Days 12 & 13

Yesterday morning, at 8.00 a.m. sharp, my lesson started. That means I have got to leave the house at 7.45 (that's just awesome really), cycling takes less than 10 minutes. It's down the street, there's only one traffic light and one big crossing without traffic lights but here cars from right and left have got to wait for all traffic from 'my' street, and they _do_ wait, which is rather awesome (took me 2 days before I trusted cars to stop for me).
Anyway, class half dead at 8 in the morning, who blames them. As my lesson on Thursday did not go the way I would have liked, I made sure to prepare this lesson much better. I had written out all information and wanted to do a lesson Swedish style. That's right, I used the white board to write down a shitload of notes. But.. of course I put a Dutch sauce over it (I can't help myself). I asked the students a lot of questions, not only questions they could answer by repeating their knowledge, but questions for which they'd have to use logical thinking. For some, this was maybe a bit too much (not helped by the timing), others were wide awake and able to answer most questions.
The lesson, I cut up in two (80 minutes is too long to stay focused anyway). First part: me writing, explaining and asking questions (homeostasis, used a sauna example actually - so very Scandinavian :D), wrapped up by answering some questions on a worksheet (yay - processing knowledge!). Second part: discussing worksheet, more info on the board about the pancreas and diabetes this time. Diabetes, _the_ diseases that they'd used as an example for right about anything in the three years I studied medicine. I can't hear the word diabetes anymore, I don't want to hear the word diabetes anymore, but explaining diabetes in 5 minutes I can do. I could teach a monkey about diabetes. Aargh. I've used the word diabetes 7 times already. Moving on. The lesson ended.
Before the next lesson started, there was some time for discussion. Lena seconded that this lesson went smoother than Thursday's. Next week I'm teaching this class on my own as Lena's off to a conference.
Next on the list was observing a ,lesson with Lena. Actually, it was teaching a lesson in Cecilia's pre-IB class, unfortunately this lesson was cancelled. So, Lena's Swedish class worked a case that I'd used in my lesson on Wednesday, but Lena took the full time and did the whole worksheet with her class. It's about a guy who eats puffer fish (Blåsfisk :D) and gets poisoned and some questions about how this poison works in terms of action potentials in nerves. Then, he recovers, flighs somewhere else to study birds, and gets poisoned again because the birds were poisonous (yes, poisonous birds exist), with again, questions about action potentials. The last part was designing a drug to counter the effects of one of the poisons. The learners were very much engaged in this lesson. They really enjoyed the worksheet (even though they couldn't really imagine how someone could be this unfortunate). The activity in which they had to design a drugs to counter the toxin's work I find a really nice one as it makes sure students use their knowledge and really dive into understanding processes.
LunchDinner time was again a pleasant happening. The teachers in the teacher lounge are all very nice, open and interested. I have interesting conversations there every day with different people each time. Today, I met a Swedish teacher trainee, training to be a Swedish & English teacher (here they all take two courses). We told each other about our trainings and she asked me how I arranged my internship. This really inspired her to pursue an international internship herself, nice :D.
After lunch, I went to the IB coordinator to ask for an interview for my research. As there is barely any hierarchical structure, it is possible to walk into offices and ask. The head master and science coordinator are next on my list but were not in, will try again on Monday.
Then, I went to observe another of Lena's lessons, her last year IB class again, the last time she teaches this class. As a goodbye, she brought candy. Then, in 80 minutes, she compacted the whole chapter about digestion. Even though I studied medicine, this amount of information, brought so compact and at a rather high level I found very educational (refreshment course, thanx Lena!).
Time flies when you're having fun, within no time it was over. Time to go home! I pretty much crashed on the bed, I was so tired I couldn't get myself to start my computer, no blog post. Managed a microwave meal (from the freezer, they're OK, and I had the best meal of the day at lunchtime anyway) and watched a movie.

Today I slept in. Although I woke up at 6.20. It's increadibly light incredibly early in the morning (sun rises before 6, and rises a couple of minutes earlier every morning). Today I was able to sleep again until 9.30, fair enough. Shower and breakfast, stumbled upon Stella in the kitchen and had a chat about loads of stuf. She asked if I wanted to join her in going to Louisiana - museum of modern art. At first I was a bit hesitant, last museum of modern art I visited (Gugenheim - Bilbao) was not exactly my piece of cake. And, I very badly needed to finish a certain university task. So I told her I wanted to finish the task first. At dinner time, I had finished the task (\\o  //o  o\\  o//  *\o/*) and asked her if she still planned on going. She did, tomorrow, I could still join, yes! It's a deal! The website looks really awesome: http://www.louisiana.dk/, after 4 days of working pretty hard, I am really looking forward to doing something completely non-school-related!