Month: March 2018

Anya has been waiting and waiting to hear from her first choice university, the London School of Economics (LSE). Yesterday, she heard; she has a conditional acceptance!!! She was jumping for joy around the apartment yesterday, almost in tears of joy!

The way things work in the EU with the International Baccalaureate program is that she will have to earn a certain number of points on her final exams in May. These scores must include two 6s and a 7 (the highest score) in math. She thinks that is possible. If not, she realized that the second tier options are very fine programs too. Right now, her second choice would be either Kings College in London or University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland, both of which require a 6 in math. St. Andrews is actually considered the 3rd strongest math program after Oxford and Cambridge, but not as many people want to go to a small city in Scotland. One of my favorite theologians is at St. Andrews, so I would like to go there, and I’m not a golfer (St. Andrews is claimed to be the original home of golf)! I also am not one who loves cities like Anya.

Today, Anya was reading more about LSE and their clubs: backgammon, badminton, fashion, Nordic (self-described as having the best parties with lots of alcohol), and the American club, which did not have a description. Hmm, perhaps too much to say, or not enough room to counteract all the stereotypes.

Also today, Anya found out that she has been accepted to the University of Washington in Seattle. However, because we are not residing in Washington state this year, she read that she would not qualify for in-state tuition for 1 year. I wonder, as I still own our home and am paying property tax. However, UW is Anya’s 6th choice currently, so I might not even try to figure this one out.

People around here are bemoaning the late spring. While the daylight is getting longer, it has been snowing a bit for most of the past 4 or 5 days.

However, there are some signs of spring.

The construction continues at JTH. We have to be creative where we park our bikes. On Friday, I parked my bike in this area in the morning, but then the construction fence blocked the exit when I was headed out to my Swedish tutoring time, as seen here. I had to roll my bike through part of the building to get out another door.

One of the signs you are in Sweden is cheese, lots of cheese. Cheese and ryecrisp cracker-like bread (knäckebröd) is available at the morning fika for the staff. They like mild cheese and strong coffee. I rarely indulge in the snack, as it isn’t so enticing for me, and I don’t need the extra calories. I’ll save them for chocolate!

Off to practice more Swedish.

With blessings,

Beth

 

P.S. My blog’s app to notify people by email of new postings dropped all the email addresses. If you’d like to have me put you back in the notification system, send me an email.

I haven’t posted in a while. Partially, I’ve been busy. Partially, there hasn’t been much exciting to say. Partially, I’m tired.

In cross-cultural journeys, there is a common up and down reality. The ups are filled with the excitement of adventures. The downs are filled with the weariness of language learning and other cross-cultural issues, such as being tired of feeling like a fish out of water and dealing with the host countries ways of doing things.

Last week was filled with both ups and downs. I have been blessed with some intentional affirmations and invitations. Those are even more meaningful for me, as they take the sharp edge off the frustrations—especially of language learning. The nadir of every month is the faculty meeting. It is 3.25 hours of Swedish conversation that affects my life, and I continually struggle to understand what is going on. I can usually understand the topic and some of the details for most speakers. On occasion the vocabulary is new to me, so I cannot track well, and with one speaker who has a difficult dialect that is pronounced deep and throaty, it is almost impossible for me to understand anything. Native Swedish speakers even say it is hard to understand him. I asked for a draft of the minutes to read, before the official version comes out a month later.

On the long day with the faculty meeting, I started teaching at 8:30 am that went until 12:15, including a break for a short chapel service and fika. The day’s topic was one I haven’t taught much, Isaiah, as I had a colleague in the the USA who taught the Prophets. It is always humbling teaching a huge topic and not feeling like an expert on all the different approaches and viewpoints, and Isaiah has very many approaches and viewpoints!

The long day continued into the evening with a skit night by the Bible school students. I stayed to support them, but I felt like a fish out of water in a Swedish cultural context coupled with a brain tired from so much Swedish. I left at 9:00 pm.

My week includes teaching biblical Hebrew to native Swedish speakers with an American English textbook with my English instruction. Fortunately for me, there is no good Hebrew grammar text for Swedish speakers (even Lund and Uppsala Universities use an American English Hebrew grammar), however, this is bad for the students. I am also not the Hebrew expert that my friend-colleagues are. So, I arranged a Skype session with a Swedish friend who is a Hebrew expert. Lena, who lives and teaches in the UK, was the person who introduced me to JTH, and she is an affiliated teacher at JTH. This is a role that is developing, where a scholar is brought to campus to present some of their research. So, Lena was glad to connect with my students via Skype.

From 15 who started last fall, there are only 4 students left. This is because Hebrew is not required, but Greek is. Students need half a year (equivalent) of 2 courses in a biblical language and 2 courses of biblical language-based exegetical study in the biblical text. Currently, due to limited resources, this is offered in Greek only. So, Hebrew will always be a smaller group.

I’m also tired of the construction. First, the campus was remodeled to allow for the EFS administration to move into the campus. This was frustrating beyond the noise, but also with the lack of process and resulting limited space and resources. The library was reduced in size and resulted in too little study area.

Then the sewage backed up in the basement. While the month-long jack-hammering out the ruined cement is done, the noise is now outside, as a water barrier is put around the external basement walls.

I’m tired also of the “Beast from the East.” We’ve had colder than typical weather. Mid-week, it was -17 Celsius, or about 1 Fahrenheit. While I lived through winters in Minnesota, I had a car to get around. Here, I’m bundling up and biking around in this cold weather. It is hard to shift gears when my thumb is pulled inside my gloves to keep from freezing off.

Fortunately, we are now starting to have longer daylight, so I’m internalizing this metaphor for my tiredness; the sunlight does get stronger.

With blessings,

Beth