Needless to say I didn’t sleep much last night as I overdid it the night before. Nothing worse than messing with my body clock, but it was still very refreshing to have an extra day off from school and be down to a four day “week”. Kory likes his schedule too as he says he used to work five days a week and get two off, now he works two days a week and gets five off. We are rather spoiled, I think.
Today our class got the results back from our Norsk Prøve 2 practice test we took last week. Going in to it I was sure I would fail, as I forgot so much over the holidays. Then when I was taking it I thought it was just too easy and I would pass with flying colors. Then after we took it and I started talking to some other students who said it was very difficult, I had second thoughts. I thought maybe it seemed easy because I didn’t fully understand all the instructions, so then I went back to my expectations that I would fail. This test has four parts to it and if I just fail one part, I fail the whole test. They test on listening skills, speaking, writing and reading comprehension. We didn’t do the speaking part, but we did the other three. The listening was the most difficult for all of us and nearly everyone in the class failed that section – except ME! Actually, there were a few others that passed it too, and I didn’t have the high score, but I did get 18.5 out of 22 and anything above 15 is a passing grade. Woo hoo. The reading comprehension section I got 23.5 out of 25 so that was pretty good and my writing was just a passing score as they don’t give points on that. The Good Teacher Inga has every confidence that I’ll pass the REAL test next week, but I’m not so sure as I feel I just got lucky this time. We’ll see. It does encourage me a little when I see just how many failed the test and I didn’t even come close to failing – and also that I don’t really do any homework or give much attention to learning the language other than showing up to class. So, two points for me.
We’ve been having more open discussions in my Norsk class about different aspects of Norwegian life. Last week we were talking about what it takes to get a job here, this week we were talking about marriage. To get a decent job in Norway a person just needs to be able to speak the language and have the right last name. There is such incredible prejudice against the foreigners that even if someone is fully qualified for an engineer job, for instance, they won’t get it if they have a foreign last name (especially if it’s from an Arab nation). It’s one of the many ways the native Norwegians protest the influx of all the foreigners. Thirty years ago there were practically no foreigners living here and the lifestyle was kept fairly constant, but now with the UN dictating more open borders and all EU countries having to take in refugees, Norway is becoming more and more a melting pot and many people here don’t like that one little bit. So they do what they can to control what they can and keep the foreigners from “melting”. One Arab guy finally changed his last name and he at least started getting interviews for engineer jobs, but still didn’t land one. He’s now a waiter.
This afternoon I went for another walk around the neighborhood (see photo) as the day was cloudy, but mild, and I remembered to take my camera with me. So many photo opportunities; so little time. Kory worked today and again tonight as he went to Filadelfia Church for a men’s work party. All church activities here start at 8:00 or 8:30 at night. Their reasoning is that the parents can tuck the kids into bed and get a sitter easier if the kids are already asleep… so things start incredibly late and go until 10:30, 11:00 or later, like everyone keeps those hours. I find it so odd. Most church activities I’ve been involved with in America try to be done by 8:00 or 8:30 at night so there is definitely a cultural difference in that area. I’ve seen several events around here that don’t even start until midnight.
Kaleb was having a lovely day at school, sitting quietly at his desk practicing his script writing and out of the blue he got body slammed so hard he nearly fell out of his seat – by none other than Morten. That kid can’t even walk past Kaleb without causing a scene, and the teacher was standing about three feet away from the whole thing. So Kaleb and I had a good laugh today as he recreated the incident and showed me what the body slam did to the word he was writing at the time. I’m so thankful he has some perspective on Morten and doesn’t take his actions too personal. Other than that, his day was without incident. He did take about two hours to get his homework done though, and other kids in his class say they only take about 20 minutes, but Kaleb likes to dawdle. Perhaps he should get serious about art as all his homework pages are full of scribbles and doodles of every kind… he’s not much on time management, that kid
Today our class got the results back from our Norsk Prøve 2 practice test we took last week. Going in to it I was sure I would fail, as I forgot so much over the holidays. Then when I was taking it I thought it was just too easy and I would pass with flying colors. Then after we took it and I started talking to some other students who said it was very difficult, I had second thoughts. I thought maybe it seemed easy because I didn’t fully understand all the instructions, so then I went back to my expectations that I would fail. This test has four parts to it and if I just fail one part, I fail the whole test. They test on listening skills, speaking, writing and reading comprehension. We didn’t do the speaking part, but we did the other three. The listening was the most difficult for all of us and nearly everyone in the class failed that section – except ME! Actually, there were a few others that passed it too, and I didn’t have the high score, but I did get 18.5 out of 22 and anything above 15 is a passing grade. Woo hoo. The reading comprehension section I got 23.5 out of 25 so that was pretty good and my writing was just a passing score as they don’t give points on that. The Good Teacher Inga has every confidence that I’ll pass the REAL test next week, but I’m not so sure as I feel I just got lucky this time. We’ll see. It does encourage me a little when I see just how many failed the test and I didn’t even come close to failing – and also that I don’t really do any homework or give much attention to learning the language other than showing up to class. So, two points for me.
We’ve been having more open discussions in my Norsk class about different aspects of Norwegian life. Last week we were talking about what it takes to get a job here, this week we were talking about marriage. To get a decent job in Norway a person just needs to be able to speak the language and have the right last name. There is such incredible prejudice against the foreigners that even if someone is fully qualified for an engineer job, for instance, they won’t get it if they have a foreign last name (especially if it’s from an Arab nation). It’s one of the many ways the native Norwegians protest the influx of all the foreigners. Thirty years ago there were practically no foreigners living here and the lifestyle was kept fairly constant, but now with the UN dictating more open borders and all EU countries having to take in refugees, Norway is becoming more and more a melting pot and many people here don’t like that one little bit. So they do what they can to control what they can and keep the foreigners from “melting”. One Arab guy finally changed his last name and he at least started getting interviews for engineer jobs, but still didn’t land one. He’s now a waiter.
This afternoon I went for another walk around the neighborhood (see photo) as the day was cloudy, but mild, and I remembered to take my camera with me. So many photo opportunities; so little time. Kory worked today and again tonight as he went to Filadelfia Church for a men’s work party. All church activities here start at 8:00 or 8:30 at night. Their reasoning is that the parents can tuck the kids into bed and get a sitter easier if the kids are already asleep… so things start incredibly late and go until 10:30, 11:00 or later, like everyone keeps those hours. I find it so odd. Most church activities I’ve been involved with in America try to be done by 8:00 or 8:30 at night so there is definitely a cultural difference in that area. I’ve seen several events around here that don’t even start until midnight.
Kaleb was having a lovely day at school, sitting quietly at his desk practicing his script writing and out of the blue he got body slammed so hard he nearly fell out of his seat – by none other than Morten. That kid can’t even walk past Kaleb without causing a scene, and the teacher was standing about three feet away from the whole thing. So Kaleb and I had a good laugh today as he recreated the incident and showed me what the body slam did to the word he was writing at the time. I’m so thankful he has some perspective on Morten and doesn’t take his actions too personal. Other than that, his day was without incident. He did take about two hours to get his homework done though, and other kids in his class say they only take about 20 minutes, but Kaleb likes to dawdle. Perhaps he should get serious about art as all his homework pages are full of scribbles and doodles of every kind… he’s not much on time management, that kid
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