A good article: Ten jobs with the best work-life balance

Back in 2011, I wrote a post about the work-life balance in Norway  (https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2011/06/work-life-balance-in-norway.html). I made the point that the work-life balance in Norway, and in Scandinavia generally, is better than in the States, for so many reasons, and that is documented in numerous research articles that have studied the topic in depth. I grew up thinking that hard work got you to your goal, and I still think it does. But hard work is not the same as working overtime or working yourself to death. I see that I did not make that point completely clear in my original post. Hard work is not the same as being available to your employer at all hours, on weekends, and on holidays. My point is that it is possible to give what you need to give to your employer and still have a life outside of work. It is possible to work in a focused way for the seven to eight hours you work each day, and then to go home and close the door behind work. It should not make you feel important when your employer contacts you routinely late in the evening with questions and requests for meetings and such things. There may be periods in life when you need to work overtime or on weekends, but this should not be the norm, nor should employers expect this of their employees. Why Americans continue to believe that giving their all to employers is an admirable thing is confounding. Because when the time comes for companies to get rid of employees due to budget cuts, they don't discriminate nor do they waste time, and will do what they need to do regardless of how loyal employees have been or how much time employees have given to their employers. We've seen it time and again.

In that context, I found the following article quite interesting, and wanted to share it with you. It is a list of the ten jobs (US employers) with the best work-life balance. For young people looking to have a balance between work and life outside of work, I urge you to check it out.

https://www.clicktime.com/blog/10-jobs-with-the-best-work-life-balance/

A beautiful song by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils--Lowlands

I was a teenager when this band was popular, and I fell in love with their album It'll Shine When It Shines, which came out in 1974. Jackie Blue was one of the songs on it that became a major hit. I loved it, and I loved Lowlands too, for its mournful, peaceful tones and rhythm. When I take a long look at the music my country has produced over the years, it makes me proud to be an American. My country is a rich mixture of so many different musical types and influences and those blends and heterogeneity are what define us. I'm not even sure why I came to think of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils today, but I'm glad I did, because I got a chance to hear Lowlands again after many years. I'm including the lyrics as well--pure poetry.





I heard a song that was taught to a baby
And it made the mountain sing
I knew a gift that was given to my lady
It was hidden in a dream

And there's a light in the lowlands
And a river that runs so clean
I'm a poor man feelin' lazy
And the lowlands are callin' my name

I knew a man who said he was a stranger
'Cause his heart he could not trust
I knew a man who could not face the dangers
Even though he knew he must

And it's hard in the lowlands
And the grasses will turn to rust
But the sun is a fountain
Flowing through the lowland's dust

Written by John Dillon • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group

Happy Halloween

Thanksgiving quotes

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.

--Theodore Roosevelt

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

--Aesop

All that we behold is full of blessings.

--William Wordsworth

Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.

--William Arthur Ward

If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.

--W. Clement Stone

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.

--Oprah Winfrey

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

--Henry David Thoreau

For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear Lord; we beg but one boon more:

Peace in the hearts of all men living,

Peace in the whole world this Thanksgiving.

--Joseph Auslander

God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.

--Izaak Walton

Forever on Thanksgiving Day

The heart will find the pathway home.

--Wilbur D. Nesbit

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.

--Native American Saying

A visit to Duke Farms

Living overseas has its challenges, especially when it comes to visiting New York once a year. I usually make the trip back to my birth country and hometown during the summer months, and there are usually a myriad of places to go and people to see. Since I have limited time in New York, I have to plan how to use that time well. Every moment counts and I don’t want to spend my precious time doing things that are meaningless or that don’t give me joy. So I am together with the people who are dear to me, and I frequent those places that make me happy or that have the potential of doing so. In that way, I can include places I’ve never visited but want to visit in that category. Most of them are in New York State, but some of them are not. This year, on a hot sunny August day, I had the privilege of visiting Duke Farms in Hillsborough New Jersey together with my good friends Stef and John (married thirty-five years this year) who live in Hillsborough. We have talked about visiting Duke Farms together for a few years now; they’ve been there many times. Oddly enough, I lived near that area of New Jersey for four years before I moved to Oslo, but never visited Duke Farms before now. This year we managed a visit, and it was well-worth it, as the following photos will document. I include two links to Duke Farms here so that you can read more about this wonderful place: http://www.dukefarms.org and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Farms

near entrance to Duke Farms

sycamore allée--Duke Farms

unsure what kind of bird this is

notice the frog sitting on the rock

algae-covered pond in background

the foundation for a mansion that JB Duke never built

dead tree in algae-covered lake

the Great Falls empty into Vista Lake (not much flowing water at the time this photo was taken)

