Norge; mitt nye hjem~: "Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck."

Not even a couple weeks ago I had thought that I had stumbled upon a new and exciting job opportunity, but I'm not so sure anymore if things are going to work out like I had hoped... back in the summer when I moved to Norway I had signed up for a well-known AuPair site online which is used all over the world to help families find caregivers and people like myself to find jobs as aupairs, babysitters or nannys. It was a spontaneous move on my part, because the only thing that had been set in stone was my Norwegian class with the International Summer School. I didn't have to pay anything to set up a profile, so I thought "Why not?" I found it pretty interesting that I could find families within a short radius from where I lived that needed help. But, unfortunately I was never able to contact families that seemed interested directly unless I subscribed to the site, which obviously wasn't free. So, I never received direct messages from anybody, other than an e-mail notification saying that a family had added me to their Favorites. Before I knew it (back last summer) I had been applying for a visa, beginning a new Norwegian class and my schedule became full. After that, the AuPair site had been pushed onto the back burner... until now. A couple weekends ago, out of the blue, I received a pretty lengthy message from a family living in Oslo, located only about 35 minutes away. I immediately responded with budding interest, because what they were looking for seemed to fit into my already busy schedule. After a few e-mails and a couple phone calls were exchanged, they invited me to their home where I had the opportunity to meet them and their 3 children. I became even more interested in the opportunity, but we couldn't come to an agreement on what they would hypothetically pay me if they were to 'hire' me. Let's just say that what they were offering was a lot lower than I could even think about taking. Yeah, I admit that a lot of my stress lately has been around money, so the thought of working for too little money and then not being able to have any free time what so ever on top of an already packed schedule, I would probably lose my mind... I had a conversation again with the family today expressing these exact thoughts to them, but I will hear from then again in a couple days to make the final decision on whether we can come to an agreement or just move on with no hard feelings. At this point, whatever comes of it will be for the best...

As many of you have been asking lately too, "How's the kindergarten?" I'm actually pretty satisfied so far with it. The employees that I work with are very impressed with my Norwegian and say that I shouldn't have to worry. Tomorrow will be only my third day there too! I was pretty nervous Monday when I went in for the first time, without ANY idea of what to expect... I was more observant than anything and trying to learn the kids names. We went on a skiing trip with the kids, which was interesting to say the least, especially on my part. I just starting beginning to learn how to cross country ski and before yesterday I had only been 3 times with Anders before. I had no idea either that we were supposed to go skiing either so I had to borrow one of the employees who is a man much taller than me and with a larger shoe size. Not only am I not even comfortable on my OWN skiis, you could probably imagine how I was feeling ha ha. It didn't surprise me that all the kids (4-6 year olds) flew down the steep slops with no fear and care in the world though. I was actually intimidated by them! There is a saying here in Norway that Norwegians "bli født med ski på beina" which means that they are all born with skis on their feet, and I could see why! It's nothing like snowboarding and probably even more intimidating for me because of my operation that I had on my knee. I fell pretty hard once right on my hurt knee at an awkward angel, but I was happy that it just left a bruise. It was probably the first hard fall I've had on my knee since I hurt it... ever since I torn my ACL and meniscus back in November 2010 and then having surgery in December 2010, the last year has been filled with intensive recovery, cautiousness and paranoia. It took everything I had to swallow my nervousness and I did manage to go down one of the bigger hills, but I had my brakes on the entire way ;) But, you have to start somewhere, right!? Just like learning any new sport though, it takes a lot of practice, especially to build up self-confidence, so I'm hoping by the winters end that I will begin feeling more like a Norwegian at last!

Today we were preparing for the 'Carnival' that we are going to have on Friday. The theme is 'jungle' so we all have to dress up as a jungle animal on Friday, which should be pretty funny. I've already decided on going as a cheetah, because I have plenty of clothing options with cheetah pattern to choose from ha ha. We did a lot of drawing, coloring and cutting out things that will be hung all over the kindergarten. Tomorrow we are taking the kids to the snowboarding world championships which are going to be held right in Oslo, which is pretty cool! We'll be watching some of the preliminaries for the championship which will be held over the weekend. So, we have a lot of fun things planned this week and I have learned that they always have different events planned to make every week different from the last. I am very happy in my 'praksis' placing! I look forward to the next 5 months working there.

Here are some pictures from the area where Anders and I, as well as the kindergarten, went skiing: