The Pursuit of Happiness

So as most of my dear friends may know, I am not extremely great at keeping in touch with my friends and loved ones while living in a foreign country. Luckily one of my fellow Wesleyan softball teammates - Talia (aka ta-lee-ah, t-bo, teebs, balls!, or just hey you) - started a blog as a foreign exchange student here so I thought that I could rip off her idea and do the same.

I am back in Copenhagen and working as a program assistant for the European Politics and Society Program. While when I applied for the job I had no idea what 'program assistant' actually meant, I have now discovered that this may be the most unusual job I will have in my life. Ever. I work for a former Danish Parliament member and Former Danish Minister of Transport, Jacob Buksti, who was removed from office for traveling over 100 kilometers per hour over the speed limit. When asked by a reporter why he was driving that fast, his response was simply: "Sometimes you just need to speed." So clearly he is a baller. I went to his house on Friday night where he hosted a good bye dinner for my predecessor, Henry, and I learned of many interesting politics stories over many glasses of an endless supply of wine. One of my faves includes how Jacob learned the meaning of 'motor boating,' when he went to a go-go bar with a Danish People's Party Parliament Member (for those of you that don't know danish politics first, shame on you, and second they are the most conservative party in this country) who proceeded to get a lap dance from some hoochie mama.

Besides my boss being a little cooler than the average boss, the rest of my job is also... interesting. For instance, we went to a staff retreat last weekend on an artificial island somewhere in the ocean between Denmark and Sweden. We went into the basement caves of the old military barrack and had lessons on how to be a happy, content employee and attended seminars entitled: "How to look forward to going to work on Monday" and "The Psychology of Happiness." Which, I'm sorry to say, has not improved my feelings about waking up tomorrow and hauling my ass into the city to make copies all day long. Then after the seminars were over, we were split up into teams and sent out doors to complete a scavenger hunt in the pouring rain. Some of the little challenges that we put through included building figures out of sticks and having to identify songs on a cd (which included whitney housten and donna summers - I of course got it right, no big deal). I am happy to report that my team won the scavenger hunt and I now have a little medal on display in my room in case you all want to see my badge of victory.

Besides work, my social life has been somewhat unusual as well. Talia keeps following me around (I just can't seem to shake that girl off... haha you know I love you balls). But seriously, I walked into my office on Friday and who do I see but Talia sitting at my desk and my computer monitor is plastered in post it notes that say: "Julia loves Talia." I swear I'm changing office locations and I'm not telling her where I'm going. As for my love life, well I don't like to brag but I have a couple of hot prospects. The first one is a lovely Dane named Knut who has been sending me emails (because I "forgot" my cell phone number.) Yes, his name is Knut and here is his pickup technique sure to woo any lovely lady:

Hey you

Cool meeting you on the street last week!
Even though you can't remember your own number haha stupid.

Now, one would wonder, how do I reply to this email? Is this the famous Danish sarcasm that we poor Americans can just never hope to get? So I reply that no, you are the stupid one because you don't know your number even though you actually live in this country. His reply:

Haha

Dude, I never call myself! Doh!

Tho, maybe i should. I'm very fun talking to;)

You should try it. Just don't become a stalker and call me 25 times a day...

More Danish sarcasm? I'll let you be the judge. Well I better get back to studying for the lsats that I take in less than a week. Here's to hoping that I get a passing score!