My Danish teacher likes to share popular Danish songs and artists with us each day, and last week her Song of the Day was Thomas Buttenschøn’s “Fantastiske Mandag.” It’s a sweet song, and very oddly optimistic about Mondays.  Honestly, who likes Monday?  But according to Nina (our Danish teacher), Buttenschøn describes a cold winter day and finds delight in all the little mundane things that people normally don’t notice.  And, of course, it seems to be some sort of a love song as well.  Don’t ask me to analyze it yet, though, I don’t speak Danish. (Jeg taler ikke Dansk.)

Today was a Monday, and a wearing one at that.  It started off long, and slow, and long…but fortunately ended wonderfully.  Before I go into the details, a few general updates:

• I dropped Biology of Marine Mammals, only to be told that IU requires me to take 5 3-credit courses and it would have to be replaced by another class.  This is annoying, considering I don’t really need the credits and I’m just studying in Denmark for fun, but I complied after some resistance…
• And I’ve added a course called Political Rhetoric, in which we will create a Danish political campaign and write a speech and create campaigning materials to “sell” our ideas.  This should be fun.  I’m actually kind of excited about it.  This will also be my only class with a written final exam – all my other courses just have projects or papers to turn in.
• Our short program study tour for the Migration & Identity program is this Thursday-Saturday.  We’ll be going to Odense and Århus, and visiting different immigration and integration-related locations in both cities.  We also get to see the other two main ‘chunks’ of Denmark, which has three main pieces – Fyn and Sjælland are the islands, and Jylland is the mainland that borders Germany.  Odense is on Fyn, and Århus is in Jylland.  (Århus and Odense are also the second and third largest cities in Denmark, next to København.)
• Criminology is so far my favorite class.  I’ve always had a fascination with crime and law, and how they tie into morality and normality and accepted behavior.  I don’t think I ever realized how fascinated I am with criminology.  Maybe I’ve found my future field of study in this topic?  That’s how excited I am about it.
• I got my Service Learning assignment today!  I was paired with an organization called Sjakket, which runs an after-school program for kids in the Nørrebro (North bridge) area.  I have no idea what I’ll be doing with them, but I just sent off an email to the head of the center this evening, and I hope I hear back soon.  I really can’t wait to get started.

Now for more about my fantastiske Monday.  This evening after class, there were about 5 things I could have done.  (1) A group of people from my Danish class went to see country music at a bar, which I was tempted to attend for the lulz (Danish…country music?) and the company.  (2) The Couchsurfing group in Copenhagen had a pancake night in Christiania, and I’ve been wanting to actually meet some young Danes in Denmark.  (Don’t get me wrong, my host family is awesome, but young, mobile travelers would be nice to get to know as well.)  (3) Studenterhuset (Student House), a student-organized bar and café near DIS, is having a week-long “Insomnia Tour” for students to get to know the local bars, and they had some activity this evening.  (Also would have been a good way to meet young Danes.)  Finally, (4) my host dad had band practice tonight (he plays trumpet!) that I’ve been wanting to attend, and (5) my host sister has a weekly Monday night English class that she invited me to.

In the end, I went with option (5), and I’m happy I did!  Maria’s after-school English teacher was delightful, and we had a nice conversation about the differences between US and Danish education.  She had Maria and I play a homemade version of “Chutes and Ladders” with questions prompting discussion in English.  It was actually really entertaining, and we had lots of laughs over prompts like “Describe what a snowflake looks like.”  Henrietta (Maria’s teacher) invited me to come back and talk to her classes on a day I’m free, and I have to say I’m pretty excited to do it.  I guess they’d probably ask me questions about school and life in the US, and hopefully I’d get to learn a little from them.

One of the biggest differences we discussed was the lack of controversy over sex education in Danish schools, and the more modern attitudes towards sex and marriage.  For example, many families in Copenhagen would allow a 17-year-old, high school aged daughter to have her boyfriend sleep over for the night.  There is almost no expectation for people to marry before having sex (and there hasn’t been for 20 years), and it is common practice to have children before marriage.  Of course, abstinence-only education is unheard of, and condoms are readily available to teens.

It would be my first instinct to point the finger at religion for the differences between Denmark and the US, but if I did that, I would be stumped when the topic changes from sex to drug policy.  In Denmark, there has been a recent trend toward more regressive drug policies, with harsher punishment for possession and dealing and no differentiation between cannabis and hard drugs. In a country where religion plays a minor role, irrationality is certainly prevalent.  There is little discussion of cannabis legalization even in the major left-leaning newspaper (that would be Politiken, from what I’m told), and though there is little evidence that major police action against cannabis dealers and users is successfully curbing sale and use.

I still have much to learn about these issues; these are just my first reactions based on things that I’ve discussed with Danes and things that have been discussed in my classes. One final thought, though.  It makes me feel a little bit warm inside when one of the parties with parliamentary (Folketing) representation in Denmark, the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten), has the following as one of their party’s objectives:

• Unite left-wing cooperation and left-wing representation in the struggle against capitalism.

They might only have 4 seats in the Folketing out of 179, but…a party that talks about the “struggle against capitalism” has more than 0!