The internet has been pretty bad lately, so I've been waiting with posting in hopes that it'd get better, but no luck. Thus, I'll just post now, using my phone as a router, though it is pretty bad as well.
I've gotten a new roommate since last. Red Cross needed to switch rooms, and though I've said I preferred a single room on my application, I've valiantly offered to be her roommate for the rest of the year. It's not really much of a loss for me. I'll pay about 1000 NOK less every month, and she probably spent more time in my room than in hers before (apart from sleeping and changing), so it's all good for me really. The only negative is I suddenly have less space, but I didn't use that much to begin with so I'm happy with this arrangement.
The course weeks continue, and last week was super fun. We got to try quite a few weapons, a double-edged sword (jian) for taichi, nunchuks for sanda and a staff for taolu. Personally I don't like nunchuks much, they're very.. all over the place. I've always liked swords, but the movements we're learning in taichi are mostly pretty and slow, but not so impressive when I do it. The staff is pretty cool though! Strong Handshake and Mr Prepare have "been running around with the woods with sticks since they were kids" so they're pretty good at staffs already, but I try to practise extra with the staff (also the other weapons) so I can handle them well too.
In the meantime, Red Cross fell for the nunchuks at first whirl and decided she was going to become the Nunchuk Queen (new nickname??), so she's been practising a lot. She's getting pretty good too! E managed to sprain his leg pretty bad and was out of commission for most of last week and decided that nunchuks were awesome too. He's been practising like crazy, and at breakfast one day, upon hearing Red Cross was going to be the Nunchuk Queen, decided he was going to be the Nunchuk Emperor. Of course, Red Cross wouldn't be beaten and decided that she'd be the Nunchuk Pharaoh instead ("since Pharaohs are obviously more awesome than Emperors"). They've got this little nunchuk rivalry going on now, which I'm happy not to take any part in.
We finished our presentations successfully last week, and this week we started the next culture part of our course week - tea and philosophy. This means sitting in pairs of two on blankets in the classroom with special equipment, learning to prepare tea a fancy Chinese way while we talk about Buddhism and Daoism and so on. It's very relaxing and good, apart from the fact that my legs keep falling asleep, and we've all gotten to taste some of FT's awesome Chinese tea.
Completely unrelated to my course, it is a fact that Game of Thrones often has a hard time getting up in the morning. If you miss the morning meeting you get loads of absence noted down, which is bad, but it's his responsibility so I usually don't mind it. Doll Girl, however, does get up and we usually go to breakfast together. It so happened that this Monday, the entire art class (Doll Girl and Game of Thrones included) we're going on an overnight field trip, so they needed to get up early to prepare mattresses and such. Doll Girl felt responsible and decided it was her job to make sure all the art class people in our dorm were up and ready. Since I was with her, I decided to help. Game of Thrones likes Game of Thrones. I also like Game of Thrones. Doll Girl has seen some, and so we're making her like it as well. We have a small game going (kind of a role play, I guess?) related to this, where we've got our own House with a banner and everything. I'm a Knight, Doll Girl is the resident Scholar-type ("Maester") in our castle and Game of Thrones is the Lord. Sometimes we sit and chat in our roles in English and, for some reason, Doll Girl and I decided that we should wake him up "In character". Thus, I started banging at his door quite loudly going "MILORD! MILORD!", yelling about our castle being under siege and that he needed to wake up fast. I stood there for quite a long time actually, and attracted a small audience, including E. Eventually I realized his door was unlocked, and so Doll Girl and I opened it softly, asking "Milord, are you awake?", to which he quite grouchily answered "Get out!".
Usually that'd end there, but it turns out that I hadn't only woken up Game of Thrones, I had woken up everybody still sleeping as well, including the theatre people who get to sleep in because of evening performances. They had apparently been quite scared, shocked then somewhat annoyed and told E about it, so he told me during dinner later. Of course I apologized to them (though, to be fair, it was already 8 am!), but now I randomly have Mr Prepared and E yelling "Milord, Milord!" after me. Well I don't mind, I think it's funny actually. The more playing along, the merrier!
