Another Week

So, today was another rainy day in Bø. Fortunately for me, I only got rained on a little when walking back from class. I took my camera with me today and got a couple pictures from our trip and some more of the hill that I have to walk up everyday to get back home. (See below.) My Norwegian class yesterday went a lot better than the first. I know that taking the advanced level here will be a lot more of a challenge and I might not get as high of a grade as I want in the end, but I know it will be worth the struggle once I am done. I feel like I have already some-what gotten back into the swing of speaking and hearing Norwegian. I switched to a Norwegian radio station and there still is a lot that I don't know, but I think just hearing it helps. Kine pointed out to me a little while ago that children listen for years before they even start to say simple words and phrases. This gave me a little boost in confidence.

There is a TV in the kitchen so I usually turn that on when I am making food and doing my dishes. Sometimes I just listen and don't understand a word. (This is usually cooking shows, the news, or talk shows.) However, sometimes I catch something a little easier for me. Like this morning, I was watching some cartoons. One was in Nynorsk, which is the dialect on the other side of the country that I can hardly understand. The other one was Franklin, a cartoon that I remember watching at home about a turtle and his other animal friends. There was still a lot that I didn't get, but I could pick out some common phrases. And for supper tonight, when I was making some pasta, I found Everybody Loves Raymond. It was in English, but had Norwegian subtitles. So I muted it and understood pretty much all of the subtitles. Reading is not the issue for me at the moment, it is listening to the natives speak. But I think the longer I am here and the more I just listen, I will start to catch on.

I also have decide to pick up another class about Ecophilosophy here. It sounds like fun and gives me a couple more credits. This means that I will now have class on some Mondays, instead of having five days off like I do now.

O yea, I guess I should also note that I received an e-mail from a Luther alumni through LinkedIn. (LinkedIn is a website like facebook that is more aimed at making business connections and such.) I made a post about me studying abroad in Norway and she said that she studied here too. We sent a couple messages back and forth and I soon found out that she studied in a town that is just up the road from me. I also found out that she was a Computer Science and Scandinavian Studies double major just like me. How cool is that!

Start of the hill up to Breisås

A gloomy day from my apartment. I did like how the clouds
were in front of the mountains with the blue sky in the back.