Our dear teacher, Inga, was absent today. She had to go to Oslo to help write an English competency test for some board she is a member of. (I’m sure it would include the grammatical rule that you never end a sentence with a preposition, like I just did.) She was sorely missed. The entire class was in agony over our substitute that didn’t speak much English and was unable to answer most of our questions because she didn’t seem to understand our “dialect” of Norwegian either. I ended up being the “go-to” person so everyone was asking me all morning, “What is she talking about?” and I had to explain the concepts to them. But I have to say, they were not pleasant concepts. We were continuing our work on the use of articles with the different genders of nouns and she was getting in to all the exceptions to the rules. Ugh. And after tremendous effort identifying masculine/feminine/neutral nouns, she then told us that the entire city of Bergen has decided to give up the feminine gender of nouns and they just use neutral or masculine. But, she said, since we live in Ålesund, we must follow the proper rules of grammar and know all three versions. Not fair! (I fear we might lose half the class to Bergen after that bit of news, as the toughest part of this section of grammar are the exceptions that go along with the feminine gender of words.) And the teacher spent a great deal of time explaining the many different ways you can say “it,” (which has to do with the gender of the word.) I’m sure Bill Clinton must be part Norwegian, as after today’s lesson, it would be easy to understand his confusion over the meaning of the word “it.” “It” can be written “den” or “det,” but you also use those words for “this” or “that.” I’m afraid I’m in too deep.
Willy helped Kory load up all the junk that was left behind in the garages here and they hauled it off to the dump. Hallelujah! Kory then drove the Schaubs out to Solevåg, to show them where his mom was born and then out to Langevåg to show them where he grew up. They visited the sweater factory there and Willy got a nice Norwegian sweater as a souvenir of his trip. After lunch Kory took them out to the islands that dot the edge of the coastline here and they got to take in more incredible scenery on yet another gorgeous day. Nancy found some driftwood and rocks that suited her for a souvenir as they were FREE (they are still in shock over the prices of things here --I spent $30 the other day on two loaves of bread and a head of lettuce.)
The biggest thrill of the day was having dinner at Tante Karis (see photo). She makes a mean “poteteball” (potato dumplings). Kory asked her if she wouldn’t mind treating our guests to his favorite Norwegian food. In Kory’s opinion, you can’t come to Norway without eating Poteteballer. Kari’s son, Odd, got wind of the fact that she was making it, and he and Turid showed up for dinner, too. Good thing they did too, so someone ate up the inventory, as there was a lot of pressure on Nancy, Willy and I to fill our plates. (One was plenty for us though.) We had Marzipan cake for dessert so we didn’t go home hungry. (I asked Willy how he liked the poteteball and he said, “I’ve eaten worse.”)
Kaleb sat for over an hour doing his homework this afternoon. I was so proud of him looking up words in the Norwegian dictionary that he didn’t understand and writing the answers to questions in Norwegian. It’s OK for now (according to his teacher) that he writes his answers in English, but he is taking up the challenge and doing it all “på Norsk.” He’s working out of a 4th grade reader book. His teacher has ordered him a 2nd grade reader to help him learn things from the ground up, but I’m afraid by the time the book arrives, he’ll already be at the 4th grade level, as it doesn’t seem to be too difficult for him at all. He so impresses me with how quickly he’s catching on.
I talked to Victoria’s mom in my class today and she said her daughter (who is the American girl in Kaleb’s class) just “adores” Kaleb. Good to hear. Kaleb also told me he’s now made friends with the kid with the red cast on his arm that was trying to do him in earlier this month (we have been praying for that boy!). His biggest challenge yet is to get Morton on his side (another kid getting lots of prayer from us). Apparently Morton has problem with impulse control, but Kaleb hasn’t gone to school with him since day one like the others, so it’s taking a while for them to get used to each other. (He’s the kid that threw a shoe at Kaleb’s head last week.) Well, Morton is having his birthday party tomorrow and when he handed out the invitations he was NOT going to give Kaleb one, but the teacher made him do it (as is required). Today Kaleb said that Morton kept telling him NOT to come to his party tomorrow. (Kaleb said he just laughed at him because he can’t come anyway as we will be in Trondheim this weekend.) Kaleb likewise doesn’t want to invite Morton to HIS party in December, but by then, I’m sure they will be best of friends. I finally talked with Morton’s mom tonight and asked her what Morton’s side of the story is, as I only hear Kaleb’s side. We’ve been racking our brains trying to figure out why Morton doesn’t like Kaleb as Kaleb claims total innocence in doing anything to him. She finally told me (after much prompting) that the problem stems from the fact that Kaleb picks his nose in school, and for some reason, that just gets to Morton like nothing else. So there ya go, I have a nose picker for a kid and he’s getting picked on in school because of it. (Kaleb happened to be picking his nose at the time I broke this news to him as well.) Uff da.
