Week 13 - Giving and Receiving

We had more problems on Monday with the BCI project, but tried to determine the next course of action. I was feeling especially tired that afternoon so I took a nap before dinner. I haven't taken very many naps here this semester compared to the last couple back home. By the time I was making dinner there were actually four or five of my neighbors in the kitchen as well which doesn't happen too often. A couple weeks ago I had ordered a USB adapter for PS2 controllers because I had found some perfectly fine PS2 controllers being thrown out. I intended to use them to play some old video games on my computer. The adapter happened to come in the mail today so I of course had to try them out. One of my favorite games was Mario Kart for Nintendo 64 and I played with a couple of my neighbors once we got my computer hooked up to the TV. That brought back some memories. I submitted a few more job applications this week because I'm trying to secure a position before I return home or soon after. We had a meeting for our BCI project in which we discussed what we could do to track down the sources of our problems and it seemed like a good plan to us. Wednesday I stayed home all morning and afternoon to finish some work and later I prepared dinner for my life group. I made corn cheese chowder and brought some sugar cookies I had made earlier. Thursday my medical imaging group needed to make some headway on our semester long report and we met in the morning and kept working until 5pm. This week we worked efficiently and I made a point of periodically making sure everyone was working on something pertaining to the report. I had to go home though soon after 5pm because tonight was Thanksgiving and I had planned to prepare a dish for a Thanksgiving dinner that one of my friends was hosting. The dinner turned out well and we of course had more than enough food. After the dinner I returned to my building next door and Zlatina, one of my neighbors, had planned a group game called Nordic Circle in which we took turns talking about anything we felt like while everyone else had to just listen. It was a unique opportunity for me to express my gratitude toward my neighbors. Friday evening I had agreed to help out with an event at the Christian Center. The event was called the Afrowood Film Festival and was aimed toward celebrating African movies, their directors, actors and actresses. I enjoyed the volunteering, but frankly the turn out for the event was rather poor. It was mostly due to some last minute changes and these had frustrated the efforts of the primary coordinator within the church. So a lot of things did not go according to plan, but I believe we benefited by overcoming the challenges we were presented with. They decided to cancel the rest of the event that was planned for Saturday so I was relieved of my commitment for then. That provided me the opportunity to work on the BCI project and then my report for signals processing. Zlatina also had a going a away lunch on Saturday. She had made a Bulgarian pastry and she had hidden a coin inside as was the tradition in Bulgaria. The one who found the coin was supposed to have good luck for the next year and I happened to find the coin early on, but kept it a secret until we were nearly done. I pretended to cough it up, but then explained I had found it in the first piece. Later I took a break from my work and watched Wall-E with Jacob, another one of my neighbors. On Sunday after church I tried to get some tools to fix a friend's bed who lives above the church, but without success . So I just planned to do it next weekend. Most of us young adults waited around the church until it was time for a dinner that one of my friends was hosting. It turned out really well and we were able to experience a traditional Danish Christmas dinner. There's a dessert that is something like a rice pudding with almonds and cherry sauce as topping. All the almonds but one are crushed and whoever finds the whole almond wins a prize. I happened to find this too just like the coin in the Bulgarian pastry or perhaps it was because I found the coin...

