Cultural Norm

If Finland is a spitting culture and England is a proper culture, I think I've figured out what Iceland is.  It is a PEEING culture.  I cannot tell you how many times I've looked out my window and seen someone peeing in our back parking lot or out front in the bank parking lot.  It is unreal.  I have started tapping on the window just to make sure the perpetrator knows he is spotted.  Most of the time, the criminal is unashamed.

The other day's experience takes the cake.   I was coming out of Kringlan (the mall here) and was walking through the underground parking garage when I noticed a man standing next to his car in a suspicious position.  The closer I got, the more disgusted I became.  Not only was this man peeing in a PARKING GARAGE, but his wife and kids were patiently and nonchalantly waiting in the vehicle.  I don't even know what to say.  I guess some people are more offended/disgusted by spitting in public, so maybe I should just hold my tongue.

"I want my mommy...."

The last 5 days have been a blur of fevers, runny noses, coughing, body aches and chills, and fatigue...for all of us.  Colby has gotten hit the least hard and today he commented, "I feel like I'm running an infirmary."  Haley threw up once but I think it's because she had 2 vitamins on an empty stomach.  I wonder when this will end?

Búsahalda Byltingir

The other day, I took the kids to a park near downtown to enjoy a few rare moments of precipitation-free fun.  We heard some banging in the distance, and immediately I knew what was going on.  There was really only one thing it could be.  It must be....It had to be....the Búsahalda Byltingir.

Darcy and I had just been having a wild ride on the see-saw, and I made her laugh so hard that she threw up all over the front of her coat.  It was time to leave anyway, so we made our way home...in the direction of the banging of course.  I knew it would insight questions, but I wanted to see it firsthand for myself.  I had heard of the Búsahalda Byltingir from many sources and had discussed it in class when we studied about household items.  My time had finally come.  I was about to witness the Búsahalda Byltingir...that is... the Kitchen-Ware Revolution.

We finally got close enough to see the small crowd, each with their favorite kitchen appliance, gathered in front of what I assumed to be a very important building here in Reykjavik.  I saw one man with a plunger, banging it on a rail;  Another had a big kitchen pot and was banging it with a wooden spoon.  Most of the other people were booing and yelling as well as banging.  The chaos finally subsided when someone from the building opened the door, pointed to who I suspected to be the ring-leader and summoned the protester into his office.

There have been many protest here in Reykjavik the last 9 months.  Most of them have been in City Center which is an open green space in front of the Parliament Building.  A lot of people here are still angry since the big crisis that went down last October.  A lot of people here have lost their jobs. Iceland is changing, and it has definitely been an interesting time to be here.  If you are interested, you can read Icelandic News in English at: http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/english/ .

On Reading Old Books like the Bible

John Mark Reynolds is the director of the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University, that beloved institution where I did my MA. During my time studying there he was one of my favorite lecturers and he recently wrote this article "On Reading Old Books like the Bible". It is thought provoking and definitely worth taking ten minutes of your time to read it.

The Chronicles of Language Acquisition

The last 9 months of my journey learning (what is said to be) one of the hardest languages in the world...

February:  I can say my name, how old I am, and where I am from.  My Icelandic is as good as Darcy’s English (2 year old level). I feel completely overwhelmed by the complex grammar structure of this language.  There are 48 words for the number one.  FOURTY-EIGHT. Colby has studied 2 languages with similar grammar and gets it immediately.

Although the grammar is ridiculous, I am learning new words every day.  The city is coming alive…words on billboards, businesses, magazines now have meaning to me.  With each day I feel like I am adding a brushstroke of water to one of those “magic Color Wonder” pages.   

Colby and I watch t.v. with Icelandic subtitles while we work out at the gym together.  It´s a great way to reinforce what we´ve been learning in class, but unfortunately, the only thing on at that time is soap operas.  I never thought the day would come that we would have discussions about the latest plot in The Bold And The Beautiful.

March:  Not only are we taking a class every morning, but now we are going to language school at night twice a week.  Halfway through the month, I hit a wall and stay in bed for a week fighting off what I think is a virus.  After talking with our supervisor, I realize that it’s not a virus and I am experiencing physical ramifications of mental stress.  Realizing that I need to be mentally tough and fight through the exhaustion, I continue to go to class even though just hearing Icelandic makes my head spin and throb.  Can’t I just speak English the whole time we’re here?  Is this really worth it?

April: Colby’s Icelandic is flourishing and I feel like I’m losing the race.  I call Nancy in tears and she “talks me down off the ledge” reminding me that language learning is not a competition (What?!?  I thought everything was a competition!)  and it’s okay if Colby is ahead.  I’ll eventually catch up.

I can speak sentences now, but unfortunately, I start a sentence in Icelandic and at some point—without realizing it—finish the sentence in Spanish.  I don’t even know what words are Spanish and what words are Icelandic anymore.  I regret even learning Spanish.

May:  I meet Edna who is from Latin America.  Perfect.  I switch between Icelandic, Spanish, and English as I’m talking and she understands everything I’m trying to say.  We are now in an Icelandic Level 3 class.  We are reading short stories (a page long) every day.  I feel encouraged because I’m probably on a 2^nd grade reading level.      

June:  I have developed a small language route—frequently visiting the same shops and practicing Icelandic.   I stop by a cozy Christian coffee shop a lot and talk with one particular generous employee.  The other day the conversation went longer than it ever had—back and forth, back and forth, just like a surprisingly good game of ping-pong.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was actually speaking Icelandic.  At a three year old level, anyway.

