Her om dagen var jeg på en mixer for masterstudenter som trenger en oppgave og bedrifter som kan tilby oppgaver. Min veileder på doktorgraden er en overbevisende kvinne og der stod jeg plutselig med et forslag til oppgave og prøvde å omjustere hjernen fra dataplattform til kjernefysikk. Dette var et arrangement for studenter i nukleær teknologi og studenter på nukleær er jo ofte interessert i å måle ting og jeg har dessverre ingen lab. Samtalene dreide seg derfor fort mot spørsmål rundt hvilke fag jeg har hatt mest nytte av etter at jeg begynte å jobbe i privat næringsliv. Dagens ungdommer har matvett! Jeg måtte innrømme at lite av det jeg har lært på universitetet har vært direkte anvendelig. Det er heller ikke målet med en akademisk utdanning.

Vanskelige fag

Når du er student har du en sjelden mulighet til å bryne deg på vanskelige fag. Jeg tok en god del fag som hadde rykte på seg som krevende fordi jeg syntes det virket interessant. Når jeg nå møter utfordringer på jobb har jeg holdningen at veldig få ting er uløselig hvis man bare finner den rette tilnærmingen. Treningen i å forstå kompliserte problemstillinger, finne ut hva som er vesentlig og ikke for å løse noe og modellere slik at du kan finne relevante svar, det er nyttig! Teoretisk kjernefysikk og Feynmandiagrammer er ikke etterspurt utenfor noen snevre sirkler i den akademiske verdenen, men tenkemåten slike fag lærte meg har gjort meg til en pragmatisk problemløser.

Morsomme fag

Når noe er morsomt bruker vi tid og krefter på det uten å merke det. Læring blir til en lek. Når du innimellom har det gøy holder du ut med litt mer strev enn ellers. Velger du fag du oppriktig har en interesse for er det lettere å bli virkelig flink og verden liker flinke folk.

Programmering og statistikk

Det første faget hvor jeg møtte på litt mer krevende programmering var et fag i automatisering. Vi lærte å programmere mikrochip i C. “Dette vil dere aldri få bruk for” fortalte foreleseren som hadde inkludert øvelsen mest for at vi skulle ha en litt mer dyptgående forståelse av det vi holdt på med i det vi gikk over til klikk-og-dra programmering. Han tok veldig feil. Jeg har programmert mye og ofte i ganske maskinnære språk. Å lære å programmere har vært nyttig og særlig fagene hvor vi har måttet selv finne ut hvordan vi skal løse problemer. På samme måte har statistikk også vært nyttig. UiO inkluderer programmeringsoppgaver i mange fag, så studentene der bør være godt dekket på det området, men statistikk er nok fortsatt noe du aktivt må oppsøke på mange studier.

Lær deg å skrive

Jeg hadde et par semester imellom bachelor og master hvor jeg bestemte meg å ta noen fag bare for moros skyld og for å slippe mas om tilbakebetaling av studielån. Valget falt på filosofi ved UiO. Filosofifag er sykt vanskelig og jeg var ikke mentalt forberedt. Ingen fag har utfordret meg slik med tanke på å formulere meg presist, korrekt og ved hjelp av en passelig mengde velvalgte ord. Kritikken på enhver innlevering var presis og økonomisk formulert og kunne framstå som en smule brutal. Jeg ble raskt flinkere til å skrive. Det tok fortsatt mange år med øvelse før jeg ble komfortabel med å skrive, men en dag innså jeg at jeg har lært å like å skrive. Skriving er utrolig nyttig og det er noe jeg har hatt bruk for i alle roller jeg har hatt. Hvis du kan, ta fag hvor du lærer å skrive og grip sjanser til å få tilbakemeldinger på dine tekster, ikke bare fra chatbotter, men helst også fra folk som er villige til å gi deg tilbakemeldinger som veiledere, forelesere, medstudenter, lillesøster eller pensjonister som kjeder seg.

I present tomorrow for the first time at my job, and its to two directors, and three managers. I just realized while writing this that my dad is a senior director. I’m like terrified to speak infront of a director, and I text my dad all the time. What the fuck.

My sabbatical started on 30 January 2025 and today is the 30 January 2026. Last night, the moon was about half full.

