As of Late

         The International Educators Workshop took place at DIS this week. Its a week where 30+ faculty, study abroad advisers, administrators, etc. come to visit DIS and experience a mini semester. I was a little intimidated hearing about IEW because its all about big players in the international education world from schools in America (with dinero) coming here and us schmoozing them, but overall it was a nice week and everyone I met was so nice. They are humans just like the rest of us. 

         I had to do various things throughout the week like take them on tours of the DIS facillities (and managed to get a group of 5 lost in a stairwell of one of our new buildings), put together student Q&A panels, escort them to classes or sessions they want to sit in on, and the coolest thing I got to do was go on an exclusive tour inside Amelienborg palace. Amelienborg is the winter castle residence of the royal family and they only let special groups in to the castle and most Danes will never even get to go inside. It was a beautiful castle and its times like these that make my job worth it!

       I also got to ask some abroad advisers and such from all over the US how they got their job s and I got advised on how to continue a career in international education. Schmooze, schmooze, schmooze. A lot of the advice they gave me mentioned networking and getting yourself out there. Mmmm, so much of life is really about who you know. 

        One of out host moms has had her 100th and 101st student this semester. She has been hosting DIS international students for over 50 years. We had a lovely little reception for her with some of her old and current host students, her family, and my department. Det var meget hyggeligt. Talk about dedication!

        I also had a pretty cool opprotunity this weekend to assist one of my colleagues on DIS's first ever farm excursion trip to a local farm about an hour north of Copenhagen. More to be written about that later...A nice and brief introduction to what WWOOFing might entail :)

       So the honeymoon period of my job is certainly over. Don't get me wrong, I still love it very much, but its not always a walk in the park. Most things, even the greatest things, I suspect, have some sort of a honeymoon period and a more normal period. Anyway, there have been some times lately where I let the negative attitudes in the office, or other negative vibes get me down. I find myself getting annoyed with students. And I have to stop and take a breather to remember why I wanted to be here in the first place: to help students have the life changing experience abroad that I had. Recently there have been a few things that have made me love my job and help me remember the important things about this internship and this next year ahead of me. 

        I got a thank you email from a student that told me I was awesome for remembering to send him a certain list. He came in many weeks ago to get a  list which I didn't have at that time and all these weeks later, I finally sent it to him. I also got a little bag of American Halloween candy and a thank you note from one girl who has been in our office a lot lately for various reasons (one being a broken key, another being her hitting her chin on her beer stein at Oktoberfest and needing stitches from a German hospital). And finally, the most touching of them all: one student telling me about his terrifying coming out experience in Tennessee, how he had is own body guard more or less throughout high school so he wouldn't get hurt, and how he has tried to commit suicide before. There was a fair amount of wine involved on both ends, but I almost began to cry just hearing all of this and how impressively hard his journey has been. Its hard for me to believe that this kind of hate exists in this world. He says he feels so much safer, happier, and accepted in Copenhagen and at DIS. He has been an active member of a LGBT group we have an alliance with and just thanked me and another staff member for offering services and just being there.

Its nice to know that what we do is appreciated. Definitely a labor of love. For the longest time I have known that I want to help people in some way. shape, or form for the rest of my life, and it feels good to know that this is what I am doing :)

Tivoli i Regnvejr

 Tonight I went to Tivoli Gardens and it was lovely.

Drank gløgg (warm spiced red wine) and ate pølse (sausage) and rode the rides even though it was raining. A very Danish evening.
"Tivoli i Regnvejr" is a song by Søs Fenger, an 80s Danish starlett. You can't find the song on youtube, but you can find it on grooveshark. 

On the way to Tivoli I saw a man crush a live bat with his foot. I have never seen a creature larger than a spider die before my own eyes. I guess the bat was in pain and he was putting the bat out of its misery, but it was so sad. I could hear it hiss as the air left its body. 

Endorphins

Went to the gym for the first time in two months. Ohhhh feeling good. Gonna be sore tomorrow!
Denmark, you do crazy things to my health.

Lost

Iphone was stolen. Feeling a bit lost. Who does these things?! And why am I so attached to a stupid phone? Its pretty much the photos I want. I had 1000 plus photos on there documenting my college graduation, sisters high school graduation, my summer, move to DK, last semester of college. Oy it hurts to think about this right now.

Material things are just that and nothing more. I need to let go, move on, and extinguish this bitterness in my heart. Don't know what the fuck I did to deserve this kind of karma.