The vagaries of permanent resident status

When I first moved to Norway, I had to apply for a residence permit each year that allowed me to live and work in the country, and that involved having my employer fill out a form outlining my job description, with major emphasis on the fact that I was the only person who could fill that job. My employer had to state and defend that there were few to no Norwegians who could fill that position as well as I could. After three years of this requirement, which meant waiting in long lines each year at the local police station for my passport to be stamped, I was eligible for a permanent residency permit. I had no trouble obtaining that. It meant that I no longer had to wait in long lines each year to renew my residence permit. My American passport reflected my permanent residency status with a sticker called 'bosettingstillatelse', which as far as I remember, gave me permission to work in Norway as well as in Sweden and Denmark. I was extremely happy the day I got my permanent residency status in the early 1990s. 

Recently, the rules changed, and now foreigners are required to have a residence card that they must carry with them when they travel in addition to their passports. Here is what is stated on the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration website:

               

“The residence card is proof that you hold a residence permit in Norway. The card replaces the stickers that were previously affixed to your passport.”

But what I need now is an explanation for why I have to renew my residence permit every two years, as I have done now for the past four or five years, if I have permanent resident status? I have no idea if I still have permanent resident status or if it has changed to non-permanent for some reason. This is what is written on the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration website; I hope it makes more sense to you than it does to me:

               

“How long is the card valid for? In principle, the card is valid for the same period as your permit. If you hold a permanent residence permit, the card will be valid for two years at a time.”

I have to say that I really don’t understand this; my interpretation is that permanent residence means two years’ residence at a time, and in my book, this is tantamount to temporary residence, not permanent. The last time I was at the Foreign Office (a few weeks ago), the man sitting behind the information desk was impatient, rude and generally not helpful. No answers or explanations to be gotten from him. I was just another nuisance, another foreigner that he didn’t feel like dealing with. Whether that was really what he thought, I don’t know—it just felt like that. Just a wave of the hand and a disgusted look to indicate where I should stand to wait my turn to make an appointment to see an officer who could create a residence permit card for me with my photo and fingerprints on it. I told them I needed it before the end of July as I was traveling outside of Norway in August, and I was told I had to bring my airline ticket with me to my appointment in order for me to get the card before I traveled. So many people apparently lie about needing their card immediately, so that I was looked upon as another potential liar. I didn’t have a problem producing the airline ticket, so I got my card today in the mail.

I decided many years ago not to obtain Norwegian citizenship, because it meant that I had to give up my American citizenship, something I would never do. Norway does not allow dual citizenship, whereas the USA does. So if my husband and I moved to the USA, he could keep his Norwegian citizenship as well as become an American citizen if he wanted to. Generous of my country, I have to admit, and that makes me proud of my country. I have no idea why Norway does not allow dual citizenship, but the fact that they do not only serves to strengthen my resolve to keep my American citizenship at all costs. Had Norway allowed dual citizenship, then I might have chosen to become a citizen, but I have never regretted my decision not to become a Norwegian citizen in all the years I have lived here. It would certainly have made my life easier in terms of not having to apply every two years for permission to remain in this country, as is the case now, even though I did get permanent residence status in the early 1990s. I suppose I should look into what it all means and why my status changed (if it did), and I will. In time. Perhaps the next time I have to renew my residence status. I simply want to avoid having to stand in long lines to make appointments to see officers and councilors who will advise me on what forms I need to fill out. I want to avoid sterile offices and paper-pushing--all the trappings of bureaucratic claustrophobia.  

The road out

I’m often asked how I dealt with leaving my birth country for this one, especially since I did so as a young adult and not as a child. I answer—it was difficult to do so, but my situation was quite different than for many other foreigners here. I was not an immigrant or political refugee looking for a new life in a better place or an opportunist seeking materialistic gains. My decision to move was made carefully, but it was made in order to give a personal relationship that was still a seed, a chance to grow. I knew that if I did not give it that chance, that I would regret not doing so down the line. At the time I chose to move to Norway, my life was ready for change—both professionally and personally. There were a number of factors that came together in a type of synergy at that time, that made moving here the right thing to do. And over twenty years later, I can say that I don’t regret having moved from the USA to Norway since that budding relationship and my life generally changed in ways that have been mostly positive, challenging, and rewarding. But the past twenty years have not been a bed of roses either. Nothing good is ever achieved without struggle and frustration; that I’ve learned. I’ve also learned that nothing is ever handed to you in this life. At least that has not been the case for my life. It has rarely, if ever, happened that any road I’ve chosen has been an easy one initially. We all choose our respective paths to follow. Mine happen to be strewn with other types of challenges than if I had chosen to remain for the rest of my life in the town of my birth. If I had done that, I am sure that I would have faced other types of challenges. But that is not my life story. I had no idea when I was starting out in the work world that I would end up working and living in Europe.

