Living Life With Grace

I just finished my Danish oral final. It was far from perfect. My teacher threw a lot of tricky questions at me: "Where does your brother work? Where do your host siblings live and what do they do? What did you do in Arhus?" I knew she was trying to challenge me, not make me look stupid, but I felt frustrated when I didn't have the vocabulary to say what I wanted. She asked if I ever made dinner and I wanted to say, "No, I'm too busy," but instead I just repeated what I had said in my introduction: "My host dad usually makes dinner." Erf.

I left the room so she could deliberate with the censor (an unbiased third party who monitors exams for fairness). When I returned, she said, "Well, Stacey, I think you are the most convincing A+ I have ever heard in my life." Doing my best to summon some Danish humility, I said, "Mange tak."

The censor agreed, "Du er fantastisk." My Danish teacher said they thought that if I'd had another semester, I'd be talking like a Dane. I really doubt that's true, unless I have some sort of oral surgery to manage the vowels, but it was sweet. She also said I have a "gift for languages" and I should continue my studies, if not in Danish then in something else.

The censor also let me know that MVCC offers Danish classes. That's really exciting, but I'm not sure how to take a class like that if I'm not enrolled as an undergrad.

Anyway, two classes down, three to go. I'm pretty happy right now.

Labels: day 104: filled with warm fuzzies