Oda Rygh

I am an immigrant.  have come from abroad to steal your men, take your jobs, live off the dole, work too long hours, and refuse to let my husband that I have imported from rural Norway go out. I am a threat to everything british, will never adapt to UK law or customs, and my food probably smell funny.

Here is my guide to successful social integration:

1. Avoid immigrant-cliques.

This is possibly the most important step. And where you are most likely to fail. It is COZY in your own little group of people who think these foreign people around you are as weird as you do. And who have movies from home that you can borrow, and who know where to get ingredients for your favourite food you mum used to make. Not to mention that getting to speak in your own language once in a while is very nice on a tired and confused brain. It is all nice. But DON’T. Here is why: You are in essence emphasising “specialness” and how you are “Not from around here”. Having a group of friends with the same fears and experiences and language as yourself is not only exclusive, but cause tribalism. You end up affirming that You People versus Us People thing just by your social group. And with that narrow a friends circle, noone can get in. You are stopping yourself making new friends! Keep the immigrant cliques for once a month movie clubs, cookery lessons, or religious activity.

2. Fall in love

Fall in love with your new homecountry. Some aspect of it. Any aspect of it. Up to and including a person in it. Develop a deep and nerdy passion about the culture, or history, or food, or political system, or supermarket food labelling (God Britain Rocks at food labelling!). Catch yourself slagging off some aspect of your home country when with people from back home. There is a reason you chose to live there. Do not hate your new homeland. Love it. And tell your new countrymen why you love it here. (“Your boys and/or booze are easy and cheap, your education good, and it is easy to shop for gluten intolerant vegetarians if you have them visiting. I love it here!”) Why should you do this: Not visibly loving your new homecountry makes you one of those immigrants. You know which ones. The ones who want to live in their country back home really, but with all the advantages of having moved. Also, gaining the trust of the locals is all about rubbing their patriotic ego. Being able to do it with some level of sincerity helps.

3. Immerse and create a new tribe

Do What They Do. First find a group you belong to. The best bet you have here is to go by education level, parental income and political orientation. If you are an upper middle class leftie from an academic household, go for groups/subcultures/clubs that have people mainly from the same background. The old socialist truth that nations do not matter but class does is true. You are likely to have more in common with some groups in your new country than others, and trying to immerse with people you have nothing in common with is doomed to fail. (There is no accident to the fact that I am marrying a man with leftist parents from academic backgrounds.) Go to a bookclub to discuss Kafka, go to a supermarket parkinglot to drive a car round and round in circles, go to a LARP, a footballgame, a political party, and build a stronger tribalism attached to common interests than the one attached to common nationality. Why: Your enemy is tribalism. But it is also your friend. Building successful relationships and a sense of belonging helps when you are feeling all alone in the world. You are not. You have your clan, your group, your people. And they are from round here and when you are stuck with a problem regarding tax and need to know how it works, they can tell you which form you need to fill in.

4. Adopt new habits, but keep your own too.

You may very well never eat fried food for breakfast. That is ok. But find some way of marking your belonging. I find that eating haggis and drinking Islay drams help. “Oda, she is from norway, but she has been here for so long she eats deep fried haggis suppers!” and conversely “Oda has been over there for too long, she eats haggis but refuses to have pickled herring!”. Also remember that integration is not about assimilation. The trick is to assimilate enough in areas that don’t matter to you. This in order to make the immigration-sceptic monoculturalists nod approvingly and shut up. Then you can keep your own weirdness on areas that DO matter. Why: Monoculturalists are annoying. Saying you eat haggis makes them go away. It really is that easy, and yes, monoculturalists are that shallow. Cause they are dumb. That is why. They probably don’t even know they are monoculturalists, but think they hate asylumseekers and “nigs” and people “taking their jobs”. Which doesn’t even make sense, since they often don’t work.

5. Be white and female and from a nationality with positive pop-culture connotations attached

Sorry, not much help really. But it is easier. Women can cross borders far easier than men. It may be a remnant of patriarchy where a woman eloping magically changes allegiance. Or it may be that we are seen as less threatening. Or we may be easier to approach. Or something. I dunno, but being a girl helps.

Being white helps even more. Coming from an admired cultural background is also a plus. Though being a blonde Scandinavian can lead to interesting propositions in pubs from men, the fact is that the initial impression is of a Viking. A Viking with horns on the helmet. A COOL viking with axes and stuff. And swedish porn. With horned helmets in. (Nevermind that Norway is a fairly prudish country..)

