Hello everyone!
I’m back from Belgium, Estonia and Finland! It’s been two weeks since I last updated. I have a lot of things I need to write about but I will ADMIT that my memory is a little vague as to what we did in Week Three. The last two weeks have been jam-packed!!!!

We only had four days of classes and it was mainly about genocide and our campaign at the WFD conference. We did a bit on understanding change.

Accept that change is hard to manage
Be clear about some of the principles of leadership in change
Accept that change is now a normal fact of organisational life
Accept that you cannot do it all yourself
Put yourself in your team’s shoes
Identify the stages
Identify changes from outside
Identify change from outside your area of responsibility
Identify change from the inside

We had an explanation of each. It would be too boring for you if I went in detail on each point but I think that the most important one for me would be number four. ‘Accept that you cannot do it all yourself’…I always want to do everything now and when I can’t find support, I think to myself that I can do it myself and it doesn’t always end well!!! So I believe that it’s important that I remember number four!!!!!

We went through the common stages of reaction to change. (Number 6- identify the stages)

Denial- denying that change is even needed!
Defence- it becomes reality!
Acceptance- making the best of it!
Adaptation- starts to settle down and everyone tries to make it work!
Comfort- it becomes normal!

The rest of the week was about genocide and how we were going to campaign at the WFD conference. There were a lot of good ideas, we narrowed it down to a few then voted! And decided that we would wear T-shirts (See the photo- the text is a bit hard to read in the photo but it says ‘The Genocide Game- The Universal Playing Game for Doctors’. We also decided that we would hand out flyers with a picture of a pile of ‘dead’ people with the WFD conference’s slogan.. ‘Our Rights, Our Future’ as well as ‘Deaf or Dead’.. While deciding what we would do for our campaign, Vivien told us about Laswell’s Communication Formula.

It goes something like this:

Whom ------- says what ------ in which channel ------ to whom

She advised that we work out what exactly we wanted to say and to whom, what message did we want them to receive?

We also read a lot of genocide material, spilt up into groups. We had to read one part and then summarise-picking out the most important parts to explain to the class. When I had to present my part, my stomach was doing somersaults!!! I felt like running to the bathroom and vomiting! I’m not good with presentations, even if it’s just to people that I feel close to. It’s the ‘professional’ image, if I was just mucking around- being silly then I’d be okay... That’s something I have to work on while here in Denmark!


Now…Belgium!

Sarah, Filip, Stine (Filip’s girlfriend) and I set off on Thursday afternoon, driving through Germany and Holland. We got a little lost on the way, losing two hours! We finally arrived in Brugge at 3am! Brugge is so beautiful! Kathleen from Belgium gave Sarah and I a tour of Brugge’s highlights including French fries and waffles as well as tourist attractions!!!! We went up the Belfort tower, the view was definitely worth the 366 steps we had to climb! We then went to the Basicila of Holy Blood or something like that, it was definitely an eye-opener. They had a glass cylinder with ‘Jesus’s blood’. I’m actually not sure if I believed it or not but the amount of people that DID believe it was amazing… we were allowed to touch it and I saw maybe three or four people touch it then break down crying! We had a lovely canal boat ride to end the day!

The three of us went to Kathleen’s parents house in Kortrijk, about 45 minutes from Brugge for two nights. The first night was so relaxing, they cooked us dinner and we watched the sun go down from their balcony with a glass of wine! HEAVEN!

Saturday, Sarah and I went shopping for a while and then headed to the World Deaf Day which was…interesting! I did not understand most of what was being said but the atmosphere was great! Sarah and I were a bit famous too which was really strange. Several people came up to us and told us that they’d seen us on the website. Some even introduced themselves and when I tried to introduce myself, they would respond with ‘No, I know. You’re Katrina from Australia’. It was…very weird but an experience that I will not be forgetting anytime soon!!!

Sunday, we headed back to Denmark and slept there on Sunday night at Stine’s house in Copenhagen. We didn’t see a point in going back to Vejle because we’d just need to go back to Copenhagen in the morning to fly to Helsinki, Finland!

Fast forwarding now… (I think I’ve rambled enough, seeing that I’M yawning! Haha!!!)

Helsinki, we were only there for a night before we went to Tallinn, Estonia for a night. Minna and Jerry stayed behind so it was the ten of us. Estonia was very different to anything I’ve experienced- the people and the culture. I have to admit though; I wasn’t in the right mood when we were in Estonia so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have (during the day that is!) Sarah and I got our hair done (I dyed it black and added streaks). The people at the salon… ha-ha, the hairdresser was intoxicated when she cut my hair (Note: I’m not saying that’s Estonian culture!) But she was very demanding and forceful but not in an overly bad way but it was a little surprising! She also demanded that she be in the final photo as you can see! We had dinner at a Beer House and then bar-hopped on Tuesday night. I also saw some sights and did some shopping. I didn’t buy anything though.

I will write a bit more about Helsinki and the WFD conference at a later date. I thought I would publish what I have written so far!

Toodles!
-Katrina

P.S- Don't forget to comment!