Western Denmark

We just got back from a 3 day long study tour with our core classes to Western Denmark. I left early Thursday morning and got home late Saturday night. Our tour started with a trip to Århus, the largest city in Jutland (the part of Denmark that is not an island, and is connected to Germany). We were there all day Thursday and had two academic visits. The first academic visit was a presentation by two women who were working with the Århus Hospital to test whether or not mindfullness is an appropriate and effective means of treating high stress levels and the resulting physical ailments from high stress levels. Mindfulness is basically being aware of your surroundings whenever you are in them. As I understand it, this CAN include meditation but does not have to. Basically, it means to be present in every moment and to appreciate the moments. We do mindfullness exercises almost everyday through my positive psychology class. Before each class we meditate for 15 minutes and we are supposed to write down three positive things that happened during our day each night. Although I must admit, I have stopped doing that the past week and a half. No worries though, there are plenty of positive things going on in my life, probably too many.

Anyways, they found that it is moderately successful but they are only 1 year out from their studies. Their qualitative data showed that while people don't practice meditation now that they are not in the program, they do still try to be mindful and reflective about themselves and have a positive attitude. After that we went to the KaosPilots (http://www.kaospilot.dk/), an alternative business school that people can go to instead of college or after college. But, unlike other danish insitutions, you do have to pay to go to this school. We met with a graduate who talked to us about the school and took us through a few exercises that they go through each day. It was a really cool bonding experience for our group and I ended up learning a lot about myself. If you are interested, here is something you can try to do at home:

You will make 3 lists of 7 things each. In each list you should write the first things that come to your mind. The lists are: 7 things you are passionate about, 7 things that make you angry, and 7 of your personal strenghts/things you are good at. After making each list, you want to create a theme for each list. For example, connections with other people that lead to lasting and fulfilling relationships. Themes seem difficult at first, but they get easier! Anyways, then we wrote postcards to ourselves that said " I will use my 7 passions and 7 strengths + any verb + 7 things that make you angry". The verb is something like understand, combat, fight, etc.

Then we drove to Vejle, a town in the middle of nowhere, and stayed the night. The next morning we visited The Skills Project, which is in Ejsberg. This is an 8 week program designed to take kids who are neither working or in school and teach them to build self confidence so that they will either get a job or return to school. Most of the kids have dropped out of high school and have had serious drug issues, problems with bullying, eating disorders, etc. A lot of people shared their personal experiences and it was really touching, because after the program they were successful.

Then we went to Ribe, one of the oldest towns in Denmark. It was really charming and quaint. We had a ghost tour at 8pm (aka 20:00), that wasn't scary at all. Then we had free time to explore the towns pubs and night life scene. You could say I explored those pretty thoroughly. Saturday we went on a guided tour through the Viking Museum then had 2 hours of free time. I decided to explore by myself and went to the Ribe Kunst (art) museum. It was in a beautiful old house with a great garden. It was really interesting becuase it focused on Danish artists that I don't think I would have been previously exposed to. I bought a post card and this very dainty bird..thing. Then I walked around town and bought a pastry. We had a great lunch and then got on the bust to come back home.

I am still working on the whole photo thing. I just haven't had the time/energy/focus to sit down and just do it. I promise I will get on that soon.

...That's probably enough for now.