School days and a lifetime of learning

The autumn season is always a nice reminder of my school and college years. I can honestly say that I looked forward to going back to school each year, even though I always enjoyed having the summers off. Autumn is the start of a new school season, with all the hype, expectations and focus that a new start entails. That feeling of starting a new school year has never left me, even though I am far removed from my school days; I always have a bit of it when I go back to work after a long summer vacation. But now that I do consulting work for the university, I feel that sense of ‘new school year’ excitement when I walk past groups of students gathered nervously together on campus—that sense of anticipation about new courses, new books, new teachers, new social experiences, and a lot of studying. I’m glad I’m finished with all that, but it’s interesting to be back on campus as an adult doing an adult job. I enjoy seeing the students and remembering back to my own college days at Fordham University. Those years were something special, and I knew that already at college age. I knew that such an opportunity to be able to focus and to study uninterruptedly for four years would never come again. And it’s true, it never did. But those four years were a wonderful immersion in biology, literature, Spanish, organic chemistry and history, on a lovely campus in the middle of the Bronx.

I went to work full-time right after college, halfway through my master’s degree in cell biology that I ended up finishing at night. I was offered the chance to do a PhD by professor Loren Day, my biophysicist boss at my first job, but I turned down the offer so that I could work for some years while I figured out in what field I wanted to do doctoral work. I knew it would not be biophysics (my first working lab experience—isolating and purifying bacteriophage DNA in order to study its helical structure). Although the technology we used at that time was fascinating, I was more fascinated by the use of computers in the lab—the early computers that let us feed DNA sequences into crude programs in order to get back protein sequences, for example. The computers that were programmed to tell us “Cool your jets, I’m adding up the sites” while we waited for the output. They were being funny with us, of course programmed to be so by the offbeat programmers who had offbeat senses of humor. I became friends with Roy, our resident computer programmer, who showed me how computer circuit boards were designed, and who was patient enough to explain the chemistry involved in their manufacture. He taught me the rudiments of the programming language UNIX, and got me interested in the first small personal computers. My interest in computers led to my taking a course in FORTRAN and in machine language at New York University, courses that I have never regretted taking. I hit the wall countless times, but I managed to pass both courses and I learned some really cool things in the process, like how to move 0’s and 1’s around in the data and address registers that make up the CPU. This binary language is the language needed to talk to the guts of the computer; the executable programs that are written in higher level languages like FORTRAN in the early days and in C++ nowadays are translated to executable machine (binary) code by a compiler and linker. So I waded carefully into the programming waters, but I was not clever enough to continue in this field even though it interested me tremendously. I don’t regret this decision, because biology was and still is the field of study that interests me the most, with literature a close second. The exposure to computers and to complex instrumentation in my first job laid the groundwork for my next job, which was to be the daily leader of a flow cytometry core facility at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Laser flow cytometers/sorters were used to analyze different cellular parameters and to physically sort different cell types from each other; most of them were coupled to computers that were programmed to run these instruments and to perform the complex analyses involved. When I look back to that time, the 1980s, I remember it as a phenomenal time in terms of learning. The use of flow cytometry in biological and cancer research was just taking off, and it was fun to be a part of it, attending courses in Boston (sponsored by Ortho Diagnostic Systems) to learn how to run these complicated instruments, as well as a course in Los Alamos, New Mexico at the government lab there to learn how high-speed flow sorters were being used to sort chromosomes and to make chromosome libraries, among other important things. We learned how to do some pretty novel stuff at that course, and got a chance to see a lot of New Mexico in the process. I joined the Society for Analytical Cytology (SAC) that later became the International Society for Analytical Cytometry (ISAC); I have attended countless conferences in different countries since 1985, but the conference that stands out is the one at Cambridge University in England in August 1987. It was here that I met Trond, the Norwegian man who became my husband. It was also my first trip to Europe alone; my lodging was a student dormitory room not far from the building where the conference was held. All conference attendees lived in this way for the week we were there. I loved the feeling of living in the dorm; it was a monastic room, simple, small, with very little furniture save the bed and a desk. But it gave me a real feeling of what it must have been like to study at Cambridge, and the city itself was attractive with its many bookstores and music stores. All I know is that one day I hope to really study there—to take a literature course of some sort during the summer months. It’s on my bucket list.  

Maybe it’s not so strange that I ended up in academia. I don’t teach, even though I have achieved the level of professor competence. I prefer to mentor students on a one-to-one basis or in small groups, and I still like being in the lab from time to time. I don’t like bureaucracy, power politics, or the ‘publish or perish’ mentality of academia. What I do like is the ability and privilege that we have to immerse ourselves in lifelong learning if we want to, and I try to take advantage of this as much as possible. Because life is short, but also because society is changing at a rapid rate, and has changed immensely within the last thirty years. Being able to keep up with the rapid change is important, and the only way we can do that is to remain open to learning for the rest of our lives. 

