Week 16 - The Final Countdown

By the beginning of this week I felt an urgent need to study nearly the entire day and so I did with just a few scheduled breaks to improve my efficiency. Eventually Tuesday did come and I biked off to DTU for my signal processing exam. I had a 30 minute preparation period for a brief presentation on a section from the text book. However the first part of the exam was a presentation on the last report we had completed for the course. Then came the text book presentation. I had a week to prepare for the report presentation so that went smoothly though I was almost over the time limit. There could have been worse sections of the text book for me to present, but my main problem was that my presentation wasn't very organized. I still did well enough for my professor and the external examiner to give me a 10 out of 12 which I was told no more than five minutes after I stepped out. That kind of immediate feedback is not something that I have ever experienced at Purdue. Afterward I had lunch with Christoph from my intro-week group. I put in some time on the BCI report and then had dinner with some other people from Purdue that were visiting Maggie. They made chili and served it over rice and I brought cooked carrots. Later I Skyped with my mom. I had decided to make Swedish pancakes in the morning so I invited Maggie and her friends. My neighbors Carlos and Steffen also joined us. I studied some for my last exam (optical biosensors) by carefully reading through the journal articles I was to present. Later I reviewed the BCI report that we had put together before submitting it to our professor. I went into Copenhagen for my life group which ended up being short because there were only a few of us, but I got to say goodbye to those that were there. After a later night (and an early morning) I felt my biosensor presentation was complete and rehearsed well enough. The presentation and discussion that followed both went well even though I had trouble with a couple questions. I also received a 10 out of 12 (but you have to understand that the scale goes down to -3 and doesn't hit every number so this was sort of 13 out of 15, or a low A). After discussion about my future plans and the course I said goodbye to my professors. Then the most curious feeling came over me. It was the sense of freedom that came from the fact that I had (most likely) finished my academic career making way for my professional career. I just sat down and enjoyed that time to myself. I then had a late lunch with Abigail (whom I met through the Christian Center, but goes to DTU and lives in one of the containers of campus village) which was mostly chicken with rice. Now that my exams were over I had time to research the company and position I had an interview for on Friday. It was a decent interview from my perspective but I could tell before it was concluded that I didn't have enough experience with the FDA and patents. There was still some hope though so I intended to wait for a reply in the coming weeks. I was flying out on Sunday so I needed to pack and fortunately I had only come with one suitcase, but since I accumulated some things and wanted to bring some gift home I had to find new homes for the things I was leaving behind. Much of it (including a lot of food I couldn't possibly use up) went to my neighbors. I wasn't too busy to have some fun though because I prepared dinner with some of my neighbors and then we watched a movie called Chaos. I made hot chocolate for the occasion. Steffen made me Danish (similar to Swedish) pancakes in the morning and I said goodbye to him and Carlos. Since I had to leave the bike at the apartment (and because I couldn't easily take my suitcase on the bike) I walked to the bus stop. From there I took a couple buses and then the metro to get to the airport. I was quite early but I checked in my baggage soon after getting there and had lunch at a Burger King. I lost (or rather had to throw away) the jam I had in my carry-on because it was too much like liquid and larger than the allowed amount. I would have put it in my checked luggage if I hadn't been worried about being over the weight limit (even without the jam the luggage was about one pound over the limit, but the lady said it wasn't a problem). I still had some Danish currency and bought a few more gifts at a shop along the way to my terminal. That's where I finally met beck up with the group (Maggie and the friends that had visited her for the week). Boarding went smoothly and I met a Swedish couple I was seated next to. I think I did a pretty good job of incorporating variety into my flight because I pretty much rotated between reading, eating, sleeping, journaling, and talking. After a 9 hour flight we touched down safely in Chicago and I met up with one of my friends who was kind enough to pick me up. And thus my Danish adventure came to end, but it is simply the beginning of another.

