Advent Calendar

That time of the year, when that already scarce quantity becomes even more scarce. You know what I am talking about- TIME. The holidays just soak up so much of your time, you are forced to put everything except the absolute essentials in the backburner. When you don't have time to do anything, least of all put your feet up, and READ!

But this being Reading Monday, we are honour bound to give you a bunch of reading recommendations. And we shall not disappoint. However busy you are, however very, very, very busy, surely you have one minute to spare? Yes, just one teeny weeny minute. Of course you do. If nothing else, you can make those 60 seconds between sips of your chai, coffee, latte, vodka.......

Click across to The Burrow, and enjoy one drabble a day, everyday in the month of December, as we count down to the New Year. There are drabbles that will make you laugh, drabbles that will make you cry. Drabbles that would make you sneer, drabbles that would make you cheer. There are even drabbles that will stay with you all day, forcing you to think. But every single one of those drabbles will be exactly 100 words long, and none of them will take up more than 60 seconds of your reading time.

So what are you waiting for? Click on ahead!!!

Summer summary

It’s been a strange summer. Weather-wise, it’s been crappy. Any Norwegian will tell you so. Then again, any Norwegian would tell you that any summer, pretty much, and for the most part we are right. We do have a lot of weather in this country, and most of it isn’t of the nice kind. But even if we’d had a warm, sunny summer (not that we did, mind you), we wouldn’t call it a nice summer. We forget easily, in this country. And one rainy day easily translates to “three weeks straight”. If the weather is one of your main conversation topics (and in Norway, it definitely is), it is, after all, much more interesting to speak of bad weather than sunshine.

But I’m not here to talk about the weather.

The summer has been especially strange for me, I guess. I went from a busy life in Tokyo to the slow-as-ever sleepy small town life in Norway. I went from an exciting, interesting and challenging job where I felt I made a difference, to unemployment and application writing. From feeling useful to completely useless. From being a social butterfly to spending most my time on Facebook (which is not the same thing, no matter how you try to justify it for yourself). I went from having too many plans to handle, to having none at all. As of now, I have vacation for the rest of my life – in theory, at least.

But I’m not here to talk about my unemployment.

Norway in general had a strange summer. On July 22^nd the unthinkable happened. Terrorism. In Norway. 77 people brutally slaughtered down, by one man and his hate. A hate that took us all by surprise, and that we’ve been struggling to understand ever since. Maybe we’re not supposed to understand; maybe we don’t even want to. The debate that surfaced after this ranged from “we need to analyze his manifest to make sure others like him cannot go unnoticed” to “we need to give his ideas less attention to avoid copycats”. Principles of freedom of speech have been discussed. We all agree we need to protect this right, now more than ever, but there are different opinions and interpretations what this right should entail. How much can we allow? How far should anonymous online debates be allowed to go before the danger signals flare?

What made the strongest impression on me in the middle of this, however, wasn’t the stories of the horrors at Utøya. Not the controversy about whether someone like this culprit (whose name I don’t like mentioning, despite Harry Potteresque wisdom of not letting him become another “You-Know-Who”) could have been stopped, and what measures would be an appropriate punishment (nothing, clearly. Nothing is appropriate. So we have to stick to the options already provided in our laws).

No, none of that. What made the strongest impression was how people came together after this. How it suddenly didn’t matter where you were from, what you did, how much money you made. We were all one. We stood by one another and acted a little nicer, spread a little love. The rose sea, spreading across the country. In Oslo there are still roses everywhere, a sad and yet encouraging reminder of what happened. Terrorism and hate was met with democracy and love.

But I’m definitely not here to talk about terrorism.

In current events it’s been a summer mercifully free of cucumbers. (An old expression in Norway – “cucumber news” was when the newspapers during the summer did not have anything real to report on, so they wrote about the cucumber prices.) I suppose there were some cucumbers with the e.coli breakout in Europe early this summer. But apart from that we’ve had nice, proper news. Prime ministers have left their jobs (the Japanese, for instance. Today, in fact, after months of anticipation. In Norway we’re happy because the new guy’s name creates possibilities for puns just as the old one’s did. From “Yes, we Kan” [but he couldn’t] to “Hva nå da, Noda?” [that last one doesn’t make sense in English. Sorry, guys. But knowing Japan, I’m sure there’ll be a new guy with a punnier name within a year]).

In addition the Strauss-Kahn (he couldn’t either) case made nice headlines all summer, Libya and Syria (oh, who am I kidding – the Middle East in general) still ensure that trees are being chopped down to produce paper, and most recently, of course, a little lady called Irene got loads of attention (all jokes aside, hope you’re all safe).