On another note, one of my coworkers got their contract terminated so I have to cover for him until we find another person. Three cheers to manning two full time positions, having a cold, trying to study Danish two nights a week, keeping up my social life, and trying to not be obese, all with no phone and a bitter heart at assholes who take/find things that are not theirs!

Ganesh, help me move past these obstacles!

Shitty

In the wise words of my friend Karen Maass, "Blogger=Google's downfall".

A Day in the Life

Each morning I wake up (later than intended, god damn you snooze button!) and get ready for work. I need to be at work by 8:30am and should leave my house by 8:15 if I want to be safe. It only takes me about 8 minutes to cycle to work on a good day.
My office is on the third floor and I share the space with three others. The rest of the people in my department have smaller offices attached to our main one. 9 people in total which I will introduce later…

Here's a photo of me at my desk. Shitty quality but I got interviewed for an article about international education in the DK and this is the photo that was used:

Once at work I log into my computer, and start the day by checking emails. I sometimes eat breakfast at work (museli) if I don’t feel like eating at home or run out of time. Wednesday mornings we have an all house meeting with breakfast including the most delicious bread.

Every single day is different and I never know where the day goes! I spend a lot of time on the computer, a lot of time talking and consulting directly with students, and take phone calls as well. I have various meetings throughout the week with my supervisors or people in other departments about projects and things.  I cover the front desk when the front desk man, Mathias, goes on lunch, has meetings, etc. I compile the student newsletter. Totally random, hard to explain, behind the scenes work as well. I get a half an hour lunch break and can take it whenever I want. I usually eat upstairs in the lunch room or out on the terrace since the weather hasn’t gotten terrible yet :) I don’t have a microwave at home so leftovers are often my lunch, or I’ll make a salad, or put anything on some rugbrød (dark rye bread). Eating out or buying lunch is tempting since there are just so many options, but it adds up and gets expensive!

Mondays after work I always go to the Nørrebro Bryghouse (brewhouse) with my coworkers. It’s a sweet little microbrewery in the hippest part of town and with the beer card I bought I get to try a new beer every week for free for a year (when you do the math it’s an excellent deal!)

Every other Monday evening I run the Student Activities Committee meetings as well. The Student Activities Committee is made up of a group of students who get a budget to plan and lead activities and events throughout the semester. They are a group of really driven kids who are representing the other students to ensure that DIS offers cool things that all students actually want to do. For example, the SAC subsidized tickets to a huge pop concert at Tivoli Gardens last week and we sold out soooo fast.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I leave work early to go to my Danish class at 4:15, about a 10 minute bike ride from work. I was able to test into module three and skip levels one and two. There are 6 modules all together. My first few classes were challenging and terrifying because I feel like I had some catching up to do. The Danish I know is different than the Danish they teach in Studieskole, so it’s taken me some time to get used to the system. I was considering dropping down to a lower level, but my teacher convinced me to stay and I am happy that I did. Even if I don’t pass my module test, at least I gave it a good try and can repeat this module if I need to. I don’t quite have the vocabulary to speak well about grammar, but “det kommer”, it will come.
My class lasts until around 6:30 and is pretty fun if I actually do my homework and come prepared. In my class we have over 15 different languages represented and off the top of my head we have people form Pakistan, Germany, Poland, Finland, Russia, France, Bulgaria, Japan, another lady from San Diego, and a few others. A fun group and interesting experience.

Fridays and Saturdays are going out nights of course and the weekends always manage to fill themselves up somehow. This is the first weekend I have had since I have been here where I really have nothing planned at all. It feels really good. Sundays I usually am on skype to talk to the familia.
A typical night out might begin around 8-9 o clock pregaming or having dinner with someone until around midnight when you actually venture into town. The night could easily last until the morning, after enjoying a kebab or falafel of course :) The Danish fourth meal. The other day I was out until 7:30 am at the trashiest club in town, haha. (In my defense, I would never go there normally, but someone paid for me to get in!) I think it has the rep of being the club with the longest opening hours in this part of the world because it doesn’t close until at least 8am.

Went out last Thursday until 3am to a record release party when I had work on Friday and I will never do that again! So. Hard. To. Function.

Overall, living a pretty good life. Between working full time and Danish class I am a busy busy woman! And most stores, banks, post offices, doctors offices etc. are typically only open 8ish-5ish here so it’s definitely a challenge fitting everything in. Oh Denmark