Day 147-Spencer's graduation

Alex's countdown to summer.

   May 30-Summer arrived today, academically, because it was the last day of school for the girls.  Since it was sunny, warm, and not windy at all, they spent almost all day doing outdoor activities at Varmaland.  They had popcorn kernel-spitting contests, played on stilts, baked bread wrapped around sticks over a campfire, and consumed hot dogs and Coke for dinner.  Alex also put on her bathing suit and played on an improved slip-n-slide on one of the hills.  Since the plastic tarp was a little short, though, the last bit of the slide was on the grass, which made for interesting landings.  She also went swimming.  Joslyn rode around on her bike and played a little putt-putt golf on a improvised course.  Both girls also gave their teachers necklaces with gold aspen leaf cutouts as going-away presents and Alex gave her teacher, Þóra, a baby hat she had knitted, since Þóra is due in November.  The teacher appeared to appreciate the gifts a great deal.  I think that they genuinely enjoyed having the girls in their classes this spring and that the girls' presence was not a big inconvenience to them.

Joslyn's view of summer.

  

         Our final assessment of the girls' time at Varmaland is mostly very positive.  The teachers were warm, kind, and generous.  The arts and crafts courses and the other non-academic courses were very delightful for them and they learned a number of useful skills that they can use in the future.  Academically, though, it was a wash.  Math was taught at a level well below that taught at their grade level in Gunnison.  They did not need to attend English lessons and could not study Danish, science, or social studies, because these subjects were taught in Icelandic.  Instead, they spent most of these class times learning Icelandic.  Icelandic is a "boutique language" (in U.S. Embassy parlance) and their knowledge of it will not be of any particular use anywhere else in the world other than in Iceland.  However, knowledge of Icelandic has taught them that there are other ways to express ideas and to construct sentences.  For instance, the definite article (the, in English) is not a separate word, but instead is incorporated into the noun, itself.  These differences between Icelandic and English will make it easier for them to learn other languages in the future, because they will already be expecting that there might be differences that they cannot even conceive of a priori.

Playground at Varmaland.

Joslyn's teacher Gróa at the Varmaland swimming pool and hot pot.

Some of Alex's female classmates.

Alex's friends, Þorgerður, Sigurlaug, Brynja, and Grímur.  Joslyn is in the background.  

Þór Elí baking bread on sticks over a campfire.

Spencer's kindergarten class.

The age-old question: Is my diploma really in there?

     In another parallel between the States and Iceland, Spencer's kindergarten class graduated from Hraunborg today.  The graduation was a cute ceremony in one of the classrooms.  The kids sang a couple songs in Icelandic and then the teachers handed out roses and diplomas.  Afterwards, we ate cake and ice cream.



Bára, the director of Hraunborg,
gives Spencer a congratulatory hug.

 

Spencer with this teachers
Ingibjörg and Tara.



  

  

          We spent the latter part of the afternoon working around the apartment, fixing bikes, and perusing Sígrun's yard sale.  At 5:30 Sally went to pick up Joslyn, who was at Stefán's birthday party.  Since he lives at a house in Varmaland, Joslyn just walked over to his house after school.  She said that his birthday was very similar to the others she has attended here in Iceland (pizza, cake, ice cream, birthday songs, and games).  Since the weather was nice, though, many of the games could be played outside and no movies were watched.  They were also able to jump on the trampoline that belongs to their neighbors, who happen to be the family of Spencer's friend Hinrik Noí. 

   When they got back, we all went to the barbecue party that the social science student union was throwing for themselves and the social sciences faculty, which includes Sally.  It turns out that Sun, burgers, hot dogs, beer, and ice cream go together in Icelandic culture just as well as it does in American culture!  We had a nice time talking to the students and the faculty.  The students pulled out a Swedish game called Kubb.  It has some similarities to horseshoe pitching, but uses wood pieces that you try to knock over and that can be moved around.  Shan started playing one of the games in the early evening, but the teams were so evenly matched (beer has that downward leveling effect) that we played until the Sun set around 10 pm.  We finally removed half of the wooden targets from the game and finished up around 10:30.  Whew!