#weekfiftytwo

Whoo hoo! I've lived here for a year. Jeg har bodd i Norge i ett år!

On the language front:

After one year, I'm not fluent. I'm not surprised, but I feel good about where I am.

This week I attended a poetry gig. I ended up performing and afterwards a girl gave me a compliment. I didn't hear the last sentence she said and I told her so, in English. She apologised and repeated everything she had just said but in Norwegian, despite me interrupting to say that I had understood everything she said expect the last thing she said. I need to practice saying, «Kan du gjenta den siste setningen?» [“Can you repeat the last sentence?”]

A couple times this week I've had to ask the fiance' to just speak English because my “Norwegian brain” was tired.

I went back to my Norwegian class last night. I remembered a lot. Also there is a new English guy in the class. I have seen other people who share languages group together. It will be nice to talk to him about the British perspective on Norway from time to time.

Weather:

This week I haven't left the house without a hoodie/cardigan and/or an umbrella.

My mother sent me a care package which included SEVEN pairs of sandals. The weather has not been consistently appropriate for sandals at all. I doubt that there will be enough summer left for me to get a chance to wear them so I moved them into storage in the basement. I will have plenty of choice next summer (and probably the next few summers) though.

#ProjectHeadwrap is back. There has been several mornings that I have not wanted to go out with wet hair so I have gone back to occasionally covering up.

Culture:

Last week we had a family dinner for bestemors [Grandma's] birthday. There were a few a instances when I started to say something in English and after a few seconds I realised I knew all/most of the Norwegian vocabulary so I stopped myself and started again in Norwegian. After dinner we established that, “«Jeg kan K.» [“I can K.”] That's probably a terrible way to structure the sentence. What I am trying to say is: I can pronounce the letter K. It is one of the harder sounds for new Norwegian speakers and even Norwegian children to learn. I can't hear the difference between a correct and an incorrect pronunciation yet, but by some fluke I'm saying it right. This was confirmed by the seven native speakers present, including one teacher!

In the middle of the week I went to a monthly poetry show called, SLAM! Due to a clash with the days that I attend Norwegian class I won't be able to attend again for a long time. This was my last chance before I started class this week so I'm glad I got to squeeze it in.