The month of May is always an important one here in Norway: the 17th of May is Norwegian Constitution Day, a celebration of the constitution declaring Norway to be an independent nation. As a national day it is easily among the most important of the year, and already preparations are underway: on the day people wear their national costume, the bunad, and the national media is currently publishing various articles on the best way to care for and wash your bunad, polish your silver and how best to carry yourself whilst wearing the ensemble, among other items. Strange in my opinion, but clearly the demand for such things exists! On the day there will be parades on the streets whilst the Royal Family stand on the Palace balcony and wave to the gathered crowds.

A major part of the parade on the national day will be the Russ, the young people graduating from high school and about to head to University or other avenues. The Russ celebrations are a massive part of society here and traditionally begin on the 1st May, though this year were evident a few days before that too. The school leavers all wear special overalls which traditionally shouldn't be washed throughout the three week stretch:

Over time these overalls accumulate signatures and badges and different signs that signify the different 'knots' they have achieved through a range of agreed 'daring' challenges. These challenges change each year and are published annually for the new school leavers, but here are a few russ knot examples according to Wikipedia:

Spending a night in a tree (earns a stick from the tree)
Eating a Big Mac in two bites (earns a piece of the wrapping)
Drinking a bottle of wine in 20 minutes (earns the wine cork)
Crawling through a super market while barking and biting customers' legs (earns a dog biscuit)
Spending a school day crawling on hands and knees (earns a toy shoe)
Spending the entire russ period sober (earns a fizzy drink cork)
Drinking 24 beers in 24 hours(girls) 12 hour (boys)
Have sex in the woods
Have sex with 17 different people in 17 days from 1.May to 17 May(norwegian national day)
Go for a swim before the 1. of May earns a popsical
Break up with a random 16 year old very public.
Run over a local bridge or from the school to the sentre or similar place naked.
Sit in a round about with a sign that says "We'll have drink if you honk your horn!"
Host an aerobic class at the local pub and get at least ten people to join.

Reading the list it becomes quite clear that Russ is regarded as a right of passage more than anything, and often the 'knots' are a controversial topic in society. In 2004 a group of female leavers eager to fund a Russ bus to ride in (a common part of the parade) agreed to make a pornographic film with a well-known Norwegian adult film actor in order to make 20,000 Norwegian Kroner, a mere fraction of the end sum they spent on their bus (well over 200,000 Kroner). Asides from that rather extreme example of Russ celebrations the month of May is more taken advantage of as an excuse to party in the lead up to their exams and the national day, and all in good spirits.

As you can imagine, focusing on University isn't among my top priorities in this month of celebration and my final in the country! Exams are important to me, nonetheless, and having already completed one and in the lead up to others, I am spending time reading, etc. However, being able to do it in the sunshine and company is a massive bonus. I have also received feedback on recent essays: the system for feedback here is so advanced compared to home. Each student is given a personal meeting with our seminar leader to discuss our essay. In his office I noticed that he had made 2 A4 sides of notes about my essay alone, and his feedback was positive and helpful, most importantly. The fact that personal feedback meetings existed was surprising enough for me, but to discover how good they were was also a revelation.

Anyway, asides from University things are in full swing: I am meeting my TANDEM partner as often as possible now in our last hopes at improving our requisite languages skills! I am spending a lot more time in the very efficiently run student unions, where volunteers operate the places in a highly admirable system, and on Friday some friends and I are taking the train to Stockholm in Sweden for a weekend which should be a lot of fun. Packing things in is becoming more difficult but I somehow always manage to do so, which is comforting at the very least.