Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Taking over the school

This week I started student teaching again. We've had 6 weeks of student teaching every year, at different schools each year. For our final year, we are only going to have two weeks of student teaching, however. I have kind of mixed feelings about it - on the one hand, student teaching is a lot more "work" than being a student. Just the fact that we have to be at the school every day at 8 in the morning. On the other hand, I really enjoy student teaching and feel like it's where I've learned the most during the last 4 years I've been a college student.

What we're doing this year (we actually did it for 2 weeks last year, too) is having what they call a "school takeover". This week us college students are at the school, meeting the kids, getting to know the school and planning lessons. Then next week, all of the teachers as well as the principal and vice-principal are headed to a course in London, while we take over the school. For that week, we are responsible for everything that happens at the school, and we even have a specially appointed group to take over for the administration. It's actually a pretty cool form of student teaching.

But, it's tiring...

Monday, January 28, 2008

Crystal Anniversary

Gaute and I will be married 15 years on July 31st. FIFTEEN YEARS! Not bad, huh?

Doing a little crying last night...

Last night I watched Brokeback Mountain for the 6th time. I LOVE that movie. There aren't very movies that I look forward to watching for the 6th time, but I think could watch Brokeback Mountain twenty times and not get sick of it. It always makes me sob, but I love it.

And Heath Ledger is so fantastic in that movie...and now he's dead.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Friday afternoon

I just got back from a course held by the teacher's union, about applying for jobs and salaries and stuff like that. It was great - they answered a lot of the questions I've had about getting a job and gave some good tips. But it also kind of freaked me out...I am going to have to go out and apply for a job and go to interviews...

But, I don't have to worry about that this weekend! We're going to eat an early dinner (homemade Friday night pizza), and then we're taking off for the cabin for the weekend. Time to hunt down the snow!

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Our pied-à-terre in Paris

I just got the confirmation - this cool apartment is where we will be staying in Paris. Scroll down to the bottom and click to see pictures of the actual apartment. The other pictures are from the building lobby.

The latest (and hopefully last) entry about Espen's eyes

Gaute and Espen were at the hospital for a checkup last week, and everything looked great. His one eye still has a tendency to wander every now and then, but he can correct it himself. They were very pleased with how things looked, and they don't want to see him anymore!! That is, I'm sure they'd like to see him again, but they don't need to. It is so nice to be done with that! And I'm pretty sure Espen is the happiest of all of us.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Real winter

This is what it should look like....

Bonjour!

So, I bought tickets to Paris...One of the discount airlines had cheap tickets available. We paid 3500 kroner (about $700) for the whole family. (That seems much cheaper in kroner than it does in dollars!) It's a really good deal! So we'll be there for a week at the end of July. And, as an added bonus, Gaute has discovered that the last leg of the Tour de France, in Paris, will be one of the days we are there! He was psyched, to put it mildly.

Finding a good deal on a hotel is proving more difficult. Rooms for 5 people are pretty much nonexistent. And getting two rooms is pretty expensive, as it's not exactly the cheapest city in the world. I'm thinking renting an apartment will be the best option. But how to know which property management places you can trust?? I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

The most popular tourist destination in the world

Gaute is not going with us to the U.S. this summer. He only goes with us every other year, due to the fact that tickets are expensive and seeing my family is not as important to him as it is to me.

Because we're saving so much money on his ticket, we decided to take a family vacation with him after we get back from California. This morning while we ate breakfast, we had a vote to decide where we should go. Everyone named some places they'd like to go on vacation and then we each ranked them. The choices ranged from Legoland to New York, with a cluster of British cities (London, York, Liverpool (Espen's choice :-))). Paris came out the winner, however, so that's where we're going! I'm so excited!!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Winter Wonderland?

It's dark and raining and windy...Today on my way to school, a gust of wind came along and inverted by umbrella and destroyed it. This is not the winter weather I ordered!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Yes, I'm still alive....I just haven't been very motivated to blog lately. I had a really nice Christmas vacation and started back to school feeling full of energy. That lasted about one day. Then it was back to that good old stressed-out feeling. And I don't even have any papers due or anything right now. I just need to get back into a different rhythm - going to bed early and waking up early.

Other than me having tense shoulders, things are going very well here. Anders and Johan started a downhill skiing course that they go to with their afterschool program. It's once a week at one of the resorts here in Oslo.

Espen's football practice has started up again. It's twice a week now and they'll be up to three days a week starting February 1. The good thing is that he and his friends walk up to practice by themselves, so it doesn't disturb life for the rest of us.

Today, Anders and Johan and I went to the library to check out some new books. Although I'm a big fan of buying books, because I like to have them sitting there on my bookshelf, I know that it's also really fun to go the library and check out as many books as you want. Their school is having a big reading campaign right now, and they have to read for half an hour every day for homework, so they're really going through the books like crazy. Even Espen, the boy who "hates reading", has been reading. For Christmas, I gave him a biography of Lyn's coach, who used to play for Manchester United. He is really enjoying it, and I think it's renewing his interest in reading. Luckily, Anders and Johan love reading, so I don't have to try and come up with motivations for them.

We're taking the kids to see a movie in a few minutes - Enchanted. It looks like a fun movie, and they're excited. We don't get out much...

It's snowing like crazy today - Yea!

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Action videos...

More fun from last week...

The video of Anders and Johan was taken the second time ever they were on downhill skis .

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Romjul på hytta

As you can see below, we have been doing a lot of skiing the last week. Unlike Oslo, there was a lot of snow up at our cabin and great trails. It was so nice to be outside enjoying the winter. On New Year's Eve, it was sunny and about 25 degrees - the second two pictures are taken that day.