Friday, August 30, 2013

Day 5

Posted by 雯雯 at 7:13 PM 0 comments
Today was a good day. Although it was raining a bit when I got up, it didn't matter much because everything happens inside anyway. We have four meals a day, during weekdays that means breakfast at 7.45, lunch at 11.15, dinner at 14.45 and supper at 19.00. Mostly we're given a choice of bread and cereal for breakfast and supper, with various meats and spreads to put on top. For lunch, you eat bread which you packed yourself from breakfast in white paper with your name written on it. They gather them all up in a basket and place it out at lunchtime. There's also fruit served then, which I'm very happy for. Dinner is always a warm meal. Apparently, the four students with kitchen service can help decide the menu at the start of  the week, but so far it seems like mostly hot dishes with potatoes, and seafood three times a week. Fridays seems to be leftover day, where they make one small dish plus serve leftovers.

In any case, I usually have bread with ham and cheese and some sliced peppers on top, with a glass of milk or apple juice - today was no different. After attending the daily morning meeting, where teachers and eventually students talk for 20 minutes about a topic of their choice, I changed my clothes and headed to the PE hall for my lesson. It was just as fun as last time, and our teacher even showed us a little bit of... martial arts I guess, with a spear and a staff. She has hurt one of her knees, she told us, so she can't really jump or go all out, but she still jumped around in a pretty amazing way.

During the lessons, as a rule, the two teachers (though we only have one at a time because they are married, so whoever isn't teaching us stays at home to take care of their kids) try to use Chinese as much as possible. I've got a slight advantage because I've learnt some before, so I more or less understand what she wants us to do. This also puts me in a slightly awkward position, because the teachers know this and that I lived a little while in Hong Kong. Sometimes, they'll say something difficult to the class, then they'll look at me and go "Can't you tell them what this means?" Sometimes, this works out very well and I can tell the class what it is they said, but then sometimes I have no idea what it means and I stand there looking blank and embarrassed. I guess this is good motivation to learn even more!

Because of my.. somewhat unique position in a class filled with relative beginners, our male teacher had a talk with me after the lesson yesterday. After telling him that I've studied for a year before, but have forgotten quite a bit and probably have a fair deal of holes, he told me to use the textbook and work with the chapters I felt I needed. I could also do exercises or write for practice and hand it in to either him or the female teacher for corrections, and he would print out some resources from other books for me to use. I wouldn't have minded following the lessons the same way as the others and just studying whatever I felt like individually, but it's really nice of them to give me the help and resources to do it. I guess they really want everyone to learn as much as they can this year. Maybe I should try to write letters or short, simple essays or something for practice?

Later in the day, after dinner (meatballs and leftovers with rice!), I sat down with one of my friends from the Chinese class for some studying. It was fun going through the first chapter very thoroughly and talking about the different Chinese characters (called hanzi) and some grammar. We also worked some on pronunciation, though I don't feel all that confident in correcting her since I'm sure I've got a bit of an accent too. We didn't have time to go through any of the dialogue, but we've agreed to at least start with greeting each other in Chinese. It's a start! Hopefully I'll feel more confident speaking Chinese after this year.

Well, things are always happening here. I'll finish this post with some pictures I couldn't post before.

-30.08.2013

View of the Fjord

My room, or at least my bed. You can barely see the beautiful gravel road outside. Actually, my curtains don't completely cover the windows, so people can always look in. Thinking about it makes me feel uncomfortable, so I try not to. 

The common room. Usually filled with students playing games, laughing, reading and so on.

Day 4

Posted by 雯雯 at 2:11 PM 0 comments
Things are slowly falling into place here. The teachers and stuff are running out of information to feed us with, thankfully. Today we received information about our elective subjects, which we also picked later.

In the school, the main lessons we have are related to our main chosen course, so Chinese lessons and training for me, music-y lessons for the music people and so on. In addition to those we have some lessons that are the same for the entire school; one session of PE, a discussion period for current events, a short culture lesson and one hour of the entire school singing together every wednesday. In addition to that then, we have our electives, minimum one lesson a week, maximum.. four I guess? The school offers a range of alternatives which change once in a while. To make it easier on the teachers, today we put up our preferences, but also backup choices on a piece of paper.

