself, now when I do the crossfit football workouts (www.crossfitfootball.com) no one will see me looking like a psycho. Oh and as an added bonus I get to walk around naked on my floor; completely empty (though this is not too different, usually I only wear a pair of sweatpants my gramps gave me for xmas; so comfortable that you don't even know that you are wearing em :)

Well thats all for now, perhaps I'll have some cool mountain picks posted in a week

Day 3 - Sunday Morning

I must say other than dealing with some drunk Norwegian pounding on the walls of the hallway at 7am and then dealing with him subsequently pulling the fire alarm, I feel pretty good. I even had to go for a walk outside, find the guy, lure him back to the building and stick him infront of the firefighters so that he would pay the fine for a false alarm and not everyone else that lives in our blokk (about $700 dollars). This normally would have made me grumpy, I dont like to inflict pain on people (in this case financial pain) but I feel more relaxed now that I have my entire trip up here, making the event glide past smoothly.

Last night I was going nuts, not only could I not eat sugar or carbs; excluding the frozen pizza I have left in the freezer from my diet, I am an absolute terrible cook (Mark can attest to this, I once made his gums bleed from consuming a bowl of my homemade onion soup). I have been eating nothing but natural yogurt (no flavour, just sourness) cabbage, and chicken for the last few days and its finally starting to get to me. I have been using no spices, and simply throw it all in a pan with some water, cover it and let it mush together into a tasteless soggy slop. So last night I cracked and asked Nick for some cooking advice and managed to make the most tasty meal I have ever been apart of cooking. I used one pan to fry some pollock and another to fry some spinach, cabbage and garlic. I used salt and pepper on both, and when it was done I topped the pollock with some lemon sauce. This may sound like common sense to most people, but try to keep in mind I'm a useless uncommon person :p

Pic at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/4431628928/in/set-72157623247661256/

It took me half an hour to eat the meal, slowly savouring every bit, then I just sat there and starred out the window for another half hour or so, reminiscing about good ol' times with family and friends. I have not been that relaxed and calm since long before I came to Norway.
After this I nestled into bed with a hot cafiene free tea and watched the episode "flowering" of a documentary series called "The Private Life of Plants" which convinced me quite thoroughly that plants are capable of upper level thought and are quite possibly wiser and better strategists than we are, then went to bed for a short while until the pounding of a drunk norwegian awoke the entire 7th floor of F blokk.

To all my friends and family back home, know that its you that bring comfort to my travels, and not some new wounder you might think I have replaced you with.

Day two, I feel like Poo

Yep, its nearly noon and I just got back from a group meeting at school. I have never had so much trouble walking up a staircase in my life.
FML

Sugar Rehab Begins

As most of you know, I am a bit (cough cough understatement) of a chocolate/sugar addict. I was doing great on my no carb diet until I got sick and had a busy week at school at the same time. We all know what students do when they are stressed with school work (other than cleaning their room) we eat crappy food. I managed to eat a pizza or two and finish a few jars of chocolate sauce (almost a Kilo) in a matter of days. After I introduced those back into my diet all my weird nuances I had back in Canada returned; my leg started to do the shaking thing when I sat down, the random body shivers and twitches, the random body sweats, feeling hungry all the time no matter how much I ate, and not to mention drastically spiratic energy levels (I even had to take a nap a few times). When I arrived here and stopped eating carbs my nuances must have dissipated gradually; I didn't realise that I stopped doing these things until my diet cracked and they abruptly started all over again.

I promised myself a long time ago that I would never be an addict to anything, and all of these symptoms just scream that I have an addiction. I don't like the feeling that I'm willingly rendering my freewill to a subconscious level; it feels almost inhuman in the sense that I act on instinct and chemical imbalances rather than natural, free thought. So as a response to this addiction today marks day one of a no carb no sugar diet, I figure im in for a rough week or two so it makes sense to kick all my bad habits at once and be done with it, so I'm throwing no caffeine into the mix as well. It is surprisingly hard to eat this way, I cant even finish off the mustard bottle I have left in the fridge (sugar content :s). I figure since I was sucked back in off the no carb diet so easily I will have to make sure that, for at least the first week, I dont have any sugar at all. This includes the banana bunch I just bought thinking I'd start a new trend of eating fruit, but it looks like that will have to be postponed for a week.

As for what I AM eating, I had some sour ass natural yogurt for breakfast (not recommended), tasteless cabbage and onion soup for lunch (I was experimenting and failed horribly), chicken legs for dinner, and about 5 litres of water (Ive been pretty thirsty, so every time I get a chocolate craving I just drink more water).

Its been a really long day, I feel like I didnt sleep last night (even though I had a solid 8 hours), I've had a slight overtone of a headache all day, and almost broke down into tears for no reason at all right before dinner... Yay for manhood
Its now 830pm of day one on my new diet and all I can say is F.M.L..