Wrap up: Time and Place

 I've been back in the States for three weeks. It feels much longer, like I've been here all summer. This surprised me. I thought that I would feel more reverse culture shock, that Ann Arbor and East Lansing would feel more foreign. I thought that I would feel uncomfortable driving my car again. I thought the American hypermarts would overwhelme me. I thought I would cringe at American-accented English.

The first three to five days, I felt this way. I wanted to find all the foreign things I had in Europe. Trader Joe's 100% Rye Bread is a close approximation of rugbrød. At a restaurant in East Lansing I had Zywiec beer.

At the same time as the discomfort, however, these were also glorious days of rediscoveries. I finally got a fragel, which I wanted to do the last day before I left in January but the store was closed for the holidays. So I fulfilled a wish I had maintained for six months.

By the time first weekend was over -- I came back on a Monday -- it felt like I had been here in Ann Arbor all summer, which begins for most American college students in early May.

This doesn't mean I've forgotten about Denmark. The opposite: I think about Denmark and Erasmus all the time. Like I've said many times before, those six months were the greatest six months of my life. The people, the traveling, the just hanging out in Århus. But I'm not raving about it to everyone the way I thought I would. I feel like I've entered a different chapter of my life. Denmark exists in memories. For the people I met on Erasmus, we're all post-Erasmus now and that's the way it must be. I feel that if I keep talking about Denmark and exchange that I'll start to have Peter Pan syndrome. As much as I would like to go back to Denmark, I can't because by "Denmark" I mean both a place and a time. Maybe sometime in the future I'll go to Denmark but we've all moved beyond that time to new endeavors.

My train from Århus to Copenhagen airport as it passed Copenhagen central station. July 12th, 2010 approx.12:30am

Danishize: Laundry

As my time in Denmark is winding down, I'm once again reflecting on the quirks of Danish life that are now routine for me but surprising when I arrived. Today I'm highlighting my laundry drying rack.

At MSU drying was cheap and my room small so I liked using the dryer. But most importantly, everyone used the dryer.

In Denmark however, none of my housemates use our dryer. And from what I see all around, no one else does either, exchange students or Danish students. At my house, the dryer not even in the same closet as the washer but relegated to a dirty corner of our garage.

Instead, we all have folding drying racks all from Ikea. I borrowed this one from my housemate.

My drying rack is actually the top part of clothing rack but it's from Ikea!

Now that I've been using drying racks for six months, it doesn't feel that inconvenient. Well, except when I wash all my clothes at the same time and don't have anything to wear for about a day waiting for something to dry. But it's really not that bad. I think that when I go back to East Lansing, I'm going to get a drying rack.

Private Lives

I think my blog would be more interesting to read if my commentary were more timely. I usually read or do something that inspires me to write a blog, but then I push it back a week or so or more before I write about it. So I did read Married (Happily) With Issues when it debuted on the cover of the NYTimes Sunday Magazine but I'm writing about it now.

Pursue sapience read this too. (As did a lot of other people. It was the most viewed piece on NYTimes.com for a couple days.) It was eye-opening since people usually don't speak frankly about their personal lives, but I also know the window into their private lives is an illusion, the way that celebrities don't really reveal who they are. I'm not sure how I feel about articles dissecting the author's personal lives anyway. It's interesting, voyeuristic on one hand, but it's too (fake) confessional. Not all secrets will be unearthed to the NYTimes.

About the article itself: It thumped the steady drumbeat of disillusionment that I now think is inevitable in middle life with moments like this:

The psychologist Michael Vincent Miller describes marriage as mocking our “fondest dreams,” because the institution is not the wellspring of love we imagine it to be. Instead it’s an environment of scarcity, it’s “a barbaric competition over whose needs get met”; it’s “two people trying to make a go of it on emotional and psychological supplies that are only sufficient for one.” 

But the article was also punctuated by moments of  "WTF! I can't believe someone took this seriously enough to write about it in a book". 

Then one day at my desk I started reading “The Multi-Orgasmic Couple: Sexual Secrets Every Couple Should Know.” I sent Dan an e-mail message entitled “Nine Taoists Thrusts.”

