Study Session @ My Place

Finals, Projects and Poland

This week has been a flurry of final reports and presentations to wrap up the first spring quarter. I have one paper left to write for the economics class (due April 4th) and then it's spring break! I'm actually going to try to finish it early next week so I can start my break a little earlier. There are some special LGBT events going on in Copenhagen on the 2nd and 3rd that I don't want to miss! Then I'm off to Kolding for a work week at the scout center, Houens Odde. It will be great to see my scouting friends again and work on some good projects. When I get back I will start on my independent research project in Poul's lab. I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't spent as much time in the lab this year as I would have liked. For a while I went back and forth about whether or not to take classes next quarter or work in the lab and in the end I decided to work in the lab so that I make full use of the opportunities available to me at this university.

Speaking of opportunities-- I might be going to Poland for a 2 week long field course in June! I saw an advertisement for this cooperative graduate physiological ecology workshop being run by the Jacob Blaustein Center for Scientific Cooperation which I believe has something to do with a cooperation between Poland and Israel. The professors are from both Poland and Israel. There's no tuition fee so all I have to pay for is my travel to Torun, Poland and room and board for the first week (dormitory style so it's pretty cheap). The second week is at the field station in Popowka. You can read all about it here: http://www.home.umk.pl/~mwojc/field_course/field_course.html
I got my academic advisor, Knud, to approve it so hopefully they have room for one more!

Field Course

I just got back from a 5 day field course in southern Jutland with my Stream Pollution Assessment class. We spent all day in the field (rain or shine!) collecting samples and taking measurements and then all evening (and a good portion of the night!) in the lab doing calculations and identifying aquatic invertebrates collected from the field sites. The aim of the project is the assess whether or not the streams in the Aabenraa watershed meet the quality objectives set by a regional board. 

Time Flies

I realize that my posts are becoming scarcer and scarcer. This is largely due to the fact that it is far enough along in the year now that I just feel like a normal student without anything in particular to remark about. I do have to say though that this program I am in is truly wonderful. If there is anyone out there who is interested in coming to Denmark for this program, I give it the strongest recommendation!

The other day in my natural resource economics course, we had a speaker on international enviornmental legislation. It was so fascinating to learn about global summits and conventions and the protocols, treaties and declarations that emerge from them. I learned a lot about the different cross-border conflicts (with regard to natural resources, of course) between different countries in Europe and how those conflicts have been or are being resolved. What made a class like this particularly great, is that the students are from different countries so we each brought a different perspective to the discussion. I can't imagine a class being taught in a classroom of students all of the same natioanlity. Since Denmark is such a small country, the Danes don't have the option of only studying natual resources with regard to their own-- mainly because they don't have so many relatively speaking, which means the subject is taught from a completely different angle than it would be in the U.S. I really feel fortunate to have the opportunity to experience this kind of educational setting.

Tomorrow I leave for a 4 day field excursion with my stream pollution course. Having felt rather cooped up for the past couple months, I'm looking forward to getting out into the field. It would be nicer if it were a little warmer already-- it may technically be spring already, but I don't think Denmark got the memo.

Land of the Free

I haven't been posting lately because I've been pretty busy. This term has a heavy work load and between that and having fun, there's really not much time or subject matter left for blogging. Basically I take classes, I go out with friends, I bartend, I watch funny youtube videos and hang out on facebook. 

Sometimes I really miss the States. Like when watching Obama's address to congress on Youtube? Wow, that was great. Sometimes I have dreams about being back in the States. But for the most part I'm pretty content here. And then there are days when the idea of returning to the U.S. absolutely terrifies me. Days when I think "Where do Americans get off calling their country the land of the free and the home of the brave?" 

Like days when I see things like this:

Rotterdam, New Classes and the Cafe

Before my new semester began I took a week to go to Rotterdam in the Netherlands to volunteer at the International Film Festival and visit my friend Ieva. Ieva and I met in Danish class when we both lived in Copenhagen in '07. She's now getting her master's in the Netherlands. We stayed at a hostel called HostelROOM and it was fantastic! The place was clean and nice and the staff was awesome. One evening the staff invited everyone who was in the living room out for drinks and bought the first round. My job with the festival was being a "zaalwacht" which translates to screening attendant. Pretty much I showed up at one of the movie theaters from 11-4 everyday for 6 days, tore tickets and got to watch movies. The hostel provided breakfast and the festival provided lunch so it was a pretty cheap vacation. I saw really great films and some really crappy ones. My favorites were Agrarian Utopia, Jay and The Ukrainian Time Machine. In the evenings I hung out with Ieva, exchanging stories and opinions about quirky film makers and the films themselves. One evening we took the train down to Amsterdam to see an old friend of mine, Quinten, who lives there. I adore Amsterdam. The character of the city is so unique with the tall old buildings squashed together and all the canals. 

