all right, i may as well just admit it: we didn’t make hamentashen so much as we made pre-jammed triangular toast. but it’s good pre-jammed triangular toast!

the first batch is too crunchy. we name it ‘the little fuckers’ and move on. second, a decent consistency, still too much filling (andrea insists on spoiling them, but she’s great at folding them up into the proper shapes.) we name them ‘alvin and brittany’ after the only middle children in popculture we could think of. the third batch, ‘the accidents,’ as they’re mostly composed of extra dough, end up being the most successful.

they look disturbingly like biology diagrams, and the plain fact is, they’re just not sweet. andrea encourages me to face up to this. eventually i do. the important thing is we (a) had fun; (b) didn’t burn anything down or quit; and (c) baked! oh yeah baby. beat that.

my holiday! this morning i found myself at a table explaining purim to the group of mel who doesn’t believe in religion, and katie and sam in identical gold crosses. i have only vague memories of last year yet i’m almost positive i told the story to someone then too. anyone remember what happened purim last year? i asked ben but of course he was no help. without access to my then-notebook, i feel so adrift.

i remember purim in israel easily enough. that was a riot. out til 4 a.m., singing, running around, covered in goopy fake-snow. my moment of glory, throwing a softserve cone at an assailant. the pride.

must prepare cty curriculum in advance of march 4 interview. how to convince these nice people that i want to work with children? i haven’t even convinced myself yet.

prepare. this’ll be a ross type entry, beginning when heather, andrea, katie and i lucked into a cabin together. we tossed our bags and went to look around. realization 1: we near80 american college students were sharing this boat with children, old people, and handicapped folks, and most of the boat’s amenities were meant for them. after taking pictures on deck, by fountains, and other random places, people hit the only available entertainment: the duty free shop to buy liquor. heather proposed that she and i split a box of what looks like mini alky bottles in tinfoil. each is chocolate and contains a mouthful of a different kind of schnapps, whiskey, brandy, or vodka.

not too long after when i went upstairs i found the hall going full-force, with the DISers distributed in clusters in cabins around bottles and crackers and cans. will, heather’s — well, heather’s something, offered me a screwdriver. the girls joined us in a bit and we hung out in our room until dinnertime, 8:30. then the rocking started.

we had this gorgeous free dinner buffet displayed for us and no one could eat a thing. our table looked like a painting of the Last Supper: people moaning, heads in hands, with will, our only male, presiding as the de facto jesus. amazingly i didn’t feel sick, but the longer i sat there amongst the illness the weaker i felt. heather will and i ran off, but it was bad everywhere, like the plague had hit. people pressed to the floor; you could hear people in bathrooms. (realization 2: you get what you pay for and this roundtrip voyage + 2 dinners was only $133.) we went to the first floor where supposedly you feel it less and i lay down on the tile wretchedly, shivering. heather and will helped me up and to the room. andrea and katie were already there, andrea astonished: ‘i’ve never been seasick before.’ commiserated wanly. we slept.

now i’m back, feeling much the same as i did exiting the sauna. minus the brickred cheeks, of course. congrats to my lovely Colored Girls. we saluted them onship.

blizzard. braved class. bergman: persona, fantastic. mythology. boat. norway. anyone been? how does danny know so much about it anyway?

my colored girls are performing tonight. everyone, please, go, applaud, wish them luck. in exchange i’ll kiss the fjords for you.

still snowing …

shouldn’t travel without a camera, says cuong as he slips his passport in his camera case. 85 DISers are cruising to oslo tomorrow, me included. i have to go back to my room and pack but i’m taking a minute or two more on the sixth floor to digest. eric cuong and i — well, primarily eric; he just narrated as he proceeded and let me stir a little — cooked a lovely dinner and dessert: some vegetable, like heavy lettuce leaves with a spongy, broccoli look to them that we christened Green Brain, sauteed with onions, garlic, carrots, etc.; grains; and then a yogurt, honey, cinnamon and banana mixture. cuong threw in granola and it was perfect. we ate to nick drake and nearly finished a bottle of red wine in the process.

