Q&A with My Class!

As I begin to develop more of a routine and the school year carries on, I'm finding that I have a little less to write about each week. This may mean that at some point I begin posting once every other week during uneventful stretches, but I enjoy writing this blog so much that for now I'm just finding other things to write about. And apparently people enjoy reading it– the blog has over 5000 views! I thought this week it could be interesting to do a little Q&A with my class so that I could answer any questions about what it's like being an exchange student, living in Norway, or being from the US. It's the time of the year when prospective exchange students are beginning to look at programs or fill out applications, so I thought it might also be fun for the students in my class or just anyone who stumbles upon my blog to be able to read a little about my experiences and maybe get that much more inspired to spend a year abroad! So without further ado, I present to you the questions from 1B:)

1.  Have you ever seen someone at school wearing something that you think an American student would never have gotten permission to wear at school? Since it's not exactly warm here this time of the year, I tried to think back to the first few weeks of school to answer this. While I can't think of any specific outfits that surprised me, I've also not heard anything about anyone ever being told they couldn't wear whatever they were wearing. At my school in the US, the dress code is enforced by some teachers but not by others so I think, in general, people might avoid wearing a crop top for example more in the US (during school) than here in Norway.
2. Do you think Norwegians are polite? Everyone I've met so far has been polite but of course I can't speak for all of Norway :)
3. Is it hard to understand everything the teachers say in, for example, Norwegian class or are you always able to follow along? The past few weeks I've been able to understand pretty much everything that the teachers say (social studies, on the other hand... that's a different story) but I've also discovered that you don't need to understand 100% of what's being said to be able to get the general meaning. Of course there are individual words that I don't know yet but I generally can follow along. That being said, if someone is talking quietly or there's a lot of background noise it can be more difficult to understand.
4. What is your favorite Norwegian food? Brunost (brown cheese), hands down. Although if I want to get fancy and say how I best like to eat it, I put it on a piece of buttered bread with raspberry jam on top. Yum!!!!
5. Are you satisfied with choosing Norway? Yes! Oslo is a really cool city and the little bits of the country outside of the city that I've seen did not disappoint:)
6. Is there anything that's different than what you expected? This is kind of a hard question because I did my best to have no expectations before I came so I wouldn't be disappointed if reality didn't line up exactly with what I had expected. That being said, I definitely did not expect to have so much freedom or how much living in a city would change me.
7. What kind of names are common in math problems? This one made me laugh but it's actually a really interesting question that I never would have really thought about before. There aren't any specific names that stand out to me as being repeated a lot but what I do remember are questions with names chosen to sound very "racially diverse". I couldn't find an example of that type of problem but I googled some word problems and these were the names that came up: Ellen, Arthur, Brad, Willy, Amy, Sarah, Beth, Molly, Sandra, Deacon, Branson, Cam, and Gisselle.
8. Have you learned any new card games? I don't usually play many card games but I actually did learn a really fun one! It's called Boms og President (in Norway, at least) but when I looked it up, Wikipedia said it was originally Japanese so there might be a different name in English other than the direct translation, Bum and President.
9. How does one finance a year abroad in your state? Are there grants/stipends or do your parents pay? This one is really dependent on a lot of factors but I'll start by saying that there are a lot of scholarships available, both organization- and otherwise-funded, and even a few programs that are government-funded and therefore free (CBYX is a cool one between the US and Germany, if anyone is interested). The organization I'm traveling with, Youth for Understanding, offered a discount on the price of the year if I applied early but they also have a bunch of other scholarships based on where you're going, what your financial status is, and some that were based off partnerships with different businesses. Different organizations also have different prices on programs and within each organization the price can vary based on where you're going and for how long. I personally got a job to help pay for the year, used a GoFundMe page, and saved up almost all my money to help my parents pay and cover spending money.

Side note to 1B: jeg oversatt spørsmålene fordi at ingen hjemme snakker norsk haha men hvis jeg ikke svarte helt det som dere lurte på eller oversatt spørsmålene feil kan jeg prøve å forklare på skolen:)

Anyways... I hope this was interesting to read and maybe answered a question you were wondering yourself! Otherwise, this week involved writing a two-page article in Norwegian (ahhhh), taking math and social studies tests, doing gymnastics in gym class, playing around with the guitar I'm borrowing from my host aunt, learning a new game at a friend's house, eating lots and lots of bread, watching a French movie with Norwegian subtitles (ahhhh pt. 2), and helping paint my host parents' bedroom. Another random piece of information is that it's getting harder and harder to write in English! The Norwegian sentence structure keeps trying to creep its way in and I have to stop myself from writing things like "today is England regarded as..." :P I also have to think more about some English words than the Norwegian word and those are probably good signs but kind of annoying when I'm trying to write a paper for English class...

Word of the Post:

maling(en) = (the) paint

Pictures!!

This is actually from two weekends ago but the picture was taken at about 8:15 on a Saturday morning and it's the quietest I've ever seen it.

Doesn't compare to NH foliage but I'll give it credit for the effort:)

Much science

Pt 1. of pictures from that one time Isabelle went on a run!!!

Pt. 2! I don't know if I've ever shown a picture of the Holmenkollen on here before but it's the big ski jump in Oslo and you can see it sticking up at the top of the hill.

Pt. 3