I'm famous, but so is Sheba.

I forgot to mention I got into a newspaper here last weekend. Aftenposten, a centre-right paper and the most popular daily in Norway, runs a weekly person-on-the-street deal. Well, last Thursday as I was walking near the bus station I was approached for it. They asked for a comment on the fact that only one in four parents who are heavily involved in their kid's schools are men. I mentioned something about historical construction of gender roles with the kids education as a woman's purview but how this was also changing in Norway and folks need a more global perspective to understand that one in four is actually pretty good (not to say that it is perfect by any means, still a long way to go!). Regretably, the journalist had to take a photo of me. If you remember, last Thursday was November 1st. Day after Halloween, drinking heavy night before, early morning to get students to homestays, etc. I looked ROUGH.

yup.

A bit of interest for Rooney fammers and visitors to the farm. While I was at the REMA (local grocer) today another shopper was picking up some cat food. Or at least, I assume it was cat food as it had a black cat on the tin. Here is the crazy part: the name of the food was Sheba!
For those not it the know, Sheba is the name of the cat at my mom's farm. My mom named the cat, I always thought is was kinda a strange but cute name that my mom just kinda made up. Damn cat hadn't liked me for years, but after Meenous (Sheba's son) disappeared she became friendlier. The cat has been blind for a few years now and is well aged. I just got kinda freaked out seeing our cat's name on catfood.

crazy.

Also crazy awesome was the Circus World Theatre last night! CWT is connected with HausMania, that lovely anarcho-punk squat/hangout. CWT celebrated its 100 year anniversiry this week with a few shows. Last night Paul and I made it out for about an hour and a half. Sadly we missed the first hour and had to take off before they were done, BUT we still saw some awesome stuff and had a great time. There was a big folk-gypsy band going off. There were comedians, jugglers, dancers, pyros, acrobats, and even a clown. Now, keep in mind this was a radical scene, so this ain't no regular clown makeup kinda circus thing going on. Oh no, this was in the basement of a squatted flat off the river, about 100 people standing or sitting on the floor in a loose semi-circle with some great audience-performer interaction.
Here is a photo from their website promotion of the gig:



Last night was hella hella rad and a highlight of my time here.
It was really unfortunate that I missed part of it! I had to get up early this morning to proctor the TOEFL test weekend I did the same for the GRE. It gives me a few extra kroner in the pocket, but terrible timing.