Done

I have made a decition to end my days as a blogger. It's been fun, but as of right now I'm not doing it more that a couple of times a month and it's now just a thing I feel like I HAVE to do... In other words; I'm not really enjoying it anymore!

Therefore: Goodbye!:) Who knows... Maybe I'll be back as a bloger sometime in the future?!

! Tone

They are doing an amazing job

Plan is a charity organization, and helps people (especially children) who live in povery and/or discrimination. They work in 66 different counties, all over the world. Their slogan is ''For children, with children'' which pretty much describes their work. Every year Plan gives thousands of children the opportunity to go to school, better or establish a medical support in small communities, give people clean drinking water and so on.

Plan is also an organization that offers ''far-away-adoptions.'' This means that families here in Norway pays a certain amount of money every month to Plan, and the money is used to help a child somwhere go to school or give they whatever help they need. It's an absolutetly amazing idea, and for most people in this country (and other many other rich countries) it's such a small amount of money that we don't even notice it. And still, it's lifechanging for the child that recieves the benefits of it.

My own famliy have been doing this for a few years now. Our frist ''far-away-adoption'' was a girl from Paraguay. Her name was Alicia. We frequently recieved pictures of her, letters she wrote us, and information about her and her family and how our money helped her. Through the years our money helped her go to school for a while, and it contributed to get clean drinking water and a sewage system to her village. When she turned 18 last year she was no longer a candidate for the program, unfortunantly, so we now have a new ''far-away-adoption.'' His name is Charles. He is 6 years old and lives on the street in Uganda. We still recieve pictures and information about him on a regular basis, but we're not yey as ''close'' with hime as we were with Alicia.

Right now, Plan has a campaign going. It's about discrimination of girls and women all over the world. A part of the campaign is the ''I gave my face, and got a pink one back''-slogan. By uploading a picture of ourselves hundreds of Norwegian girls show their support of Plan, and their opposition of forced marriages and female disrcimination.

Thank you, Plan, for doing such inspiring work!

This is my pink face!

!Tone

A clear evening sky!

For the first time in months (because of clouds) there are stars on the evening sky. I absolutely love the stars. They give me some kind of calm, relaxed felling, like they'r watching over me or something. And still they are so clear and far far away. They're a mystery, but still so familiar. I would dare to claim that if the time and place is just right, stars are the most beautiful thing in the world! ...No, never mind that. I would have to say the universe as we know it.

Magdalen and I used to sit outside and watch the stars at night, when we were younger. I remember especially one time, when there were no other lights around, the ground was covered in about half a meter of snow, and the sky had norhtern lights falshing a little. We brought blankets and hot chocolat outside, and just sat there... Talked about boys, gossiping, giggeling...

When I really think about it, that's probably part of the reason why I love the stars so much. I have so many good memories that include them. I associate them with something good and safe. I could tell you about at least six or seven, right now, from the top of my head! But I won't cause I have to go to bed! Tomorrow's electionday over here, and as a first time voter, I don't wanna mess anything up because I've been blogging all night...

! Tone

A strong urge to travel

For the past year and a half (almost) I've been on the move a lot, but the last three months it's been way less. I have not been farther away from home then Bergen since I got home from the US, and I'm feeling a very strong urge to go somewhere! I have so many plans and ideas, but unfortunantly I don't have the money (or the time for that matter). My biggest wish at the moment is to go somewhere warm and sunny, which would be such a comfortable change from the grey, wet weather I'm dealing with.

I even had to buy a new pair of boots yesterday, because of all this rain!:)

But next summer... Next summer I'm getting out of here for a while! Inter Rail is the plan. For those of you who don't know what Inter Rail is, take a look here:
http://www.interrailnet.com/

My mom did this several times when she was my age, and she keeps telling me it's the most amazing way to see Europe.

I'm going with my amazing girlfriends, and since Mari and I both have other friends all over Europe, we might just stop by some:) It'll be great!

! Tone

Coneclution:

Ok... So I have some very random coneclutions to share with the world today:)

For one: These are some of the ''material'' things I miss the most about the US, in a random order (kind of anyway):

-Dutch Bros/Starbucks
-Sun (it's been raining for the last month, at least!
-Victoria's Secret (and why do we not have those here??)
-Beeing able to say ''I have a pool at my house'' just to impress people:)
-Speaking english every day (and beeing able to speak a language no one around me understands... Just for fun)
-Having my batroom ALL to myself
-Not having to go to school AND work (though, payday is the best day of the month!)
-The BIG closet
-Inexpensive shopping (at least that's what I thought)

My other coneclution is even less important, but I know you wanna know anyway:)
One whole full schoolday with ''the basic econ theories'' is very exhausting, and even more boring. The weekend could not have felt any better when it finally arrived!
...........................................................................................................................................................