But I’m not here to talk about current events either (and still not the weather).

What am I here to talk about, then?

Frankly, I’m not too sure. I meant to say something meaningful about blogging. Blogging on this blog, specifically. If you think it’s been kind of quiet here lately, you’re absolutely right. If you think that’s caused by irreconcilable differences within the group, you’re absolutely wrong. If you think it’s caused by a slight tendency of burn-out and summer business, you’re closer to the target.

We’ve been blogging approximately five days a week for a little over a year now (we even missed our own bloggiversary, that’s how preoccupied we’ve been!). We’re eight individuals, trying to coordinate across despite living in different countries, time zones, continents. We have different schedules, backgrounds, different ideas about blogging. In a way, I think our diversity is what makes the mix interesting. But it also makes it challenging.

Thus no one complained when a summer vacation was suggested. A vacation that allowed us to take a much-needed break from blogging. In order to not leave the blog hanging over the summer, however (no telling what crazy shenanigans it might have gotten into then), we decided to post once a week. Thus, this summer have seen fewer posts at the BB&B blog, but I think the posts that my dear colleagues put up were more than top quality wise.

Maybe that is why I had such reservations about my own post… What in the world could I write about that would be equally interesting as the previous posts? Trust me, the sleepy small town life doesn’t provide interesting blog fodder…

My solution was to post about our blog schedule. To explain why we took a break, and when we will return to normalcy. But (you thought I was gonna write “I am not here to talk about…” didn’t you?) even if I wanted to be here to talk about that, it is easier said than done.

You see, we haven’t made up our mind! Every now and then, we make some (smallish) changes here on the blog. Like setting up alternative schedules when we tire of our old topics. This is a golden opportunity for doing just that. So, the debate is going in the Burrow. What will we do now?

But I’m not here to reveal any secrets…  

The many loves of Jupiter

Growing up in India, I was not really exposed to Greek and Roman mythology- when you have two indigenous epics (one of which is the longest epic in the world), and a pantheon of gods and goddesses each of whom seems to have nothing better to do than to get embroiled in stuff that should not really concern them, you do not really need to look further afield for stories of adultery, deceit and valour.

But being the geek that I was, long before I reached my teens, I could recite the names of all the moons of all the planets making up the solar system. I even made up stories about many of them- the lone satellite of Pluto was named after the wife (Carol) and daughter (Sharon) of the person who discovered the satellite - most people I told the story to even believed me, and it took the Hercule Poirot story starring Cerebrus to get me to stop quoting it. The moons of Jupiter were particular favourites- Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and my own particular favourite, Amalthea. Even the names were sheer music!

And then in the days between middle and high school, I discovered Roman mythology. Suddenly, Jupiter was no longer just the largest planet, he was the temperamental and powerful King of Gods. When he was not reducing things to ashes with one look of his eyes, he was seducing every young and not so young creature around. They didn't even all have to be female. To my bemusement, one of his lovers seemed to be a young lad, Ganymede. And if Jupiter was busy sowing his seeds, his wife was equally busy unleashing vengance on anyone who dared allow her husband to get near them.

But what was most appealing was that I did not have to learn any new names to know these stories. The noblewoman, the priestess, the hunting companion - all of them turned out to be moons of Jupiter. And Amalthea, my own beautiful Amalthea. Why she was the goat who nursed Jupiter when he was abandoned in a cave.

Suddenly, through my obsession with the solar system, the world of Roman mythology opened up in front of me.

Why Jupiter? Why today?

Because Jupiter looks over Thursday. And I do think he would have approved of Delusional Thursdays!

And because of his numerous conquests, he would like the announcement that we are about to make.

The Burrow is proud to present the third version of its Valentine Feature. A drabble (or more) a day, everyday in the month of February, with a special bonus on Valentine Day. All your favourite bloggers (except one- Leanne, where are you in the month of your birth?) are contributing. But what makes this feature specially meaningful for us is that we have contributions from five of our wonderful followers.

We are not telling you who they are - know only there are five of them!

And do not be fooled by the giant heart- there are Burrowers are involved, and the one thing you can expect from them is the unexpected.
 
What are you waiting for? Rush across to the-burrow.org, and enjoy. And be sure to bookmark the page, because you don't want to be typing out the entire address everyday!
 
