guten tag!

Why is it so much easier to procrastinate when you have so many things to do?
I just listened to an eight minute podcast on how to learn German. It was actually quite good, and I like that it was hosted by Stephan, which is my brother's name (though spelled a bit differently).
check it out.
http://german-podcast.de/

Well at least I can say there is somewhat of a connection. I am supposed to be writing a paper on Walter Abish's novel how German is It? which does happen to contain at least a few German phrases.

I would very much like to visit the Black Forest.

Dear Ira Glass,

Will you please be our speaker for commencement?

Details:
Monday, May 19th - Hearn Plaza aka the main quad
9:00 AM sharp

Wake Forest University
1834 Wake Forest Drive
Winston-Salem, NC 27109
Directions just for your convenience

Re-orientation

Last night I was having a hard time sleeping, so in the middle of the night I decided to throw my pillows to the footboards and sleep with my head down there instead. I think I fell asleep within about 2 minutes of moving. Sometimes you just need a change of perspective.

The year of movies?

What with my recent movie habits and my yet-to-begin film class, I get the feeling that my movie IQ will sky rocket this year. I have already watched 13 movies this year as of January 19th. If I keep going at this rate, I will have watched 240.84 movies by 2009. It's not going to be easy, but with stamina and perservearance, I think I could do it. I just checked out two more DVD's from the library today.

The list so far for 2007 (and my ratings):
1. Juno (1/4) 8.2 stars
2. Cashback (1/6) 7.2 stars
3. Ratatouille (1/7) 7.7 stars
4. Little Children (1/9) 6.3 stars
5. Casino Royale (1/10) Don't judge... I watched this one in a large group setting
6. Sweetland (1/11) 6.1 stars
7. Mutual Appreciation (1/12) 8.4 stars
8. Adaptation (1/13) 7.6 stars
9. After the Wedding (1/16) 6.9 stars
10. Margot at the Wedding (1/17) 7.7 stars
11. Funny Ha Ha (1/18) 6.7 stars
12. Control (1/19) 8.2 stars
13. Sweeney Todd (1/19) 7.9 stars (though very hard to judge)

*All movies were judged on a scale of 1-10. I rarely give out 9's or 10's, and I'm typically good enough at picking movies that I am able to avoid watching the ones that fall into the 1-5 range all together.

Musings on time

It's crazy to think that 10 years ago is 1998 and not 1992 or something. Time is such a tricky convention. Why is it that when you look back, time seems to have passed so quickly, but when you look ahead, things seem so far away? Time sometimes seems to stand still and often speeds by at a much quicker pace than we would prefer. Time is universal: we are all trapped by it. Time dictates our lives. Even the hermit in complete seclusion is susceptible to it and must grow old.

People don't give Time enough credit I think. Time exerts so much power over us. Why isn't time a mascot? Time is so much more menacing than a Demon Deacon or a Battling Bishop (my two mascots in college and high school, respectively). Death occurs when Time runs out.

some things that have happened since I've been back at school:

-a squirrel somehow got into some underground room the supplies the power to many of the buildings on campus and succeeded in turning off the power for 8 buildings (apparently without dying)... I heard the whole interaction between fascilities management personel over a walkie-talkie

-I overheard this conversation between two upperclassmen males:
frat boy #1: "Oh dude sweeeet! Check out the new vitawater vending machine!
frat boy #2: "Oh I love that sh*t"
frat boy #1: "Yeah and it's like so much cheaper here. I'll save so much money! It's only $1.50 per bottle here and a case of 24 is $30!"
frat boy #2: "Oh yeah, man. That's great!"

I am not the only one rebelling against the re-integration process

My computer refuses to reset it's clock. It doesn't matter how many times I change it, a few hours later, it always reverts back to Danish time. The timestamps for all the emails I receive are also in Danish time.

I decided to organize my closet by color this time

I really enjoy stores that organize things according to color. It's just more aesthetically appealing and it comes in handy when you tend to prefer some colors over others.

The closet:








I estimate that it will only stay this neat for a week or so, but hey, it looks great now, yeah?

creative licence

I like how every time I want to write a blog entry, I click on the button labeled "Create." This one little word gives me complete freedom to write whatever I want to and even empowers me. I could write the truth in these blog entries--the things I never actually say but secretly want to, or I could just make up a story... and the beauty of it is, you have no way of knowing which you're getting: fact or fiction. There's really so much potential in each that it's hard to pick which to work with sometimes. True to the title of my blog, I just started rambling in this blog entry... propelled by a single word. Create. I had intended to tell you what classes I would be taking this spring, but this came out instead.

You may be wondering what life has been like post-Denmark since I haven't written in a while. Life is strange. As I told my friend Amelia, I feel like I'm in this strange time warp back at home. I know that I have seen and experienced many indescribable things during the last four months, but nothing at home seems to have changed much, and it's as if I am sucked into stasis by merely being here. It's strange. For some reason I thought everything would be different when I got back; I thought that everything would be unrecognizable. Maybe I was just trying to project my own differences onto the environment. I don't know.

