Well, as it turns out, I didn’t pass the Norsk Prøve 3 test. I passed the reading and listening, but totally failed on the writing. It was something about all those grammar rules… they just haven’t sunk in yet. But it’s pretty insulting to be a writer and fail the writing portion. The majority of our class failed the test in one way or another so The Good Teacher realizes we have some work to do before we are ready for the real test. And I think she knew that. So I had to fight off the disgust I felt with myself all day. Inga thinks I just need to give up thinking in English and be more immersed in Norwegian –reading it every day, writing it, and speaking it all the time. She said it’s the hardest for English speakers to learn the language because so many here are willing to speak English, which delays our learning Norwegian. True enough. But I must say, I’m not surprised I failed. I would have been shocked if I passed as I know I don’t even have some of the basic things down, like sentence structure, verb tenses, making nouns plural and identifying the gender of the words. It’s all just too hard. So we relaxed a bit the last hour of the class and went to an art gallery then out for coffee afterwards. We ended up talking more English than Norwegian, because it’s just so easy. Uff da.During lunch break today I was outside on the grounds and witnessed a terrible fight between two boys about Kaleb’s age that go to the private school that meets in the same building we do. They boys were up on the cliff behind the school and nearly rolled off it as they were wrestling. I yelled for them to stop, but the one boy looked up and saw I wasn’t a teacher and just kept punching the other one. All the children standing around were throwing rocks and bricks onto the poor boy on the ground, as well as poking them both with sticks. I couldn’t believe it. One of the students from our school finally got a staff member’s attention and when the kids saw her coming they stopped, but all she did was stand there and tell them not to fight. I yelled at her and said she should be doing something more than just talking to them as the other kid looked like he needed a doctor. I was so angry after I saw that, especially knowing that there are no consequences for kids that do such a thing. And Tobias told me earlier this week some kid in his school got beat up horribly by a whole gang of kids and ended up with bruises and black eyes and much pain from being kicked hard many times while he was on the ground. I just don’t understand the tolerance Norwegians have for such violence. It hasn’t always been like that, so I can’t imagine how this behavior will play out in twenty years when these kids are all grown and they don’t think it’s wrong to beat up on other people. It makes me crazy. Ugh.
Kaleb had a big breakthrough in Algebra today as he’s been struggling so much with it lately. He was calling it “Alge-dorly” because “bra” means “good” in Norwegian and “dårlig” – pronounced “dorly” – means “bad”. He’s such a clever kid. But now that I told him he could have five minutes extra each day on either the computer or his Nintendo for every problem he gets right, all of a sudden he can do them all perfectly. Imagine that. At least his love for electronics hasn’t dimmed his love for reading. He still devours books faster than anyone I know and was up at six this morning reading. Kory told someone the other day that Kaleb is a “bookworm” and the person told Kory that in Norway, someone that loves to read is called a “leser hest” – which means “reading horse.” Pretty funny difference between the two images.
Kory couldn’t find the parts he needed to fix our van but he finally found a place that could repair it, so he got the seal replaced and I’m thankful for that because we leave tomorrow for our big road trip around the southern coast of Norway. Plus, we soon have to take the van in for the annual vehicle inspection. If the car doesn’t pass, they give us so many days to repair it or take it to the junkyard. Many a decent car is in the junkyard because people would rather have something new that repair anything old. Strange system. I keep thinking they could at least ship them out to a third world country where someone doesn’t care about the rust spots or other such thing they don’t like about the car, as long as the car runs, but I guess the transportation costs would make that prohibitive. It just seems so wasteful. There are no junker cars here in Norway, that’s for sure.
I spent all afternoon cleaning, packing up and preparing for our road trip tomorrow. Kaleb played with Tobias while Kory was over working on Odd’s bedroom extension. Someday I want to go on a trip and just walk out the door with nothing but the clothes on my back and cash in my pocket, having done nothing beforehand, just to see how it would all play out. Sometimes I feel my efforts are not as appreciated as I’d like, but as I say often to Kory, “Planning is the key.”
