Week 34
Week 34 in Noway is crazy!
As an Australian, I’m not used to using ‘weeks’ for dating. In Norway, the weeks of the year are numbered fom 1 to 52 (obviously). However, week one doesn’t necessarily start on the week of the 1st of January and sometimes there is a week 53! The only way to tell is to use a week calendar.
It is a little hard working by weeks. When I sit in meetings people talk aout week 29 or Wenesday of week 43 etc, and the Norwegians just nod their heads while I’m madly trying to work out what month and day everyone is talking about. It seems like Norwegians know all the weeks off by heart (or maybe they are just like me with no clue but know how to keep it cool). Either way, working by weeks is a different mental process that I have to get used to. I can see the benefits of working by weeks but it’s not benefitting me yet.
Week 34 was ‘back to school’ week. This is where everything changes from holiday mode into regular mode. All clubs, work, facilities and activities turn on full throttle. But also every club, work, facility and activity adds on extra meetings, get-togehers, orientations etc to organise the year. It takes about two weeks for life to settle down again. The tricky part is that week 34 can also happen in week 33 or week 35 depending on the year. You also have to factor in leap years, the moon, the turn of the earth and also the kommune (municipality) you live in. Some kommunes start earlier and some later.
Woking by weeks is what makes Norway a little more crazier to live in.
(BTW Moose is dying to change my Australian word “crazier” to a grammically correct “crazy”. But if he did then Norway wouldn’t be as crazy.)
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As a Norwegian, I can tell you not everyone here knows the week numbers by heart, I guess if you know what week you’re currently in, it’s not too hard to extrapolate, but I generally got no clue about that either. And I know most at work, if I ask “when is that” they have to look it up in the calendar too.
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from L-Jay:
Well, this makes me feel much better
(I knew some Norwegians at least were bluffing at my meeting…lol)
I have a calendar from Norway and the weeks are numbered on the side. I had wondered why that was so. Thanks for the explanation.
My sister usually sends me a calendar from the States each Christmas. I have to go down the side and add the week numbers or else I’m completely lost.
This has come up with me in the past, while talking with Norwegian friends. I thought it had to do with the sea, ferry scheduling–work related things. But now I see that it’s a “Norwegian thing”………THANKS!!!!!
It could possibly (I have no idea) be for longshore/stevedoring schedules, since there is so much shipping traffic in Norway. I work for a stevedoring company in California and we have to bill by weeks. I only know when is when because of a small WEEK calendar the company sends out…So, that’s my guess, but I could be totally off…
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from L-Jay:
I work f a culture school and we use weeks. Schools also go by weeks and every other industry (except farming) that I know of here in Norway. But I guess shipping could have started it all.
Only one thing to say…have a good week!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-day_week#Week_numbering its not just in norway :p
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from L-Jay:
I never said that week numbering was only in Norway and no other country in the world. This blog is not only about what makes Norway different from the rest of the world, it is also about what makes Norway the same. Norway is only unique in some things and the same in lots of other things. But what the post is about is Norway in relation to my ‘immigrant’ up bringing and culture. You can’t argue with that.