The Gentry Troll

Ok so the insanely observant among you may notice I have a new profile picture which is the little fella above. Now Im not at all happy with how this turned out in terms of quality as its very clearly a few pictures plopped together not very cleverly using adobe illustrator (a program I had never used before creating this), but its something I've wanted to depict since coming up with the name of this blog and I couldn't resist showing it.

So here it is, the pretty feeble first attempt to give you an idea of what I had pictured in my head when I came up with the idea of a "Gent Turning Troll". Im aware its in fact a troll with some gentry clothing and therefore sounds like the wrong way around, but in my head it works, and let me explain. I may one day transform into a full blown Norwegian (the troll) but I have no doubt I will always hold my own culture, beliefs and all the many facets of myself that culminated from growing up on the shores of Britain. So where as I may appear Norwegian to many and blend in well with great Norwegian and live in a wooden painted house and own a cabin in the county, I will still very clearly be something else. I will not be an English gent carrying skis and wearing a Norwegian wool jumper like a tourist, I will be a Norwegian Troll dressed in British Black Tie attire very clearly reminding the Norwegians that I am still me, and reminding those back home that I always will be. Its a strange metaphor and I really hope it makes some sense to others as I have made it do so in my head

I should say that I will be working on a much better version of this at some point but essentially the basic idea is very much there, a troll in a bowtie, tophat and a monacle. One day, if my assimilation goes as planned and I can either create or have someone create one for me, I may even get this as a tattoo. Anyone who thinks that is strange please follow the link below to a pots about my first tattoo for some context.
http://gent-turning-troll.blogspot.no/2012/02/mario-bros.html

IF

I'm not certain if I mentioned it in a previous post but I clearly remember saying to myself and a few close friends & family that I thought the first couple of months after I moved to Norway would probably be fun and then get increasingly difficult, stressful and depressing until the end of the first year. I then suspected it would get easier after that and hopefully truly comfortable and at home after around three years. Given I am fortunate enough to have time on my side still being just 22, this was a timetable I had accepted.

I am now just three days off the two month mark and I think I am well on target. I have been slightly negative at moments but largely things have been really fun. A few nights out, a couple of little trips, visitors from home and the best mark I could have hoped for in my degree. I must look back very fondly on most of that time.

The low feelings however are slowly peering their ugly heads in small waves as I plod along day to day, searching for jobs and generally just waiting for something immense to happen. This will however not be a negative post, oh no! Instead I will share one of my tricks for staying positive, and it is through the words of 'IF' by Rudyard Kipling. I remember few things from my childhood as clearly as I remember the first time my Dad read me this poem. I was instantly moved by it and kept a copy in my room for a quick read whenever I was feeling down. 

Years later it still works as well as it ever did, I'm sure many of you would have heard it many times but I just read it after receiving my fifth job rejection e-mail in two days and I felt the need to remind the world of these wise words. I have been heavily considering getting IF tattooed somewhere and if it carries on keeping me upbeat I think I will have to.

http://vimeo.com/1305608

The link is to a slightly better quality version of the same video. Personally I prefer to read the poem out loud to myself to get the full effect hence why I have posted the whole thing below. However this is a really nicely put together video that is well worth a look at.

IF

• If you can keep your head when all about you
• Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
• If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
• But make allowance for their doubting too;
• If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
• Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
• Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
• And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
•  
• If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
• If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
• If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
• And treat those two impostors just the same;
• If you can bear to hear the truth you ’ve spoken
• Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
• Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
• And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
•  
• If you can make one heap of all your winnings
• And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
• And lose, and start again at your beginnings
• And never breathe a word about your loss;
• If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
• To serve your turn long after they are gone,
• And so hold on when there is nothing in you
• Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
•  
• If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
• Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
• If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
• If all men count with you, but none too much;
• If you can fill the unforgiving minute
• With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
• Yours is the Earth and everything that ’s in it,
• And—which is more—you ’ll be a Man, my son!

The Mario Bros

Tomorrow I am again being blessed with a family visitor, this time my brother Jamie and his girlfriend Dora. Sadly only staying one night on their way to Scotland for a little holiday but still very much looking forward to it.

My brother and I are very close and strangely similar in many ways and do not see nearly enough of each other these days and I am very aware this will become worse when I move to Norway and it is one of the biggest regrets for me.

I probably should have mentioned earlier. These Mario and Luigi tattoos are 100% real. We got them a few years ago on my 19th birthday (I actually paid for both as a belated 21st present to him). They were done by Jon McKibben of Dermagraffiti, Birkenhead. A quality job he did too even if he did find my pain slightly amusing. The picture is from the same day we got them on a night out in Liverpool in some massive crazy warehouse club we have never ever been able to find again, but that's another story.
We grew up playing Mario and Luigi games, they are genuinly some of my earliest and clearest memories. I was always Luigi and he Mario so on our tattoos we have J and B on there respective hats where it is normally M and L.

After we initially had the idea for the tattoo and I never thought we would actually do it but after several years it just kept being a great idea so we went for it. It has very mixed reactions, some love it and think its amazing and others think we are literally mental. Either way, it means a lot to me and I am very happy we have it and would never wish to be rid of it.