Filed under: Encounters, Environment, Excursions, Science and Technology Studies | Tags: Encounters, Environment, Science & Technology Studies
I took a trip to a big recycling station in Oslo to see what people throw away, and hopefully talk to them about why. There was quite a long line of cars going into the station, and it took me about 20 minutes to get in. When I drove into the area I pretended to be there for the same reason as everybody else, to throw something away. I wanted to observe before I revealed myself. I brought my camera, which might not have been such a good idea because it made people nervous. I took a few photos down in the containers, not of people as they threw things into them, but only of what was already down there. I heard someone whisper behind me, “hm, why is she taking pictures?”. The situation was a bit uncomfortable. I felt like I was there to expose someone, and that people felt exposed, caught in the act so to say. I could not get my self to ask someone for an interview because I was experiencing such strong discomfort by the situation, and was struggling with the feeling of getting too close to people, like I was disturbing them in a private matter. In addition, I found no opening remark that could be disarming. No matter how I rephrased my opening line, I felt like I was standing there raising my finger at people, accusing them of something and moralizing. There was a stressful atmosphere at the site, people were running to and from their vehicles with “rubbish” to do away with. It seemed to me that they just wanted to be very quickly done with this uncomfortable, boring but necessary task. I can imagine the relief they felt when they were driving out the gate – finally rid of that old junk! I tried to chat with some of the older guys that worked there. They were nice and confirmed that people throw a lot of useful stuff. Although there is a container for reusable things for Fretex to pick up and sell in their stores, much is still thrown in with other materials in the waste containers. Probably because people either do not know that there is a Fretex container, they can not be bothered to be doing that much sorting and therefore throw everything in the same container, or they simply define some of the usable stuff not to be usable. After a while one of the guys in the staff approached me and told me that there were some people wondering what I was doing, since I was taking pictures, it was not allowed to take pictures on the premises. I replied that I was only looking at what people were throwing away, since I was writing my thesis on waste, and I did not think it would be a big deal looking around since the station is a public place. Well, the guy did not agree that it was a public place and told me to clear the matter with a woman at the office. If not, I could risk being “thrown on my head into one of the containers”. Oh dear, I said, and began to walk towards the office. On the way there, I was very unsure about the whole thing and decided that I had to figure out a new strategy before talking to the office people. I sneaked back to my car and drove off.
The discomfort I felt, and the discomfort I interpreted into the people who were there actually says something about how I and probably many others feel about disposing of things. There are in many cases negative emotions tied to the act of disposal. This immoral contribution to our materialistic culture. That is probably why we often postpone the act itself for quite a long time. People store things in attics, basements, cabins, try to sell it or give it away. It is only when none of these options work, that most people drive it to a recycling station or a landfill. I think that this is the last resort for many people. For others it may certainly be the easiest way out, the most effective one if they want to get rid of something as quickly as possible. These people ignore the negative emotions the might have regarding wastefulness, if they have any, and just do what they have to. Whilst driving out the gate relief comes to most people. The stuff can be forgotten about. Out of sight out of mind, isn´t that how it is?
(Above: The Fretex container)
So, I have been processing this experience in my mind since last friday, and decided to try again. This time I am going to clear it with the right people at the office. I have already sent an email making a request for the permission to interview people while they are waiting in their cars to get in to the station. Hopefully they will be more open for an interview in this situation. The reply came quickly from the office, but the email was passed on to the right person and I am still awaiting the response.
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To be continued…
What are old people doing at the flea markets? Really… don´t the have enough stuff already? What could they possibly need at a flea market? As if it wasn´t crowded enough. I went to two of them this weekend, and I was constantly finding myself behind people with walkers. This may sound harsh, but please, grannies, go somewhere else for your sunday strolls!
I have often heard about people with a fetish for feet. For me, my feet, or other peoples feet are the last part of the body I would notice. Feet seem quite insignificant to me I guess. The fascination for shoes on on the other hand is easier to comprehend… I do however often look at guys hands. If a man has beautiful hands it is very appealing I must say. But hands are so much more visible, and associated with touching and strength. Quite different from feet which are just down there on the ground, often getting sweaty and smelly with hard skin and thick nails.
