Ok, this is it for the day. It’s bedtime here. Friday night homemade pizza and our first game of Pandemic Legacy, Season 2. The perfect game to buy abroad, play out, then destroy! Nothing to bring home!
I stopped by the store on the way home and grabbed pizza fixings. The dough was refrigerated, just roll it out on the pan. It’s not fantastic, but an easy Friday night meal. A little something for everyone on there too. I cut it with a scissors as we did at the pizza restaurant, and remembered that my mom always cut a sheet-pan pizza with a scissors growing up. It’s come full circle.
Pandemic Legacy Season 2 promises to be fun and challenging. This game assumes that the world is ravaged by disease after Season 1 (which we actually beat at the “disaster averted” level, so I will assume that we are cleaning up someone else’s mess :). We are survivors who are rebuilding supplies for remaining population centers and “rediscovering” areas of the world that have fallen. Same basic mechanics, interesting new story line. We even got to name our characters: TorBjørn, Loki Ulven, and Xåkø, among others.
Anders likes to play, Nora does not. She listened to audiobooks, colored, and hung clothes to dry when asked. We have a small washing machine and a drying rack from Ikea, actually the same model that we have at home. The clothes completely dry overnight.
It’s been a good week for the kids. Anders got to play bass in “rock band” class. Anders says that he is understanding more of what the teacher says now. If it is said directly to him, he understands 39%. If it is said to the whole class, he understands 34%. That’s a pretty precise calculation. He likes school here better than at Linus Pauling. He can still be a kid here, not a middle schooler. Anders had an extended indoor gym class today and had to shower afterward, first time for that experience and although it took a little courage, it all went fine. Everyone was cool.
Nora got to do ice skating in gym class and a solar system project about Saturn with the girl who just returned from Canada, so English was allowed. Nora had an easy time with her new Norwegian homework, so I asked the teacher to send home more next week. Nora’s class will have gym inside next week and all of the fourth graders will have their first experience with showering after gym. She’s not looking forward to that. She will be ok. She likes somethings about school here better, and some things about Garfield better. She misses her friends, but she is overall very happy.
That is pretty awesome progress for less than a month in a language immersion situation! Your kids must have some genetic prowess for language. Have a terrific weekend.
Anders had been practicing before we left and has been dedicated to practicing at home while we are here. He is motivated! I’m sure his feeling of connection to his birthplace and heritage help him believe that he is a natural. And as I said, Norwegian is actually a lot like English in a lot of ways. Sometimes I have to stop myself from just saying an English word with a Norwegian accent because I doubt that it is the same word, but it is correct!
Nora has a natural prowess for language in the sense of writing and speaking eloquently, and I wish that translated into other language acquisition, but I’m not seeing the evidence. She is less motivated, she just wants to have fun with the other kids. And if that helps her learn language, all the better.
Thanks so much for the news. Its so nice to keep up. A new adventure every day. Love CB