I guess introductions are in order!

Hey!

My name is Hanne Grethe, but everyone in England calls me Hannah. I'm 19 years old and I'm from a ridiculously small place on the west coast of Norway, called Søvik. It's a beautiful place with 650 inhabitants, two shops and nothing to do.

Look how cute! Love this place!

Anyway, I've lived in England since september last year. I study BA Criminology at Uni of Winchester and I love it! The course is interesting, the people are fantastic and drinking is practically free in comparison to Norway.

The reason why I started this blog is to keep some pressure on myself. Now, I'm not saying this is going to be a fitness blog, but the idea is that if I actually do get some people to follow this blog, I'll feel the pressure to keep going. I'm turning my life around.

I've been diagnosed with stress triggered irregular heart beat. If I'm under a lot of pressure over a longer period of time, I'll eventually have a "seizure", in lack of a better word. What happens is that I get an irregular heart beat, my blood pressure drops and I faint. I always wake up in a matter of 6-7 seconds, but it's still annoying and it scares the shit out of my friends. This has been going on for some time. However, what's finally pushed me over the edge of actually doing something about it is that the heart specialist I went to see to have tests done when I was back in Norway over christmas, has decided that because I have incidents where I faint, it's no longer safe for me to be driving and they're revoking my drivers license. I'll get it back if I don't pass out for a year, but that will take some work on my part as well as sticking to medication prescribed by my GP in Norway.

Of course, having my license revoked isn't the end of the world. I'm in England half the year and I obviously don't drive here, because these maniacs drive on the wrong side of the road and I'm having enough problems as it is, not getting hit by cars, I don't need to be driving as well. The issue is that since I live in a rural area in Norway, I'm pretty much stuck there if I can't drive. I also work as a chef and bartender and I'm going to have to give up most of my night shifts because I don't want to ask my parents to come pick me up at four in the morning twice each weekend. I love working nights, so that's going to take some getting used to, but I'll manage. Of course, I'll probably save a lot of money not being able to drive, since I wont have the added expence of gas and stuff like that, so that's good, but I still love driving and I'm going to miss it like crazy..

I'm going to stop ranting now. Basically, what this blog is going to be about is my everyday life as a Norwegian student in Winchester who's trying to turn her life around.

This is me, by the way! :)

-Hannah