The year 2010 began in Espen’s old flat in Odense, Denmark. After a delightful meal we (Espen, Olav, the Icelandic delegation and I) clung our glasses filled with bubbles accompanied by cheers and wishes for the year to come. It was going to be a long, and interesting year. In this blogpost I am summarizing the year from Jules’ and my little cottage in the centre of Edinburgh, and much have happened between the fireworks in H.C. Andersen’s city at the beginning of 2010 to the end celebrated in Princes street looking at a remarkable firework show over the Edinburgh castle. Here is my little summary of 2010.
2010 was a year in between two university degrees, and became a year dominated of work and travels. I had just finished my bachelor in Digital Media from the University of Oslo (2009), and started to study rhetoric and language communication at the same university. In the beginning of the year I lived at Sogn Student apartments, and worked at the Norwegian Telecommunication Museum. In my spare time I tried to keep updated on the newest computer games as I had just bought a new computer, I also worked on some small project using PHP, MySQL and the Android operating system but never completed anything stable.
From January to March I was lucky to get to work with the information department at the UiO again. Together with interesting colleagues from many disciplinary traditions I got to travel through Norway and saw the typical tourist attractions of Trondheim, Bergen and Tromsø. This was great as I got to meet up with old friends living spread throughtout Norway. Together with Kjellerutvalget I got to Prague and had a lovely stay with a good Norwegian-Czech group, I want to thank Oldrick in particular for showing me Prague which has to be one of the most aesthetic capitals in Europe. As a member of the Kjellerutvalget I also got a trip on the “booze boat” trafficking between Oslo and Copenhagen. I have never before travelled with so many party people before, and spending hours in a jacuzzi from leaving Copenhagen to being in the waters outside Gothenborgh was great fun. Being a member for Kjellerutvalget was truly a good investment, and very sociable.
Beside studies was 2010 a year of work, but work is no chore at the Norwegian Telecommunication Museum. Even though important tasks of the daily routine involves repeating opening and closing routines and keeping the exhibition clean was this a small price to pay for the interesting conversations with both co-workers and visitors. During the year at the museum I learnt much about Telecommunication history and how a museum works. This did also contribute greatly to my understanding of analogous means of communication, and to expand my interest from digital media to media and communication in general.2010 did also open a new interest to film, and many late evenings were spent browsing through Bordwell and Thompson after watching an old movie.
More travels followed, and around easter Jules and I went to Belfast where we visited Ben and Lynne. After our exams we took a spontanious charter trip to Turkey which was a bargain ordering three days in advance of departure. In July Magnus and I went to visit veslefars Hamburg which was great fun both the travel with both to Germany and the stay in the former Hansastadt. In August we went to the wedding of Rachel and Paddy in Scotland, a trip involving both castles, haggis and traditional folk dance.
The maybe biggest supprise last year started as a funny, stereotypic name suggestion for a new mobile phone on Facebook. Three days and nights spent on the Internet with the help of all great friends, and friend of friends we won the competition and a trip to China and Shanghai. We are still in debt to all those who helped us winning the competition with 20ish more votes than number two.
Well, right after the competition we moved to Scotland, and we are now in Edinburgh. Semester one was finished today at five and now new adventures lies ahead.
Let’s hope 2011 will be a great year! Happy new year!
