Daily life
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Staying sane in times of crisis
While the world is self-isolating in the fight against the novel Coronavirus I find that people’s mental health is at risk of be ignored in this battle. You don’t have to suffer from generalized anxiety to start feeling slightly on edge in this dystopian reality we’re facing. All public institutions in Denmark are on lockdown,…
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Habits
Up to 40% of our daily activities are made up of habits. Especially how we start our day before being completely awake is very much dictated by habits. Do we snooze, do we get up right away, do we immediately brush our teeth or do we reach for the coffee before anything else? While this…
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Self-care Sundays
I’m back in Seoul and busy as ever. I’m teaching two classes and have to deal with more than 200 students over the summer. It’s great to feel busy and tired in a good way again. With my weekdays filled up with classes, office hours, and grading – my weekends are my off-time. Saturdays are…
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Let it out and let it be
My parents tell me that when I was little, I would start to cry whenever there was a hole in my sock, somehow expecting it to hurt in the same way as when I fell and skinned my knee. Come to think of it, I also cried when they washed my hair. I guess I…
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Keeping busy
There’s an adage that says “a busy mind is a happy mind”. We should therefore all strive to keep busy at all times, as it would prevent us from worry and sadness. During WWII, Winston Churchill famously said that he never worried about the outcome of the war. “I am too busy. I have not…
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Good days, bad days
We all have them, and if we think about it, it’s rare that a day is 100% one or the other. Good days can have something bad and bad days can have something good. Last week I had one of each and several days that were just something in between leaning to the bad side.…
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I’ll be fine
It’s no secret that I’m on an emotional rollercoaster these days and that the joy of being free and independent and the frustration of feeling useless are battling for my mind’s attention every breathing minute. I’m doing all I can to stay positive (…and sane) so I thought I’d give you an update on my…
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What I miss about Korea
You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. I’m well aware that I wrote a semi-rant post in June when I was under a lot of temporary stress and really did not feel all that well in Seoul. But as you also know, things definitely turned around and my last months in Seoul were…
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The power of serendipity
Acquiring a new language is much like discovering a new identity. A new version of yourself if you will. If you know more than one language, then I encourage you to try and think about this for a few minutes. Are you the exact same person in both or all languages? My guess is that…
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Gratitude
While Monday was tough for me, I feel that things have been picking up a bit the past couple of days. Since I’m on sabbatical, I’ve got a lot of time on my hands these days for reflection, which can seem overwhelming. Nonetheless, after days of feeling bored and empty, I’ve decided to take matters…
Sofie to Korea 