#if i consistently have to drive 30-45 minutes to run a single errand then what is the POINT huh!

[emmaspolaroid]

if my bf gets this job we’ll never leave this city oughhh but as long as we don’t move to the suburbs ever i think i can handle it probably

[skywatch3rs]

A jumbo post to wrap up what a normal week looks like as a student musher at a folk high school in Arctic Norway!

Friday 22.1.21 – Saturday 23.1.21

Friday is always a half day; because we have class on 2 out of every 3 Saturday mornings, we get Friday afternoon off. After the normal morning routine, we have another valfag (elective), which for me is Sami fabric crafts. Last semester we made a Luhkka, a Sami hooded cape made out of felted wool, which was incredibly fun. I hadn’t used a sewing machine in over a decade, and at every single stage of making my luhkka something went wrong and I had to do it over again, but that only made the finished product even more satisfying to wear!

I'm unlikely to find a career in either modelling or fashion design but I was wildly happy to have made a wearable garment!

This semester we’re going to be making a leather coffee bag, which I am planning to keep dog treats in, rather than coffee. The materials haven’t arrived yet, however, so today we all bring our various knitting projects, and I also darn a couple of holes in one of my wool tshirts– an occupational hazard of working with dogs is that wool is quite vulnerable to their claws! Spending time in the sewing room reminds me of hanging out in the art classroom all the time in high school, with people working on different projects and a warm, kind teacher available to help with anything, so Friday mornings are one of my favourite times of the week.

After lunch, we have a whole school meeting, where today we are electing the new student council president. Each dormitory has a student representative, one of whom will be president. We vote, then discuss some issues that haven’t been resolved from last semester, and then we’re done for the day, and, in fact, the week.

This weekend is one of our free ones, so with no class in the morning, some of my friends from the dog line and I are heading up to the school’s cabin at Ropelv for the night. We always have the opportunity to go to town on Friday afternoons for a couple of hours to shop or run errands, and Ropelv happens to be about 45 minutes north of Kirkenes, our nearest town, which itself is 30 minutes north of the school, at the coast. 10 of us load our backpacks into one of the minibuses, and head into town to collect and send various packages, and pick up snacks before our ‘hyttetur’ (cabin trip).

Warming up plates for our pizza in front of our best friend at Ropelv, the wood stove.

It is -15ºC outside, and the cabin at Ropelv is heated with just one wood stove, so it takes at least an hour for it to get warm enough for us to take our coats off once we’re inside– I climb inside my sleeping bag on the sofa to stay warm. We have running water here, which is a luxury, but it’s cold water only, and there’s also no phone signal, so it’s a really nice break from the “real world”. This trip is part a belated celebration of Amila’s birthday and part “yay we’re all back together after Christmas break and quarantine”, so once we warm up, we get into cosy clothes and start making the pizzas we’re going to have for dinner. There is a sauna at the cabin, but we don’t have enough wood to use it and keep the cabin warm enough overnight, so instead we play Politisk Ukortekt (basically Norwegian Cards Against Humanity), knit, eat pic’n’mix, and chat about everything and anything (but especially an in-depth discussion about Norwegian dialects). The last time I played PU was about 3 weeks into the school year, so it’s incredibly satisfying to actually be able to understand the game without google translating everything this time! Eventually we traipse off to bed around midnight, ready for a lie in the next morning.

Saturday rolls around, and we have a slow start with our breakfasts and coffee. One of the teachers is going to come and pick us up at 2pm so we can get back to school in time for dinner at 3, and we need to pack and clean, but since we’ve only been here one night there isn’t a lot to do. A few of us decide to go for a short walk up to a nearby viewpoint and try aking– basically tobogganing, but using large plastic bin bags, since we don’t have a togobban here at the cabin. Unfortunately there isn’t really enough ice on the roads, and there’s too much snow on the fields for it to work, but I get some hilarious videos of my friends trying to scoot down the road on their butts, sitting on a bin bag.

We tried some different aking techniques, but there just wasn't enough ice!

Emma, Martine and I head up to the viewpoint, and as soon as we get off the trail, we realise we made a mistake: while it was a relatively mild -14ºC on the shelter of the road, the winds from Storm Frank mean there’s powder snow up to our knees, and the wind chill drops the temperature down to a frigid -27ºC. We so did not dress for this. Nevertheless, we drag ourselves up to the top, and the view is absolutely worth it, though if we were more than 20 minutes from a warm cabin it would have been a dangerous idea to let our hands and faces get this cold. Frostbite and hypothermia are no joke!

My 'I have to take a photo before Storm Frank freezes my ears off' face.

