Tag: England

Journal #4

Cafe 004I’ve always been one to enjoy my own company. Don’t get me wrong, I do love being around people, and quiet days without anyone to talk to can make me go stir crazy, but still, at the end of the day, I always need a bit of me-time. Some peace and space to just be. However, lately I’ve started thinking about how this me-time always means staying in. Me-time is quiet-time, it’s pyjamas and knitting and another chapter of my favourite book. Days like that are of course perfectly fine and sometimes also very necessary, but it made me think about how I use the terms me-time and quiet-time interchangeably, when they’re actually quite different concepts (to me, anyway, I’m not trying to speak for introverts everywhere!)

Quiet time is needed when your head is full. When your mind is spinning with other people’s ideas and you just need some time with your own thoughts. Quiet time is for when you don’t want any kind of input, when you just want to hide away. Nights like these are the pyjamas-and-facemask nights, the nights you need to take a bit more care of yourself, to charge the batteries and just be you.

Me-time, however, is when you’re just not that into talking to people, but also don’t feel the need to hide away. It’s when you don’t mind having others around, you just don’t particularly want to talk to anyone. I realise that this sounds quite negative, but it’s really not meant to be. I have found, that when me-time is needed, I don’t really want to keep conversations and react to people, I just want to observe? I want to be around people, but not have them acknowledge me; at least no more than a polite nod, a smile, a hello.

Third year of uni has found me needing a bit more me-time, as the dissertation, assignments and commitments have piled up. I’ve found myself feeling restless during quiet-time, which I never did before, and have been able to identify it as a “I don’t want to be alone right now, but I also don’t want to talk to anyone.”

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This is a very rambly post, as I’m still trying to make sense of this in my own brain. However, as a challenge to myself, and to test out the theory about the difference between quiet-time and me-time, I’m going to start taking myself out for coffee sometimes. Right now I’m sat at Cafè Winchester with a cream tea (peppermint) and my laptop. I can’t remember a time I ever sat down at a cafè on my own, without waiting for anyone, without just quickly grabbing something to go. I like it, though! Not as a profound “I am brave enough to be alone with my thoughts”-sort of way (I really don’t like that whole idea and attitude), it’s just nice to hear people chatter and talk around me and know that I don’t have to partake in their conversations.

Does any of this make sense? Or does it just make me sound like an awful person who’d rather listen to other people talk than keep conversations going, themselves?
I don’t know. But this tea is really good, and I’m quite content right now.

 

TL;DR: Sometimes you just want to drink tea and eat scones and listen to other people do the talking, and that’s okay, too.

-Andrea

The Sound of Winchester

 Everything we humans create start with an idea, a desire to make something, to change something.

This year, a group of second and third year students at the uni wanted to create a student-led magazine, to capture the “sound of Winchester”, the vibe of the students and what they’re up to. It became this wonderful magazine that comes out every second month (at the moment), and it features student fiction, poetry, articles, information about societies and things happening on and around campus, plus a great section called “Humans of Winchester”, inspired by the photo blog Humans of New York.
Their second issue is out today, and it’s so cool to see all the pieces come together.

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Look how pretty this issue is!
The first picture is borrowed from their Facebook page, which you can find here.

And I’ve been so lucky as to have a short story featured in this month’s issue, along with some wonderful poems, stories and articles by other students. Really worth a read! Especially since you can get it in the SU shop for a pound.

-Andrea

“After Nils-Øivind Haagensen”

jeg skal holde deg til du sovner

she puts her hands on his face,
strokes dry skin and chapped lips

hva om jeg ikke sovner

354 days clean
nearly a year of no burning throats or broken nails
and clinging to porcelain life lines

jeg skal holde deg

“why today,” he thinks
but “don’t hold me,” he says
as he expects her to shove his shivers away
but she doesn’t

I`ll hold you till you fall asleep
What if I don`t fall asleep
I`ll hold you 

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This is a poem from a creative portfolio I handed in for a second year poetry module. It’s always weird to look back at old writing, but I guess that’s a good thing; progress and learning and all that jazz.
The single stanzas in between the verses make up my all time favourite poem by Norwegian poet Nils-Øivind Haagensen. The last verse is the poem translated.
It  simply goes:

jeg skal holde deg til du sovner
hva om jeg ikke sovner?
jeg skal holde deg.

