Deck the Halls ...

Julebrus is a must for christmas around here!

What are the necessary ingredients for a good christmas celebration? I started thinking about this after listening to Ingvild's radio program interviewing passers by in London on their christmas traditions. For most people the ingredients are: family, food, gift giving, christmas decorations (which in our house is the tree, the creche and gnomes), christmas music, and snow. 

The girls arrived from England on December the 11th. I went to Gardermoen Airport to pick them up. Here they are coming out into the arrivals hall.  Audun arrived yesterday from Lillehammer. So I will be celebrating Christmas with my husband and 3 of my children. We skyped with Roland and Sharon on Christmas Eve, talked on the phone with Mother and the family (Tormod, Beren, Ilian and Joe) early Christmas morning (late night for them, they were in the middle of their celebrations), and a short skype with Adam this afternoon while we were playing clue after dinner. 

   

Here is the christmas tree on the day Husband brought it home, after selling trees for the cycle club, and a day later after we had a heavy snow. 

We had the traditional Christmas porridge on the 23rd before I had to go off to work. As you can see in the picture, the tree was not yet decorated. In Norway the tradition is to finish up with all the Christmas preparations by the evening of the 23rd. We then celebrate with rice porridge with an almond hidden in it. The person who gets the almond wins a marsipan pig (it was Husband this year). We have always had a whole family of marsipan pigs. The winner gets the mother pig and everyone else gets a little piglet. For the past few years Irene has usually been the one to create the pig family. This year she complained: "I don't feel any Christmas spirit!" "Christmas spirit comes from preparing Christmas" I countered. Anyway she made the pigs and before I left for work - I would be working all that evening and all day on Christmas Eve - I put the girls to work trimming the tree. And sure enough the last thing I heard was: "Now I feel the Christmas spirit!"

Do you remember last year's post: a dog's christmas? As soon as packages appeared under the tree, Topsy started sniffing around at them. Then she lay down near the tree emanating a threatening rumble when Lucy so much as entered the room. The meaning was clear: there is nothing under this tree for you. Stay away! Unfortunatly the Master and Mistress don't respect Topsy's rules and gave Lucy a package which she barely dared to open, and then dissapeared to the other end of the house with the contents. 

For our christmas dinner this year we had a roast leg of Vension, a gift from a friend whom I had mentored for her home exam (which she passed with a C). Her husband hunts. It was absolutely delicious! While I was carving the roast before dinner I gave each dog a little piece of meat. Venison it turns out is Lucy's favorite meat. So when I started opening packets of kibbles in gravy (chicken and venison flavor) for the cat's christmas this morning Lucy almost went out of her skin. The last to get his Christmas food was Funky who was sleeping in the bathroom. I brought him the bowl to give him a wiff and he was definitly ready for breakfast, so I skooped him up in my other arm to carry him into the kitchen where the cats eat. Lucy was following the scent of the yummy cat food, and Topsy was following her to make sure she didn't get any of it. So it was that Audun was woken up at 7 am by a dogfight errupting outside his bedroom door. I had my hands full, but Husband broke up the fight and Funky got his food. 

Murphy's Law

" All that can go wrong, will go wrong"

Murphy's law usually goes into effekt on the eve of a holiday, as husband has reason to know. He was supposed to get a long weekend over christmas this year. Four days in a row free. This was because his boars which originally were scheduled to be moved to the semin station on Christmas Eve were to be picked up a couple days early instead. Unfortunatly Husband would be missing the traditional Christmas Lunch at Norsvin, but hey, he got 4 days off! 

Now after a week or so of somewhat milder weather ( around 15 F) and snow, we are back in the deep freeze that I wrote about earlier. So when the livestock transport truck arrived, the hydraulic ramp was having problems. They eventually got it lowered and loaded on about 1/3 of the boars. Back at the Nordsvin Center the hydraulic had frozen up completely and the ramp could not be lowered again. They had to saw it off and then carry the 200 lb boars out of the truck and into the barn by hand. Then someone had to drive 400 km to get another animal transport truck which Norsvin has at another location. Husband was left to feed and clean up after the remaining boars. His long weekend was amputated by one day and he still missed the Christmas Lunch. 

