Laziness: Okay, I'm really lazy and procrastinating lately, so I'm a bit late on making a new blog. It was also shown by me making an entire 20-page Social Studies project on the final day, instead of doing bits and parts here and there during the previous weeks. Yeah, I know it's bad, but I can't help being too lazy nowadays, it's like I've just been struck by a disease.

Constitution Day: Yesterday was the Norwegian Constitution Day (May 17th, and it's of course a lot of celebration and fun. Me being in the school band meant a lot of work for me. First, I have to get up at 7 am (it was a Saturday!), and at 8 we marched around some of the local neighborhoods, playing marches (duh), and also the national anthem to flag hoisting. Later, there was a big parade around our local area, with many of the klasses from our school, local kindergartens, and ofcourse the school band. I play the tuba, and it's not so fun to march with, even if I have a harness to help :P After that, we had to work - the school band is hosting everything that happens on the school grounds (we're selling stuff, we're having a lottery, we're organizing games for the kids etc.). I sold tickets for the lottery, and boy, that's stressing. Suddenly you find yourself with 50 people almost jumping on you with money in their hand because they want to buy tickets to the lottery. And I have to be fast. Calculating change and all that was not the problem, but finding the correct change and dealing out the correct number of tickets can be a bit of a hassle, especially when everyone's about to jump on you.

Editorships: I didn't mention it earlier, but I got my tenth and eleventh editorships some days ago; for Pani Poni Dash! and Himitsu - Top Secret. The first is a comedy show which I've yet to watch, but I heard it's great. The second is a rather interesting anime series; new this spring.

Music: We're having a "test" in Music klass at school. We're gonna play a song on an instrument (either one they have on school or one we have at home), and we'll get graded on that. I'm playing the song Hokage's Funeral from Naruto; a really nice piano theme.

Norway: Ah, I just must talk about the best country in the world. Actually, I'll share some videos of my wonderful country:

Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4, Video 5 (Norwegian nature is the prettiest in the world!)

Video 6 and Video 7 (Norwegian football FTW.)

Video 8 (Norwegian national anthem: "Ja vi Elsker")

As you can see, we have some of the most beautiful nature in the world, and we're especially known for our fjords and beautiful mountain scenery. If you want to experience the midnight sun, northern Norway is the place to travel to, or maybe you want to experience the dark period, when no sun rise above the horizon for weeks? (you know what I find funny? The Japanese word for "midnight sun" is Byakuya - which just happens to be a character from one of my favorite anime series, Bleach)

Norwegians are a very nice people; friendly, warm and patriotic.

Norway has a lot of great music, for example from the most famous Norwegian band A-ha (their song Take on Me is amazing, and the MV is even better - a ****c to say the least). Other bands and singers include Hellbillies, Bertine Zetlitz,Sissel Kyrkjebø and more. Norway is also a major player in the black metal genre. We've also got a lot of folk music, mostly played on instruments like the violin.

Culturally, Norway was very big in the 1800s. Norway is the birthplace of several famous people from the 1800s, including writers (Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Camilla Collett among others), composers (Edvard Grieg) and musicians (Ole Bull, Myllarguten).

Norway was also the home of the Vikings, who had their golden age around 800-1 000 A.D. They were excellent traders and fearsome in battle, known for both their raids on the British coast as well as trading with far-off countries.

Norway has two official languages, Bokmål and Nynorsk, which hare essentially two versions of the same language (a somewhat good comparison is British and American English, only with larger differences).

Facts about Norway:

• We've ranked first in the Human Development Index for 6 consecutive years, we're ranked 1st on the Worldwide Press Freedom Index, and we've been rated as the most peaceful country in the world on the Global Peace Index.
• We have the second highest GDP per-capita in the world.
• We have a very low unemployment rate: ≈1.3 %
• We have 4,7 million inhabitants; with a population density of 12/km² (31/sq mi)
• About 4 million Americans are of Norwegian descent.

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my country :)