Appreciation

Today I've been back for more than two weeks, so this is what Denmark's taught me this time:

UWC was the right thing for me. I knew that all ready, I mean, I knew that I loved everything about it, but seeing old friends and especially going to my old school made me realize how happy I am to get away from my 'old life' and try something new. Something where I can do the volunteer work I love without stressing it into my busy program, where I have to work, bike 40 minutes to school and go all over the country to see my friends. Now, I have my friends around my 24/7 and the only work I do, is voluntarily, so it's just what I enjoy.

Also, seeing friends at my old school made me appreciate it more. They were all in some way very tired and pessimistic. School wasn't something you wanted to do or were even slightly interested in; it just had to be done. No motivation what-so-ever.

Now, I take 6 subjects that I like. Some more than others, but I have all great teachers and great fellow-students to motivate, not to forget the motivation I for some reason found myself. Who would have ever thought I would be taking physics and actually doing extra work for it, just because I want to do good?

Last but not least, wow, how do I miss having people around. I mentioned it a little earlier, but I miss walking down the street and saying hi to everybody I meet, just because. How funny would it be to try that in Copenhagen? I miss waking up with 4 other people, going swimming in the morning, because I know my second year will come get me if I don't wake up myself and sitting in a classroom late at night with friends, because you started homework and studying too late.

Life is great, isn't it? :)

Merry Christmas!

Drunk Danes

So the thing is, I miss walking down the street of Student Village and everyone on the way saying hi! I miss people smiling to each other, no matter if they disagree on things. I miss people hugging each other when they're down, even if they barely talk, just because we all care.

It might seem arrogant and useless, but I think those little things in life makes us happier each day. I also think smiling at people you maybe don't like too much, makes you think and in some way give them a chance. Who knows - some day they might surprise you.

I've been thinking about it, and this is my observation of Denmark.

We don't sit next to each other on the buss, train, bench in a park, you name it, because why would we start a conversation with a stranger, when we most likely won't ever see them again? We don't hold the doors for each other and we don't smile! Don't get me wrong, because of course some people do, but this is stereotyping.

In Denmark, each person live in their own little bubble and if I don't know you, please stay out of my bubble. Then at night, when we go out to have some fun, it's like this bubble gets some holes. Some holes closes very quickly and categorizes as "creeper" or "killer".. Others open more and more, as some people meet new friends or one night flings. And then some holes just stay open as they are. They talk and socialize just fine, but when it comes down to actually meeting new people, it's not the thing.

My question is:

why is it that we're so scared to meet new people, to open up and to give a little of ourselves (when we're sober.)

Last Day

As some of you might have seen, I uploaded pictures to Facebook today, from this winter wonderland. As we had House Cleaning all afternoon, but I was done with my tasks before 2 pm. I went for a long, nice, last walk with Kristoffer (Denmark) and enjoyed the nature one last time, before leaving for a month.

I must admit that it's a bittersweet moment right now. The bus to Førde and Oslo left and the two first (out of three) buses to Bergen as well, so here we are left at Campus, the last bus. It was sad saying goodbye, but encouraging knowing that we'll be back in a month. It's better than leaving the states, not knowing when I'd be back, but there's still some big things to decide on now and it's gonna be a challenge coming back home again.

At the same time I am more excited as never before! To see the smile of my mother, brother and best friend as I step out in Copenhagen Airport tomorrow morning. To spent some Christmas-quality time with the family and to see my friends and old class-mates.

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year if I don't update before.

How could I not

How could I not update on this? Waking up in the morning to pack, before an economics test, math and physics as the last classes of the year, but instead having to go outside because there is SO MUCH SNOW!

They literally had to clear the street down through student village and the paths up to every house - it is beautiful! I'll try and update with a picture later today.

Merry Christmas!

Risengrød and Packing

Couldn't write "Rice Pudding" in the title; it just doesn't sound good enough. Why did I put this? Because today for lunch, I allowed myself to put cinnamon and butter on my rice pudding, instead of sugar and raisins, so not forgetting the snow outside, making this a winter wonderland! It's really Christmas :D

What does Christmas mean?
THAT I'M LEAVING IN TWO DAYS!!

.. Packing, packing, packing.

The picture in my head of seeing my mother in the airport - how can it not make me smile!

Merry Christmas!!

3 days left

To end this Christmas weekend off, we had our big Christmas Show last night and a Christmas and Carol-singing café today, hosted by one of our humanitarian groups SaFuGe (Save the Future Generations) who every year collect money to build a school.

