(From my old Substack)
In the beginning of 2023 I switched from writing my diary by hand to instead keeping it on my computer. It was a time when I had so much on my mind that my hand really couldn’t keep up anymore. Writing about my life on a keyboard felt very blog-like, and sometimes I would think that it would be fun to share what I wrote with my friends. Perhaps get some thoughts and inputs on the events.
A few months later I went to the U.S for a summer program. One of my friends there was curious about my diary and asked if she could read it. I sent her a lightly-censored version of what I had written while in America, and in return she offered me some amusing feedback and comments. I thought: “wow, this is kind of like having a blog. And blogging is kind of fun!”.
I was researching different blog platforms when my great friend
Arthur Brunborg told me about his newly-created Substack. I thought that sounded like the perfect outlet.
So yeah! Here it is: my newsletter. It will go to your e-mail inbox, but I don’t think I’ll be spamming you too much. You can let me know, though.
I’m in Munich right now, finishing this post while waiting for my plane that will take me to Beijing for my exchange semester. I anticipate that I’ll mostly be writing about my experiences there in the coming months. But before that, I thought I’d try something different and write a little about some words that colored my 2023. As a belated New Years-reflection, maybe. (It turned out a little messy, but we’ll roll with it.)
Spring
Let me go back to writing about journaling for a bit. The first months of 2023 really weren’t very fun. But journaling was a great comfort. An unexpected perk of writing your diary on your computer, by the way, is that you can ‘cmd+f’ your way to a new understanding of your life. It’s fascinating to track how new words show up as you experience new things. What names and concepts drift from your consciousness, and what takes their place.
As an example, I finished The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd in April. It’s the story of Ana, the fictional wife of Jesus Christ. Ana was a writer, and a few times in the book, when she would hear or read something that captured her, she’d say:
Such words.
I really liked that.
Beyond being a great novel, the book clearly made a further impression on me: after only having used it a handful of times since January, the word “longing” appeared in my diary 11 times that month (excluding in the context of the book’s title). And I think “longing” summarizes the spring of 2023 well. It was a time of waiting and wishing. A desert season. Sometimes life’s like that.
Right as the exam season started last spring, I decided to start learning Mandarin. As far as ill-timed hobbies go, this one was pretty useful. I wanted to apply to Peking University for my exchange semester in the spring of 2024. All the students who had previously been there stressed the importance of knowing at least some words of the language. So I thought, why wait?
I have two Mandarin-speaking friends in Bergen who generously practiced with me. Together they gave me the Chinese name 麦芽. It sounds pretty much like my Norwegian name, but it has a nice meaning to it. Zora, my America friend who studied in China, explains it like this:
“麦芽 means the sprout of the wheat plant. It gives the feeling of new potential.”
With everything that had happened that year, the idea of “new potential” was really cool to me.
I also used an app to learn the language. The first lesson taught me the following two sentences: “I am American”, and “I am not Chinese”. When the app asked me to write America, 美国, it explained that the first character means “beautiful”, and that it together means “beautiful country”. I thought that was really nice, and asked Zora about it. She explained that the word is probably derived from the ‘me’-sound of “America”, and it just happened to sound similar to the Mandarin word for “beautiful”. A lot of countries are named that way. Another example is the Mandarin word for Norway, 挪威, which is pronounced like “Nuówēi”. So there might not be more to it than that.
In any case, it made me think about all the things I don’t know about China. It’s history, relations to other countries, everything. I can’t wait to go to Beijing and find out.
Summer
Just three days after my last exam I headed for America for a summer program. The four-ish weeks in the U.S. were really quite incredible. I got to spend every day surrouned by passionate people who were doing meaningful things. It was a true delight.
(Arthur wrote a terrific piece on the program, by the way, if you want to learn more).
Being in America also marked the official end of my early-2023 sadness. Life there was simply too wonderful. I spent a lot of time with the Russian participant, Dasha. During our first week in Lansing, we made friends with a couple of Michigan State-students. As we walked back to our dorm after hanging out with them one evening, Dasha paused and said: “I love my life”.
It became our slogan. We even “I love my life”’d our way to Ann Arbor.
The night of the first “I love my life” + our Ann Arbor-trip with my American friend
Outside of the program, I spent a lot of time with a Michigander. One afternoon, we were driving to Flint to see his friends play a gig. The quickest way to get there is to just follow the highway. But we had time, and he insisted that the backroads were nicer, and so we took the long way instead.
The backroads took us past fields, farms, and more fields. There were lots of big trucks and the occasional American flag — or “Old Glory”, as my friend told me it was commonly nicknamed.
It was a nice summer day. We were listening to music in the car. When “Night Moves”, started playing, my American friend asked me if I knew Bob Seger. I told him I didn’t, and asked if he’s related to Pete Seeger. My friend wasn’t familiar with Pete Seeger, so we weren’t any further. But now he says he likes a couple of Pete Seeger’s songs, and “Night Moves” found its way to my top songs from last year. That’s the beauty of cultural exchange, I suppose.
My friend explained that Bob Seger belongs to a genre called “heartland rock”, and that this music was very much associated with the surrounding we were driving through. I thought that was another interesting word, “heartland”. It made me think about the beating heart that sustains the larger body. I think that’s the idea.
—
At a later point in the program, we took a personality test that supposedly would help us identify our strengths as leaders. I was confused when “connectedness” showed up as my number one strength. Compared to other ones strengths, such as “achiever” or analytical”, it didn’t make much sense to me. I had never even heard the word before.
I read my chart and found this explanation for the leadership quality:
People strong in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.
I still don’t know if it makes perfect sense. It’s also pretty goofy. But the side of me that loves the poems that pop up on my Facebook feed and words of wisdom on Yogi tea labels, thinks that it’s kind of nice as well. I don’t know exactly how it’s a leadership strength — but you only really want to do something when you have the sense that it’s part of a worthwhile whole, right?
Fall
Upon returning from America, “Michigan” was probably among my top ten most frequently uttered words. I didn’t really realize how bad it was until my roommate called me into the living room while she was watching the movie Starstruck, just to tell me the main character was from the State.
“I thought I’d tell you, since you’re always talking about it!”
(Side note: the character was from Kalamazoo, which is where my favorite Michigan beer “Two Hearted” is from.)
So yes, I thought about Michigan a bunch in the fall. That’s what can happen when you get to do cool stuff that leaves a lasting impression. I really missed the friends I made there and the fun things we got to do. And aside from that, the fall semester just flew by. Filled with good friends and lots of exciting things happening.
And now it’s 2024 and I’m so, so stoked for my exchange semester. Who knows what will happen!
I’ll finish this post with my absolute favorite phrase from last year, shared by Yimin in a Feminist Storytelling workshop:
Once upon a time, in a dormitory in UWC (a place where most people aren’t native English speakers), someone has warned someone else about a “cupboard butterfly” they had seen in the dayroom. Confused, the other person went to look — and discovered that the “cupboard butterfly” was a moth.
I just think it’s such a great phrase, “cupboard butterfly”. It makes so much sense! Of course a moth is a cupboard butterfly!
So yes, here they are, my favorite words and phrases from last year:
Longing, 麦芽, “I love my life”, Heartland, Connectedness, Michigan, Cupboard Butterfly
And that’s the end of my first Substack post. It turned out a little messy. But Substack posts are like children are like pancakes, am I right?
Lolz.
Thank you for joining me. Talk soon!
Maja's Musings 