Sep 16 Reflection
Last Saturday marked 4 weeks since my arrival in Copenhagen. I'm enjoying my time abroad (I said that like a million times already, but really, I'm loving it here so much!!). Some advice that was given to us (students studying abroad) was to actually sit down and reflect. It's so easy for me to not reflect and just take in my time here as it comes. So here is my attempt at a reflection:
Going to school in a city is really different than back home. Commuting to and from school, having to bring my own lunch, and having such different schedules and living situations than my friends makes going to school feel less like school and more like work. This is not a bad thing at all though. I feel like this is giving me a sneak peak to the real world (kind of). Back at school I could always hang out in the common room and just be around other people my age any time. That was kind of a safety net that I didn't know I had. Here, when I come home, I'm with my host family (which I should come back to). I feel that because I am not always surrounded by young people, I need to take the initiative and actually try talking to people. Hopefully this will help me become more independent and I already feel like I'm becoming better at taking action for my own happiness. At home (home home and my home university) I don't feel too bad about just staying in my house during the weekends and I hang out with friends/ family. On the other hand, I'm only going to be here for a limited time so I want to make sure that I use as much time doing something new and exciting. This does not mean that I don't want any breaks from one touristy experience to the next, instead, I don't ever want to say "I'm bored" or "I wish I did this today." If I can't find people to go somewhere with me, I will go by myself. For Copenhagen Pride, I couldn't find my friends (we did not organize the meet up very well...) and really wanted to leave because I thought it would be "awkward" if I stayed by myself. Instead I pushed myself and stayed and actually had a really good time.
Pushing myself to make sure I am enjoying my time in Copenhagen is one thing, but I also want to push myself in being involved in the city. I feel like I have so much free time, which is nice, but at the same time I want to be doing something for parts of the free time. All this free time is something I am not used to at all back at my home university, but it is making me think about what I can do back home. I think it also has to do with going to school in a city, but I feel like when I go back to school, I want to be more involved outside of just the school community; I want to volunteer at a nearby hospital or YMCA or something that will get me off campus. I know I will not have the free time I have here to be able to volunteer a lot of my time, but being here has made me think about how important it is to not stay in a bubble (the way I am at school).
That's all I have to say for now. Another day I'll talk about my host family.