Ch-ch-changes!

I think this will be my last post in this blog, simply because I’m back in the United States and don’t have much more to say. After being back home, though, I realized that I haven’t really sat down and reflected on the changes that occurred throughout my time at the American College of Norway. The two biggest changes, however, were changes in my teaching and physical changes in my body.

One of the biggest changes I saw was in my teaching. At UND, I usually have two classes per semester, and between the two, I have 44 students. At ACN, I had twice as many classes, ranging from fifteen students to almost 30! That was a huge change for me, as any large class can easily lose focus on the lesson or discussion during the class period. The key for me, though, was having several activities planned for each day, and those activities helped keep the class on-task.

Another thing that changed about my teaching was my workaholic habits. Being a hard-working person from North Dakota is almost expected—at least it was where I’m from—and I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into my work. It gets to be a rough translation from working a long, tiring day of manual labor compared to teaching for three hours and then doing office hours—it just doesn’t seem like “hard work” sometimes, so I’d try to overcompensate and work late hours in the office just to live up to that North Dakotan expectation. While taking classes at UND, I quickly became a workaholic and didn’t really feel comfortable unless I was working on something, but at ACN, I started to plan things more effectively—and plan more breaks. Some days, I would work through the stuff I needed to get done, then take the rest of the afternoon off; other days, I would take the whole afternoon off and go for a walk in the forest instead of being cooped up in the office. I’ve come a long way from trying to grade twenty papers in a day, and I feel like I put less stress on myself that way.

Physically, a lot has changed from my four months abroad. Leaving North Dakota, I weighed around 275 lbs. I wasn’t overly happy with my appearance, and I certainly wasn’t happy with my health, since walking up the stairs in the English department at UND left me winded. I didn’t have a car in Norway, so I had to walk everywhere—to the school, to the grocery store, and back home—and all that walking and physical activity really helped. Even when I went on vacations, I would walk to almost every destination I wanted to see instead of taking public transportation; while I was in London, I walked everywhere, and I only took the tubes one time throughout my weeklong stay. Norway is geared for outdoor activity, too, so it was only a five-minute walk to get to the forest paths that I walked so many times.

My eating habits changed significantly, as well. I was talking with a student once about how the food was different between Norway and the United States, and he explained that Norway has stricter laws than the U.S. on what chemicals and preservatives can be used in food. Because of those restrictions on preservatives, the food in Norway is a lot healthier for a person, so eating pretty much anything in Norway was better than eating it in the U.S. Furthermore, my portion sizes shrank while I stayed my four months, partly because of all the walking, and partly because the food there is so expensive. Overall, I came back to the United States at about 235 lbs., a loss of 40 lbs. As I walk around in my old jeans, I can only wear them with a belt, or else they slip off of me; I got back to my apartment and pulled on a sweatshirt only to realize that it was loose and just hung off of me!

This experience was life changing, as I knew it would be. I find that I’m more proactive in problem solving instead of simply waiting for things to fix themselves, and that’s one of the best changes I made during the trip. Without this adventure, I wouldn’t have improved nearly as much as I did, and I’ll be forever thankful for the people I met, the places I saw, and the friends I made.

And thus concludes this blog. Thanks for reading!