Heil öll, ok heil öll þér nýju (and hail all ye new ones),

By "new ones" I'm referring to the wave of new members we've had on
this list the past two weeks or so. The membership has grown by 50
persons, about 33%. I bid all of you, who are new, welcome to our list
and our course :)

You may be finding some things a bit confusing here:

First, if you actually read the introductory message in the "Home"
section, ignore it; erase it out of your head. It was written in the
first days of this course, some time in December. Only one person is
able to update it, the list's owner (who is that?), but he (or she?)
hasn't ever found the time or insight to do so. That person promises
to update it soon, though.

Next, you will probably find confusing that there is something called
"Chapter One", which you're all being adviced to read (by me), but
then there are five "Lessons", including "Lesson One". The lessons are
part of the old system we were running. Recently, we decided to
rewrite the material with even more explanations and more exercises;
the first result is "Chapter One". "Chapter Two" is near completion,
meanwhile. Our intention is to produce and publish those, from now on.
Most of the few students who have reached lesson 5 need to review the
material, anyway, in my judgement.

So what you should do, then, is to complete Chapter One, thoroughly,
and if Chapter Two still isn't there, start with the old Lesson 2 and
work yourself on from that. The course is in a bit of a transition
stage, but I hope you'll abide by it :)

Finally, there are a few key persons here I should mention (hope they
won't mind me making this introduction of them):

Haukur - haukurth@...
The list's owner; the man behind this course. He is
kept very busy by homework at the university, and his
high school teaching job. He doesn't work much on the
lessons, but usually takes his time to answer letters
and participate in the list discussions; so feel free
to write to him if you have a question or want to tell
him or us something :) Haukur is a 20 years old male
from Iceland, and lives in Reykjavík.

Óskar - hr_oskar@...
That's me :) I am also busy in that I have a job, and
I need to study too, though it's all much less stressed
than in the case of Haukur. So I'm the one who has taken
the time to write most of the recent lessons, including
Chapter One. You should also feel free to write any
questions or comments to me. I am a 21 years old male,
also from Reykjavík, Iceland (I live just 5 minutes away
from Haukur).

Arlie - arlie@...
Our faithful proofreader and helper :) She was our first
student here. British computer programmer living in
California. Will probably provide you with better help
on things regarding computers than we would, as the
recent formats discussion has revealed. She deserves
special thanks and honour from us for her help throughout :)

E-Ching - e-ching.ng@...
Another of our faithful helpers :) Studies English lit.
at Yale university, and provides us with some extra muscle
in the field of linguistics. She also deserves special
thanks for her efforts :)

Keth/ - keth@... / xigung@...
Xigung Keth is a Norwegian with considerable background in European
languages. He has been with us since early times, and
entertained us with many wideranging discussions, sometimes
debates. His approach to ON involves more comparison to
other languages, especially German (in which he is fluent).
He has also contributed well in the field of keyboard
standards and text formats, for which we thank him :) If
you're finding it hard to follow some of Keth's meditations,
then do not panic! :)

There are a number of other active list members that I might mention,
but I think they'd rather define themselves by their own posts.

Hope you all enjoy our material, and the discussions on the list! :)

Óskar