Willy helped Kory load up all the junk that was left behind in the garages here and they hauled it off to the dump. Hallelujah! Kory then drove the Schaubs out to Solevåg, to show them where his mom was born and then out to Langevåg to show them where he grew up. They visited the sweater factory there and Willy got a nice Norwegian sweater as a souvenir of his trip. After lunch Kory took them out to the islands that dot the edge of the coastline here and they got to take in more incredible scenery on yet another gorgeous day. Nancy found some driftwood and rocks that suited her for a souvenir as they were FREE (they are still in shock over the prices of things here --I spent $30 the other day on two loaves of bread and a head of lettuce.)
The biggest thrill of the day was having dinner at Tante Karis (see photo). She makes a mean “poteteball” (potato dumplings). Kory asked her if she wouldn’t mind treating our guests to his favorite Norwegian food. In Kory’s opinion, you can’t come to Norway without eating Poteteballer. Kari’s son, Odd, got wind of the fact that she was making it, and he and Turid showed up for dinner, too. Good thing they did too, so someone ate up the inventory, as there was a lot of pressure on Nancy, Willy and I to fill our plates. (One was plenty for us though.) We had Marzipan cake for dessert so we didn’t go home hungry. (I asked Willy how he liked the poteteball and he said, “I’ve eaten worse.”)
Kaleb sat for over an hour doing his homework this afternoon. I was so proud of him looking up words in the Norwegian dictionary that he didn’t understand and writing the answers to questions in Norwegian. It’s OK for now (according to his teacher) that he writes his answers in English, but he is taking up the challenge and doing it all “på Norsk.” He’s working out of a 4th grade reader book. His teacher has ordered him a 2nd grade reader to help him learn things from the ground up, but I’m afraid by the time the book arrives, he’ll already be at the 4th grade level, as it doesn’t seem to be too difficult for him at all. He so impresses me with how quickly he’s catching on.
I talked to Victoria’s mom in my class today and she said her daughter (who is the American girl in Kaleb’s class) just “adores” Kaleb. Good to hear. Kaleb also told me he’s now made friends with the kid with the red cast on his arm that was trying to do him in earlier this month (we have been praying for that boy!). His biggest challenge yet is to get Morton on his side (another kid getting lots of prayer from us). Apparently Morton has problem with impulse control, but Kaleb hasn’t gone to school with him since day one like the others, so it’s taking a while for them to get used to each other. (He’s the kid that threw a shoe at Kaleb’s head last week.) Well, Morton is having his birthday party tomorrow and when he handed out the invitations he was NOT going to give Kaleb one, but the teacher made him do it (as is required). Today Kaleb said that Morton kept telling him NOT to come to his party tomorrow. (Kaleb said he just laughed at him because he can’t come anyway as we will be in Trondheim this weekend.) Kaleb likewise doesn’t want to invite Morton to HIS party in December, but by then, I’m sure they will be best of friends. I finally talked with Morton’s mom tonight and asked her what Morton’s side of the story is, as I only hear Kaleb’s side. We’ve been racking our brains trying to figure out why Morton doesn’t like Kaleb as Kaleb claims total innocence in doing anything to him. She finally told me (after much prompting) that the problem stems from the fact that Kaleb picks his nose in school, and for some reason, that just gets to Morton like nothing else. So there ya go, I have a nose picker for a kid and he’s getting picked on in school because of it. (Kaleb happened to be picking his nose at the time I broke this news to him as well.) Uff da.
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