29.10.2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Day 59
Hello again!
Time sure flies when you're having fun~ I'd like to skip straight to talking about this week, but I should talk about the weekend too...
Last Saturday, we had a seminar arranged by the equestrian class. That meant that we listened to three hours of talk about stables and racing and horses in general, and watched loads of Youtube clips. Apparently the equestrian class is sick of people saying that riding a horse is easy and not a sport, so we had to sit through two very similar ones that reprimanded us all for looking down on them. I felt somewhat insulted since I've never tried to tell them that riding a horse isn't difficult or tiring, but I'm sure it wasn't really a personal attack on any of the students. We're all nice, I think!
After the presentations, we all went to the racecourse. There were ten races set up for the day and we were to watch them all. To make us feel more involved, the horse class had taken the programme and cut out the horse information for all the races and given every person in school a horse or two. If your horse won a race, you won a secret prize which you'd get at supper later! It did work, somewhat. I got a horse called "The Sheik's Gold", and it was, as far as I could tell, the only horse owned by a Sheik from Dubai that had entered that day. I took it as a good sign and sat in the cold to watch.
As it turns out, it was a good sign, and my horse did win. As a prize, I got a large bar of chocolate, which I was going to eat later that evening. The evening before, we had started watching the X-men movies, since Doll Girl and Game of Thrones were feeling keen on an X-men marathon. Doll Girl had bought a nice fancy screen that she and Game of Thrones use for playing the Playstation, so we used that to watch movies on Friday. On Saturday, however, one of our other dorm mates (my neighbour, in fact) had fixed us up with a projector, so we watched two more X-men movies on the wall of the living room, this time joined by even more people. I shared my chocolate, and we all had a good time.
This movie watching continued, with a progressively better canvas for the projector, and more and more people coming to watch it. On Monday, we had the living room full of people as we watched Les Miserables. It's nice to have a proper place to watch movies in the dorm!
This week, then, is special. Usually, my week is filled with course subjects (i.e. China or martial arts subjects), plus electives and some common courses. This week, however, is the "Course Week", which means that, apart from PE, all my non-China subjects are changed out with course subjects. Thus, every day this week, we have one two-hour period of history, then one two-hour period of martial arts. It's very tiring, but very fun!
The history is basically the entire class working in groups of one to three on one Chinese history topic. I'm working together with Very Bendy and Red Cross, and we've chosen the Tang Dynasty. So far, us working is basically just us sitting in Very Bendy's dormitory listening to relaxing music and reading, but we'll get to making the actual presentation tomorrow. After that, since FT likes non-technological, more classical things in a presentation, like a poster, we're going to make one of those. With glitter. Very Bendy was very keen on glitter, and luckily for her, FT had some in his office (??). We'll make an absolutely fabulous poster!
Now, I should probably stop writing. We agreed to have written the main points for our parts of the presentation by tomorrow, and I'm running out of time, since I'm probably watching a Chinese series with Strong Handshake, maybe also Sheep and Mr. Prepared. No time!
23.10.2013
Time sure flies when you're having fun~ I'd like to skip straight to talking about this week, but I should talk about the weekend too...
Last Saturday, we had a seminar arranged by the equestrian class. That meant that we listened to three hours of talk about stables and racing and horses in general, and watched loads of Youtube clips. Apparently the equestrian class is sick of people saying that riding a horse is easy and not a sport, so we had to sit through two very similar ones that reprimanded us all for looking down on them. I felt somewhat insulted since I've never tried to tell them that riding a horse isn't difficult or tiring, but I'm sure it wasn't really a personal attack on any of the students. We're all nice, I think!
After the presentations, we all went to the racecourse. There were ten races set up for the day and we were to watch them all. To make us feel more involved, the horse class had taken the programme and cut out the horse information for all the races and given every person in school a horse or two. If your horse won a race, you won a secret prize which you'd get at supper later! It did work, somewhat. I got a horse called "The Sheik's Gold", and it was, as far as I could tell, the only horse owned by a Sheik from Dubai that had entered that day. I took it as a good sign and sat in the cold to watch.
