Christmas in Blighty

So I am back in this, the land of my birth, to celebrate Christmas in my own atheist/capitalist way. I wish you all a very merry time of it and I will be seeing many of you over the next few weeks - I look forward to that! I will recommence writing in the new year with even more vigour as I commence my 3 month stint of pure Norwegian immersion before coming home at Easter (you've got to love these conveniently dispersed Christian holidays...).
Ha det!

Oslo Internasjonale Filmfestival 08

Oh what bliss! An excuse to go to the cinema every night! And what a lovely poster. The week began last Friday with W, Oliver Stone's biopic of George Dubya. It didn't really satiate my thirst for "world cinema" as we anglosaxons love to call it, but fairly good all the same. Though I felt it really failed as the cutting exposé of Bush's incompetency and fecklessness that it was billed as. It didn't feel like I'd been given a new insight into this story: it described what everyone has been banging on about during his whole presidency. Bush is dumb, we get it. It seems like Stone was trying to write history rather than make a film. He saw his opportunity, when all eyes were turned to the White House, to make his own contribution to this 21st century narrative.

My definite highlight of the festival was La belle personne, which has to be one of France's best offerings this year. It was a kind of high school drama à la française, i.e. featuring a melodramatic pupil-teacher love triangle which ends with suicide. The director Christophe Honoré attempted a loose adaptation of the 17th-century novel 'la princesse de Clèves' (I'm told) - I liked the way he managed to weave parts of the dialogue into the story, without seeming fake (to my naïve French ear, that is...). But most of all it had that quality which completely involves you in the story, and when you leave the cinema you feel like you're walking on air. In my imagination I am 17 years old, French, living in the 8e arrondissement and sitting in Italian class at my lycée, involving myself in the perfect affairs of the heart of my camarades.

But sadly, I'm sitting at the back of an English class, watching Norwegian teenagers watch a film. And it's so early, it's still dark outside. And no chance of a gauloise.

Life in the Grorud valley

I've had this post mulling around in my head for some time... well, about the amount of time in which I have been too lazy to post anything. It centres around my increasing urban malaise produced by living in a tower block in the nowhere part of town.
The Groruddal, as it is known, is a valley radiating from Oslo which is home to two major motorways, some heavy industry, shopping centres and countless tower blocks. Together with the weather at this time of year, this makes for a pretty grey urban atmosphere. The other day I heard a sort of squeaking sound from the window - I wondered for a moment if it was a bird, but it turned out to be the sunshade on the balcony, squeaking away happily. At that moment I realised this is the first place I have ever lived where you never hear birdsong. I got so used to living close to nature that I stopped noticing it, but now I'm living here it's one thing I really miss.
When the urban planners of the fifties and sixties dreamt up this 'machine for living', they really failed to consider that you can't live in a machine. Certainly not a country bumpkin like me!

Ich bin ein Berliner

The weekend was, quite simply, a whirlwind. I hopped on the plane on Friday night and took the 1.5 hour trip over to der Hauptstadt. The guy I ended up sitting next to insisted on buying me Champagne, so by the time I saw Maria's lovely face at the arrivals gate, I was already feeling the effects. I'm blaming the altitude. No time for a nice cup of tea and a sit down - we were straight on the bus to a house party at their friends' place. They had decided to make it a fancy party, so we rocked up in pretty dresses and most of the other guests had followed suit (ah ha ha). The sheer number of LBDs and black waistcoasts had the potential to turn this gathering into a wake, but we managed to keep our spirits up. We ended up playing drinking games, which in my fairly tired state I failed at miserably. Someone then had the idea of going to do some graffiti under a bridge (hmm... the evening was nose-diving at this point for me). Any onlookers would have been treated to the sight of me standing by bemused with my roller suitcase and a certain someone trying not to drip spray paint on her Kurt Geigers - mentioning no names... ;-) I felt like I was in La Haine. Almost. Well, if all the actors had been replaced by the cast of Six Feet Under.

So the next day I posed as a tourist on Maria's Free Walking Tour. There is something quite eerie about seeing your friends in a different context to the one you're used to - it was as if Maria had been replaced by a Tour Guide double. This weirdness was added to by the fact that she even has a different name - Mary - for doing tours (aparently 'Maria' was already taken!) This is stupid of course, I know that Maria knows all that stuff about the Nazi book burnings and the fall of the wall, but she doesn't usually give me talks about it. I don't think I am articulating this sensation very well, but perhaps some of you can emphathise?