We clean up the cabin and drive back to school, and after dinner I decide to postpone the shower I am looking forward to, in order to go skiing again. It’s still windy and actively snowing, but I want to get in some more practice before our trip next week, so I put in my headphones with some pump up music, and head out. I’m still going around just the short 1.2km loop behind school, but for the first time I manage to get around without falling at all! I remember that listening to music helped when I was learning to ice skate, and I’m relieved to find that it still helps me find a rhythm with skiing 15 years later. The hot shower is even better and more satisfying knowing I’ve earned it by going out and doing cardio (shudder) in rubbish weather, so I absolutely revel in it. The rest of the afternoon and evening consists of more good food (Saturday supper is always something delicious) and watching a movie in the common room with friends, before heading to bed.

[abuziewicz]

my media use

At noon on Thursday, October 29th, I woke up. I had about two hours until I had to pick my sister up from school. I took a shower, got dressed, and went downstairs. By this point, it was around 12:30pm. I ate a bowl of cereal, picked up my phone, and laid down on the couch. When I get on my phone for the first time in a day, I check my emails and text messages first. I have emails from Venmo, Word of the Day, Postmates, and Holt International. Venmo let me know I had signed in to the app. Word of the Day gave me a fun new term: “subitaneous,” which can mean “suddenly.” I occasionally deliver food with Postmates, so they let me know what benefits they offer, such as store or entertainment discounts. Holt International is a Christian company that finds kids who are missing parents or struggling financially, and connects them with volunteers who sponsor them by sending a monthly fee over, to help them cover expenses. My parents have sponsored kids for years, and when I got my own source of income, they chose a girl in India for me to sponsor as well. Holt International sends me various promotional emails. I check my email to see if there are any coupons, or information that I need, such as paychecks. Mostly my email revolves around money, when I think about it. Sometimes I feel stressed out when I check my email, because my bank will tell me how much money I have, or I will read a subject line wrong and think I’m in trouble with a company. Usually, I just feel a sense of necessity, to see what I’m being emailed about, and to delete the emails I do not need. 

After I check my emails, I check my text messages. Most mornings this sequence is flipped, as messages are much more important in my world than emails are. However, this morning, the only text in my phone is a confirmation request for my wisdom teeth removal appointment in a week. I respond “Y” to confirm. I am a little nervous about the appointment, but I am glad it will happen so soon. 

It is now 1pm. On Monday, I had taken my one-year-old 16GB LG smartphone and factory reset it in the hopes of getting more storage and faster processing time. Unfortunately, this did not work out as well as I had hoped. While I did have more space, the “system” (undeletable, inaccessible parts of the phone) took up 9GB of my available 16, and would only increase, even after a full wipe. I click on Snapchat, take a quick close-up picture of my face, and begin to type. Any story posted to Snapchat will only last 24 hours before disappearing. There is an option for the poster to have story posts saved into their Memories, a camera roll just for Snapchat. I have a private Snapchat story, in which I control the amount of people who see what I specifically post in that area. In this story, I have about 30-33 viewers. I ask such viewers, over top of the close-up selfie, “Anyone with Apple iPhones: what is your storage like? I am thinking of converting.” After it successfully adds to my story, I am on the Snapchat “Chat” screen. I have “streaks” (numbers that indicate the number of days two people have sent each other Snaps back and forth for) with eleven people. I send, one by one, a different picture to each of the eleven people. When I first downloaded Snapchat, I had over two dozen, maybe even three dozen streaks. Some people have hundreds. Often, people take one single picture, indicate in some way that the image is being sent to maintain the Streak number, and send it to everyone they keep a streak with. I have eleven people I send streaks to. It is no great hassle for me to send a different picture to each person. In fact, I prefer it, as it takes up more time. Most people take a little while to respond anyways. I dislike when people respond to my Snapchats within seconds, it is stressful to me! “Don’t you have anything else going on?” I wonder. “I understand that it’s a pandemic, but do some homework or something. I only snapped you twenty seconds ago.” Once I have sent all of my streaks for the day, I scroll over to see what other people have put on their stories. I usually only have around 50 stories to go through each day. I pay a little more attention to some, a little less attention to others. It is pretty easy to skip quickly from one story to the next if I want, but it’s only 1:20, so I have time to look at each one. There are Friday fundraisers, one of my sister’s friends had an emergency appendectomy (thankfully she was fine, and excited to watch Impractical Jokers in the hospital), some people had work pictures or puppies in beds. Most of the stories make me smile, a few don’t elicit much of a response or thought besides “oh, that’s nice.” Usually Snapchat does not bring me negativity that I am aware of. Sometimes I worry for people, in the event of, oh, a hypothetical emergency appendectomy, or when someone is sad or worried. One person makes me frustrated sometimes, as they routinely ask people for money for rent and food, then use that money to get tattoos. They tell people they used their money to get a tattoo, not food or rent. Lately they have not posted any requests, but the next time they do, I will most likely block them. Mostly, I am happy to use Snapchat to see what my friends are up to, even if I can’t see them very often.

