Tonight we are going to our last hockey game. Well HV71 still has more hockey games, but we only bought tickets for four games this season, and this is our fourth! Let's hope we win! The last three games we've gone to we've always lost. I look forward to a night with "the guys." I've always gotten along well with guys in general, it's fun for me to be the only girl in a group of friends, sometimes.
I believe I mentioned an ice cream truck going by our apartment last week. Here is the only shot I managed to take before it drove away. Blurry, yet indisputable evidence!
I apologize for being so lacking on photos lately. Perhaps I'll bring along our camera tonight and document the hockey game! I just need to remember to take my camera along with me wherever I go.
Our little group in SFI has taken to doing lunches together on Tuesdays (since we have a full day of class on Tuesday). I'll try to remember this Tuesday to bring the camera for our weekly outing. First week we went to China Town, this week we went to Thai House...who knows, this upcoming Tuesday maybe we'll hit Oriental Palace! It looks like we have a theme going on here.
By the way, M the American and I have hit it off! We've spent a couple of afternoons after class doing errands together downtown. Yesterday I dropped her off after said errands at her apartment and I had only 15 minutes or so to kill before I needed to pick J up from work, so she invited me in. It's so nice to have another American here. I can't put into words why, but I'm sure you all can imagine. It's fun to go out and about together, especially, to see how others react. For example, we were in the store that has our local post office within it and I had asked M how she got her Swedish I.D. She told me all the hoops she had to jump through to get it, and the cashier chick actually was interested and asked us in English why M had to do what she did, etc. A Swede initiating a conversation with a stranger? That doesn't happen every day! We also stopped by H & M and the cashier there realized we were speaking English to each other and automatically switched to English when telling M how much she owed and whatnot. It's cool to see who is brave enough/eager to speak English with us, and who isn't at all. There are other times when J and I have been at the mall talking to a store clerk and they have absolutely shied away from English. An interesting experiment, to say the least. Luckily, my Swedish is rapidly improving (at least on the comprehension front) and so needing to interact in public with Swedes is far less horrifying as it was, say, when I first arrived here.
On another note, I participated at English House again this past Tuesday. I believe I mentioned it before, but I'll just give a quick recap. If you follow the link, you can read all about what the organization does. I basically contacted the program director, a Brit, and asked if I could help out in any way (and a paid position would have been better!). As things are, they couldn't hire anyone, but if I'd still like to help out as a classroom helper I was welcome to join in. So, every other Tuesday from 3:30 to 5 after school English House invites kids who want more practice with English to come into the Balthazar building (I believe you can see pictures on the website linked above). This past Tuesday we basically played a game (a lot like Deal or No Deal) the entire time and the kids loved it. I participated in the game, but the program leader likes to use me as a learning tool quite often. For example, he will say a Swedish word to me and ask if I know what it is. If I don't know what it is, he'll ask the kids not to translate the word directly, but to describe it to me in English and then I have to guess what the word is. Both sides benefit: I learn a new Swedish word, and the kids get practice at English. It's a lot of fun, really. I like to volunteer with this, and it's once every other week, so it's not time consuming whatsoever.
This Saturday the Dayton Flyers play the Xavier Musketeers. D-A-Y-T-O-N F-L-Y-E-R-S Dayton, Flyers, GO UD!
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