Next day, the new truck came and picked up two more loads, emptying the barn. The grueling work of washing and disinfecting could begin. This is not a pleasant job, as there is no hot water, and there is not enough elektricity to run both the pressure hose and the heating. Husband got started cleaning, only to discover that one of the 3 pressure pipes was frozen. The plumber can't

come until christmas eve at 2 pm.  So there went another of his days off, and he is back down to 2 days.

Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening - by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know. 

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year. 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake. 

The only other sound's the sweep 

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep.

Living simply

A simple life is when you only have a couple of things to think about. For example when I was going to college, life basically consisted of 3 things: study, work and sleep. There was a little housework but the time was so limited that I could only do the absolutely necesary: I walked the dogs every morning, worked out once a week, did the laundry, shopping and cooked dinner most days. Period. That is all I had time for.

This weekend, life is simple too. It is my night work weekend, meaning that I have 3 night shifts in a row. This basically means that I am either working or sleeping. My waking time at home is pretty much spent in a coma, and dinner is warmed up leftovers.

A complicated life is a life that requires a lot of planning and/or juggling the things I want to do with the I have to do. Meditation, working out, learning Spanish, training my dog, and staying in touch with family members are some of the things I want to do. Participating in housework, and taking extra shifts at work are things that are necesary. To make time for everything requires a good bit of coordinating.

I suppose if I stuck with doing only what I have to do and what others (husband, my boss) expect of me life would be fairly simple - only I don't think it would be very satisfying. It is when I do what I want that I feel satisfaction. Wanting what I must is satisfying. Doing what I must but don't want is a drag. So, except for some short periods like the night work weekend, my life is complicated, by virtue of having too many irons in the fire and trying to please too many people.

Working out - what is the point?

Husband and I have frequent discussions about whether what I do even counts as working out. According to him: 

1. there has to be a goal. Husband's goals include winning (or at least placing ever higher) in competitions, achieving a higher average heart rate, achieving a higher max heart rate, better time, longer distance, more hours pr week, more hours per year, more days of training in a row before taking a day off and so on. 
2. it has to hurt. No pain, no gain. If it doesn't hurt, it wasn't worth the effort.

Now for me training, or working out is not so much goal oriented, as a question of lifestyle. And as such I think it should be fun. Pain messes with my motivation. So why do I do it? Is there a point to working out if I don't keep aiming to get better?

There are several reasons, or goals for my training: 

1. Staying healthy as I get older: exersise has been shown to be beneficial in preventing as well as improving the outcomes of high blood pressure, heart desease, cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes, to name a few. It also improves the immune system. Now I don't have any of these illnesses (yet), but neither do I want to have them. 
2. Increasing my mental stamina in the face of stress. Exersise has also been shown to prevent and improve the outcomes of depression as well as delay the symptoms of dementia, such as Alzheimers. I discovered this effect the year I worked in Ithaca, which was a very stressfull experience. I used to get up at 6 am to do water aerobics at the nearby gym and it saved my sanity.  
3. Weight control. Though I am unsure how effective my exersise regimen really is on this score, as weight is still insidiously creeping on, in spite of my actively trying to stop it for the past 5 years or so. Every year another kilo sneaks onto me and will not be budged!

Since my main goals are physical and mental health and well being, my exersise regimen becomes completely different from that of Husband.  He works out so much that a day without training puts him in a foul mood. The amount of training he does also seems to negatively affect his immunity, as he seems to catch a cold with fever approximatly once a month (whereas I am "never" sick). 

I have heard that 30 minutes of excersize that increases your heart rate and makes you slightly out of breath 3X a week is the minimum for enjoying the cardio-vaskular health benefits of working out. This can be achieved in the form of a brisk uphill walk, bike ride, cross country skiing, ice scating, dancing, or orienteering to name a few of my favorite aerobic activities. 

We women, of menopausal and postmenopausal age also need to find some form of weight bearing exersise to keep our bones strong and our joints supple. My favorite is pilates, because it combines weight bearing with balance and really protects the back. 

The inspiration for this post came from a conversation I had with one of the trainers, who is also a physical therapist,  at the gym that husband and I go too. We talked about different styles of training depending on the goals of the individual involved. My conclusion is that there can be different reasons for working out. And how you do it, and how much, depends on what you are trying to accomplish. 

Meditation

I write so much about the other things filling my life, but find it hard to write about my path of spiritual developement. This is partly because it is so intimate, and partly because I am afraid of coming off as thinking of myself as somehow "holier than thou". 

