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).