July:  From what I’ve heard, if you are to graph language acquisition, after a sharp spike there comes an inevitable plateau.  This month I can feel the plateau. 

August:  I am starting to wonder if we are even going to be able to stay here in Iceland.  We don’t have VISAs, and we will have to leave soon if we don’t get them.  Language learning comes to an abrupt halt.  We’re not sure if we will have to learn another language soon…sigh.

September:  We are in Finland all month.  I imagine what life would be like if we were to live there instead.  Colby found a word 29 letters long on the back of a cereal box.  We get our VISAs.   We return to Iceland on a Saturday and start another language school on Tuesday.  The new class is SO advanced and SO fast and I feel like I am comprehending very little.  I cry the entire way home from school on the 2^nd day.  Here we go again…

October:  I have recruited more people to pray for me and the challenges of being here.  I am working harder than I ever have at studying Icelandic.  There are even note cards by the toilet…not a second wasted! 

I am forcing myself to use Icelandic out in public even though almost everyone speaks English.  The other day I was trying to get a library card and accidently asked the librarian if the card was pregnant (ofrisk) instead of if it was free (okeypis). 

 

Last week Thora told me that my Icelandic had improved since we had last talked.  It has put a skip in my step and every day I can feel things starting to click and stick.  I can feel that I’m on another spike on the graph and it feels so good.  Colby and I frequently talk to each other in Icelandic when we don’t want the kids to know what we’re saying (at least we don’t think they understand…). 

I just figured out last night what one of the “warning signs” in the gufubað is saying and realized that I have been breaking the rules for the past 9 months.  Oops.  They should have really put that in English if it was so important.

Today in class we were sharing a folktale from our country.  I chose the story of Johnny Appleseed and spent over an hour the night before preparing for my turn.  During my presentation I was trying to express that Johnny Appleseed always carried a bag full of seeds with him wherever he went.  Unfortunately, the word seed has many shades of meaning that the dictionary didn’t exactly distinguish for me… and I instead told the whole class that Johnny always carried with him a bag full of SPERM. 

Oh well.  I guess this is how you learn…

Toby & Me

In 1990 I was 10 years old.  I can remember the day we went to the Learning Shop to buy a tadpole and a "grow-a-frog" kit.  It was very exciting to meet "Toby" and learn about his stages of development.  He was a rather easy pet and my mom gave him only the best of care.  I have memories of driving across town to get free filtered water from the Brewery for his tank.  Soon he graduated from his small cup to bowl, his bowl to a small tank, and eventually was granted the luxury of a 10 gallon tank as he morphed into a small water frog.  When I graduated from high school, he had become obese from all the pampering and earned the nickname "thunder-thighs." My trips back home during breaks were always highlighted with seeing this grow-a-frog who had endured a decade.  By the time I got married, he had developed cataracts but apparently had enough vision to spot his frog food each day.  Soon the kids came along and enjoyed knocking on the glass of his tank to see him jolt (which was the only movement he ever made).  Last week my mother emailed the inevitable news...Toby was found "belly-up."  I thought a grow-a-frog that lasted NINE-TEEN YEARS deserved a shout-out in cyberspace.  If I have any hope of ever appearing in the Guinness Book of world records, this might be it.

Imagine

Last weekend we saw in the news that the John Lennon "Imagine Peace Tower" was being lit up in Reykjavik.  Our friend's Dad who was visiting was CONVINCED from a distance that it was the northern lights, but...hey....it's easily confused.

We went on a 5 minute boat ride to the island of Viðey (compliments of Yoko Ono herself) and walked in the utter darkness until we reached the light.  When our "tour guide" told us to all hold hands and send up our wishes for peace, I saw this picture in my head and begged Colby to climb the hill behind us and capture it.  Well done, Colby, well done.  Fully participating in the festivities, Darcy wrote a wish and hung it on the wish tree right next to everyone's wishes for global peace:  "I wish for a baby bottle so I can feed my baby." (We had a family over for dinner and their 2 year old threw Darcy's toy baby bottle off our 4th floor patio).   The whole boat ride home they played "Give Peace a Chance."  It was a fun evening that would have only been improved by meeting Yoko Ono in person.  Maybe next year.

Photo Catch-up

I finally put the rest of our Finland/London pictures up.  This one is my favorite!

For the Grandparents...

 

 

 

 

You should be able to save these to your thumbdrive and then print them out at Wal-Mart.  Were there any other ones that you wanted?

My Little SpongeBob

Haley has now completely phased out of nap-time, but unfortunately I still have not.  Karen Doheney gave us a few books on CD before they moved, so I have been letting Haley listen to them during "quiet time" in the afternoons.  I didn't realize how much Haley had absorbed them until we got to Finland.  Every day we would load the kids up in the double jogging stroller and go for a run.  On distance days, Darcy would ask Haley if she could listen to Nemo, put on pretend headphones, press the imaginary button on Haley's arm and listen to this:  



We cannot get over our little sponge!  We really need to find some good literature for her to listen to now.  Any suggestions?  Colby thinks she should start listening to the Bible because--at this rate--she'll have the entire thing memorized by age 14.  Gather the kids up and let them enjoy story time!  Haley couldn't stop giggling after she recorded this and I told her I was going to post it on the blog.  She said, "I bet it will make everyone laugh!"  Leave a comment to let Haley know how you liked it (I think I changed the setting so anyone can leave a comment now).