Random stuff from my life recently

I definitely approve of a country where they enthusiastically celebrate Shrove Tuesday with buns containing cardamom, almond paste and unreasonable amounts of whipped cream, but have very little idea what Lent actually is, let alone any willingness to give up good things.

Chelm stories should not mention the Holocaust. Really. I know there's an actual town called Chelm, but it's not the same as the mythical place where the inhabitants got an extra share of foolishness or wisdom and nobody knows which. And it's deeply creepy to say that 8000 inhabitants were murdered or deported by the Nazis as your introduction to a jolly little story about trying to trade moonlight.

There was a really good and satisfying snowfall this week. I'm a little jealous of Swedish kids who get weather like this reliably for at least a couple of weeks every winter, and get taken on sledging outings during play-time. OK, they don't get a day off school every time a few flakes of snow fall, but still.

Lots of friends and Jewish community folk are really upset about the prospect of my leaving Sweden, even though I haven't committed to anything like that yet. This is making my social interactions a little embarrassing, as people don't know whether to encourage me in job-hunting or hope that everything goes wrong so that I have to stay here. If I actually end up leaving it's going to be unbearable.

I am really enjoying playing with programming for Dreamwidth. It's satisfying, and it makes me regret spending 20 years not coding at all ever.