On Settling in, and Going at your Own Pace

Copenhagen and I are in our honeymoon phase. It has officially been a little over two weeks since landing, and time is flying by. Everything and everyone hit the ground running, and I’m just trying to keep up. Thank god it’s such a fantastic race. 

It’s scary how happy I’ve been. All of my professors - though they don’t like to be called that - seem incredibly passionate and kind, my roommates, clever and funny, the random people I sit next to in the Student Hub when there’s not enough space, unbelievably open and ready for conversation. 

Some of my roommates and I posing in Nyhavn (not pictured: Noemi, our sixth suitemate, but equally appreciated)

The tempting whirlwind of things to see and do in a new city has made me incredibly busy. And, even in casual moments, I’m finding myself stunned by the simplest things. I walk into a store and see the most striking face. I hear a swelling saxophone on the street as the sun begins to set, feel my feet tap on the cobblestone street square. I stroll into bookstores and look around at the Danish titles I can’t read, pick up newspapers, listen to people talking on the streets.

The books I could actually read...

Despite my happiness, I have begun to struggle a little with feeling like I’m not doing enough: talking enough, going out enough. What I'd like to keep in mind going forward, and impose my "wisdom" if I might do so, is that everyone has different speeds. Remain true to your own, but don't be surprised if you have to get a little uncomfortable, too.

That Sunday after Arrival Day, I was so overwhelmed being here. There was so much going on, so many people, the stress of meeting my suitemates, of being in a foreign city. And were it not for my roommate graciously inviting me to explore that day, I genuinely would've had an awful first day. Things move quickly, and sometimes you have to move with them the best you can.

La Fontaine has free jam sessions on Sunday nights, only missed one Sunday since being here!

The acceleration of this transition, I think, has also provoked change inside of myself, which I wasn't expecting so soon. The other day had a great conversation with someone about this, and we discovered that we were going through the same kind of transformation, just in opposite directions.

 She was telling me how she wanted to begin taking up less space as the de facto extrovert, the one that everyone expects to take the lead all the time. I, on the other hand, have been trying to take up more space and take more initiative in my personal relationships. The commonality we had, though, was that these changes were taking considerable effort.

We were, after all, changing habits that we'd held for years, but agreed that in the end, the reward outweighed any "risk." People always say that studying abroad is about learning more about yourself, growing into who you were meant to be, creating yourself. And what I'd like to add to all of that is that it doesn't just happen.

This is a time when you have such control over what you do each day. You control the speed at which you move throughout your day, the food you buy at the grocery store, the actions you take to provoke change within yourself. For me, at least, this has been a radical change from my reality back at home.

That's why, though I might be a little slower than someone else, I'm still moving, and this makes me proud. I'm talking to people I would not had the courage to talk to before, trying to be open in ways I don't normally feel comfortable being, all in the name of finding out exactly what it means to be me. This is not to say that I will have the answer by the end of the semester, or even expect to, but I can grasp towards it, pursue it, because I want it.