Visions, dreams and life experiences.

Indipendence day of Norway.

2009-05-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it is the indipendence day of Norway. We celebrate that we got our constitution in 1814. I think that our indipendence day is one of the bigest days for many Norwegians. It is like a big party where everyone are involved.
I remember when I was a child I got up early in the morning on the 17th of May. I dressed up in my best clothes, and was too exited to have any breakfast. Then we went for the early morning parade. First the musissians walked, and then all of us came in neat rows. We walked two and two hand in hand. It was very cute. We had small Norwegian flags in our hands. We where supposed to shout Hurra, Hurra, but I was allways to shy to shout.
Then after the parade we went to church. For a little child like I was at the time it was so hard to sit still for about an hour listen to the pastor and the old hymns. After the church we all went for ice cream. On the 17th of May everyone could eat as much ice cream as we wished. I remember one year I had ten different types of ice cream. In between the ice cream we had social games, like running with a potato on a spoon and the aim was to run fastest without loosing the potato. After the games it was time for dinner. I did not eat the dinner because I was already too full of all the ice cream. Then we went home where we had a family gathering and cake chocholate and other sweets. Of course I ate more and more:) In the evening we went for dance. The dance ended at midnight. On every 17th of May I could not go to sleep because of stomach cramps. I had too much ice cream. After I gerw up I did not stop having ice cream and a lot of sweets on the 17th of may. I think it is an exelent idea.
This year is my first time to celebrate the 17th of may abroad. I wonder how it will be and if I will get my ice cream:)

Three things for the first time.

2009-04-25T22:13:00.000-07:00

In the course of the last two weeks I have tried three things for the first time. 1: drinking coconut milk. 2: Eating mango. 3: experiencing a Kerala thunder storm.
Drinking the coconut milk was the most pleasant thing. One of the members of the IISE family had her birthday and to celebrate she ordered coconuts for all of uss. Coconut milk is regarded to be very healthy. At first I thought it tasted a bit strange, but I quickly got used to it. As well as being so healthy it is also very filling. After two coconuts I was very full and had a lot of energy. I think I will go and buy more coconuts in the near future. Then we come to the mangos. In our campus we have a mango tree. We had to get the mangos down from the tree with a big stick. When I first tasted the mangos they where still very green and hard. I did not like them at all. So the day after I tried again and somehow I thought it tasted better. I put salt on them and they became eatable. Now I eat mangos every day and enjoying it. The thunder storm was not a very nice experience. I was sitting at the breakfast table when I heard aa big bang!! I was screaming. I had never heard thunder so loud in my whole life. The same night there came another band that was even more loud. I was screaming again. I have not heard any after that. I need to get used to this thunder, because the monsun is coming soon...

Apprishiating my family.

2009-04-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a pakkage from my family in the mail. It contained sweet rom my home country, and greeting cards made by my family. I was so happy for it. When you are abroad you really apprishiate the contact you hve with your family. I think that if I was in Norway n they gave me the same things the things would not mean so much to me. I am so happy for this traveling experience because it really theaches me to apprishiate what I have in life. Thank you my dear family for sending me such a lovely pakkage.

Positive exposure.

2009-04-14T02:30:00.000-07:00

Rick Guidotti is a photographer and the founder of an organisation called positive exposure.
He is taking photos of people with different conditions, among other things, albinism to show human diversity and stop stigma of these people! Through the lense of his camera he gives people self respect and builds up their self esteem. Yesterday afternoon he had a pressentation for us.
He showed us photos and vidios from trips he had made around the world where he has met people with all kinds of challenges. I was so facinated by his work, and I really admire what he and his friends are doing. I will never forget his presentation yesterday. I got a lot of self esteam just from listening to his stories and watching the vidios. Self respect = self esteam = self advocasy!

More Marzipan

2009-04-12T22:58:00.000-07:00

I have not gotten the chanse to make my easter marzipan yet, but I am enjoying myself with looking up different recipies on the net. I wanted to share one with you:) Happy Marzipan making!
Marzipan recipe:
Uncooked home made marzipan
(this marzipan recipe is good for preparing modelling marzipan)
500g (16 oz) sifted icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)
450g ( 1lb) ground almonds
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla flavoring marzipan book
1 tsp lemon juice
Sift the icing sugar in a bowl with the ground almonds. Add the remaining ingredients and mix to make a stiff paste. Knead until smooth. (As a substitute to raw eggs it is possible to use a little water mixed with brandy to bind the paste).

Orca and Orcut.

2009-04-12T22:43:00.001-07:00

I have been using orca for about two months now. I am starting to get a hang on the speech and how to get around on the internet and in different aplications.
This morning I wanted to send a private message to one of my friends on Orcut. ?That was not easy... Firstly I could not find a send message button in my friends profile. I finaly found it by cliking on a link called more under the report abuse button. Then I navigated myself to the place where it said subject and message. It was easy to fill in the subject and message body. Then a new problem arised. I could not find the send button! I navigated around the site for several minutes, but finaly I decided to give up. May be it was better to send my friend an email after all:(
I closed orcut and then, simsalabim! A Send button appeared out of the blue:) Hopfully my message went through. I also tried to write in my frinds scrap book, I found his scrap, and the reply button. But I could not find anywhere to write inn my message, nor a share or a send button. This has taken me about 45 minutes now. Next time I deffinetly will send my friend an email instead of writing him on orcut:)

My easter celebration.

