Birthdays

For the ocation of my birthday, I’ve removed from Trondheim for the weekend and I’m now in Tønsberg. I don’t think I’ve seen as much snow in Tønsberg since ever! Theres about a metre on the lawn! It keeps Pouring down too ^^, This year i turned 24 years old, the feeling is about the same as turning 20, you dont think about it much, your sense of self  is about the same and the only real difference is that your facial hair returns more rapidly after shaving. Im still in my 20’s and thats good i suppose.

For my birthday I got some nice presents, from my Girlfriend Marit, i got an awesome t-shirt, a cd-box set from J.Cash, and from my parents and grandparents i got new a new pair of  cross-country skis. We also paid a visit to our favourite chineese resturant, The Bamboo Garden. So all in all a good birthday, hope the rest will be as good or possibly better

Mr Math the baker

Just thought I’d brag a bit and post some pictures of the loaves of bread i made the other day. I used a mix that i bought in the store. All i did to make it a bit special was to add some olive oil. (about 1dl)
here are the results.

The Great Debaters

The Great Debaters is a movie that I would recomend all to see. I enjoyed it immensly because of the great story, the importance of that story and the astounding level of skill displayed by the fairly young and unknown actors. They make you feel as if you are there, experiencing the actual persons they are portraying.  The movie is directed by Denzel Washington and He, along with Forest Withaker, headlines this movie. Even though they are great stars and contribute some to its success at winning me over, the performance of Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollet and especially Denzel Whitaker, make this movie worth seeing. Im glad this movie is a part of my course of American and British Civilization else I probably would have missed it.

the pizza incident

Yesterday I made pizza to feed myself, Marit and some friends that came over for dinner, Nytt på nytt, and a movie. So to make the pizza i used a small bag of instant pizzadough, the “just add water” kind. I was then surprised to find that it failed miserably. It did not cook properly ergo the bottom of the pizza was soft and soggy when it came out of the oven! Yes it might have been me and the fact that i didn’t use the “only heat from the bottom of the oven” function on my oven, but it has not been a problem before when I make the dough from scratch myself! So I have decided to not buy those products ever anymore seeing as its just as easy and fast to make the dough from scratch. My friends also commented that “the topping was awesome, but next time try to make the crust not as soft as it was now”.

Recipie for my pizzatopping:

1 regular onion cut into small pieces.
3 cloves of regular garlic or half a chineese one also cut into small pieces. Put all these in a medium sized pot together with about 3 table spoons of olive oil. let simmer till its clear and the onions get shiny/glossy. Then you add a can of minced tomatoes( about 400g) and about 75-100g of tomato puré/paste. When that’s done you put in a tablespoon of sugar and some salt (1/4 teaspoon), pepper (a couple of turns of your peppermill) , basil (a couple of stalks if fresh and about a teaspoon if dried) and oregano(same as basil). if you want a hotter kind add some chilli powder in the mix. This is the basis of the tomato sauce i use usually i also fry some strips of beef, chicken or corned/minced meat to put on top of the pizza along with cheese. Sometimes i put some slices of bacon on the very top to give it a nice restauranty feel.

Pirates of the Carribbean, our movie for the night, is and i think always will be a favourite of mine. Its just so sad though, that they had to make not only one but two sequels to it. The other two destroy the originality of the first one, the comedy in them is bland and has something stressed about it in the way its delivered. The storyline has no real feeling of continuity from the first one. Fair enough the characters are the same (even Barbossa has come back from the dead.) with some new ones added, the effects are more expensive and the scenes are trying to be more epic, but in my oppinion they should have stuck with the story of the first one, making it final. Then brought about some entierly new characters and stories for the other movies, perhaps moving them in time abit from the first one, seeing that the story of the first one is so unique and funny.

In case you are wondering about what Nytt på nytt is, its a tv-show where norwegian news are put in a new view, preferably satirical, and there are also jokes about norwegian politicians and celebrities. There are 3 regular presenters with Jon Almaas beeing the leader and Knut Nærum and Linn Skåber as the sidekicks. The sidekicks also have guests on their respective teams that compete in solving the question that Jon Almaas is throwing out for them to solve.
I think the show is posted on the web as well. Search at Nrk.no if you are curious about it.

Thats it I think, now though I have to go back to Miss Austen and her Sense and Sensibility

the wonders of linguistics

 

Today i had a very interesting lecture on linguistics. This is the science of language and how language is used. The lecture was ofcourse an introductory one, but I hope to see more of the things that amazed me today. Like the fact that the first language you learn is automaticaly absorbed from the age 0-4 years old, and that at the age of 5 years old most children can be said to have this first language as their native tounge, meaning that they are perfectly knowlegable on how to use that language. I keep wondering about one thing in this theory though; if you have bi-lingual parents i.e. a mother speaking norwegian and a father speaking english, are you then equally proficient at both languages at 5 years old? Or have you learned one laguage first, then the next? Or do you speak only one of the languages?  These questions I will sit and contemplate while I am reading The Dead by James Joyce for my literature course.

will keep you updated on how the linguistics course is going and also on what im doing in lit.

The other thing i might start to publish here on this blog is food and recipies on what I’m thinking of making for dinner. I don’t know if there will be any interest for it, but seeing as its my blog I’ll do what i want with it! more on that in the future.

My first post!

Today i bought a new computer. its quite small and neat. I love it because it’s practical, weighs about a kilo, and the fact that it has more storage space, the same amount of RAM and the same speed on the CPU as my old one.

I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to computers and software, but none the less my chosen path of studies is actually English. To be more precise, to become an English teacher  though the 5-year program at NTNU where, if you graduate, you will have a masters degree in English, and the ability to teach at high school level. (at least in Norway.)

Now as you may have noticed the name of my blog is “the lit. newbie Mr Math.” the nickname Mr Math was given to me by my literature lecturer at the very first info-meeting this semester, when I told him I was new to English and that I had transfered from Maths. Hence the name Mr Math got stuck to me.

Previously I applied to the same 5-year program for teachers here at NTNU but with maths and science as my main subjects but seeing how dreadfully boring the whole sitting and doing math problems all day was, I decided I’d try something else and seeing as English was one of my favorite subjects at junior high, i applied to study English instead. I got in and now I’m happy and no longer bored.

If you are interested in NTNU (the Norwegian University of Technology and Science) click the link on the side