Potato Week was very good to me; I had the time of my life. Saw many amazing things and was in fantastic company the entire trip. With only a few – and I mean very few – exceptions the people I met on this trip were phenomenally friendly – especially the Danes. They looked beyond my American ignorance and helped me understand when I had questions. They were not the least annoyed when I told them I did not speak Danish; “No problem – English then.” The Swedes too were very friendly. The people in Norway took a little while to warm up, but once I found the right ones they were also hospitable. Throughout my entire trip I met and made the acquaintance of many friendly people, but I have to say the Danes are at the top of that list. And I am not just saying that because I am living among them; perhaps I do have a fondness for them because of my extended familiarity with them, but the friendliness of the Danes is encyclopedic. But as good as Potato Week was, it was also now over and time to go back to work.
I returned to work in not so grand form. Recall that yesterday I noted I was feeling dizzy for most of the day. I had written it off to sinus imbalance or something like that as it felt so, but this morning it seemed worse; I felt almost drunk. No, I had not had a drop, but when I stood from bed it sure felt as if I had. This dizziness would be with me throughout the entire day. At one point, shortly before I left for school, it got so bad that I lost what little food I had on my stomach from the evening before. I questioned whether I should even go in this morning, but I began to feel a bit better after a few minutes and decided to soldier on.
So I did, and let me tell you the ride in this morning was cold, perhaps because of the cold shower I had to take because during the night, sometime in the middle of the storm the electricity went out. I was aware of it when it did, so I checked the fuse box only to discover that it truly was an outage. I went back to bed, bundled up (I have really good blankets) and hoped for power in the morning – not so. Showered (very coldly and quickly) in the dark, dressed in the dark (lucky I did not put my shirt on in-side-out) and hopped on the bike for school. So I was already freezing before I left – and let me tell you it did not get any warmer. I think I finally thawed out about half way through the first lecture.
The ride in was interesting aside from the cold. I was still quite dizzy and know I came close a few times to crashing. I am certain to those riders behind me I seemed inebriated, but I assure you I was most certainly not. I was dizzy, cold, and shivering. But I made it, and as soon as I got into the school building I was nearly hugging that heater. However, I had only about fifteen minutes before the first lecture.
So I prepped some with Joan (remember, the J here has the Y sound, so she is called Yoan) and then headed off to lecture. This was an interesting lecture, in spite of the fact that I was still shivering and staggering. I say interesting because this was the first meeting with any group of students wherein I actually “lectured” or came as close to it as I ever do. You see, I do not think I truly lecture – at least in a strict academic sense. I try to generate dialogue and let that drive the direction we take together. However, in this particular course Joan wanted me to cover some short stories, so I selected excerpts from Ohiyesa’s The Soul of the Indian. I love that work (thank you Dr. Faulds.)
The readings I gave them and the dialogues that resulted were quite intense. We discussed theological paradigms, paganism, Christianity, and just plain old being a good person. One young lady, Mia I believe I was told was her name, added quite a bit to the conversations. Later I would discover from Joan, the teacher, that this was quite the feat for Mia; she usually does not speak up in class, but she was hitting on all cylinders this morning. When Joan told me that Mia does not usually say much I wondered why, because she seemed quite intelligent, but then I reassessed my understanding of the situation. These are not naturally English speaking students. Danish is their first language, and here I am, native English speaker with a PhD in the language. It might be a bit intimidating and students may be a bit self-conscious about engaging in conversations with me. Their English skills are quite good, but it seems their confidence in those skills needs strengthening. I still do not know these students very well, still learning, so that assessment may be wrong, but that is what I have observed so far. I am seeing progress in those students whom I have had more contact; they more eagerly engage in conversations with me, and it is encouraging to see such progress.
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