raabjerg

The current state of affairs

Just a quick observation, which startled me a bit once I realised it:

Now, sitting in a small Norwegian village outside of Haugesund, the Internet is actually much better, faster and more reliable than it is at Newbold College. (mountains and all)

Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel to comfortable, since I’ve just been employed to help a little with the Internet at Newbold – oh, well

Add comment december 19th, 2007

That little extra which makes a great difference

Today, when we were going for lunch, it looked a little dull at first. But as one progressed down the usual food buffet at Newbold, you could see that extra care had been taken this day. Instead of the usual boxes of salads, there was a big bowl of mixed salad, which looked like it had been prepared with love. There was good cake, and potatoes that had been roasted and turned in spices – just a little extra touch.

The next surprise: When entering the dining area in the cafeteria, everything had been rearranged. Instead of the usual long tables, smaller square table-formations had been set up, Christmas tablecloths were on the tables, real napkins were present, and even those things that you pull and they make a ‘pow’ (which we in Denmark normally use for New Years Eve, but apparently they are used for Christmas over here), were laid out on the table for general amusement.

Somewhere along the line, someone had gotten the idea to do something extra for the students. And it really felt like a great gift, sitting at tables in an almost family-like setting with Christmas music in the background. Not that it was revolutionary in itself, but it was just one of those totally unexpected gestures that for some reason makes you very happy. All because someone had chosen to do that something little extra, which wasn’t really required of them, but they did it anyway.

I wish I would more often have the surplus to do that little extra for someone.

1 comment december 4th, 2007

Christmas is here

I was reminded of the imminence of Christmas a couple of days ago, when innocently sitting at the library trying very hard to study. Suddenly comes out of nowhere a person dressed as Santa Claus saying merrily ho-ho-ho. And so, I just had to get a picture with Father Christmas. (by the way, have you ever heard a English-speaking person tell you that you can’t start your sentences with ‘and’? It’s starting to get to me)

After she had left, Lars had only one comment: Maybe women can be pastors, but they should definitely not be allowed as Santa Claus! (I don’t think he meant any offence though – I thought Kaitlyn made a very nice Santa)

1 comment december 1st, 2007

Going out in Bracknell – a comparative analysis

Looking back at the past week, it occurred to me that there is a somewhat qualitative difference in the various establishments in Bracknell serving food and drinks. Two examples need to be mentioned:

McDonald’s in Bracknell is most likely the least well-functioning McDonald’s I’ve been to (seconded, I believe, by Thomas and Lars). Usually, there’s some oddity to marvel at (which is kind of sad, since life should really be about more than marvelling at oddities at McDonald’s ).

The first time I was there, Lars had a Big Mac almost void of dressing. This time, I thought I would try the new McFlurry. It should be said to their credit that I actually got this free with my menu as a student discount, but anyways, the picture on the posters hanging around the place showed what you would expect from a McFlurry – some chocolaty-stuff that has been blended and is now having its existence as small pieces of something mixed with ice cream – yummy! However, what my serving McDonald’s employee did was to add ice cream, add chocolate sauce, add the chocolate pieces, add the spoon, and serve it to me. I tried asking if it shouldn’t go into that machine they had with the McFlurry-label on it, but to no avail. So I devoured the ‘McFlurry’, but felt kind of cheated. This is what it looked like after I had stirred it around:

In comparison, there does exist what appears to be a restaurant chain called Frankie’s and Benny’s, which happens to be in Bracknell as well. The atmosphere is great – you feel like you’re in a US movie with the whole diner-style concept, and the deserts are excellent. I believe pictures will here serve as better explanation than words (notice the happy (?) looks on Lars’ and Serina’s faces):

Judge for yourselves – personally, I will not rule out the possibility of going into Bracknell for ice cream and brownies tomorrow

2 comments december 1st, 2007

The small things that make up everyday life

At the ending of a Biblical Theology class today, I realised – as I was putting some papers in my backpack – that there are few things in life which annoy me more than paper-cuts. With most other annoyances, you can come up with some necessary explanation, or some good for which it compensates, and this will in turn lead you to perceiving the incident as a kind of trade-off-situation, but a paper-cut…

(Btw, if anyone is wondering what a paper-cut is, you can either take an A4-sheet out of your printer and slide the edge of the paper down your palm until it hurts, or you can just look it up at wikipedia )

8 comments november 14th, 2007

Story of my life

Overheard in the cafeteria the other day:

‘I love you’

Response: ‘I have a sore throat’

What can you do?

3 comments november 12th, 2007

Some things are better left unsaid

Today, as I’m getting ready for a quite brain-activity-intense class, someone comes huffing and puffin into the classroom, walks to the table behind me and puts down her bag – incidentally containing what turned out to be an over-sized old Compaq laptop – on the table with a thump, and exclaims ‘this bag is about as heavy as me!’

What do you say to something like that? I turned around to see the bag in question, and part of me felt like making a slick comment, but another part of me maintained it would be better to keep my mouth shut – so I did. I couldn’t quite let it go, though, so my brain went onto going over various possible comments on the theme ‘this bag is about as heavy as me!’ Some possibilities it came up with are:

• ‘I doubt it; then the bag would have to be much heavier!’ (which would probably be true for even a very slim individual, but doesn’t really sound all that good)
• ‘Wow, that bag must be really heavy then!’ (which again would probably hold true, but sounds even worse)
• ‘No, I don’t think you’re that heavy…’ (which will probably be a so gross understatement that it will backfire)
• ‘I can only imagine…’ (kind of easygoing, but again doesn’t sound all that good when you think about it)
• ‘Really – how much do you weigh?’ (I’ll leave this one uncommented)

Mentally going through these possibilities, it occurred to me you generally should just steer clear of commenting on matters pertaining to people’s weight – good thing I kept my mouth shut

Later, I came to think of the perfect reply though: ‘as long as it’s not as heavy as me’. Here we get a display of self-irony, detracting the attention from the person whose weight we are not commenting on, and maybe even containing a hidden compliment

16 comments oktober 31st, 2007