Today is my birthday. I turned fort… twenty-five today. Well, in my mind. At the time I am writing this I am not yet fort… hhhmmm, twenty-five at home; it is still yesterday there, but only for a few more hours. Nothing lasts forever.
Knowing I was growing older in Denmark, not that it mattered, I readied for the day. The shower, the shave, all that. Dressed and out the door a bit after 7am. This was my first time to ride the bicycle to school and I had no idea of the time it would take; I estimated about thirty minutes, and that turned out to be very close. I ran the stop watch on my iPhone and it turned out to be just a few seconds over twenty-six minutes. But that was into the wind, a rather steady wind too – all the way.
Now I try to exercise regularly. I do stretching and some mild aerobics, and then I either walk or run for about two miles; this is my normal morning routine at home, before I begin the day at NSU. But this biking thing, that works a whole different set of muscles. I am not sore, but I can sure tell what muscles are seeing work they haven’t seen in a while.
My day began as did all the others here so far. I was in two classes with a different instructor, one whom I had not yet worked with. The first class I went to was a second year group of students. I approached this course a little differently than I did the classes of the previous days. I gave them much of the same introductory dialogue, but then I shifted gears on them some. I began telling stories. They really liked that. This is yet another testimonial of the power of story, and how people the world over love and revere stories. I told them some interactive stories and got plenty of help from the students. They did a wonderful job and enjoyed the exchange.
That class finished, and we had a quick break of about twenty minutes, then it was straight into the next class. I approached this class much the same as the previous. These students, however, were first year students. This group was large, maybe because of no absences or maybe it just seemed larger than the others until now. There were thirty, and they were active, energetic, and seemingly anxious to learn. I saw several in this group actually taking notes; that’s a first, at least so far. Once young lady had lived in the US for a while, in Kentucky. When I was telling about the original Cherokee homelands and how what is now Kentucky was part of those old homelands she said that she already knew that. Of course I asked how she knew and that is when she revealed that she had lived there for a while. She did not have the strong Danish accent that everyone else whom I have encountered has, so I am assuming she may have lived there for some time. I did not ask, but there was not the accent of the others.
Finishing that class, Kent and I headed to lunch. A colleague of theirs, and temporarily mine, had just passed his government teacher’s certification examinations, the equivalent of a Master’s degree in the USA, and he was celebrating by catering lunch for all his colleagues. It was delicious. I have no idea what I was eating, but it was very pleasant to look at (almost too good looking to eat) and it was delicious.
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