In the spirit of Halloween

During the weekend I happened to be up late and decided to see what was on television. I stumbled across the new horror series that has been racking up rave reviews in the USA—The Walking Dead. The first season is being shown late at night here in Norway on the cable station Fox Crime; I understand that six episodes comprise the first season, and that the second season premiered in the USA last night. I have only managed to see two episodes of the first season so far, but what I’ve seen is fairly convincing. This is a cut above your average horror series. The zombies are very realistic and the entire show has such a realistic feel to it that you could almost imagine such a thing happening—a virus wiping out huge segments of the population and then the dead coming back to life as flesh-eating zombies. The episode I watched last night was the final one of the first season—when the CDC in Atlanta self-destructs after the generators lose power due to lack of fuel, taking the one scientist who decides to stay and end his life there with it. But before it is destroyed, this scientist shows the group of survivors who travel together the 3-D brain scans of his wife before she died of the virus, and how the virus spread through her brain, killing her. It was interesting to see the ‘live’ brain scans—the neural circuits in the brain flashing and then the virus spreading through the brain, causing the circuits to stop firing. Then, after some hours, some light started to glow in his dead wife’s brain stem, but nowhere else in the brain, allowing her to rise again as a zombie, at which point he shot her through the brain. I have to ask myself—why at my age do I still enjoy being scared by this type of show? Why do I still watch this type of horror? I find myself being scared in the same way as I was when I was a teenager. I know none of it is real, that it probably could never happen quite in this way, although an apocalypse of some sort could of course occur. That was more than realistically portrayed in Corman McCarthy’s book The Road, which I found to be quite a harrowing read. For that reason, I did not watch the film based on the book and which starred Viggo Mortensen, mostly because it all seemed so hopeless and dark beyond words. Perhaps the difference between it and The Walking Dead is that there seems to be some hope in the latter, if only in that the survivors can in fact take out the zombies, who are slow-moving and easy to kill. But they are ugly and scary-looking and the show is definitely not for children or the faint-hearted. I found myself thinking of I Am Legend with Will Smith and The Omega Man with Charlton Heston as well, also films where viruses led to scenarios quite similar to those in The Walking Dead—survivors battling virus-infected monsters and vampires respectively. Both of these films are based on the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend, which is excellent.

Zombie and vampire movies continue to fascinate us, as is evidenced by how well most of them do at the box office. They scare us—and we seem to like being scared. Monsters scare us, the monsters of our childhood, the ones hiding in the closet or under the bed. The dark scares us, and it seems to be an instinctive response—we cannot see in the dark and that by itself leads to fear, because we are vulnerable in the dark. I remember that feeling as a child. What lies behind the door? What is in the closet? What is under my bed if I look down or if my foot sticks out from under the covers? What will get me if I am not protected? What if I look out the window and a monster stares back at me from the darkness? That is why the scenes of the monsters overrunning New York City in I Am Legend were terrifying. They were strong, vicious predators and nothing seemed to stop them. They hid indoors by day and came out at night. Imagine a society where that was the case—howling screeching monsters running amok in the night. 28 Days Later was another such film that created the same feelings; especially the one scene in the tunnel where the car with uninfected survivors won’t start and you can hear the infected mob bearing down upon them. Will they escape, and what happens if they don’t? We know the answer but we watch anyway to make sure they get away. Because some of them have to escape the horrible fate that awaits them—some of them have to live. We have to know that it is possible to survive, otherwise what is the point of watching?  

Halloween is soon upon us. Each year the USA (and now many European countries ironically enough) celebrates this strange holiday—a combination of pagan and Christian influences. Halloween is not originally an American holiday. The idea of Halloween with masks and costumes is in fact quite ancient, originating with the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of summer (information culled from different websites). The Celts (who were spread out over much of Western Europe) believed that demons and ghosts of the dead returned to earth during harvest time (before the winter months) due to the fact that the gates between life and death were more ‘open’ at this time of year. These other-world visitors were dangerous because they could cause trouble with the harvest and food stores for the winter months, so it was necessary to appease them. The Celts thus wore costumes and masks during Samhain to ward off demons and ghosts, sacrificed animals and burned crops to their gods in bonfires built by their priests (the Druids) who could control the supernatural energy present at this time of year. We thus have Halloween in our blood, so to speak. Despite the Christian influences that eventually overtook Halloween, the original pagan celebration is a part of our heritage. The fear of the supernatural world, of demons, ghosts, vampires and monsters, is as old as time. Fire could protect, darkness was danger. We would prefer not to be visited by ghosts and demons; we would do what we could to prevent that. In our ‘civilized’ age, we don’t believe that ghosts, demons, vampires and monsters walk the earth, but the superstitious part of us is tenacious and not easy to get rid of no matter how ‘civilized’ we are. Perhaps that is one explanation for our fascination with the darkness, with the unknown, with monsters. As much as we like to pretend that we don’t get scared, the reality is something else again.

Sunrise, sunset and oh, the moon too

All in one day---today's sunrise, sunset and a moonlit night. The sunrises and sunsets recently have been gorgeous--such vivid colors. I've got to work on getting better night shots; this was the only moon picture I managed to get that was sort of decent. But I'm working on it. I'm loving my camera--a Canon EOS 500D. But I'm still using my Fuji FinePix at times--got some nice photos with that camera too. I wish I could say that I understood everything there was to understand about digital cameras these days, but I don't. I usually just point and shoot in auto mode. But eventually I'll get around to a deeper immersion into the world of digital photography, maybe even take a course or two. Right now, I'm just having fun.

Sunrise 

Sunrise a little later

Still sunrise

Moving towards sunset

Moving towards sunset

The sunset reflected in the windows of this apartment building makes it look like it's on fire from inside.

What a sky!

