25.2.10 – London, London and More London

Today was an interesting day for a number of reasons really, however it began as usual. First, I had my business class today. The schedule for the class was rather fragmented. She began by addressing several of the issues we brought up as a class to our class representatives. It was interesting though because it went from commenting on them to relating these “differences in style” as the nature of studying abroad. While I understand her point and perspective (as well as believe that some of my fellow students complained about several unnecessary aspects of the class), it was simply a weird way to begin class because after that it sort of put a damper on all things to come. Then she went into giving us feedback about our first paper, the one I was nervous about. Overall, the class did well, myself included. So that was definitely one “high” of the day. At the end of class, we also were formally introduced to our long study tour to London! I am very excited about this travel; I think I simply need a little break from Copenhagen and schoolwork before the madness of March begins. (I wont talk about it too much now because I know I will be blogging about it in the week to come, so I’ll have to keep you guessing as to what I will be doing although I will say it includes four business visits, cultural sights, and a concert.)

History was normal as usual. I had a group project to turn in, however the whole process of completing the assignment went so well that I hardly felt that it was significant to turn it in. After history, I settled at DIS for my five hours break, which included an array of activities: I studied for my Danish quiz tomorrow, completed some forms for membership to the Phi Kappa Phi chapter at Elon – its an academic honors society, talked to some friends, received a package from my grandfather, Nonno, which contained approximately five pounds of delicious fudge. (I have already eaten too much of it, although I have since shared it with friends at DIS as well as my host family, but they didn’t like it very much. It was too sweet for them. Plus some of it is peanut butter fudge, and they don’t like peanut butter.)

Probably, the most interesting thing that I did during my study break was to call Elon. To keep it short, I applied for an internship program in London that is organized by Elon. The program would be for the first part of this summer; I know it’s a lot of traveling. Anyways, I had to call a woman in the study abroad office because she was concerned that I might have issues handling and completing the necessary paperwork (like getting my visa) since I am currently abroad. This created a whole mess of the situation, and at the moment I am not sure of what I am going to do. It was never certain that I would be doing this program; I simply viewed it as a backup plan. But now this backup plan has become way more complicated, since there would be a lot of appointments and things I would need to do within the 10 days I would be in the US after coming home from Copenhagen and flying to London. So this will be a big decision for me to make over the next couple of days.

I then had my marketing class, where we were more thoroughly introduced to our large marketing project, which consumes most of the remainder of the semester as well as our grade. It was a little overwhelming because the first outlined draft of the report is due a week after we get back from our travel breaks, which is two weeks from now. It is going to be a decent amount of work. On top of that, I also have several other group projects that I am working on that are due either on the same day – which happens to be my birthday – or later that week.

After class, I simply headed home to attempt to wind down from the day and wrap my mind around all of the things that happened. I had dinner with my host family, watched some TV, shared my fudge with my host family for dessert (which as I mentioned they didn’t like too much, therefore I ate WAY too much of it myself, but it is SO good I cannot help myself), took a shower, Skyped with Tory and then Mom, and attempted to study some more for Danish before crashing and heading to bed.