Ugh, the weather has been dreary lately. Rain, rain, and more rain, interspersed with the very occasional sunny day. I can’t really complain, though, as apparently this is exactly the kind of weather most of Norway has experienced throughout much of the summer. At least here in the southeast we had three or four glorious weeks at the end of July/beginning of August that we can remember fondly as fall comes crashing in. If my entire summer had been as wet as this past week, I’d be extremely bummed out. Norwegian summers are simply too short, so to be cheated out of even a couple of weeks of it is a real downer.

Despite the rain, it’s been pretty warm around here, so it was kind of shocking to look out at the forest behind our house and see that some of the trees have started to show their fall colors. Nothing says “summer is over” like a bright yellow tree that is already losing its leaves.



I’ve been super busy with work and school but it’s all good---I love my new Norwegian class! We are six, three young men (two Iraqi, one Iraqi Kurd), two young women (one Norwegian, one Brazilian), and me. The young people are all smart, good-looking, and speak much, much better Norwegian than I do. Normally, this kind of situation---where I’m the oldest, least attractive, and least capable person in the room---would unleash huge amounts of anxiety in me but it’s not at all. Okay, the first day was shaky, but after that, it’s been incredibly cool. It’s because the other students, in addition to their aforementioned attributes, are all SUPER NICE. They’re really friendly and chatty and include me in everything that’s going on. I feel so lucky to be in class with them and can only hope that, maybe, just maybe, by the end of the year I’ll actually be able to speak more-than-intermediate Norwegian with them. Hope is good.

We had our first class outing already. Last weekend, five of us piled into one of the boy’s (he’s 20 but that seems like a boy to me) cars and traveled up to Tønsberg (25 minutes north of Sandefjord) to see Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll House” (“Et dukkehjem” på norsk) at a local theater. It was all in Norwegian, of course, and I missed about 30% of the dialog but understood enough to be able to follow along and ended up enjoying the show immensely. And it was fun to get know my classmates a little bit better.

So far, this experience of serious, daytime Norwegian class is 200% better than the last two times I tried to do it, even though the school is the same one I went to the last time. I have to wonder if the situation is really so much different or if I’m the one who has changed…. I think it might be me. Thinking about it, I’m 100 times happier than I was two years ago, or even a year ago. And 1000x happier than four years ago. I can’t at all explain what’s caused this massive turn-around---I mean, I still have a menial job and can barely speak the language---but it’s like a switch has flipped in my brain and turned on my “contentment juice” or something. It could be my hormones; my body has changed (read: become fatter) since my surgery in November, 2009, when the doctors removed my ovaries and sent me into menopause, so certainly my brain chemistry changed as well. I am definitely more calm than I've been in 20 years---just ask Husband. Or is it just that it took five years for me to “find my feet” here in Norway? Who knew it could take so long?

Anyway, I hope this feeling lasts a long time and that I keep enjoying school. I’ll let you know.