Week 12 - Chaotic Fun

We tried to start this week by working on our signal processing report but Maggie's kitchen floor was being professionally cleaned and we had to take a break and a long one at that. I actually got to Skype with Jared, one of my good friends from high school, on Tuesday and we had a lot to catch up on because we unfortunately don't talk that often. I may get to see him shortly after I return home, but I'll have to plan ahead if that's going to happen. That signal processing report that we didn't work on much on Monday needed to be wrapped up and submitted Tuesday so we set out to accomplish that. Then I nearly forgot about my biosensors presentation for Wednesday morning so I stayed up late putting that together and then was feeling too tired to rehearse it much. That showed when I gave the presentation, but my instructor was gracious enough to help me along during the discussion that followed. I ran into Giorgia at the international affairs office because we both needed to talk to them and we decided to have lunch together. Later Jose joined us who was also from our introduction week group. I joined the prayer group and then went to the library for the afternoon. I also had talked with a girl living in one of the dormitories near DTU and she needed some plates and cups for her place. One of my neighbors had found some that were being thrown out which subsequently sat in their boxes in the corner of our kitchen for a month or so. I had checked with that neighbor and he said I could do whatever I wanted with them so I decided to pick the best dishes and give them away. I cleaned them all really well of course before giving them and the time was well worth it. That same night I experienced some bike problems which I had noticed to a much lesser degree during the preceding days. I was doubtful that I would find an open bike shop on my way to my life group, but just before I reached my destination I saw one with its lights still on. The man working there was quite friendly and even though he wanted to go home soon he fixed a number of things on my bike that needed some attention. The main problem that he fixed was the chain, which was loose so he replaced it and it has never since skipped or come off the gears. Again the life group attendance was low, but we had a good discussion probably due to the fact there were only three of us. Thursday I got to sleep in and then biked to DTU for my imaging lecture. Our time in the computer lab I would describe as chaotic but fun. We weren't working that efficiently, but we enjoyed the time we spent together. I was supposed to have an interview with a software development company, but after verifying the time I never received the call. Perhaps it was not meant to be.

Friday night I made some sugar cookies (a recipe sent from home) with Steffen, one of my neighbors, who was kind enough to help. Later I also tried to make eggnog, but failed when I poured the nearly boiling milk into the egg/sugar mixture too quickly. Needless the say the eggs actually cooked a little which resulted in a chunky mixture. The cookies and eggnog were for a Christmas dinner that I was hosting for my introduction week group. If you're doing the math, this Friday actually is before Thanksgiving which was strange for me to be celebrating Christmas so early. However, that was the latest date that all of us from the group could meet for a dinner. It turned out really well though once everyone found their way to my place. It's not the easiest place to find which Matt, Maggie and I all have personally experienced. So I took care of a few more preparations for the dinner and then greeted people. We were each supposed to bring or make a traditional Christmas dish from our country which resulted in an abundance of food as well as some cooking chaos. We were able to all squeeze together at a single table and the order of the evening was the main course, hot drinks, dessert, and clean up. The next morning I went to a conference at the Christian center focused on the importance of life groups which I found to be beneficial. They had a series of general sessions and then some smaller classes or workshops. Being the last Sunday of the month it was super Sunday at which Steve, the main speaker from the conference, gave the message. Some of the young adults went out to a kebab place for lunch as we often do and then Anjelli invited us to her apartment for coffee and ice cream. We had a good long discussion about many things one of which was relationships. I then made home in time to Skype with my parents to finish the week.

Week 11 - Movies and Food

November the 5th happened to fall within this week so I decided to plan a movie night with my neighbors to watch V for Vendetta. There are a number of quotable lines in the movie, but one in particular was the reason for watching the movie on the 5th of November. "Remember, remember the fifth of November the gun powder treason and plot. I see no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot" said the character named V. With it being fall it seemed fitting to make some caramel corn so I gathered all the necessary ingredients, but not without some difficulty. The evening turned out well and later I even had the opportunity to  Skype with my parents. Wednesday I went earlier than usual to DTU to work on the BCI project in lab. I joined the prayer group soon after we finished and when the others had to go to their classes. I followed my usual routine of working in the library for rest of the afternoon and then biked off to my life group. A couple of things that were out of the ordinary this week include setting up my PC to receive and make phone calls and making anatomical slices of our tissue sample for medical imaging. We needed the cross-sectional slices to compare to the medical images we had taken of the same tissue sample earlier in the semester and that would be the topic of our report for the whole semester. I enjoyed lunch with Josh on Friday and my group's work with the BCI went well for a change. We had been running into problem after problem for a while and were getting a little discouraged so this work day helped us along. Often times I plan things well in advance, but Friday night I didn't really have any plans so when one of my neighbors asked if anyone wanted to watch a movie I decided a spontaneous decision would be good. We ended up watching Despicable Me 2 which neither of us had seen and we both enjoyed it. I also spontaneously planned to make cornmeal pancakes Saturday morning for a few other neighbors and experimented with a grape syrup which turned into something like jam when it was cool. Later this same day one of my friends at a different, distant dormitory had an event planned called "swap and trade". I had a few things to donate and ended up finding a few things I could use so it worked out exactly as it was meant to. This same friend is all for making things sustainable and part of that includes giving away things. He also goes dumpster diving for food, but that's mainly because Denmark has strict regulations on when to throw out food and often the food is still very good. I had to bike back into a strong wind and some rain, but I made it eventually back home. I was especially thankful to have a warm, dry apartment to go back to. I spent the rest of the day actually learning about Java programming which had been something of interest to me, but I had never had any courses that ever touched on it. I ushered at the Christian center as usual, but this week we had a guest speaker from Ireland. He had a humorous and entertaining way of presenting his message, but toward the end it became more serious when he drove the message home which I think was appropriate. To finish off the week I returned home to Amalia, my Greek neighbor, and about five of her Greek friends. They invited me to join them for dinner and I prepared a fruit salad to contribute. We had a great time and among other things I learned that Greeks really love their food.

