I'm an alien I'm a legal alien ...

This song by Sting that I didn´t understand before I moved to the US, we are actually described as aliens in the immigration documents when we arrive here!

It also make sense the other way to understand this song, as there are so many little things that are different and that you don´t realize about yourself and your culture before you live in another country.

I actually quite like the way when I am a foreigner I have an excuse to not know how things work, I don´t have to follow all the rules, I don´t belong - both good and bad. If there is a "secret code" that you should be wearing this or having that, I can easier choose to stay outside or to be included than if I am borne and raised in one place and need to get my surroundings acceptance in a different way.

When I am an expat, I am only visiting, I am here temporarily, if things go bad it doesn´t really matter that much because I am leaving soon anyway. I have a different life elsewhere, I have at least two homes where I belong. I have people in other countries that know me and understand me, that accept me for my opinions.

This can also be a problem because choosing by being outside I dont actually need to get involved and participate for the common good,  when it comes to charity or other things, I am getting the benefits but not contributing.

It also makes it easier to do bad things if you don´t belong in a society, nobody knows your granparents and can cause the shame and by that follow the rules. I belive I have read somewhere that there is a corrolation between crime and rootless kids.

What is normal is suddenly not normal anymore when you are a foreigner. Genereal accepted truths just aren´t.

It makes us more conscious of who we are and what we value.

My perfect life

Would be having a cottage in the country

and a nice appartment in the city!

I do like a bit of both :)

To be fair I almost have this at the moment, we have a nice little house back home in Norway and I am working on the cottage garden feeling. And at the moment we are renting a flat here in Houston, but the problem is that Houston is not the kind of city I like, it is not excately New York..  this city is lacking life and people in the street, restaurant and cafes, what we mainly have here is a city designed for cars, large shoppingcentres and mainly suburbia. Oh well - it is ok for now. 

Anglophile & Francophile

; An Anglophile is a person who is fond of English culture or, more broadly, British culture.

I have always loved England - and that goes for Ireland and Scotland as well; the people, the sense of humor, the villages, the countryside, London, culture etc. I lived in the UK when I met my husband, so that of course added to the positive feelings towards the country, and we are often thinking about going back and visit. Not sure about living there again though, but you never know!

Some pictures to illustrate what I mean, the lovely cottage from the film "The Holiday"

 And a pretty village

I have also got a strong fascination towards France and Paris especially, I have not lived there, but been several times. I have thought about maybe working there but not sure if my visualisation on how it would be is matching the reality of language troubles and byrocracy.. It is a very nice place to visit in any case - that is for sure!

A Francophile (or Gallophile) is an individual who has a strong positive predisposition or interest toward the government, culture, history, or people of France.

I was reading my Parisian Chic book, as I am thinking about what I need to update my wardrobe with, when I return to work. I want to get some classic stuff with good quality, thinking basics like Tweed blazer, blouse, pants, cashmere sweater and maybe a proper suit. Pinterest is also brilliant for this and I am especially fond of this collection that I found there:  

I think I will find something in J.Crew as they seem to have nice classic stuff made of proper materials like wool, silk or cashmere. Will try to invest a bit this time instead of just buying something cheap that gets ruined quickly. Hopefully I can find what I want in the outlet here.

In the Parisian chic book I also found lots of good ideas for what to do next time I am in Paris, so many nice places and shops that I have still yet to visit! Makes me happy to think about :)

Here are some nice shops

Serendipity

Smallable

Looking forward to being back in Europe and having the opportunity to take a little weekendbreak in London or Paris! :)

What we read

I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday, a large bookstore chain with everything a book-lover could want and then some, in my local one there was no cafe unfortunately but I managed to spend quite some time there anyway. 

I decided to get some Christmas-presents for my friends and their kids, books are always great gifts and they don´t take too much space in the suitcase. Win-win. 

Then I´d thought I would treat myself to a glossy magazine. And off I went, there are shelfs upon shelfs with magazines, something for every taste you would think. But still. Why is it so difficult to find something that is perfect for me? I am in my thirties, new mum, likes interior, design, clothes, pretty pictures, interesting stories, technology, green/organic, business, architecture - and so on. The problem is that I have to choose! There is one magazine for fashion, or another for interior - or several actually, and they all tend to become a bit one-dimentional... 

I would like a smart, interesting, women magazine that would give me what I need - do you hear me out there? 

I ended up buying a magazine about Blogging - isn´t that ironic? It had the most nice and inspiring images. The blog world is where I find and "curate" my ultimate reading experience. I do understand that the world of printed text are struggeling to keep up, there are so many private bloggers that can do so much and reach out to so many people!

I guess it is the trend now, everybody is a photographer and a writer - it is so easy to do it and get it out to the world, I do feel sorry for the people who are trying to make a professional living out of it in these days.. 

Lean & Organized - at work and at home

At work I have been dealing a bit with Lean, as I work in a manufacturing company, and as a typical  woman (?) I am also a bit overly excited about organizing and storage solutions. This is pretty much the same thing - so I thought I´d write a little post about that. A short intro to Lean Manufacturing is in this infograpichs here: 

Image from leanmusing.com

image from unitherm.com

It mentiones that it is important to reduce all types of waste: like overproduction, motion, waiting, transportation, over-processing and defects. If you make more than you need that is a waste, if you move more than you need, (for instance running up and down the stairs to get something that could be kept in one floor), if you have to wait for others to finish something you waste your time, if you need to transport things over longer distances than necessary that is a waste, if you do something more fancy than necessary - does it have to be perfect and who really cares? And finally do it right the first time, if it doesn´t work you have to do it again and that is also a waste.

