student

“You can’t sleep here”

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Today we take another trip down memory line. It’s about my student years and involves an unhealthy dose of “embarrassing”.

“Wait a second!”, some of you may shriek, “wasn’t your last ‘memory lane’ story also about an embarrassing incident during your student years?!”.

First of all, stop yelling at your computer, that’s freaking weird! Secondly, congratulations on your awesome pattern recognition skills. Thirdly, yes, my student years were all about embarrassing stuff happening to me. That’s how I rolled back in the day. Awkwardly.

Before I start the story, I have to reveal something about myself. It may come as a shock, but I am known to…drink alcohol, occasionally. I realise I may have just alienated most of my audience, consisting primarily of Mormons and elderly Catholic nuns with Internet access.

“How mislead I was! Daniel’s not at all like Jesus!”

However, this revelation was integral to the story, thus necessary. Now that you know my dark side (oh, I also jaywalk sometimes), let’s proceed.

I was at a house party in the centre of Copenhagen, celebrating something or other. The fact that it was Friday, probably. A friend of mine had introduced me to a cocktail called Black Russian. I found the newly discovered treat delicious and so proceeded to chain-drink (is that a thing?) a bunch of Black Russian cocktails.

At some stage I looked at my friend, while finishing up yet another drink, and said the following prophetic words: “Man, I’m gonna get pretty wasted after this!”. It was 23:00…

…at around 2:00 in the morning I found myself standing in the middle of what looked like a forest. It was pitch dark and I was alone. Immediately, I’d made a number of conclusions. One, there was a good chance I was no longer at the house party. Two, a three-hour period of my life was missing entirely from my memory. Three, someone was going to put this story up on their blog many years later.

Four: Alcohol may have played a minor role

I called a few friends (that’s right – mobile phones were around in early 2000s). All of them thought I went home hours ago. Some of them volunteered to come pick me up. There was a tiny problem with that plan – none of us knew exactly where I was (that’s right – Google Maps wasn’t around in early 2000s).

I’d made the decision to find a place to sleep until morning, when public transport would start running again. Considering my drunk state, that was a sound idea.

Instantly transitioning from decision to execution I lay down on the ground, right where I was. A few moments later I imagined how I’d appear to potential passers by in the morning. Maybe they’d even think I was some sort of a drunk student sleeping in the forest. God forbid that should happen!

“Denial” is my first name, as seen by dyslexics

I got up and, hoping to find more dignified sleeping arrangements, stumbled blindly through the trees until I came upon a bench. “Splendid! This simple bench should sufficiently suit my sleeping needs!”, I thought. Although it was probably more along the lines of: “Bench…sleep…good!”.

However, after looking more closely at my surroundings I saw the following things: a see-saw, a slide, a sandbox…I was about to fall asleep on a bench by a children’s playground. This was all kinds of disturbing. I had to find another place to sleep.

Gathering up my remaining energy I walked on until, amazingly, I saw a train station! It was like finding an oasis in the dessert. It solved every single problem I had. I could sleep in comfort and then take a train home in the morning. Having arranged a few chairs into a makeshift bed, I fell asleep…

I’m very…cat-like…when I sleep

…at around 6:00 in the morning I was woken up by two elderly women shaking me by the shoulder. They seemed quite annoyed. Speaking frantically over each other they emphatically told me I wasn’t allowed to sleep there.

I answered with: “Why not? I’m just waiting for a train!”. They paused and looked at me like I was wearing a hockey mask and chewing crayons (two things that are very difficult to do simultaneously, by the way).

At last, one of them spoke: “But this…this is a school!”…

…and that was the day I’d learned about a little-known side effect of alcohol – it makes schools and train stations look remarkably similar. Also, it may result in people forever referring to you as “that mad guy who was waiting for a train in our school”.

So, in conclusion, don’t ever drink! Unless you can get your hands on a Black Russian. That stuff’s delicious!

Those who live in glass houses?

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My last walk down memory lane was a harrowing tale of how I survived living with a crazy guy. This time around I bring for your reading pleasure an episode that will let you finally laugh at me (for those who have been doing that all along…well, carry on, I guess).

Many of you will be utterly shocked to hear this, but I used to be a student once. I went to a Copenhagen business school called …Copenhagen Business School (BAM!). It was actually a university, but if I said that in my last line it wouldn’t have been as effective. Also, having to explain my lines is probably not a sign of their effectiveness…

The year was 2004 and it was the first semester of my Master’s degree. During the intro week CBS was throwing a huge party for all the new students, because nothing creates a healthy study environment like getting shitfaced together. The venue for the occasion was a bar called Nexus. That may sound pretty awesome, until you hear that the bar is located inside the university’s main building. On second thought, that probably makes it double as awesome? I dunno, I’m not sure what the kids consider cool these days.

YoYos are still cool, right?

We were quite a few people, since students from other lines were also invited, so the bar on its own was insufficient to house all of us. This problem was solved by placing tables and chairs outside of the bar, yet within the main building. Everyone knows that sitting on a chair outside a bar is almost exactly like being inside of it!

Nexus is separated from the inside of the building by a set of huge glass walls. This sort of allows everyone (those on the outside as well as inside) to still feel like they’re at the same party. Just like fish tanks allow fish to hang with humans.

I’d spent the first hour of the evening inside Nexus meeting new classmates-to-be. At some point I needed a toilet break and so headed out into the main building. I have a tendency to walk very fast, as if I’m in a hurry or on a mission, regardless of where I’m heading. Must be a remnant of that one time I had a bomb strapped to me, set to explode if I walked slower than 50km/hour. Or maybe that was a movie.

Pretty sure it was a documentary on BBC

So, I proceeded at my usual quick pace towards the crowd of mingling students outside the bar, making eye contact with some of the girls and exchanging smiles (cause I’m suave and cause making eye-contact is much easier than actually talking to them). I was feeling completely in my element…

…right up until the point where my upbeat march was brought to an abrupt end by a full-speed frontal collision with Nexus’ glass wall. The glass shook and my nose and chin left visible smudges on its surface. The impact was so loud that most people had interrupted their conversations and hundreds of pairs of eyes stared at me for a what felt like an eternity, while I stood there rubbing my nose.

Icing on the cake (or salt on the wound, same thing) was when I’d introduced myself to a girl in my class a bit later in the evening. Trying to break the ice I’d started to tell her the story of my walking into the window (because making myself look stupid has always worked wonders for my dating life). She interrupted me mid-story and said, coolly: “Yeah…I saw”.

I guess it wasn’t only the glass I’d made an impression on…