Today is exactly 2 months since I arrived to Denmark. I’ve queued up this post because I’ll be travelling back to Copenhagen today from a weekend away celebrating my partner’s birthday 🙂
Though not much else has happened or changed since my last update, I guess I can now say I have met someone ‘special’ here. I won’t bore you with the details except to say it’s making a positive impact on my life overall 🙂 Besides that, the weather has taken a turn for the worse, if we can call that news (how English of me to talk about the weather so often). I mean it feels like it’s been raining non-stop for the entire month of July. No big deal, though – I’m already used to rainy summers thanks to being from Korea (we have the most humid monsoon seasons) and having lived in the UK previously.
Anyhow, this has meant a lot of indoor days and museum trips. I’ll share some snaps in upcoming posts. Many museums and attractions are half price during this summer period in particular, and some of them have days where you can visit for free anyway. So I’ve been trying to take advantage of that. Just the other day I went to a Korean-born Danish artist’s exhibition! It’s great to be “new” in a city over summertime because you really feel like you are on an extended vacation and don’t get bored or feel a need to travel elsewhere – at least I don’t really! And since we get so much nordic summer light here it’s really a blessing to get off work ‘on time’ – as in 5pm before everything closes – and to make the most of what’s left of the day. Honestly, it feels like you can have two complete days in one – the time you spend at work, and the leisurely activities you can enjoy around the city after work before it gets dark around 10-11pm.
Besides that, I don’t necessarily have exciting adventures to report. Everyone at work is basically on holiday here, as July tends to be the ‘holiday’ month for employees in Denmark. Personally, I’ve been pretty busy with work and will be for the foreseeable future so I don’t anticipate that I will take any time off. As I’ve mentioned in my previous update, though, the work/life balance is pretty good here so I don’t feel like I’m missing out.
The thing that’s mind-blowing to me right now is that last year July, right around this time, I graduated from my PhD. I know I keep going on about all these developments in my life but I really hadn’t the faintest idea what I would do with my career this time last year. I felt like a complete fraud putting on my fancy robes for what felt to me a ceremony to validate that I am overqualified, overeducated, and with no purpose in the real world (you have to remember, I was unemployed when I graduated).
If anyone had told me last year on my graduation day that in exactly a year’s time I would be 2 months into my second academic job (in Denmark of all places!), living in a French-style apartment in the middle of the coolest neighbourhood in Copenhagen, happier than I have ever been in my life, completely smitten with the first person I met here…well, I would have told them those kind of stories don’t get written for foreigners like me 😉 I mean you really have no idea…I used to fantasise about not getting deported, that was my threshold for a good life! I’ve always felt like a little nomad, an outsider, with no real home to speak of, trying to make it somewhere in a sea of obstacles. I’ve always felt like my life story was constantly changing course and being re-written. And I’d wondered if my story would ever ‘settle’. Maybe it never will. But what I have right now – a few years of stability – is good. It’s the best possible reprieve from my anxieties about the grand uncertain narrative that is my life (and I suppose, the universe).
It occurs to me that I haven’t really kept up with my Sunday musings posts, and I think the reasons for that are: first, that it feels a bit arrogant to assume strangers are actually interested in my passing thoughts, and second, I’ve been occupied with living my life. So, I’m not sure how frequent the text-only posts will be. I’ve always found that when I’m super content or happy with my life I don’t have much to say by way of writing out prose. In a weird way, dissatisfaction is often more inspiring than happiness, which is sort of more banal (not that this is an unwelcome thing!) But if you are in a generous mood, do feel free to give me ideas for things I could reflect about.
Have a nice day 🙂