After scrolling through Snapchat, it’s around 1:40. I open the Instagram app. I talk to a few friends through Instagram direct messaging. I am actually not sure why that is our main form of communication, but I do not mind it. My friend Russell has answered my Snapchat story through Instagram. He has an older iPhone, but as long as he doesn’t update it, it doesn’t get any slower. We discuss other aspects of the iPhone. I am thoughtful about it. Another friend and I get into a small argument- we have both been busy, and were worried that we were growing apart. I am slightly annoyed, then understanding and calm. A group chat I am in, called The Rats, is sending pictures of baby opossums. They are adorable and their mouths open at a full 45-degree angle. The possums make me smile. Returning to the Instagram home page, I can see posts made by people I follow. I like nearly every post I see as I scroll down. Mostly I follow people I know, and a few brands. It takes only a minute or two to like everything and return to the top of the page. Similar to Snapchat, I take care of business, then move on to stories. I pay very little attention to Instagram stories. Even though I don’t follow a lot of brands, some of the people I follow post dozens of stories in a row. I have to click through them rapidly. Sometimes it makes me feel anxious to move so quickly. Usually, if someone repeatedly posts too much, I “mute” them, which means I do not have to see their story anymore unless I actively choose to. Sometimes, I forget, and am left tapping tensely through the tags. As I finish going through stories, my mom walks in the door. It’s 1:50pm.

My sister goes to a technical school 15 minutes away. She has to be picked up around 2:15pm. My mom puts down some bags from errands she’s run, grabs some water, and asks if my brother and I want to join her to pick up my sister. My brother is in the middle of an XBox match, but the dog and I love car rides, and joyfully accompany her. She asks me to turn on my Halloween playlist as we drive. Around 1:55pm, I connect to the car’s aux cord, and pull up Spotify. As we drive, I fiddle with the Spotify songs- even though I made the playlist, there are some songs I prefer to hear over others. I also occasionally respond to messages about iPhone storage. Each one convinces me a little more, bit by bit. I am on my phone for about seven of the fifteen minutes that we drive to the school. As we wait in the parking lot, I text a little more. We were in the parking lot for about fifteen minutes- my sister forgot her iPad in her classroom and had to go back for it. I am on my phone for about nine of those fifteen minutes. When my sister gets back again, we head towards home. Beggar’s Night is going on at 6pm. It is around 2:30pm. My sister and I are going to dress up as Dipper and Mabel from Gravity Falls for when we ladle out candy. My sister and the dog are dropped off at home so that she can finish her costume and he can run around the backyard. My mom and I go to Walmart to pick up candy. We do not usually allow ourselves to pick up candy until very shortly before Beggar’s Night, as we will eat it. Even less than four hours was not enough time to exercise self-control, as each member of the family stole a few pieces. I am not on my phone for most of the Walmart trip. We are only there for around twenty minutes, weighing the prices and candy amounts of each package. After paying and driving home, we get in the door around 3pm.

I get on my laptop to check my CState email and Blackboard. I have no due assignments for the night, but I check to make sure I haven’t forgotten something. This takes around five minutes. I begin to finish my Dipper costume (painting a white ball cap partially blue), periodically answering more iPhone suggestions, and responding to regular messages. The hours of 3pm, 4pm, and 5pm consist of texting, painting, and briefly eating. I spend about one & a half of the three hours texting. I can’t easily text while I paint, but I perform both tasks alternatively while I wait for the paint to dry or people to respond. When it hits 6pm, we are ready for Beggar’s Night. We have masks on, a long ladle to scoop candy into bags, and cover from the garage to protect us from rain. Over the course of the two hours, we only get about a dozen kids, maybe fifteen at the most. My mom scoops generously, since she knows anything left over won’t last until 9pm under our roof. People are grateful and talkative. I am on my phone only once during Trick or Treat, and only for five minutes, to upload a Snaochat story of my sister and I as Dipper and Mabel, and of course, send a couple of texts. After Trick or Treat is finished, we are all cold, and left with about 10 of the 255 candy pieces. We settle down in front of the TV.

It is now around 8pm. We watch TV together nearly every night as a family, usually for at least an hour. In celebration of October and Halloween, we have started to rewatch Stranger Things. Other shows we may watch include New Girl, My Name is Earl, Bob’s Burgers, The Good Place, and The Legend of Korra. Sometimes we’ll throw in a movie if we have enough time. Usually we watch three or four episodes per night- one episode from one show, then moving on to one episode of a different show. I love all of these shows fairly equally, though I can confidently say The Legend of Korra is my least favorite. I still enjoy it! In comparison, though, I enjoy it less than the others. We watch shows that usually include comedy, to end our days with a collective laugh. Tonight, we watch New Girl, then Stranger Things, followed by My Name is Earl and tying up the night with Bob’s Burgers. We only have two episodes left of The Good Place, so we have been putting off watching it. I am mostly finished texting for the day. Before 10pm, I send goodnight messages and plug my phone in to charge. The end credits of Bob’s Burgers mark the end of my day.