I am beyond excited to start school again. I’m going to look back on this in a year and think: “Jesus, if she knew what she was saying, I just want to catch a break,” but that doesn’t matter, it’s only the excitement and anticipation that feels real now. I want to reduce my hours at work (heavily) and hang at the library studying for hours and reading research printed out and stapled together neatly and go to town with my four highlighters that I use for anything and everything (if there are more than four categories I need to sort things into I will mix and match the colours so one group is green on top and blue on the bottom because I like the pastel colours and the other highlighters are neon and it doesn’t match the colour scheme (I’m thinking maybe I should buy more highlighters)) and take breaks where I look out the window and text my friends on Messenger on the computer and drink coffee and go to lectures where I take feverish notes which I later organise neatly for future revision. I liked this part of Biology in high school.
I’m also nervous, though, because who would I be if I wasn’t nervous doing anything and everything. Given my circumstances, I think this is an understandably nerve wracking situation! First of all: people. So. Many. People. People I don’t know. I have to sit next to them, maybe ask for directions to the classes, and…do GROUP PROJECTS (gulp). I HATE group projects with a burning passion but they cannot be avoided.
The course is in Icelandic, of course, which has its positive and negative sides. I think I’m going to embarrass myself quite a bit in the beginning when I recognise what things are but can’t describe them in the slightest since I learned everything in English but have also forgotten most things from the course if I’m being honest. Positive side though: I hope to get some of my Icelandic skills back. I’m sure that after three years of school in Icelandic, presentations, lectures, and essays, not to mention living here and being surrounded by people other than my work colleagues only speaking English, I will be right back on track. Well, at least on the track that connects with the one I was on. Some weeks or months ago I read some old stories I wrote in middle and high school before I moved abroad. I miss my vocabulary. I miss not having to think twice or thrice about how to word something or being so aware in the middle of a conversation that I used to know a word I could use but can’t anymore. I like speaking and writing in English, it feels natural to me now, but it’s still a second language. I don’t have the grip on it I used to have on Icelandic, one which has loosened and left me with two limp palms holding their separate languages. What irks me is reading or listening to songs and not being fully aware of what they are talking about. Maybe I recognise the words but can’t piece together the puzzle to form some comprehensible meaning, or I don’t understand the vocabulary. What feels the worst is acknowledging that if I heard or read it five years ago, I would understand, but I don’t anymore, and I just wonder if it’s simply because I left for not even two full years or if this is just what is happening in general with Icelandic youth.
To circle back to university, I’m sure that after three years, I’ll be just fine again. That I am excited for, for Icelandic to be the dominating narration of my mind. I’m not going to think about how I’m most likely going to move out of this country after my Bachelor’s and not return permanently so this whole language debacle won’t matter at all actually.
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