#weekthirtysix

Week Thirty Six/Nine Months

Week Thirty Seven/Nine Months and one week/Just over nine months

[Editor's note: I have NO idea what happened with my math since I calculated the last two weeks as nine months/nine months and one week as well, but math has never bring my strongest point.]

On the language front:

During Week Thirty Six the Theatre Cafe Festival came to Oslo. There were a few different events and I did subtitling for three of them. Two of the readings were originally written in German and the third in Portuguese. They were each performed in Norwegian. Because there were so many international guests I was given the job of chopping the English translation into PowerPoint slides. I sat through a few rehearsals and in the end I was able to cue each slide in sync with the spoken action on stage.

>My favourite play was Tristhet og glede i sjiraffenes liv [Sadness and Joy in the Life of Giraffes] by Tiago Rodrigues. (I'm not sure of the original Portuguese title.) The main characters are a nine year old girl and her suicidal teddy bear. The teddy bear is named Judy Garland. I'm not quite sure if he just has a potty mouth or Tourette's Syndrome. By the end of the rehearsals I had learned six Norwegian curse words.

>Despite initially thinking that profane language from this part of the country was far too mild (I heard that they really go in up north) as a result of my curse word education, one actually slipped out when I got frustrated with setting up the slideshow later in the weekend.

Soooooo... at the beginning of Week Thirty Seven I lost my job. I was still reeling from the news, which is why I didn't post last week. I was very fortunate to have found a job so early. After changing ownership the company I work for is going through a restructure and my whole department was laid off. Fortunately, I still have a job until the end of the month.

> In an effort to focus on the positive it has been noted that my current language skills put me in a much better position to be employed than when I got the job I just lost.

>I also figure that I can start blogging about the shenanigans that happened in the workplace. In an effort to be somewhat professional I have tried to keep things positive and on the occasions when I have had something negative to say about someone I have waited until I knew that I wasn't going to see the person again before blogging about them.

>A few days later, on the first of May. It struck me as ironic that I lost my job at the beginning of the week that includes Arbeidernes dag [Labor Day/International Worker's Day].

Near to the start of the week I went to the post office to mail some important documents to the UK. While I was in the queue I noticed that the CSR on till three was helping a customer in English and in error I hoped I would get her. This was completely unlike the pleasant exchange I had with a postal worker a few a few weeks ago (it was a different post office). I explained (in English) that I was sending official documents and I needed them to arrive quickly. Before giving me a form she asked if I could read Norwegian. Jeg sa bare litt. [I said only a little.] So, she gave me an English language form. Then there was another form which I started filling out, but she pulled it right from under my pen while I was still writing (I guess it was the wrong one). She gave me another form and I told her that the new form was not in English she insisted that it was, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be French/Norwegian. She asked if I read French. When I said no she snarkily remarked, “No Norwegian, no French either, hm.” Rude! There are hundreds of thousands of languages on earth and she was giving me attitude for not speaking the two that she suggested. It crossed my mind to ask if she had the form in Spanish? Swahili? Greek? Korean? Wolof? (although most Wolof speakers also speak French) Jamaican Patois?! In the end I figured out the Norwegian side of the form and I doubt my pitiful high school/college Spanish would've helped even if she had been able to find a Spanish/Norwegian version of the form. I filled it out as best I could but there was one section I didn't understand so I asked, “Hva betyr 'innleverings posten'?” [“What does <<insert a word I don't understand here>> mean?”] and I didn't even end my question with one of the many cuss words I had learned at the weekend. I was so annoyed! She doesn't know me. She has no idea how long I've been in the country or if I'm on holiday. Other people do not get to decide what level of language skills I should have! Besides, I think I'm doing pretty freaking well. To add insult to injury, I didn't even realise how much I had been charged. 888 NOK! That's 88.38 GBP or 149.05 USD.

Yesterday I went to a storytelling event with min amerikanske venninne [my American friend]. Jeg forstatt nesten alt. [I understood almost everything.] After the stories were over we sat finishing our drinks and I fed-back to her what I thought I understood (she has lived here for eight years and is fluent). Taking into account different dialects, I really did get almost everything. The first story was told by a man who was not only speaking in a different dialect but according to my friend he was also using quite complex vocabulary that even she didn't get completely. I couldn't concentrate on the second story because one word kept coming up and I was convinced that I had heard it before so I spent the whole time trying to remember what it meant. Afterwords I asked my friend what the word 'kreft' ['cancer'] translated to. I missed out on a sad story because I didn't get the most important word in it. She suggested that I get out a pen and write down any words that I didn't understand in subsequent stories. During the next one she whispered, “tooth fairy” to me and that was all I needed for that story to make sense. The final story was by a storyteller that we both know. We are volunteering at Fortellerfestivalen [the Storytelling Festival] at the end of this month. I found the last story the easiest to understand. That might have been because, as my friend suggested, that this storyteller we know is so expressive, but I think the fact that I have had a few meetings with her and gotten used to her voice helped also. She is one of the people who insists on speaking Norwegian as much as I can understand when I she speaks to me. And I'm grateful for that. In our last meeting she kept asking, "Hva sa du?" ["What did you say?"] until I got the hint that I should try speaking in Norwegian. I was in fact able to remember all the words I needed to express my point.

Weather:

The weather is consistently spring-like these days.

I have started taking regular walks.

You might have seen my bounty from a walk I took at the weekend. I wrote a blog about my relationship to four-leaf clovers which was posted on May 4.

Culture:

The Theatre Cafe Festival is a European festival. The first leg was in York, UK a few months ago then it came to Oslo. It is due to go to Berlin and Amsterdam later in the year. The two German plays that I did the subtitling for had similar themes. They both had protagonists that were deported from Germany and there are so many similarities that I have a hard time telling the plot points one from the other but in one of them the main character describes his nine month stay in a detention facility like a pregnancy. He was born one way and when he came out of detention and was sent “home” he had been reborn as a different person. I found that particularly relatable since I was/am around the nine-month mark in this new part of my life.

At the closing party it was really important to me that I met Tiago Rodrigues as he was the writer of my favourite piece in the festival. I wanted to thank him for my education in Norwegian profanity. We chatted for a bit and I told him how long I have been here and I gave him the entire run down in regards to where I am from. Later he introduced me to his wife (and producer) Magda. When he introduced me he gave the most succinct description I have ever heard in regards to my background. He described me as a third generation Jamaican immigrant to the UK, a second/first generation British immigrant to the US, and a first generation Jamaican/British/American immigrant to Norway. If I had met him earlier it might not have occurred to me to explore my identity in blog writing. They told me about Portugal and they both feel like they are from Lisbon. Many people identify more with a city (especially if it is a metropolitan big/capital city) than they do with the country the city is in. I agree that this is an important distinction. Lisbon is on my list I would like to visit there soon.

There is so much to say about the event, SLAM! where I read one poem last week that I wrote a separate blog about it. I've included links to UStream if you would like to watch it.

>While at SLAM! I posted a video on Instagram and noticed that I had gotten a 'like' from someone that I wasn't following. I always look at the accounts of random likes to make sure they are not spammers. Whilst doing my routine check I noticed that she had taken a picture at the same event. As I was looking around to she if I could recognise her I noticed that the woman sitting next to me was looking around as well. We made I eye contact and I asked if her if she was on Instagram. We chatted for a bit. Don't let people tell you that social networking is ruining human interaction. It is actually great at making connections!

I am trying to eat healthier and be more active. At the weekend I made an amazing, completely vegan, Thai green curry which I am very proud of.