2009-04-12T04:03:00.000-07:00

The way I celebrated easter here in the IISE is quite different from what I am used to. No skiing, snow or trips to the mountains. Instead I went to the beach. Yesterday some people invited us to a picknic on the beach. It was really nice. We spend the whole afternoon there, and we finished with a nice dinner. We sang, talked a lot and just had so much fun. After we got back home we had so much energy so we danced for about an hour in the auditorium. After breakfast this morning we painted paper easter eggs. Those of us who are not blind used blind folds so that everyone was painting without seeing the colors. We got such nice egs, and now they are hanging all over our auditorium. Happy Easter!

Marsipan for easter.

2009-04-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Marsipan and easter belong together! That is at least how it is for me. I was looking high and low for marsipan here in India, but sadly could not find any. I started to think how can I manage an easter without marsipan? So, I asked my parents back home to send me half a kilo. I wonder how expensive that was for them? Two days ago I found out that on Sunday we will have a marsipan making workshop here at the IISE! Hurra! So, I get marsipan for easter:) I feel so thankful and blessed:)

Breakfast.

2009-04-05T01:55:00.000-07:00

Nothing is as a Sunday breakfast at the IISE. It is not all about the food. It is more about taking time to talk with other people. We have all kinds of conversations from the world news to what we want to do in our vacation. We also listen to music while we eat. Thanks to my dear iise family who makes my breakfasts such a good time:)

Interesting devices for the visually impaired

2009-03-30T03:10:00.000-07:00

Lately we have had several discussions here about devices that could be helpful for visually impaired people. The question we ask ourselves is: Which devices would we like to have in the future to make life more easy for us? Several very good ideas came up. For example: a white cane that tells you what is in front of you, a note taker with braille and speech that can be affordable for everyone, a braille typewriter that you can put in your pocket or what about an mp3 player that has speech and is affordable for everyone. I know that some of these devices may already exist, like a note taker. The problem is that the price is too high. Most people who are visually impaired can not afford to buy these products. In my opinion one of the reasons why the price is so high is that there is not a big market for these devices. If the price was lower more people would get these helpful tools. I really hope that in the future we will get these devices cheaper and that everyone

Earth hour 2009 at the IISE.

2009-03-29T06:04:00.000-07:00

Last night we celebrated earth hour in our campus. All the electrical equipment where turned off and there where no lights. We sat down by the lakeside and we talked about aspects with using electrisity and how it impacts our life. It is strange to think about how much we depend on electrisity. What would we do if we could not use our washing mashine for a year, or how could we manage without our laptops? Honestly I do not know how I could manage without my electrical devises. It is indeed something to ponder.

Quiet Sunday.

2009-03-22T03:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday means relaxing. After a hectick week nothing is as a day with no plans, obligation or people asking you to do this and that... After a long breakfast I sat down to do my emails. I am a fan of group emails, despite the fact that they can be less personal than individual ones. I am too impatient to repeat myself over and over again with explaining the same things to a lot of people. When the emails was done I went for lunch which today was rise and some kind of vegitable stew. In the afternoon I red a book. I am reading a book called until I find you written by John Irving. It is a facinating story about a woman and her son who travels around in Europe looking for the father of the son. I think the story gets more complecs as you read on. At the moment I am only at part 1 of the book. The book has over 800 pages so I still have a lot to go. I am listening a lot to music these days. Must admit I really miss my sound system, but a cell phone or a mp3 player is better than nothing. My favourite songs at the moment are: The market day by Geoffrey Oryema and Shine on your crasy diamon by Pink Floyd. These songs reminds me so much of my friends back home. The music helps me not too miss them too much.

A normal day.

2009-03-16T05:38:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. Nothing special has happened but I have enjoyed doing my work and even got some time to relax. Not bad! Now it is only a couple of minutes before supper is ready. I have spent an hour now checking out different web sites with Orca. I find that some sites are quite accessible while others are allmost impossible to use. In my oppinion blogspot comes somewhere in the midle of the scale. Hopefully this will change for the better in the future. I spent quite some time now figuring out how to write a blog post. It was not a problem to find the subject line but it was very difficult to find out where to write the actual blog text. Also to label the blog post was not that easy. Well, if you are reading this it means that I have figured it out, which is a step in the right direction:) I must admit I really love to figure this out with orca. The best thing with it is that there are lots of development potentials.

Wellcome to my new blog.

2009-03-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends, This is my first post on this blog! It is great tofinaly be back blogging. Honestly I have really misssed it. I am currently in Kerala, South India. I have been here for two months now, and have learned to enjoy the diversity of sounds, smells and impressions. Kerala is indeed a place for all five sences. In this blog I will keep you updated on my life here, small and biger happenings and much more.