sometimes schedules make themselves more accommodating all by themselves.

Thanks to a conversation I had a 12th Night, where I found out that the Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) course that the government offers is actually a much better an more intensive course than the Swedish for Beginners course the Uni offers (and which I have taken), I have actually made the effort to track down the (SFI). (I tried sending an email (in English) asking about it back in August of 2011, when I first got a resident visa to live in Sweden, but never got a reply, and, as it turned out, I wouldn't have been able to make time in my schedule then for the course due to other obligations.) This time I found the same pdf document on SFI on line as I had discovered back in 2011, but this time I decided to send my email of inquiry as to when and where the course meets in Swedish, and I got a reply!

After exchanging a number of emails (all in Swedish) I am registered to take the next course, and just awaiting an opportunity to take the diagnostic test, so that they can determine which level course I should attend. I was slightly disappointed when she said that the next chance for the diagnostic test was next Tuesday, since I am also taking a GIS course this semester (since it wasn't an option for me to take such a course when I was a student, and the class was under-enrolled compared to what they were hoping for, so they are happy for post docs to sit in, too), and that class meets at the same time (and very different location) as that diagnostic test. However, the woman I have been corresponding with about the SFI course said that it wasn't a problem and that there would be other opportunities to take the test in February and she would get back to me to let me know when they were.

Then, this morning, I got an email from the GIS teacher letting me know that he has had a schedule conflict come up, and that Tuesday's course has been rescheduled. So I promptly forwarded the message to my contact for the Swedish course and asked if it was too late to sign up for the diagnostic test on Tuesday. She wrote back and said that it will be fine, so in just a few more days I will learn just how much Swedish I have really managed to absorb in three years living in this country. It will be interesting to see how I go with the course--four hours a day is way more time/effort than I have ever put into learning Swedish; I bet that after the first session my poor brain will be full, but I also suspect/hope that it will become easier with practice.

hah! I knew it was supposed to rhyme!

As regular readers will remember, I sing with the student choir at the University here in Luleå. For the past couple of years we have been heavily recruiting exchange students and have maintained a good mix of people from all over the world, though, of course, the faces change each year and, for many of them, each semester. The new semester started last week, and already we have our first gig of the season: performing at the banquet welcoming the newest crop of Exchange Students to Sweden. However, most of the choir isn't available for this performance (even lord_kjar is out of town this weekend. There are only four of us who are able to participate--one soprano, me (alt), and two tenors. One of the tenors is Swedish and the president of the choir, the other two are exchange students themselves. Therefore, given the limited number of people for this gig, rather than actually doing full choir arrangement we have opted on a simpler set:

The president and I will be introduced as ambassadors for the student choir, come to invite them all to come participate with us on Tuesdays, and we will welcome them to Sweden with a traditional Swedish drinking song. As soon as we start with "Helan går!", the choir exchange students will stand up at their place and sing the reply, and then walk up to join us on the stage, where we will give the full song another run through, in unison. Then after we sing that one our president will announce that he understand that the dinner has a theme for the evening of Cartoons/comics, and will point out that our choir has a new mascot, the spider pig (which one of the exchange students will be wearing as a placard on his chest). Then we will sing the Spider Pig song (which I had never heard of before Tuesday--I am so out of touch with popular culture, I didn't even know there was a movie for that cartoon family). After we sing the line "can he swing from a web?", I will snatch away the spider pig, turn him back right side up, and sing a solo "No he can't! He's a pig!", before the soprano snatches the pig back from me to turn it back into a spider pig for the song finale. Then we will tell the crowd that if they join us on Tuesday they can hear this song done in full four-part choir arrangement, and take our leave.

I think it will be fun, and I can't believe that I, whom my friends used to tell me not to sing with them because I sang in a monotone "and it throws the rest of us off", will be singing a solo! I have come a very, very long way. With luck it will get even better soon. Another of our choir members teaches voice lessons, so we will be meeting up on Sunday afternoon to trade a singing lesson for a massage.

The drinking song we will be singing is extremely well known throughout Sweden, and in a fair few other places as well:

Helan går
Sjung hopp faderallan lallan lej
Helan går
Sjung hopp faderallan lej
Och den som inte helan tar*
Han heller inte halvan får
Helan går
(Drink)
Sjung hopp faderallan lej


Which roughly translates to:

The whole goes (down the hatch)
sing fa la la...
The whole goes (down the hatch)
sing fa la la...
and those who don't take the whole (drink in one go)
he cannot have half of it either
sing fa la la...


As our president was teaching us the words tonight I commented that "I need to remember that 'får' rhymes with 'går', and not 'tar' so that I pronounce it correctly". Therefore I was highly amused to come home and read on the Wikipedia page for this song that "*In the classic version, "trår" is used instead of "tar". "Tar" is modernized, and doesn't rhyme." Edited to add: Our Choir president replies "Well, in this one case I'd argue the modernization is an improvement anyway. "Trår" means "yearn", which doesn't really makes as much sense as "tar"." I argue that he is mistaken--I think "those who don't yearn (to drink) the whole (glass in one go) can't have half of it either." works just fine.