The School of Life

Life is a funny little thing. It is for sure a trembling rollercoaster, but also a splash of water in your face and missing ground under your feet. It has its ways – mysterious, inscrutable – of surprising me, not just when I thought I had it all together, but even more often when I’m already out of balance.

Though some might already have been baffled by the weirdness I have referred from this school, the worst has yet to be told; the comedy improv classes. From the first class, I have been frightened that any one of my friends would ever find out what is going on in there – it is the most absurd, obscene thing I have ever been involved in.

In this Monday’s class, I was dancing around a girl I don’t know, touching her sensually, while improvising a singing proposal in Norwegian on stage – with the rest of the class and the teacher watching me. As this was only a warm up, we moved on to «Shakesparian improv plays».

Somehow these improvisations always go down the most vulgar ways – perverted characters lying around on the floor making love (homosexually, most of the time), all characters getting killed, raped or enslaved – before we desperately try to clean up the mess and give the teacher at least a half–satisfying ending. And the most frightening is that none of this even strikes me as weird anymore.

Nevertheless, if this is what comes out when our collective fantasy is set loose, then lets hope none of us ever gets to write a script for a Hollywood production.

Though I feel I’ve learned a lot at school this far, I might be learning even more about life itself. There are times when you have to realize that what you worry about – like grades, research papers, lack of money, food, missing your loved ones, career, etc. – must be set aside in favor of the worse. When you get punched in the face by someone else’s life’s realities – and your own situation is put deeply in perspective.

We all have emotions, but I think it is fair to say that the specie of actors may carry a bigger range and volume of them than the average. Thus, when real trouble enters the little studio apartment of two young actors, it can get pretty intense. Though we didn’t even know each other two months ago, there is no longer “my life” and «your life» in such a little space.

Over the last couple of weeks I have learned that some things are just too big to handle, and the only thing you can really do is to be there for each other. To illustrate, I can say that this is the first week so far I have let something come in my way from turning in homework, being on time for class, and minding my own business. But while we’re at it, we might as well do stupid things to turn the whole thing around and have a good laugh.

More on the bright side, the hardship of reality tends to bring us humans together, and I am glad to see the friendship with my incredible roommate grow. And those are the times when life shows me its weird sense of sympathy – by popping a package from my wonderful mother, full of all my Norwegian favorite chocolates and foods, just when needed the most – to share with my roommate.

Another positive aspect of being punched in the face by life’s brutality is the way it reminds you what means the most to you; those simple little things like real good «brown cheese», and the ones back home who thought of you and wanted to make you happy.

When sitting there, binge-eating Norwegian specialties into the night with these mixed senses of disappointment, emptiness, concern and fear, there is always an added taste of wonder for me. Where is all this going, anyway – what is the point of it all?

I guess we just have to hold on to whatever we find, connect one dot at a time, and hope that in the end the whole picture will make sense. I’ve always liked how life is mysterious and ambiguous that way, though nowadays I find it to be almost a little too imposing.

All the more, I cling on to those wise words my old man has printed onto my mind ever since I was a little kid (quoting the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss); «Sva marga, Petter. Find your way».

Life 2.0 is one of Khrono’s blogs, and will be presented with new blogposts every week. Petter Egge is a former student from HiOA and journalist at Khrono.no. He has decided to do something quite different. This is his stories.

April 2th 2014: 
Chronicle #10: «The Decennium»

From waking up scared of an earthquake, to not take notice at all. So: I’m happy to announce that I might already be a real Californian.

The whole chronicle #10 here.

Mars 25th 2014: 
Chronicle #9: «The Wake Up Call»

They say you’re not a real Californian until you no longer notice the earthquakes. This week started with something of a wake up call. As mentioned in previous posts, sleep is quite limited for me over here due to lack of time. That one night when I finally managed to enter deeply into those psychedelic lands of dreams at the right time, with no alarm set for the next morning – THE EARTH decided to shake me out of bed at 6:25 AM with a 4.4 magnitude earthquake.

The whole chronicle #9 here.

Mars 18th 2014: 
Chronicle #8: «So You Think You Can Act»

Do you know how to walk? No, you don’t. Can you sit, crawl, or lie down? No, you can’t.  You can’t even lift your arm up in front of you. I know you can’t believe it – neither could I. But every day here, I am proven wrong.

The whole chronicle #8 here.

Mars 11th 2014: 
Chronicle #7: «The walk of Shame»

Ever had the feeling that your duties seem to pass by like a super fast train and you just can’t catch up with it for the life of you?

The whole chronicle #7 here.

Mars 4th 2014: 
Chronicle #6: «Teaser»

I was a journalist, a gymnast and a musician. I had everything I needed – except what I wanted. Thats why I decided to quit my job, say goodbye to my friends and family, and leave for acting school in Hollywood. The Video presented in this blog is a small taste of what life has been like the first few weeks.

Here you can see the video-blog.

Feb. 25th 2014: 
Chronicle #5: «In a cold sweat»

For a guy who has lived all his life by the rules and routines of a gymnastics regime, there is no doubt that life here is a tad more divergent. Having nothing to do at one moment is just as shockingly unfamiliar as it is to run from a film shoot to my roommates’ baptism in the next. At any point earlier in my life, the degree of variation stretched from sleeping, through eating and practice, to toilet visits, school and back to sleep. The circle of life has definitely taken a new shape.

The whole chronicle #5 here.

Feb. 18th 2014: 
Chronicle #4: «The Proposal and the Valentine’s»

Real life, as we will know it the next eight months (though dreamy it may still seem to me), is about to blossom. As the hassle of settling down slowly dies out, challenges of school is coming to life, growing over the heads of its students.

The whole chronicle #4 here.

Feb. 11th 2014: 
Chronicle #3: «Life’s a like a box of chocolate»

As we still can’t seem to get friendly with our apartment (at least our rent), it took my roommate and me no more than three days to decide to move out again. Already stretching our comfort zone with one bedroom, we are now downgrading to NO bedroom.

The whole chronicle #3 here.

Feb. 8th 2014: 
Chronicle #2: Move-in Day and monologues

When gas, water, power and insurance companies got back in to business on Monday morning, Murphy’s law did the same; what could go wrong – well, you know. For the landlord to let us move in, they needed confirmation letters faxed from all of the above – which should be no problem, since we asked them all to do so when opening our new accounts. After half a day of waiting by an empty fax machine, we dared to call them back with a friendly reminder – only to discover that they’d forgotten all about us. When they eventually faxed it, only one name was on the paper – and we’d really prefer that both of us could move in. 

The whole chronicle #2 here.

Feb. 5th 2014: 
Chronicle #1: «I need a dollar, dollar is what I need»

Ok, just to make it clear right away: I am NOT a blogger. Since the dawn of the blogosphere, my prejudices have kept me far away from its kind. But as we all know, the first unwritten rule of a struggling actor in Hollywood is that «Everyone must accept some kind of prostitution in order to survive up until the big breakthrough.» So, I could have fulfilled the stereotype of waiting tables between my auditions, or I could do a «Sylvester Stallone» – but instead I am now spreading trivialities about my still-to-be famous self. Oh, the irony.

The whole chronicle #1 here.