Turgåing ikke nok til å komme i form
(Here is the equivalent article in English.)

Oooh, this article pisses me off. My first reaction is a simple “fuck you”. What is “enough” exercise? How good shape do you have to be in to be in good enough shape? Good enough shape for what?

Part of the reason this article gets on my nerves so much is because this is such an incredibly Norwegian attitude: unless you get your pulse way up, get out of breath, and get sweaty, you’re not really exercising. Walking is barely even considered exercising here. I myself get 6-8 hours of exercise each week between yoga and walking, while Johannes gets a little less with his walking and Jujitsu, although his Jujitsu workouts are so intense that he comes back with a soaking wet gi. I don’t know about Johannes, but my “numbers” are all good, I’m strong and flexible, and I don’t feel like my condition stops me from doing anything I want to do in life. Despite this, we both feel like we don’t get enough exercise. The attitude expressed in this article is precisely why we feel that way, and it makes me furious. It’s like we can never win unless we run or ski or jog on a treadmill or something. I’m tired of feeling like everyone thinks of me as a fat lazy slob because I don’t do those things. You know, I do what I can. I do the exercise I do because I enjoy it. I simply do not enjoy intense aerobic exercise. And I know that I’ll never maintain any habit that I don’t do for the joy of participating in the activity itself. There are definitely some people in this world who enjoy intense exercise for the feeling the exercise itself gives them, but they’re relatively rare. And I’ve said my piece before about people who claim to be motivated by health.

Then there are the many people, especially in the US, get virtually no exercise at all. American society isn’t set up for it, for one thing. It’s a strange country where people make every effort to avoid having to exert themselves (e.g. driving around the parking lot for five minutes looking for the closest parking place available. And I’m sure you’ve seen this picture), and then pay for the privilege of exercising at health studios. I’m sure some Norwegians are the same. Exercise is often not a privilege the working class can afford, we must remember. Imagine a single mother trying to follow these articles’ workout advice while working two jobs to try to feed her kids, in addition to her second shift. How is this article going to make her feel? She’s a lot more likely to die or experience a lower quality of life from a lack of quality medical care due to not having medical insurance than due to not being in “good enough” shape.

I expect a majority of the people in both the US and Norway will never meet the expectations outlined here. The exercise we’re able to do–”it’s not enough”, we’re told. Well, fuck it, then. If we’re never going to be in “good enough” shape to meet these researchers’ standards, then why bother at all? There are two things this article is going to achieve, and neither are in harmony with the authors’ stated goals. First, this information will make the sweat hogs feel even more self-righteous than they already do, and second, it will frustrate and demotivate the majority of us who exercise moderately or don’t exercise at all. I don’t debate the facts laid out in these articles, but is this what the authors are trying to achieve?

When I was a kid, I used to play with Legos all the time. They were easily my favorite toy. So, of course, when I read about this project in the evening paper, I had to go participate. For those who don’t read Norwegian, the project was an attempt to involve Oslo’s residents in the decision about what to build at Tullinløkka, a very central yet completely undeveloped square in the National Theater area of Oslo. Someone came up with the idea to dump three tons of white legos in the middle of Tullinløkka and invite anyone and everyone to build their idea of how Tullinløkka should be developed. So the legos sat out there for two weeks, rain or shine.

When Johannes and I got there, we saw a massive pile of legos surrounded by a table covered with amazing creations.

There was just a ton of stuff, stuff I’d never dreamed of making in my years as a Lego architect. I was simply dumbfounded by some of the things people had built. Round things, things with arches.

In front of the table was a massive heap of white legos, with probably twenty people of all ages sitting atop it, all concentratedly building.

Johannes and I settled at a table—walking on the legos felt really uncomfortable, almost sacreligious to me. We collected handfuls of legos from the ground, brought them to the table, and started building.

I built our apartment.

Mostly all I built with legos when I was a kid was houses. That interest was what fueled my first serious interest in a career–architecture.

Johannes built a tower.

It was sprinkling when we arrived, and the reain got worse as we built. A few people left, but not many. We stayed a while so Johannes could finish his tower. The legos had been dirty from being trod upon when we got there; now the rain was turning them muddy.
White might not have been the best choice of color for this project.

We actually didn’t realize that the purpose of the activity was to build our idea of a development project for Tullinløkka until we were about to leave. I think a lot of people probably didn’t realize the exhibition’s purpose. Regardless, it was an incredibly fun thing to do–sitting out in the rain in central Oslo, building away to my heart’s content with dirty, chewed-up legos that had probably been in the hands of and under the feet of hundreds. Not your everyday experience! This is the kind of thing that makes living in a city so very very cool.

I hope. It required changing one line in the CSS. Why didn’t I do it sooner? Durrrh. Anyway, let me know if something isn’t working.

The Australian Healthcare Association is having a conference titled “Obesity: Should There Be A Law Against It?“.

Words defy me.

…from a long vacation in the US. Hopefully I’ll be updating a bit more now. I’ve been incommunicado for a while now, so if I haven’t been answering your e-mails, take heart that you’re not being singled out or anything.