I signed up for, on Wednesdays, guitar lessons (1), the show/revue group (2) or archery (3). Archery might've been further up if I didn't have to pay extra for it. On Fridays, the choice was slimmer, but I signed up for ball games (1) or drawing and painting (2). I also signed up for horse riding lessons. We'll see which ones I end up with!

We also started lightly with Chinese lessons today. The first part of the lesson was spent running around the school grounds doing a quiz about the class (which two students should you go to for first aid? this man has a kingly viking name, who is it?). The questions were spread around the school in sometimes awkard places, like under a table outside, on the back of a parked caravan, behind a sign and so on. After that was done, we got our textbooks and started learning, practising on each other going "how are you?" "I'm super good".

As I sat having dinner later (fish and potatoes), it hit me that when you learn a language, you mostly start with positive, kind expressions and don't learn more negative ones until later. Sure, we can say we're super good, but what if we feel absolutely horrible? Dinner was good, but what if it wasn't and I wanted to describe it to someone who wouldn't feel offended by it? I guess they don't really expect you to have very deep (or honest) conversations until you're further along with your studies.

The internet at my dorm is a bit unstable, so I find myself without internet quite often. In a way it's a good thing, because it means internet troglodytes like myself are forced to get out and do different things, talk to people. I guess that should have been the case today, and in a way it was, because I ended up playing some strategy game with relative strangers before supper. I gave in after supper though, and after a short session of playing the piano I returned to my room and studied and revised while people were playing games and watching movies elsewhere. I don't mind though, I had a great time. There's nothing more exciting than new textbooks and new things to write in, especially when the topic of the book is interesting to you!

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Day 3 - Going for a hike

Posted by 雯雯 at 6:09 PM 0 comments
Today we went for a hike. Normally, I'd take the least tiring and most scenic route, but my class is kind of the "athletic class" of the school somehow, so I feel I have an image to keep up. Actually I think the horse riding class is probably fit too, but for some reason many people seem to not think riding a horse is tiring. I'm pretty sure it is. Anyway, having to keep up my image, I chose to try out the toughest hike. It was a pretty steep staircase, apparently climbing 300-something meters up to a spot with a pretty view. By the end of it I was ... very tired. Embarrassingly so. I don't think anyone was fooled into thinking I'm in good shape, but at least I made it to the top and took some pictures.

View of Bergen from the top of the steep steep staircase

Continuing along a path we reached a lake where we were supposed to have lunch. I just had a banana before I was talked into taking a dip in the water. I hadn't really planned on swimming, but someone from my class was well prepared and at least had towels to spare. I waded out, slowly at first, but then jumped in after the others had done it (such a wimp). Personally, I thought the water was really really cold, but the northerner who had convinced me to do this and has a proclivity for ice bathing assured me it was pretty hot. Brr.


The totally not cold lake

By the time we were done swimming about, the rest of the steep hike group had split up into the people taking the long hike to the next top, or the ones taking the quick route down to the tram. Remaining was us four ice bathers and Mr. Prepared, who didn't jump in but lent us towels. We had planned on going to the next top, but everyone going had already left. Luckily our teacher was still around, and walked with us up. Though it wasn't as steep as the staircase, it was steep enough for me to be wheezing by the end of it.

Further up the mountain

At the top, I finished my lunch and sat around for a bit until we were continuing down. In contrast to the mountain path on the way up, the way down was a wide gravel road which Miss Northerner and I walked down together. Well, we started off walking, but when we realized Mr. Prepared and the two others were taking shortcuts and getting ahead of us, we started jogging down instead. Sometimes we slowed down to a walk if the road levelled out or if we needed to figure out the way, but mostly we just let gravity take us quickly down the windy path down the mountain. Eventually we did reach the bus stop, and didn't really feel how tired we were until we were sitting down and on our way home.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Day 1

Posted by 雯雯 at 5:26 PM 0 comments
I was sensible and went to breakfast early at 7.45. Then I was rather insensible, and had too much for breakfast and packed too much for lunch. The day started off properly after breakfast with an information thing in the auditorium. There was so much information, everything from when things happened to fire drills and our timetable. It looks pretty good, everybody has to do PE and there is plenty of time allotted for our actual course lessons.

