Fadderuka 2024

Hi there! I am back in Trondheim and have been super busy ever since touchdown.

What have I been busy with? Just the social event of the year for Njord (the student association that I am the Foreign Minister of (as the token Non-Norwegian)). The 33 new Ocean Resources students arrived in Trondheim this week to start their Master's program with an orientation week. This week consists of boring health and safety, rules & regulation meetings and introductory classes in the morning led by the faculty, then late nights of games and activities run by us. I am in fact not a part of the Ocean Resources programme but this is an equivalent degree to mine that stays at NTNU for the whole two years and they kind of adopted my AquaH programme so here I am. My job on the board on the board is quite easy so far as all 33 students are Norwegian and therefore do not require any of my foreign ministration.

Monday: BBQ

With time zone changes and a layover in Amsterdam, I arrived back in Trondheim at 5:30 PM and was promptly at a BBQ by 6:00 PM. Such is the life of a "fadder". The weather was perfect and I got to catch up with lots of my Norwegian friends and learn a new yard game involving throwing sticks at slightly larger sticks. The main rule is don't hit the biggest stick in the middle, which I successfully did but I was unsuccessful at hitting any of the sticks that you were supposed to...

P.S. Trondheim welcomed me back very nicely with a little hello from the Northern lights:)

Tuesday: Bar-to-Bar

I have realized that the word "crawl" as in "the visiting of various places in succession especially as a social activity" (thanks Merriam-Webster Dictionary), doesn't exist in Norwegian and they just hyphenate the locations instead (see "dorm-to-dorm" later). But the title does get the name across. Groups of our "fadder-children" travelled from bar-to-bar in Trondheim playing games and having competitions to win points. At my bar, we ran a quiz where the first question was to name and state the position of all of the Njord board members and I had a group list my position as "International Boss" which I will henceforth be referring to myself as.

Wednesday: Trivia Night

On Wednesday we got quizzical again with a big night of trivia at another bar. This was a more lowkey event and even featured some Canadian questions (which, for the record, I got all correct, thankfully). We even had a creepy dude that wanted to join our game, if you zoom in on this photo right between Mari (standing) and the door frame, you'll see him!

Thursday: Paint n' Sip

Today we had our artistic abilities put to the test where we got to paint the person sitting across from us. I apologized to Marlin in advance but I wasn't too disappointed in my work. I'm just glad that I chose a degree in science and not art. Marlin also painted me and prefaced it with "Just so you know, I think you're a pretty girl, despite what this painting looks like".

Friday: Dorm-to-Dorm

The hyphenated events continued on Friday with, what I thought to be the most fun event. We split into 3 groups, each set up a theme at someone's house and then the groups rotated between the houses. At Sara's house, we were spy-themed and had an escape room set up in the basement complete with a string laser maze, a locked briefcase containing alcohol, and riddles hidden around the creepy basement.

This night had quite a bit of drinking involved and we all ended up meeting at a club!

Saturday: Pizza Party: Theme: "Oops, I went to the wrong party"

Things chilled out a bit on Saturday with a pizza party at the Sealab. The theme was to show up wearing clothes of anything except pizza party clothes (side note: I have no idea what "pizza party clothes" means). But we had togas, pjs, barbies, soccer players, tropics, the list goes on...

Sunday: Laser Tag

We wrapped up the last day of Fadderuka with some physical activity to sweat out all the alcohol. We played 4 rounds of laser tag and got to relive the 10-year-old birthday party feeling.

This week took it out of me. Especially when the jetlag allowed me to stay up late chatting and partying but waking up in the morning was nearly impossible. I am so tired and my social battery is drained so I have spent the last couple of days socially hibernating. I've been bumping around Trondheim and getting ready for classes and my next adventures so I'll be posting again soon!