A quick search on google showed 5,740,000 hits for “foot fetish”; a few vivid pictures I could have done without, a foot fetish bar, foot fetish blog, “examining Quentin Tarantino´s foot fetish”. According to Wikipedia´s entry on the subject there are quite a few celebrities with this preference: Ted Bundy, Enrique Inglesias, Britney Spears, Tommy Lee, Elvis Presely and Andy Warhol to name some. I have actually never met anyone openly revealing this fetish, until this one afternoon a few weeks ago.
I am sitting on a bench with my note book , in peace with myself and my surroundings. The peace gets brutally disrupted by a man in his late fifties, over weight and sweaty, who decides to sit down next to me. “UNIVERSITY?” he asks pointing at the National Theatre. “No, THEATRE” I reply. There, a conversation has been struck up. Dammit… It turns out, this man is Greek and from Athens. He is here in Oslo on some kind of seminar/conference or the like. In Athens he runs a business where he performs foot zone therapy. By this point of the conversation I am really trying hard to be nice. Usually I just walk away immediately when being approached like that, but I had been thinking lately that I might turn away some interesting encounters that way. Well, this man goes on and on about this foot thing, showing me his brochures and telling me if I´m ever in Athens I would get a free treatment. Actually, and here it comes, I could just take off my shoes then and there (!). And if that wasn´t enough he wanted me to take off my shoes and rub my feet against his. Ok, exit cue!
This guy must be a real optimist going around trying to get Norwegian women to take off their shoes. No one in their right mind would that, right? So is he a crazy person, an eccentric, an opportunist or just an optimist? Maybe he found someone that day who was right there on his level, ready to take her shoes off, who knows…
Filed under: Encounters | Tags: Encounters, Life, People, Thoughts & Reflections
Sitting on a bench at the National Theatre, with an unexpected hour of “freedom” before meeting a friend for dinner. Oh bliss! An hour that I hadn´t planned for anything. I sit and just watch the people walk by, listen to the accordion of a street musician in the background. I pull out my notebook to write or draw. After I´ve been sitting there writing for some time, a guy approaches me with a question. “Hi, could I ask you to recommend a restaurant near by?” I have to think about it for a minute, and then I suggest the chinese restaurant “Dinner”, which is right behind the Theatre. It all still seems quite normal, but then he continues asking me all sorts of questions about the menu, what dish I´ve tried there, if they have sushi, if I could recommend a special dish, what the address is, how long it would take to walk, how long it´s been since I´ve been there and it just went on and on. As it started to get a bit awkward, he finally ended the conversation by thanking me politely for the tip. He walked off, but then turned around and added: “Nice smile by the way!” Surprized and smiling I replied ” ehm…thanks!”. It was such a nice innocent compliment. A few seconds later I noticed that a second guy had been standing close by, observing the conversation. As the guy who approached me walked off, he followed, and they walked on in quite a different direction than towards the restaurant I had recommended. I was confused.
Suddenly, I remembered two similar experiences I had about eight years ago. I was working in a store in the evenings while I was studying. One evening a guy walked up to the counter, and asked me if he could introduce himself. It was a bit awkward. I was thinking either you introduce yourself or you don´t, people rarely ask for permission in advance. Anyway, I listened to his very slow introduction, which seemed to recuire a lot of concentration and effort. He was breathing quite intensely through the whole thing, which made the introduction even more strange. After he finished I returned the favor, though in a speeded version. He thanked me and walked off, leaving me a bit puzzled. This guy also had a companion following him seconds after he left the store. They seemed to be discussing the “performance”. “Weird” I thought, and forgot about it, until a few weeks later: A guy walkes up to the counter again, “Hi I´m from the Association of Stutterers and would like to introduce myself to you, this is my supporter (the guy standing in the back)”.
They were out practicing approaching strangers to overcome fear. Striking up a conversation with a girl they don´t know is understandably a tough challenge. I read somewhere that there are actually three times as many men who suffer from stuttering than women. There is no certainty about what causes the condition, but most probably it has to do with psychological matters or is inherited.
I have been told a number of times that I can look quite unapproachable, which is not a concious choice, but an involuntary signal I guess. Therefor I salute the bravery of the guys approaching this unapproachable face!