As it turns out, it was a good sign, and my horse did win. As a prize, I got a large bar of chocolate, which I was going to eat later that evening. The evening before, we had started watching the X-men movies, since Doll Girl and Game of Thrones were feeling keen on an X-men marathon. Doll Girl had bought a nice fancy screen that she and Game of Thrones use for playing the Playstation, so we used that to watch movies on Friday. On Saturday, however, one of our other dorm mates (my neighbour, in fact) had fixed us up with a projector, so we watched two more X-men movies on the wall of the living room, this time joined by even more people. I shared my chocolate, and we all had a good time.
This movie watching continued, with a progressively better canvas for the projector, and more and more people coming to watch it. On Monday, we had the living room full of people as we watched Les Miserables. It's nice to have a proper place to watch movies in the dorm!
This week, then, is special. Usually, my week is filled with course subjects (i.e. China or martial arts subjects), plus electives and some common courses. This week, however, is the "Course Week", which means that, apart from PE, all my non-China subjects are changed out with course subjects. Thus, every day this week, we have one two-hour period of history, then one two-hour period of martial arts. It's very tiring, but very fun!
The history is basically the entire class working in groups of one to three on one Chinese history topic. I'm working together with Very Bendy and Red Cross, and we've chosen the Tang Dynasty. So far, us working is basically just us sitting in Very Bendy's dormitory listening to relaxing music and reading, but we'll get to making the actual presentation tomorrow. After that, since FT likes non-technological, more classical things in a presentation, like a poster, we're going to make one of those. With glitter. Very Bendy was very keen on glitter, and luckily for her, FT had some in his office (??). We'll make an absolutely fabulous poster!
Now, I should probably stop writing. We agreed to have written the main points for our parts of the presentation by tomorrow, and I'm running out of time, since I'm probably watching a Chinese series with Strong Handshake, maybe also Sheep and Mr. Prepared. No time!
23.10.2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
Day 50
Wow it's been a while since my last post.. already 18 days! Since the last time, I've continued as usual, and also gone home for a week's holiday. It was really nice to go home for a bit and just eat loads of food and relax. I tried to exercise too, but in the end found I had pains in my legs and knee that didn't go away, so I relaxed completely on Saturday and Sunday before I left.
I'm not too fond of travelling, well the actual travelling part of it. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It didn't help that when I arrived at the airport with my parents, the airline had overbooked my flight and suddenly told me I might not be able to go. I stood by the boarding queue until all the normally boarded people had been registered, and then checked to see if I could go or not. Luckily, they did have room for me. I even almost got to sit in the cockpit!
The bus ride to the school was more tiring. I waited for a while because I met Very Bendy at the airport, and she was waiting for someone to arrive on a slightly later flight. In the end, we were 10 people or so from the school crowding up a bus, first to Bergen, and then onwards to Hylkje. The school was pretty quiet by the time I got in, but that was all right, since I was pretty tired at that point. When I got in, only Game of Thrones, Doll Girl and Mr. Prepared were there and still awake. We all hugged and laughed and said hello - it seems most people have been really missing the atmosphere here at school, which I can understand.
After packing out, I went to bed and had a terrible night's sleep. I kept waking up for some reason, and woke up feeling completely unrefreshed. Still, I dragged myself to breakfast. The first lesson was sanda, and it was fun. Well, fun I say. We did some light kicking and punching practise, and some wrestling, and I am really bad at restraining myself. One of my classmates who grew up on a farm and knows all sorts of cool stuff about catching sheep and other farm stuff said jokingly said he wanted to hit me, so we paired up for the activities. He was much kinder to me than I was to him, he's probably used to it since I'm a girl or whatever. I ended up kicking him full of bruises and hurting his knee, as well as strangling him into submission during the wrestling. I was so ashamed afterwards. I spoke with Red Cross about it after, and she suggested I think more about the technique the next time so I don't get carried away. Hopefully I'll be able to be a better sparring partner in the future.
