IronMike wrote:Hey, you okay? Haven't read anything from you in a while. Hope all is alright!
Thank you for checking up! I'm alright, although I have a teeny tiny cold
My language learning slackened, hence the lack of updates. I did keep Clozemaster going for a while, and I use Swedish often, but everything else has kind of fallen by the wayside.
My lowered interest in languages was balanced by a higher interest in knitting. This meant a lot of faffing around with yarn and youtube videos (which happens in English or in no language at all). However, I also felt a very strong need to find people to knit with and so I created a ravelry account and found a group that meet up twice monthly very close to where I live. I've only been once, but it was good to go, and the other knitters were very friendly. I'm looking forward to going again next week.
The past few weeks have been very busy indeed. My friend visited from Germany from the long weekend, and while we didn't speak much German together, I actually spoke a lot of Swedish while we were out and about. It was a great confidence boost. Of course I already knew that I was able to do what I needed to do in Swedish, but it was nice to be able to show off a bit and also to be able to shift for myself and someone else in the language. The day after my friend returned to Germany I went to France to visit my old collocatrice. My French has suffered so much! When I last visited in April, I could get on mostly fine. This time round, I could barely understand anything that was said to me, and was even hard pressed to reply. My friend had to translate for me much of the time. This is probably due to a lot of things, one of which is certainly the fact that my brain is very much used to speaking Swedish and doesn't want to be disturbed thank you very much. My French exposure has also been basically nothing in the past Idon'tevenwanttothinkhowlong. I want to change this, but right now have not much motivation to do so. This trip to France was under unhappy circumstances anyway, and many things reminded me of just how much I dislike it as a country. However, I did enjoy having larger bookshops to peruse, and bought the second book in the Imperial Radch series,
L'Epée de l'ancillaire which I am enjoying.
Finally the day after I came back from France*, my mum came for a five day visit. It was really lovely to have her here, and we did a lot of walking around Malmö and Lund. Having my friend and my mum visit really made me feel even more at home here. It was good to be able to show them around the areas where I live and work. But these past two weeks (maybe more?) have included a LOT of walking and no actual rest time. I am exhausted, and sadly won't have a day to recharge until this weekend, at the earliest. I am due to start my main responsibilities as a volunteer leader at the Red Cross tomorrow, and I am extremely nervous. The lady I will be inducting tomorrow is an English speaker, so language is definitely not going to be an issue, but I am very conscious of the fact that I really don't know about everything that happens in the shop. It should't be a problem, but I am worried nonetheless.
Finally, I have heard a few people speaking Finnish around me! It has been nice to recognise that it is Finnish being spoken. I am really looking forward to getting stuck back in with the language.
*Not really, as I landed at midnight and didn't get back to Sweden until about ten to one in the morning of the day that my mum arrived.