If Oslo were a person, by this point in time I would have performed detailed surgery upon said person's major organs several times over, knowing them better than my own life story. Over the past two weeks I have become an exhausted tourist for the very first time since moving to the city in August, mostly due to a deluge of visitors. I am a big Oslo fan, but examining the city in touristy detail has added up and become a little too much for me, however here are a few pictures of the major attractions (myself certainly not included):
Not included in those pictures is the fact that half of Germany also descends in the Easter break. That was Oslo in a nutshell, which I have experienced at least 3 times now. I shall be glad to return to University tomorrow and back to reality, however mundane it often seems! Anything beats living by museum opening hours (all over the place in Easter, which Norwegians take super seriously).
Speaking of University, I have more deadlines impending (do they never stop?) prior to my exams (also very soon, worryingly): my first and most important is my semester assignment for my Nordic Children and Young People's Literature course. We set ourselves an assignment and write an essay to be approved before we are able to sit the final exam, which is an oral exam (slightly more stressful for me as a foreign student in a class full of Norwegian students, but I try not to dwell on the fact). Whilst I had thought that simply submitting an assignment suggestion to be approved with a cursory word from our lecturer would be enough, I couldn't have been more wrong: each student was subsequently invited to a personal veiledning in Mr Bache-Wiig's office, where he took out his extensive notes on each student's suggested essay and sat with us for a while discussing our approach to the question and recommending a plethora of secondary literature pertinent to our ideas, off the top of his head no less. The man is a mine of knowledge and highly respected in the field across Norway, which is something I've noticed a lot since coming here; whilst Edinburgh University is prestigious, it is not regarded as the most prestigious in the UK. However, anyone who is anyone in Norway appears to have something to do with Oslo University, resources (human or otherwise) are within almost ridiculously easy reach, I shall struggle to adapt to missing that element of academic life.
I have submitted notice on my lovely little Oslo flat now, which felt a big step in the long drawn out process of saying goodbye to the city! However, I have a very busy 2 months ahead, which I couldn't be more pleased about. My language tutor from Edinburgh will be visiting soon, which will be lovely as the Scandinavian Department is a small one and we all know one another quite well. Not to mention the fact that summer jobs are giving me a headache and creating all kinds of tension, but I'm sure that peace and harmony will reign at some point in time!
