Happy Birthday, Yami :)
Sunday, April 28, 2002
Woohoo!
I have now written the required 35000 characters for my project. Unfortunately I have much more to say, but now I have to start editing and cutting off any redundant information, and somehow try to get the language more impact wihtout it losing its clarity so that I can fit in more words.
I also have a very confused vocabulary. I now have terms such as constrain, refrain, confrain, restrain, restrict, and constrict in my head and I can't separate the real words and the made up ones any longer. What's worse is that I'm positive I used those words in my comments to other people's blog posts today and mixed them all up. Not so smart maybe.. leaving a comment on other people's weblogs is like leaving a business card, you know?
Yesterday nights exciting discovery: I went to the party of one of the first friends I ever made in Denmark and for once decided to actually dress up for the occasion. I had not yet taken up the legs of my new pair of trousers together, so I folded them up and secured them with duct tape, like I do with all my trousers the first couple of times that I wear them. (...Like we all do, right?) On my way there I realised that the duct tape wouldn't hold on one of the legs, so I had a big mess bunched around my right shoe. Once I got off the bus I looked for a store that might just be open that sold glue or safety pins. The only store in the area that was open was Blockbuster, where I asked them if they could help me? No tape that would stick... no glue... I ended up sitting in the middle of the floor next to a queue of video-renting peaople, in an adorable yoga position stapling my own trousers up. But it worked. The staples blended in quite neatly with the fabric and when conversation topics started running out at the party, I'd show the girl beside me my alternative way of taking up trouserlegs and got a handful of useful little household McGyver tips in return. And when I took them out again, they left no marks in the fabric whatsoever.
Thursday, April 25, 2002
I always complicate things more when I try to solve them, I feel.
And after yesterday's venting about mobile phones, I think I'll just learn to live with them after all. Perhaps the fact that I locked myself out of the house has something to do with it.
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
Out of the 4 traineeships that I've applied to so far, I'm hoping I get the one in Osaka. I suspect it to be the least probable traineeship that I'll get as well, mainly because of the general impression that young, blonde women don't have much of a chance with job descriptions as the one for the traineeship in Osaka; dealing with "Remote instruction of the English conversation using the internet, and development of on-line contents." The website in question is this one here.
Moving on from the journal aspect of this site to the original intention of it, i.e. expressing my opinions on things, I hereby draw the curtain to reveal my favourite frustration at the moment:
Mobile phones.
Don't worry, I'll skip the obvious points such as the checking out of frantic pop-tune ringing tones by 14-year-old girls on the seat behind you on the bus; the fact that Murphy's law states that the phone will always ring the rare times you forget to turn the sound off during lectures, that the battery runs out during an emergency, as well as of course the fact that they fry your brains. And that the bills are bloody expensive, so conversations are rushed.
Well - I almost skipped those obvious points.
However, there are the more subjective points of frustrations that I will indulge myself into explaining in the following couple of minutes:
Point 1: My self-discipline and ability to set a daily routine has deteriorated since I first acquired a mobile phone. The attitude of calling everyone in the last minute is what can really tick me off, as well as the notion of lateness getting more and more acceptable, because "we can always call you". I hate the fact that my friends and I are refraining more and more from appointing proper times and places to meet, because "we can just call each other once we're there".
Point 2a: Then there's the chapter of the text messages. The length of a text message is (in my case) approximately 300 characters, which can't be seen at one time. Long messages take ages to code in and cramps any need to elaborate on anything I need to say. And vice versa: conversations consisting of many short "Yes", "Okay", "Sure", "Cool" have my financial conscience telling me I'm being ridiculous.
Point 2b: I also see a growing use of SMS as a media to express things, where I meet those who don't get that SMS is not suitable for this. The whole notion of irony is the negation of a literal meaning by the use of body language, intonation and facial expressions. Please, please, please insert at least a smiley when you want to convey something with a tone of irony with a text message. It saves us alot of misunderstanding and money spent on sending messages trying to clear these things up.
Point 2c: And finally, the text messaging system has sadly proven to be such a convenient tool in the art of avoiding personal contact. Leaving a message on someone's phone gives a face-saving implication of "but I tried". Especially if it's timed right, where you know the receiver won't be seeing the message before later, where you can conveniently ignore answering replies. I really hate myself for using that technique. I really do.
