yes, i do occasionally do schoolwork

So just to let you all know that I am learning academic things here, I thought I'd post a blog about my Human Health and Disease class. We've done some crazy things, saw some incredible procedures, and all-around, gotten to work hands-on with medicine!

One of our first days we learned how to insert an IV into a person's arm and hand, and also how to draw blood. We began by using dummy hands with veins inside them, then turned to each other. Of course, after one of my classmates missed my vein while inserting an IV, everyone else refused to volunteer to be the patient.


Later on, while learning about eyes and their diseases, we got to "play" with all sorts of eye equipment! Our class is held right down the hall form the Opthamology department, and since both of our teachers are opthamologists, they thought it would be cool for us to look into each others' eyes, dilate some pupils, take retinal scans, do general eye exams, the works. We all had a blast.

Then on our study tour, in Poland, we got to put on lab coats and watch an endoscopy and colonoscopy happen just a few feet away! So interesting and much more intense than you can imagine.


In Berlin we were shown into a cadaver lab, where we put on some gloves and a robe and touched cadavers. Held a few brains, a heart, a lung, a kidney, touched a stomach, felt around through intestines, and more. Talk about exciting! We all had a blast! I think...

So there's a few of the highlights. All of us pre-med students are loving this Medical Practice and Policy Program. Couldn't be more fun, intense, or emotionally draining. Just like being a doctor, right? Well, close.

Kultur Natten!

So Copenhagen has this night called Culture Night. It's difficult to explain, I don't think I can do it justice, but try to imagine a city-wide open house, and you'll be close to what this night is. All of Copenhagen becomes packed with people going to different stores marketing their products, showing how things are made, exploring parliament and the haunted vaults beneath, visiting the zoo at midnight, listening to singers and bands and choirs, looking at art, just anything you can think of. I think my night was one in a million. Here's my schedule:

About 6 I met up with my visiting mom Karin and her son Peter. She works at, well, I'm not sure of the exact title, but it's like the ministry of health or agriculture or something. She basically works for the government and tries to promote healthy living with different kinds of food ad recipes and whatnot. A pretty cool job, if you ask me. Anyway, they were putting on a huge display of floors and floors of different kinds of healthy food, which we explored. And since she worked there, we got right in instead of waiting in a long line! But the best part was "100 Stars of the Milky Way," a huge room full of 100 kinds of dairy, from cheeses to milks to freshly-made cappuccinos, to yogurt, to ice cream. Delicious! We all ate so much that we couldn't possibly fit dinner on top of all that food! And once again we got in right away and skipped at least an hour long line!

Then we walked for a bit and stopped at random little booths, tried some soups and whatnot, then headed over to one of the biggest churches in Copenhagen to hear the Copenhagen Boys' Choir. After pushing and shoving through the cold, drizzly city, can you imagine how amazing it was to sit in a warm, gorgeous church listening to an indescribably awesome choir??

Before meeting up wih my friends, we went to the school that Karin is on the board for. It's kindof like a home ec school, teaching people how to make homes, cook, handle money, you name it. So once again we ate more food and finished the night with some (ironically) American Pumpkin pie. No, it didn't taste like American pumpkin pie at all.

Then my friends and I explored a little more, walked down some main streets, made pancakes in the fire with small skillets, explored the gorgeous parliament building (we had to put on booties to walk around!), went to a candy store, ate hot dogs, and all around had a great night!

Now I know this isn't the most flattering picture of me, but the yumminess of the hotdog makes up for it!

and the vikings raid once again

A common question Danes ask us Americans when they hear that we are studying in Copenhagen is, "Why Denmark?" All of us just stare blankly and wonder the same thing. Why Denmark, of all the places we could study? None of us really know. We could give you small reasons that would add up reasonably, but I don't think any of us really knew a firm reason until we left the country for two weeks. We had study break, and all of my friends and I jumped at the chance to explore Europe. But coming home, well, we all just realized why exactly we love this place. My friend Charlie explained it really well: "When you fly into Copenhagen, the plane swings around and all you see at first are these marshlands that look dreary and grey. But all I could think of was how much I love this place. I love Denmark" (paraphrased). No matter how rainy, windy, cold, expensive, ghetto, and strange it is, we just cant help it. And I guarantee that if you ever lived here for longer than a few weeks, you would love it too.

To make my semester abroad that much stranger, I decided to take a Nordic Mythology class. When in Denmark...

And who would have guessed that it would be the coolest class ever? One of my teachers is what I would call a modern-day viking. He towers over all of us students, has a scruffy grey beard, a deep voice that you can get lost in, and when he speaks Old Norse, you feel like you are listening to Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. Its great.

A couple weeks ago we had an all-day study tour around Zealand. We saw and went into a burial mound that as 5000 years old. It was spooky and awesome standing in there with candles listening to its history and how the bodies were buried until a bat decided to fly into my face. I freaked out a bit, trying to cover my face without burining off all my hair with the lit candle. Needless to say, I provided a bit of entertainment for everyone else on the trip!

We also went to the Viking Museum in Roskilde, where we saw 5 real viking ships the Danes had found in this one harbor. So cool.

Then we trekked to the setting of Beowulf. Who knew that it was actually based off of a feasting hall and king in Denmark?? There's not much left there now, just a grassy field, but you can see the stones in the shape of a ship marking a mass grave and the remnants of a foundation ish thing of a huge feasting hall. What did it for me was listening to my modern-day Viking teacher read the first few lines of Beowulf in Old Norse in his deep voice, dressed in a suit (he had to come from a formal event), standing in a field with grass up to our calves, with cows mooing in the background. Priceless.

Lastly, we went to this fortress build by Harald Bluetooth, a Viking king. He made the walls from earth, so they are covered by dirt, but still incredible to see!

And that's what it's like to be in a Nordic Mythology class taught by one of the leading experts in the world on the subject. Don't you wish you were in the class too?