Page 123, from the seventh-century physician Li T’ung-hsuan Tzu:
1. Strike left and right as a brave general breaking through the enemy ranks.
2. Rise and suddenly plunge like a wild horse bucking through a mountain stream.
3. Push and pull out like a flock of seagulls playing on the waves.
4. Use deep thrusts and shallow teasing strokes, like a sparrow plucking pieces of rice.
5. Make shallow and then deeper thrusts in steady succession.
6. Push in slowly as a snake entering its hole.
7. Charge quickly like a frightened mouse running into its hole.
8. Hover and then strike like an eagle catching an elusive hare.
9.Rise up and then plunge down low like a great sailboat in a wild wind.

This last point also falls into a category of “ancient non-white people are soooo mystical, soooo exotic, and had the secret to fantastic sex using ridiculous metaphors” that sets off a whole other theme I like to blog about. So now you know that behind the placid veneer of the wizened, beared Daoist, they were getting it on like rabbits. Or like sparrows plucking at pieces of rice.

From the archives: Do you feel liberated?

I have a lot of half-written blog drafts saved, I don't know about other bloggers, but it seems that a lot of the  entries I start I never finish. I was looking back at some old drafts and saw this one that I think deserves to be published because I think much about commitments I have made and the ones to make in the future.

This was drafted on April 13, 2009 and if there's any similarity between then and now, it's that the end of the semester is approaching. This means the workload is picking up in preparation for finals and I am looking ahead to the next semester. Since I will be spending it in another country, I have a lot of things to figure out...
 
Over the weekend I went to Starbucks. This was the quotation on my cup. I wrote it down on a napkin and took it with me.

The Way I See It #76

The cup reads: The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating -- in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.
The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating.

Flash Forward

In a recent conversation, I revealed that I can't imagine myself more than five or seven years into the future. This means that I cannot picture myself to older than 28. Or maybe 10 years in the future at the very most.

Last weekend Monika and I drove around the East Lansing area to look at apartments and houses for rent to live in when we're in medical school this time next year. We were trying to find a house for rent in Okemos. Having seen the ad online, it was in a neighborhood neither of us had been to so we didn't know what kind of houses were there.

We quickly learned that this was probably not a neighborhood that typically rents to poor students. It's a very nice upper middle-class neighborhood -- big houses, mature trees that hide each house from the next. I saw a middle-aged man riding his bike with (presumably) his son behind him on a little bicycle.

There, along the winding tree-lined road, I had a flash of a vision of myself far into the future: me in middle-age, living in a neighborhood with kids, maybe having kids of my own. It was scary. I don't think I'm ready to imagine a time when I'll have finished school, have a career, have an income, a 401K. It's overwhelming to even think about the trappings of middle-age and middle-class life.

I realized that at this point in my life, I actually want a sense of incompleteness. I want this life of a student, the lure of degrees yet to be completed, and the future left open.

Today 10/27/09

Good things today:
sent overdue emails to professors and school-related people.
finally got this paper taken care of
carved fabulous Bert pumpkin
had great discussion about facebook
vented to friends about some things
took pictures of around Williams
was complimented by a stranger about my dress
was told I looked like I lost weight (but this isn't true, so maybe not so good)
ran into someone I hadn't seen in a long time

Not good things today:
realized that doing poorly on the first exam makes it really hard to dig yourself out of that hole
fell asleep during genetics recitation

EXP01-2014

Yesterday I attended a book reading by David Sedaris. After his reading, there was a book signing. He signed my copy of When You Are Engulfed in Flames and drew a cat that looks kind of like a beaver. (Side note: I wish I had remembered to bring Holidays On Ice for him to sign. It's actually much funnier than his latest book.)

He also gave me a condom. Seriously.


As I was giddily, fan-girlishly leaving the Wharton Center, I inspected the little blue packet. The expiration date read "EXP01-2014". It's not often that I see a date that is far into the future. It made me think what my life would be like in January 2014.

In January 2014, I will be 25 years old. I will be in my fourth year of medical school, unless I take time off to do other things. I will have long since completed my undergraduate degrees in Human Biology and Comparative Cultures and Politics. That's about all I know at this point.

But I wonder about a lot of things, some significant and others not , some personal and some not:

Will David Sedaris still even be popular in a little more than four years from now?
What medical specialty will I choose? (Will I actually be in medical school??)
Will I have short hair?
Where will I be living??
What will be the most pressing political issues? Will some form of health care reform be enacted? What will be the extent of climate change? What
How many of my friends will be -- gasp -- married?
Which of my friends now will still be my friends?