The information continued with short breaks for 2 and a half hours, when we had lunch. I ended up chatting with a girl who's attending the Latin-America course, and after lunch I hitched a ride with her to the "nearby" shop, which isn't really THAT close and you have to go up loads of hills to reach it. I bought some bananas and carrots for snacks in the evening, and also washing powder (since I forgot to get it before). By the time we got back, lunch was nearly over.

At 12.15, we all met in the auditorium again. This time, the teacher for each of the courses fetched their 10-20 students and went to their respective classrooms. The music group went, the writing group went, the theatre group went, the art group went, the horse riding group went, the Latin America group went and mine went - all our separate ways.

When we arrived in the classrooms, more information awaited us, though this was course-specific and far more interesting. We introduced ourselves (something we've been doing a lot here). Though most classes here has a majority of girls, my class (China and martial arts) has something like 11 guys and 3 girls. One of the girls lives in my dorm, so remembering her name is easy, though I'm having a hard time with the others.. After hearing about our course and the structure, we received a tour of the school building(s). As we walked around, I made a mental note of all the pianos here (9 in total apparently) so I can find the most hidden and remote one to play once in a while. Though the pianos are all free to play by whomever, I don't want to bother anyone with it -w-

For dinner that day we had some sort of fish with potatoes, salad and sauce. I'm not too fond of fish, but this was nice, even if I found bones in my otherwise boneless fillet.

Thinking maybe I'd get a little time to relax, I went to my room after dinner, though not fast enough. At 15.15, two teachers came to talk to our dorm and give us, yes, more information. But before they could do that, we needed to introduce ourselves.

Apparently, we have to make a small skit or performance for Saturday - every dorm does. We decided on some sketch with stereotypes - geeks, blondes, creeps etc... I'm not entirely sure what I ended up doing, because people were talking very quickly and I didn't really mind doing anything, but I'm sure it will be fun :P

Well that's that... I should take more pictures. Right now, most of my dorm is out doing something - testing out the gym, going to the shop. I'm thinking I'll search for a piano somewhere to use before they decide to shut everything down. Toodles!

Still breathing

Posted by 雯雯 at 5:26 PM 0 comments
... somehow

I've had my first full day at school now, not that we've done anything very school-like. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's see..

I left home yesterday morning to drive to the airport. The weekend before, I'd been tidying furiously, but somehow manage to switch rooms with my brother and pack my stuff by Sunday. The plane ride was fairly comfortable, and the drive to school was comfortable as well.

At school, I was shown to my room, which I am not sharing with anyone (whoo for private space). Although the school is right next to a fjord, my room has a lovely view of the gravel road up to the school. That in itself isn't so bad, but during the afternoon, the sun is right outside my window, heating up my room like a greenhouse. Yay for curtains!

After I was all moved in, it was nearly time for the "opening party", but first, I took the time to take some pictures of the fjord. Sadly, the internet here isn't entirely good for uploading, so I can't post them here :o

The opening party, it seems, included sandwiches, performances by the teachers (including a barbershop quartet) and each class being presented name by name on a small stage. After a while of eating and singing, it was time for escorting parents and siblings to leave, and I headed back to my dorm. There're 16 other people in my dorm, and most of them decided to sit down in the common room to get to know each other. One girl had brought an instant camera and took pictures of all dorm 2's tenants with silly faces. We wrote names on every picture and displayed them in the hall.

Later that day, it was time for dinner. Being here gives me a kind of camp feeling, and when I think of camps I remember evenings with my tummy growling of hunger because I didn't eat enough at mealtime and didn't have anything in my room, so I ate a lot at lunch. However, it seems I don't really need to force myself because the meals are pretty nicely spaced.

In any case, that day at dinner we sang more and were treated to "ox steak" with a lovely cream sauce and potatoes and veggies... Ahh I love the food here -w- We even got ice cream and strawberries for dessert. I ate my fill at a big table with people from my dorm, whose names I was slowly starting to remember.

When we were all filled up and the tables were cleared out from the PE hall, I went back to the dorm. At this point I was pretty tired, but I stayed up regardless to get to know my neighbours more. Some of us ended up trying to play some sort of role-playing board game, but nobody really understood the rules. Still, it was fun. By the time we were done with the game it was already 11 PM and I was ready to sleep - and so I did.

 

~ sponge ~ Copyright © 2010 Design by Ipietoon Blogger Template Graphic from Enakei