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Monday. Four days to go until we leave. This all seems to have happened very quickly. One minute I’m on a diving holiday in Sicily, the next I’m quitting my job and moving to Oslo to be with the man of my dreams. Although what happened in the past is interesting I’m not going to talk about that here. This is going to be my personal account of the experience of moving to Oslo and settling in over there.
I feel a mixture of excitement and a fear, more excitement though, it has to be said. I’m excited about moving in with my fiancee, starting a new job, meeting new people, and experiencing a different country. Most people are telling me how lucky I am and that I am living the dream. I think this is true. I’m going to be researching Media Innovations at the University of Oslo. This is a dream job for me. I will specifically be looking into the provision and use of language options on social networking sites, more about that soon!
My biggest fear is whether I will be able to learn sufficient Norwegian to settle in. I presume I will in time but like any novice I am impatient and want to master the challenge as quickly and as painlessly as possible. I’ve taken one series of classes and some follow-up private lessons over the past year, and I am not happy with my progress!
I’ve been trying to refresh what Norwegian I’ve managed to learn to date by watching NRK Nett-TV. NRK is the Norwegian Public Service Broadcaster which provides a fantastic online service. I’ve found this is helping to build my confidence in my understanding of the language, but sometimes with strange effect. I generally watch the daily news review show, so I think I’m pretty up to date about what’s happening in the world – for example the riots in the middle-East and the Nordic Ski Jumpng World Championships (not in any order of importance!). I find I think I understand what is happening, i.e. today Gadaffi is in trouble in Libya – but I have no idea whether he is still in Libya, or what exactly is going on. Hopefully this situation will improve in time!
Another big fear is leaving my family and friends behind. I’ve been through so much with these important people in my life, and I have no idea how I am going to survive without their support. I’m also going to miss so many events in people’s lives, as well as the intimate discussions about what is really going on for them. This is something that is going to be a big challenge for me. I’m also probably going to die for want of gossip, but hopefully I’ll be able to keep fairly close contact with Skype, Facebook, Twitter etc.
All of this personal drama is greatly overshadowing the current situation in Ireland. I’ve voted of course and kept an eye on the election, and I’m very concerned for the future of the country. It looks like Fine Gael and Labour will have a huge majority in a coalition government, leaving a very week oposition to challenge their position. It will be interesting to see how the Fine Gael/Labour dynamic plays out in practice. I wonder how much Bruton and Burton really have in common! It will also be interesting to see what the policy of the coalition will be with regard to the Irish language – again more about that soon!
That’s it for today!
