kareina

Back when I first moved to Sweden I took the intro to Swedish course at the Uni, but, since I moved here in January of that year I was only able to take classes till the end of the school year (May), and the sequence stopped--the Uni assumes that the students in the course starting in January are exchange students who leave in May. Therefore I needed to wait till the following January before I could take the next course in the sequence.

Note that in my case, I did leave the country in June to apply for my visa, so it was just as well that the next class wasn't available straight away, but it would have been nice if I could have taken it in that August. However, as it turned out, by that January I had started my job at uni, and I did a fair bit of travel for work that semester, so I didn't make it to all of the classes, and didn't progress as well as I would have liked. In addition there was a different teacher than I had had to start with, and I didn't click as well with her.

Therefore I never signed up for the next course in the series, and have been "learning" Swedish by reading books (that I have already read in English) and talking with lord_kjar in Swedish (when we remember to do so). This has resulted in some progress, but, as I tend to tell people "Jag kan prata svenska, men jag kan inte säger någonting intersant." (I can speak Swedish, but I can't say anything interesting.)

However, this week a friend of mine who is learning French (having moved to France to do her PhD) told me about a web page she had found which has language lessons available in a variety of languages. I have been happily playing with the free intro lessons available in Swedish (like any good pusher, they assure you that the first hit is free!) ever since. My plan is to exhaust ALL of the free intro lessons in Swedish before I pay for a subscription to the full lessons. In part because we leave for Double Wars next Thursday, and I won't be back for ten days thereafter. I see no point in paying for time for lessons if I won't be home to take them.

However, I have so enjoyed the lessons I have had so far that I do plan on paying for the full set. Some of the lessons even have voice recognition, and it makes me say the word over several times if the computer doesn't recognize my first few attempts. Perhaps, someday, I will speak Swedish to a Swede and have them reply with something other than "What"? (never "Vad?", if they don't understand what I said they ask in English...)

Today's progress was very minor. The good news is that I have found out that Uni employees get free entry into the gym during business hours (and we are expected to use it a couple of hours a week), so today I picked up my gym card. Will need to remember to bring workout clothes to keep in the office for those moments when I need a break from work that involves movement. (I won't even need to go outside to go to the gym--every building on campus is connected via underground tunnels.)

I had downloaded the program GoCad yesterday, but when I tried following the instructions from the IT guy to explain to my computer were it could find the licence on the uni server I got an error message. So I emailed him back and let him know, and this morning I had an email suggesting I ask the PhD student across the hall for help, since he uses that program. I did and he gave me the number for the IT guy that he always works with to get the licence working, and he said that it is always difficult to get it working. So I called the IT guy and told him I had encountered the error message, so he took the time to install the program on his computer and checked to see if he could get access to the licence on the server. He could.

Then he came to my office and tried getting my computer to see the licence. Nope. He checked to see which version of the program I have (version 3), and compared it to the one he installed (version 2) and decided that perhaps it would help if I uninstalled my copy and instead installed the older one. Nope, no help. At that point he decided that he needed to go to lunch (he has a dog that needs a mid-day walk), and said he would come back later. Later didn't happen--partly because he wound up in a meeting, and partially because I was tired enough after lunch I wound up heading home for a nap (though I did take care to email him to let him know I wouldn't be in the office, to which he replied that he was relieved as several other things had come up on his end, and he would see me tomorrow).

It is probably a good thing that it will take a while before I get any data to work with, given how long it takes to even get the programs I will need to be using, let alone learn how to use them.

It was kind of weird to be so tired and low energy this afternoon, after having had such a productive and energetic Friday and Monday work day. Then again, after work on Monday I joined some friends for a game of The Daughters of Verona and it was so much fun I stayed up rather later than I should have (the game didn't end till nearly 22:00, though we started at 17:30). I really strongly recommend this game--it can get very silly.

The game is a Shakespeare play in progress--specifically a comedy. There are not many rules to get in the way of creating the story, and what few there are make it more fun (e.g. "if an identity can be mistaken, it will be"). The game is set up for five players, each of which plays multiple characters in the play (and at any time a player may trade characters with another and take over speaking that character's lines--even in the middle of a sentence). Each game has four lovers, two "blockers" (who work to complicate the lover's lives and attempt to prevent them from getting married), and one "fool" (who always sees things clearly and speaks those truths that others would not dare to mention). Because the play is a comedy it always ends with the happy marriages of the lovers (though not necessarily to one another).

For this story it turned out that the city of Verona was being besieged by Cassocks (please keep in mind that this is a low-budget play and that no research was done for the play so anachronisms are to be expected). One of our lovers was the young daughter of the leader of the Cassocks, who had disguised herself as a man to march with the army as a solider. The other three all loved her. One of them was her father's right-hand man, who was the only person in the army aware of her true identity. The other two were a brother and sister, children of a wealthy merchant of Verona, both of whom loved her thinking she was a man. This lead to many funny situations and lots of cross-dressing for the siblings pretending to be the other.

Tonight's choir practice once again showed me that I understand only enough Swedish to get myself into trouble. I understood our leader when she asked who was interested in volunteering to sing the "solo" for the song we were learning, but I thought that she said that more discussion on that topic would take break during the break. When it was time for the break I got out my stitching and stayed in my chair, intending to mend my nålbinded gloves. However, much to my surprise most folk left the room, and a small group gathered around the piano and begun to sing. It turns out that what she had said was not that it would be discussed during the break, but that she would teach the volunteers the part during the break. As soon as I realized that I had misunderstood I took my stitching and went out to the hall to join the others--save the solo parts for people who can pronounce the words correctly and know when they are singing the notes that they are meant to be singing!

As I type lord_kjar is busy doing a bit of plain weaving to make a strap for carrying things using a small rigid heddle he made back when he was a child. Can I tell you what a delight it is to live with someone who also does projects?