Week 4 - Not So Typical

Monday morning I met with some students from my signal processing course because we needed to record an electroencephalogram (EEG) for an experiment. We don't normally meet on Mondays, but we did this week because only about ten of us from the lab could perform the experiment at one time. I volunteered to be the test subject partly because I was curious and partly because no one else was volunteering. As the test subject I had to have my head measured and electrodes with sticky gel attached to my head. Apparently it didn't make much of a difference whether I had hair or not. We had a few people in charge of very specific tasks so that more of us could participate and Maggie was the one that told me what to do for each part of the experiment. It wasn't difficult and all in all an interesting experience. We may have to do this again for the brain computer interface project we're working on. The next day I played Frisbee as usual, but this time there was a little rain at the beginning of our time together. Later we marveled at a double rainbow which was still there as I was riding home. Wednesday afternoons I usually spend on campus to get some work done and this time I met with Kasper, one of my classmates, to work on a presentation for our class. The reason I usually stay on campus on Wednesdays is because it keeps me from biking an extra 10km back home. I meet with my life group from church in the evening and from DTU it's the same distance to Copenhagen where we meet as it is to my apartment. The three locations form an 10km equilateral triangle more or less. Our time together went well as we ate and shared our highs and lows for the week. I think I had mentioned Bible studies I've been in and led in the past and the guys asked if I would consider leading next week just so they could see what it was like in the U.S. I was a little reluctant because I didn't want to assume a position of leader in a group I've only been in for a few weeks and I didn't have any idea what topic we would cover. Nonetheless we tentatively planned to do just that next week. Thursday the highlight was going to a Hospital in Copenhagen to take an x-ray and MR image of an animal tissue sample for one of my courses. It was nice to see the actual systems we had been learning about in action. Coincidentally, I went to another hospital on Friday for another one of my courses, but this time it was for a tour and some presentations about sleep disorders.


Saturday I planned to bike to Roskilde, which is about 30km away, to help Marie, a woman from my church, load everything in her apartment into a moving truck because she was moving into Copenhagen. Unfortunately, I didn't leave with enough time for that long of a journey, not to mention it felt like I was riding uphill and into the wind the whole way there. So I arrived a little late, but followed suit of the others carrying boxing out to the truck. Apart from three hired movers there were two other men, one of them with his wife, and Marie's mother.

It took quite a while but that was expected and afterward Marie served us lunch. After that I went to explore Roskilde because I had never been there before. I found a local park and read for a while before going towards the city center where I locked my bike and strolled along the pedestrian streets. Before it got dark I headed back towards Copenhagen because the church was having a party for all the international young adults. There I met some new friends and we enjoyed plenty of time around a campfire while roasting Snobrød, which is simply bread dough wrapped around a stick and roasted over a fire.

Sunday Simona, one of my former neighbors now living in Copenhagen, had expressed an interest in coming to my church so we had decided on Saturday we'd meet there at the beginning of the service. I was still helping with the ushers, but Simona found we without too much trouble. I couldn't help but wonder what she thought of the service, but I waited to ask until it was finished. As usual many people gathered in the cafe area and after a while some of the young adults decided to go to a restaurant called Dalle Valle for dinner. They had half priced food on this particular day so that was the main incentive to go there. I ordered one of their classic burgers just as many of the others did and it was very good. After we parted ways I biked back home, but I had to fight a very strong wind all the way. However, I think the time with my friends (and that burger) was worth all of it.