And that’s it. No title, no capital letters or any sense of who the characters speaking are, still it’s got such a strong story to tell. I love it.

-Andrea

Journal #3

“I can’t work in my room,” I say when people ask me why I’m always in the library, “too many distractions in there.” All throughout my degree, separating uni work and down time has been very important to me. I think one of the reasons for this is because I’ve been living on campus for the last three years, but maybe today was a bit different. I’m sat here now, by the desk in my little room, with my bookshelf full of adventures I’ve yet to go on and a phone that’s charging right next to me, and I’ve finished my dissertation without checking either. Or, I mean, I’ve finished the creative part of my dissertation at least. 8000 words, now finally edited, done and dusted. I’m sure I’ll go through and proofread a bit more, but from now on I’ll just be looking for spelling mistakes and stray commas, not any actual edits. It’s a weird feeling. And I did it all from the comfort of my room, here where I say I can never work. Guess I was wrong. I’ve got a proper mug of tea (not just a travel mug), a bowl of (almost completely) homemade pasta carbonara and I’m listening to soft music on speakers, not through headphones. I still think the library’s the place for me to sit down and properly get everything I need done actually done, but maybe I can be a bit more open to the idea of working in my own space too. This has been a surprisingly productive, but relaxed, day.
I can get used to this.

(Blog Andrea Wold Johansen) Desk 1
Have a very staged picture of how I’d love my writing nook to look like all the time. The norm is more pens everywhere and paper flying! (Also, I finished my tea just before taking this..)

-Andrea

Writer’s Log 2

WRITER’S LOG 2
26/02-2018

Mission Log:
A short (but important) rationale session

10:59 I need to write a 2000 word rationale about a 8000 word creative piece. It is due in nineteen days, 1 hour and 1 minute. Normally I really enjoy writing rationales for creative pieces, but I’m struggling with getting started with this one. Maybe it’s like a head space thing. I’ve got lots of research already done (I really love research) and a lot to talk about, but it’s a bit scary to write about such a “big” assignment. I can do this, though!

11:11 Not writing-related, but it’s actually, proper snowing today! A nice view from the library. Also, 11:11! Make a wish!

11:29 Had to do a bit of “paperwork”, send some emails (5 emails, to be precise) and figure out some dates for course related events. But now I’m really getting started.

11:36 This is going okay, have finished the introduction plus the first couple of paragraphs. Tips to anyone wondering whether to go to uni or not and/or wondering what kind of course they should do: creative writing. It lets you write about your favourite books into academic essays. There’s something special about being able to quote lines that gave you chills when you read them as a child, and as I’ve basically based my entire creative piece around the book Mio’s Kingdom, that means getting to use quotes like “If only the trees hadn’t grown so close together, […] if only the darkness wasn’t so black and we weren’t so small and alone.”

12:17 Got distracted by an article I’m writing for a  Student Life magazine at the uni. It’s a feature article with lots of pictures and 500 words, about wonderful places in and around Winchester. Not rationale working, but still writing!

12:34 Finished the piece for the article instead, now I can tick that off the list too.

13:12 Done with writing for today, am heading into town for coffees with Jeanette! It’s gonna be great to see her again and to catch up. But first, raiding the library for more books, research is absolutely the best part of essay-writing!

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Recap of the session:
Not the most productive session wordcount-wise, but great for research, decluttering the brain and for crossing things off the old to do list.

Mistake of the day: More typo of the day. “Thing” is now spelt “thign”. Every single time.