What I do know is that I definitely needed to get away for four months and to start figuring out how to live independently of my past and all the pre-conceived notions of who I am. I could go on, but I fear I am starting to sound too hokey or even glib, so I'll stop for now.

I don't know how I'm supposed to sleep tonight

I leave Denmark tomorrow... actually in 12 hours I will be on a plane. This has both been the shortest four monts and the longest four months of my life. So much has happened... but in so little time. It's unbelievable how many things I have had a chance to experience. Having never traveled out of the Eastern United States much, I have now been to 9 countries. More than that though, I have lived in a foreign country and in a (relatively) big city for the first time in my life... and I feel like I was really on my own for the first time... or at least more so than I have ever been before.

In many ways, it feels like going back to the States and back to my old life will be a major regression or devolution for me, so I will really need to try to make it a growing experience and a time to figure out how to incorporate the things I learned into my old life in order to make it new and transformed.

and who knows... perhaps I will find my way back here. It's hard for me to believe that I won't. Though sometimes I wonder if it wasn't Denmark per se that I fell in love with but just a new way of life, a fresh start.

I just don't want to go to sleep because I know if I do, I will have to wake up and leave.

More to come.

footnotes and subtitles

I would like to figure out a way to incorporate footnotes into everyday life. Footnotes are a great thing. They allow you to include all those clever little details you would normally reserve for parenthetical phrases. I think Blogger should look into adding a footnote feature as it would improve blogging drastically. Parenthetical statements are great, but they can really interupt the flow of your sentences at times. And of course, there are always those times when you mention something random in your blog that the average reader might not get, and it would just be nice to clarify these odditites through footnotes. (At this point, I would be tempted to add a footnote either about footnotes or about the a cappella group called footnotes that I just found in a google search... oh well, I guess links will have to suffice.)

In addition to this, I would like to take this opportunity to say that I think magically floating subtitles for people would also be quite helpful. Curious about what that Danish guy is saying? Just read the subtitles conveniently scanning across his forehead! I'm telling you... it would work wonders for things like international meetings and conferences. It would also make for a handy aide for eavesdroppers. Of course, they'd have to come up with a new name for it. Something that involved the Latin root for reading perhaps... or is there a Latin word for 'subtitles'? Somehow I doubt it.

Ode to the Superfluous Man

(This one's for Jon)

Oh, though a superfluous man you may be
you escape Kierkegaard’s concept of immediacy.
Above the trivial and the mundane,
you contemplate life in the depth of your brain.
They may call you “ineffective,” they may call you a waste
but you, you are onto something, post haste.

Perhaps they only point fingers at you
because they are afraid of what you will do.
You’ll quickly turn their world upside down,
making them contemplate their wasted life with a frown.
The characters in Uncle Vanya, they know
just how it feels to go with the flow.
They wake up one day and feel a sense of loss
Who’s to say they are not the ‘superfluous?’


If you are confused by my departure from the typical prosaic form that I am accustomed to writing in, this is just a little something I wrote for my Russian literature class.

The concept of the Superfluous Man according to Wikipedia in case you are unfamiliar with this term

Christmas, consumerism, and capitalism

While hanging out on an abandoned Rådhusplasen last night, Amelia took this picture that interestingly juxtaposes Christmas and consumerism:


In the foreground on the left, we have the huge and towering Christmas tree, and in the background on the right, we have a building that is lit up with many advertisements. I tell you this story not to complain about consumerism and Christmas (which would be far too easy to do... and I might have even done it last year or the year before anyway), but to tell you this nice little anecdote about Denmark and the Danish way:

Approximately one second after Amelia captured this moment on film, every single one of those neon lights went out simultaneously and stayed out for the twenty minutes Amelia and I awaited the arrival of our night busses. It was as if Denmark had heard our complaint and criticism and meekly replied: Oh, no. Sorry, sorry. You have the wrong idea. We're not like that here. See?

It was cute really... and quite strange. I'm glad the city is so receptive and thoughtful like that.

Perhaps not the sign we had been hoping for

Today in our Russian lit class, our teacher comes bounding in the door (with a piece of paper in his hand)and starts celebrating. Apparently, there was a sign on the door (that I had somehow missed) that said:

Holocaust and Genocide cancelled
December 3rd

It was both comical and eerie in a way. Oh, semantics.
(Of course, they were referring to the Holocaust and Genocide class that I am enrolled in.)

Shenanigans... at the Library

I love The Copenhagen Post because they have stories like this:

Books Taken Hostage at Doomed Library
A group of concerned citizens calling themselves the Library Gang
kept librarians in the village of Dybbøl, Jutland, busy on Monday:
The gang, armed with wheelbarrows, trolleys, trailers, sacks,
and whatever else could be used to haul away the contents of
the library, attempted to check out every single one of the library's
books.
The great book haul comes after a proposal by the Sønderborg
local council to close the library.
'They want to close it down, but they can't do that if the books
aren't there,' said ringleader Jakob Damsbo.
Only the library's dedicated staff of stern librarians prevented
the gang from exceeding their lending limit, thus preventing the
entire library from being emptied.
...