It's just that it gets harder and harder to actually call someone up and get a decent conversation going, especially when text messaging is the prevailing, if only, media of communication between us.
I've decided to put the mobile phone away for a week, starting from Monday. I need to re-establish my relationship with my phone, as well as get into a proper conversation with a couple of people. Perhaps by giving it a week's break I'll learn to appreciate the mobile phone again. It might remind me of what I got it for in the first place. As for you: if you need to talk, send me an email, where we can more comfortably elaborate what we want to say. If you particularly need to talk talk, also mail me, and I'll give you my stationary number if you don't already have it. In which case, feel free to call me. And maybe even meet up with me in person.
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Nope. No particular urge to enlighten you on any personal opinion or spaced out descriptions of global souls and emotions today.
Instead, I leave you a recommendation of my favourite song right now. Open your Kazaa, Aimster or legal Napster and download Starlight Lounge by Billy Bob Thornton, listen to it on your way to bed and join me in my current mood.
Monday, April 22, 2002
The guy sitting opposite me at the dinner table on Saturday jokingly referred to AIESEC as a sect. He himself is east Indian but does programming work for SAS and has been a member of AIESEC for two years after coming to Denmark as a trainee through the same program. "You'll never be able to shake AIESEC off you again," he warned me. "Are you aware of what you're getting yourself into?"
This past weekend has been intense, exhausting and very lovely. We got very little sleep, we interacted and we were taught about cross-cultural communication by a talented representant of a consulting group. He was the only paid person there, I think. AIESEC is run by students who offer hard volunteering work with their heart and soul. Those who work for it are all in their 20s, the president of AIESEC Denmark is 24 and they wear T-shirts with logos of AIESEC Guatemala, AIESEC Calgary, slogans such as "I changed someone's life today".
I think we all walked around feeling like we had been engulfed by a bubble. The conference was held in a building at DTU, where we slept in classrooms and went outside for the actual sessions. It's hard to describe what went on during those sessions. I can of course tell you about the consultant, Henry, who came up with analogies of Danes being coconuts and sounding like pregnant women (I'll explain those to you if you want me to do so). I can tell you that we were made to play with tennis-balls and cards. We were encouraged to tell each other about any experiences that we have had when travelling. We also had a lot of beer and wine, and an alternative variety of tequila involving Akvavit, oranges and powder sugar.
However, I'm having trouble explaining the space between that and the fact that although we had known each other for 2 days people were actually shedding tears and shoving email addresses and phone numbers into each others' hands and giving each other heart-felt hugs again and again, shaking hands with people that would seem unapproachable to me in any other context.
Personally I've experienced something very much like it when I was younger. During the summer holidays I would go to a summerschool for Danish children living abroad. At the end of those 3 weeks we were all kids crying our eyes out and wrote letters to each other every day until we'd meet again a year later, where the whole routine would start all over again. As an activity monitor there last summer I observed all those children feeling the way that I did when I was a pupil. And I'd observe the other teachers and activity monitors who couldn't really grasp what was going on between those children.
They came up with theories involving ages, hormones shooting around and the fact that some of these children learnt to let their guards down while they were here, surviving perhaps for the first times in their lives without their parents for 3 whole weeks. Yesterday however was proof that it isn't a matter of age, very relieving news for me who thought I'd never experience something like that again. We were grown-ups acting the exact same way as those children at Summerschool. I think it's the kind of togetherness that many experience at højskoler. One common thing that I attribute to any of these experiences is the lack of sleep. I wasn't able to shake the AIESEC bubble off me until this morning, after I'd slept for 13 hours or so.
Saturday, April 20, 2002
Just when I'm leaking with things to write, I have to detach myself from that impulse and go to a Student Preparation Seminar for the whole weekend. It involves every trainee that's in Denmark, every trainee that will be going abroad (like me) and everyone else in Denmark who has anything to do with AIESEC. Sigh. I'm sure it'll be interesting and entertaining, with a dinner and a party tonight and whatnot, but why on those rare days that I pour out pages of intelligent stuff on phonetics. How frustrating! What am I even doing writing here right now? I'm supposed to be there in an hour... let's see: must have coffee, must eat, must pack, must get there on time!
