Ragnchild

Normally, when you think about language, you see it as a way of expressing yourself. You can say that your personality helps decide what kind of language you use. Thinking of this, have you ever considered that it might work the other way around as well? What if the language you speak affects the way you think and behave? Since I’m a multilingual person, this is a question I find quite interesting. When I think about it, I do feel different when I talk in Norwegian than when I talk in English or German. When I hear someone speak German, for example, I often get this good feeling. This is probably due to the fact that I associate German with summer holiday and my grand parents.

There is some evidence that when bilinguals switch between languages, their personality changes. This is something that I personally believe is true to some extent, because I have experienced it in my everyday life. It also seems logical, since language is strongly related to culture, that when speaking another language you might associate differently and thus express different sides of your personality. Continue reading Can language affect behaviour?

This may sound shocking to some of you, but I actually believe that people who make their living out of singing (i.e. pop stars), should actually be able to sing considerably better than the average person. This is why I get thoroughly irritated when I observe what kind of people get fame and fortune from singing hideous songs with a voice that can at best be qualified as mediocre. Yes, I understand that these days a good singing voice isn’t everything, but it makes me wonder why not every person with charisma and good looks gets to be a pop star. Continue reading Do they even have a talent?

Usually, I’m the kind of person that cares about what happens in the world around me. People that just don’t care about anything irritate me, and when I see something that is wrong, I often try to think of ways it could be fixed. So why is it that I’m not looking forward to this autumn, when I’ll be voting for the first time in my life?

Well, it’s because the choices irritate me. The politicians make it sound so simple, left or right, red or blue, liberal or conservative. Well, guess what, there are almost 7 billion people on this planet, and classifying their opinions on a one dimensional scale is not going to be very accurate. Very often, I find myself agreeing with one party on several subjects, but disagreeing on another, crucial one, and so I just end up confused and irritated. Continue reading Politics is not that simple

Sometimes, things just seem to pop up in my mind for no apparent reason, and today, it was this particular curiosity: 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + 1/6 +… (the reason I’m thinking about mathematical series may have something to do with my maths exam coming up, but that’s another matter). Now, this series is called the harmonic series, and if you keep adding the terms in this sequence forever, you’ll actually reach infinity, believe it or not.

Something I find quite interesting is that this particular mathematical construction is actually closely related to music. When you play a note on an instrument, what you hear is a mixture of several pitches called harmonics. The note you hear has a frequency called the fundamental frequency, and the other tones are not perceived as separate notes, in fact, they are what determines the sound of an instrument. Continue reading Music, maths, and universal harmony

It has occurred to me that a great deal of the sites I come across are stressing the importance of having good coding and a user friendly site, and yet so many of the premade website and blogging systems (don’t even get me started on MySpace) seem to completely ignore this. Now, I know that many people don’t see the point of following web standards, and at some level I understand this view, coding is made for displaying web sites, so if it displays what you want it to, it’s good, right? Continue reading Coding and such

Now, why is it that holidays and weekends always seem to be designed in a way that does not fit your needs? On weekends, I always plan to do this and this on Saturday, and then have a nice rest on Sunday. It always turns out that I’m too tired from the week to get much done on Saturday, and I end up stressing on Sunday because soon it will be Monday again. And lo and behold, the Easter holiday seems to present the same problem. I was pretty tired at the start of the holidays, but by now I’m feeling somewhat rested and ready to start working. Then I realize, this is exactly the time when the real holiday starts, this is the time where I should be with my family, not do homework. The world just doesn’t seem to fit my schedule. Continue reading Holidays upside down

Some of the people I admire the most are the ones that have a true passion for something, they know what they are born to do and devote their life to this. Every time I see or hear about such a person, I can’t help but be amazed. Of course, the people who do those things often have to sacrifice a lot to pursue their passion, some of them can’t handle the pressure or break down. Still, there must be a great sense of satisfaction in knowing what you’re supposed to do with your life, to have something that’s your drive, your goal, your love and desire. Normally, these people don’t have room for what we call a normal life, but often they don’t want it either, they enjoy being special and unique. Continue reading Pursuing your passion

So, the Easter break is finally here. In addition to making me realize how close my exams are, I hope that this break will give me some time to relax. Now, when I think about relaxing, I don’t just mean the part where you lie on the couch. A part of what I value with holidays is to have some time alone with yourself. It’s not that I don’t enjoy company, I usually like being active and seeing and learning new things. However, I have experienced that it’s often during the moments when I’m alone that I manage to see things from a new perspective, get new ideas and grasp concepts I didn’t understand before. Continue reading Taking a break