American science and the future of cancer research

Harold Varmus, the current director of the National Cancer Institute in the USA, held a talk yesterday at a conference on life sciences for health and innovation at Rikshospitalet in Oslo. He won the Nobel Prize in 1989 for the discovery of the ‘cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes’ together with J. Michael Bishop. The title of his talk was ‘Why medical research matters’, and he did a pretty good job of presenting all the arguments for why medical research does in fact matter. But his talk was mostly about the glorious success that American science has enjoyed since WWII, and how the country—both the government and the American people—were in complete agreement about the importance of science to the future of American society. And what a glorious history the USA has had when it comes to science during the past seventy years. It was not difficult following the war to convince the American people of the importance of having a strong scientific base and community. Being able to defend the USA was an important motive for driving scientific endeavors, as Varmus pointed out. For example, the space program was implemented in order to be able to compete with the Soviets in space. It is safe to say that emphasis on defense in terms of technology and weapons was sufficient to push many scientific endeavors forward during the period from 1950-1980. But what Varmus also emphasized was the sheer amount of scientific discoveries during the past seventy years, an astounding number—that have led us to the point where we are today. He was also keen to point out that science is important for its own sake—that curiosity about, interest in, and the pursuit of basic research are valuable things in and of themselves. Basic research should not be discouraged according to Varmus. We cannot just emphasize innovation and translational research at the expense of basic research. He pointed out that many basic research discoveries were not translated into anything of practical use for perhaps decades after their discovery. Despite this fact, Varmus argued that this was the way science should proceed—that an emphasis on innovation should not necessarily be the major focus moving forward. And I agree. I don’t know to what extent the research climate has changed in America during the past ten years. What I know is that it has changed dramatically in Norway during the same period. There are advantages and disadvantages as with all changes. I’ve written about both in previous posts. I am not opposed to change. But it is clear that innovations and patents are being emphasized to a large degree to the detriment of free independent basic research. We should not be skimping on basic research in the rush to commercialize scientific findings.

I was heartened by Varmus’ positive presentation of American science, especially since I started out as a scientist in this type of research atmosphere during the 1980s and can attest to its veracity. I have often talked about working in dynamic research environments (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and UCSF) when I worked in the USA. They were dynamic—they were inspiring, encouraging, educational—for all sorts of reasons, but mostly because the men and women who led the research groups were dynamic individuals who loved science. They lived for science—it was not a part of their lives, it was their lives. You can argue the wisdom of this type of lifestyle as much as you want for my sake. I know all the arguments against it—that it cuts into family life, that there is no time for social events, and so on. But these people socialized with other scientists and their families. They talked a lot about science and new ideas and approaches with their families. Their wives and husbands and children were an integral part of their scientific lives. And being around these types of scientists was a positive experience. It’s sad to hear about and to witness the economic hard times that the USA is currently experiencing; Varmus also meant that the American people have become much more negative and conservative when it comes to wanting to fund science. That’s sad to hear. It’s hard to say if the USA will recover, and even if it does, difficult to say whether the excellence that has defined most of the research will continue. If science does not have the backing of the American people, it will not get the funding it needs to continue, because the politicians that will be voted in will support the views of their constituents. Has America peaked in terms of its scientific prowess? Is it now time for the USA to hand over the relay for other countries to carry? I hope not.

Varmus also talked about cancer research and how the NCI has taken the initiative to start a new project called Provocative Questions. This list of 24 questions resulted from discussions at workshops for scientists at the NCI, where the scientists who got together discussed and debated the current state of affairs for cancer-related issues—e.g. drug resistance, metastasis—and came up with some new questions and approaches for doing cancer research in the years to come (http://provocativequestions.nci.nih.gov/rfa). Some of the questions that have made the list of Provocative Questions are:  How does obesity contribute to cancer risk? What environmental factors change the risk of various cancers when people move from one geographic region to another? Are there ways to objectively ascertain exposure to cancer risk using modern measurement technologies? Why don't more people alter behaviors known to increase the risk of cancers? How do changes in RNA processing contribute to tumor development? Why are some disseminated cancers cured by chemotherapy alone? Given the appearance of resistance in response to cell killing therapies, can we extend survival by using approaches that keep tumors static? These are all good questions, and hopefully the scientists of the future will be interested in studying them. I hope that the quality of American science continues to be high, but I know that it won’t remain that way without a concerted effort and focus on the part of politicians and the public alike. The public has got to believe, has got to be convinced, that science pays off. And not necessarily commercially, but from the standpoint of helping cure different diseases down the road, and in aiding in the development of new technologies. The only way to ensure this is to communicate the importance of science whenever one gets the opportunity to do so, using all media available, e.g. social media like blogs, Facebook and Twitter. The world has changed, science and the way science is done and communicated has changed—perhaps we are ushering in a new era for science—a ‘brave new world’--we are part of the change. It is happening around us, and perhaps we will not recognize what was when the changes are complete. It is exhilarating to think about being part of the change. I thought about that today on my way to hear yet another lecture by another Nobel Prize winner—Ivar Giæver. I thought—there are so many opportunities for younger people now to get introduced to science and research. They are so lucky compared to when we started out. Now they have computers, internet, social media, apps of all kinds, virtual learning, interactive learning and so on. There is a plethora of courses, conferences, lectures, idea festivals, all designed with young people—students--in mind. But these are not enough. Students have to experience the exhilaration of working for a dynamic scientific leader who does basic research and who is a visionary--not a bureaucrat or a technocrat. That’s what matters for the future, that’s what will hook students and keep them interested in doing basic research.

