MONDAY FEBRUARY 5th

Woke up. Had breakfast. Ida's aunt is sick. She is going to see her tonight. The front page of the paper was all about handball. Denmark won the bronze medal in handball by beating France.
Went for a run. I looked on a map I have and saw a green area with lots of paths so I thought it was a garden. There was a super cool sunrise. I ran over there but it turns out to be a graveyard. Bikes are cutting through and there is a large path through the middle so I figure it's OK. I'm running along and I see a sign for Soren Kirkegaard's grave and HC Anderson's grave. I followed the signs in a sort of scavenger hunt and eventually find the gravesite. I also saw Neils Bohr's grave. His was the coolest because it has an owl statue on it. It made the run pretty exciting. Where else can you go by so many famous graves. Well...actually right in Concord on Author's Ridge where the Alcott's, Thoreau, and Emerson are buried but that's not the point.
Went back took a shower and headed into DIS.
In the practicum class the prof had us do a cool brainstorm to neat music about where we were, where we are, and where we want to be in terms of our life outlook and feelings.
We then had an open discussion about our practicum sites and questions we had. One interesting thing that came up was that mother's get paid for time off to take care of their children for a few months but then they go back to work. Kids are sent off to institutions to be cared for pretty much their whole childhoods. No "just housewifes" in Denmark or shall we say home anchor person's.
Elizabeth and I walked around during the break. She had left her scarf at RizRaz so we went to get it.
The theory class was OK but he tends to belabor his points. We started off talking about Sputnik and how that changed the way education was thought of. We then got into three stages (the Fuller Model) that teachers go through. A self stage, a task phase and an impact phase. Basically in self stage you're worried about what the kids and other teachers think of you. In the task phase you stick rigidly to rules and rely on the same responses and curriculum. In the impact phase you are worried most about the overall impact that you have on students, understanding students, and motivation of the students. Moral of the story is that you want to get to the impact stage. We took a survey to see which stage we were in. I was mainly in the impact stage (probably due to Smith's classes) and then medium in the self stage and only a tiny bit in the task phase.
After that class I went to an International Club meeting. They brought back DIS alums to talk about Danish culture. Basically what came out is that Danes will not go out of their way to talk with you nor to help you. If you ask for help or make the initial approach then Danes are extremely nice and friendly. We determined that going to bars was NOT the way to meet Danes because when they go out they go with a set group of friends who they want to visit with. One woman told a story about a blind man who another man tried to help by telling him what train was coming in. The blind man got snippy and replied that he was only going one stop and could take any train. Guess helping handicapped people (along with able bodied people) here is considered an insult unless they directly want it. Joining clubs is the best way to meet Danes apparently.
Came home and had frikadiller (danish meatballs with pork instead of beef) pasta and vegetables.
Karen got a new cell phone. She has 200 people on it. Quite the network.