day by day

For this post I thought I'd give y'all a glimpse of what my day in, day out life is like. Most of my posts are probably gonna be about big events that happen or significant places I go but it's nice to capture the every day things, too. Or at least some of them. Here it goes.

Monday: 

- Wake up. When I want. No classes that day which is a nice way to re-coop after weekend adventures. I'm not that late of a sleeper though so I've been waking up at a decent time. 

- Make breakfast. I choose between things like toast with peanut butter, bananas, eggs, or yogurt & muesli. This is also an appropriate time to mention that I do my own shopping and cooking which has been rather enjoyable. There's a grocery store called Netto (the discount store, so perfect for poor students) 2 blocks from my house. 

- Do homework. Gotta get it in somewhere. Either I do it at my house by a window or at Studenterhuset down the street. Oh and I eat lunch sometime. 

- Volunteer. This means I walk 5 minutes to the train station, ride about 35 minutes via train, and then walk another 10-15 minutes to the site of the after school program. Then I talk for 2 hours to Danish teenagers to help them learn English. Then I get on the bus for a 45 minute ride and 5 minute walk. By then it's about 8pm.

- Dinner and more homework. Maybe with some reading for fun thrown in there, too. For dinner I've been eating a lot of potatoes and veggies (carrots, peppers, zucchini), though the other night I made rice and beans. 

Tuesday

- Classes.Wake up early and walk about 5 minutes to my first class. Then it's back to back for the rest of the day.

- Positive Psychology. A fun way to start the day since it's all about making us into happier people. The class is a bit like being in a self-help group because we learn about and practice the interventions on ourselves. For example, today we identified our top 5 strengths and then described how they were apparent in our lives and how they related to each other. I learned some new things about myself actually. For one, all of my strengths came back to the common theme of finding the good, the potential, the beauty, etc in everything and everyone.

- Neuroscience of Fear. An interdisciplinary course on cognition and fear. So far we've been focusing on the neuroscience, technical side of things. It's been interesting but I don't have much of a background in that area so I'm looking forward to when we flip the coin and get to the psychological side of things.

- Danish Language & Culture. I think it's important to learn (or at least try to learn) the language of the country you're in so I'm happy to be in this class. My Danish is improving. And my "visiting family" mom (more on that later) says my pronunciation is good for an American - except for R's (give me a Spanish R and I'm just fine... but Danish R's are not my thing). We also went on a field trip for Danish class to a cafe for dinner which was fun.

- Holocaust & Genocide. In the same classroom as my positive psych class. I find it slightly ironic that in that room I'll be learning about the spectrum of humanity, from the best to the absolute worst. The term "genocide" was coined in the 1950s: Greek "genos" (race) and Latin "cide" (killing). So far we've discussed the 1915 Armenian genocide that, previously unknown to me, has either been denied full out as an act of genocide or downplayed in its significance by quite a number of people. A despicable thing, if you ask me. But, back on the class, I feel like it's going to be influential in changing my view of the world - especially when juxtaposed with positive psych. 

- Scandinavian Children's Lit. My day would've continued with this class but I actually decided to drop it. Reason being, I took it as a fun class but it wasn't ending up being that fun for me. I like reading kid-lit but the class itself wasn't up my alley. And I figured it wasn't all that great to force myself to take a fun class. Oh well. Now I have more time to do things like write these super long blog entries.

- Bible study. There's a DIS women's Bible study on Tuesday evenings. There's also one on Tuesdays with the church I started going to. So it's up in the air which one I'll end up going to regularly.

Wednesday: 

- Field studies. If I have them. Each class has 2 field trips per semester. Last week I went on a walk around Copenhagen to see H.C. Andersen's Copenhagen. 

- Museums. They're free on Wednesdays. So this past Wednesday I spent several hours at the Thorvaldsen Museum. Thorvaldsen was a very famous Danish sculptor and he has some amazing pieces, even some paintings, too. I got the free audiotour and enjoyed my time there a lot. Just wish I'd had my camera, but I think I'll go back sometime and get some shots.

- Dinner. With the Green House. We rotate who cooks the meal and we use bags of veggies from the local vegetable collective that we also volunteer at once a month. It's super yummy food, too! Afterward we have a group meeting. (The pic above is from our first dinner). Oh and for the month of February DIS is hosting Climate Seminars on Wednesdays, where local environmental leaders come and share their field of interest with us. Last week we learned all about cycling in Copenhagen. Then those leaders eat dinner with us at the Green House.

Thursday: 

- Laundry, shopping, cooking, etc. Basically this is a day to get caught up on home type things. This past week I made a large batch of mashed potatoes and cut up all my vegetables for future use. 

- Exploring. I just walk until I find things I like, go look at them, then walk some more, find more things I like, and so on. In other words, I try to get myself lost a bit so that I can see new things and find my way back. Copenhagen's large enough to explore but small enough to where getting lost a bit isn't that big of a deal. And I've found that my some of my favorite times here have been afternoons of wandering and discovering new things, talking to new people. I once had a 20 minute conversation with the employee at a toy shop.

- Homework. And some more reading for fun. 

Friday:

- Same as Tuesday with the addition of going out with friends at night. By the way, the Danes don't even start going out until around midnight so "going out" in Copenhagen makes for a very late night. Still getting used to that fact.

Saturday:

- Do something fun. So far "fun" has meant going on trips to castles during the day and going out at night... or just chillin' with other Green House folk (which we did this past week), watch a movie, bake some cookies. My friend and I made some delicious oatmeal-apple-chocolate cookies. Decided we wanted to add the apples just to spice up a traditional recipe. Result: delicious. And theoretically more healthy for you. If cookies can be...

Sunday:

- Go to church. I found this great church  that's about a 15 minute walk from my house. The service reminded me of my church in PA. Afterward they have a coffee and snack hour. Last Sunday I went out to lunch with people I met from there. It's an international church so I honestly met more non-Danes than Danes. But it's cool nonetheless.

- Dinner at my "visiting family's" house. DIS offers a program where you can meet with a Danish family, which is really great since I live with all Americans. I've been there twice for dinner. The first night we had lasagna and the second time we had a Danish dish of pork, pork, pork (it was pork chops in a cream sauce with bacon and sausage on top). I'm enjoying getting to know them and learning more about Danish culture. And get help on my Danish homework. Which turns into my "family" and I laughing at my feeble attempts to speak their language. Quality entertainment right there.