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Maria Montessori: “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”

Dinah Shore: “Trouble is part of your life, and if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.”

Finally…finally…winter seems to be on its way here in Norway!

The outside temperature took a dive and went down to a whopping -8C today (still ‘warm’ for the time of year though 😉 ), and the weather forecast shows that it will be between -6C and -10C the whole coming week. All ‘we’ need now is more snow (much, much more than the lousy 3cm that came in this morning…) and an additional 10C colder temperatures (somewhere between -15C and -25C seems to be right for January, brrrr!).

The cold outside goes hand in hand with the need to heat up the house; watch the YouTube video below and learn how to do this very efficiently (and cheap!)…I will try it out the moment I find the correct flower pots (and will delete this post if it doesn’t work hahaha!).

Watch and learn y’all, watch and learn… 😉

Sophy Burnham: “To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself.”

This is an amazing story by Lizzie Velasquez at a TEDx Talk in Austin, watch it and be inspired!

No matter what shit life seems to give you; live your dream! Even though things might look dark and difficult at one point, there is always a way to turn things around if you put your energy at it!

“In a time when beauty is defined by supermodels, success is defined by wealth, and fame is deified by how many followers you have on social media, Lizzie Velasquez asks the question how do you define yourself? Once labeled, “The Worlds Ugliest Woman,” Lizzie decided to turn things around and create her own definitions of what she defines as beauty and happiness.”

Muriel Spark: “Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.”

huffingtonpost.com: “Norway is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It’s home to more natural wonders than we can count and it has stunning cities, fascinating history and really happy people…25 Reasons Norway Is The Greatest Place On Earth!”

Added to that; as of yesterday, everyone in Norway became a theoretical millionaire (in NOK), yayyy! 🙂

So, the 25 reasons became 26, they are:

1. It’s actually one of the happiest places on Earth.

2. It’s really safe.

3. There’s a law called “allemannsrett.”

4. Trolltunga is the perfect photo op.

5. So is Kjeragbolten.

6. Even urban spaces are lush.

7. Fredrikstad Fortress is an ancient wonderland.

8. Fjords.

9. Norway produced this beauty…

10. There are adorable fisherman’s cabins.

11. See the midnight sun.

12. It’s regarded as the birthplace of skiing.

13. It has more lakes than Finland aka “The Land of 1,000 Lakes.”

14. Hornindalsvatnet is the deepest lake in Europe.

15. Norway also boasts the world’s longest tunnel.

16. This view from the top of Mount Fløyen in Bergen.

17. You can see the Northern Lights.

18. Two words: Wild. Reindeer.

19. Two more words: polar bears!

20. The national drink is Aquavit.

21. You can ski in the middle of the summer.

22. Aalesund is gorgeous by day…

23. And by night.

24. Ferrying through Geirangerfjord is breathtaking.

25. Norway has some 50,000 islands and a coastline that stretches over 51,600 miles.

26 And finally, we are all millionaires!

Steven Wright: “Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it”

My ‘Year in flights‘ blogpost showed that I am, despite my sabbatical, still flying a lot which is probably one of the reasons that I cannot ‘attach’ myself too much to a suitcase; experience tells me that a suitcase is with me for about a year or so before breaking apart (=torn apart by the airlines’ bagage handling ‘services’ as their bagage rules (max. 23kg) make it virtually impossible to overload and by that break a suitcase… 😉 ).

So, last year was no different and I got my first new/replacement suitcase in March, thank you KLM! 😉

Today I pick up another one (replacing the one I lost end last year)…I wonder how long they will last… 😉

Max Frisch: “Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.”

What do you get when you take a guy who knows his moves, a catchy tune and a black-and-white video shooting…INSTANT happiness, awesome!! 🙂

PS. The song is ‘All Night’ by Parov Stelar.

William Shakespeare: “Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.”

Wally Lamb: “Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.”

Ha, there is not so much evil in me after all 😉 (actually, the first question gave that away LoL): I am somewhere between a Wizard and an Elf (have to admit, I took the test twice; once early this morning (Wizard) and the second time just now (Elf)…a close call apparently).

So, Which Magical Tolkien Creature Are You?? Take the test!

An interesting combination with The Flash, my Superhero Personality Test result! 😉

Vaclav Havel: “Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.”

Wow!! I am not sure if this is a real stunt or some fancy trick, but it doesn’t really matter; this heart-stopping knife/table tennis trick by  Swedish stunt troupe Tumba Ping Pong Show is absolutely worth a view so check it out and be your own judge! 😉

Okakura Kakuzo: “The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.”

The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry mid term, and an actual answer turned in by a student. The answer by one student was so ‘profound’ that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Uhhh, ‘an actual question/answer’?? Well, as there are multiple versions of the story and apparently the professor has said that an ex-student added fact to fantasy to create the problem about hell (?!) my guess is that the question and answer are not so ‘actual’ at all. Still, it is a great great answer to a real question! 😉

—

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

“First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely.. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct…..leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’ ”

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

Plato: “Never discourage anyone…who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”

You might have seen Jean-Claude Van Damme carrying out his famous split between two reversing Volvo trucks as a demonstration the precision and directional stability of Volvo Dynamic Steering (so, it is basically an advertisement duh 😉 ).

It has never been done before, the video was shot in one take (!) and JCVD says it’s the most epic of splits. Check it out below, and then…read on to find out if that statement is actually true……

Chuck Norris disagrees with JCVD’s statement…Epic? Epic?? I’ll show you EPIC!! 😉

Happy New Year and dream on JCVD…LoL