The school has a yearly "Stoltzen race". This is the mountain I climbed in my first week here. What happens in it is pretty self-explanatory, and whoever wants to can join. They'll get driven up to the Stoltzen for practise, and because I absolutely hated it the first time and hate being tired, I naturally signed up. I'm hoping the training will improve my shape a bit, because I'm always wheezing after warm-ups. I always thought that you should only be warm after warm-ups, and not wheezing. In any case, I don't want to run up Stoltzen like some crazies, so I'm for now just trying to walk up without taking any breaks. Red Cross also decided to join my walking, and, in fact, many China class students did as well, including Mr. Prepared, E and Strong Handshake. Mr. Prepared and E had done Stoltzen before in the first week, so they sped up, while Strong Handshake had come late and so missed it. He went up with Red Cross and me at our pace today, and it was pretty tiring but quite all right.
Now I'm pretty tired after all the exercise, and I'm pretty ready for bed. Good night!
14.10.2013
I'm not too fond of travelling, well the actual travelling part of it. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It didn't help that when I arrived at the airport with my parents, the airline had overbooked my flight and suddenly told me I might not be able to go. I stood by the boarding queue until all the normally boarded people had been registered, and then checked to see if I could go or not. Luckily, they did have room for me. I even almost got to sit in the cockpit!
The bus ride to the school was more tiring. I waited for a while because I met Very Bendy at the airport, and she was waiting for someone to arrive on a slightly later flight. In the end, we were 10 people or so from the school crowding up a bus, first to Bergen, and then onwards to Hylkje. The school was pretty quiet by the time I got in, but that was all right, since I was pretty tired at that point. When I got in, only Game of Thrones, Doll Girl and Mr. Prepared were there and still awake. We all hugged and laughed and said hello - it seems most people have been really missing the atmosphere here at school, which I can understand.
After packing out, I went to bed and had a terrible night's sleep. I kept waking up for some reason, and woke up feeling completely unrefreshed. Still, I dragged myself to breakfast. The first lesson was sanda, and it was fun. Well, fun I say. We did some light kicking and punching practise, and some wrestling, and I am really bad at restraining myself. One of my classmates who grew up on a farm and knows all sorts of cool stuff about catching sheep and other farm stuff said jokingly said he wanted to hit me, so we paired up for the activities. He was much kinder to me than I was to him, he's probably used to it since I'm a girl or whatever. I ended up kicking him full of bruises and hurting his knee, as well as strangling him into submission during the wrestling. I was so ashamed afterwards. I spoke with Red Cross about it after, and she suggested I think more about the technique the next time so I don't get carried away. Hopefully I'll be able to be a better sparring partner in the future.
The school has a yearly "Stoltzen race". This is the mountain I climbed in my first week here. What happens in it is pretty self-explanatory, and whoever wants to can join. They'll get driven up to the Stoltzen for practise, and because I absolutely hated it the first time and hate being tired, I naturally signed up. I'm hoping the training will improve my shape a bit, because I'm always wheezing after warm-ups. I always thought that you should only be warm after warm-ups, and not wheezing. In any case, I don't want to run up Stoltzen like some crazies, so I'm for now just trying to walk up without taking any breaks. Red Cross also decided to join my walking, and, in fact, many China class students did as well, including Mr. Prepared, E and Strong Handshake. Mr. Prepared and E had done Stoltzen before in the first week, so they sped up, while Strong Handshake had come late and so missed it. He went up with Red Cross and me at our pace today, and it was pretty tiring but quite all right.
Now I'm pretty tired after all the exercise, and I'm pretty ready for bed. Good night!
14.10.2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Day 32
Yesterday was another Wednesday. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, and it went very slowly. Until horse riding. I have horse riding lessons every Wednesday after dinner. It was a very popular elective, loads of people on the waiting list. They all came the first time, then the second time, then we started becoming fewer and fewer. I'm not sure why people were put off - probably because we divide ourselves into newbies and non-newbies, and each group gets 45 minutes of riding while the other has to sit and watch (or run next to someone, depending on what we're doing). It's boring to wait. Since we were going to a play later that evening and wouldn't have more than 30 minutes for preparation after getting back from riding lessons, more people decided not to go. In the end, we were only 5 people, 4 who were supposed to be there and one who just tagged along for fun.