The difficulties any foreigner faces when in a new country have mostly to do with learning the language and trying to understand the new culture that you find yourself in. Scandinavian culture is not very unlike American culture in the sense that we enjoy the same things—a materialistic way of life that does not lack for most things—food, clothing, shelter, vacations, cars, and luxury items, political freedom, family interest (focus on the nuclear family mostly), a mostly secular lifestyle, interest in books, movies, and other media, and many other things. It does not feel foreign to live here as it might have felt had I moved to a poor backward country or one that was a police state or totalitarian regime. When I go out to the malls here to shop, I could be anywhere in America at a big shopping mall. The only difference is the language spoken. So yes, that is a difficulty and it takes several years to learn to speak a new language. For some it may go faster; for me it did not. It is the subtleties in any culture—the unspoken codes of conduct at work and even in social situations, that also make living in a new country difficult. Some of those codes are impossible to crack, or if cracked, impossible to understand. I have given up trying to understand some of them here; I used about ten years doing so and after that I folded. I don’t think like a Scandinavian from the start point. I would have had to have been born here for that to have happened. So I believe in myself, in who I am as an American, am proud of my heritage and my roots, and have truly reclaimed my identity as an American living in a foreign country, despite all the problems in America, the crazy politics and politicians, the contradictions, the inequalities, the disparity between rich and poor, all those things. Scandinavian societies do not have such disparity between the rich and the poor, but there are other problems associated with most people having more or less the same standard of living. It might sound utopian to those who do not live here; it is not. It leads to an odd kind of social conformity, one that I am not particularly comfortable with. It also leads to a kind of complacency that is the result of knowing that the government will take care of most of your needs.

The biggest difficulty for me in living abroad is not being able to see my family and friends in the USA as much as I’d like. And even though I know that I wouldn’t see them all that often if I lived in New York now, it would be easier to do so because the physical distance between us would not be large. It is the possibility of doing so that I miss, perhaps the spontaneity associated with socializing. My annual visit to New York each year is a well-planned event; I start preparing for it many months ahead of time. I hope to spend more time in my country again when I retire; retirement is still years away, but it is not too soon to plan for it. And I am doing that, slowly but surely, so that it will be possible to visit with friends and family for longer times.

What Ellen Glasgow said

Ellen Glasgow (1873 - 1945) was an American novelist from Virginia who wrote about the changing world of the contemporary south, and these are some of her wise sayings. 

·         All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.

·         Doesn't all experience crumble in the end to mere literary material?

·         He knows so little and knows it so fluently.

·         I waited and worked, and watched the inferior exalted for nearly thirty years; and when recognition came at last, it was too late to alter events, or to make a difference in living.

·         Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity.

·         No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not someday be antiquated.

·         No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.

·         The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.

·         Nothing in life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it.

·         What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

·         Nothing is more consuming, or more illogical, than the desire for remembrance.

Amsterdam coffee shops, head shops, sex shop and oh, an American hot dog stand too

What Georgia O’Keeffe Said

Georgia O'Keeffe was born in 1887 near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She is one of America's most important modern artists, well-known for her bold, beautiful and colorful flower paintings. She had some important things to say about art, courage, being an artist and being a woman. She died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an area of the USA that she loved, in 1986.

·         Making your unknown known is the important thing.

·         To create one's own world, in any of the arts, takes courage.

·         Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.

·         I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me -- shapes and ideas so near to me -- so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

·         When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

·         I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

·         I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking the time to look at it – I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

·         I think I am one of the few who gives our country any voice of its own.

·         One cannot be an American by going about saying that one is an American. It is necessary to feel America, like America, love America and then work.

·         One can't paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.

·         Now and then when I get an idea for a picture, I think, how ordinary. Why paint that old rock? Why not go for a walk instead? But then I realize that to someone else it may not seem so ordinary.

·         I found I could say things with colors that I couldn't say in any other way -- things that I had no words for.

·         I don't see why we ever think of what others think of what we do -- no matter who they are. Isn't it enough just to express yourself?