Tomorrow I am going to watch soccergames. Some of my friends are playing and many of the others are gonna be there to watch, I hope anyway. Mari, Mari and myself are gonna be there, at least, despite the cold and the rain. We decided to bring blankets, hot chocolate and umbrellas and settle down there for most of the day. It'll be fun! Just like good old times when we were kids:)

Here's also a pic from my old soccerdays. That was the best team we ever had, and we actually won every game for one and a half season. Sweet!

!Tone

Senior year all over again!

Yeah... That's right! In June I graduated, but now, once again, I'm back in High School. It sound worse than it is though. I already knew I had another year of school left, but it kind of sucks to know that my friends from GP are all going of to college.


For those of you that don't know this: We have 13 years of school over here, and that's the reason I am doing my senior year for the second time. The system is simply just different.



This is my class from the first year of HS. Lovley, I know:P

This year I am studying language and socialstudies. The clases I'm taking are Consumer Economics 2, Social and Community studies and English, and ofcourse the clases that are mandatory for me: History, Norwegian, Religion and PE.
It's gonna be a tough year, and it's gonna take A LOT of effort to get through it, but I'm detemined to work my but of this last year.
This is it. this is what it all comes down to. This is what really matters!

!Tone

I'm an aunt... Sort of:)

First of all:
Congratulations to Jodi who gave birth to a daughter just a few days ago! And of course, congratulations to Paul, the boys and the rest of the family as well:) And Nathan; You're gonna have to step up your game now! Grandma's attention is not gonna be all yours anymore, my friend!

Second of all:
I know... I have not been the best of bloggers lately, but as soon as I get back to school (which, by the way, is way to soon) this will hopefully approve. Even thoug it's summer time (oh, those summer nights:)), there's always something that shoul have been done yesterday.
Work has been taking up alot of my time lately, and add family-time and friends-time and a tiny dash of me-time; and there's not a whole lot of blogging time left over!

And last but not least:
I love having fruit growing in my garden! We have an apple tree, a plum tree, a cherry tree and a grape bush. The cherries are all done for the summer, but the plums and the apples are just starting to get good. The gapes still has a few weeks to go though:)
Just a small piece of useless (but fun) information! Sometimes we need a little useless (but fun) info just to give the daily life a little boost!:)
Now, that's useful!

! Tone

The place I call my home

Vikanes is where I have lived my entire life. I grew up here, and I dare to say that my childhood was pretty much as close to perfect as you can come. Together with my friends and my family I have had some of the best moments of my life here. It might not be fancy in any way but from time to time it can be absolutely beautiful. And yes, I like to brag about it... No wait, I love to brag about it.

But enough talk. We all know pictures say more than 1000 words:)

! Tone

Expectations

Being an exchange student is not what you'd expect it to be, and I guess that's normal in some way. The big question is if the experience is mor or less that what you expected. You have expectations. There is no way to hide the fact. Everyone around you have expectations, different than your own. Your parents and the rest of your family, your friends, your teacers, your hostfamily and everyone else in your life. I, myself, has only been one of these, and I may dare to call myself the main character in this whole setting. I was the student, and to me the experience was more, way more than I ever imagined.


I can not know who is going to be reading my words on this blog, but there is one thing I do know: If you are considering to become an exchange student, the best thing I can tell you is to go for it all the way. As long as you're openminded, the experience can very easily be the best of your life. You don't need to be the most outgoing or selfconfident person in the world to do it, and that is one of the best parts of it. The idea is ment to help young people grow and learn and build up their own self confidence, and it really does work.


During my exchange year I was asked, on several occasions, what I expected before I came to the US. My best answere was that I tried not to have too many expectations, because that way I knew I would not get disappointed. This was true, but I know now that was not all of it. You might try not to have any expectations, but that's impossible to accomplish. The best you can do is t keep your expectations small, and focus on making the most of what you have when you get there. I can tell you one thing, though; It's all worth it! I don't regret my decision with one cell in my body, and I would do it agian in a heartbeat.



I could keep going with this for days, but I'm cutting it short (making it readable). But I might very well (definantly) go back to the subject sometime in the future. If you have any questions, ideas or thoughts about anything, don't hesitate to leave me a comment:)

! Tone

The official opening of the new blog!

Tonight is my very last night her in GP, and it's a very sad day! I hate goodbyes with passion!
I hope some of the you amazing people I have met this year will follow my blog and keep in touch!

I love you, and thank you for making this the best year of my life!<3

!Tone

New time, new blog

I am now about to end my year as an exchangestudent, wich also means the end of my norwegian blog, but I am not ready to give up blogging just yet. So I'm creating a new one! Whoever followed the last one; I hope you won't leave me even though this blog will probably be a little different:)

! Tone