Word count of the day: 635 (plus 548 words on the article, to be fair)

Writing location: Library, top floor, computer 48. Not as ideal as computer 57, but it’ll do.

Phone breaks: Getting better!

Beverage of choice: None. I forgot my tea at home and can see it just waiting on my desk, slowly getting cold. It’s a tragic story, indeed.

Mood before writing: “I am stressed”
Mood during writing: “I am significantly less stressed now that I’ve started working” Mood after writing: “I may not have finished my rationale, but I got a lot of other things done”

Question of the day: Any tips for being productive when a thousand things are running around in your head at once?

-Andrea

 

 

Journal #2

Breathe. Sometimes you just need a bit of fresh air. When deadlines clog your brain and word counts don’t act like you want them to it’s like your breath gets stuck in your chest, your shoulders, and you need a change of scenery. For me, fresh air means the smell of salty seas and the sound of seagulls and waves. Whenever things get just a bit too much, I get on the train and I go where I know there’ll be an open sea to greet me, and a beach with sand that can run through my fingers. And just like that, I breathe again.

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-Andrea

Written “By a Lady”

Andrea Wold Johansen JA 001When I was younger I remember my sister reading Pride and Prejudice again and again, every time falling deeper in love with the world, the characters and the language. As the younger of us, I always wanted to be like her, and so I repeatedly tried to get into Jane Austen’s novels, but I could never get past the first ten pages. I could never understand why I was struggling so much with these novels, but now I’m starting to see why I couldn’t get properly in to Austen at the age of sixteen. I think I was just too young. I didn’t really recognise how cool Lizzie Bennet was or how groundbreaking her witty remarks were for herr time, didn’t realise the urgency of why Mrs Bennet wanted to see her daughters married so badly, and I didn’t get how insulting and petty Mister Darcy’s comments about the women of Longbourne were and thus, how interesting the shift in his character when he falls for Lizzie actually is. Now, however, it’s been five years since I tried my hand at Pride and Prejudice for the first time, and finally, I’ve gotten through almost the entire book in just a couple of days. Goodness me, what a story it is.

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One of the things that spurred this change of heart and nudged me into suddenly wanting to try my hand at Jane Austen novels again, was a trip I went on a couple of Saturdays ago with some friends of mine.

“Let’s go to the Jane Austen House Museum,” fellow Norwegian Creative Writing student Marianne said, and the following weekend, Christine, Eirunn, Marianne and I found ourselves on the bus to Chawton.

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What an experience.
As we explored the houses that come together to make the museum, we got to try writing with quill and ink, make small pouches filled with lavender and try on period specific costumes. Let me tell you, I’ve never felt fancier than waltzing around in a Mr Darcy coat and a top hat. The floral 1800s dresses were also a hit, with their long skirts and slim upper body fits, and to be fair, I just really want to bring bonnets back into fashion again, Or capes. Capes are cool, too.

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The true magic, however, came from wandering through the narrow hallways of the Austen family’s house. The museum is laid out as similar as possible to how the house would have looked like at Jane’s time, and the feeling of walking on creaky floorboards and looking out at the view from her writing nook, felt like a privilege, something to be appreciated. To top everything off, as we made our way down a winding staircase I’m sure both Jane and Cassandra Austen has run down many times, to the dining room and furthermore into the drawing room, we were met with a piano playing cheerful tunes, a melody we soon recognised as the score from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film adaption. We followed the sound, as one would do, and found that the pianist was one of the ladies working at the museum. She even asked us if we wanted to play, but we politely declined, opting to just listen as we looked around, feeling truly transported back to the early 1800s. Cliche, I know, but it was great.

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On the way home we stopped by the gift shop, as you do, and I ended up getting a boxset of all of Austen’s novels. February 3rd was the perfect day to make myself a goal for 2018; before the year is done, I will have read all of them. Wish me luck.

