First Week

I've survived my first week in Denmark. I say it like that because I just feel...worn out for lack of a better term. China was certainly a different experience, or perhaps it was the program I went to China with. The programs are night and day to each other. While in China we did have classes, there was (or it felt like there was) more time for me to be involved in the community there. I was able to talk with my host family about important issues (to both them and myself), wander my way around the city, study the martial arts, and fit in time to do my homework\reading for my next classes. Here, I have yet to find that same rhythm. Perhaps it is a matter of time. After all, it took my two full weeks to get fully into the swing there.

So what are my thoughts about the first week of fifteen with this program? So far, I cannot but stop thinking about China. Every time I come across a difficulty here, I have to remind myself that I overcame something similar in China. Every time I find myself feeling homesick or overwhelmed, I remind myself that I did very well in China facing difficulties with far less contact to the states. Denmark is China's opposite in almost every respect. Perhaps I didn't give myself long enough to readjust to a more "Western" culture after I had left China. I'll never know.

The classes, or those that I have taken, do seem interesting. I have a full five courses, which reminds me of the beginning of my sophomore year of university. I will see how the course load comes along. Hopefully I will be able to link at least two of the final papers together, so instead of five term papers, I only write four. Even then none of these papers are required to be close to what I wrote in China. There I wrote my magnum opus (at least in terms of my current academic works.)

One thing that has been interesting is that in Denmark, the Jewish population is almost exclusively Orthodox. Before coming here, I had little to no interaction with the Orthodox community. In my religious leanings, I consider myself somewhere between the Conservative and Reform communities. As I am still learning much about Judaism as a participant instead of a student, I have to say there were many things with which I was unfamiliar in the Orthodox service I attended on Friday.

Is this to say that I didn't like it? Not in the least. It was certainly different from my previous experiences, but that does not mean it was a bad thing. I am still far from able to cognitively process everything about the service. I know that there was a strong sense of community, and there was a strong sense of fellowship. All of that said, I don't know yet if that is for me. As the Orthodox community seems to be the only one I can find, I will continue to attend services with them. Who knows, perhaps by the end of my time in Cophenhagen, I will have found a community to which I feel I belong...