Week 10 - People and Places

I finally was able to receive my CPR number this week. A central persons register number is like a social security number in the U.S. and the paper work took a long time to get through the system. I decided to stay inside the rest of the day because of an incoming storm. It hit the west coast of Denmark pretty hard, but since Copenhagen is on the east side we experienced less of it. However, there was some impressive wind which I watched from my window. Tuesday we finalized another one of our reports for our signal processing course. Then I enjoyed a brief lunch with Jose and Ronja, two from my introduction week group, and then joined the prayer group after that. I worked in the library for the rest of the afternoon and met up with my life group for dinner. We had a particularly good discussion that night perhaps because there were only three of us. Thursday I met a guy named David who needed a VGA cable and I happened to have one I didn't need. We connected through a Facebook group that exists for people to post things they need or things they want to give away and the best part is that it's all free. I was happy to put forth a little effort and get it to him as I'm sure he was happy to have a free cable. After that I had a longer lecture for medical imaging and subsequently a shorter time in the computer lab. Friday we had our signals lecture at the Bispebjerg Hospital which was focused on skin cancer. While we were waiting for things to start I checked my weight on a scale out in the hall and after converting from kilograms to pounds realized I was the same weight that I've been for the past four years. I'm not concerned about my weight. I was just curious if all the biking had any effect on me. Speaking of biking, I biked there with Matt and Maggie and then Maggie and I went to DTU after that. We stopped at IKEA to look around and I got some candles (the Danes like candles) and food before we made our way back to campus in time to meet with Sada, one of our two supervisors for the brain computer interface project. He helped us get our student cards activated so we could access the building and our lab whenever we needed. Friday evening I biked to the church to help with an event they were hosting for x-patriots or those that live and work in Denmark from other countries. The event was a masked ball and I helped with some of the set up and then manned the coat room to gather everyone's extra belongings when they came in. All of us volunteers rotated positions so none of us became to board. So after a while I switched to helping serve food. Eventually I rotated to greeting people, but at this point there weren't very many people still coming. I did greet a few groups though. The event turned out pretty well and after the guests had left we all pitched in to clean. The church is part of a very large building and we were only using a part of it for this event so that is all we had to clean. All this went quite late so waking up to meet my medical imaging group Saturday morning was a bit of a struggle. Once we were all there and had enjoyed some breakfast we got to work on our report. We worked efficiently until I started making Swedish pancakes for lunch and after eating them no one felt like working. Good food comes with a price I guess. The rest of the group was going to a party for the medicine and technology students, but I planned to be at a going away party for Kim, one of my friends from DTU and church. She's actually the one who invited me to come to the Christian Center. It wasn't her very last day but she was flying back to Texas early on the in next week. I baked and brought some cornbread which a few of the people had never had before. I biked of course but had never traveled this exact route. On the way I ran into Oscar, another friend from church, where I would have never expected to see him. He and his friend had stayed on their bus too long and were waiting for one going in the opposite direction. We talked briefly and then I kept biking because I couldn't take my bike on the bus. The bus caught up to me while I was waiting at a light and they got dropped off there. Still not the right stop, but I decided to walk with them at this point. None of us exactly knew the way, but we knew the direction we needed to go and that there should exist a path in the direction we were headed. What we found it to be just a bike path and a dark one at that. I made use of my bike light and we pressed on. We did make it eventually and when we entered we found a crowded kitchen not only with people, but also food. Everyone had brought more than enough and we didn't even have room to set everything on the table. Later we participated in what I will call "balloon encouragement" which was one of Kim's ideas. We all wrote some bit of encouragement on a piece of paper and put it inside a balloon. Then we took a few minutes to hit them around to mix things and we took turns reading our notes once of course popping the balloons. At one point Kim played a song she had written and recorded about her time in Denmark. She sang along with it and would have just played it live if we had a piano. She helps with the worship at the church frequently. Afterwards one the girls living in the dormitory brought out her harp and we enjoyed that for a while. I don't know if I've ever heard a harp in person all by itself. This girl who I later met was very passionate about music. Eventually the evening came to an end and I stayed to help clean up before saying goodbye once more. Sunday I had to bike in the rain to the Christian Center, but I had planned on it so I changed my clothes once I arrived. I helped with the ushers and served communion this week because we do that every first Sunday of each month. What a privilege it is to serve. After the service I helped gather ingredients for the family dinner the young adults group was making. Sam was in charge today and decided to make lasagna, salad, and garlic bread with the help of many hands. We had some left over ice cream from a previous dinner and I shredded some dark chocolate (also left over somehow) to put on it later. After dinner we had a discussion about relationships and talked about that among our tables. Another week here in Denmark to be thankful for.

