Posting from School

Some of you may ask: Anne, how is it that you can post from school in the middle of the day?

Here is my answer to this FAQ: I have randomly spaced open hours and everyone here has a computer at school provided BY the school. Public school, mind you.

So, I have begun school, and I am learning my way around the Norwegian school system. It was quite difficult to get all my classes lined up and I still have a few holes in my schedule, but they should hopefully all be worked out by next week! The Voldens have set me up with an old teacher who has tutored exchange students in the past to speak Norwegian--this will be very good with me! I am going with another exchange student from Washington State, her name is MacKenzie. There is another exchange student, Zordano, from Italy. Cool name, eh?

The subjects I am taking are R1 Math, Norwegian, History, Entrepreneurship, Advanced French, Sociology and Social Anthropology, and P.E. I have all of these classes 3-4 hours a week, and am really enjoying all of the ones I have had so far. My french teacher tried to make MacKenzie and I memorize everyone's name in the class...that didn't go so well. Norwegian names are not all common names we have in English. For example--I don't know how to spell this--but one kid's name was Jåkon (pronounced Ho-ah-kone) which is a typical Norwegian name.

Yesterday, or å går på Norsk, I was informed by Brede (a boy I know who lives in a town called Tøfte) that Buskerud, which is my Norwegian district, is the "ghetto" of Norway, with gangs and all that, and that his town is the "ghetto" of Buskerud, and Røyken Videregåndeskolen is the "ghetto school" of the "ghetto district." Simply put, Norway has REALLY nice ghettos.

I am meeting new people every day from all over the world and truly enjoying myself. I have been running on some of the trails around the house, and they are seriously gorgeous. I am AMAZED by the amount of trees in Norway. Seriously. It is insanity. Breathing is so easy! Well I'm sort of kidding--you wouldn't really notice the breathing...but the trees are seriously flourishing. They have these slugs here that are apparently really bad for the forest and have no natural enemies, so if you see one you are supposed to kill them. I saw my first one the other day. Let me tell you something. THEY ARE HUGE SLUGS. With fairly thick skin. So my advice? If you're going to kill it, don't stop on it. Get a large stick and stab it, then run away as fast as possible so you don't have to watch it die....it's pretty gross. Here's a photo of one!

I think that's one of them, anyway. They're seriously disgusting. I thought I was going to have nightmares after killing that first one. They're pretty gross. But in killing one, I have eliminated 400+ that would have been around next year!

But to end on a good note...here is a picture of the Norwegian Flag...go Norway!