Well, I'm happy I went in the end - just having 5 people meant we could all ride for the entire lesson. The teacher gave us a choice of some horses, I picked the one I rode last time. She wasn't very.. hmm energetic that time, maybe I was doing it wrong, but at the very least she was nice to me. A young girl came along to help me to get her ready, and I managed to take her to the riding place all by my lonesome.
I could feel she was more energetic this time - she kept wanting to go faster than the other horses, and I had to keep slowing her down. Previously I've had trouble getting her to turn, but yesterday it was pretty easy. Then we were going to practice trotting. The girl who helped me put on the reins came up to me and thrust a whip into my hands. No explanation. Just gave me the whip. I just took it and wondered to myself what I was supposed to use it for, or rather when. We haven't been whipping the horses before. In any case, I continued trotting.
At one point, the girl realized I wasn't using the whip at all. Well why would I, nobody told me what for. She showed me I was holding it wrong, then let me ride on. We ride in circles in a big indoor riding hall. As I came back to where the girl was, my horse randomly slowed down, and I hear the girl yelling "Use the whip!"
I dutifully give my horse a light tap and she speeds up to a trot. Then the girl continues "Use the whip again!"
I feel confused. I mean, we were supposed to be trotting, and my horse certainly was trotting, but I figure she probably knows what she's talking about. I tap my horse again.
ZOOOOOOOOOOOM
My horse starts going really fast, faster than a trot. I'm quite surprised, and my right foot slips out of the stirrup. As we're racing onwards, I'm trying to figure out how to slow down. Nobody really taught me. Pulling the reins seemed like a good idea though, so there I sit, trying to keep my balance with one foot loose and pulling the reins. The whole thing only lasted for a few seconds, but they were some very exciting seconds! I'm happy I managed to stay on.
Later in the practice we got to try going fast (again, for me). Yet again nobody told me what to do. I'm just sitting there on my horse with the whip. Just try to stay on her, they say. I'm not sure if I actually managed, but hopefully I'll get to try again next week! When we were done, I jumped off my horse.. well, slid off (though I'm getting better at that too) and gave her a few good pats, since I felt like she'd been really nice to me. I'll try to ride her again next week, it feels like we're getting along somewhat!
26.09.2013
Well, I'm happy I went in the end - just having 5 people meant we could all ride for the entire lesson. The teacher gave us a choice of some horses, I picked the one I rode last time. She wasn't very.. hmm energetic that time, maybe I was doing it wrong, but at the very least she was nice to me. A young girl came along to help me to get her ready, and I managed to take her to the riding place all by my lonesome.
I could feel she was more energetic this time - she kept wanting to go faster than the other horses, and I had to keep slowing her down. Previously I've had trouble getting her to turn, but yesterday it was pretty easy. Then we were going to practice trotting. The girl who helped me put on the reins came up to me and thrust a whip into my hands. No explanation. Just gave me the whip. I just took it and wondered to myself what I was supposed to use it for, or rather when. We haven't been whipping the horses before. In any case, I continued trotting.
At one point, the girl realized I wasn't using the whip at all. Well why would I, nobody told me what for. She showed me I was holding it wrong, then let me ride on. We ride in circles in a big indoor riding hall. As I came back to where the girl was, my horse randomly slowed down, and I hear the girl yelling "Use the whip!"
I dutifully give my horse a light tap and she speeds up to a trot. Then the girl continues "Use the whip again!"
I feel confused. I mean, we were supposed to be trotting, and my horse certainly was trotting, but I figure she probably knows what she's talking about. I tap my horse again.
ZOOOOOOOOOOOM
My horse starts going really fast, faster than a trot. I'm quite surprised, and my right foot slips out of the stirrup. As we're racing onwards, I'm trying to figure out how to slow down. Nobody really taught me. Pulling the reins seemed like a good idea though, so there I sit, trying to keep my balance with one foot loose and pulling the reins. The whole thing only lasted for a few seconds, but they were some very exciting seconds! I'm happy I managed to stay on.