6. Accent.

Learn the language. Well. Then adopt a non-specific accent. For English I recommend somewhere between RP and New England American. Noone can place that. Then add slang and dialect words from your local area. The idea is to not hide the fact that you are foreign but to mark that you are belonging to a place in your new homecountry. Why: Hiding foreign-ness is a lost project. Just forget about it. But get the language right. It is a tool for communication, so make it clear, unmuddled, correct, and good. Invest TIME in language. Think in it. But realise that you are communicating not just by what you say, but how you say it. Adopting local slang is saying that you belong.

In essence: Become one of them. Get rid of isolationist behaviour. Join the dark side.

Have fun with your immigration!

Dette er et slag for de skjulte løvetannbarna.

Barna som ser ut som godt beskjærte roser i drivhus, barna med storfamilie, med bøker hjemme, med god helse og flotte karakterer.
Barna som fordi pappa er advokat aldri får noen barnevernssak mot seg fordi mamma drikker og tar piller. Barna som har foreldre på tinget eller som er lærere, men har angsten for livet fra de var små. Jentene som alltid har perfekte lekser, nye klær, og som kaster opp i det skjulte. Guttene som tror incest var deres skyld, og ihvertfall ikke tør fortelle pappa, den meget homoskeptiske presten med høy status i bygda.

Det skjer i de beste hjem. Men i de beste hjem er det ingen som legger merke til det.

Your geek is fuelled by caffeine. Just get used to it.

Caffeine can be found naturally in a wide range of natural geek foods, such as Mountain Dew, Irn-bru, coke, coffee, and caffeinated soap.

Caffeine serves many purposes in a geek’s life. It is an aid for 78-hour coding sessions, a powerful fashion statement (Your geek is not a jock – jocks drink beer and do not write elegant code) and a hobby much like collecting butterflies.

There are several ways your geek may enjoy caffeine, but there are a main few types of caffeinated geeks:

The Reckless: Will have more than humanly possible, miraculously without heart failure. To him this is an endurance: a roaring proof of his virility and zanyness. This is the guy that eats caffeinated soap. Stop him if he passes out. Bless.

The Addict: Will joylessly drink cup after cup, just to avoid the headaches and to stay up.

The Recreational User: In it for the rush. Just let him have it and make sure he stays off cocaine. The dot com times are over, and he has to buy you an iPhone instead.

The Gastromand: This man will buy coffee that has been crapped by civets. Will own a Gaggia espresso machine. Will write endless newsgroup posts about the perfect cortado. This may seem a bit boring, but think of it like this: This is endless nerding over something which results in you ALWAYS having a great cup of coffee.

So I have got my health back. That was about time. The hamtrax was getting on my nerves.

Job interview tomorrow!
Preparation:

Bath. I need to Chill The Funk Down. Nice bath.
Shoes. Good shoes. Polished.
Shirt that fits. (Thanks Bravissimo!)

Stalking my interviewer online.
Stalking the company online. They seem to have written their own wikipedia article, complete with links to news-stories, all ready for the interested candidate. Awesome!
Watching Videojug’s inteview advice. Rikke Hansen (Best hidden danish accent ever) is very good.

Reading my CV again.

Trying to find my proof of having passed school things.
-I seem to have lost my SQA papers, but Highers weren’t my real qualification anyway.
Would be nice to show off the A in english though…
Got translation of the Norwegian qualifications, and proof that I am awesome from previous workplace.

Heels, yes or no? Heeding the advice from @Orjas’ book regarding female signals in the workplace.
Need to ask male for advice on level of pretty vs. professional.

Learning the lingo of SEO and online reputation management.
(So I can use the correct terms for stuff I know)

Freaking out over a skirt choice dilemma. Possibly going for trousers. Freaking over trouser dilemma.
Reading Swedish and Danish newspapers to make sure I actually speak the languages still. (I do.)

Now all I have to do is show up on time. Oh, and be amazing at them. No worries.

Or possibly not. It may afterall be a wide range of interesting illnesses.

I honestly do not care if it is anthrax, bubonic plague, ebola, the common cold, or an abscess in my lung which is causing this. The result is the same: Me wanting to have a very, very cold bath.

Still having all the water.
Still got all of the previous symptoms, with the added fun new one of me having a lumpy throat. Lymphnode-tastic.

Consider this an ODE to drugs. I happily admit I am hooked. I am a junkie. I get the shakes if I miss a single dose. I am desperate for more, more, MORE!!!

Paracetamol. I declare you the fever-reducing drug of the month! In delightful combination with pseudoephedrine, my favourite decongestant and the ingredient of choice for meth-labs.

Oda er litt enig med de fleste partier. Og veldig uenig med alle sammen. Her er hvorfor hun ikke finner seg til pass hos noen. Uten økonomisk politikk tatt med i betraktningen. Tenk på det mer som et image-problem…

(Meninger kan fort korrigeres når tempen går ned.)

