BAD ASS BUSINESS WOMAN

You might recall my previous post about my thoughts about perhaps becoming a teacher. However, while talking to my parents the other day they made some good points. The first thing to think about is the basic questions:

How long an education do I want to take? What kind of salary do I want to end up with? What goals do I have for my career future? And so on…

I already know the answer to these. I want a long and decent education, at least a masters if not more. I want to have an above average salary (who doesn’t right?) and I want to have a job where I can work my way up. I’ve always been a hard-working, decent kid who strives to excell in anything I put my mind to. I’ve been called a nerd and a geek, I spend more time doing homework than being social and I usually do good in whatever I try to complete. I love doing good and impressing people, I’m a sucker for praise and I’m content with myself when others are proud of me. I realized now that I’m a dog. Cool, huh?

So I started to consider some kind of business career. Perhaps marketing or some kind of management. So I was discussing this career choice with my boyfriend yesterday and he made a comment arguing that you have to be “mean” to be good in business. He meant I was too nice, that I had too many manners and that in order to be a good business woman I had to be tough and in some ways mean. This makes sense, but at the same time I believe that you can still be nice, as long as your tough and business oriented. I believe you can think business and not make business personal, without being a cold and mean business woman. However, I’m not a business woman and I do not know anyone who is. So what do I know?

Do you think you have to be cold and hard in order to do good in business? Why/why not?

S.

PLAYTIME

Soo, I’ve been playing around with my new little friend Lucy. I brought her to school today and tried taking some “artistic” photos…

What do you think? Then after a long, full day at school – I went to work. Thankfully it was the LAST day this week. My original plan was to go visit my boyfriend, because finally – after one LOOONG year – he’s done in the army! But there were complications so he won’t be home until tomorrow morning. Meaning I went home after work. Here’s some of the scenery from the drive home this evening…

Have a great weekend everybody!

-S.

MY NEW BABY

Soo, I forgot to mention I have a new, pretty little baby. I actually just got her today, and I didn’t even know I was getting her until recently. I’m naming her Lucy, she’s black and has one big eye. I love her !

We’ve only known each other for a couple of hours, but I can already tell we’re going to be GREAT friends.

I named her Lucy because I keep hearing about people naming things that are precious to them, and she’s already precious to me. I can’t wait to take tons of pictures and share them with you all! Part of the reason I got her now, was because my current camera (I love her too) is a smaller digital camera that does GREAT portraits but not that good landscape and other images. So I was thinking of how much I want to remember my first trip to Rome and take many pictures, well Lucy will help me with this. 15 days!!!

By the way, I’m sorry for my silence on the blog this week. I’ve worked every evening after school, and I’ve done homework after work. So it’s not that easy to slip in some blogging here and there. But I’m trying! I’ll be back soon!

-S.

SUSHI AND THE FUTURE

Tonight, it was just me and my mom for dinner. So on our way home from Hamar we went by this faboulous Sushi place and got tonight’s dinner…

The first time I tried sushi, I obviously tried it at the wrong place. Luckily I didn’t give up at first and tried it again at this new sushi place in the town where I go to school. Now, I’m addicted. I’ve only tried the ones with scampi, salmon or crab, so the next step will be when I try the ones with tuna and scallops and such. But I’ll try that later when it’s not my entire dinner that is at stake!

So I’ve had some serious thoughts lately. For a long time now my plan was to become a veterinarian, but after taking some of the scientific classes I needed to get into vet school (biology, chemistry and scientific math) I realized that those classes bore me like crazy. Certain classes didn’t go as well as I had planned this spring, but when it looked like my grades would not be good enough to get into vet school – I felt relieved, not sad or nervous. My grades luckily turned out better than assumed but I started to realize that locking myself into 6 years of hard vet school for a job I might not even enjoy, it just isn’t worth it.

So right now, I’m blank. I don’t know in which direction to look because I just can’t find any connections in the things that interest me for a potenial study. I love people, I’m social, I’m outgoing, I’m a good leader and I’m organized, I’m smart and creative, I love photography but I also love languages, I love to cook and bake but I also love being a leader and making things better, I enjoy traveling and being crafty, I’m opinionated and determined, I have so many interests and so many traits that I feel lost at ideas for a potenial future. Help me come up with ideas?!