·         I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore.

·         I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life -- and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

·         The days you work are the best days.

·         You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.

Favorite movies and TV shows

(I'm updating this post as of 21 April 2013) to include Prometheus, Pitch Black and Oblivion under favorite sci-fi/horror films, and The Walking Dead under favorite TV shows)

One of my friends recently called me a film fanatic, and I have to say that she’s probably right. I’m not much of a TV watcher anymore (I used to be, but I hate reality TV and that’s all there is on TV these days), but you’ll never get me to stop going to the movies. I can’t think of a more pleasant way to spend a few hours than sitting in a dark theater with some candy and a box of popcorn, watching a movie. Movie theaters have changed—seats are very comfortable now (and they recline a bit), and each seat has its own plastic holder for water or soda bottles. Progress has been made for sure. The sound is exceptionally good, and the acoustics in the theater are too. You can now order tickets online and choose the seats you want. But that’s not why I go to the movies. I go because it’s a way to transport myself into another world for a few hours. I love being entertained; I love the fantasy, the magic, the escapism of movies. Always have and always will…….The following are some of my favorite movies, and while we’re at it, some of my favorite TV shows as well. If I listed all of the movies I’ve liked since I started going to the movies, the list would fill several pages for sure.

Favorite sci-fi/horror/fantasy films

·         2001 A Space Odyssey

·         2010

·         28 Days Later

·         Alien (all four films in the series)

·         Blade Runner

·         Bram Stoker’s Dracula

·         Burnt Offerings

·         District 9

·         Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (TV movie)

·         Don’t Look Now

·         Harry Potter (all the films)

·         House of Dark Shadows

·         I Am Legend

·         Invasion of the Body Snatchers

·         Lord of the Rings film trilogy

·         Men in Black

·         Minority Report

·         Night of Dark Shadows

·         Pan’s Labyrinth

·         Psycho

·         Stardust

·         The Birds

·         The Exorcist

·         The Last Wave

·         The Man Who Fell to Earth

·         The New Daughter

·         The Omega Man

·         The Sentinel

·         The Shining

·         The Sixth Sense

·         Twelve Monkeys

·         What Dreams May Come

·         What Lies Beneath

Favorite films

·         40 Carats

·         All That Heaven Allows

·         All The Fine Young Cannibals

·         A Perfect Spy (TV mini-series)

·         Basic Instinct

·         Body Heat

·         Brigadoon

·         BUtterfield 8

·         French Kiss

·         Hair

·         Hold That Ghost

·         It’s Complicated

·         Jane Eyre (TV mini-series)

·         Jerry McGuire

·         Julie and Julia

·         Klute

·         Light Sleeper

·         Love Story

·         Marnie

·         Night Sins (TV movie)

·         Out of Africa

·         Romancing the Stone

·         Romeo is Bleeding

·         Saturday Night Fever

·         Some Came Running

·         Something Wild

·         Strangers on a Train

·         Sunday in New York

·         The Accidental Tourist

·         The Age of Innocence

·         The Apartment

·         The Fabulous Baker Boys

·         The Grifters

·         The Hours

·         The Last Seduction

·         The Long Kiss Goodnight

·         The Mechanic

·         The Moon-Spinners

·         The Pursuit of Happyness

·         The Sandpiper

·         The Shawshank Redemption

·         The Thorn Birds (TV mini-series)

·         The Witches of Eastwick

·         When Harry Met Sally

·         Witness

·         Zee and Co.

Favorite animated films/TV shows

·         Bernard Bear

·         Bugs Bunny and all the Looney Tunes cartoons

·         Coraline

·         Courage the Cowardly Dog

·         Fantasia

·         Ratatouille

·         Scooby Doo

·         The Flintstones

·         The Pink Panther

Favorite TV shows

·         Alfred Hitchcock Presents

·         Bewitched

·         Bonanza

·         Cheers

·         CSI Miami

·         Dark Shadows

·         Days of Our Lives (soap opera)