There is pretty much always a random story like this that I get a kick out of. I guess perhaps that's the benefit of having a paper that comes out only once a week--things don't have to be as pressing and can be kind of ridiculous at times... not that the intentions of this story were ridiculous. I'm actually wondering why those 'stern librarians' actually fought back. Shouldn't they have encouraged the 'Library Gang' to continue checking out the books so that the branch would stay open and people would keep learning? I'd say those are some irresponsible librarians.

Today we went to Sweden

Sweden is only a thirty-five minute train ride away from Copenhagen. I am not sure why I have not taken advantage of this really. When else will I be able to just hop over to Sweden? I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few:
<-----
Random
street in
Malmö,
Sweden.
ok, so
the sky
is grey,
but it's
still
cheery,
right?







---->
the view
from a
little
bridge
we saw.
All the
green
areas in
the city
were nice.









Honestly, I don't understand why more people don't make a point to visit Scandinavia. It really is a nice place. Sure it gets dark at like 4:00 PM now and it can be pretty cold, but that just encourages the people to create their own warmth and light. This technique includes lighting many candles and having a nice fire going.

Really though, I was impressed at the altruism we witnessed today. A man dropped some documents out of his pocket, and one of his fellow comrades picked up the papers and chased him down... instead of merely looking at the papers and walking away. We tried to join in on this feeling by helping a woman carry her baby stroller up some stairs. Really though, all day there was just sort of this pleasant feeling in the air.

My favorite moment of the day:


<---------------------------
Amelia and I passed these two
women walking side by side,
wearing matching coats about
five minutes after we bought
our own matching coats (50% off!),
so we turned around and ran them
down to take this picture.
This is us in 55 years.

during my three weeks of traveling...

I didn't get around to listening to much music... at all really. I wanted to have all my senses available to take in information on my surroundings, you know? Then today at the airport, I remembered how much I love it, and actually listened to my i-pod on shuffle and was pleasantly surprised at many of the songs I had forgotten about. It was also one of those moments where I started hearing music everywhere... ie in the rhythm of the escalator. Seriously. it was a sick beat.

I managed to spend everything save 11 cents. This was both miraculous and horrifying.

I witnessed a car accident, a dog fight, and an entire glass store front shatter.

Some random guy quacked in my ear as he passed me. seriously. it freaked me out... and was a bit delightful/entertaining.

I ordered a "latte" in Italy and was presented a tall glass of milk.

I found myself in Amsterdam on Halloween and was reverse-trick-or-treated by a little girl dressed as a princess. I guess they haven't gotten the whole halloween thing exactly worked out yet. The girl did not seem to like the holiday... understandably so as her supply of candy got smaller and smaller.

I tried falafel in many different countries... perhaps five.

I wrote and submitted a concert review to the student paper. Check it out here:
http://ogb.wfu.edu/07/index.php?/ee/l_article/iron_wine_pick_up_the_pace/
Please note they changed the title of the article once again... and I am still unsure if there is a subject + verb agreement error or not. If so, I am extremely embarrassed. If not, I am embarrassed that I thought there might be one.

I watched the sun set over a vineyard in Tuscany.

I bought many postcards... none of which I intend to send.

I was in three countries in one day. (thrice as many as I had been to in 21 years prior to August).

I saw a tour in Florence in which both the two tour guides and all the followers were on Segways. see below picture.

so I started a new blog

Hi, all. You may have noticed that I am not posting as much as I should be considering I am in a new country and in the midst of having many new and exciting things happening to me. Yes, this is a legit claim. Sorry about that. I need to work on it. However, I just thought I'd write a little post now to tell you that I have started a new blog that I have dedicated purely to the subject of dreams... so check that out if you feel so inclined. It can be pretty interesting stuff... if not downright frightening, ridiculous, and a bit philosophical at times. So yeah... you can find that here. The new blog also explains why I probably will no longer post my crazy dreams here. If you ever want to contribute a dream to it, send it to me, and I will post it with your name attached. I think it would be cool if the site represented many POV's and dreamers.

another example of those sneaky internet ads

My favorite part of reading Russian literature online is noticing the accompanying ads on the page. Examples include:
Meet Russian Lady
Find a russian Lady Find the love of your life
happymeeting.dk (notice it's a Danish website)

Meet Russian Singles
Russian singles seek love and relationship worldwide. Join free.
www.RussianEuro.com

I could even find a Russian stockbroker if I wanted to... or you know... meet a 'russian Lady'

The day we talked about death in philosophy class

my grandfather died. and I can't go home to see my family because I am in Denmark. on top of that, I am scheduled to go to Bornholm this weekend for a vacation-like time of biking... while my grandfather is being burried. my dad is now an orphan, and I'm going on vacation.