last nite, taking a break from writing a jewish history paper, i went to dinner with punk tweedledum-and-tweedledee, two deadpan girls from umd who sat next to each other, smoked three cigarettes each, wore black and told each others’ stories. as it turns out, one knows lana and her v.m. crew, having served as the photographer for the show. today i had more random conversations, staving off a feeling of restlessness. my dreams reach back home, so i wake guilty that i’m thinking too much of people who aren’t here. it’s hard to anchor my mind in this place, even though i’ve been here for a month: when i see something, instinctively i consider reactions of faraway friends. i compare people i meet to people i know.

also feeling guilty about the question of dropping my jewish history class. i’m not learning anything, but the teacher’s very sweet. i’d still have four if i lost it, and i’d have one less midterm when ben’s here. but dropping a class makes me feel like a slacker. decisions …

just returned from jyderup state prison, about an hour and a half outside copenhagen. doubtlessly, yesterday was practice; today it’s really snowing, and sapna and i had to make our way through the white to arrive at 8:15. something mutely, eerily wild about snowstorms. i think of inmates throwing pointless tantrums against padded walls. you know it won’t hurt you but you tread carefully all the same, even for a while afterwards.

in my case, i had to keep my head bowed, otherwise the wind blew the snow down my collar. it’s a smart move in this country of cobblestones anyway, as if you don’t watch where you’re doing you trip.

but the prison: well, first off, it doesn’t look like a prison. there’s no wall, no barbed wire, no guns. (the guard held up her walkie-talkie and quipped, “there’s my gun.”) inside the buildings are painted as bright as the nursery skool or the folk college. a little room off of the main gym/weightroom area contains a solarium. you have to pay a little to use it, of course.

they make their own food, shop and cook in kitchens just like we have to do in kollegiums. my jaw dropped at the rooms themselves. kenneth, our inmate guide, had a radio shack set up: tv, computer, stereo. when they call them ‘cells’ they laugh.

reflecting, i don’t think i’m scared. the recidivism rates are lower at open prisons. people are more adjusted to the outside world because they venture in it from time to time; they’re never too isolated from it. right outside the not-too-tall walls it waits, a temptation, sure, but also a dangling carrot. they’re not angry. not defeated, not resigned, not institutionalized. inside i’m still suspicious, even though teacher tells me he’s never been a guide before, and he doesn’t get rewards for saying anything in particular. some guides have been caustic or simmering. i still sort of wonder what criminals look like. i don’t feel convinced yet. i wonder why.

it’s snowing. everyone around me is babbling. “snow! i can’t believe it. wow.” … it’s february. doesn’t it always snow in february? we’ve been lucky it’s only rained so far. snow’s prettier than rain — colder but prettier.

got up at 7 this morning. tomorrow will be another early morning, making, lord, nearly a week of them, as we have a field study to an open air danish prison. leaving at 8:15. i’m excited, i’ve never seen a prison before. everyone wears plainclothes inside: our teacher has requested that we not wear baseball caps so as to distinguish ourselves. we get a guided tour from some volunteer inmates, and if they volunteer to tell us what they’re in for we can discuss it.

it seems like a pretty remarkable prison. inmates have phones in their rooms, some have televisions. they cook for themselves. there’s also a maximum security facility in the area which we see on a later trip, and that apparently is more along the lines of what we americans are used to imagining, thanks to frank darabont movies. … political science, criminology … i wonder: should i be a lawyer?

my parents always told me not to be; no one seems to enjoy the profession; it’s a pain in the ass to get in and stay in skool and i certainly didn’t enjoy drudging in mel’s office that summer. should all these negatives add up to a positive?

oh my lord, the sky’s blue, like someone wiped it clean. there isn’t a single cloudsmudge left. i wonder: is it a sign?

probably set the record for bizarre earlymorning crying today when, after waking pre-alarm from alarming dreams, i wandered down to the computer lab and checked up on weblogs. miz *don’t call my daughter zabby* eliz’s account, on top of ross and nori’s glorying, and ross’s comment on her page (i see they’ve finally become friends in my absence) made me drip a little. i couldn’t wallow, i had class to go to. as i returned to my lair to get ready, i mused over eliz’s take on comfort zones. mine are clearly defined; i’m posessive of them, suspicious outside of them. she cited her tendency never to leave her room, or if possible her chair. i countered with the fact that twice my mother has given me as birthday presents comfort zonish equipment, once a hammock, once a beanbag.

