Farewell and Fare Weather

Here we sit on the plane leaving behind an unforgettable year in Norway.   I'm sure the girls will share their own and varied experiences with you when you see them.  The water in Trondheim must contain fertilizer because both girls grew like weeds.

Melita is now my shoe size and has blossomed into a teenager. She has learned rudimentary Norwegian and has grown in both her social and artistic expressions.  Her teacher remarked that Melita was a very positive influence on the girls in her class, making peace, befriending insiders and outsiders alike.  I am proud of her. Even though she argues that her art skills are not nearly as masterful as some, her teacher and I both agree that Melita has a very good artistic sensibility.  She doesn't just copy but makes her own expression as evident by her instagram account.   From our visit to Florence and a videography exhibit, Melita also has started to move her films in a more artsy direction and completed her first black and white film set to classical music.

Annaliese, in her usual fashion, grew straight upwards. Her skirts from kindergarden still fit, they just become mini-mini-skirts over time.  Similar to the theory that giraffes willed their necks longer to reach the tops of trees, Annaliese's arm and leg span grew to allow her to reach all the best climbs at the bouldering gym. I was worried that "tigger" lost her bounce at times, but that turned out to be her bodies own doubling phase.   She also had her first outdoor rock climb which started with a full pull up from ground.  She has blossomed in the class room and was aptly voted biggest bookworm ;-)  That is no lie, she finished every book on the bookshelf at the house:  Twilight series, Harry Potter series, Dark Magic, Secret Garden, etc... I am proud of how well she has made friends in her class and being willing and able to explore a new culture. 

Me?  Well how can you measure a year abroad? 

I grew stronger.  My waistline grew smaller (xcountry skiing has its advantages). 

I learned patience.   I completed my epic needlepoint Buddha in tiny flesh-toned cross stitch.

 
I learned some new songs on guitar. 

I finished a European world tour on seagrass optics visiting the Fram Centre for Climate in Tromsø, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, University of Oldenburg in Germany, NATO Undersea Research Centre in La Spezia Italy.

I completed a true labor of love in the form of a paper inspired by the famous Norwegian scientist Sverdrup, whose ghost was sitting behind me urging me on through the more challenging and grueling aspects of the project.  In particular, I now know much more about the enclosed mediterranean seas of the world including the Hudson Bay, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Baltic Sea and the many important straits that separate one basin from another.

Dierssen, H.M.  Submitted.  Redefining the Ocean Basins using Bathymetry and Satellite Imagery:  New Extent, Hypsography, and Mean Biogeophysical Parameters.  Limnology and Oceanography.  Review paper.

I finished 5 book chapters, mostly for public consumption:

Dierssen, H.M., and Randolph, K.  2013.  Remote Sensing of Ocean Color.  Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology.  Springer-Verlag.  In press.

Dierssen, H.M.  and A.E. Theberge. 2013. Bathymetry: History of Seafloor Mapping.    Encyclopedia of Natural Resources.  Taylor & Francis Group. New York. In press.

Dierssen, H.M.  and A.E. Theberge. 2013. Bathymetry: Assessing Methods.    Encyclopedia of Natural Resources.  Taylor & Francis Group. New York. In press.

 
Dierssen, H.M.  and A.E. Theberge. 2013. Bathymetry: Features and Hypsography.   Encyclopedia of Natural Resources.  Taylor & Francis Group. New York. In press.

Johnsen  G, Z. Volent, H.M. Dierssen, R. Pettersen, M.V. Ardelan, F. Søreide, P. Fearns, M. Ludvigsen, and M. Moline.  Submitted. Underwater hyperspectral imagery to create biogeochemical maps of seafloor properties.  In Subsea Optics and Imaging. Ed. J. Watson and O. Zielinski.

And eight other manuscripts published or submitted in peer-reviewed journals with some element of optics and remote sensing but with wide-ranging topics from bubbles, seagrass, phytoplankton, sediments pteropods, polarization.

And, finally of course, I finished this project, the Norwegian sabbatical blog, a record of our experiences overseas.  I did this for the girls to document our trip together, to keep our friends and loved ones abreast of our trip, and also as a form of therapy in and of itself.  The true irony is that I have had over 4000 page views – far more than any research paper could hope to achieve.  I thank you many kind readers of our blog.  May your weather be always changing. I leave you with this lyric from the song Furr by Blitzen Trapper:

   And now my fur has turned to skin

   And I've been quickly ushered in

   To a world that I confess I do not know

   But I still dream of running careless through the snow

   An' through the howlin' winds that blow,

   Across the ancient distant flow,

   It fill our bodies up like water till we know.

We send you our warmest klem (hug),

Signing out,

Heidi, Melita, and Annaliese