So...

Why self  developement? Why spiritual self developement? and why an anthroposophical path?

I may have mentioned this before, but I have always had the conviction (or at least the hope) that there is a spiritual life before birth and after death. The idea that my life on earth should be of no more significance than that of a random leaf on a tree that buds forth in the spring and turns red in the fall before falling to the ground and eventually turning to compost has never resonated with me. There must be more of a point to all our striving and all that we experience and what we allow our experiences to make of us, than that when we die it is all over as if it had never been - except in someone's memories...

In the last few years I have occasionally thought that it would be usefull to prepare myself for the spiritual life, unendowed (or unencumbered, depending on your point of view) with a physical body, which is the reality after death. I chose the anthroposophical path because I am familiar with it. As I progress in my studies of anthroposophy I find it rings true to me. It is a path that I can work with. It describes the methods for developing organs for percieving and communicating in the spiritual world. It also describes what happens during this process and the dangers connected with it, such as succumbing to illusion, narcissism, and losing contact with reality. These indeed were always my worries and what prevented me from embarking on such a path in the past. One of the premises to avvoid these dangers is that for every step undertaken to develop ones spiritual perception, 3 steps should be taken in the developement of ones moral integrity. That is the rule that I try to keep firmly in mind. And that is where self developement comes in. 

One thing that I had not expected was that the meditative state would be so comfortable. Closing my eyes and dipping down into the meditative state is starting to get almost too pleasant. I am a little afraid that it will become an escape from the outer world of demands, responsibilities, frustrations, and conflicts in which life needs to be lived. Because there is no question about that: it is the life lived in the physical world, the goals attained, the transformations achieved, and the works performed there, that we can carry into future lives, not what is experienced in meditation itself.

Deep Freeze

It has been colder than a brass monkey (as Father used to say) for over a week and is supposed to continue for at least another week. I mean, hey, we're talking about end of november (!) and zero degrees Fahrenheit more or less (minus 15 to 20 centrigrade). This is highly unusual. We normally don't get a cold spell like this before Christmas, usually not until february/march. Here is our house - you can see the smoke rising from the chimney against the frost-lined trees.

Inside we have a fire roaring in the wood stove, spreading comfort.

And outside lies next years firewood, ready to be cut, split and stacked at some time after the cold spell breaks.

It is also too cold for outdoor cycling, so here is Husband training indoors. He has his bike attaced to a kind of frame that allows him to ride stationary.

So how do the animals react to this weather. The cats spend most of the time sleeping in their various hideouts:

Puseline in a laundry basket

Piril in the kitty bed in the bathroom

Funky, or «Tjukken» (Fatty) as we like to call him, on the sofa in the dining room. Funky had to go to the vet the other day because we discovered a film or growth or something covering his eye. Imagine his outrage when he was picked up off the chair that he was comfortably sleeping on, and stuffed into a cat carrier, and then being carried out into the cold car and for a drive (to the vet). He yowled most pitifully. Once at the vets however (strange room, strange smells) he was not at all sure that he wanted to leave the safety of his carrier. The vet thinks it is keratitis and it turns out to be on both eyes. I have to drip his eyes with medisine 3X a day. It may or may not get better, or at least not worse. He seems to function normally for now, though his vision must be at least somewhat impaired.

Even Fluffy sleeps inside more than usual. Here she has just woken from her nap and is preparing to go outside to see if she can find any mice, or maybe have a chance at the birds by the bird feeder. After spending her first year or so as an indoor cat, I have never seen a cat enjoy the outdoors more than Fluffy. No weather is too nasty to go out in, and while other cats are meticulous about keeping their paws clean, Fluffy tracks in more dirt than the dogs.

This has been a rhodent year and Fluffy has been catching mice faster than she can eat them. She leaves frozen dead mice on the driveway for the dogs to play with and brings them as gifts to Husband whom she has adopted. One day he found 4 dead mice lined up on his desk, with Fluffy lying beside them.

Topsy, our border collie spends much of the day warming her 10-year old bones under the stove, occasionally getting so close that you can smell burnt fur.

Lucy has her own agility course out in the yard, though it has been to cold to really train on it much.

