Att studera vid Mittuniversitet, Campus Östersund

This post probably should have been the first. Now that it's three weeks and one day overdue, I figured I should write it.

I am studying at Mittuniversitet in Östersund for the Fall semester. It started at the end of August and goes until the middle of January. The university has three campi (thanks for the Latin plural, Nicky). Östersund is the biggest, with just over half of the students. There are two more on the Baltic, one in Sundsvall (where I have to go one of these days to get finger-printed so I can finally receive uppehållstillstandkortet min--my official "residence permit"), and Härnosänd (where my professor lives). I am studying religionsvetenskap ("religious studies/sciences"). It is a net-course so I don't have any commitments in a literal classroom. Instead the classroom is "virtual." In some obvious ways I would like it better in a classroom setting.

BUT...the net-seminar format is the absolute hardest situation I have encountered in terms of communicating in Swedish. It's like talking on the telephone in that you can't see the other person's face and you also don't have time to look up words and carefully consider how you want to say things. But for some reason it's harder than talking on the telephone. Maybe because the topix of conversation are different (i.e. how often do you compare phenomenological perspectives of religion with cultural ones in a normal phone-call?). Because it's the hardest situation I can imagine, it is, I imagine, ergo the best to learn Swedish. "Das dich nicht umbringt macht dich stärker," as they say.

The other compents of the class are also pretty challenging for me just in terms of language proficiency. But I like it. Reading and 'riting. No 'rithmatic, and that wouldn't be fun anyway since math is the "universal language" or whatever. Every week we have a determinate amount of reading to do (half of it is in English, half in Swedish). We also have to write about it with an essay every week.

Because I don't know if my classmates actually exist, I usually hang out with the socionom students--"social work" or something. They're super nice. And I know they're real because I see them. I already got Michiel to ditch the shoes and go au naturel from the ankles down, even though it's six degrees, waining, and wickedly windy.