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.