6 Years in Denmark

The first year in Denmark

2011-12-22T07:39:00.000-08:00

In my first year in Denmark, I started at a school for a spring course in Globalization and Communication. I studied at IPC and got my first taste of college.
The day I arrived I felt a bit like a fish out of water. I met people from places I have never been to before. Personalities I would not consider adopting myself. Characters that would in my eyes at the time come from books.
My most vivid memory of my first few hours there is one some might call me a racist for bringing up and rant I am fabricating. It is a memory none the less.
I sat at a coffee table in the commons and was speaking with a student from the Eastern Bloc, when a very bold and outgoing student from South Africa came by and introduced himself and promptly stood behind the girl at fondled her breast. This took me aback and I expected a very strong reaction from her, but to my surprise, she smiled, laughed and, well, that is where the memory tappers off for me. I suppose they arrived a day or two before me and became acquainted.

Over the next few weeks, I was introduced to people from around the globe and both rubbed some people the wrong way the got along, kinda, with others. I was far from popular; I overheard some talk poorly of me and I can tell you, to hear that kind of candid speech hurts deeply. I wonder if diplomacy has been affected by such episodes at high level talks. Perhaps even a little war or two.

While I did come out of my shell over those 20 weeks and looked back fondly on that school and my time there, truth is, while I did improve greatly, I wasn't truly welcomed or well received. If anything, I felt like I was pushed out to the corners and found it hard to be part of the group. My time at the school was more about learning that being especially social, except for one girl who I had three kids with over the years. What I got out of those 20 weeks is a certain awareness of what is happening around the world from the school's perspective and a weight loss of 15kg.

Maybe I'll go back and have a better experience the next time around.

Back from fishing

2011-12-22T07:21:00.000-08:00

I have been many things. Right now, I am a fisher man. I work on the long line fishing ship Hoyvikingur, a Faeroese ship.
I came back yesterday after two trips of two weeks and four days, respectively.
The work isn't my favorite, but I do not need to enjoy my job to do my job. It pays the bills. But the worst is both coming back to a very lonely Christmas eve and the constant headache and unease after overcoming the acute sea sickness.
I know she is going to see this. I know she will hold it against me for saying this publicly, but I need to let this out and she cannot expect complete privacy in cases like this.

I have three sons. I love them dearly but I am only allowed visitation. It was agreed that I would get to see them every weekend in arbitration. She told me, the night I got back, three days before Christmas eve, I wouldn't get to see them on Christmas eve because her parents do not like me. She further tried to justify her position by saying I shouldn't care since I am atheist and do not celebrate Christmas (in her world), which boils down to 'I am not christian enough for her to see the kids on Christmas eve'.

After protesting and threatening to hold her to the terms of the agreement which pointedly ignores holidays and anniversary like birthdays due to her protests to my request holidays are split, she says I was inattentive to what she said and says she thought about ice skating Friday or something on Monday, but was reconsidering in the face of my protests and threatened to not let me see the kids for three weeks if I didn't shut up, which is in it self a violation of the agreement.

This is why I feel reconciliation is impossible with her. So Gurli, let it be known to you, it's over. What you did this Christmas I cannot accept, forgive or forget again. This isn't the first time to did this to me. This isn't the first time you forgot me. This isn't the first time you didn't have time for me. It is the last time.

Hard to find any time

2011-12-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

New title. A Decade in Scandinavia.
I moved to the Faroe Islands in 2010. I have been here for a year now. I have been in the region for a decade come the new year.
What a difference a decade makes.

Here is a quick autobio of what I have been up to my entire life.