 
Image credit -
Moons of Jupiter - http://www.kidscosmos.org/kid-stuff/graphics/jupiter-moons-1.jpg
Jupiter - http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/153/15327.jpg.htm

The Burrow Advent Calendar - 2010

Two years back, the Burrow mounted the "Advent Calendar" for the first time. An interactive feature, you could click on a drabble a day, everyday, leading upto Christmas. We hosted the project again, with a new set of drabbles last year.

This year, however, we are breaking tradition slightly- in our Advent Calendar we are counting down, not to Christmas, but to the New Year.

In addition to the Burrowers, most of whom you know intimately from this blog, Jan Morrison has contributed two drabbles, both accompanied by her stunning photographs. We also have the four drabbles that were chosen as the winners of the Drabble Dare # 11, one of which has already been revealed.

Do check out the Project, and be sure to book-mark the page so you can get your drabble a day, everyday.

Happy Reading.

Drabble Dare # 11 : Results

If you remember, and I would not blame you if you have forgotten, we had posted four images on November 7, 2010 and had asked you to drabble to them. We were overwhelmed by the quality of the drabbles we received - either you have been secretly drabbling for months, or you are just brilliant - and the task of judging the entries was anything but easy. But, strangely, the results were unanimous (I think we were all looking for a fresh interpretation, and all these drabbles had them) -

Image # 1 - Pole Star

Winner - Sue Travers

Image # 2 - ice sculptures

Winner - James C. Wallace II, Royal Liaison to Princess Ozma

Image # 3 - Poinsettias

Winner - Sue Travers

Image # 4 - Colourful beads

Winner - Marian Youngblood

Congratulations Sue (x 2), James and Marian.

We do normally post the winning drabbles here, but this time we are using them in the December Feature that we will be mounting at the Burrow. Do check back on December 1, for more details.


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We only hold the creative licence for two of the four photographs. Attributions for the other two photographs here.

Drabble Dare # 11 : "December" Theme

December!!!

The month means different things to different people. Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, Summer in the Southern. Countdown to Christmas; conspicuous consumerism and family fun-times. The last month of the year; looking back and leaping forward. Winter wonderland. The prime of life. Holidays.

In December, we at the Burrow will be hosting an interactive feature to celebrate the month. Modifying the concept of the Advent Calendar, we will count down to the New Year by revealing a drabble a day, every day during the month of December.

And you can be a part of it too.

All you have to do is to write a drabble in exactly 100 words based on any (or all) of these photographs, and mail it to us at 'theburrow360 at gmail dot com' on or before November 26, 2010. The winning entries for each of the images will be featured in the December feature.

Image # 1 - Pole Star

Image # 2 - ice sculptures

Image # 3 - Poinsettias

Image # 4 - Colourful beads

To summarise -

- Write a drabble (a story in exactly 100 words) inspired by any (or all) of the photographs above

- Check that the drabble contains exactly 100 words - word count tool here

- Choose a name for the photograph, if you wish

- Mail the drabble to 'theburrow360 at gmail dot com', mention your pen name (if any), the name you would like to call the image (if different from the descriptive name we have given), and any other information you may want to provide us BY MIDNIGHT NOVEMBER 26, 2010

- Pick the next image to write a drabble to and start the process again

Happy Drabbling!

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Image # 1 & 2 - Wiki-Commons

The Colour Project

No worries, this is not going to be a rehash of that old "double-rainbow-all-the-way" meme that rampaged across the internet this summer. It is, however, a hint for the brand-new, currently-unfolding, super-colourful project upon which we have embarked this month. A drabble a day, each on an aspect of a colour, set to different images. So head on over to our other home (that would be the-burrow.org in case you forgot) today and every day this month for a new drabble, a new picture, and, just maybe, a new look on the world.

Image: Rainbow over Glasgow, August 2008

Pay it Forward Project

A Random Act of Kindness. Paying it Forward. A moment of your time. A sympathetic ear. A sacrifice. A donation that doesn’t pinch. Wrestling with your conscience to do right. A helping hand extended automatically. Those unexpected kindnesses done to you. Those kindnesses that you do. What goes around, comes around. Help someone, and someone helps you back. 

Read a story of a kindness done. Then click on ahead to see what it leads to. Eventually, big or small, spontaneous or considered, every kindness you do will circle back to you. In our ideal world, no good deed goes unrecognised.*

In August 2010, a dozen talented writers from across the world came together to collaborate on what they called the "Pay it Forward Project". Each picked a character, and wrote a drabble on a random act of kindness being done to their character. The characters were compelled to pass it on, and it eventually came back to them.

Intrigued?

Visit The Burrow to see the result of their collaborative effort.
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* - this is a drabble- a story told in exactly 100 words.
Photo Credit - adrigu