An October sunrise in Oslo

I followed the sunrise this morning for some minutes. Some beautiful sunrises these days--lots of red and gold colors. I've also gotten some good shots of the moon; to the left of the moon I have been able to see what looks like a bright twinkling star. That's how clear and crisp the air is over the city--clear enough to see the stars. But this is not a star, it's a planet, and according to the astronomy websites I've checked, it's Jupiter. So that's pretty cool. I don't have a telephoto lens yet for my camera, otherwise I'd try to take a picture of it. The last time we saw a planet shining so clearly in the sky was back in 2003 in early August--and that was Mars at that time.

Biking, Bicycle Sundays and the Bikecentennial

We are experiencing an early autumn in Oslo this year, not that I am complaining, because the sun is shining more than it did the entire summer. So for some few hours a day, in the early afternoon, there is actually some sunshine and warmth. Today was a perfect day for a bicycle ride up along the Akerselva river, which is something I have done quite often in recent years. Biking up along the river from the beginning to the end (Oslo fjord to Maridalen reservoir) is a total distance of about five miles, so it’s not a long river. My trip today was about six miles round trip (from Ila to Kjelsås and back); for the most part fairly hilly on the way up, but an easy and enjoyable return downhill for those (like me) who end up being a bit tired afterwards.

I have biked all my life, it seems. There is something about getting on a bike that spells freedom for me. I learned like most other children to ride a two-wheeler when I was around eight years old, and after that I was sold. I can remember biking around Tarrytown as a teenager, exploring back streets, the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, Philipse Manor and Sleepy Hollow Manor, and maybe once or twice I got as far as Rockwood State Park, slightly north of Tarrytown on route 9. I didn’t go much further north than that. Sometimes I had my friends with me, but most of the time I was alone. When Westchester county officials decided in 1975 or 1976 to close off the Bronx River Parkway to cars on Sundays during the summer and early fall, I was thrilled. Bicycle Sundays still exist as I discovered when I googled them (http://www3.westchestergov.com/news/2674). The course ran from the Westchester County Center in White Plains south to Scarsdale Road in Yonkers, which was a round-trip of about 13 miles. I would first bike from Tarrytown to White Plains and then bike the entire round-trip course, together with a lot of other bike enthusiasts. There was no question of biking fast—you were limited by how fast the others biked. But sometimes I could break away from the pack. My brother joined me on some Sundays and that was always nice. He became quite a good biker and went on to participate in triathlons in his early twenties. In early 1976, the year of the bicentennial of the USA, I and my friend Loraine from college decided to try and join one of the cross-country trips that was offered by BikeCentennial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikecentennial), now called TransAmerica Bicycle Trail (http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/transamerica.cfm). She left it up to me to do the planning. I do remember getting the brochure/maps in the mail and poring over them, trying to decide what route would be best for us, and settling on a week-long trip through Virginia; I don’t remember the exact route, but the present routes are probably the original routes. We both bought fairly expensive bikes for that time, in April 1976, in order to be able to train for this trip. Unfortunately, by the time we registered for it, it was booked solid and we missed out on that opportunity. Many of the other trips were not on the East coast and we were limited in what we could choose, since the Virginia trip was the one trip that fit our time schedule; we had the month of August free and after that we had to return to college. So we didn’t manage the Bikecentennial trip, but I at least kept on biking and am still doing so today. I still flirt with the notion of attempting another such trip—shorter distance and shorter time, in the USA or in Norway. But it has not come to pass and I must admit that I have not actively sought it out. After I left college and moved to the Bronx, my biking days became more limited because I did not feel comfortable biking in the Bronx. When I later moved to New Jersey in the mid-1980s, I bought a new bike at the urging of my brother who by that time was a triathlon biker. My new bike was a racing bike; to go with my new bike, I needed biking shoes (that attached to the pedals) and biking gear. Biking in America at that time was really taking off (this was around 1986-87), thanks to Greg LeMond and his 1986 win in the Tour de France. Bikers needed trendy gear. However, I never really felt comfortable with any of it, and I hated that my shoes were attached to the pedals when I biked. It felt claustrophobic. So if I biked, it was in the old way, comfortable shoes—unattached to the pedals, regular pants, no helmet—as non-aerodynamic as possible. I have relented somewhat over the years—I own bicycle pants with padding that reminds me of a big diaper, and a seat cover with padding, and bicycle gloves to grip the handlebars better. But this is about comfort and nothing else—if seats were comfortable like in the old days I wouldn’t have bought a seat cover or bicycle pants. I also own a helmet that I never use; I don’t like the feeling of having it on my head and it seems to interfere with my hearing—too much swooshing in my ears. I’ve fallen off a bike twice in my life; the first time as a child and a passenger on my friend’s bike--I smashed my front tooth, and the second time as an adult—I ended up with skinned knees that were painful and took weeks to heal. But small injuries have never deterred me. After I moved to Norway in 1989, I didn’t bike regularly for a number of years, I’m not even sure why, not until I bought a bike again in 1997 and used it to bike to and from work. But after I injured my back in 2001, I didn’t get on a bike again until 2009. I was afraid of injuring my back and for some reason I associated biking with back problems. This fear turned out to be unfounded. So now I am biking again, not as much as I’d like, but much more often than I thought I’d manage.