I grew up in an academic house. My dad worked at Argonne National Lab until Clinton's cuts. My mom was an internal medical student in Denmark. My dad had a Ph.D. from the Poly technical University, now DTU, in Quantum Physics.
Despite this, my home had real big problem. Mom and dad fought all the time. Dad drank. Mom was the do nothing, throw nothing out pack rat that never kept her word to me or even tried.
I didn't have much of a school education. My mom took me out of school in the fifth grade and didn't keep her promise to find me another school or buy the school books to teach me at home.
So from the middle of the fifth until I was 19 I was sitting at home in front of the computer. Then I moved to Denmark and was seated with learning a new language and catching up in school. By 2008, I had been to an international college studying communication and globalization, an agricultural school, a language school and I took a normal HF degree. I have worked as a farm hand, farmer, fruit picker, warehouse worker, logistician, forklift operator, retirement home orderly, postal worker, delivery man, builder, bartender and now as a fisherman. I met a girl when I first moved here and I have three kids today. I am not even 30 years old and I have done more than most over their entire lives, in terms of diversity.
So where do I go from here. I hope to leave the Faroe Islands and study Laboratory science in Denmark and follow through on a physics degree at Københavns University.
But enough on the future for now.
I think I will stay on the past, at least for a little while.

Please leave a few comments. I always enjoy them.

Arrival

2008-09-15T01:44:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Denmark on January 14th, 2002. I landed at Kastrup on a rather foggy morning to meet my uncle Preben. I was happy to have landed. I do not like flying, period. I do not really know what I was expecting coming to Denmark. It wasn't exactly 'European'. There were no overly warm welcomes. No tastety 'Danishes'. It all seemed rather, 'normal' in a way. Kinda like flying to Ohio.
I do not remember meeting my Danish family before, so it was all Greek to me. Was welcomed into his home in Næstved for the night. Had dinner with the family. Met my cousin for the first time. But here is the first stereotype about Europe that I can confirm. The bed was for people who are 5'10'' or under. If you can play basketball, go sleep on a couch instead.
The next morning, just as foggy and gloomy, my bags were loaded onto a cargo truck and it was off to Helsingør, to the school I was to spend the next 20, fun, educational and semi-drunk weeks.
The school that gave me my first impression of the world, outside of American media, is called The International Peoples College. It is a school were students from around the world can come and meet each other, learn something about other cultures, and during my semester, about globalization and communication. It was also the first time in my life were I was put into a social situation with out any sort of shelter. I came out of my shell there.
The next 20 weeks was a time of maturity for me. The people I met, including my first real girl friend, left a lasting impression on me and form a key part of who I am today.
But, that doesn't mean I cannot come with criticisms about the school. Although I took every bit as the truth when I was a student there, reflecting upon everything else I have learnt since leaving the college leavings gaping holes that could have been filled.
On my arrival, I met people from four different continents in the space of a couple of hours, and people who could mutually go far beyond my American modesty. For people who go to church and worry that our children are becoming more and more immoral, liberal and socialist, you can stop worrying. Even I, a guy who most Americans will consider extremely open, blushed often early on at the school.
My time there was well spent. I was quiet and laid back and loved hanging out in the loft with the other students. It was one of the most social experiances of my life. Just talking with the students taught me more about the world around me than any class I had at the school. It is a place I truely do miss.

First post of a short autobiography

2008-09-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Peter. I was born and grew up in Chicago. I consider myself Chicagoian, first and formost. But I didn't have a normal life growing up, nor a healthy one for the matter. But my family, how it started and so on, is the norm for Chicago. Danish parents who moved to America for work. Bought a house and raised a child. So on and so forth. Most people would assume though, that they became American. Some times I wonder, if my dad really should have gone native, but no, they stayed Danish. Because they stayed Danish, I am what is called a dual citizen. That is to say, I have two passports and vote in two countries. Because I was born in America, I am by rights American and consider myself American. But, through the blood of my parents, I also am Danish.
What I intend to do with this blog, is to write about the first six years I have spent in Denmark, moving here in 2002. It is my way of documenting the past, so I can read it in the future. But I also wish to share my story. So here is the deal. I cannot update every single day, but I can write at the computer for an hour or so every day and save a draft. If you check back on saturdays, the blog should be updated with a well written post about my six first years in Denmark. I promise, this will be interesting.