Cheese II: Conte

Today, I purchased a modest piece of Conte cheese from France. What Anne, the delightful attendant at Grand Fromage in Aarhus explained to me briefly was that Conte is a "hard" cheese made from cow's milk. It is normally 6-8 months in age, though the sample she sold to me was 18 months old. She advised that I take it ut of the refrigerator and let it sit for a while before nibbling on it as it will open up in much the same way a bottle of good red will open up its secrets to you after decanting. If attentive, I should be abl to pick up traces of nuts, perhaps even berries, as I slowly consume the Conte.

My impressions? To be announced!

First Day of Class

Today, at 14:15, we had our first class of the Master's program. This was the first class of the first course (or module) of this first semester. The course is "Reorting Gobal Change" and is scheduled to run a month. It is facilitated by Hans-Henrik Holm, a dynamic and entertaining professor of journalism at the Danish School of Journalism -- but who seems to know a lot more about political theory and international relations that any of us suspected.

In fact, the readings for this first course are quite exciting (in my opinion). We started today by looking at competing theories of the state and we discussed (briefly) Hobbes, Kant, and Grotius. This is great stuff!

A quick look at the readings for the remainder of this particular course reveals many other fascinating thinkers and ideas: Huntington, Fukuyama, Barber; globalization, non-state actors, unipolarity. You could reduce it to three words and I would be happy wih the description: market, state, and utopia (I'll explain this later).

Now I am in my room trying to catch up on the missing entries for this blog. I'll be back shortly.