 

'Tis the season to be jolly

'Tis also the season of the office christmas party. We went to the one at Husbands work last night. It was in walking distance from our house, which meant that we could both imbibe. Husband hasn't tasted alkohol for 8 or 9 years. Don't think he missed it much. He had the welcome drink (a very sour bubbly wine), but I noticed that he stuck to soda after that. I didn't like the welcome drink either. At dinner I tasted all 3 kinds of wine, and found them all either sour or bland and ended up drinking soda as well. Finally they served brandy / baily's with desert. I usually like baily's, but just couldn't warm ut to it this time. I'm starting to wonder if I have just lost the taste for alcoholic beverages. 

   

Christmas  shopping I am mostly finished with. I have had a lot of fun making Husbands present. Had part of it brought by courier from England. Then spent several hours on the computer putting it together. 

And here is one of my famous no-brainers: One day Oldest Daughter wondered on Facebook whether it was wierd that the 2 packages that I had ordered from Amazon to be sent to her hadn't arrived. I figured amazon was just backed up in the pre-holiday season, but a day or so later I heard from Youngest Daughter that the 2 packages that I had ordered sent to her had arrived. So I went onto amazon to check whether they had dispatched the stuff. Turned out I had given them the adress where Irene was au pair over a year ago. Luckily she had kept the family's phone number, so I was able to contact them and very nicely ask if they would forward the packages to Irene in Cornwall.

   

I love this poem by the Norwegian poet Alf Prøysen, which can be sung to the melody of "Musevisa". For a good laugh, non-norwegian speaking readers, my I suggest you cut and paste the song into google translate. I tried it and the result totally cracked me up. Jul (christmas) translated as july at the end of the refrain; the plate of cookies getting burnt is, in our modern world, translated burning a disc. Incredible!!

"Nå har vi det de voksne kaller julestri

Da skal jeg si, de henger i

Men alle barn i verden synes slik som vi

At jule stri det er en deilig tid

Ja, dette har vi venta på så lenge,

Å så lenge, å så lenge,

Ja dette har vi venta på så lenge

Og en, to, tre, så er det jul.

Når mor skal bake kaker da er gleden tent

vi står så spent, og ber så pent

Men mor blir sint og sier: "sitt i ro og vent!"

men endelig så blir en plate brent.

ja, dette har vi venta på så lenge...

I am well underway with christmas baking. The challenge is my cookie-loving husband who is constantly hovering over the dough and the finished cookies. I am like the strict mother in the song, doing my best to protect the goods until the holidays. If we are to get through the next month without running out of cookies I will probably have to put them under lock and key.

Today I decorated the house for advent: hung up the christmas star in the window, set the table with an advent cloth and the advent candle "wreath". Started the creche on top of my desk, and set up an advent calendar. Finally I made gløgg with homemade red+black currant juice and gløgg spices and we had some of the cookies that Husband and I have been baking this week.

  

 

Counting blessings

It's supposed to be Thanksgiving for Gods sake. A day for counting your blessings. Why then do I find myself listing up everything that I am unhappy about. Why do I feel so lacking in energy and motivation? Why do I feel so strangely dissatisfied? Is it just because of the cold, the grey, bleakness of winter, the cold wind that blows right through me freezing me to the marrow?

Why do I focus on the chill and bleakness outside, instead of the fire crackling comfortably in the stove, the scent of cinnamon stars and chocolate hearts bringing the promise of sweetness to come?

Why is it the bleakness that gets to me, instead of the snow on the ground, softening and lightening the sharp contours, the shortness of the days and length of nights instead of the gleaming stars, studding the sky like jewels, and moonlight flooding the snowcovered ground, filling the night with silver light. 

My life is comfortable, full of challenges: I am learning spanish, I am learning new, more effective ways to train my dog.

I am living in a country which seems to have avvoided the brunt of the economic crisis; free from the threats of massive layoffs, and reduced pensions. Where there is national health, where the work week for those working round the clock shifts has been reduced to 35,5 hrs. 

I love my work: I find it challenging and rewarding. Okay, so I don't feel properly  valued at my current job. But I have another job waiting for me: where I seem to be greatly in demand and where I will be able to grow proffessionally. Yes, I studied nurse anesthesia, and yes, it is proving nigh impossible to get a nurse anesthetist job. But have I not always loved ER nursing? Am I not finding myself more capable and competent as a result of my anesthesia training? So it isn't for nothing is it?