Week 9 - Symphony

Though classes hadn't started for us three from Purdue, we decided to have a group meeting to work on both our report for our shared course and the semester project. I did get around to doing my laundry and on my way I talked to the inspector about the lights in the entrance to my building. They hadn't been working for quite some time, but since it's getting darker sooner I thought it would be nice to have them working. I gave a presentation for my biosensors course and then I met up with the DTU prayer group before my lunch. This week it was my turn to cook dinner for my life group and I decided to make sloppy Joe's. However, I decided to make it before I left so I just put the pot on the rack on the back of my bike and secured it as best I could with a couple of bungee cords. Thankfully it made it alright, but people may have been wondering about my sanity when they saw or heard the pot on my bike. Thursday my group was finally able to record ultrasound images of our phantom tissue we've been analyzing this whole semester. Back at the apartment I briefly Skyped with Matt, Maggie and our professors back at Purdue about our BCI project so they know how things are coming along. After dinner I played Over the Hedge on the TV in our common living area and a couple neighbors joined me. I tend to watch kids movies more and more. Perhaps this is good preparation for parenthood. Friday I was able to have lunch with Josh again and we enjoyed our time discussing our unique experiences over the past week.

 I was really looking forward to the evening because I was planning to go to a symphony with some friends from my church. We also planned to have a pre-symphony dinner that everyone was contributing to in some way or another. I had a little difficulty finding the apartment, but it was literally seconds after I finally prayed that God would help me find my way that I came upon a street I knew. The dinner was good, but we had to eat quickly because we weren't that close to the opera house where the symphony was taking place. Half of us rode our bikes and the other half took the bus. I rode with them and we lost each other when my chain slipped off. That happens occasionally and this time I even set a personal best for shortest time to reset my chain, but we still got separated. At that point though, we were close enough we found our way to the opera house and eventually found each other too. It was refreshing to hear actual instruments instead of amplified instruments or recorded music. During the intermission, which was between two different movements, we explored the opera house and enjoyed the view of Copenhagen from the balcony. Afterward we walked along the pedestrian streets and stopped at a cafe called Retro where we ordered coffee sort of drinks and played cards. Saturday night I had to set my clocks back an hour for daylight savings and then it was super Sunday at the Christian Center so all the services were combined and earlier than usual. My neighbors and I had planned a community dinner so it worked out very well that the service was earlier because I had extra time to prepare my part of the dinner. I made beans and franks and cornbread to add to what the others brought. As I've come to expect and appreciate, we had a great time together. Afterward, I enjoyed talking with my parents through Skype.

