The Making of Polish Perogies

Weekend Events

Hei hei! I have come to the realization that I really need to have a better system for keeping up with blog posts, so what I am thinking is I will post once a week, about the events of the week, and any more backtracking that needs to be done (I have some more stories I need to put up) I shall try and do in the next week before I post about this week we are in currently. I’m not sure how clear all that was, or whether it really matters for me to explain it all, but I did, because I felt like it.
Moving right along! Last week was a good week, but I was rather lazy I must admit. Thursday was a bit of a break for me from life in general because I accidently got left behind from outreach, so I stayed at the dorm, did some laundry, and then went for a nice long walk. There is a big beautiful church about a 45 minute walk from the school, with a big graveyard, so I walked there and sat for a while, and caught some glimpses of the sunset. While I really like mountains, they do have the downside of obstructing one’s view of the sunrises and sunsets. Friday was a quite day also; only too classes in the morning, then cleaning duties, and then freedom! In the afternoon I went for a walk and climbed a hill that would be classified as a mountain in Nova Scotia with Andrés, and then walked down for worship at the church (I need to take some pictures at church sometime), and afterwards had a very cold walk up the hill... but it was a nice relaxing day. Saturday morning I awoke still with a horrendous headache from the day before, and so I opted out of church and drank 5 cups of tea instead. In the afternoon, we went for another walk (I certainly do walk enough here, good grief) and then had some good times playing with the electric fence.
Then arrived the day of Sun. This day brought a wonderful new thing to my life – Polish Perogies! When I finally got up, showered etc., I began the process by peeling about a million potatoes. Sarah joined me a short while later and began on the onions, which induced many lachrymose moments for those of us who were within a ten mile radius of them. Then at last Agnes came back (the leader of this whole thing, as she is the Polish one) and we had some direction. We also recruited Rob and Andrés over the course of the day, so eventually, after about 4 hours of preparation, we were finally able to reap the benefits of our labour. I pity anyone who thinks frozen, store-bought perogies are the real thing, because after having tasted an authentic Polish one, I don’t know if I could ever go back to those masquerading ones.
Also on Sunday, our evangelism series in Drammen began! It all ran rather smoothly, and we had several guests show up. These meetings occur on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights, and run for about an hour. I don’t have to preach for any of them, which works out fine for me, as I have a tendency to become ridiculously nervous when I am up front. Rob had the first one, and my roommate is preaching on Tuesday. Sarah has a topic to present as well; Marcus and I got out of it somehow. Works for me.
Time for me to go be busy now... ♥

Vast Amounts of Reading Shall Insue... Prepare Thyself

Good news everyone: I have recently regained my passion for life and will to live! This is excellent for me at least because it means I am no longer wallowing in a vat of self-pity and despair, and gives me a chance to “expand my horizons” by delving deeper into my own mind, the mind of those around me, life, the universe, and everything. So I feel better, and also inspired to write. Finally! I realized I have become far to lax in my postings here, so I shall try to rectify this by uploading as many things as possible in one sudden onslaught, so prepare yourself for some heavy reading/picture viewing. One more thing pertaining to my rejuvenated outlook on life, and that is that I own this to certain people who like to pick me up and shake me (not literally, necessarily) and cause me to get back on my feet and take a tentative leap back into the land of the living. As you can imagine I am highly indebted to these people, and so I express my deep appreciation for them, although they aren’t aware of who they are (or are they?).
Okay, so this is the part where we do some heavy backtracking. I have had several interesting experiences since coming to this grand land that I have not shared, and I feel the worse for not taking the time to talk about them. I think I may have hurt their feelings, so it is at this time that I shall attempt to make them feeling better. No, I’m just playing with you, I don’t care about their feelings at all; I care about YOURS! I don’t want “my readers” (I was recently informed I actually have some) to feel neglected, so here we go. Prepare for launching... I shall start with the most recent and go backwards.

Potato Picking 101

Much of my time in the past couple weeks has been spent doing the lovely task of picking potatoes. Yep, red ones. It has been a good experience, all that bending, and getting dirt beneath my nails. I actually love this job – I get to smell dirt all day and talk to people, due to the fact that it is a pretty much mindless task so you are free to gab as much as you like, or at least as much as the person you are conversating with can handle. On Mondays and Wednesdays we have “practical education” for 4 hours in the afternoons, and I have spent 16 hours in the past 2 weeks out in the field. Sadly they are all out at this point, and the work crews are switching, so sadly my potato picking days have come to an end. But I am grateful for this experience, for it has brought me closer to some people here that I otherwise don’t have alot of opportunities to speak with, and it is nice to be eating potatoes and be able to say “hey! I recognize that one!” at least, that is how it is for me.

