Lately

I have been going more regularly to soccer practice three days a week and really getting my sweat on. I am loving loving loving being part of a team again. The girls are really starting to feel like teammates\ friends and I have really missed that camaraderie lot. We have also had a couple practice games (season starts in April). I have started all of them at right back. I am used to playing center back, but I think I have found a new love on the wing. I have more of an opportunity to be involved in the offensive attack and I get to slide tackle unsuspecting forwards a lot more, and a lot more cleanly. I am loving it, and I feel like I am getting better with each game! Not to mention soccer is seriously the best way I know to stay in shape!

School is also keeping me busy four days a week. I am enjoying it a lot more than I was before and I feel like I am progressing well in the language. I have met a lot of really interesting people from all over the world and I have had more of an effort to get to know them. I invited Ahmed (from Iraq) and Jean Claude (from Burundi) to come to Poesi and have a coffee with me one Wednesday after class, and we had such a good time chatting that we decided to make it a regular Wednesday date. Above and beyond the good it does for our Norwegian skills, I think it is also great for all of us to feel like we have friends beyond those people who we live with. I really enjoy the both of them, and man we are quite the trio--we agree on next to nothing except that we enjoy each other's company.

I thought it would be a good idea to do the same thing with Spanish...so I have been recruiting people bit by bit that speak Spanish and we are meeting on Fridays after class. It has just been me and Tesfaye before (from Cuba) but now we are inviting anyone that can manage the language...I think tomorrow we should be chatting with a woman from Peru and a Lebanese woman that lived in Mexico for quite a few years. It will be interesting to see how all our different levels and styles of Spanish will mesh together.

This weekend Lars and I are headed up to Tynset to visit his parents. His sister and Milan are up from Germany for a visit so we are looking forward to seeing the Brazilian\German on skiis and to cashing in our spa gift certificate that we got for Christmas from Lars' uncles. Milan has also hinted to me that a snow fight might be in my future. I am also pretty excited to see how handsome Lars is going to look after he gets a haircut from his cousin Gjertrud. He always looks so good when he has a fresh cut!!

Oh yeah, I still haven't heard anything back from the NRC about the jobs I applied for. I am not sure if this is good or not, but I know that they said they would contact you if they wanted you to come for an interview or NOT. So I suppose I just need to be patient and wait some more. You would think I would be good at this waiting game by now...

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Clock Strikes Three

Here is a quick panoramic shot of Hamar that you might enjoy...I decided to take it spontaneously (so it is not from the best lookout point possible) when the bell tower started ringing three o'clock as I was out for a walk along lake Mjøsa Friday afternoon.

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Looking Past Differences

Honestly...just watch, learn and follow the example. Friendship and love comes in all shapes and sizes.

I wish we were as smart as animals.

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Norske Reklamer

I have to admit that since I have come to Norway I have been watching a lot more TV. I suppose this isn't really all that significant since while I was a college student I almost never watched anything, but let's just say that Lars and I are watching something on the tube every night.

I would say as well that Norwegians (for lack of a better phrase) have got it going on. Once I began to understand Norwegian, watching a Norwegian broadcast became a much more entertaining experience than the typical American broadcast. I will admit that it does get a little confusing for me sometimes when Lars asks me to put it on TV2 which is NOT channel 2, or TV3, which is NOT channel 3, but I make it through. And it was a bit strange at first that Norwegian shows don't have to end on the hour either,...it isn't that abnormal for a show to begin at 8:40 or end at 5:25.

But the most significant difference between American and Norwegian television in my opinion are the commercials. Here, there are not nearly as many commercials! And when you do have to sit through a commercial, instead of watching a bald guy so wittingly named Mr. Clean miraculously mop the floor or a gecko trying to sell you insurance, you are many times treated to a hilarious little number that makes you laugh just as much as the sitcom you were watching. For example:

These NetCom commericals absolutely kill me. They are hilarious...there is a new one where a girl who is babysitting accidentally calls a guy. Needless to say, the conversation she is having with the little boy she is babysitting about playing with his soldier is enough to make my sides hurt.

But don't worry, I am not going completely Norwegian. While they win the competition in the commercial arena, we still broadcast with more insight and quality than any other country on the planet. I am still able to access the quality shows that keep me true to my American roots--Pimp My Ride, American Gladiators, Playboy Girls and Date My Mom. Couldn't live without those gems of American pop culture.

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Language Woes

You would assume that any language woes of mine would be directly involved with the Norwegian language and my struggles therein, since I have recently moved to Norway and been thrown headfirst into the språk. Norwegian, however, is going quite well. I am not thriving by any means, but rather doing quite well with surviving. I am not fluent by any means, but I am holding my own with communicating. And surprisingly, it is actually Spanish that is the cause of my language woes! Come on, I have been studying Spanish since I was 15, I lived in Spain and spent the last year of my college education analyzing old, famous, dead Spanish poets. Who would have ever guessed that at this stage in my life, speaking Spanish would be more challenging than speaking Norwegian?

It is 100% crazy. I do not mean to say that I now have more knowledge of the Norwegian language than I do of Spanish. It is certain that I am more fluent in Spanish: I have a larger vocabulary and much more experience speaking the language...but for whatever reason, it is much more natural for me to speak Norwegian now.

There is a man named Tesfaye that I speak Spanish with once in awhile. He was born in Ethiopia, but lived in Cuba for 14 years so he is much more cubano than africano. We met on Friday for some coffee and in my mind it was an opportunity for me to intentionally practice Spanish. It was close to a disaster. I felt like I had regressed years in my Spanish development. Actually I can't remember a time when speaking Spanish was that difficult and took that much thinking! It used to be natural! It was impossible for me to say 'no', 'but', 'and', 'now', 'yes', 'I agree', 'thanks' and other small phrases in Spanish, I naturally responded in Norwegian and what resulted was a nasty mess and butchering of the two languages! (Not to mention a confused Tesfaye!)

Explanations? I have many, and I don't know if any of them are on target or not. It could be that it is just normal IN NORWAY for me to be speaking norsk...or maybe it was that I had met Tesfaye at Poesi and I am used to speaking Norwegian there (on the job). It could even just be due to the fact that I have submerged my brain so deeply in Norwegian in my desperate attempt to learn as fast as possible, that it is going to take me awhile to kick the cobwebs off my Spanish skill set. Whatever the reason, it is really frustrating when something that used to be second nature becomes rusted shut in the corners of your brain.

I must learn to be able to keep the two separate. But how to do that?? The plan now is to read Norwegian and Spanish out loud back to back to try and help my poor, confused mind differentiate. I want to continue meeting with Tesfaye once a week and work out some more kinks with my spoken Spanish. I need to engage the language more, read books, write more emails etc etc. I think it is true what they jokingly say--if you don't use it, you lose it!

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