Week 8 - Autumn Break

This week DTU had their autumn break and we had no classes for the entire week. I had tossed around the idea of traveling somewhere as far as Spain or Italy which I'm sure would have been amazing, but I had no one to go with. I also had a lot of school work that had piled up, most of which was reading, so I didn't want to be away for the whole week. I decided to look into taking a day trip somewhere in Denmark or Sweden and discovered a place called Møns Klint which are white cliffs on one of the islands south of Zealand. I invited a number of others, but only Matt was able to join me. I was glad for his company as we embarked on our adventure. In order to get there we had to take a couple of trains, a couple of buses, and then walk the last 7 kilometers. Halfway through the walk we thought we'd try hitch hiking because neither of us had tried it before and we didn't really know how much further the park was. To our surprise within in about 5 minutes someone turned around and offered us a ride. To our even greater surprise the woman driving had her daughter and mother with her and still stopped to pick us guys up. We were certainly grateful for the ride though. Once we arrived Matt and I descended the hundreds of steps to reach the Baltic sea. We walked along the shore which was composed of medium sized smooth black rocks. I stood in the sea for a moment before we ascended back up to the top of the cliffs. The view was much better as we walked along the top and took pictures. Once we had thoroughly seen the sights we walked back the same way we came and tried to hitchhike, but without success. There was a small town where the bus would pick us up and we had to wait so we backtracked to the candy shop we had seen on our way. They had many candies to choose from and all were made at their shop. Matt and I both planned to get some to take back home to the U.S. if we could keep from eating it. The journey from here was not as much of an adventure as before, but there was a satisfying feeling that crept over me as we made our home and I reflected on a day well spent.

 




I had to get back to school work Wednesday and started it by meeting with Kapser, one of my classmates, to discuss our upcoming presentations for our biosensors course. I stuck around the library until it was time for my life group and we started going through Proverbs this week. On my way home I met Andy again at the same store I had seen him in front of and this time I was able to ask some more questions to learn more about him. I was genuinely interested in getting to know him and our conversation lasted quite a bit longer than last week. Thursday I made some headway on the reading I was behind on, but took a movie break before applying for some jobs. Friday I looked forward to a birthday party and dinner for Ruth, one of my friends from church. She actually lives above the church in the apartments there and that's where we had the pre-dinner party. Friends had prepared all sorts of foods including two kinds of Danish cakes and various cupcakes. My favorite was actually the rolls that Ruth made, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy the cakes. We were going to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner and I'm glad we decided to walk because that gave us some time to digest all the food we had just eaten. I also had the opportunity to talk with Marshall, one of the others that lives above the church, about graduate school. I found out that Ruth works at the restaurant and knowing that we were coming they had set up a long table in a side room just for us. We ordered three giant sampler platters so we could try nearly every dish they served. The Ethiopian way to eat is to use a soft, sponge-like, sour pancake to scoop up the other food. It was quite an experience and the servers surprised us all with a cake. I'm pretty sure Ruth had a good birthday and I was glad to be part of it. Saturday was another dinner party, but this time with some classmates from my medical imaging course. I brought things to make oven baked French fries and monster cookies that I had made just before coming. The other guys cooked salmon, home-made ravioli, and a Spanish omelet. I think I was in a food making mood this week because I let my neighbors know I was making Swedish pancakes Sunday morning and served a couple of them before going to church. I helped with the ushers as usual. After the service the young adults group was going to make pizza and then spend some time in prayer and worship. I helped gather the ingredients for the pizza and prepared the toppings. I enjoyed the pizza, but the prayer and worship were even better. I made it home in time to Skype with my parents and then clean my kitchen to end my autumn break.

