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.

spots of today shined. criminal justice, rehashing the field study, someone objected to having murderers in the open prison. teacher told the story of one man, a softspoken older guy who after 15 years of marriage to an emotionally abusive woman finally snapped. he made sure she took a larger dose than usual of sleeping pills. then he put a pillow over her face. that led into a heated discussion about the different types of murder. should we make distinctions? (of course we should. we do, even in our u.s. proportional, retribution-oriented "justice" system.) i couldn't believe that some people were so insistent that the man couldn't be trusted not to kill again. he'll never have those circumstances repeated, teacher explained. some kids just didn't get it. i said, if a woman snapped after 15 years with an emotionally abusive husband and killed him, not only would i not be afraid she'd kill again, i'd probably cheer. why should it be different just because he's a man?
the situation made me think of andrea yates, whose fate is soon to be determined.

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 ...