Downtown Trysil.. I'm obsessed with tree art lately!
Anders all suited up! :)
View of the mountains from our cabin.
It's been quite nice having an actual break from school, besides the days that I was home sick (they don't count!). I will need to do some work while I'm home though, because I have some assignments to do and just for my own benefit, because I have to start preparing for the Norwegian test that I'll be taking at the end of May! I need to re-read Stein På Stein, the book that I was reading with my previous class, because most of the topics that will be on this test will come from this book. I have a lot of confidence that I will pass these tests though, I just need to be careful not to make too many careless mistakes. We took a practice test the other week and when we went through it, I realized all these silly mistakes that I had made, probably because I was just nervous/stressed taking it, but if I just relax and do the best I can, I think I will come out of it alive! I really need to pass both the oral and written tests though, because it's only going to make my job hunting endeavors a little bit easier, although it isn't always a qualification in the job search. Speaking of which, I actually found a kindergarten assistant job online last night and sent in an application along with my CV, just for 'shits & giggles' I guess. It's for an outdoor kindergarten in one of the nicest parts of Oslo and the position starts at the end of July, which would be perfect for me, although if I happen to be called into an interview I would have to ask if it would be okay to jump the starting date up 2 weeks, because I'll be in the US. Although I would like to nail a full-time job before I travel back home, I have to be realistic too. I'll be done my class at the end of June and then only 1 month later I'll be in the US. I don't think it would be the best to start a job only for a few weeks and then have to leave for 2 weeks, when I'm just starting to adjust into a new environment. So, this is my new plan! I'll just have to suck it up, be patient and keep working hard at the flower shop with whatever hours I am given every week, which still isn't consistent, but I have to be grateful that I am given any hours at all! I made a little mistake yesterday though, which really stressed me out, but I think nothing bad will come of it.. apparently I was on the schedule to work a few hours at the flower shop yesterday, but I had no idea and it wasn't written down in my little day planer, which I have become accustomed to writing everything down in! I had about 10 missed calls on my phone yesterday from colleagues wondering where I was.. when I finally saw the calls and called back they had already found a replacement and said not to worry, but I was really confused. I guess a new schedule had been put up Monday, which I had to have overlooked, because I worked Monday and saw that I had to work this upcoming Saturday, but didn't see anything for Wednesday.. good gracious, maybe I need glasses! My boss is in Sweden for the week, so I hope she won't be too mad when she finds out. It was a honest mistake, but a solution was found. No one can be perfect, right??
I'm also trying to plan a small trip to both London and Madrid before I fly back to the US this summer. A friend of mine that I met on Semester At Sea, and whom I flew out to Wisconsin in summer 2010 to visit, is going to be traveling in Europe in May and June and she wants me to meet her at the end of her journey in London! I of course am ALL for it and pretty sure that it can happen. I already asked if it was okay to take a couple days off from school, so that I can make my trip a long weekend and be worth it. Flight tickets through a flight company called Ryan Air are also unbelievably cheap, and a round-trip flight ticket from Oslo to London will be only around $50! Crazy! I would be flying out of and into smaller airports though and there are some restrictions, but a $50 trip is hard to pass up! I don't have so much money in the world to make this happen, but I know that we are on the same page and we would probably stay at a hostel and just re-live when we traveled the world together. I cannot wait!! Plans are still tentative, but we're working on them, but I'm thinking I will be going right after the Norwegian test, so either June 1st, or 2nd until the 5th! My roommate from SAS, whom I visited in WI in summer 2010 too, will also be in Madrid in July with her family, because her brother is studying abroad there. I'm trying to make plans to go visit her as well, which will be a lot easier to make, because classes will be over, but the flight is more expensive. Anders and I also really want to try to go to Italy at the end of summer, or in the fall, but we'll have to see how the summer pans out first. I need to find a job first! So many plans and ideas though, I just hope that I will be able to do most of them, if not all of them.
I was hoping to spend a lot of time wandering the city this week, but the weather dropped some degrees from the last couple of weeks. Now you have to bundle up a bit if you're going to go outside, although last week we were soaking up the warm sun in a park! These bipolar weather patterns remind me of life in NH, where it was always unpredictable. But, now that Anders isn't working for the rest of the week, we're going to try to find some new places to take a hike! Last week, and the week before that, we wandered around the city together and he showed me new streets that I had never been down before, which was cool! I have also fallen in love with lounging around Akershus Festning which is a fort right next to the harbor that was used during the wars to defend Oslo from attackers. We took some great pics!
Oslo's soccer team Vålerenga has started playing again too, which makes Anders very happy.. so we went to their home game opener at Ullevål stadium!
Now that spring is coming, I have decided that I want to lose a little weight. I know that this shouldn't be one of my main priorities at the moment, but I just want to get in the habit of eating healthy all the time and watching my 'sweets' intake a little better, because let's be honest, ever since I was a little girl I could never say no to something sweet, or chocolaty. I'm not giving it up completely, but I'm teaching myself a little self-control I guess you could say, ha ha. I actually started writing my daily food in-take in a little journal, just to see how I eat on a daily basis without thinking much about it, and hopefully I can re-read through the entries and make some healthy changes. Over the last few months too I haven't been so consistent at going to the gym on a regular basis, which is for a number of reasons that sometimes I was just too busy and too tired, but Anders and I are trying to be dedicated to going to the gym regularly every week. I know this will give me a lot more energy and can act as a stress reliever and also make me feel good about myself all the time too, which is most important! It will also help my recovery with my knee, which has been amazing me lately, but I still have my bad days.
I still haven't heard back from the University of Oslo yet about my application status on the Special Education Master's program, but I'm pretty sure by the end of this month I will hear back. I am also still waiting to hear from the organization called NOKUT, which is an organization that evaluates foreigners education and pretty much says whether your education/degree matches standards here, or not. Having a Bachelor's degree from the US, I don't think there will be any problems, but I'm still pretty eager to here from them. The process takes on average 4 months though, so I have a little more time to wait it out, because they received the last of my application/paperwork in January. Because my degree is a little 'different', I'm assuming/hoping they will say that my degree fits in the category of general pedagogy, but we'll see, whatever the system decides is what they decide. All I'm hoping is that I don't need to take any extra classes to fulfill what a Bachelor's degree is here, because I already took 4 years of classes in the US for it! Anders thinks that I don't need to worry so much about it, so I guess he's right. Patience and time have become my 2 new best friends here!
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