I got back to Odense just in time to start my new classes at the university. This term I'll be taking Stream Pollution Assessment, Natural Resource Economics and Environmental Modeling. I have to confess these are not my favorite kind of classes. I prefer more sciencey stuff, but that doesn't mean it's not important to learn the management and social aspects of environmental science. I'm going to be learning a lot about the environmental policies and methods of the European Union which I think is really fantastic. Even though policy is not my favorite subject, I'll gain perspectives that I can take back with me to the States. These same classes in the U.S. would be so U.S. centered. I used to get frustrated in undergraduate classes when all the readings, case studies, examples, information etc. in a course acted like the U.S. was the entire world. My first reading for Nat. Res. Eco. was a comparison study between commercial fishing legislation in New England and Southern Australia. 

I've also been working quite a bit at Lambda, the LGBTQ cafe. It's been such a good experience. The community has been so welcoming and I'm getting to know some great people. It's also really good for improving my Danish since people usually prefer to order their drinks in Danish. Speaking of improving my Danish, I start evening Danish classes again tomorrow!

Our houses Ourselves

The other day I was trying to describe the nature of a closet to my German housemate, Jens. 

It's not that there aren't closets in Denmark or Germany. They just aren't the same as closets in the U.S., namely they aren't built-in. A closet over here is what might be considered a cabinet or a wardrobe in the States. 

Jens had heard of American walk-in closets and spoke of them with a voice lade with exagerated disdain. The voice he uses whenever he talks about American excess and extravagance. It took me a minute to explain that I wasn't talking about a walk-in closet, just a closet, a normal closet. Then he dropped the attitude and just looked puzzled and attentive as I tried to explain the general size, shape and purpose of a closet. Now how many times is the inside of a closet shown in an American television show or movie? He must have seen them before, right? Maybe not? Does Hollywood not believe in closets? (An aside: As YouTube grows in popularity, more and more people around the world will be able to glimpse what the inside of real bedrooms and homes look like in other places. Yay for YouTube!) 

The conversation about the closets got started from our general distate for the kitchen we share. It's a sucky kitchen. It's a box at the end of the hallway. And it has poor ventilation and generally reeks of oil and Chinese food. I was standing in the doorway fiddling with the door. That's right. Our kitchen has a door. When was the last time you saw a kitchen with only one entrance and that entrance had a door? I remember hearing once that there's some Danish law that requires there be two doors between the kitchen and the bathroom, but I don't know if that's true or not. I'm pretty sure my ex's apartment doesn't comply with that rule. I made some comment about how silly it was that our kitchen had a door. Jens thought it was a good thing that it did or else the entire house would smell like Chinese food. That set off the discussion about living spaces and how they're arranged.

Jens thought it was silly that American homes don't have an entrance way, they just open up into the living room. First I had to correct him. Not all American homes look like sitcom sets and in fact, most do have an entrance way. But I had to balance this with the fact that the house I grew up in did not have one. As with all discussions about "the U.S." I had to fight the temptation mention yet again that it depends on what region of the U.S. and I just stuck with the ones with which I was familiar. He wanted to know where we put our coats and shoes. Oh the assumptions in that question! Like assuming that everywhere in the U.S. people wear coats when in fact there is very little coat wearing in large parts of the U.S.. And taking off shoes? After confessing that most Americans don't take their shoes off inside, I then had to explain coat racks and the practice of putting the coats on a bed in one of the bedrooms during a big party. Then of course, there is often a coat closet. Thus began the closet discussion.

The conversations often get me thinking about the diversity of the U.S.. Americans are really comfortable with variety, so much so that we expect it. At the grocery store there will be a minimum of five different brands to choose from for whatever it is you want. And different houses are expected to look different, inside and out. Sometimes light switches are tabs, sometimes they're buttons, sometimes they're dials, sometimes you clap your hands. Door handles can be knobs or turnable handles or handles with buttons. The floor might be hardwood, carpet or tile.  Some houses have finished basements, others cellars, others workshops or no basement at all. Sometimes the kitchen, diningroom and livingroom are all one big open spaces and other times they're completely separate boxes. Mail might come through a slot in the door, into a box on the porch or box out on the street with a red flag. All of this variety can exist in one row of houses. Kind of like us.