Wednesday, April 17, 2002
be a world child
form a circle
- Radiohead, Street Spirit
When I write a book one day, it will be about me. And my flatmate. And many other people I know that are spread around the world. And about the world being the projection of a human being. About losing roots and growing feet. About souls searching the world for a spot best suited, and not merely adapted to a random environment.
Over a bottle of wine this evening my flatmate, who's brought up in Seattle, and I discussed the issue of being torn between countries and thus must belong to a third culture that we haven't found a satisfactory term for yet. We refer to "the others" as "The Danes" while we talk about this. We discussed the fact that people like us naturally cluster into groups, wherever we are. Our natural environment is mobile and usually found at International Cafés. We believe that we have developed a sense that enables us to detect people like us from a mile away. We can tell who they are by their way of moving, by what they say. By their quiet, understanding nods as opposed to impressed expressions when we talk about where we've been. We discussed that when someone leaves, we don't miss them any more in that heart-aching way when they're sleeping in a different house than when they're thousands of miles away. We grew out of it as children. We don't worry about whether we'll ever see them again if they do move away. We know that if we're meant to be in each other's presence someday, we will be. We share a secret about the real size of the world... We think we're special. And privileged. But we hate to brag about it.
Oh, whatever. We just finished a bottle of wine.
If you thought that dragshows were all about sequins, huge feathers and, well, a man dressed in women's clothing... then you're absolutely right. Of course, I was disappointed that it was only Drag Queen, but the trio of female singers backed up the show very well. And as expected, the outfits didn't fail to impress. And he was funny. He'd tease the audience and he'd joke about his manhood as well as his long, skinny legs. In between outfits he would go backstage and change costume - from Brazilian carnival outfits to leopardskin leotards to skimpy dresses. In the meantime the girls sang very sing-along friendly songs - Donna Summer, Pointer Sisters, a Whitney Houston medley. Thomas, as the Drag Queen called himself (and not Elvira or Lovely Layla as I would have expected) joined in a couple of times and even sang a wonderful high-pitched ballad. A very entertaining show worth seeing if you're anywhere near Rosie McGee's on a Tuesday night. It only costs 10 kroner for the wardrobe... entrance is free.
As for the audience, I guess I hoped to get an insight on some kind of subculture that I know nothing about. But they were all boring, astounded, foot-tapping people like me.
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
Happy Birthday to Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark. I like her. I like the fact that she illustrates childrens' books and at the same time has trained to be a squad leader of the Women's Flying Corps. I couldn't care less about the fact that some royalties get speeding tickets or the fact that the Prince's wine isn't making any money... but the Queen is a decent woman.
This brings me to a question I've been asking myself for a while, and now that I have a small, but trusted forum I'll ask. What's the Queen's surname? Her husband's surname is de Laborde de Monpezat... so is that her surname? Why doesn't it ever show up on the biographies? Does royalty just plain not have surnames?
I'm going to a Drag Show tonight with some girls and one guy from university. I don't know what to expect... Well, I kind of know what to expect... but I'm almost just as curious about what kind of people make up the audience as I am about the show itself. Hmm.
Monday, April 15, 2002
1: It's not that I think I'm giving you a good impression of myself when I'm crabby, sulky or bite your head off. I think a lot about the impression I give of myself. Rather, be honoured that I am comfortable enough to let me be myself in your presence. Be flattered that I let you have an insight of the side of me I don't like so much. Because that will be the me you'll have to deal with from now on. *
2: On a different note, Slovakia has contacted me - they want me to teach English and guarantee a very friendly working environment. I'm all for friendly working environments. I do want to keep that possibility open, though... I want to go a *little* further away.
3: And then, an interesting fact I wasn't aware of:
At first sight, doing business in Denmark may seem straight forward. The country is prosperous and an important trade partner in the European Union. Its people communicate in a friendly and direct way. Negotiators tend to be to the point, relaxed and informal. And the whole process is accompanied with a sense of humour. But do not fall into the trap of thinking you need only be yourself.
Throughout Scandinavia, communication is characterised by calmness and understatement. This applies to Danes, too, although they are known for being more temperamental than the Swedes and Norwegians and are sometimes described as the "Italians of the North".
- Sergey Frank, On a wavelength with the Danes - FT, 23/10/2000
Fancy that. I'm even more Italian than I thought. Did you detect an air of danger and thunderbolts in that passage too?
