Week 1: Seasoned. Done.

It came to my attention very recently that I am officially DONE with my first week of class.  Incredible!  It's Thursday, and I have the whole weekend ahead of me to catch up on sleep, do some sightseeing, and hang out with some ESN buddies.  Right on.

I suppose I should take this opportunity to first explain the acronym "ESN" - this stands for Erasmus Student Network.  These are the guys that take care of all the exchange students here during our studies at Orebro University.  Thus, when I say "ESN buddies", I'm simply referring to any and all exchange students, as we're all "under the same roof," so to speak.  I've heard that these networks are established at universities all over Europe (and perhaps even other continents?), but the one in Sweden will suit me just fine for now, I think.

Now then...where was I?  Ah, yes.  CLASS.  Monday I had no formal classes, which was more than praise-worthy, believe you me.  This was simply a day to orient myself with the school of music a bit more and meet my private voice teacher for the semester.  Her name is Marianne Feldt-Uhlmann.  She's a mezzo-soprano, very jovial, and quite fond of tight leggings and silver, sparkly Reeboks, from what I've assessed so far.  Her voice, on the other hand, is not nearly so curious - a tone so warm and rich, as if milk and honey could just burst from her vocal cords at any point.  Perhaps that's a bit cruder of an image than I wish to convey, so I'll just...no...I won't.  Take it or leave it.  I had my first lesson with her on Tuesday, and I've already been assigned an aria from J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio and a Schubert lied, "Der Wanderer."  She says both of these will suit my voice perfectly, so we shall see.  At any rate, I'm sure I will learn a great deal from her and gain some awesome new pieces to add to my repertoire.  

On Wednesday, I had 'Swedish Culture and Language I'...for 3 hours!  But, it wasn't so terrible, actually, and there are less people in this section than on Tuesday's class (+50 students), so I think our teacher, Gunvor Nilsson, will be less exasperated with our group, perhaps.  She's very polite (for lack of better description), but a bit soft-spoken, so I know that some of the other students are going to have trouble hearing her at times if even native English speakers are struggling.  Nonetheless, progress has already been made:  I can introduce myself and others now in Swedish, and count to twenty (the pronunciation for "7" is a sound only the deathly ill can recreate, in my opinion), but I'm looking forward to this little academic embarkment with my fellow internationals.

Today, I was admittedly not looking forward to my "I-have-nothing-else-to-take" course:  '20th-century Fiction in English.'  Within 2 minutes, I was so glad that I signed up.  My teacher, Tom Lacy, is British and such an academic he's like someone straight out of a Wes Anderson film.  Our reading list consists of 6 novels, the first of which I have to have completely read by next week (Tom's Midnight Garden...anyone know it?), the others are all very standard, including To Kill A Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye, both of which I've read, but it's been so long ago I can barely discuss them now. I don't know how close Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird resembles the film, but if it's anywhere close, I'm confident  I can ride that wave pretty smoothly.  Don't worry.  I'm still going to read it.  I mean, come on, folks.  I am NOT one to 'cut corners' in life.  Me?!  Cutting corners?!  Hardly.

...

Well, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna get one of my corridor mates to finish this post for me...