I also got to earwig on what the punters were saying about her, which was, on the whole, quite retarded. One guy commented that she was 'like a little book' and another told her friend that she thought Mary was 'very historial'... But a compliment is a compliment! The same girl also made the observation that there in Berlin, you could walk around without realising any of its history, whereas Paris is 'more obvious'. Any comments on that?

Later that evening we went for a huge platter of sushi and rented a DVD because we were all falling asleep in the pub (pretty lame... we must be getting old). A lovely time was had by all.

On Sunday I managed to meet up with Euan, a friend from my Lübeck days, and we went for a storming brunch buffet and to a flea market, which made for a great Sunday. I amused Ashleigh by saying some Norwegian sentences. She summed it up in a lovely phrase - 'it sounds like Welsh German'. So true. Then it was my time to leave that city once again, and fly back to this city which is beginning to feel more like home.

I'm giving a lesson today on Robert (Rabbie) Burns... och aye. My luve's like a red, red rose.

Norwegian word of the day (it's back!)
pen = pretty. My favourite part about it is that you have to pronounce it in a Northern Irish accent (with a dipthong for those of you interested).

Photographs

My dream school

Statue outside Nationaltheatret T-bane








Some very Norwegian Christmas decorations

Terrible picture of a statue of a horse,
as aforementioned.

View from my flat... a mixture between soviet
wasteland and charming forest view

A trip to Norway: a chance to practice my… French?

Mais oui, la Norvège… il faut s’en habituer, hein ?!
Apologies for my francophonic ramblings. Today was officially ‘French day’ in a new scheme devised by the French assistant Marie-Hélène and I, in which, essentially, we both get our own way. Every other day I get to stumble my way through an entire day of francophilia, while she gets to anglaise it up during the following 24 hours. Vive l’entente cordiale!



Number of things I messed up recently by pretending I can understand Norwegian: 2
1) Daily confusion on my bus ride to school (will I ever buy the right ticket?!)
2) Saying no to a free coffee. Sob.

Number of things that surprised me recently: 5
1) Being asked whether I want an adult’s or a child’s ticket on the bus (I don’t look THAT young do I?)
2) The sheer range of shockingly overpriced baubles in an Oslo department store (and the fact that they have taken over the shop in NOVEMBER… actually that doesn’t surprise me any more).
3) The fact that every student in my school is given a laptop to use… while they don’t seem to have heard of interactive whiteboards.
4) The fact that discipline in the classroom seems to be so lax (students chatting while the teacher’s talking, students ‘sharing’ the arduous task of actually writing anything down in the lesson i.e. so one of them does nothing…) I think the basic principle is that they are responsible for their own learning, but this seems pretty harsh on the weaker ones. Perhaps the national curriculum is based on natural selection?
5) How I am suddenly an insomniac. Too many thoughts in my head… Probably because I haven’t been purging them onto here. And I need a novel to read.

I’m departing for a weekend in former East Berlin on Friday, I will write more when I return. Auf Wiedersehen! Farewell! Adieu! Ha det bra!