I love my husband. So why do I keep wondering what it would be like to be alone? I know what it would be like. It would be lonely!! Why focus on the areas of conflict when there are so many areas of harmony? We share so many values: ecology, economic prudence, a love of traveling and exploring the world, a love of animals. And face it: if it werent' for him I probably wouldn't be staying in shape. The house would be mess, not to speak of cold (Husband is, after all, the one who vacuums weekly, dusts monthly, and paints shabby looking walls, not to speak of cutting and splitting the logs of firewood that are delivered each winter from the common forrest, from which my farm has firewood rights). Cooking and baking would be boring, with no one to enjoy the product of my culinary exertions, and I would probably be bankrupt. 

While I am counting blessings let me mention how I enjoy the close relationships with my sister and mother. And how I enjoy watching from afar as the children struggle along at various stages of creating their adult lives and finding their places as adults in the world. I am so gratefull that they let me share and watch. 

The sun just came out. I read once that it is all a question of focus. And I see, now that I have finished this post that I have made the transition from depression and negativity, to hope and thankfullness. 

In Memory of Trygve Sund

What I remember best about Trygve was working in the barn together. At Alm when 2 people did chores together the responsibilities were clearly defined. Working with Trygve was very fluid. Each knew where the other was in the whole of the work to be done, and could overlap into each others areas of responsibilities as appropriate to keep the whole work flowing, thus working in harmony until the job was done. It is for me the prototype of team work.  

Trygve was the first in this area to decide to farm organically, even bio-dynamically at a time when such a thing was unheard of (around 1970), and certainly recieved no support from the agricultural authorities. He was scoffed at, and ridiculed but carried on. Now the impulse for organic and biodynamic agriculture has taken root in Stange with many farms all around, and many of the farmers were at the funeral. 

I know that Trygve traveled all over the world to lecture about bio-dynamic agriculture. I mostly saw him as pictured here: in worn work clothes, hair awry, hands dirty. It was said at the funeral that it would be typical of Trygve to be combining or plowing until far into the night. Then early next morning to be off on one of his lecture trips.

Trygve was always cheerfull, always friendly and kind. His wisdom was very down to earth. In light of my recent financial troubles a particular thing comes to mind. Trygve told me that the trick to always having enough money,  is to match your needs to your means. Wise words indeed!  

Trygve is buried in the family grave site at Stange Kirke, the old stone church from viking times whose churchyard borders Alm Østre, the farm that Trygve tended all his life. The church overlooks the lake and the farmland all around. A fitting resting place for a man who did so much to change farming in this area. Rest in Peace!

Clicker training - voluntary "heel"

A funny thing happened when I was walking the dogs. I had decided to use clicker training to teach Lucy to stay closer, since she mostly gets to be off leash. I started by clicking every time she looked at me, and she would come running to get the treat. I also clicked every time she approached me. Gradually she started hanging around very close to me and I was having trouble not using up all the treats before we got home. So on the next walk I only clicked when she walked at my left side, then only if she also looked up at me. Gradually I waited for 1, then 2, and up to 5 steps walking at my left foot and simultaneously looking up at me before clicking. That day she walked at "heel" voluntarily for hundreds of yards. When I teach "heel" it normally takes major concentration just to keep it up for 10 - 20 yards. With Lucy I used to pretty much have to hold the treat in front of her nose the whole time. The next day I started increasing the distance that she has to walk at my left side while looking up at me to 20 steps. I then varied between 5 and 20 steps and she still spends a lot of time "heeling" voluntarily on our walks. I've even tried left and right turns and changes in tempo. She "heels" like a champion. Now I have added a new aspect. If I feel her body against my leg, I immediatly click and treat. Otherwise she has to walk 10 - 20 steps before I click. The idea is gradually to get her glued to my leg for "heel" excercises. On our walks it has all been voluntary, and probably I will keep it this way. However I plan to add the command on our training sessions soon.

Another Day - Another Worry

Today I went to a seminar about the work environment called "Ny dag - Nye Nederlag" (new day - new setbacks). The idea was that by looking hard at how you can make things worse, you can see catch a glimpse of what would make them better. But another aspect of it was that a seminar aiming directly at educating on how to improve the work environment always has a rather serious "get your act together" type of atmosphere and one easily feels overwhelmed by the demands of the situation. On the other hand, this humorous and irreverent approach led to created an atmosphere in which the individual could find an impulse in himself to work towards actually achieving something in improving the work environment.