How should I begin to tell the tale? Perhaps the lyrics of a jazz classic might express it more concisely. Presenting Nature Boy:

There was a boy A very strange and wonderful boy he travelled very far, very far over land and sea

Then one blessed day he came my way we spoke of many things fools and kings food and dreams beyond the endless seas

and then he said to me the greatest lesson you can learn is to love and be loved in return

Nature Boy, as you have never heard it before.

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I have recently heard about Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development. (A table, with explanation, is there.)

Question for myself: if conventional schools and often-dysfunctional families are failing to support, or care for, adults who are capable of raising healthy, empowered children, what could be a skillful response that I could do, here and now, that would be fruitful to society and which would be least costly as possible?

To that end, I have been exploring opportunities – and conversations – with a few stellar individuals – who, flawed as they may be, have put ideas into action.

1. Daniel Tay, from Fridge Restock Singapore
2. Genevieve Ong, from Forest School Singapore
3. Kuik Shiao-Yin, from Common Ground Civic Centre
4. Thubten Chodron, from Sravasti Abbey.
5. Audrey and Siew Ling, from World Without Orphans (South-east Asia)

The above list is non-exhaustive.

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To conclude a post that began with the premise that words can never suffice to describe the past one year – I give thanks for: enough rain to quench my thirst, over the past one year, and I give thanks for enough fertility of the neighbouring soil, which has nurtured fruits that have, in turned, nourished my body thus far.

As a wiser individual has observed: “Even the king eats from the fields.”

And, sharing some food for thought from a little nephew:

no rain, no flowers.

• fin

she has arranged her tape recorders on the floor masking-tape microphones gimcrack instruments a massing of sounds and tongues

she flew to your country all diphthongs and guttural and you, careful scribe, unable to quietly ink her

i love crossing paths and exchanging stories with people for a brief period of time, but i’m usually very self-contained and very content by myself. i prefer to go back to my own company at the end of the day because nobody is as sweet as my own company. after i met her, i missed her and being with her. i missed her warm energy. it was one of the very rare few times i felt being with someone was better than being by myself.

It is the future, and Nanofactories have removed the requirement to live in cities. Or townships, or tribes, for that matter. Now everyone can print any material, any sustenance needed, and supply chains are rusting away into disuse.

Humans have moved between smaller and larger communities throughout history. It would be extremely naive to say the trend to move to cities was only to make acquiring food, shelter, and other needs more efficient. But the opportunities brought by close-proximity division of labor has been a significant pull for thousands of years.

These days, we no longer need to order food from the supermarket. Those supermarkets, which received produce from the truck network, which shipped it from the suppliers and growers, and so on. These days, we all just print what we want, when we want it. Why are we still here then? Much like in Cory Doctorow’s novel, Walkaway, it seems almost like it’s taking society a long period of unlearning the habit of cities-for-supply-reasons, and for the majority to move to more decentralized living arrangements.

How could we describe the changes we are seeing on the fringes then? It’s no single thing or pattern – that’s for sure. My cousin’s immediate family moved off Earth a couple years ago, and are now exploring space in their custom printed ship. We still keep in touch, somehow even more now than we did when we lived in the same city. Many others do the same, caravanning across meteor belts. We hear of utopian Moon communes, micro-dynasties in private space stations, self-sustaining lone wolves propelled by solar sails, that one group at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, amongst many other stories.

I also wonder how dynamic residential population levels have become. Surveys of that past really assumed that a person had a single location of living, which is perhaps something we should no longer take for granted. Nanofactories have allowed us to generate all kinds of incredibly efficient transport, and so we are seeing more people moving to new locations every few days. I know I’ve spent two-to-three weeks doing that each year for the last few. My friends talk about the joy of spending time with their parents – in small portions. Two days with mum and dad, followed by another three in the isolated wilderness, I hear, is a winning cocktail.

Some argue that this Nomadism is not a new development. This is certainly true across history, and contrary to the popular perspectives of the 19th and 20th centuries, Nomadism never went away. There were nomadic communities firstly when we had not choice – for survival. Later, there were still nomadic communities when we had that choice.

And yet, cities do persist, even now when we “need” them least. This is especially so on Earth. I would ask why this is the case – but that feels strange when I consider I am writing this piece from with a large city on Earth too. It seems that in societies like this one, the idea of moving away permanently is somehow both common enough to not be surprising, and yet not talked about to the point that it still seems foreign.

I wonder if that is why people still choose to stay – to feel like they are still part of the conversation.