Our usual Danish teacher, Bent, was sick today, so we were split into half and merged with regular level 1 classes. Apparently there are two level 1 classes on the same schedule as our phonetics class, so I wasn't just recycled to phonetics out of convenience, I was explicitly placed in phonetics before I can proceed to level 2. Anyway, the teacher in the new class was more confident than Bent and at first it was a nice change (not that Bent isn't confident, but his body language sometimes undermines his authority) but later it seemed like this guy had a bit more of an edge whereas Bent is invariably polite and exceptional at responding to negative student reactions with more positive teaching. It did mean that the semi-lame 2 minute presentation I prepared as homework was moot, and I'll have all weekend to master the new vocabulary Lars gave me so I can use it in a more extemporaneous presentation instead of a memorized speech.

One student in the class, Tordi, I thought introduced himself as French, presumably a Turkish immigrant since he doesn't look especially Gallic or speak English with a French accent. He is older, in his fifties or maybe sixties, and often struggles in class. In particular his English is very weak, so he doesn't always understand instructions. He was speaking Russian with Andrei the Russian at the second break so I chatted, mostly in English and a little Danish since my high school Russian seems to have been flushed completely by the succeeding three or four new languages I've failed to learn, and Andrei translated when necessary. Turns out Tordi left Afghanistan as a refugee in 1997 and is waiting for things to stabilize enough to go back. He is an ethnic Uzbek, from the north of Afghanistan, got his PhD in cosmology in Leningrad, and taught at Kabul University. He speaks Uzbek, Russian, Turkish, and Farsi, and if I understood correctly also Pashtun, Tadjik, and maybe German, and broken English. Quite possibly he's the smartest guy in the room. Still has trouble with the glottal stops, though. I suggested he had trouble with Danish because his head is simply full, and when Andrei laughed and translated Tordi agreed.

I draw in a sharp breath - I'm about to counter-attack. I'm about to rage, 'Gah! Do you want to stand here and make me promise not to sleep with *every* attractive actress and singer and novelist in the world one-by-one?!' Fortunately, a sudden, swooping gust of prescience brings me Margret's certain reply to this rhetorical question. I keep my idiot mouth shut. That's it then - it's checkmate in two; may as well knock the king over now and salvage a little dignity.

'OK,' I say. Quietly. My gaze weighted down feetwards.

'What?'

'OK.'

'Say it all.'

I look up into her eyes, hoping to see a tiny spark of mercy. There's nothing.

'OK. I promise I will not sleep with Alyson Hannigan.'

The words come out, and, somewhere deep inside me, a light is turned off, forever.

(From Mil Millington)

More than half a year after leaving Seattle, I finally dragged my lazy behind to Amager Kung Fu Skole, a few kilometers south of downtown Copenhagen. Everybody spoke perfect English, but only when they were talking to me, so I understood about zero percent of the group instructions, and just followed along as best I could. Which was moderately well, except for pushups and situps which led in embarrasingly short order to outright muscle failure. But the rest was all familiar - foot position on front kicks is different, hands chamber at the ribs instead of the waist - but it's very much the same art.

The people were very nice. The class was a bit loose, which is disappointing because I've gotten used to a rigorous, formal environment with well-known rules and find it a welcome change from daily reality, but the nice thing about being in a disciplined environment, whether it's martial arts or software development, is that you internalize the discipline and from then on it's always available to you, from inside. So I've been very fortunate to work with some serious ... disciples, I guess, of both martial arts and software development.

Towards the end of class, one of the black-belts was fooling around with a rubber knife at the other end of the room while the instructor kept us in a high horse stance with arms outstreched long enough that my hands fell asleep. And the guy dropped the rubber knife on the floor, and immediately dropped and started doing pushups. This is a rule I'm familiar with: weapons are respected, and clumsiness or carelessness with weapons is punished - and if nobody is watching, you'd better punish yourself if you have any self-respect. When I saw the guy drop for pushups, I had a deep smile and a comforting sense of home.