So today I had a bizarre experience. I went to a four and five year old disco. A disco? What exactly do I mean by “a disco” Well today I went to the kindergarten like I do every Thursday but today was different. It was school vacation. So kindergarten should be closed, right? Wrong. Kindergarten was still open but with a third of the kids . So we had 15 kids and like 8 teachers which was a crazy cool ratio so some of the teacher’s assistants decided to turn one of the classrooms into a disco. All the kids moved to the other classroom and played with logos or made paper snowflakes (3 year olds working with real scissors is totally normal here!). All the while the pedagogues put cardboard boxes on all the windows and cleared one side of the room to make a dance floor. Then they brought in a CD player and speakers for surround sound. Last but not least they found a colorful mini disco ball and a smoke machine. Then the kids in and we had a ridiculous silly dance party. They loved the smoke and the disco light and we played their favorite music MGP (which I think is Scandinavian Kids Bop) they jumped off tables and did summersaults on the floor. After a while the music changed to heavy metal which I wasn't a big fan of bit the kids seemed to enjoy nonetheless. It was kind of crazy though cause the smoke was so thick I could barely see the kids! It was interesting to watch how the kids adjusted to this new atmosphere, some walked in so intimidated by the loud music and dark room. Others just couldn’t wait to dance. I really felt as though this was like Pachanga for 3-5 year olds and afterwards we even had our “Ollie’s” experience, as the head teacher decided to make giant pancakes for everyone, awesome! So after an hour or so the tired danced-out kids sat and ate pancakes and drank tea, out of real glasses. I don’t know if it sounds as ridiculous as it was but I think it proves that dance parties are kinda wonderful no matter your age : )
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
New Love: Danish Pop Music
Monday, February 22, 2010
UPDATE
So I have decided to start up a blog again. We’ll see how long it lasts this time..
So life in Copenhagen is fantastic, cold, but pretty fantastic. I am living at DIK which is an international Kolliguim which is basically international student housing. My “block” has around 30 students only four of which are American. The Kolligium contains around 20 blocks which creates a diverse and interesting student community. Throughout the past month I have become friends with quite a few of my fellow block mates. I’ve got a pair of wonderful crazy French guy friends and a few Danes and the groups of us cook dinner, have parties and overall just a lot of fun times. Friday night I had a particular “Brandeis” night where I just sat with two of my good friends, one from France and the other from Denmark, for two hours discussing our lives and cultural differences. It was lovely.
I feel for the first time that I am becoming truly integrated in a community which is a really nice feeling. I have a great group of friends both through my Kolligum and though my classes but I have also just been meeting people around. People at DIK have other friends who I have met and I’ve been meeting some of the international Jewish community who happens to be in Denmark this semester which is really neat. Leah and I went to an international student night last Wednesday and we ran into a girl I met at a Danish Movie night. It was nice to see a familiar face and made me realize that Denmark has really become another community for me. So now a little bit about specifics about my life here in Denmark
Hygge:
Hygge is a Danish concept that is pretty much impossible to describe in English but is pretty much my new favorite thing ever. Literally Hygge means “cozy” but really it is much much more. Hygge is a noun, verb adverb and adjective and really means anything that makes you feel good. Food can be hyggue, good conversation can be hygge and so can a new experience. Danes try to create atmospheres which are hygge which are most often created by having low light or candles, maybe a fire, lots of pillows, comfy chairs, good people, good food and maybe a beer or two. I’ve decided that my room next year is going to be as hygge as possible. Get ready for lots of pillows and candles everyone and I apologize ahead of time if I burn the building down..but really isn’t it nice that people aspire for coziness rather than lots of money or chic modern convinces? People here aspire for contort and coziness with the company of others. I think its something that we all should strive for. In essence, Hygge, and Danish culture, makes me happy. ☺
Visiting Family
So after about three weeks here DIS finally sent me an email about my visiting family. The DIS visiting family program is kind of amazing because it gives students who aren’t living with a family the experience of knowing and spending time with a Danish family, in a Danish home. So basically I get all the freedom I want with my independent living situations and all the benefits of the family without the responsibility. It’s great. My family has three kids. ten and eight year old boys and a three and a half year old girl. They are all so sweet. Its hard to communicate with the older two though, I can tell I’m learning Danish fairly fast and they have told their mother that they are impressed with how much I know. Unfortunately I am not up to date on the Danish terminology of World of War Craft so it leaves me with very little to discuss. Caroline on the other hand is just a little ball of giggles. She really doesn’t understand who I am and why I eat dinner at her house but she’s cute and last time I was there I was able to read her a book about colors and show her pictures of my family which I think she really liked.