The Lean filosophy was developed in Japan: Doing more with less by employing 'lean thinking.' Lean manufacturing involves never ending efforts to eliminate or reduce 'muda' (Japanese for waste or any activity that consumes resources without adding value) in design, manufacturing, distribution, and customer service processes. Developed by the Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno (1912-90) during post-Second World War reconstruction period in Japan, and popularized by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones in their 1996 book 'Lean Thinking.' Also called lean production.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/lean-manufacturing.html#ixzz1zUgy4kfN

What is really common and useful both for work and at home is 5 s, see poster:

from Think Lean

Don´t you agree that this is typical things you can find on blogs everywhere? I am not alone in loving solutions on how to get more organized, Pinterest is a great source for ideas. 

Basically there are nice and fancy Japanese words in the Lean management world (Muda, Kanban, Poka-yoke and Kaizen) that goes back to what housewifes have done for 100s of years, getting their homes organized and efficient! :)

Image from Pinterest

It doesn´t take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion that it is more efficient to have a tidy environment, and that it is smart to have what you need, where you need it. 

Lean - made simple! :)

The Happiness Project

This is the book I am reading now, if you have read some of my previous posts you know that what I have been interested in lately is finding out what makes us happy and why our society is the way it is. I started off in January by reading some Sociology to learn more about behavioral science and the society. 

Now that I have started on my MBA I am reading Economics and find this very interesting - and it is also providing me with a lot of answers and knowledge about our society. It seems so easy and straight forward when you read it in the book, but then I watch some discussions on tv in the evening it is suddenly not so easy anymore - people have very strong opinions and they differ very much! Not easy to make sense of everything but I have my core values based on my background, then add on what I learn as I go along. 

I think I will make a collection here on Storify various things I find, I tend to RT a lot of articles but they just get "lost" in my feed so it would be nice to collect them somewhere. I have so far used Storify to collect some stuff on US politics and today some things about the health care reform, it is difficult to see all sides of the story, but for sure I know nothing is black or white so I try to understand it better.

Anyway - back to the book I am reading at the moment, I thought it might give me some more input on what I just learnt in my Economics book, our behavior and society is based on: 

Insatiable wants (in human nature) + limited resources (fact of life) = Scarcity (what economic as a subject focus on)

So what the author of the book found out to be her happiness formula (so far in the book) was based that it is necessary to generate more positive emotions, "Increase amount of joy, pleasure, enthusiasm, gratitude, intimacy and friendship in life. Then at the same time remove sources of bad feelings, less guilt, remorse, shame, anger, envy, boredom and irritation."

Similar to what I thought was a good advice, basically "what you focus on - grows"

Sounds quite logical but never that easy as we all know, one more thing that is important is growth itself - and I agree that this one is very important, we always want to get somewhere else and THEN be happy, but it is the journey towards the goal that is the essential - this is what gives us satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Once you get to your goal, the new house or the baby you will have other issues and problems that need to be solved. So it is a never ending chase.

Another thing that she mentions in the book is that work is very important for our life, it gives the "atmosphere of growth, social contact, fun, a sense of purpose, self-esteem, recognition."  

So true - and one that I really understand now that I am at home with my baby, it is so important to get out there in the real world and interact with other people, to get some intellectual stimuli and so on. 

Just read on twitter today that mum´s are typically the most active on Social Media - so I definitely recognize that ;)

At the end, something else I found in a Norwegian newspaper, not sure where the origin is, I just noted down what I thought was good to remember: 

How to be happy

Be grateful for what you have. Be optimistic. Don’t over analyze, if you do - distract yourself. Be a good person. Work on your relationships. Get involved in stuff. Remember the good things that has happened to you. Have goals. Make strategies. Forgive, forget and move on. Spend time alone without distractions. Think. Take care of your body. Learn something new. Be present in the moment.

And for more wise words - check out my Pinterest board where I have collected many nice ones - can´t get enough ;)

Contrasts

I think what most amazes me about this contry is the big contrasts, rich and poor, polished and shabby, fake and genuine. I feel homesick today, and longing for something fresh and natural - rain, mountains, nature, wild gardens, my friends and family back home. 

Shiny happy people?

We are here going through the motions, living the good life in many ways, and I am grateful, there are so many places that I am glad I didn´t have to go to because of my husbands work. Sometimes the melancoly just sets in and I wish I was somewhere else.

It goes up and down, round and round

We went to the beach in the weekend, it was great, so different from the city, it felt like we were travelling somewhere in asia or latin-america :) So one really good thing about being here is that you can experience different worlds in short distances, and we can choose what we want to be a part of.

Escape to a different world

I do appreciate the contrasts as it makes me reflect on my attitudes and values, I have become a lot more interested in economics and are trying to learn more about the political system here. 

Different from home

This is of course the beauty of travelling and living abroad, you are out of your own element and have to make sense of the world around you in a new way - you don´t know the codes and you see things as a mix of from the outside and from the inside. It is liberating in one way and frustrating in another!  

It is what it is

:)

Cool house!