Later in the practice we got to try going fast (again, for me). Yet again nobody told me what to do. I'm just sitting there on my horse with the whip. Just try to stay on her, they say. I'm not sure if I actually managed, but hopefully I'll get to try again next week! When we were done, I jumped off my horse.. well, slid off (though I'm getting better at that too) and gave her a few good pats, since I felt like she'd been really nice to me. I'll try to ride her again next week, it feels like we're getting along somewhat!
26.09.2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Day 25
Happy mid-autumn festival! I woke up today to a Facebook-feed full of people talking about their moon cakes and barbecues. I didn't think too much of it, only that it is a Chinese holiday and my friends are all celebrating, but then I remembered something from Monday's lesson. FT had said, when we asked when we were going to have tea in class, that we might get to eat something good this Thursday. That is today. I suddenly realized that he might be talking about mooncakes, and so I looked forward to today's lesson more.
Before I go on, what's mid-autumn festival? According to Wikipedia, it's a "harvest festival", but according to the people in my Facebook feed, it's all about family, friends and food. It's also connected to a story about a woman who became immortal and went to the moon, which I don't know much about because when I was in Hong Kong, it was all about the food. You also eat mooncakes, and watch the moon, which is full on mid-autumn festival.
Now moon cakes are very special. They look very appetizing, nice and golden-coloured:
Before I go on, what's mid-autumn festival? According to Wikipedia, it's a "harvest festival", but according to the people in my Facebook feed, it's all about family, friends and food. It's also connected to a story about a woman who became immortal and went to the moon, which I don't know much about because when I was in Hong Kong, it was all about the food. You also eat mooncakes, and watch the moon, which is full on mid-autumn festival.
Now moon cakes are very special. They look very appetizing, nice and golden-coloured:
Then you take a bite, and in the sweet paste you taste something salty. Inside them, you see, is usually a sweet paste - and a duck's egg.
It's an acquired taste, one I haven't acquired yet, but still I was excited at the thought of mooncakes. Not because I thought it'd taste amazing, but just because it'd be nice to do something Chinese, feeling like I was doing it with all my friends abroad who were enjoying their mooncakes.
When the teacher came in, I somehow managed to squeeze out a "will we eat mooncakes today?" in Chinese for her. I had to think about it for a while before I found the right words. She said we would, and I high-fived Red Cross, whom I had told about the festival during lunch and thought mooncakes sounded great (I hadn't told her what was in them, maybe that's why?). But that wasn't all! We were not only eating mooncakes, but also making spring rolls! Cheers from the class! Before we could do that however, we had to sort out the China class' student council representative. Everybody was keen to get started, so we quickly passed a paper around with all the names written on it so people could vote on it. Somehow I won, probably because I fixed the paper with names and they figured, hey, she can fix this voting, she can probably do whatever a student council rep does.
We scurried down to the kitchen and divided into groups, and started chopping vegetables and frying meat. I got to fry the assembled spring rolls for my group, which consisted of me, Red Cross, Strong Handshake and a Very Bendy girl. I even had to do it with chopsticks, since doing it with anything else was impossible. I don't really like eating spring rolls with chopsticks, they're too smooth and hard so it's tough for me to get a grip, but I did my best. I was pretty full after the lesson, and could only eat a little bit of the dinner, even though it was delicious - meat, rice and sauce!
Since it's mid-autumn festival and all, I'd kind of like to watch the moon, but I live in Bergen so it's raining. I guess I'll just go to bed instead!
19.09.2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Day 22
The weekend came and went. I had grand plans of studying and training and reading, but of course did none of it. Since most everybody was out, the few of us who remained practically had the dorm to ourselves. Instead of being productive, I spent Friday evening and Saturday playing games and watching Harry Potter movies with Doll Girl, Game of Thrones guy and a few others.