Fastelavn
In addition to or dinners I went with my family to DIS’ celebration of Fastelavn which is kind of Denmark’s Halloween that just happened to take place on Valentine’s Day. It was a day where we all got dressed up and went to a big room filled with friends, food and fun. There was a table of delicious homemade cakes that everyone brought and we hit barrels to get candy which was very piñata-ish. There were also a bobbing for apples and eating rolls off of sting competitions. Watching Caroline attept to eat a roll was too cute and Mikkel, her brother, was the last one to break the barrel so he was crowned Fastelavn king. I was quite impressed.
Forest Kindergarten
So as many of you know, in addition to my course work I am also spending one or two days a week in a pre-school. This Danish Kindergarten called Skovbornehaven Skovsletten is a center for 3-6 year olds and is absolutely fantastic. Danish Kindergartens have a very different pedagogical philosophy than the schools in the US. They believe that part of “the good childhood” is to experience nature and free play before one is introduced to formal learning. There are no formal “group times” and little discussion about things going on in the world. Overall there is just very little structure. In the spring and summer the kids at the center spend all day outside playing in the woods. There is no fence around the school and kids are allowed to wonder as far as they want to go. The pedagogues believe that the kids will always come back and never seem too concerned if a child is alone and unsupervised in the woods or twelve feet high in a tree. Very different than America. While I’ve been there we have only spent about two ours outside each day which is nice. The rest of the time we have spent indoors drawing, playing with beads, reading or just chasing each other around. I prefer to stay indoors right now simply because it is warmer and more conducive for communication. When were outside I really don’t know how to talk to children cause most of the time they are off one their own playing some imaginary game in Danish that goes right over my head. Most of the time they think me not being able to pronounce something is the funniest thing in the world. However when I finally do say something they understand then they decide to tell me everything that is going on in their lives at a 1000 words per minute and that just doesn’t work. It’s frustrating not to be able to understand what they are telling me. However, indoors I have lots to talk about including my age, where I’m from and all the colors. My biggest accomplishment thus far happened last week when a girl asked me in Danish to draw her a horse and I knew exactly what she was saying AND I was able to draw her a horse! It was a good moment. Actually my last Danish class we went over what noises animals make in Danish. It’s quite amusing actually. Dogs say vow vow. And Ducks say raprap..i mean really…who has ever heard a duck say quack?! It’s a weird word.
One of my best experiences at the school thus far was my second week there where we went to one of the girl’s houses for her birthday party. In Denmark Parents have their children’s birthday parties during the day so teachers will bring the whole class over to someone’s house for lunch and cake and free play. When I heard this I was super confused, I’ve never had a teacher over for a birthday party let alone have I seen two teachers walk 30 pre-schoolers through the snow for thirty minutes to go to a girls house in the middle of the day for a birthday party. The whole concept just seemed bizarre. However it was really great. The mother was so happy to have me there and I was so happy to be there. She had prepared a whole buffet of food and the kids (all 27) sat in a circle on the rug and politely ate their lunch and talked amongst each other while the teachers and the mothers drank tea. I loved watching how friendly the parents and teachers are, the school really works hard to create a community and having teachers over to children’s homes really emphasizes that. Another aspect which made this party so interesting was that the family was originally Turkish and moved to Denmark five years ago. So the food consisted of both traditional Danish and Turkish pastry’s but all of them had mini Danish flags stuck in them. It was cute and made me think about all this multi-culturalism immigration stuff we have been going over in class. Then after we ate the yummy food half the group played Wii while the other half played in the little girls IKEA designed room. Yay globalization
Anyway it’s late and this is super long. I still want to update you guys on my fabulous trip to Western Denmark but that will be another day. I’m going to London Saterday! Yay! Can’t wait.