Even though I had to turn 21 before I actually (almost) finished a Jane Austen book, I’ve found her to be a very inspiring and interesting woman for a long time. The fact that she originally published her first novel anonymously, but had the title page point out that it was written “by a woman”, speaks volumes of what kind of person she was, way back in 1811. I also enjoyed hearing about her works before reading any of them, and from what I gathered from film adaptions, museum exhibits and my sister’s amazed rambles, she wrote women as characters with personalities and agencies, in a time where a lot of said characters were just seen as passive observers. As I’m reading Pride and Prejudice now, I can absolutely confirm this.

I would highly recommend stopping by Jane Austen’s Chawton home if you’re ever in the area, whether you’re an avid Austen fan, or just interested in exploring the “world” that helped form English fiction like we know it today.

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I had a wonderful time, and I’m sure you will too!

-Andrea

Journal #1

Andrea Wold Johansen Window

One day, I’ll have a flat of my own, or maybe even a house. I’m not entirely sure where yet, (haven’t decided on all the small details like what city or country to settle down in) but what I do know, is that my home will have white walls, soft sheets and big windows. Huge, open windows that let in the world, that you can see the sunrise through, that show you days melting into nights.
I want big windows so I can wake up to natural light peeking through the curtains, and because they make me feel connected to what’s outside. I want windows that can help me keep track of the seasons, with views over streets, over trees and over roof tops.

I was lucky enough to get to stay in this wonderful flat in Streatham the other week, and there was something so special about working on a windowsill, enveloped in a double duvet that was both way too big and the perfect size at the same time. Through the dewdrops on the panes, I saw people hurrying past with their groceries, couples huddling together to stay warm and students running after busses with their scarves hanging straight out behind them. As I got my laptop out to write, and the wind rustled the trees outside, I remember telling myself that I don’t think I’ll ever need much more than this, really.

-Andrea

(Also! One of my poems just got “published” on vocal! I’m not entirely sure why it ended up in the sub category “sad poetry”, but if you want to check it out, just click here.  If you want to see some of the other things I’ve been getting up to, mainly poetry there too, click here for my “Pieces and Performances” page! Thank you xx )

“Norwegian winters”

They moved into number 24 at the age of 23.
Brown doors needed new locks, the garage was falling apart,
but they rolled up their sleeves and went to work.
When Winter and his winds flew down from the north
and blew snow right in where the windows were supposed to be,
they dreamt of a red-brick fireplace and a double bed,
a door you could close and proper curtains.
Outside, the snow grayed like a father of three,
and the leaves wrinkled up like fishermen’s hands
as icicles hung from the roof;
swords and slippery ladders.

He brought hot chocolate in pink elephant mugs,
and an extra pair of socks for cold feet.
She went to bed on the living room floor,
a single mattress with room for two.
It was one of those nights, where the snow and the street lights tried to outshine each other,
and the wind played lullabies through the cracks in the ceiling.

Come here, she said from her spot on the floor,
it’s a night for stomach kisses and seven pairs of mittens.

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-Andrea

“I knitted your cat a scarf for Christmas”

but you’re impossible to buy presents for.

Maybe I’ll give you the sequins of sun on snow,
and the frost roses I scraped off my car this morning.
I could write you a note saying how nothing lasts forever,
but look how pretty temporary can be.

I could give you a magic chocolate factory,
with a flying glass lift and grass made of sugar,
because nothing’s ever as it seems,
and every problem looks small when seen from above.

Maybe I’ll get you a home made jumper,
so big it could house the Russian circus.
Hopefully, it would remind you to always dance,
even when it’s Jan Garbarek on the radio.

No, I’ll  give you a kiss like they do in Peter Pan.
An acorn on a string,
soft fingers on your chest, messy sheets,
and quiet voices,
in the dark.

I knitted your cat a scarf for Christmas,
but you are impossible to buy presents for.

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-Andrea