Day 5

Thursday, 25 August 2011

So yesterday I was helping out with the roof replacement.  It hasn't been replaced since Sofie can remember, and there is a leak somewhere.  They took down all the shingles and put most of the new ones up.  Their shingles are different, more like heavy pottery tiles layered with foam in between.  I imagine it is good at resisting the weight of snow.

Also, Stine and her bf Reni? were there, so we had a BIG feast.  Danish cooking seems really wide-ranging?  The other day we had curry pineapple chicken (Indian influence) and last night involved bruschetta but also frikadeller (danish meatballs YUM YUM YUM----most aromatic/spiceful meatballs ever!).

Tonight was more celebration: eldest sister Louise finished school to become an air traffic controller and starts work now.  So tonight was pasta with homemade beef sauce, and then wine and cheeeeeeeeeeese and chocolates afterwards, with the grandparents and the Louise' in laws and even Sofie's bf Martin.  If only I didn't have hw to do @.@

In other news, today was also first day of classes!  Number 1 at 10:05 am (I don't understand why nothing seems to start on the hour or half hour, not even the trains) is Danish 101.  The prof Suzanne says it is very much focused on listening and speaking rather than the traditional American way of giving grammar and vocab tests and "hoping the students can put them together."  We also listened to a pop version of the national Danish anthem.  They never need a singer at ball games because EVERYONE knows the lyrics and EVERYONE sings holding hands or arms around shoulder.  On New Year's Eve, at exactly midnight when the clock tower bongs, everyone climbs on a table or chair and sing with the tv program and a beer in hand, and then afterwards they jump off---i.e. "jumping" into the new year.  These people are very fun :D.

Class number 2 was Public Health Implications of Modern Lifestyles (which I will abbreviate as PHIML).  Suzanne is a permanent faculty, but PHIML professor Morton is part of HIV-DANMARK, a sort of NGO.  The problem is that, compared to obesity and smoking and drinking, HIV is a relatively small problem, so HIV-affected people get little to no attention from the gov't.  His class is lecture/discussion style, and he does prod students to involve themselves, even saying that he would not know the right answer.  I guess it makes sense, because policy can always be debated.  (i.e. some of our topics were health promotion vs. health prevention, a hotline or a website homepage to address a health problem, high vs. low impact intervention, etc, etc).  The cool thing about DIS is that all classes have field studies, which are field trips (not for fun, but for learning purposes, but at the same time extremely extremely interesting, at least from what I can imagine just based on the syllabi).
Finally, I was supposed to have a meeting at DKDM (or RDAM) for pianists, but it was really for full year full time students, not half-year studyabroad misfits.  Hehe.  Anyway, I'll just wait until my teacher and I agree on a lesson time.  I suppose it will all work out.  Mondays I have some sort of additional class time with a different teacher.  I'm not sure what that entails, but I will tell you all about it. :D

So tired, @.@.  Tomorrow I will attempt to discover this thing called CityBike (free bike with deposit that you get back when you return the bike).  Biking around city would be fun, but bringing it from home onto train and off train is a little less fun.