2011 reportcard - part two

The other big milestone for 2011, in terms of all things Swedish, was my completion of the Swedish for the Terminally Stupid programme. As with the surviving the time till citizenship eligibility, this has not always been a labour of love. Unlike the citizenship process, it's not finished. Not by a long shot. But, with the completion of Svenska B, the opportunity to formally learn Swedish has finished. Which leaves me in a bit of a language lifeboat. I can swim well enough to jump into the water, but I'm not so confident about making it all the way to the shore. Now the language is entirely up to me and that's a very frightening prospect. I've noticed that my language level is already falling away slightly. I'm going to have to force myself to read and communicate more, now that there's not the pressure of homework assignments anymore. Some years ago a former co worker of mine (who was not so nice at times) once described me as "working well when cornered like a rat". In hindsight he may have had a point. Self motivation isn't always the strongest in me.

As I mentioned before, completing the Swedish language programme was mostly a pride issue. My employer required me to complete the Swedish for Immigrants course, which I did. I could have stopped there and not been any the worse off in my employment. The problem was that I knew many of my SFI classmates were going to be continuing on to complete the other available options in the programme. If I didn't do that, and they did, then I would have to admit that they were capable of achieving something that I wasn't. And that would never do. Total arrogance, but it served it's purpose. The language levels beyond SFI probably had the most value for me. It got me to the point where I could actually converse with meaning. Nothing near fluency, but more than the static sentences one learns through SFI. Kind of feel a little more human.

In terms of formalities, the past 12 months have ticked off the whole set I think. I can drive a car in Sweden, I can go to a Swedish university if I choose (thanks to Svenska B), and no one can ever chuck me out of the country. I think I can do pretty much anything that a native born Swede can do. Hell, I think I could even do military service. Although it would be a pretty sad statement about the Swedish military if I was on their preferred candidate list.

I'm about as much Swedish as a South American built Volvo. But, like the foreign assembled car, if you stand a short distance back, dim the lights a bit, and squint a little, it's not that easy to tell the difference from the real thing. You can almost get away with it.