Working class hero in Aarhus

My first week of work in Denmark is over. Tomorrow I will finally wake up at a normal hour, not 4 o'clock in the morning, and enjoy my breakfast. I never thought I would say this, but I have to start learning more. Physical labour is ten times worse than mental labour. I would rather stay 10 hours locked in an office thinking about projects or doing whatever, than cleaning a 3-floored large building in 3 hours. I feel the stress double from all the others jobs I had till now, not only because I wake up earlier than ever, but also because you have to finish in a given time and make it shine. The good part is that I get to experience this and start to see things a bit differently. I never knew that a cleaning job could do that to me. Anyway, I will keep on doing it till May. I also solved the problem with my taxes here. They have a difficult to understand, but very helpful social system. They pay taxes according to their revenue. The more you earn the more you pay for tax. Taxes are 8%, 38% or 60%. A person who starts working for the first time or earns very little, gets only 8% (which is the mandatory health insurance) taken out of the revenue. When you reach a specific amount taken out of your revenue through taxes, you pass to the 38% and so on. Usually, people with two jobs or money both from school and a job have 60% taken. For now I am on the 8% scheme. So, I will earn from cleaning 3 hours/day almost double to what I was earning at home for sitting 8 hours/day at the office. But I swear this is 10 times more stressful and I feel 10 times more tired. Working conditions are good though and they care about employees. We have almost everything we need to make cleaning easier (or I hope we will soon have). I will see in time how this whole thing goes, especially from the employer-employee perspective.

Nightlife in Aarhus

Last night I realized that I forgot the feeling of coming home drunk by bike at 5 o’clock in the morning. There are usually two options, you either become more responsible, because you know you are drunk and by the time you get home the alcohol effect is totally gone, or you fall off the bike several times or forget the way home. Because it was Alice’s birthday, the first weekend when we were all here, the last weekend before school starts and the last weekend before me and Marketa start work…we had pretty good reasons to go out last night. Before going out, we met at the kolegium for Alice’s birthday. We ate some cake and very good Turkish breads (which I will learn how to make), we sang karaoke and drank Becherovka (a strong Czech herbal alcohol).

Aarhus on Saturday night looked the same as before holidays and probably the same as it has always looked and will look. Drunk people everywhere, there is no age limit for being drunk in the middle of the night on the street here, so the landscape is very diverse. Usually you expect a lot of violence in such a scene, but there is non here. People are talking to themselves, screaming, falling etc…but nobody is violent. The difference this time is that they seem to have a new rule about age limit in clubs. Before leaving the age limit was 18 or 21 in some clubs, but now they have 20 on Friday and 23 on Saturday both in clubs and bars. We managed to sneak in a bar when the bodyguard left for a few minutes. The atmosphere inside was a bit unexpected. This was a regular bar turned into a club and it was full of Danes. We were the only strange international people there. Though I was only with friends, the club’s vibe was bad. They were playing only old or new, but crappy, Danish pop and just a few older English songs, and there wasn't a style of music…they were playing rap after house after pop and oldies…it was chaotic. We weren't really enjoying, but the Danes seemed to be more than excited about the music. Everybody was dressed very posh, as if it was some expensive club. The girls here look just like the girls who everybody talks about some much at home. They wear a tone of make up and colourful  showing off clothing. They are eager for attention and hit on guys. They clearly come out because they want to leave with someone and they get really wasted. They seem to enjoy it, even if from the outside it looks disgusting. But, from what I understood, the habit of girls hitting on boys is very common in the Northern countries. They are usually the ones who invite out boys and buy them drinks…These are all pure observations and I might be wrong because I didn't leave here for so long. This semester I will maybe focus more on the behaviour of Danes and go out more. In my “circle of trust” things are working better and better. Yesterday something really nice happened. Because we weren't in an international, but a purely Danish environment, protection instincts came to surface and every time a guy was getting to close to one of us the others would step in and slowly rescue them. It was a very nice feeling of inner protection and trust, realizing that you can rely on the people that don’t speak the same language as you.

Poker face

Sometimes life gives or takes away more than it should. Hanging on to the past has nothing to do with change and progression, both personally and professionally. Not being able to let go of the past doesn't necessarily mean that it left a positive mark on you, but that you regret it. You regret it happened or you regret that it’s over. It is no shame to admit that you would like to go back there and continue or just want to experience it again, because it was good. It is worse when you preach about letting go and living in the present with your eyes on the future. This might make you a hypocrite without noticing. It could be forgiveable if you preach to the right person…one that should be able to see that you don’t preach because you try to convince others, but to convince yourself. I've seen this in many of the people that surround me, very close people, and it bugs me, because going out of the denial of not thinking about the past with some sort of remorse, might help improve mutual understanding and it might not make every conversation become a tornado of pain and confusion. Sometimes preaching to others doesn't work on convincing yourself. You should just admit it and say it out loud…”yes I would like to go there again and do that again or continue what I started”… But than again we are all different in expressing ourselves and maybe this is just me.

I generally regret not being able to share and be able to take some people with me in my luggage at this point. I also sometimes regret spending time and money on insignificant stuff that give me lightning pleasures.