The show was good. By now I know who can sing and who can dance and sometimes I feel, it would be better with fewer shows, but more originality. Then again, I'm not sure it would help.

Every show consists of some PAM numbers (Performing Arts Music EAC) and some choir music, some Asian/African/Other dance and some sketches. Of course it varies, but I must admit that it is the sketches that impress the most, since they have to be original. The music is very good and so are the dances, but again, it's nothing new.

Also, I was doing lights are usual, so I'd seen all acts already at dress-rehearsal, which might also be why I'm never as impressed. When I see the acts the first time, they're still not completely done, but when the rest of the school sees them, the acts are done, well-rehearsed and probably leaves them with a much better impression.

Today, I went to the café. We sang carols in all kinds of languages, drank hot chocolate, ate cake, talked and enjoyed the last weekend of the term. This of course makes you really realize that 1/4 of your stay here is about to be over.. ALREADY! I don't really know how to feel about this. Must be another blog post one of the upcoming days :)

To end this off: some more pictures from the Christmas Dinner, all taken by Evelina (Sweden)

Back row from left: Mia (Germany), Kristoffer (Denmark), Lynette (Uganda), Polo (China), Rikke, Christine and Marianne (Norway)

Front row from left: Viktorije (Latvia), Ibrahim (Sweden)

Me, Samuel (Venezuela) and Helene (Norway)

My room (SH103)

Viktorije (Latvia), Me, Tiange (China), Lior (Israel) and Benedicte (Norway)

Tiange (China) and I. Roommates :)

First year economics students and Rudy (in front) our teacher

(I wasn't there)

Christmas Dinner

Last night was the big Christmas Dinner at RCN.
The Christmas Dinner is probably the fanciest event of the year. Everybody dresses up nicely and takes a ton of pictures! We had Norwegian Christmas food, which is a lot like the Danish. Pork and Lamb and a desert very much like the Danish “Risalamande” or Rice Cream. There were also Christmas cookies, potatoes, sauce, red cabbage and vegetarian food.
The kantina was decorated for Christmas and the big Christmas tree was set up. Very cozy!
In the background silent, Norwegian Christmas music was playing and everybody were happy and socializing; both staff and students.
I can’t help but think what Christmas is for me: a time to join the family and be together. I cannot wait for the next 4 days to pass and go home, but I must say that I have a family here too. Closest, the best friends and boyfriend, but also my room as well as the whole family we are as Sweden House, and this was a very nice way to get those families together!

Here's some pictures.. More to come!

Kathrine and Kristoffer: Danish 2nd and co-year :)

Rikke (Norway) and I

- Mia's camera

Kornelia (Sweden), Lynette (Uganda), Kristoffer (Denmark) and me

- Mia's camera

Sweden House!!

- Lior's picture

Helene (Norway), Benedicte (Norway), Summer (House Mentor), me and Nina (Sweden)

- Hala's picture

Winter Wonderland

As of the last update, a lot of things happened. Another week past by and we're sorta realizing that our first term at RCN is about to be over.

Second year are running around to hand in the last things before the break, while first years are enjoying the last days of freedom, before classes really hit hard next term. I myself is already on vacation. I'm focusing on having as much fun as possible until Christmas, because I have the time now and not in a year.

A new EAC is up and running and we're three first years and a second year in it, working on the school's communication. Some got the responsibility for newsletters or website and my responsibility is to re-do the school's Facebook page. That should be fun!

We had Nordic-Studies again on Wednesday. It's something that's gonna run through the Spring about one session or workshop a week, and it is compulsory even for Nordic students, even though we're gonna help make a lot of the workshops.

Yesterday, I went to sing at a "cozy-Christmas evening" for the Haughland patients, so that was also a fun experience. Glad to keep up with the music.

Today is my roommate; Tiange's Birthday. She turns 21! We celebrated her a little at midnight, with some tea and homemade chips (while making I achieved to cut my fingers twice, so much that it's still bleeding...) but as other second year, she's really busy studying for SATs (test for universities in the u.s.) on Saturday, so we're gonna through her a party on Sunday night instead.

Today is also the last inter-house competition of the year; sports. I'll be competing for Sweden House in soccer, while others will play badminton. It should be a lot of fun!

Tomorrow is our big, fancy Christmas dinner and Christmas show and on Sunday we have a "Carol-singing" night and cafe with host families, teachers ect. and finally on Monday is the last House Meeting of the year, where advisers are invited as well, but more update on this will come later :)

Last, but not least, we got the first snow on the ground today. Us Nordics still debating whether it is just hail, laying on the ground, but one thing is for sure, the students that has never seen snow before are excited and throwing it at each other and it's a blast to see :)

Finally it's Christmas again!