Week 15 - Some of My "Lasts"

This week was the first of two weeks of exams , but I only had one exam this week which was for my medical imaging course. However we still had the BCI project to work on and were running tests all day on Monday (unfortunately the results weren't as promising as before). I enjoyed Skyping with my parents again on Tuesday and the rest of my time was spent studying for my exam. The exam was in the morning and all multiple choice (which is not typical for DTU). The instructions were given in Danish, but the guy next to me helped translate. We had two hours but I nearly finished it in one and then carefully went through it a second time. After all this counted for 60% of my grade (the other 40% was from our report). This was only the beginning of my day because I met with the prayer group, met with Helge sometime afterward, and then with my life group in the evening. Daniel had prepared the dinner and we discussed Matthew 5 and 6. I heard from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and they were interested in interviewing me so we decided to set the interview for the end of the next week because my exams went until Thursday. I had lunch with my imaging group on Friday (which I was an hour late to because it was at 13:30 instead of 3:30 PM). Later I composed a cover letter specifically for the position at CHOP and sent it along. I worked on the BCI report for a while on Saturday, but then biked off to Copenhagen for a Christian Center Christmas party at Jessy's. We enjoyed sharing memories and future plans, but later had to say goodbye because many of us were leaving Denmark soon (we enjoyed the Danish treats too, but not as much as each other's company). Of my many lasts (the things which I would never do in Denmark again) it was my last time ushering at the Christian Center as well as my last time preparing food for the young adults group. I went out with Sam to gather the ingredients and then we got to work with quite a bit of help from the others waiting for the meal. The main course was a soup with fish served over rice. We almost made caramel corn (which I had gotten the ingredients for), but someone brought ingredients to make a Danish apple dessert which we decided would be better. I guess I couldn't think of a better way to say goodbye than to serve.

Week 14 - The Last "Normal" Week

My group met at DTU to work on the BCI project and after lunch we finally got some decent results which was an answer to my prayer. I stuck around the university until it was time for me to bike to Copenhagen. I had been invited to see Catching Fire, the second part of the Hunger Games, with some friends from my church. It was my first time going to any theatre in Denmark and the room in which we watched the movie was smaller than what's usually found in the U.S. I think it was actually better this way and more cozy. Afterward a few of us went to McDonald's for some chicken nuggets and enjoyed some good discussion. Tuesday I prepared some for my optical biosensors presentation and then Skyped with my parents because my father doesn't work on Tuesdays. The presentation went fairly well and we discussed details for the upcoming exam. There were only three of us for the prayer group this week, but we met anyways (and in a different location than usual). I had lunch with Murray, one of the guys in the group, after we finished. I headed to library as usual, but this week I found Giorgia, a friend from my introduction week group. When we grew tired of studying we decided to find each other's homes and universities using the satellite mode of Google maps. Jose (also from my introduction week group) was nearby and joined us for this distraction from schoolwork. I took a quick nap for about 20 minutes before biking to Copenhagen to meet my life group. When I came home I realized I had a few bananas that needed to either be eaten that night or used for baking. So I decided to make some banana bread. I met with one of my groups in the morning to finish our imaging report and I brought the banana bread to share. It was a good thing that I did because two of the guys had stayed on campus over night working on a report they needed to finish for a different course and had not gotten much sleep or food. A few of us took a break for an abbreviated lecture to help us prepare for the exam. Then we had to rush to finish the report. To complicate matters we were working on the text on a Google document so we could all work on it at the same time and a few of the guys were piecing the report together through LaTex, software designed to produce nice looking reports. All the while we knew there was a wind storm headed towards Copenhagen. We had to submit the report right at 5 PM so I was still able to ride my bike home, but it was difficult on the last stretch of my route directly into the wind. Once safely back home I played some Nintendo 64 with Steffen (using my PS2 controllers, adapter and laptop) and then made my dinner. It was still very windy on Friday so I reluctantly took the bus for the first time since the culture night in Copenhagen. Our group received some feedback on one of our reports directly from our professor which was nice because we hadn't received any feedback on our reports up until this point (and it was good feedback). Since we were on campus and the semester was coming to an end we worked on the BCI project including developing a plan for next week and a direction for the report. 

Saturday evening in my kitchen I enjoyed a Danish Christmas dinner consisting of pork, potatoes, salad, meatballs, hot cocoa, and egg tarts (inspired by my half-Danish half-American neighbor). Then it started to snow, but what was falling was more like soft white hail. It was still good for a brief snow ball fight and a miniature snowman. Since my departure from Denmark was quickly approaching I had the opportunity, along with a few other students, to share about my time at the Christian Center and the impact it had on my life. We went out to lunch afterward to a kebab place, but this time to Oz Kebab which was much nicer (I was wondering why we had never gone there before). I finally did get the tools and hardware to fix Anjelli's bed, but had some difficulty getting to the apartment section above the church (not having any way of contacting her). One of my friends from Hungry helped me with the repairs and Anjelli was excited that she didn't have to worry about it collapsing anymore (it was particularly a risk for uninformed visitors).