Alarms!!!!!!!

Two nights ago I quietly went to bed around 10pm. Read a book for a little while, The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks. (It’s all right. Science Fiction. Some parts are very poetic, but other parts are dull and lifeless and the action is drawn out and it makes me say, “get on with it.” a lot. And I think maybe Banks is trying to do something with the way it’s organized but he’s failing on the whole.) I fell asleep eventually and there I lay, minding my own business, catching z’s like there was no tomorrow when I was suddenly awakened by a screeching panicking alarm. I leapt out of bed. And when I say that, I mean literally leapt, my sleeping bag flying across the room the panicking screech alarm pulsing it’s frantic alert. It took me a moment to realize the sound was coming from one of two alarms in the ceiling. I spent a few seconds or so sleepily-wired trying to find some way to shut the thing off before the neighbors were awoken and, pissed, out circulating flyers to pull together some sort of mob to come to my door and tell me to quiet the fuck down. The alarm wouldn’t stop and I thought for a moment – how in the hell am I going to sleep with this thing going off. And all this in the span of seconds before I realized it must be some sort of building wide system and the alarm was larger then just in my room. This was confirmed as I held the screeching device in my hand having ripped it out of it’s casing) and saw the wires disappearing into the ceiling. I replaced the thing, dressed and found my way outside where were gathered everyone from my building. I was the last one out and we all stood there in the cold small hours a slight rain pelting us looking up at the tall building to see if we could spot any flames. We couldn’t. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later the Oslo Fire department showed up and silenced the alarm and let us all back to our beds. I hope that this isn’t some sort of Norwegian pastime. Fire alarms in the middle of the night as a way of building commentary or showing the comedic side of sleepy humans in the rain.
Today I went to AHO again to find out about the computer lab business but it is proving very difficult. In my worldview the computer lab should be a place where you can enter and find some one readily in charge and speak with them about any number of problems. In my current reality the computers are behind a glass wall. And you can see the people working away, but no one is obviously in charge. So there is no one I can speak to that will be able to help me. And the door I opened brought a panicked screeching alarm as if my dna was being read and rejected. Or possibly I had opened the wrong portal and the sign, in Norwegian, was actually trying to tell me that an alarm would sound if I opened the door. For when I closed the door the alarm vanished and so did I. Embarrassed. Plan B was to ask at the reception to see if they could tell me who to speak to. The receptionist turned out to be no help at all. In fact she made things incredibly complicated and so I fled in frustration, mostly because there was a line building behind me and all I wanted was the name of the person who ran the computer lab but she kept telling me to just go into the library. I couldn’t figure out why she would tell me that, the library is in a different wing of the building from the computer lab. And I assumed she misunderstood me (now I think maybe the Library might have some answers and I’ll try there tomorrow). And the line was growing and I was standing there. Saying computer lab. And she was saying, the library is just over there. And so I skipped to the next thing, which was to try to get a hold of the professor for a specific class about Norwegian architecture I want to sit in on. And so I asked about the name given on the web site, Nina Berre. And she asked are you sure that’s a professor. And she began flipping through a book. And I said well, she teaches this class. And the lady said I recognize the name but I don’t see her name here. And I said thank you and left.

So here now I sit, making plans for how to attack the problem tomorrow. Reading, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. (A bit long winded), It’s free from Project Gutenberg. They have a bunch of classic material that has gone out of copyright, which you can download and save the text to your computer. So I figure it’ll be cheaper then buying novels while I’m here. I just saved $300. Probably not, I’ll probably still buy novels. I can only read classics for so long before I crave some sort of contemporary endeavourer.

Later this week I’ll get to Horten. Until then it’s just reading and thinking. Exciting, no?

So here is a Google Earth image of my neightborhood. My building is the blue square, the Red square is AHO. To the right is my neighborhood. At teh bottom of the page you'll find a large map of Oslo.


Coupel random Photographs:

A Knut Knutson House

Half-timber frame with brick infill