WEDNESDAY //
I had originally planned to revisit the Louisiana Museum with Jess and her family, but there was no longer room in their rental car. Alexander had never been though, so he offered to drive the two of us to the museum. He's the only Dane I know with a car. We got to the museum right as the sun was setting, so we immediately went out to the sculpture garden. I led us to a deck that overlooks the ocean, and we watched the sun set from there before heading inside to see the exhibits.
The museum was showing two exhibitions that I had not yet seen; work by Louise Bourgeois and Taryn Simon. I was happy to see two contemporary female artists being celebrated, and their work was really compelling. Bourgeois draws heavily on her personal experience, both positive and negative, to create art, and Simon’s work focused on exposing the darker side of American business, culture, and society.
Louisiana also rotates their permanent collection pretty regularly, so there was plenty of new art for me to see. It’s one of my favorite museums that I’ve been to, and I’ve been to very many!
THURSDAY // Thanksgiving
In the morning, I went for a run. It was a really beautiful day, with a rare occurrence of consistent sunshine, so I’m glad I had the motivation to go out.
And then suddenly the apartment was empty! I thoroughly cleaned everything the second my last flatmate left.
Alex S. (LLC friend) decided not to go to Paris, which is a bit sad for him but nice for me because I have someone to hang out with over break!! Neither of us really celebrate Thanksgiving at home, but we didn’t want to do nothing, so we settled on cooking dinner and going to see a film later: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This is the latest film in the Harry Potter Universe, though preceding the original timeline and based off of a screenplay, not a book by J.K. Rowling. The movie was good, though the music was a bit cheesy. The plot definitely could have fallen into some cliches, but thankfully they were cleverly avoided. Overall, I really enjoyed the movie, and how we decided to spend the day. I really like cooking for other people.
FRIDAY //
In the afternoon, I had a meeting with my Art, Culture, and Surveillance professor, Karen, to discuss my final paper. I really really love her class, and I think the way she structures it is very engaging and effective in conveying the material. We ended up just talking about non-essay related things for the first 30 minutes of the meeting, but spent the second half helping me narrow down the focus of my paper. I find the work by Sophie Calle to be fascinating, particularly her engagement and distortion of power relations implicit in the surveillance methods she employs. Her work reminded me of that by Jill Magid, so I decided to compare the two, focusing on how Calle’s work may have inspired Magid.
It was really nice for Karen to meet with me over break outside of her normal office hours, but I’m so glad we did. I really admire her passion for what she does, and I think she appreciates my engagement in her class. I let her know that I would be studying in Copenhagen again in the spring, and we agreed to find time to get coffee and continue our surveillance discussions.
SATURDAY //
Saturday morning I visited Alexander at work. His job is pretty low key when there aren’t any customers in the store (which is the majority of the time) so I stuck around and he helped me practice Danish while I kept him company. I usually don’t really like speaking Danish to Danes, but I think since I first met him in the context of him being my instructor, I feel less self-conscious about it. He’s also really nice and patient about it, and makes me feel more comfortable. Apparently I speak Danish with a Spanish accent, which I’m not unhappy about, but I will need to learn how to unroll my r’s before the oral exam.
SUNDAY //
I spent Sunday catching up on the rest of my homework before everyone got home. Break went by really quickly, but I think I made the right decision by staying home. Overall, a fun, relaxing week that left me happy and well-rested for the upcoming stress of finals week!