Wednesday was a particularly (surprisingly) productive day – amazing how much one can achieve here once one has a personal number!
After opening a bank account I had a meeting with Alex (who wants to sublet her studio to me) and Klas (the current subletee). Alex wanted us all to meet as she will be away in January which is when we had discussed Klas moving out and me moving in. It turned out to be a very quick meeting as Klas told us that he had just heard that he has a job in the north of Sweden and, if it suits everyone, he can move out at the end of November. I’m really pleased on two counts first – the sooner I can get back in to a studio the better, and second – I don’t have any bad conscience that I’m making another artist “studioless”. The timing suits everyone and I feel very good about it.
On my way home from the meeting I decided to call in at the SFI (Swedish for immigrants) office and ask about registering for their Swedish classes. The receptionist arranged for me to talk with one of the tutor/language assessors and before I really know what was happening I was sitting in front of a computer with headphones on taking a test to determine which level of class I should take. After exercises in reading listening and writing (the writing took me long time and I really wish I’d prepared for it) the tutor gave me my results. I’m at level C. He then looked at a schedule for classes and schools, there’s a school very close to where I live and they have a level C class starting on December 5. Classes are five mornings a week for about three months, if I pass the end of course test I move on to level D classes. I wasn’t expecting the course to be so long, I thought it would be like my evening class in London – two hours a week for 10 weeks. I knew that the classes were free but course literature is free too. It’s fantastic. And with that much tuition my Swedish can’t not improve!
My attempt to enter the Architecture Museum’s annual open gingerbread house competition has failed! Two evenings this week I made batched of ginger bread pigs and tried to build some kind of structure out of them. I thought I’d found the answer with an “experimental” spun-sugar technique. However the next day my component parts had become rather soft and sticky – they have no structural integrity at all! So this year I will not actually participate, I will go an see the other entrants and next year I will give myself more time …