I'm wondering whether this can be applied to other aspects of life as well. The home environment for example. Now I have, once again, been in a phase of more than usual scatter-brainedness. For example no matter where I go, I seem to forget to take along some essential item (my keys, the dogs leash, my lunch, wallet, towel and shampoo to the gym etc). Add that to leaving the stove on, the water running etc, I sometimes wonder where my head is at.

Somehow in the past 6 months I have sunk into an economic quagmire. For one thing I must have spent more of my student loan money than I was aware of during the 18 months that I was only working half time. In hindsight I probably couldn't really afford the new car that I bought in june either. But I was plugging along with a fair (but unrealistic as it turns out) hope to getting on top of things by christmas when I mislaid a bill in the cronic mess that is my desk. That was in July. I found it in August when Husband had finally pressured me into cleaning up my desk. By that time payday had come and gone, the bills had been paid and my bank account was again empty. So I paid it from my credit card, since I was too embarassed to ask Husband for a loan. Anyway, after that every month seemed to get worse. When all the bills were paid except the credit card bill, I had no money left, so I could only pay the minimum charge, and I was also unable to pay my share of the housekeeping. To top it all off I get a letter from the Student Loan Bank to the effect that they are taking back the grant that they awarded (for having completed my courses) because I had earned too much in 2009 to be eligable. Great! So on top of the steadily increasing credit card and household debts I have a student loan to pay off - and they are going to want interest. At this point Husband (who is the one around here with savings, whereas I live from hand to mouth, in spite of having the greater salary) generously offered to "refinance" me. This is a relief as when I start my new job in February, I will have the extra expenses of commuting 65 miles by train and renting a room to stay overnight when my shifts are really close together. Provided I don't actually end up unemployed. Because though I resigned from my current job two and a half weeks ago I have not yet recieved my employment papers for the new job.

A decision is made

It's been a pretty good week. I got a call from the ER at AHUS (Akershus University Hospital) offering me a job the same evening that I was there for the interview. On tuesday I got a call from the day surgery at AHUS with the dissapointing news that I did not get any of the 3 jobs there. Well, I'm not totally surprised. It's hard to find someone less experienced than me. So now I have said no the the offer of an anesthesia position in Bergen, and have handed in my resignation from the ER in Hamar.

How does it feel?
On the one hand relief that the search is over (for now). I look forward to the ER job at AHUS. It is a larger, more comprehensive hospital. I feel that they have shown great eagerness to have me come to work there and agreed immediatly to my request to be paid as a nurse anesthetist. I can start concentrating on how I can make best use of my nurse anesthestist competency in the ER setting.

On the other I'm a little depressed that I haven't been able to land a job actually practicing anesthesia. Was it the right thing to give up the offer in Bergen? Moving our whole household to Bergen felt like a huge undertaking. Plus Husband couldn't get a leave of absense from his job, though he was looking for a job in Bergen. I would have prefered to just commute, and let Husband take care of everything here. However he didn't like the idea of me being away so much, and to be fair, the main part of the responsibility for house and home would have fallen on him. I didn't like the idea of being away so much either. I haven't done a proper spring planting in 2 years and I didn't like the idea of leaving Lucy behind.
Am I doing the right thing by pursuing the developement of my skills in akute and critical care in the ER setting? In a sense that is where I imagine my future. When I think of working in the US, Australia or in a mediteranean country in the future, I imagine myself in an ER setting rather than an anesthesia setting. So maybe this is what is "meant to be", if such a concept has any meaning.

Interviews

Just as I was finishing my nurse anesthetist training a job opened up at the hospital where I work. It was a temporary positition for 1 year, and it would have been the perfect place to start my nursing career. So I applied, and since this training also constitutes an excellent critical care training I also applied for a raise in the ER.  I didn't get the job - they had a more experienced applicant. But when my application for a raise was also turned down I started to feel unappreciated.  Every time we had anesthesia personell in the ER my heart would ache because I wasn't "good enough" to be one of them, my increased competency not even considered worth monetary recognition. 

