Thursday, 30 June 2016

Week 17 ¦ Hard work pays off ¦ Professional and Personal Development


As Monday morning approached, the fear and nerves for our presentation dawned on Poppy, Leah and I. Despite the fact that we were well prepared and knew the topics and areas we wished to discuss, oral presentations are not something I’m particularly fond of...meaning I was apprehensive to say the least. But with some reassurance from Poppy and Leah and knowing that we worked well together, I swallowed my fear and we entered the examination room. 
We decided to focus on the main differences from home and how we would reflect on these to develop professionally at home, each talking about our different areas; the classroom, the SFO and the playground. Once we began speaking my fear completely faded away, we knew what we wanted to discuss and that’s exactly what we did. Our teamwork proved to be a winning success as our tutor informed us after our presentation that she was very pleased with our delivery and awarded us with a high distinction!

Unfortunately official celebrations had to wait one more day as the other half of the class had their presentations on the Tuesday, but I decided to treat myself on a smaller scale. After getting my conch pierced in early March, I was ready for another! So for another small memoir of Aarhus and passing my presentation I got myself a little helix piercing which I was chuffed with, can't say the same for my Mum and Dad though!
On Tuesday night the Studenterhaus, (the students union for Aarhus University) held a rap battle party, we weren’t expected much, we were just ready to be free from the work pressures! It turned out to be a good night, and even better when we heard a very distinct Northern Irish voice from afar. Jessica and I were the only Irish of the group out that night, but once we heard the accent we both turned to each other in shock, we followed the voice and found a young Bangor woman serving behind the bar. Despite not knowing anything about each other, the simple connection of Northern Ireland had Jessica and I feeling as though we could talk to Louise the whole night. After the generic facebook add, we agreed to definitely meet up with Louise again, whether that be in Aarhus or at home in little Ireland!






‘Sometimes you meet people and you feel like you’ve known them for a long time.’ – John Cusack


On Thursday we had class as normal, although we were all pretty drained from the presentation and portfolio work it wasn’t long before the class was hyped again with the help of planning our overnight shelter trip. 
We each split into groups, organising and planning the next part of diploma which was to carry out an activity for the whole class that lasted an hour and a half. The thought of trying to keep our class entertained with an activity for that length of time seemed quite impossible to Leah, Paolo, Stefania and I but once we started coming up with ideas, we knew it would be a fun-filled day!


On Friday night we all gathered at Álvaro’s to host a giant 22nd birthday party with the help of his dorm mates. Lea treated us with nothing less than perfection in the form of a cake, we decorated his dorm, lit candles, signed a flag and of course made a crown pronouncing him the one and only ‘King of Spain’! After the party we all headed to our regular, Skjoldhøj Bar and continued the celebrations.






Sunday brought around the 1st May, which although it doesn’t be made a big deal of back home, it is certainly highly thought of across Europe…probably due to the fact that it’s the start of their summer weather, whereas it symbolises more rain and perhaps the occasional sunbeam at home! So in light of the ‘start of summer’ we all made our way to Ian’s dorm for a BBQ, we sat out all day eating and talking and as the sunset we all made our way into his giant common room for some foosball and card games. It was the perfect end to the very long and stressful previous week and the perfect start exciting adventure we had planned for our shelter trip.



                                                                                                                  




References

John Cusack - http://www.picturequotes.com/sometimes-you-meet-people-and-you-feel-like-youve-known-them-for-a-long-time-quote-528595

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