God dag! (hello)

I do stuff like…

Take a five-hour course in Language and Didactics. Sounds horrible, and it is. But I got to class today and everyone was really friendly, I was by far the youngest one in the class, which I have noticed, has been true for mostly everything I’ve done here so far. A few people I’ve talked to don’t believe me when I tell them how old I am so I usually just don’t tell anyone unless they ask. Anyway, since this class is basically learning the linguistics of English I had to introduce myself and I thought the professor was going to kiss me when I told her that I was from the US and then she got even more excited when I said Nebraska, apparently no one in the class had ever met anyone from Nebraska (uh Go Big Red).

The rest of that seminar (two hours) I was somehow volunteered to read the majority of the text because of my “accent”. We then had a half hour break for lunch, why thank you. So a Norwegian girl I met in class, Marie, and I ran up to the “IT jhelp” to get my username and password fixed which they still couldn’t figure out, ergo I still can’t technically register for class and get everything I need online (which doesn’t really matter I guess since I can’t get net in my room yet anyway). So Marie was worried about me not being able to register so she took me to a service desk of some sort and started spewing Norwegian at the lady who then asked for my student ID card and did her thing typing on the computer. A few seconds later she handed me my card back with a sticky note where she had written a plethora of numbers. I said “takk” which means thank you, and turned to Marie with a questioning look. She took me over to a computer and helped me register for the class. She was very efficient and helpful, thank you kind stranger Marie. She taught me a few other Norwegian phrases that I might need as we walked back to class. Rely on God and He will provide.

During the second half of class (the next two and half hours) we had to speak with a British accent so that we could speak proper English and transcribe certain words with added stress and specified word class, which was kind of hard since this course is a whole year course and everyone else in the class worked on this last semester. But no big deal I’ll figure it out myself with this Norwegian handout you gave me. I actually was able to catch on I think, the professor told me I could come to her office tomorrow and she would explain a few things to me. Lovely I will see you there then.

I’m starting to get use to my half hour trek to and from university. It gets quite frigid after the first fifteen minutes, that’s usually when my legs go numb and I can’t feel them the rest of the way. I now understand why everyone here has rosy cheeks as well, its not the blush they use, it’s the blistering wind that gives them cherry cheeks. I have discovered however, that just like anything else there are positive aspects to my walk. First of all my water bottle (thank you Shan) always stays nice and cold, J and secondly its nice to get to walk around and see the town and everything. I don’t plan on getting a bus pass so I’m learning to enjoy these little 2 mile hikes. Everything I need is about 2 miles away from my apartment so the other day I had to walk downtown and to school so if I am capable of calculation I think I walked 8 miles. But I don’t mind, it will be lovely I’m sure when it gets nicer out. Ha det (bye).