Have you seen this cat?

On Monday -- the same day and same place I saw the Emily Dickinson poem on the sidewalk --- I saw little black kitten. It was near the bushes at the end of the bridge that leads to Wells. It had big yellow eyes and a white patch at its throat and on its belly. It was so very very cute.

I didn't know what to do because I think it was a stray. It didn't have a collar. A couple of girls who saw it at the same time I did tried to catch it and take it to the Humane Society, but it kept running away from us. I hope it's okay but it's getting cold outside. So if you see the kitty, be nice to it. And take it to the Human Society if you can. Thanks.


Take with my cellphone

Of course it's a coincidence that that particular poem was chalked on the sidewalk, but I couldn't help to think about what Emily Dickinson wrote about helping one fainting robin unto his nest again. I will try to not live in vain.

I don't want to be the crazy cat lady, but I really want a cat, especially after what happened on Monday. But not right now because I can't take care of one. Maybe in a few years when I have some money for food, toys, and vet visits. I think when I finish med school and have a job I'll get one.

I think I want to be a foodie. Or not.

I want to be a foodie because I love food.

I had goat meat today. It was from Sindhu, which I fully recognize is probably a bastardized Indian-food-for-gringos restaurant. If Chinese restaurants in Michigan are any indication of the authenticity of foreign foods in this region, it's nothing like real Indian food for Indians. Okay, done with the disclaimer. Never the less, it was goat. It tasted kind of like lamb, with that ... lamby taste, which I had been craving for a long time. I mean, I haven't had lamb in at least a year.

According to Monika, it's the fastest growing meat for eating. Meaning more and more people are eating it, not that goat grows up quickly for slaughtering, but that's initially a bit confusing. Goat is a staple meat for a lot of people in the world because goats are easy to raise.

A few weeks ago I had uni nigri sushi for the first time and I loved it. I've had ample opportunities to order it in other Japanese restaurants, but I did it this time. Uni is sea urchin roe. It's soft and yellowy-orange. It tasted like very concentrated seafood, like the juice of a head of a head-on shrimp or crab tomalley. Not to be confused with tamale. It's the greenish yellow "crap" inside crabs. Asians LOVE tomalley. LOVE. (Apparently there's some health warning about toxins in it but I don't eat it often and or pregnant for it to be a concern.)

But there are two main reasons for my hesitation about this aspiration. First and foremost, I think foodies fetishize food. This is feeling is captured well by David Rakoff's book Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems. Particularly the part "The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil". I don't want to be like Zingerman's, which definitely fetishizes artisanal olive oil and a lot of other "artisanal" foods. Stuff White People Like should add "foodie" to its list.

I think foodies get to a point where you are judged by the food you make and eat. Like I should be embarrassed because I don't make everything from scratch and eat questionably fresh tuna rolls. Oh, and not everything I eat has fewer than four ingredients or whatever Michael Pollan's rules are. You know the way people try to out "indie" each other by naming indie bands they know and asking "Have you heard of (insert combination of random words that is apparently a band name". I think foodies can do that too. Like, have you tried ___? It's divine. See David Rakoff's essay on fetishizing sea salt.

Second, is it possible to be a foodie and not be a cook? Because I'm not sure I like cooking that much, still. But today I bought rapini (aka broccoli raab) at Meijer and I think I will sautee it in some garlic and oil. I like it because it's a leafy green with a slightly bitter taste. Boiling pasta and sauteeing vegetables in oil is about all the cooking I do. Well no, I can also make miso soup and scrambled egg. Now those are all the things I can make.

What Makes a Family?

I must be watching too many daytime TLC family shows. I've been thinking about the phrase "to start a family". As we all know, it means for a couple to try to get pregnant. But I have begun to feel increasingly uncomfortable with the phrase. It seems to say that children are necessary for a couple to be considered "a family". I know that "to start a family" is probably just a polite way to say "we're having sex a lot" without the visual imagery of picturing people you know having sex. Still, if I were married or in a committed relationship without children, I would consider my partner and I to be a family.

I'm getting old (and I love my mom)

People always say that you don't know what it's like to be a parent until you're older.

Well in the past couple of weeks I realized that if I don't talk to my mom for two days, I get really worried.

I usually genuinely have something to ask her about every couple of days, but even if I don't, I make up some reason to email or call her.