Personal | Cultural
I cannot believe that I am writing about week 8 already. Our first month has went by so quickly. That feeling of nervousness and worry has completely left my mind and I now feel like I belong here. My norms have been adjusted in order to fit in with my new way of living in Aarhus, Denmark. I have gotten used to the buses, food and new way of life. My NHD classmates have now become friends rather than the 'other international students' and the tutors have eventually learned all our names. On Monday, we looked at nature in more depth and discussed different views on nature for example what a perfect landscape would look like to each of us. It was an interesting topic as each student preferred something else from one another for example some students said they preferred water and mountains where as others said mountains were not something they particularly like looking at. We discussed how our own childhood may have influenced this in relation to certain activities we may have done with our families such as mountain climbing or water related activities. This challenged my thinking in that each of us had very different up bringing's and that culture influenced our way of looking at nature and its importance very much. The way we view nature, influences the way we implement it with children that we work with today and in the future.
After our classes had finished, we decided we would organize a surprise birthday party for Lara, one of the Croatian girls in my class. We made lots of different foods and also some of the girls in my class made her a cake. It was a pancake cake, made up of loads of pancakes, fruits and cream. I had never had anything like it before and I enjoyed it very much. Lara was delighted when she came in and had no idea of what was happening. She was grateful for the effort that everyone had put in for her special day. The relationship between our class is growing stronger and stronger each week and I feel like I have made friends for life.
Later in the week, my brother came to visit. We went on walks to the Forest and visited the beach while he was here. We also took some time to explore the shops, something that I hadn't had a chance to do yet. In the evening, I went to my first ever handball game which was in a stadium in Aarhus. This was a major cultural difference for me as I had never even heard of handball in Ireland and had no idea what it entailed. Ian from my class plays handball back home in Belgium, so he spent most of the match explaining what was going on. The atmosphere was very exciting and as I started to understand the rules, the game became very interesting to watch. It was a great experience and the positive energy within the crowd was something spectacular to be a part of.
On Sunday, our class decided we would do something that none of us had done before. We had an 'Oscars party'. As it didn't start until 1AM, we all slept earlier in the evening in order to stay up all night to watch the Oscars on TV. It was a good way of getting to know each other even more as we found out more likes and dislikes about each other for example what films/actors we liked and didn't like so much. We also prepared a huge breakfast in the morning before our class. Everyone brought a breakfast item each and we enjoyed breakfast together before college. We had pancakes, fruits, cheese, juice, tea/coffee, eggs and bacon, to name a few items. I found it very interesting to see how different cultures ate so differently, even for breakfast. It was a great idea and a good way of getting to know each other even more.
No comments:
Post a Comment