Although I enjoy walking and hiking in the forests and our occasional trips to the mountains, I think I enjoy biking best. It is something I can always do, anywhere. I prefer it to jogging, which I find somewhat monotonous, although I do jog at times. I have biked to work on occasion; that is real training, again mostly uphill all the way. Suffice it to say that my energy level is not at its peak in the morning, so I do struggle a bit. I am an early afternoon biker from the standpoint of being able to tackle all of the physical challenges involved. I think what I have always liked about biking is the freedom, the fact that you get to different places faster than you would if you walked, and that you are outdoors in nature. The latter is most important to me these days. I cannot wait to get outdoors now—to breathe fresh air, to be out in the sunshine, to be a part of the nature around me. In such respect, I don’t really miss my health club training; although I am still a member, I am rarely there, because it means going indoors and stepping onto machines—treadmills, cross-country machines—that take me nowhere. The only way I survive the boredom of training is to have my iPod with me. That saves me. I train indoors during the winter—I don’t enjoy biking in the ice and snow, although I have one friend who does and she says it’s fine as long as you have the right tires. Perhaps I will get to that point one of these days, if only to find my way outdoors again during the long winters. 

What Steve Jobs said

As most of you probably have heard already, Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56 after a long battle with cancer. I have read some of the obituaries already, so I won't repeat any of what is already written about him. Suffice it to say that not only was he a brilliant innovator, he also had a lot of wise and inspirational things to say about life and working and doing what you love here in this short life on earth. I am posting some of his wise words here in honor of his life and many achievements. Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. 

Perspective on life, on following your heart and on doing what you love

·         Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

·         We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and everyone should be really excellent. Because this is our life.

·         Life is brief, and then you die, you know?

·         And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.

·         Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

On being different and standing apart from the crowd

·         Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

·         Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?

·         I want to put a ding in the universe.

On wealth

·         Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.

·         I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.

On working, management, quality, excellence and innovation

·         Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.

·         My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.

·         Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

·         A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.

·         Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

·         Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data.

·         We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place – the last thing we were going to do is lay them off.

·         I mean, some people say, ‘Oh, God, if Jobs got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.’ And, you know, I think it wouldn’t be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that’s what I try to do.

·         So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know – just explore things.

·         People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

·         I think the key thing is that we’re not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things.

·         I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

·         Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

Woyzeck at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet

Last night my husband and I went to see the modern dance production of Woyzeck at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet. It was in fact the fourth performance of this modern dance piece; it premiered in Oslo during the last week of September. The story of Woyzeck, written originally as a play by Georg Büchner, has also been adapted as an opera and as a number of different films, but this was one of the few times it has been presented as a dance piece. It was created by the German choreographer Christian Spuck to music by Martin Donner, Philip Glass, Gyorgy Kurtag, and Alfred Schnittke. As fate would have it, Inger-Margrethe Lunde, the theater critic for Aftenposten (the Norwegian newspaper), did not like it. In fact, she strongly disliked it, going so far as to call it ‘bullshit’. I am attaching the link to her review (in Norwegian—it can be translated using Google Translate but you have to tolerate some weird translations here and there): http://oslopuls.aftenposten.no/kunst_scene/article605271.ece.  She headlined her review with the words “Embarrassing and disappointing”, followed by “Bullshit, I think, despite the frantic, endless standing ovation”. And the review gets worse from there, ending with the same-- “Bullshit, I think”…… I cannot remember ever reading a review of any production, dance or otherwise, quite like hers. When I read her review, I thought, yikes, just our luck; we have season tickets to the ballet, and Woyzeck was the first dance of the season for our subscription. I have to say I was dreading it, because there is nothing worse than sitting for two hours watching something that is boring. That has happened on occasion—that I have been bored by an opera, but I do manage to differentiate between my subjective feelings and my objective appraisal of the actual performance—were the singers good, were the sets attractive, and so on. I am not opposed to someone writing a negative review, but hers could have been more professionally-done. In any case, as luck would have it, we ended up not sharing Lunde’s opinion of Woyzeck. And in fact I have to wonder if we actually saw the same dance piece. I cannot understand what it was she did not like, and have to conclude that it was the theme of the story (the humiliation and cruelty that one man is subjected to that results in a tragic outcome) that bothered her. That I can understand—that it would have bothered her. But not that it would lead to her disliking the entire production or calling it bullshit. Because it wasn’t. I was actually quite moved by this dance production, especially by one of the final scenes where the low-ranking soldier Woyzeck dances with his girlfriend Marie who has been unfaithful to him; the dancer who played Woyzeck last night, Kaloyan Boyadjiev, was wonderfully expressive with his body and his arms, and really made you feel his humiliation, his pain and his desperation. His murder of Marie is the culmination of a long series of humiliations that he has been forced to endure because of his poverty; he is often humiliated by the army for which he does odd jobs and by the scientists who poke and probe him as part of the experiment that he is a part of. He endures all of these humiliations in order to earn some money, and when he comes home in the evening to Marie and their son, he is free and you see that in the way they dance with each other. They actually know some happiness and they seem to be in love. So that makes it all the more tragic and poignant at the end when he realizes he has lost her, lost the only thing that means anything to him.

