Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Week 3 - Getting Involved

At this point in my adventure there are still a lot of new things, but not nearly as much as during the first two weeks. From now on I will be collecting the details of each week and combining them into one post per week. It's probably easier for both of us and you probably won't have to read as much (even though this first one is long). So this week started with my day off as usual, but this time I actually scheduled my time for almost the entire day. I enjoy planning things on a weekly and daily basis and this is probably one of the things that helped me survive last semester. So being out of practice I wasn't able to do everything on my schedule, but I after breakfast I spent some time praying and reading the Bible. I hadn't set aside much time for this amid all that has been happening here. It was very refreshing and I hope to continue that. I also needed to catch up on some reading for my courses so I slowly made some progress through my medical signal processing text book. I also did my laundry and read some more after dinner. Tuesday I had breakfast with Zlatina, one of my neighbors from Bulgaria. We enjoyed the sunshine especially when we considered how little sun we'll see during winter. The lecture for signal processing was good, but when we began the lab Matt, Maggie and I realized our previous courses hadn't quite prepared us for this course. However, this just means that we'll have to put some extra effort into understanding and completing the assignments. Afterwards I had the opportunity to play Ultimate Frisbee again with the group of international students I met during introduction week. We only had six players, but we made the field a little smaller and had fun nonetheless. I had to leave at about the same time the rugby players invaded so we ended our game then. I was in a hurry to return to my apartment because I was making Swedish pancakes (per Simona's request) for a sort of going away party. It was Simona's last night at our apartment and she'll be spending the rest of the month in Copenhagen before going home to Lithuania. It turned out really well and there was enough for everyone to eat. Many others pitched in to help either by providing toppings or preparing some other things. One of the "toppings" was ice cream which I had never tried before with Swedish pancakes, but it was really good. Then we ended the night with a couple of card games. Wednesday I biked to campus to join the prayer group I missed last week, but I couldn't find the room they had told me about. I hope others didn't have the same problem. Next week I'll get more specific directions and try again. I met up with one of my classmates (we happen to be the only two students in our class) and we worked on a presentation we're going to give in two weeks over some topics included in the scientific journals that we've been given. Then I biked to Copenhagen for my small group. I needed to get there early because I was making pancakes for the group. Yes, pancakes again, but they requested "American" pancakes so I made buttermilk pancakes for them.  They even turned down my offer to make pizza which I will probably try sometime soon. Our time together was good and after the pancakes we shared our highs and lows for the week. We naturally transitioned into sharing our testimonies and it's incredible what God has done in and through these brothers of mine. I'm already looking forward to next week. Thursday morning did not start with breakfast because I didn't have any milk. Rather, it started with going to the nearest grocery store and then breakfast. I bought some boots as well that I had seen there before, but I didn't know what the sizes meant until I researched it my apartment. My lecture for my medical imaging course was different this week because it was specifically for the few international students and was of course in English. The professor gave a lecture right afterward in Danish to the rest of the students who are indeed Danish. Lab followed and with some help from the TA's and my teammates I finished my assignment before leaving. I had a quick dinner back at my apartment and met up with Matt and Maggie to make some head way on our report that we had previously had some trouble with. Friday started with a guest lecture about electro-cardiograms (ECG) and then we continued to make some progress on our report. I enjoyed meeting with Josh, who I had met playing Frisbee, and eating lunch together. We might be planning a trip or two in the future because we both have similar interests and have Mondays off. I finally received my student card and had enough time to activate it before my meeting with Helge, the professor Matt, Maggie and I will be working with on our senior design project. The meeting was short, but we determined that we would make a variation of a brain computer interface based on the previous two versions other students had designed. It seems very interesting. When I returned home I decided to go shopping for ingredients to make granola, one of my favorite snacks back in the U.S. If you didn't know already I'm not like most people insofar as I was making granola on a Friday night rather than going out. Jakob, one of my neighbors, and I planned to go later to the sauna at our apartment and he went early to get it warmed up, but when we got there shortly after 10:00 we found it was locked. So no sauna for us and we worried it might stay on all night. I attempted to get a lot of reading done on Saturday with breaks for food and a Skype chat with my parents. We went to the sauna again and were able to get in this time. I can't remember the last time I've been in a sauna, but it was refreshing. Sunday biked to the Christian Center in Copenhagen and enjoyed some upbeat worship music and Pastor Mikael's preaching over 1 Cor. chapter 3. After the service Mikael asked if Daniel, one of the other young adults, and I would be interested in becoming involved with the usher ministry team and we both agreed to follow him to the meeting. Previously there had only been a few guys doing this every week and they were hoping to increase the size of their team to make things easier. Basically the ushers help with some setup before the service, greeting people, showing some to seats, and then some tear down afterwards. I had been looking for a way to get more involved and this opportunity to serve just presented itself to me. After the meeting some of the young adults went to eat again at Kosk Kebab, where we had gone two weeks ago. It was just as good as I remembered and I got to enjoy the meal with seven others, four of which were Americans (there usually aren't quite so many Americans in one place here). All in all a good week, but it passed much quicker than the first two.

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