Week 7 - Culture Night

Mondays are good day for Matt, Maggie and I to meet for either our signal processing course or our brain computer interface project because none of us have classes. This week it happened to the BCI project and we reviewed the computer code from a previous BCI project that we are modifying.  I think it really helped to discuss it and put our brains together in order to figure out how each part worked. Maggie started making a flow chart as we discussed it so we could show our supervisor that we understood it. Later I took care of my laundry, but this time instead of walking back to my apartment I checked out the "free stuff" room. I don't know what it's actually called, but just as the name implies it's a room where people leave free things that they don't need, but don't want to throw away. Most of it is clothing and the room was an absolute mess in my opinion. I went ahead and organized some of it and after I put my clothes in the dryer I decided to organize the rest. I don't think it will stay organized too long, but at least some people will have an easier time finding things. I actually found a few things for myself in the process of sorting through everything. After all that I went shopping, but forgot my wallet so I bought just a couple things with the change I had. The coins are worth and used more here in Denmark, but I didn't have much change at the time. Before dinner I enjoyed the opportunity to Skype with my sister Laura. I don't think we've ever Skyped before and during my time here we had only messaged each other a few times on Facebook. It's pretty amazing how easy it is to communicate with people so far away. I sometimes wonder if I've taken for granted the ability to communicate like this. Of course I didn't think of this until afterward, but during the conversation we mostly talked about the new things we were both experiencing. I look forward to seeing her smiling face in person when I come home for Christmas. Then for dinner I decided to make tortillas and looked up a recipe online. They turned out pretty well and I added chicken, cheese and peppers.  Wednesday seems to be the time when I'm in the library a lot, but it makes sense since I'm already at DTU and bike into Copenhagen in the evening for my life group. This time I came prepared with a liter of chocolate milk to fuel  my work the whole afternoon. Eventually it was time to meet with my life group and apart from the usual things we discussed the book of Philemon. On my way home I met a man named Andy just outside a grocery store I stopped at. He asked me a lot of questions and we talked about the differences between the U.S. and Denmark. I did get to ask him a few questions, but felt like he probably knew more about me than I knew about him in the end. Thursday my team for medical imaging worked well and we accomplished what was assigned quickly. Finishing a little early was good because I had planned to make some of the food for a dinner with my neighbors. I picked up some ingredients on the way home and started preparing the vegetables for corn cheese chowder, but then I realized I was missing a couple things. After getting those, everything else went smoothly and we enjoyed dinner together. We had more than enough food and stored the leftovers for later.

I had really been looking forward to Friday night because nearly all of Copenhagen was celebrating Culture Night. I bought my culture pass which gave me free transportation and entrance into all the events before taking the train into Copenhagen. I met some friends from my intro week group and then some of their friends. We started by going up the round tower which was attached to an old Church. The only thing I insisted on going to was an American Halloween event which included s'mores and pumpkin carving. I was the only one that carved a pumpkin, but we all made s'mores. Later we took a ferry to opera house and went on a self-guided tour. It was pretty impressive. Some of our group really wanted to go to the zoo because they had heard it was open just like a lot of the other places that were open tonight that would normally not be. So we planned our route and made our way there, but it took a while. We almost gave up hope, but then we found the main entrance and explored the entire zoo in the dark. Half of the animals were already inside for the night, but of those that were inside we got to see some of them. I won't forget how the glasses of everyone in our group fogged up immediately when we entered the reptile and amphibian house. We were glad it was warm though because the temperature was dropping outside.
















Nearly all of us were hungry after walking around all night so we got some food at a pizza and kebab shop. They had recently opened and they offered free drinks not to mention I was offered a free kebab when they were out of what I ordered. When we were finished we parted ways and I tried to figure out which train to take since the trains had switched to the night train schedule at this point. The trains don't go to all the usual stops so I looked at my map which included the schedule. There weren't any trains going to the closest station to my place, but I decided to go to a station where a lot of buses usually pass through. However, when I got off the train I realized there were only a few buses and none to get me closer to my home. I found out I could have taken a certain bus from Copenhagen, but would have to take the train back there first. So I just decided to walk home since I knew the way, but it took a very, very long time. I was tired and my feet were sore from walking, but I eventually made it home and went to sleep quickly.  On Sunday I had to bike in rain to church. Perhaps I've gotten used to Denmark because I didn't mind since I had a change of clothes. Later that night I Skyped with my parents and told them about all the things that had happened this week.