Apart from what Lunde explained about the story of Woyzeck in her review (and I forgot the plot by the time we went to see it), I really did not know the story in detail nor what we were about to see when we walked into the theater. It was the same for my husband. During the dance, I had so many thoughts and feelings about what was transpiring on stage. Franz Kafka came to mind (as it did for my husband as well), as well as the brilliant English series, The Prisoner, with Patrick McGoohan (where the prisoner, a former spy, was just a number, surrounded by a nameless bureaucratic system of jailers all trying to probe him for information). The feeling of systematic cruelty, of a total lack of empathy, pervaded the piece. I found myself thinking about totalitarianism and communism and the loss of personal dignity and identity. So if a dance piece can make me feel all those things, as well as move me because of its poignancy, then for me it was something of value that I was privileged to experience. It is impossible to defend the man Woyzeck because he murdered Marie, but it is completely possible to understand what drove him to do that. I felt sorry for him in spite of his tragic choice. That is a testament to the quality of the dancing and the quality of the production. I’m proud to say that I disagree completely with Inger-Margrethe Lunde, and I truly hope, as my husband also commented, that her review did not discourage people from going to see the production. My guess is that it did, unfortunately. So perhaps she should take heed for the future and remember that the dancers have worked hard, likewise the choreographer. She should separate her personal feelings from an objective appraisal of the production. There do exist objective criteria for the evaluation of cultural events and creations. Perhaps she had a bad day going into the theater—car broke down, problems at work, or other irritations. Let’s hope she manages to write a better review next time. 

A short October update

It’s shaping up to be a busy week, in fact, probably a busy month as well, with all of the different work projects I’ve taken on. In addition I’ve decided to write a novel, and am contemplating joining the project that WordPress is sponsoring during the month of November, called National Novel Writing Month. This is a project that entails working toward completing a 50,000-word novel by November 30^th, which means writing 1667 words per day. Who knows, maybe I will manage to do it. And then again, maybe not. One thing is for sure. I know what I want to write about and that goes a long way toward getting me started. I’ve been tossing ideas around for the past few years, but there hasn’t been much that has held my focus as long as this idea has done. I’m not going to talk about the idea; I will rather say that it will fall into the sci-fi/horror genre. I’ve started researching it and I’ll keep you posted on my progression (or lack thereof). 

Cartoon time

I have been meaning to write a short post about one of my favorite American animation series—’Courage, the Cowardly Dog’, a brilliant effort by John R. Dilworth and team, which originally ran on Cartoon Network from November 1999 until November 2002 (four seasons), with a total of 52 episodes produced. At present, it is running on Cartoon Network here in Oslo each night at around 8:15 pm and again shortly after midnight (on weeknights). I’ve seen most of the episodes, some of them several times, especially my favorites. I really cannot find enough superlatives to describe the show. I love everything about it—from the clever storylines, excellent animation, attention to detail, interesting backgrounds and overall creepiness at times. It is not really suitable for small children, since it is a fairly graphic horror cartoon of sorts, although there are a few sweet episodes as well. The star of the show, the pink dog Courage, must deal with all sorts of challenges in the form of freaky people, were-moles, dragons, murderous vegetables, mysterious CIA types, evil snowmen, evil magicians—the list goes on and on. He overcomes his initial fear and cowardice and protects his family—Muriel and Eustace Bagge—from all of the monsters and assorted creatures who want to do them harm. They all live out in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas in a farmhouse. Eustace, a cranky old man, is supposed to be a farmer, but nothing grows for him and the land around the house is pretty barren. Muriel, a housewife, is his direct opposite, a cheerful, helpful, sprightly older woman. Eustace is greedy and always looking to make a quick buck; Muriel keeps him in line and is definitely Courage’s supporter and protector. Courage loves Muriel, not Eustace. Whenever she gets into trouble, he loses his cool completely and freaks out, but he always comes around to ‘I’ll save you, Muriel’. And then he goes about the business of saving her. I’m including a list of some of my favorite episodes here.

The Last of the Starmakers 

The Magic Tree of Nowhere 

Food of the Dragon 

Dome of Doom 

The Snowman Cometh 

Snowman’s Revenge 

The Sandman Sleeps 

The Night of the Weremoles and Mother’s Day

The Quilt Club 

A Beaver’s Tale 

Some wise words about good intentions

I looked up these quotes about good intentions today because today was one of those days when I realized that having the best of intentions in certain situations is no guarantee of a happy outcome. I realized that no matter how good one's motives and intentions might be, they can be misconstrued by others who have their own personal agendas and vulnerabilities. Good communication is the way to deal with such misunderstandings, but it is so difficult to achieve that sometimes. It is sorely dependent upon both parties meeting each other at the negotiating table as peers, and that does not often occur. Sometimes the offended party would rather judge, lecture, and otherwise dominate the situation in order to make the other party feel small. And it works--the purported offender does feel small. But feeling small is not an apology or an admission of wrongdoing. It is merely one way of dealing with judgmental controlling people and letting them have their say before one offers up a reply. The problem is that the reply can often lead to more problems, because by pointing out that one's intentions were good, one is defending oneself and the act of defending oneself for some people is a big no-no, because if you do that, you are guilty as charged. And I don't agree with this. I think that people who always give in or act like doormats, no matter the criticism, are the ones who are guilty. If you are innocent, you will try to defend yourself against an attack on your motives or character. I have experienced this at times in my workplace, and it is not easy to wage a counterattack. But it is necessary for your identity and self-value. And if you are wrong and know it, then an apology is in order. But if you are not wrong, then it’s just foolish to play the part of the offender. You hand over more power to the offended person, who may enjoy the power game that has ensued. In any case, I am not interested in the power or the game. I’m simply interested in the truth, in the reality of each situation that arises.  

·         It is not good enough for things to be planned - they still have to be done; for the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation.”