Christmas in my corner

Yesterday, I tried for a very long time to create an advent wreath, but it didn't look good, so now I just have four candles on my table like this:

Otherwise, my corner is getting more and more Christmas-touched for every day, and I keep moving things around, as I add more stuff. This is what it looks like now:

Yesterday, me and 13 others went to Dale and watched Breaking Dawn (the new Twilight movie.) I must say I was disappointed in the movie, but we had a very fun trip. See, there are things to do around here ;)

Health Day

On Friday, the 25th of November, all first years had a ”Health Day.” Health Day is a tradition at school and happens every year, while second years have a flexi-day to catch up on studying and go talk to the last visiting universities. The program for Health Day is different from year to year though. Our second years had a day with focus on sleep, presented through lectures, while we had a really fun day with workshops and games.

The day started same time as a normal school day (8 am) but before that we had healthy breakfast, which was absolutely amazing. I would say it even beat the rise-pudding on Saturdays! We had homemade buns, bread, great oat-meal, fruit and then the usual cereals and so on.
From here on we had an hour-long presentation in the auditorium, and then we went to play games with out houses for half an hour. For the rest of the day we had four workshops, depending on what we had signed up for individually. The two before lunch were supposed to be exercise workshops, where the two after lunch should be more presentations. Mine wer

1) Dog Walking
I mostly chose this workshop, because the description said “Walking dogs – Chris.” Chris is my (very funny) physics teacher and it sounded like a very nice way to start the day. A bunch of teachers came with their dogs and Lucy (England) and I walked the Danish and History teacher, Eric’s dog. It was a lot of fun, mostly because it started out by being the dog walking us and not opposite! Then it started hailing, so we got wet, but it was a nice trip and the dog was very cute.

2) Zumba
My second workshop was Zumba. Zumba is a way of exercising through combining different styles of dancing and it is actually very hard, but also unbelievably funny. I think most of the fun came from our group of people in the workshop, all not caring if we looked like idiots and just laughing at each other and ourselves, when we didn’t know the moves.

3) Sleep Management
This was the only workshop left when I signed up, so even though I thought it would be a cliché with “minimum 8 hours a night” and “sleep is very important” I signed up and I’m very happy I did. The workshop was held by our school nurse; Thomas, and even though he of course mentioned the things above, he also focused on giving us good tricks on how to sleep and what to do, to get the best out of it, because everybody knows that reality here isn’t getting 8 hours.
In the end of the workshop he showed us a good way to fall asleep, if we were having problems with that, and then he let us all lay and relax for about 5 minutes.

4) Time Management
The Time Management workshop was held by three second year students and it was mainly them telling what ways they personally found working for them, when studying or in general planning their time here, and then telling us to find our own patterns. It was also a very good one.

To end a healthy day I, as any other Friday, went to Friday Ball Games and played football. Since it’s getting pretty cold outside (snow is coming back on the mountain tops) a lot of people are dropping football and playing sports inside, so this Friday we were only 5 people on each time, so I got to play a lot. It was a lot of fun! J

At last: a cozy corner-picture from my blog-writing night :)

Christmas in SH

Just some pictures for you to catch my mood :)

My Corner:

Dayroom:

Kitchen Duty

Every day a student help the kitchen staff for two hours around dinner (5-7pm) and yesterday was my turn. This is not mandatory, but I think most people sign up once a year; both to meet those who cook for them every day and get an understanding of their job, and also out of good manner.

It isn't hard either. I made salads with the chef, for today's lunch (just ate it!) Ate dinner myself and washed dishes. As a thank you they gave me an Popsicle :) Haha.

I also decorated Sweden House dayroom, say I'll post pictures of that soon.

Frosty Weather

For the past couple of days it's been quite cold out and the winter is really hitting. From Monday morning until Tuesday around lunch, it was so foggy out that you couldn't even see the islands and when I did my Spanish test on Monday, I looked out the window, but saw only fog.

Yesterday it was about -3C, and even though it says that it is 4C out today, I don't believe.. Why? Here are some pictures I just took :)

Prague Pictures

Here's a bunch of pictures from my November break trip to Prague with Mia (Germany) and Kris (Denmark). More will be on Facebook at a later point in time :)

Flekke Pictures

The morning we left for Prague (Monday the 7. November) we walked to Flekke at 8 in the morning and this is what it looked like. Amazing!