So I started combing the want ads. There was practically nothing out there. I signed up with 4 or 5 temp agencys. I've already written about my interview with one of them. One day they called me up to tell me that the private clinic that had rejected me on the grounds that I didn't have enough experience, was so desperate that if I was competent with total intravenous anesthesia and laryngeal masks I could come on monday and tuesday next week. My first thought was Wow! What an opportunity! Too bad I'm in Italy. But as I thought more about it the absurdity and irresponsibility of the situation hit home. The reasons the clinic had given for not wanting an inexperienced anesthetist were good. Suddenly though, they wanted me to fill in for them, without even a day to get to know the equipment, their routines or anything. It was unbelievable! It made me realize that I had to be very carefull when dealing with temp agencies, so that I wasn't put in situations that were potentially catastrophic. 

Meantime a couple of positions opened up in Bergen. This is a city on the other side (on the west coast) of Norway. Irene lived there last spring and liked it. Bergens claim to fame is the rainy weather. I flew there one day at the end of september and it was indeed raining. I liked the city though. It is small and intimate, nestled in hills along the fjord. Had 2 good interviews. One at one of Norways biggest hospitals and the other at a small private hospital right next door. I was dissapointed in the big hospital. It had all the atmosphere of a warehouse. The surgery/anesthesia unit was sectioned off into an orthopedic section, neuro/ENT section, general surgery, vascular and so on.  I was interviewing for a temp position in either orthopedic or neuro/ENT sections. I liked the other hospital much better. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming. The job would be more varied as it was a smaller hospital with both general, urologic and orthopedic surgery. The anesthesia nurse manager is one of the driving forces behind establishing licencing for nurse anesthetists in Norway. It would be a great place to get my first anesthesia experience, however there was one big drawback - Husband didn't like the idea of me commuting to Bergen. As long as he was saying "don't go to Bergen or else!" my reply was "you can't tell me what to do!" But when he started actually checking out the job market, talking to his own job about a leave of absence etc, I felt I couldn't just take the Bergen job in spite of him.

Also a job had opened up at a large hospital in a suburb of Oslo and I had sent an application just before going to Bergen. Last friday I interviewed there: at a large day surgery unit, and in the ER. The ER is the biggest in Norway and they are willing to pay me as a nurse anesthetist. My chances at the day surgery unit are fair as well. There are 3 positions and they are interviewing 5 people. They did say that if they hire me it would be the first time they hire someone inexperienced.  Next week the verdict should fall and my time of uncertainty will finally be over. 

There IS a life beside nursing.

In march I remember assessing whether I even had a life outside of work and study. This weekend I have realized that since completing the nurse anesthesia course, my life has become rich and full of the most varied activities and interests. Work takes up a large chunk of course, as well as the ongoing search for a nurse anesthetist job, but much of my attention is now focused on non-nursing related activities. For a while I studied Italian and soon I plan to take up Spanish. I continue to do excersises in meditation, observation and self-developement. I have discovered a new author, new to me that is: Stephanie Meyer. I read "The Host" first, a book that I found facinating. It was when I asked at the library if she had written anything else, that I discovered that she is the author of the Twighlight series. I have now devoured the first of these, and am on the library waiting list for the others.



Getting back in shape by cycling, orienteering and doing pilates took a lot of the summer, but once the orienteering season ended I began to spend more time on training Lucy. There is mileau training on mondays, obedience on tuesdays and agility on thursdays. Lucy is very nervous - afraid both of strange people and dogs. Her anxiety can quickly manifest as aggressive behavior, based on the premise (in her mind) that attack is the best defence. At the first agility training we went to, Lucy and I were the only participants, so the instructor spent about 15 minutes just getting Lucy to approach and make contact with her - not by giving her treats out of her hand, but by throwing a treat a little ways away each time Lucy came a little closer. Lucy overcame her fear, and because the treat wasn't coming out of her hand, she was more aware of the act of making contact with the instructor. At the next session we were again the only ones there. I asked if the principle could be applied to other aspects of training. For example I can get Lucy to walk at heel when I hold a treat in front of her nose, but she is so focused on the treat that I doubt she realizes what she is doing. So the agility instructor introduced me to clicker training, as a means of separating the behavior and the treat slightly so that the dog actually becomes conscious of what she is doing. It sounded interesting so I bought a clicker and after doing some research online I signed up for a 7 day free online clicker training course. This turns out to be a whole philosophy of dog training, which I am now trying to assimilate and put into practice. As I become more familiar with the whole concept and gain some practical experience I will post how it goes.