Norwegian Saga

Hello everyone.

The biggest news I’ve got is the hiccup in my residence permit application. When I had submitted my application I did not have a copy of my health insurance policy as was required. The girl to whom I submitted the application package didn’t seem concerned by this at all. I did however, have the policy numbers, phone numbers, and names of all the information that would be required should the “Utlendingsdirektoratet” want to look into it. Both times she assured me if they want it they’ll contact me.

Sure enough, a few days later I got a letter. In it was a request to send in my health insurance policy within two weeks. The problem then became how to get the policy from RBC to me here in Norway. That was settled when my folks received the policy in the mail and scanned and emailed it to me. I printed it and submitted it.

I also got a bank account at Post Banken. It’s a post office and a bank in one. The bank section is handled by a larger Norwegian bank but the post office is the national service. As a student I have a fee free account for 5 years despite the fact that they know I’m done my studies in June of next year. It’s a nice deal.

The people for whom I teach English at the school have given me another grade to teach, unfortunately it’s a younger age group. So now I teach 6-15 year olds in five classes. It’s makes me like Saturdays less as I don’t love teaching kids but thankfully it’s only one day a week and it means I can probably get rid of most or all of my private clients, of which I just received another to start in September.

My thesis adviser has agreed to meet with me weekly. As I understand this is a good thing. Many students don’t get that kind of attention from their advisers. I’m also gearing up to have the first draft of the thesis completed by Christmas. It won’t be an easy task. But now that I’ve got some concrete things in place thanks to my adviser things have moved out of the realm of simply ideas and into the tangible (ie. paper). It’s quite nice to have had that conceptual door opened for me. I somehow didn’t seem able to do it myself.

I guess that’s it for now. Another entry to come next week. Cheers.

Hello everyone!

I’m back in the lovely city of Oslo. There’s a lot to report on and I’m going to give it my best to relate it all without leaving any gaps.

My flight was on Sunday the 9th of August at 1730. I arrived for a nine hour stop over in Frankfurt, Germany, at 7am the following day. The stop over felt like it took forever. I sat in a chair for nine hours waiting for the the board to tell me which gate to go to. To add to that, I was exhausted. I didn’t get much sleep on the plane so I kept nodding off at Frankfurt.

Anne picked me up from the airport, my flight into Oslo was delayed by an hour so the poor girl had to wait. We went to her parents place where I quickly fell asleep. The day after, 11 August, I went to the police station to submit my application for the renewal of my residence permit. Hopefully it doesn’t get rejected as my current one expires on the 30th.

The day after that I settled my housing contract for another semester. I also tried to get my school matters in order to no avail (more on that later). All of this was going on while I lived at Anne’s place. You see, I was technically homeless.

Before I left for Canada I had rented out my flat. The tenant wasn’t due to leave until the 17th of August. So there I was on the 12th with no place to live. My original plan was to go camping with Anne for four or five days then help her with some matters when we got back into the city. I brought over a tent, a sleeping pad and so on. The only problem was that Anne got bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease, which is now better thankfully. As Anne was on heavy antibiotics I didn’t feel comfortable taking her out hiking for a few days. Not to mention the paranoia I developed of hiking around in tall grass. So I didn’t go camping.

After unsuccessfully trying to get my courses registered on the 13th we left for Risør where I spent the remaining few days before moving back into my own place in Oslo.

Only yesterday did I get all of my courses registered and settled. I’m taking a course on the medieval Baltic crusades and an independent reading course where I’m to read a thousand pages of stuff then write a paper. The topic: marriage law in the Icelandic sagas.

I also managed to snag the professor I wanted as my adviser. Though I didn’t have the courage to ask him myself. In conversation with another professor I mentioned that and he kindly asked on my behalf. Boy did I feel like a geek.

I’m just getting settled back in still. I’ve got some lesson plans to make for the kids for tomorrow, I’m still working with teaching English. Yesterday I went out and bought food for myself so now the fridge is stocked. And I’m prepared to begin my research once again.

I will write again, and at least once weekly to keep everyone updated .