Walt Kelly

·         Let your intentions be good - embodied in good thoughts, cheerful words, and unselfish deeds - and the world will be to you a bright and happy place in which to work and play and serve.

Grenville Kleiser

·         Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

Mohandas Gandhi

·         Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

Peter Drucker

·         I don't know anyone in the public eye who has not made a mistake and said something in a manner that does not truly reflect their intentions.

Jim Jeffords

·         Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.

Aldous Huxley

·         The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

·         The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

Albert Camus

·         Our intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake - a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for sin comes out of a wrong intention.

E. Stanley Jones

·         A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

Oscar Wilde

·         I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

Douglas Adams

Until you value yourself

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.    (M. Scott Peck)

I posted some little pearls of wisdom from the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck recently, but it is this particular quote that has stayed with me since then, so I know that it struck a chord in me. I have been preoccupied with this very thing since I started my blog in May of 2010—the idea that my time is valuable, that it is worth something and that it is important to use it well. Some of you may be thinking that this sounds strange. Didn’t I value myself and my time before then? The answer is yes, I did, but I often lived in an unaware state, perhaps thinking that I had all the time in the world to do this or that, to change my life, to pursue this or that hobby, or to get involved in this or that cause. But now I know better. Life is short. And my saying this is not about my being unduly or morbidly focused on mortality and a certain end, although that would be a good enough reason in and of itself to get up and get moving on the things I want to do and accomplish before I leave this life. It’s about being focused on living, on being a part of life, in all ways possible. It’s about living now and giving and getting as much out of life as is humanly possible. It’s about getting up off the couch and not watching too much TV or sitting in front of the computer for too long, it’s about not buying into everything that is written in the newspapers or in magazines, it’s about thinking for yourself and valuing your own ideas and creativity. It’s about not letting work take over your life to the exclusion of your family or your creativity. It’s not necessarily about parachute jumping or extreme sports (unless you really want to do that!—I don’t). But I do want to step up to my own plate—be present in my own life, be aware of the opportunities and freedoms that have been given to me. Because they are not few, I have realized that. We are given so many opportunities each day to be present to ourselves and to others. The question is whether we stay aware during our daily lives, or if we just end up doing things by rote, living according to worn-out routines, and not doing anything about it. There is comfort in old routines, that must be said, and I am not for discarding all of them just for the sake of doing so. But it’s important to figure out when to let go of things that don’t work for us anymore or when to let go of certain people who drag us down because they don’t want you to rise because it means that they might have to. And by letting go I mean, putting things and people in their rightful places and rising above their petty concerns, envy and negativity, not necessarily pushing them out of our lives completely. And that takes a change of mindset. It may not mean quitting your demoralizing job if you cannot for economic reasons, but it may mean separating yourself mentally from that job and rising above it in order to survive mentally and emotionally. It may mean a radical change in how you look at that job. It may mean a radical change in how you look at the people in your life as well. There are always some few people who are naysayers no matter what you do and say; instead of letting them get the better of you, just let go of their words. Don’t give their words any power over you. It is amazing how easily that can happen, almost as though there is a little person who lives inside each of us just waiting to be fed the negative words. We suck up the validation of ourselves as ‘not good enough’; we suck up the negativity and feel as though we deserve it--deserve the derision, negative comments, hostility, aggression or envy. We think that if we rise, it has to be at the cost of the happiness of others. It’s not true. This is negativity at work—this is what happens when we do not value ourselves. Because if we do not value ourselves and if we let the negativity in ourselves and from others win over us, we will not think about our time as something to be valued, and we will remain passive observers in our own lives because it will be easier not to rock our own boats or the boats of others. 

The turbulent Akerselva River---25 September 2011

We usually take a long walk up along the Akerselva river on Sunday afternoons. This is something we often do during the different seasons, but it is an especially lovely trip during the autumn months when the foliage is starting to turn colors. Oslo has had a record amount of rainfall during late August and most of September, and the Akerselva water levels are quite high now. The river is quite turbulent, especially in the areas where there are waterfalls. One of them is located near the Hønse Lovisa house which is in the vicinity of where we live, and this is where I took a lot of photos and video footage. It was so exhilarating to watch the water churning and bouncing along on its way to the Oslo fjord, creating a spray that reached all the way up to where I was standing with my camera. Normally the river is not as turbulent as seen in these videos, so it was exciting to witness it and to capture it on film. I did a lot of filming yesterday afternoon and evening, and I thought I'd share some of videos with you. This river has become very special to me, and I film it during all seasons. Enjoy the videos, and if you have any comments or feedback, let me know. I am new to the video game, but will probably be making more of them, because it's fun.......

All About Plums

Each year during the late summer and early autumn my husband and I take some time to make preserves or jams as they’re usually called.  He usually makes a big batch of strawberry jam, which can last for several years unless we give it away as gifts. A few years ago we made a big batch of cherry preserves, along with a cherry pie and cherry liqueur. It is both a challenge and a pleasure to make all of these things yourself, and the work involved makes you appreciate what our grandparents and great grandparents’ generations did for themselves; they had to, since there were no giant supermarkets offering nearly everything you could think of. We never made jams and jellies at home when we were growing up; my parents did make pies and Italian desserts together at the holidays, and my mother made some great pies and cakes otherwise, but we never as far as I can remember made our own jams and jellies. Of course we didn’t have to—they were readily available in the supermarkets. But the fun aspect is invaluable—it really is fun to ‘make it’ yourself. And after some years I have learned to make apple butter and my own applesauce with cinnamon, as well as different kinds of marmalades. But this post is about plums.