* directed to the user after me in the washing room last Friday who kindly took out my second load of laundry out of the tumbler and left it in a sogging wet pile, then used my dryer token to dry his or her own clothes. As soon as I find out who you are... Okay, now I'm done complaining. Just thought I'd update on that matter though.
Friday, April 12, 2002
Laundry Day.
In case you wanted to know, then so far my exciting day, like any other laundry day, has been like this:
Get out of bed, turn on computer, turn on coffee machine, separate laundry into piles.
Carry laundry down to laundry room in the basement, which is 5 flights of stairs down. We have one washing machine and one tumble dryer. Put first load in the washing machine. Go back up 5 flights of stairs.
Drink coffee, eat breakfast, check mail, plan the day ahead.
Go down, pull out first load from washing machine, tuck in second load. Tumble dryer in use by someone else. Go back up.
Get on with the project. Finish writing definitions in the glossary list.
Go down to check if the second load is finished washing. It isn't. Notice piles of foreign clothes have turned up in the room - someone else is queuing up to use the washing machine after me. Go back up.
Check that all links are working correctly, look through books for material on Common Difficulties in Danish for English Speakers.
Go down to check if the second load is finished in the washing machine. Time has run out of the washing token, so need to fetch new washing token to finish washing the load. User before me has finished using dryer. Mental note: remember to bring down a dryer token with the washing token. Go back up.
Look for washing token. Seeing that I have to use a whole new token just to finish off the last pile of laundry in the washing machine, I might as well wash my bedlinen too.
Go down with washing token and big bag of bedlinen. Slap my forehead. Forgot the dryer token. Put down the bag of bedlinen, pop the washing token into the machine, restart the machine, go back up.
Get dryer token, pick up the book on Danish Phonetics and go down again straight away, with the intention of reading while I wait for this load to finish washing.
Load of laundry has finished washing while I was fetching dryer token and book. The user after me has been so kind as to take it out for me and put their own laundry into the washing machine, obviously assuming I was done. So much for getting the bedlinen washed and for making full use of my new washing token. I can't tell from the foreign clothes whose they are. I decide not to get too annoyed and put the first load of washed laundry into the tumble dryer.
Sit at the computer, write about pharyngeal Rs and soft Ds.
Go down to check if first load of washed clothes is dry. I have to be at work by quarter to 4, so my shirt for work must be dry by then. Should preferably also get second load dried by then as well. First load, however, is not dry.
Finish paragraph on soft Ds, check it through, write about glottal reinforcement. First load must be done drying now. I remember to bring new drying token for second load.
First load is dry. Pull out, put in second load. Go upstairs with the first pile of dried laundry.
Finish writing about glottal reinforcement.
Go down. Check if the second load of clothes is dry. It isn't. Huff and puff up the stairs as I carry the bag of unwashed bedlinen.
Eat well-deserved lunch, fold first load of clean and dry clothes, start this blog entry.
Go down assuming the second load is dry. It still isn't. The user after me probably wants to use the dryer after me. Tough. I'm crabby when I do laundry. He or she was so kind as to use my new washing token so I couldn't get my bedlinen washed. He or she can very well be so kind as to take out my dry laundry and put it aside when it's done if he or she wants to use the tumble dryer.
Everything marked in italics happens pretty much every time it's laundry day. Everything in between can be interchanged with whatever else might have made the day special. Now must get things done and then get ready for work. Sorry about the massive post.
Thursday, April 11, 2002
Very nice. Walking home from the cinema, I was composing a review of The Others in my head to write on here... then decided, nah. I'll let you see for yourself. And the less you know, the better. I will reveal, though, that I did sink into the chair a couple of times, people did gasp, and it did receive an applause at the end. Definitely worth watching. But then, it did make it into the top 150 on IMDB.
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
I am smiling. A braceless smile, even. All my worries, and all those hours last night spent on formulating and rephrasing everything I wanted to say, imagining every possible argument that the orthodontist might have against my stopping the process... were a waste. Oh how wonderful it is. He agreed with me that it would be best to stop the process and then continue it after I'd been out doing my thing in the world. Easy Peasy. 23 minutes later, everything had melted away. My tense muscles, my worries, and my tiredness. I was left wondering if there was something I overlooked? Did I forget something? Was someone pulling my leg?
