I guess it’s only been a week since I returned to Iceland after my trip to the US for the holidays, but so far, every day of 2026 feels like at least a week on its own. I started my new semester at the University of Iceland on Monday, so I’ve been wrapping my head around five new classes alongside keeping up with the chaos of ICE raids in Minnesota and Trump getting aggressive about his nonsensical desire to “take” Greenland. It’s been a lot.
When I first started exploring the possibility of studying in Iceland, I was interested in the Arctic Studies micro-credential, a one-semester (30 ECTS) program. But when I went to apply I learned that micro-credentials are no longer offered to international students. My alternative was to apply for the one-year International Affairs Master’s level certificate (60 ECTS), which allowed me to structure the first semester to match exactly the Arctic Studies program. It also allowed me to stay in Iceland longer, so it seemed like a good option.
Now that I’ve completed the Arctic Studies portion of the degree, my classes this semester are less specialized. I’m optimistic that I’ll still find them interesting, but to be honest, my motivation is nowhere near as high as last semester. This overall experience has always been driven by a mix of interest in the academic program a desire to live in Iceland—the weight is now shifting to the latter. My courses this semester are: Negotiations, The Role and Policymaking of International Institutions, Governance of the Internet, Practical Statistics, and Introduction to Security Studies.
During the holiday break I found time to publish the Arctic-related papers I wrote last semester on my Looking North blog, where I’ve been writing since 2019 about landscapes and cultures of northern places. I hadn’t published anything there in a couple of years, and these latest essays are much more in-depth than what came before. I’m not sure if I’ll pick up the pace of publishing on Looking North or not, but between this blog and there it seemed like the more appropriate venue. The two essays are:
- Arctic Fiber Frontiers — How are subsea cable networks reshaping sovereignty and geopolitical power in the Arctic?
- America’s Arctic Imaginaries — What does the controversy over drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reveal about competing American visions of the Arctic?
Both are topics I was excited to dig into and learn more about, and I’m happy with the outcome. While written in an academic context I think they’re very accessible, so if you’re interested at all I hope you’ll check them out.
Back to the chaos of Trump’s threats to the international rules-based order—I would say that people in Iceland are starting to wake up. Iceland and the US have had a co-dependent and beneficial relationship since WWII, but these belligerent statements about taking over Greenland have people worried that the same logic could be applied to Iceland. It doesn’t help that Billy Long, Trump’s nominee to be the US ambassador to Iceland, joked this week that Iceland will be the 52nd state and he’ll be governor. This led to a petition, which I signed, for the Prime Minister of Iceland to reject his ambassadorship. Long has since apologized, but only in the classic non-apologetic move of saying he was sorry, “if anyone took offense.”
Meanwhile, the stories and videos of ICE acting as an unaccountable, hateful, dehumanizing paramilitary force continue to stream out of the Twin Cities. Just as we saw in Chicago and Portland, I’m proud of the Minnesota resistance I see from afar, of people standing up for their neighbors, documenting these illegal actions, and even bringing whimsey and joy in the face of terror. Yesterday, a January 6th insurrectionist Nazi tried to inflame tensions in Minneapolis with a hateful rally downtown and protestors ran him out of the city. I find it hopeful to see that people are not backing down in the face of fascism, but I’m incredibly worried about how Trump will continue to escalate. He wants chaos; he wants to invoke the Insurrection Act. The latest I’m reading today is that they’re planning to deploy 1,500 paratroopers to Minneapolis. This is insane.
Here in Reykjavík, a group that I joined late last year called Indivisible Iceland is planning a vigil for Renee Good and all victims of ICE on Tuesday, January 20th.
Noted & Done
- I finally had an Icelandic celebrity sighting at the pool. Ingvar Sigurdsson was leaving just as I was arriving.
- The post-solstice daylight situation is improving rapidly. Today the sun sets at 4:29PM, only 19 minutes earlier than Chicago. I’m tired of the dark, but I’ve also been really appreciating the sunsets lately, knowing that at some point I won’t see them anymore.
- This article in the Guardian about losing our connection the future due to the ongoing polycrisis is something I’ll be thinking about for a while. In particular, the idea that we “don’t really think about our future — we remember it…when we daydream or envision ourselves at a later point, we essentially create a memory. We then use these memories to construct our ideas about the future.”
- Marcin Wichary compiled a fantastic list of his favorite tech museums around the world. I’ve only been to one of these (The Connections Museum in Seattle) so I’ll be referencing this list on future trips.
- I used an eSIM from Airalo when I was in the US and it was a great experience. iPhones can support multiple active eSIMs, so it got me thinking about other use cases. For example, even if you already have an active plan, you could get an eSIM that operates on a different carrier network to act as a backup in areas of spotty coverage. I think I’ll do this the next time I’m on a long US-based roadtrip through areas with poor coverage.
- If you use Gmail, you should know that Google has by default given its Gemini AI access to your inbox to enable “smart” features. Here are the instructions for how to turn it off.