What girls talk about on girl trips

So what's going on these days? Quite a lot. I think I found my dream job, working for persecuted authors, working in a culture house/literature house/library with so many gifted people, so many opportunities for me, I am doing ten things at the same time and I love it. But though it in many ways is a dream job, I've also had thoughts that I am working for and promoting others. What about my own dreams I had to be a singer or a writer..? Or give my life on the mission field? What about my old dreams?

I went to a cabin trip the last days of October with three girlfriends that made this theme come up. I brought ten nail polishes, lots of equipment for nail treatment, and on beforehand we sent each other pictures of girls having pillow fights and pretending to perform in their night gown, like most men think we do on girls night and girl trips (or don't they?). Though I intended to bring out my stuff so we could all chatter and paint our nails, we forgot about it, but had a little shopping trip to Egersund and other than that spent all weekend inside the cabin with a cozy fireplace, great food and cooking (I was a jolly eater as usual, and enjoyed putting the dishes in the washing machine and let the others cook!) and lots and lots of talks.

If men think we only have pillow fights, paint our toe nails, dance around in our underwear and gossip, they should have been a fly on the wall that week-end. We had serious discussions, even a bit heated ones - what was it about again?! Oh yeah, peace and war, politics, religion and all that good stuff. Ellinor brought up the article I just posted (in Norwegian) - Whatever you do, don't follow your dream - and don't tell your kids to follow their dream. At first, just having found a dream job, and generally always tried to follow my heart and thought I was suppose to do so, I disagreed. But not for long. When we discussed this new 'helicopter generation', with their concerned parents circling above at all times, how the children constantly are being told that they can do whatever they want to, that the sky is the limit - I'm wondering if we might potentially set the bar too high for them. This generation has been taken way more serious than I ever was, to the point where it is almost expected that parents call and expect special treatment from teachers and doctors ("My son played a soccer tournament this week-end, we therefore decided to keep him home from school today", ect...). Fueled by social media and each other - we read (and I saw it with my own eyes too, as a teacher in High school and Junior High) about them pushing themselves to become the top of the crop, striving to live up to what they believe the society expects of them. On the other side this is a generation (at least in Norway) known for increasing mental problems and struggles to even finish High school. A large amount of them end up on welfare early on. Do we prepare them for real life? Do we teach them that life can be really hard, that not everyone will get a job in oil business paying $100 000-200 000 coming out of college..? Do we let them know that even if your deepest desires and dreams might not be fulfilled, you can still have a good life? And by the way, you're okay.

Ellinor shared about a friend whose parents had told her: "Do something useful with your life." ("Gjør noe nyttig med livet ditt.") I thought that was such a great advice, focusing on finding something useful to do instead of chasing a lofty dream. If we all dream about becoming famous and rich, well, it will not happen to all of us. Maybe we should focus more on telling the kids to by all means use their talents, their minds, but do it to find something useful to do..? Maybe everyone won't need University degrees, maybe some will find a good enough job in a department store, lift up "yrkesutdanning" (starting a skilled school/practice at High school age, without having to go to college) and even staying at home with kids as a job (I can't think of a harder or more useful job!).

Coming home from this cabin trip, painting my nails all by myself on my couch instead, I realized that I really have a dream job, though I'm not promoting myself, my voice, my talents, but somebody elses. It's okay. I'm doing something useful for somebody else, I'm promoting the right to speak, focusing on careers of those who do not have that chance in their own country, I'm promoting culture and art and the beauty of it.


Well, I kind of wanted this blogpost to be a bit on the light side, haha, I was gonna write about nail polish and girl stuff, but seems like I'm unable the last years to blog the way I did before, about random stuff - make up, cockroaches, movies, light weight CD's - and whatever ditzy thing came into my head. But I'll try really hard to be more shallow later on, and I will say a thing or two about nail polish here at the end (because girls on girl trips do talk about girlie stuff too!). If you wanna go cheap, go for Isadora. The brush is broad and very good, and the polish lasts longer than most cheap ones. Or listen to Mindy, my American friend who introduced me to OPI! Great classic colors, lasts for a pretty long time.

Maybe we should do more of what guys think we do on our next trip - have pillow fights and eat pop corn, do each other's hair and make up and giggle and talk about absolutely super shallow stuff. Or maybe the thing about good friends is that you can do both - laugh hysterically and open your heart and discuss very serious matters. After all, we are the sex who can do multiple things at the same time ;-)