On Sunday, Red Cross and I sat on my bed all day watching a Chinese soap opera and drinking frighteningly large amounts of tea. I had mentioned to her the first week, when we were talking about "embarrassing hobbies" that I enjoyed Chinese soap operas, and she insisted that we watch some later that year. Her brother knows everything, she says, and so she had him suggest a series. He suggested one which I have already watched, but it's a good one so I didn't mind at all. At first Red Cross had been completely ready to watch the most horrible, cheesy soap we could find, so I'm very pleased we didn't in the end!
Since Doll Girl and I finished Hannibal, we didn't really feel like we could write names from that series on our next lunches. Instead, since we watched Harry Potter, she suggested we take names from there. Today I remembered, and wrote N. Longbottom on mine, but she forgot, of course. Luckily, my lunch wasn't completely alone in the basket. There was a "Harry Potter" and "Cinderella" there too.
Speaking of lunch, today the China class was done first and was first to the lunch area. They usually set out fruits and some drinks, plus the packed lunches, and today there was finally enough fruit for us too. Often, there won't be any left by the time we're done with our training. While I was collecting some slices of watermelon, Anime pointed out some boxes in the hall. They were filled with shoes and clothes, and labelled with "If you find something of interest, feel free to help yourself!"
This isn't the first time they've done this - two weeks back or so, several boxes with the same label appeared in the hall filled with CDs. The school was founded in the late 60s, I think, so it's only natural that they have many things left behind, clothes, CDs, equipment.. that they don't know what to do with. I couldn't resist when they put the CDs out, and collected a whole bunch of different music. Today was no different, but I tried to restrain myself. I found some sturdy-looking mountain shoes that fit me nicely, which means I have something to wear for horse riding lessons now that isn't my running shoes. Woo! I resisted trying to find a pair of wellies, and going through the box with jackets and sweaters.. A pair of mountain shoes is more than good enough.
16.09.2013
On Sunday, Red Cross and I sat on my bed all day watching a Chinese soap opera and drinking frighteningly large amounts of tea. I had mentioned to her the first week, when we were talking about "embarrassing hobbies" that I enjoyed Chinese soap operas, and she insisted that we watch some later that year. Her brother knows everything, she says, and so she had him suggest a series. He suggested one which I have already watched, but it's a good one so I didn't mind at all. At first Red Cross had been completely ready to watch the most horrible, cheesy soap we could find, so I'm very pleased we didn't in the end!
Since Doll Girl and I finished Hannibal, we didn't really feel like we could write names from that series on our next lunches. Instead, since we watched Harry Potter, she suggested we take names from there. Today I remembered, and wrote N. Longbottom on mine, but she forgot, of course. Luckily, my lunch wasn't completely alone in the basket. There was a "Harry Potter" and "Cinderella" there too.
Speaking of lunch, today the China class was done first and was first to the lunch area. They usually set out fruits and some drinks, plus the packed lunches, and today there was finally enough fruit for us too. Often, there won't be any left by the time we're done with our training. While I was collecting some slices of watermelon, Anime pointed out some boxes in the hall. They were filled with shoes and clothes, and labelled with "If you find something of interest, feel free to help yourself!"
This isn't the first time they've done this - two weeks back or so, several boxes with the same label appeared in the hall filled with CDs. The school was founded in the late 60s, I think, so it's only natural that they have many things left behind, clothes, CDs, equipment.. that they don't know what to do with. I couldn't resist when they put the CDs out, and collected a whole bunch of different music. Today was no different, but I tried to restrain myself. I found some sturdy-looking mountain shoes that fit me nicely, which means I have something to wear for horse riding lessons now that isn't my running shoes. Woo! I resisted trying to find a pair of wellies, and going through the box with jackets and sweaters.. A pair of mountain shoes is more than good enough.
16.09.2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Day 19
Well, I did get sick. It grew worse and worse on Wednesday, and by the end of my horse riding lesson I was ready to go lie in bed and not do anything the rest of the day, which is exactly what I did. The next day, I skipped the first lesson so I would have the energy to go to my Chinese lesson after lunch. It was a pretty relaxing lesson. The teacher handed me back and explained to me that I'd passed it with loads to spare. I didn't really feel it was easy, I had to guess a lot, but I suppose educated guesses are good guesses. Thus, my teacher suggested that next time I'll try the HSK 4 instead of the HSK 3 in case that's better for me. I'll have to not only learn the characters and words for 3 now, but for 4 instead. That's at least 600 more words and 400 new characters... Woo! Loads of work to do...
