Prom While on Exchange???

April 08, 2018

Prom While on Exchange???

Happy Sunday, everyone! I hope you're having or had a wonderful weekend. Mine has been especially great; I really have been feeling like my life here is just as complete and valid as the one I had in the US, despite having lived there for over 16 years and having lived here for less than one. I think this is one of the things that has surprised me the most this year so far. Of course, I expected to make friends and become part of a new family and in those ways build a new life, but I didn't realize how many different aspects there are to a full, complete life and I surprise myself daily with how many of those aspects have developed in this life in such short time. As I was emptying the dishwasher the other day, I was thinking about how I know, without thinking about it, where everything goes and how the drawers are organized. Or when I was walking to the metro station from my friend's house yesterday and didn't need a map to get there, despite being one of the most directionally-challenged people I know. When I was at the school dance on Friday (more on that later) and some students were giving speeches about the students at school, I understood all the jokes about the stereotypes about Katta kids and students from other schools and felt like just as much one of them as the kids who'd grown up in Oslo.

One of the things I was a little worried about before coming was that I would always be treated a little differently because I was an exchange student and that, because of that, the friendships I'd make wouldn't be the same as the ones back "home" (where is that, I don't know??). The first few weeks I did feel that I got attention more for being from a different country than because people genuinely wanted to get to know me, but that feeling quickly fell away and my friendships here are the some of the most genuine I've ever had (dere vet hvem dere er). I don't know if all exchange students are as lucky as I am in that this life has everything it needs in it and is just as complete as the one in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but I'm doing my best to not take it for granted. This life as I know it will be, I hate to admit, over in two and a half months. Of course I plan to come back and I hope I can show the important people in this life how I lived before, but I know deep down that it won't ever be exactly how it was this year. And wow does that kill me. I'm so torn between wanting to see everything back home one more time and getting to appreciate it, and knowing that I'm probably romanticizing things back in the US and that I'm going to miss this Norwegian life so incredibly much. Can't I have both???? But no, I can't; that's really what makes it special. These two lives are different and would (and will) clash when mixed. I'm just going to have to make the absolute, bursting-at-the-seams most of these two and a half months. Future Isabelle, I really hope you did.

This week it was back to school, but we did have Monday off because it was the second Easter day. We celebrated my host cousin's 11th birthday with food and lots of cake(s) and an intense game of Den forsvunne diamanten (The Lost Diamond). Tuesday was a wake-up call, literally; it was the first time I had used an alarm to wake up in ten days. Rough. But the sun already being up at 6:30 helps. Wednesday marked the start of tentamen season, our "mock exams" or midterms. This one happened to be Nynorsk, the other written version of Norwegian. I technically am excused from the class since Norwegian isn't my native language, but I do have to take the exam, I can just write in Bokmål. That being said, when they have Nynorsk lessons in school I'm still there and have therefore picked up a good amount of the rules. I decided, as this would be the last opportunity I would have to write in Nynorsk and as I had done all the assignments in Nynorsk before, I would write the exam in Nynorsk. So after a few hours, I had an imperfect three-page Nynorsk poem analysis. Not really sure how I did, but the nice thing is that it doesn't really matter!

Thursday was a normal day and in terms of the school day, so was Friday. But that night was the school ball. Every year, Katta (and I'm assuming some other Norwegian schools as well) has one formal dance. It's sort of their version of prom, but for all the grades and in some ways, less of a big deal. While at least 90% of the grade usually goes to prom in the US, here there was maybe 50-60%. On Friday after school, I went back to my friend Sarah's house to get ready with her. We did our makeup, took on our dresses, did our hair, then played mancala;) Around 6 pm we made our way into the city to meet up with our other friends at the venue. When we got there and into the building, we found a place to sit with all nine of us and waited for the dinner and entertainment to start. There was a girl in the third year who did some stand-up comedy, and then two speeches: Damenes tale (Ladies' speech) and Herrenes tale (Gentlemen's speech). Two boys gave the Damenes tale about girls at Katta, and vice versa. They were both quite funny, but the girls came with graphs depicting Katta's demographics, so they're the winners in my book. Afterwards (I think, I don't really remember the order of everything), they crowned Teacher of the Year, and the man who won (Kristian Vestli, for dere som ikke var der) came up on stage wearing his kilt and sang a song about Paddy who wasn't able to make it to work. It was quite the moment. After having eaten we went and took pictures with the photographer. Ten of us decided to take the classic prom pic with everyone holding the person in front of them around the waist, and Sigurd and Endre who were in front did Jack and Rose's poses from Titanic. We haven't gotten those pictures yet, but when we do they'll make an appearance in a blog post.

The first hour or so after dinner was filled with student performers, all from the very talented to the ones who won the talent show earlier this year for their joke singing. This time they sang Love is an Open Door from Frozen and, well, I'll just include the video. Then the DJ came and we spent the next four or so hours dancing our hearts out:) I've never been a big school dance person, but something about Norway me loves dancing and it was so much fun. Hoping that trait will stick around when I go back:) We left a little after midnight and I went back to Sarah's to sleep over. It was so fun to get all dressed up, but taking off the makeup and taking out the braid and putting on pjs felt really, really good. Saturday I headed home in the late morning and spent the rest of the day hanging out and going for a run. I was surprised how not tired I was, but took advantage of it (lol jokes I lied in bed for several hours).

This morning was calm and relaxing with a weekly dose of SAT prep. Yay. But then I met my wonderful friend, Mathea, and we went into the city to meet some of her friends and go to museums. There are a bunch of museums in Oslo that are free if you're under 18, and since a lot of them were about to turn 18, they wanted to take advantage of that while they could. We covered three museums in under five hours: Astrup Fearnley, which has some very interesting, unique art; The Historical Museum, which is exactly what it sounds like it is; and The National Gallery, which is art and houses Edvard Munch's The Scream. It was a fun afternoon of "analyzing" art and recreating it:) Afterwards it was home again, home again for dinner and blog-writing. Until next week, you can keep up with me and learn a little more about my exchange year through my takeover of YFU Norway's Instagram, @yfu_norway :)

Word of the Post:
et skoleball = a school ball/dance

Pictures (more to come from Friday night when I get them)