I have been making plum preserves the past few years; they are easy to make and the jam is superb—mostly sweet but with a hint of tartness. No matter how much I make though, it is never enough. I have made preserves from several different types of plums, from the dark purple plums called Damsons to the more reddish plums that are the most common types of plums available. One of the women who used to work at my hospital had a lot of plum trees in her backyard, and she would bring in bags of plums for us—just gave them away, that’s how many plums the trees produced. I took them gladly. Besides the plum preserves, I also make plums in rum, a dessert that is heavenly and pretty simple to make—all you need are plums, rum, sugar and a big canning jar (if you have a kilo of plums then you will need a kilo of sugar and half a bottle of rum). You cut the plums in half, remove the pits, put them into the jar, cover them with sugar, add more plums, then more sugar, and when the jar is 75% full, you pour the rum over it all, close the lid, mix carefully, and then let the jar stand at room temperature for a few days until the sugar is dissolved. This is a great dessert, and when the plums are gone, the rum-sugar liquid is great as an accompaniment to vanilla ice cream. I made a jar of plums in rum today as well as a couple of jars of plum preserves. And I’m not finished yet; I still want to make more preserves. This is the kind of housework that is immensely gratifying; you see the finished results, it tastes good and the people you serve it to will be happy to eat what you made—what more could you ask for? And all of these food items make great Christmas gifts. Since it seems to be getting more and more difficult to buy Christmas gifts for friends and family (everybody has pretty much what they need), I have a feeling that I am going to opt for making food gifts for people—preserves, liqueurs, cookies, cakes and breads. They’re appreciated, they’re fun to make, and they come from the heart.  

Plum preserves

Plum preserves

Plums in rum

City Gardeners

During the last ten years or so, my husband and I became city gardeners, despite the fact that we live in a co-op apartment building without a balcony or terrace on which to set out plants and flowers. Of course we wish we had one, because we love to experiment with growing different plants from seeds as well as buying new plants at the local plant store or at Plantasjen, the larger garden center. Our kitchen, living room and dining room window sills are filled with different kinds of plants. My husband loves to nurture his orchids, and has about six orchid plants at home and about as many in his office at work. He is the only person I know who manages to get orchids to bloom more than once, and he has his weekly routines for spritzing them with water and keeping them happy. I prefer nurturing food plants; that is to say, plants that produce fruit or vegetables. I have grown tomato, pepper, orange and fig trees in our apartment, with some success. Right now I am the proud parent of an orange tree that is very fruitful, as well as a fig tree that manages to produce about three to four figs per season. My husband brought home a small cherry tomato plant at the beginning of the summer, and it has grown to some height and has produced (so far) about five cherry tomatoes. We also have a small coffee plant in the kitchen; the leaves smell good but we don’t expect to find coffee beans on the stems one day. But it looks nice in the window and one can of course dream.

The first vegetable plant I ever purchased was a small pepper plant; the peppers looked like small chili peppers but I don’t remember if we ever got more than the five or so peppers that hung on the plant when I bought it. In the summer of 2005 I grew tomato plants from seeds; only one seedling plant really took off though and I did my best to keep it happy. It even joined us on vacation that year; we rented a cottage on the sea, not so far from where we live, and I took it with us in the car and let it stand out on the large terrace that overlooked the ocean. It was there in the morning that it got a lot of sunshine. I think we may have gotten several tomatoes that year; the problem is that the plants don’t always get enough sun, or get it long enough. Summers are short in Oslo and it amazes me that my orange tree produces the numbers of oranges it produces. We got about twenty-three oranges off the tree the first year we had it; the second year saw only a yield of about four oranges, whereas the third and fourth years have been very fruitful—with yields of about twenty-five and thirty-five oranges (this year) respectively. The oranges are not large and sweet, they are small and sour, but they are beautiful to look at and during the flowering season before the oranges begin to grow, the smell in the room is wonderful. The white flowers that will produce the oranges produce an intense sweet smell that dominates the room. I use the oranges in the smoothies that we make from fresh or fresh-frozen fruit each morning, and I have used them in marmalades to add a kind of ‘bite’ to the sweetness. Last year I made pear/ginger/pineapple marmalade and added a few small oranges to the mix—it was a heavenly result and the marmalade disappeared rather quickly. I’ll probably do the same thing this year.

We often debate the advantages and disadvantages of moving into our own home; one of the advantages would be that we could have our own garden. We know for sure that we would fill the backyard with fruit trees and plant a garden, both flower and vegetable. So why haven’t we moved by now? That’s a good question. Part of the answer lies in the fact that we don’t have the time we would need to tend a large garden, at least not in the way that would be required. Also, we would like to live in Oslo and not commute into the city each morning; traffic is horrendous and we would like to avoid that. But to buy a house in Oslo is not really a viable option—houses cost a fortune; we’re talking upwards of 800,000 USD for a decent-sized house (two bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, living room). It seems a tad unrealistic to want a house in order to have a garden. There are so many hidden costs attached to owning a home. The garden has to supersede all the problems of owning a home in the city. Time will tell. In the meantime, we have our gardens in the different rooms of our apartment. I’m waiting for the day when there won’t be room for any more plants or any more room for us. I believe that day is coming soon.

Ripe oranges

My orange tree

Our tomato plant

My husband's orchid plant