FrP  -  Ja, de er jo ikke akkurat FOR meg. Jeg vet hvem Baudelaire er, har lang utdanning og studiegjeld, kjenner opptil flere fremmedkulturelle, som også vet hvem baudelaire er, og kan identifisere flere vindruer ved smak uten å se flaska. Er i tillegg utvandret nordmann som har lært lokalt språk og spiser den lokale maten uten å bo i ghettoer.

Høyre – Er ikke homofil mann i dress, og hadde ikke klart å late som om jeg er verdikonservativ selv om jeg hadde vært det. Er noe hyklersk over økonomiliberal pluss verdikonservativ mener jeg..

Senterpartiet – Jeg hater ikke bønder. Jeg ER GLAD i norsk landbruk. Men norsk landbruk er ikke glad i seg selv og ser ut til å like innavl, mislike nyskapning i distriktene, og være mer opptatt av ulv og elg enn noe som har betydning for bygdas FREMTID. Jeg er for bygdenorge, og ergo imot senterpartiet.

KrF – Klining med folk av eget kjønn er ok. Og om man skal mene at abort er kjipt skal man være imot IVF-behandling og, uansett hvor heteroseksuelle paret er. Fler fostre kastet vekk fra fruktbarhetsbehandlinger enn fra abort. Denne ene inkonsekventheten avslører diverse kristne bevegelser mer enn noe annet. (Og her skal det blogges mer en gang jeg er mindre dopet og har lavere feber…)

Venstre – Sponheim.

AP – Klarer ikke både å være fokelige og dyktige politiske håndverkere. Det ser bare teit ut. Velg. Enten kappes man med Høyre, eller FrP. Velg utdanningsnivå.

SV – Man kan ikke både være idealist og dyktige politiske håndtverkere. Ihvertfall ikke med deres velgermasse. Det ser teit ut. Velg. Enten er man idealist eller regjeringsmedlem. Velg.

I thought I was feeling better. Slightly.

Then I felt worse again, and remembered that paracetamol only works for 4 hours or so. So I had more. Nice drugs. Niiiice drugs.

All of you.

Buy filament Magazine, it is the good stuff for us ladies.
And they are attempting to print penises. Pretty penises. And brainy words. In the same place.

Buy it. Cause you got brains and like naked boys.

*Recent subscriber*

So I have been diagnosed with (possible) swineflu.
Will cover it live from bed for public interest.

Symptoms:

Blurry vision.
Dry-ish and kinda sharply hurting cough.
Difficulty breathing.
Snot. Lots of it.
Mild nausea, probably snot-related.
Stomach-upset
Tiredness, sleeping twice normal hours (13 as opposed to 6,5)
Waking up lots during the night because of breathing or being too hot.
Mental fatigue. (Watching Yes, Minister for one episode made me want to snooze.)
Headache.
Chest pains.
Hot flushes. Standing in front of an open window feels far too good.
Fever. Unsure how high.
Muscle weakness, randomly and annoyingly stopping me from getting up or lifting the kettle.
Brain Not Working Properly. (Writing this post has taken me close to an hour, I stutter for words on the phone and forget the beginning of sentences mid sentence.)

Medication:

Paracetamol for the fever and pains
Benilin for the cough
Sudafed for the breathing at night

Status: Bored. Really, really bored.
I can’t read things, even Norwegian kids books. I can skim online articles but not understand them, I can’t sleep.
I am too hot for everything. I have made egg drop soup, but that was as much cooking as I felt up to, and even then I cut myself whilst chopping garlic.. I never cut myself whilst cooking. Ever.

You are ill, you have a runny nose, a sore throat, you can’t move, your head hurts, you can’t breathe properly, and worse, you are alone at home and need to eat. But you are too ill to shop.

I present to you: Egg drop soup.

The basic recipe is like this: You head up stock. You thicken it with some flour, you maybe spice it a little or put some soy sauce in, and then you drop an egg in whilst stirring briskly. Done.

Variations include using a pack of noodles, then drop an egg in whilst stirring briskly. Or put some macaroni in, then drop an egg in whilst stirring briskly.

Egg drop soup done properly has silky threads of eggwhite running though it and is an art of some controversy.

That is not the point of todays soup. Todays soup is meant to be a cure for all ills. It is watery enough for you to get some liquid, soothing enough for your throat, has stock and carb so will keep you alive, replenishes salt, and the egg is the protein you need in an easy-to-swallow, no chewing needed format.

This soup is also a great way to survive as a student on noodles without getting malnourished and dying.