Preparations

Today was packing day for the weekend. It’s amazing how much stuff we need just to get away for a few days. Where we are going has a lot of snow and the boys will be playing in it, plus skiing and maybe snowshoeing. There is also a huge pool so we will all swim, and there is a formal night on Saturday so we all must bring our Sunday best clothes. And then there’s the road food, snack food and lunches for a few days, plus all the electronics; laptops, portable DVD player for the three hour drive plus camera equipment, Nintendo and chargers for it all. I think we’ll have half of what we own packed into the back of the van which makes me happy we bought the vehicle we did. I am looking forward to the massage.

We had more snow overnight so everything is just beautiful around here. Of course, it’s beautiful anyway, but when all the world turns white, it kicks it up a notch (although the photo today was taken the day before it started to snow). Kory drove Kaleb to school this morning, not just because the streets were icy, but because he couldn’t wear his backpack. He had a little accident last night at bedtime and he can’t bear the pain of any pressure on his back. I was lying down on his bed with him, praying for him and having a little pillow talk, and right before I said good-night and got up, he jumped up to go pee one last time. I was just rolling out of his bed but he tried to beat me up and went out toward the end of his bed and fell, scraping his back against a desk lamp. Oh, how he cried. He got a pretty good injury below his shoulder bone and on the back of his arm. I’m glad I had jumbo sized band-aids because it took two of them to cover the scrape. He’s such a drama king anyway, so it took a while to calm him down. I’m just hoping it will heal fast enough so the chlorine in the pool won’t sting. I’d hate for anything to get in the way of the boys enjoying themselves, as they have been anticipating this more than I expected. Most of Tobias’ friends have been to this resort, so he’s heard a lot about it and now he gets to even the score, and he’s pumped. We leave right after school tomorrow. Woo hoo.

I was noticing this morning on the bus I was the only one that didn’t have a scarf around my neck - EVERYONE wears them – even the men. And some of these scarves are more like shawls which they put on backwards. Everyone pulls the pointy tip of the shawl tight up under their chin (fringe and all) and then they wrap both ends around the back of their neck and to the front again, so there is this big ol' bulky thing sticking out of the front of their coat. Even men wear these shawls, which I find odd for some reason. I can’t say that I have really noticed my neck being so cold I need to wrap it up tight, but most people even wear them indoors where it's not at all cold, so maybe it's more of a fashion statement, or just a Nordic thing. I'm not sure as I'm oblivious to both.

I’ve been given extra writing assignments to help me prepare for the real Norsk Prøve 2 test on Monday. I got back some of my creations today, heavily marked up with red pen, yet again. But The Good Teacher Inga insists I’m still beyond the Norsk 2 level because she understands perfectly what I am writing, and that’s more important than all the grammatical details at this point. I finally believed her today when she was teaching us about different types of homes, and the names for areas in a house. She informed us that the west side of Norway will always say they are “in” a room in the house using the preposition “på”, but all those living in the eastern part of Norway will use the preposition “i” for the same thing. I have trouble with those prepositions because “på” more often than not, means “on” and “i” frequently means “in.” Inga says we can use either one, but it’s best if we use the one that’s common to this neck of the woods. So this is why, apparently, grammar doesn’t matter. The entire country can’t agree on what’s grammatically correct so they just figure comprehension is the ultimate goal. It drives me crazy, because there is still that whole, “nynorsk” versus “bokmål” thing going on with these two “official” versions of Norwegian, plus all the dialects. I can’t even have Kory help me with my homework because when he does, I get it all wrong – he speaks “nynorsk” and I’m learning “bokmål.” I want to scream. It’s a wonder these people have advanced as far as they have in the world without the ability to clearly communicate. Oh wait, maybe that’s WHY they are so advanced… because they’ve had to learn how to understand one another in the midst of all these communication difficulties. I’ll keep trying, but I’ve talked to several other “imported” women that are about ready to throw in the towel, as most everyone around here speaks English anyway. I wonder why.