I stopped by Grøntorvet to buy flowers and at 7-eleven for a bag of chewy toffee. And tonight, I'll be celebrating by watching a movie at Imperial Cinema for the Night Film Festival - more precisely, my friend and I will attend The Others, a horror/thriller movie at midnight.
Yeah.
Although I went to bed at a reasonable hour last evening, my body feels like it's been partying all night. I've been tossing and turning and casting thoughts around in my head so it's sore. In 4 hours (at 2) I should have the final conclusion from the Evil Orthodontist on whether he's going to allow me to travel after summer. Cross your fingers for me.
Monday, April 08, 2002
Speaking of which, did that last post flow okay?
I've received so much encouragement to paint and write these days from different people, that I'm beginning to think it's a conspiracy. In addition, I've received two mails in the past week from two complete strangers, who are both offering their help to get me to start writing again in connection with the Copenhagen Stories site. The timing could be better, but with the (maybe false) deadline of September (where I insist I'll be leaving the country) I feel a pleasant sense of pressure to get some of all the creative work done that I feel that I owe myself to get done.
To many of you, the following won't come as a surprise, but I feel that I need to put this down in writing once and for all. I am extremely afraid of writing or painting for the sake of showing others what I can do. My friend has just moved into a new appartment and wants me to paint her living room with 3D images so that it looks like there are long corridors going out of the living room, ending with gardens and landscapes. Painting... oh boy. What have you guys seen that I have done? Do you assume that you'll like the result of my work? What if you don't? Inspiration is so volatile.
I know that there are golden rectangles and smudging techniques and theories stating that beauty isn't just in the eye of the beholder, but an actual science and set of concrete rules. Give me a template and I'll draw for you, tell me what the story is supposed to be about and I'll write it for you. But even though I enjoy reading these articles, and like to discuss them and look for these rules in paintings when I go through art galleries, it's just not what art means to me when I'm the one doing it.
I'm somewhat "all or nothing" when it comes to being creative for others. You have to like it or say nothing at all if you ask me to show you what I can do. I can't be forced to be inspired if I have nothing to say or that I want to share. I write and paint for my own sake. Some of it might be good, and I thank you for the compliments. Sometimes, I'd rather you just gave me a straight forward question in maths or physics that I can read books about and correct before you see it and happily leave you satisfied with a clean cut answer without any need for further evaluation.
However: The conclusion. I'll take up these challenges anyway, as an experiment, just like I decided to start blogging. Though I've struggled with it for a while, and given up once in a while, I'd be happy if I could somehow work myself past that opinion. I wish I could let go of my being pickety about what others think of my work, I wish I were able to allow myself to draw and write more freely. Thus is the point of this website. To get my opinions across and get over the squeamish feeling that I get whenever I post and publish. It's helping. Maybe, with babysteps, I'll actually end up the artist/violinist/singer/writer that my parents, teachers and friends expected me to become. Imagine if I could make a living from expressing myself. Imagine if I could just live by expressing me and feel completely satisfied even though other people aren't.
Sunday, April 07, 2002
That better be just a pause, Ralph.
Friday, April 05, 2002
Cosmopolitan has lots of personality tests (...I'm sure you weren't aware of that). I'm proud to admit that I never take them but I do skim over them (though I know I get lots of basic pointers for reading Cosmo and that your opinion of me has improved after discovering this vital fact). I find them rather foreseeable and hardly enlightening, and my answers are always in between the possible choices presented by the checkboxes. However, if I took a test entitled "Which Elizabeth Are You Today?" and checked questions such as "what do you drink", "what are you wearing" and so on, the final result would be Personality #4 out of the following possible 5:
#1: Career Oriented (Careening Career Woman)
#2: Intellectual (Hip Intellectual)
#3: Casual (Casual Cowgirl)
#4: Slacker (Sloppy Slacker)
#5: Plain Lost (Lost Case)
The amazingly accurate description to go with Personality #4 would look something like this:
Elizabeth Personality #4: The Slacker.
Wears: army green T-shirt with pants of any colour to clash with it.
Drinks: alternates between winding herself up with black coffee to get going with To Do things, then winds down again with tea, when she realises her eyes are whizzing around too much to focus.