So if you get approached like this, don´t get alarmed, and be nice! It could be some guy fighting the very limiting problem of stuttering!
I think this encounter should be a reminder of the fact that facing your fears, very often is the only way to achieve your goals and your dreams.
Filed under: Encounters, Thoughts & Reflections | Tags: Anger, Encounters, Energy, Life, Lines, People
There is a lot in life and in the world that is a reason for being angry, upset, annoyed, sad and frustrated. Too much. The list of big issues concerning all the injustice happening in the world is endless. Necessarily people like you and me, who were in luck being born having everything, have to be emotionally unaffected by all the world misery, in our every day life. Fortunately some devote their lives to a cause, and make a difference, but most people live in their own little (caramel)bubble, containing the trivial bits and pieces of their lives. Because people, including myself of course, are more concerned about all the small upsetting, annoying, sad and frustrating “issues” and events in life. Those are the ones that really make us angry. Like bumping your car, being late for an important meeting, spilling tomato sauce all over the carpet, someone being rude, getting a fine (700NOK) because you forgot to pull the ticket giving you 2 hours free parking, missing a plane, national politics… All though no argument would be valid if one could answer every complaint with “think about how the the poor children in Africa feel”, I try to remind myself to choose my battles. It is about energy, and where to put it. An incident at the airport in France, reminded me this time:
Norwegian was going to open three counters for the check in to Oslo. My friend and I arrived at the airport almost three hours before departure, which meant that the counters were not open yet. We decided to sit down and read nearby. Suddenly after one hour, we realized that there had been building up quite a line in front of the middle counter while we were not looking. The line stretched through half the terminal already when we looked up from our books. There was really no point in getting up to stand at the end of it. My friend went to the shop for a few minutes, and while she was away I noticed now there was a small line in front of the left counter. I looked at the endless long line in the middle, and at the norwegians standing there like sheep, no one daring to leave the herd and spread out to the other counters that were open. Since there was no rope put up that would force people in to one line, I would guess it was not intended that way either. So I made a quick, daring decision to go for the short left line. I picked up my stuff, and my friends stuff, and placed everything behind the three or four people standing in that line. I could already feel the eyes burning in my back. After a few minutes I heard some whispering next to me.
A man cleared his throat and said with what must have been his angriest voice: ” You are aware that the line ends way back there?!!” I turned around slowly, pulling my strength together and smiled politely: “Well, but there ARE three counters, so why stand in one line?”. Angry man: ” Because it is more efficient to stand in one line and spread to the other counters from there, haven´t you been to Gardermoen???!!! Me: I´m sorry, I´ve never been to Gardermoen (being ironic of course), but maybe there is another system here in France, I mean, maybe Norway isn´t the template?” His face was turning more and more tomato like, and he could not stop himself from shouting at me. “Oh wow, this seems to be very important to you”, I heard my self say, this time not as polite. Now the women around him started interfering, you know the kind of women in their 40´s with the really short hair and tight lips. They started lecturing me about “køkultur” (how to behave in lines), which I discovered through a quick google has 31,100 hits. That states the importance of this issue for the norwegians. In this case it was not about the actual consequence of them having to wait much longer to arrive at the counter, as they were already very close, it was the principle of something being unfair and undeserved. I turned my back to them to try to end the confrontation, because I could´t see a reason for capitulating now and go to the back of the middle line, when I had already been hit with all that anger. After a while my friend comes back. Unaware of the uncomfortable conversation that had just found place, she utters with a big smile and a much too happy tone in her voice: “Oh! How neat! You found us a second line! How clever! Wonderful! This will be really quick! Great! Soon after, some sheep from the middle line followed us, the two (black)sheep, quietly to the new left line…
My point is not that the Angry Man and the Tight Lip Women were wrong. It was really just a matter of interpretation on how things should work, and people cutting the line are a little annoying I know. I was just so amazed by the importance it held to them to communicate this anger and view on the situation. Their urge to right this terrible wrong that was happening, and prevent me from getting any kind of advantage. All the energy they just pored out on something so insignificant, and the energy they pulled out of me by throwing all that anger at me. Wasted, it changed nothing, besides leaving everyone with less energy. Yes, I must remind my self more often.