Oslopolis

Ahhhhh fagdag! Not only is it a very good word, but also a most excellent concept. Well, not that I experienced any of it's wonderment, as I had the day off! Hurrah for my poorly defined and under-administrated position in the school. So, I had the opportunity to wander the streets of Oslo. Just as I was reveling in the fact that I was out of the house before midday (I'll give you a moment here just to close that open mouth of disbelief)... I discovered that the shops don't open until 10am! Quelle horreur! So I joined the queue outside a bookshop (yes, they clearly can't get enough of books and that) to buy my på vei textbook, which will make me know Norwegian, apparently. I talked myself into buying the workbook with it, mainly because that was the only way you get the CD so you know how to pronounce the damn words, cheating bastards. This led me to hand over 700NOK (nearly £70...) for my fast track way to integration, inclusion and other abstract concepts. Cheap at the price. Ahem.
After that I decided to get on a tram. My plan was to go and see Grunerlokka, an area of Oslo deemed as 'hip' by all and sundry. Some say, hip in a, like, good way, man, and that... some say, pretentious. While aboard the tram I had what I can only describe as an episode, which made me think it would be a good idea to stay on the tram until the end of the line, just 'to see where I end up'. Truly, my genius is wasted in this life. Thankfully my second plan of 'getting off wherever the lady in front of me gets off' plan worked out better as she alighted quite soon after the formation of the plan. After giving myself a bit of a talking to and getting back on a tram heading back the way I came, I got to Grunerlokka. And it is a nice part of town. I found myself in a lovely leafy square and the sun was shining... then I found about ten vintage clothing shops in a row, and my heart leapt for a second. Cheap and kooky...ohh! Just like me. I whiled away a couple more of my hours pretending I could really pull off a tartan mac and cowboy boots (soooo kooky!!) - and that I could afford some handmade earrings made of pieces of Trabant... but it was not to be. So I skulked back over a frosty bridge and took a truly awful picture of a statue of a man wrestling a reindeer (Norwegians know how to sculpt), gave up, and went to H & M, where I belong.
Skip forward a few hours, I am in the flat, "babysitting" i.e. making sure a sleeping three year-old doesn't cause too much trouble. Sounds easy, and it is when he's asleep. But it's hard communicating with a child who doesn't speak your language (well, duh, Hannah). What I mean is, all the usual things your say to children are so far meaningless to him. Example: "no, that's my cheese". Ok, a more usual example, "good boy" or "sit down and eat your food" are just noise to him. But he doesn't seem too phased by it. He's also teaching me more Norwegian than anyone else right now. Mainly because if I don't understand what he wants, he repeats it in an increasingly whiny tone until I get it, or just takes me to the source of his desire e.g. the fridge. If only adults were so simple!
So, tomorrow I go before the jury, I mean, language teachers' meeting, to decide when/where/why/with whom I will be working. And routine will be my friend.
And I would like to note my satisfaction with the outcome of an election in another country. Say no more. Though I probably shouldn't have put that in writing; these politicians never seem to turn out as you hope (ref: middle class glee circa 1997).
Oh dear I can't end on that note. So I'll have to end with:
Norwegian word of the day!
Today's word is 'tannlege'. Guesses on a postcard please. And it has nothing to do with sun beds...

You are so lucky on your first day

So here it is... the first post. My life as a so-called blogger begins. I feel bad spoiling this pristine webpage but I shall have to throw these feelings aside and dive straight in.

So, today was my first day at school. I managed to get there at vaguely the right time, after a bus journey which threatened at any moment to collapse around me and leave me stranded in an icy industrial estate where Oslo meets Akershus. But after conquering two buses and a slight diversion on foot, I made it to my destination. And what a first impression! Path leading up to the school, snow-covered pine forest - thumbs up. Dodgy seventies monstrosity of school building (carbon copy of Thurston "Community" College, minus the pine cladding) - thumbs down. But I shouldn't have judged this (proverbial?) sovietesque bestseller by its concrete cover. I gave one student his first English test by asking him where to find the reception, then a few minutes later I was greeted as Hanna Garseid, the new English English assistant. Hurrah!

It was during my tour of the school that I began to notice the Norwegianness seeping out of every pore... looking down at my guide's feet: hiking sandals with socks... tall blonde creatures slinking through the corridors... a gaggle of staff worshipping at the coffee machine... but I am just confirming whatever vague stereotypical notions I have of this nation. I could've been anywhere in Northern Europe, well... except Britain.

In Britain, there would be haggered teachers patrolling the corridors, making sure students were working at all times (in my sixth form they even banned chess - that infamous brain-rotter). All the teachers would have been sacked long ago for wearing inappropriately casual clothing. More importantly for me, I would have never have been made to feel so welcome. Nothing was too much trouble - within minutes of arriving I was given a key to the staff room and to all the classrooms (Grimsby Institute has much to learn!) and I had a sore face from so much smiling and hand shaking. It's true to say that the most friendly face was not a Norwegian one, but that of the Czech German teacher, who I chatted with in German for a long while. I was glad by this point to be doing some of the linguistic legwork, though switching from English to French to German and back into English while hearing a background rumble of Norwegian has to be hardest my brain has worked in several months.

So, aside from a slight feeling of otherness and isolation from my personality, all is well here in Hanaborg.

Favourite Norwegian word of the day:

fagdag [pronounced fawg dawg] = a day where each class concentrates on just one subject for the whole day i.e. what is happening on Wednesday.