Today in martial arts, each person performed one form (wu bu quan, 五步拳). LH said that if we couldn't do it, we wouldn't get our performance clothes. LH is pretty nice, so she probably would've given it to everybody anyway, but everybody managed more or less. Speaking of martial arts, the China class has a kind of unofficial motto - mabu (马步). It's one of our stances, the horse stance, and it looks something like this:
She picked Hannibal, and I'm tempted to give that to her as her code name but I had a thought I should try to avoid it. She's not similar to the fictional character at all. No, I'll call her Doll Girl, since one of her main hobbies is ... ball jointed dolls. They look pretty fancy! So Doll Girl and I finished Hannibal. I'm trying to have her watch Game of Thrones, but for some reason she refuses to. We'll probably end up watching something else instead.
Today in martial arts, each person performed one form (wu bu quan, 五步拳). LH said that if we couldn't do it, we wouldn't get our performance clothes. LH is pretty nice, so she probably would've given it to everybody anyway, but everybody managed more or less. Speaking of martial arts, the China class has a kind of unofficial motto - mabu (马步). It's one of our stances, the horse stance, and it looks something like this:
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| 马步 |
I'm not sure if you can imagine it, but it's pretty painful to stay there for a long time. Regardless, people started suggesting activities to do in mabu. FT suggests we use one of our stances while massaging so we don't hurt our bags - MABU! Waiting in line for food - MABU! It's come to the point where the mere mention of mabu will cause laughter, and if you yell it out, any China class people who hear it will jump down in mabu with a loud STOMP. It's an inside joke, it's a cheer, a motivational yell, and today in the ball games elective class, Mr. Prepared found out it's good to do volleyball serves in mabu. Seems to distract the opposing team, because they kept returning the balls into the wall. It all ended with the China class people who were there stood in a circle in mabu doing the beat from "We Will Rock You" before floor ball, jumping up and down like that for the two stomps and hitting the end of our floor ball sticks in the ground for the claps. Someone entered the circle and did the vocals, and thus we had an impromptu performance for the rest of the group. My legs are a bit tired, but I guess this is good training for all of us?
For the past week I've been joining someone in my dorm to watch TV series, Hannibal, to be more exact, and occasionally a movie. We finished the first season yesterday, and it's left a hole inside. Everyday when we make our lunch in the morning, we wrap it in Norwegian food paper and write our names on it so we can find it again later. Today, the girl and I decided we'd reference the series we were currently watching with the names we write on our paper. Result:
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| Delicious bread. |
She picked Hannibal, and I'm tempted to give that to her as her code name but I had a thought I should try to avoid it. She's not similar to the fictional character at all. No, I'll call her Doll Girl, since one of her main hobbies is ... ball jointed dolls. They look pretty fancy! So Doll Girl and I finished Hannibal. I'm trying to have her watch Game of Thrones, but for some reason she refuses to. We'll probably end up watching something else instead.
This week is a free weekend, so half the dorm is out. It feels very empty here, but more than that I really really want something to snack on. Biscuits, or crisps, cakes, sweets.. I don't care. Well I don't have money to spend, so I'll just sit dreaming. I'll try to relax this weekend and hopefully get over this sickness!
13.09.2013
PS. I got a letter yesterday. Thanks B! I really love getting letters here, so I was very happy to find it in my mail slot!
PPS. I never uploaded pictures from our trip to Bergen last weekend, so I'll give you some here. We were divided into groups and sent around Bergen answering questions like "what are these art galleries called?" and "what do Bergeners call this lake?" In the end, everybody met up in the Aquarium where we had a look at the fish, and penguins.
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| Lillelungen |
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| Just a street |
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| What DOES the fox say? |
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| Fishies! |
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| I love this guy's smile |
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