·         Dick Van Dyke Show

·         Disneyland

·         Frasier

·         I Love Lucy

·         I Spy

·         Kojak

·         Leave it to Beaver

·         Mary Tyler Moore Show

·         M*A*S*H

·         Maya

·         Night Gallery

·         Remington Steele

·         Six Feet Under

·         Star Trek

·         That Girl

·         The Avengers

·         The Brady Bunch

·         The Donna Reed Show

·         The Night Stalker

·         The Prisoner

·         The Rockford Files

·         The Sopranos

·         The Twilight Zone

·         The Waltons

·         The X-files

Season of Good Cheer

And now begins the holiday season—the season of good cheer—the stores are already decorating for Christmas, it has already snowed once, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner, ready to usher us into the month of December. I have been celebrating Thanksgiving in Oslo since I moved here in 1989. The first year I was here Trond and I scoured the city looking for a large turkey, and finally found one in a supermarket called Coop OBS. I think I paid around 70 dollars at that time for the turkey; prices have come down considerably since then. Turkey is now much more popular than ever before and can often be served at Christmastime instead of the traditional baked pork ribs and meat cakes. But in 1989 it was a novelty and many of our friends enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at our house. I would make turkey with bread and onion stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce (it wasn’t easy years ago to find fresh cranberries either), corn bread or muffins, pumpkin pie and mincemeat pie. What I would often do on my annual trips to New York was to stock up on the things I needed for Thanksgiving—canned pumpkin, ground corn flour, dried mincemeat and fresh cranberries that I usually froze until I needed them. It’s now fairly easy to find pumpkins; I bake the shell and scrape out the soft pumpkin in order to make pies and bread. In later years I have begun to make pumpkin soup and it has become a favorite. Sometimes my mother or friends would send me what I needed for Thanksgiving by regular mail and that was always nice. I remember that a former colleague from Sloan-Kettering who was doing a guest sabbatical at my hospital institute in 1991 smuggled a turkey and fresh cranberries in his luggage on a return trip to Oslo after a short visit to the USA. The cranberries got smashed and ended up staining his clothing, but we did enjoy the turkey and it made for a great story afterwards. That was of course pre-9/11; nowadays you would not be caught dead doing anything like this—you would never get your luggage through security. We have celebrated Thanksgiving several times with colleagues (mostly American) and that has been fun too—nice to get together with other Americans and celebrate what really is the most ‘American’ of USA holidays. And many of them knew exactly where to go in Oslo to get this or that item that was needed for the Thanksgiving meal.

My stepdaughter Caroline really likes pumpkin pie and I enjoy making it for her. She has also learned to make it herself. I love it too and am always glad when there is pie left over after Thanksgiving. Finding evaporated milk to mix into the pie filling was not easy years ago but it is easier now. It was always a challenge to find what I needed for Thanksgiving but I have always managed to do so each year. It has also been a challenge at times to actually prepare the meal. I baked a Thanksgiving turkey for the first time in 1989 in an old electric oven that had once belonged to my husband’s parents. That was a huge mistake, because every time I opened the oven door to baste the turkey, the temperature would drop dramatically, and then the oven would take a long time to heat up again. Suffice it to say that our company showed up at around 6pm but the turkey wasn’t ready until around 10pm. I learned from that experience!

I usually prepare food for Thanksgiving and my husband takes care of food for Christmas. We usually have traditional Norwegian food for Christmas and I look forward to it each year—pork ribs, meat cakes, sour white cabbage, sweet red cabbage, potatoes, and of course aquavit (it has to be expensive because that tastes best). He also makes salted sheep ribs (called pinnekjøtt) and serves them together with a turnip/carrot puree and potatoes (this meal is more typical of West Norway); it is excellent.

I look forward to Thanksgiving and then the Christmas season each year. I don’t think I would make it through the long gray dark winters without these holidays to look forward to. They get me through November and December; then there are the months of January and February to suffer through and then we’re on our way to spring. I am often reminded of my parents at the holidays—they also enjoyed preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was a special time for us. After my father died, my mother continued to celebrate Christmas at her house and we often went there. She always enjoyed Christmas shopping and it was always fun to shop with her. She always overspent and we were always telling her not to do so. But she never listened and in truth this was fine because we knew this time of year meant a lot to her. We would watch the Christmas shows and films together—‘A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, A Christmas Carol, Home Alone’—and I still watch them. I’ve added to the list with ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ as well as ‘Dinner for One’ (Same Procedure as Last Year with Miss Sophie and her butler—very funny if you’ve never seen it).  I miss my parents especially at this time of year, but I know they are watching over me and us and sending their love and best wishes for happiness and good cheer. My parents never forgot the less fortunate at Christmas—there were always extra donations for the poor and the purchases of clothing and food for the different charity drives that were set up to help them. This is the way we were raised and it was a good way to be raised—to think of others and to want to help the less fortunate. And at Thanksgiving it is good to be reminded of all the blessings we in fact have. I know that reminder is good for me—to forget my complaints and small woes, because how could they possibly compare with what the poor and the starving have to face every day?