coincidentally a letter i received from ben today (of course i’ll be your valentine) talked of what a typical evening at swat would be like if i were there. i’d dance reluctantly, make faces at some noisy overcrowded party, and we’d end up somewhere quieter talking or watching a movie. quite possibly. luckily it didn’t seem to bother him.

the combination of the letter and eliz’s statements about her discomfort in social situations made me ponderous. primarily, my thoughts ran as follows: yes, i like to be in warm cozy familiar places with warm cozy familiar people, preferably laughing, with my notebook at arm’s length and a vcr nearby. would i enjoy the wild revelry that is present barn life? would i retreat from it, or would i rise to it (who are all these people?) what will happen when i go back? well, never mind that for a while.

last year i wasn’t as cloistered as this past semester. whether it was jolly’s influence, the hall’s, being on campus, or having a lot of repressed highskool shit that needed to surface, i don’t know. still, realizing that i had to get away. ignoring my occasional frustration and dissatisfaction, i was too content. i thought sometimes that i missed drama. i think what i really missed was challenge.

when i’m at swat, i often let myself get pulled into the position of Second. assistant-director, stage manager, some leadership-type position where i have say but not total control. thrown into a new situation, i’ve had to do things on my own. there’s no jamie to navigate, no barnie to cook for me, no one to hide behind. i’m enjoying it. not eating as well, certainly missing the weekly tofu curries. but i’m enjoying it. i feel slightly more sure of myself. (bold statement, eh? some habits die hard.) i’m alone! and simultaneously not alone at all, and doing fine.

i can’t speak for eliz, of course. i only own one pair of fleece pajamas and she gets a new pair, in a different shade of pastel, every year. but i think the funny thing about comfort zones is that there’s always a lastditch one you carry around with you, in a bright red bag or whatever, and it’ll accompany you much farther and is much more resilient than you might expect.

i meant to see ocean’s eleven about two months ago, during finals period, with becca. i forget what came up. so time passed, but i didn’t forget. oh no, not i. the movie opens in copenhagen! who expects it? and it’s my anniversary. what a coincidence. andrea, mel, heather, will, and i go. supposed to be playing at 1:15 — oops the papers got it wrong, it’s playing at 3:30. no problem. we sit at a cafe, mel and andrea buy me a celebratory vaffle and a diet coke, andrea continuously gives me sudden hugs; we reunite with heather and will, who got some work done in the meanwhile, and we watch what really is a terrific, if terrifically silly, movie. i’m a sucker for anything that sucks me in. LOTR for example. not great literature, not precisely, no. but involving. it takes me out of my head.

what a year.

hugemajorincredible post time, huh? refreshed after a bowl of oatmeal, leftover salmon quiche, and three of jolly’s hershey kisses, having put down my bag, made plans to go for chai with eric, read a charming piece of sarah c. correspondence, and chatted with sapna, i’m flexing my fingers, ready to update. but chai awaits. let me try to simply hit highlights:

first of all, wednesday afternoon, heather, newkatie and i trekked to christiania for a cheap vegetarian lunch followed by what turned out to be an expensive dessert. after lingering for a bit, we went down to the glyptotek art museum, until the effects started to warp us and we decided it would be wiser to make it to our respective homes. the feeling steadily worsened, in my case into a harsh reaction. not knowing how to handle it and being by myself, i paced my apartment for three hours, struggling to make my brain perform small tasks like dialing the phone and packing, the latter out of pure necessity as we were leaving the next day. at 8, exhausted, i finally allowed myself to sleep. at 12, the phone rang. jarred, i stumbled to it. ben. calling. chills shook me, i could barely hear him and i felt like i might collapse. i managed to convince him through apologies and his confusion that i had to go. all right, he said at last, well, happy valentines day ….

i landed with a thud on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. calmed down. slept.

today we had two more guided tours, saw some of �rhus, the 2nd biggest city in dk, the best-preserved bogman around and a recreation of a medieval city. bussed home. it was a fun trip. they promised us great group bonding some of which occurred. i guess that’s a topic for another time. for now, congrats to lana for a supposedly fabulous production. i have no idea how the swat one went, did anyone see it?

and congratulations to benandme — one year old tomorrow. wow.