Distinguishing traits: While a slacker, Elizabeth's day is planned according to the TV schedule, which includes Frasier, Spin City and occasionally both 7th Heaven episodes of the day. The act of just sitting down and getting some serious work done seems very distant and almost far-fetched. Instead, she cleans her windows and checks her mail every five minutes, and sends an unaffordable amount of text messages. She reads the same posts in the same weblogs over and over again but can't think of any intelligent remarks. She might waste her time analysing her many personalities instead and posting them on the Internet. She also might offer her flatmate half her pasta when he gets home in order to lure him into listening to her talk about her lack of self-discipline.
Percentage of her time awake spent being a slacker:42.3*
*based on an analysis of the past week
Thursday, April 04, 2002
I don't particularly like going to concerts. I always get pushed behind a pillar, or end up standing behind the only person in the audience who is double my height and jumps double the height of that. I tend to get elbows in my face, accidental cigarette burns and trip over dropped bottles. I also don't care too much for Bob Marley's music, to be honest. But despite these odds, the reggae concert with jamaican Junior Kelly turned out to be great.
I went for the sake of re-living the lighthearted atmosphere that I experienced in Trinidad and Tobago 2 years ago, and share it with my friend Samantha and her husband, with whom I had gone travelling to the Caribbean islands at the time. The cute guard at the guesthouse where we lived, Bernardo, had the cassetteplayer playing one particular and very catchy song while he was working. I asked the shopkeepers what the name of the band was when I heard it again in the shops around town. Bernardo invited us to go with him to a local music festival, "Watercolours", where Junior would be playing. Unfortunately, we were in a car accident a couple of days before the festival. We did all get out with no more than cuts and mild concussions, which was lucky considering that the car was smashed to bits and pieces, but we had to miss the festival due to lawyer and paper work which had to be done by departure.
So I was thrilled when I saw the small black and white posters of Junior Kelly who was coming all the way from Jamaica to play at Lille Vega in Copenhagen. The beat was so loud we could feel it against our chests, the floor rumbled and the lamps shone red and green. The air... made me giggly. About a third of the people attending looked like they were of Caribbean origin, and sang along to all the words of all the songs. The place wasn't as packed as I knew it from other concerts - there was space to dance and wave our arms about, and I eyed Samantha over my shoulder and smiled as we chanted along to the song that we came for:
If love so nice
tell me why it 'urt so bad
If love, love so nice
tell me tell me why I'm sad?
I've never liked reggae music this much. I'll remember it for its distinctive deep sound, the deep beat, the deep voice and the band members' body language, its messages of black hope, love, tranquility, and its stories about a paradise where there is no envy and there is no grief.
(And particularly for the keyboardist's gleaming white smile)
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
Please note: this was written last night. Blogger just wouldn't work when I needed it to, hence the late post.
Yesterday was like a breath of fresh air after being stuck at work in a fog of smoke, bad mannered customers and guilt hanging over my head because I'm prioritising money for IKEA kitchenware to the much needed work on the project. Just when I thought I'd finally be doing some work, I couldn't help but go meet up with fellow CBCBC* bloggers Ralph, Rasmus and Dennis to grab "a small beer" at a last minute call. Meeting them for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time respectively, I was pleasantly surprised at how my shyness towards them had dissolved completely by now... Even in my embarassment of disappearing from them for months. It must be the spring sun that crept under my skin while we drank beer outside by the fountain in downtown Copenhagen and talked and laughed as if we were old friends who just hadn't seen each other for ages... which I guess is true. (to some extent, of course. Right?).
I like to ponder on this subculture that I've become part of. The CBCBC is a cluster of individuals who have met after reading each other's blogs, with ages spanning over a decade, very different backgrounds (In this case one artist, one academic, one programmer, one doctor, and one who's just plain lost) yet all somewhat like-minded and able to carry a conversations for hours. Details on the procedure of yesterday's meeting can be found here.
While getting over a mild hangover from last night (I attribute this to the one beer too many at jazzbar La Fontaine), my grandfather called and invited me over for a last-minute traditional Danish Easter lunch. Ugh. Easter brew and Aalborg Akvavit galore - though my stomach said no, my good manners said yes. So there went another day where my plans of doing some serious project work failed. My stomach feels like a washing machine. Good thing my wonderful flatmate + flatmate's sister are taking care of me and cooking dinner while I rest and sober up.
* Copenhagen Bloggers Coffee and Beer Consortium