Here we have some pictures of Rob driving the tractor. Notice the device that wreaks havoc upon the happy little potato mounds and sends them flying hither and thither across the field. I like it. I had the opportunity to drive the tractor, but considering my past driving history (that one time when I almost ran over the lawnmower with the Red Car) I figured everyone was safer if I simply observed from the sidelines.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Oh, this day of all days was one of the most entertaining times I have had since coming here (once you hear the story you will gain some insight into how little entertainment I have here). Once upon a time, there were two girls, namely Jen and Sarah, and a couple of Spaniards, namely Andres and Alvaro, and they were bored. They had discovered that sitting in the living room of the boy’s dorm watching other people play ping pong was really quite dull, so they began to come up with ideas of ways to amuse themselves. After shooting down several less-then-appealing proposals, Alvaro and Jen came to the conclusion that the best idea would be to go on a cow chase. So the Spaniards gathered their cameras and Sarah and Jen gathered their wits, and they went in search of some cows. I cannot say the cows were willing; our heroes had to hike across a large field in order to find them, but find them they did! So Jen hopped the electric fence and ran at those cows, causing them to look at her dazedly at first, but then run with terror from her. As she frolicked with the cows the other three took pictures, and made friends with the cows themselves. Jen came out mostly unscathed, save one shoe that made its unfortunate way into a rather fresh cow pie. And here we have photographic evidence of this day, brought to you by Sarah.

So, for now I shall have to leave this as-is, but I think there is plenty to keep a reader occupied. I'll post more past adventures later.

Jen<3

Mission Trip Destinations!

Yesterday, September 12, 2007, they finally posted the lists telling the students where they were going for the mission trip the end of October. The results for the Canadians were as follows:

Jen & Marcus --> Tanzania!
Sarah & Rob --> Honduras!

I'm pretty happy about it. I can get my bongo drum!

The Norwegian Adventures of Jen and Friends

A Matter of Opinion...

I am getting truly sick of having people believe that their opinion is the only opinion and the right opinion. I am sick of having people try to shove their own opinions down people's throats. While it is one thing (and a thing I highly appreciate and recommend) to voice your own opinion, it is an entirely different matter to try and force others around you to accept your way of thinking. I think it is good to share opinions and get feedback, but not to try and make other people see the world how you see it. Each person has their own outlook on life, and thinks different things about each aspect of it, and that is perfectly fine with me. If someone doesn't agree with my opinion I am not about to try to push them into agreeing with me, in fact it would bother me deeply if they agreed with me simply to avoid controversy. But then, I suppose this is all just a matter of opinion...

Outreach

This week was our first week of having to do outreach. I was paired with this guy named Patrick, and he was stoked and I was a little nervous. Usually going around knocking on doors of houses belonging to complete strangers isn’t that bad because I figure I’ll never see them again, but here it is slightly more intimidating due to the fact that I don’t speak the language. And while the majority of people in Norway speak English, it just so happened that Patrick and I were placed in an area mostly populated by retired people. Patrick speaks English and Spanish, and so far, I am only speaking English. So we went on our merry way. First house, door slammed in the face. Carrying on, we went to house after house, walking and walking. Altogether we got 6 surveys filled out, and actually got into a pretty interesting conversation with one woman - technically a Norwegian, but had been living in South Africa for 19 years or so – about religion and the typical attitude toward religious matters that we would find here in Norway. This country is very secular and people either feel very strongly against religion, or else they simply find it boring or that they don’t have time for it.
We went out again yesterday, and happened into a Muslim neighbourhood, centered around a Mosque. So we got to talk to talk to a lot of Muslims, which I thought was really cool, and we actually got the email addresses of a couple of them, and phone numbers for some as well, and at one house we asked them to give us Koran lessons, and they agreed! So hopefully by next week I’ll get to learn about the Koran on day a week. I am really looking forward to that. I’ve wanted to read it for a long time, so now I am given a perfect opportunity to learn about it from someone who actually believes in it, which I think is alot better than just reading it in my own time.
Also, I am preaching in Drammen in a few weeks. And I have to learn to speak with a translator translating simultaneously. I’m a little worried. But the sermons are pre-written, so I will be more comfortable with them because they are not my own material.
For now I’m done classes for the day – Fridays we only have 2 hours of class in the morning and then we get the rest of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off! I like that arrangement quite alot, I must declare.
Other than that, I am tired. Luckily, I now have the weekend and so far there are no epic mountain climbing excoursions planned, for which I am truly greatful. I mean as much as I enjoy climbing mountains, it can get a little tiresome.
<3