The only idea I’ve had so far is becoming a teacher, because I think I could enjoy it and do well in it. I was thinking English teacher in high school since I already have a good background for it. I could take a 5 year masters program they offer at the University in Oslo for this. That is one thing I am certain of, I want a decent degree. Getting my masters is going to happen one way or another.

Gah, it makes no sense having to pick these things when you’re 18. Nobody knows 100% what they want to do the rest of their lives at this age. Do any of you have advice for this future-stressed young lady? I’d be forever grateful!

-S.

FIELD TRIP

Today my biology class went to “Stavsjøen” (Pole/Stick-lake, gah I don’t know) to do some testing of the water and look for critters around the lake in order to study an ecosystem.

Wanna know something cool? In the winter it gets so cold here that this lake freezes and they make an “ice road”. Yes, I’ve driven on it.

My group didn’t have much luck catching anything, but we were able to catch a leech (yes EW) and this “little” guy…

Freaky fact: this guy was going to turn into a dragonfly. Yep, it’s a dragonfly nymph.

We took turns (group-wise) going out in this boat to take tests of the water at different depths. Afterwards we went back to school to look at what we found and write notes for a rapport.

I’m pretty good at my work, huh? The orange is forest, the green is farmer’s fields, the blue is buildings, etc etc….

Ah the exciting life of a student….

-S.

PAINTING A PICTURE

Sorry for being so serious in my last post. I hope I didn’t scare any of you away, I just get opinionated sometimes and I need to speak my mind! Where better to do something like that than on a blog?

Anyways, today’s post is a lot more mellow. I felt tired today so I brought Nanna (our 3 year old leonberger) out for a walk and I took some pictures along the way…

I love noticing how everything is slowly changing. Despite how small the changes are, it’s still quite obvious that fall is on it’s way. I love this part of year, in some ways (to put it poetically) it’s like watching a painting slowly come together. There are splotches of color showing up here and there…

Even on the dark, brown forrest floor an eyecatcher shows up in different places…

Even the slightest speck of yellow, orange or red can be found around any corner…

And this years harvest has turned to it’s seasonal shade of gold…

How can one NOT love such a beautiful season? Despite going towards the cold, the colors are turning warmer than ever…

Oh how I love autumn! Don’t worry, the complete change pictures are guaranteed a spot on my little blog!

-S.

IMPORTANT THOUGHTS

Today is a sad day in US history. I have seen numerous facebook statuses with remembrances of 9/11, blog posts and news articles. Today, we are all Americans.

However, this is not going to be a remembrance post. I would istead like to mention something that is important for me, especially during a day like this.

One news article that caught my attention more than others was one titled ¨”American muslim about the terrorism: Felt like a punch in the face”. I continued to read about what I already knew. After 9/11, the world would never be the same for a muslim. I believe that on that day ten years ago, a large part of the world made a bad mistake, a horrible prejudice. Many people chose to say “muslims did it”, instead of “Al-Qaida did it”. Of course, not everybody started to think this way – but I believe many people found it easy to blame Islam and muslims. I see it to this very day here in Norway. Muslims are not always greeted warmly because a large part of society has developed some form of prejudice against Islam.

I especially noticed this on July 22 here in Norway. When we experienced the worst terrorist act in our history, many people believed at first that muslims had done it. This was before anybody knew, and the point where everybody just made assumptions. I was almost a bit shocked at how quick people were to point the finger as muslims. This just goes to prove the impact one horrible act can have on the entire world.

In the article I read about the story of some muslim children in the US, who’s lives have changed because of 9/11. How they are bullied and pushed away because of the religion they are raised with. There were several muslim victims of 9/11 as well, can you imagine how their loved ones left behind feel every time they get a dirty look just because they’re a muslim? You probably can’t.

My entire point with this is that I think it’s important to remember that 9/11 was Al-Qaida’s fault, NOT muslims. People have to start realizing how stupid and hurtfull their prejudice is. It’s been 10 years, it’s time to open your eyes. Today, we are all Americans – all of us.

-S.