Today I had an appointment with the headmaster at the British school to see if there were any options available for me at the school next year. As the school is relatively close by, I gave myself just enough time to make it there and be "right on time." As it usually goes, I waited until the last possible moment to leave. My last-possible moments were spent gathering together my Dutch homework which I planned on taking to the library after my meeting.

I ran out our door and headed downstairs only to do what I've been expecting to do since the day we moved in here. I fell down the stairs. It's practically a spiral staircase, only it's not. Apparently my heel was on the smaller side of the step and I wasn't balanced due to speed, load, and lack of grace. I fell basically all the way to the next landing and was surprised not to find myself with any broken bones. (like a broken finger) I stood there in shock and pain for a minute or two more stunned than anything. I knew I had an imprint of the stair in my behind, as it was definitely tender there. I hobbled downstairs to the bike and road on to the school not wanting misfortune to make me late.

I pulled in across from the school (in the church where we last saw K's Choice) and hurriedly readied my bike lock only to realize I didn't have the keys FOR the bike lock. One can't leave a bike unattended, so I took a scrap piece of duct-tape (it's proving to come in rather handy, isn't it?) from off of my bike (there are pieces to hold the back mudflap on) and made it to where it appeared that my bike was, indeed, locked, and headed inside.

Nothing much to mention there except for the fact that I'm supposed to call him back again in June to see if anything has opened up.

My duct-tape concept worked during my short visit with the headmaster, but I decided not to press my luck by taking the key-less-lock to the central library. Instead I came home, promptly did the remaining portions of my Dutch homework, and applied to at least half a dozen jobs. That's what I do in my spare time, I apply to jobs here in Belgium. Everything from help-desk in English, English tech-support for programs, design positions, internships in user-interface, contract-work web design...you name it. Out of the nearly 50 or more I've emailed out, only 2 have replied with positive comments. (actually, more have replied with positive comments all of which were, "really like you work, it's one of the better ones that we've seen. We're sorry, you're overqualified or the position has been filled." Damn.

I headed to Dutch class tonight and settled in with one of the altijd-arabish (always arabic) speaking girls. Lut, our teacher, is making a whole-hearted attempt to separate the two of them. Not to be evil (as it first seemed to the two of them) but to be helpful. She actually asked the girl at the end of the class if it had been good for her to work with me, as at the beginning of class she was sort of pissed about it. "Ja, het was goed voor mijn nederlands." She said, and besides, we had actually had a great time.

I was starving by the time I got home and begged Eva for a quick-food-fix. Fritjes. Sure enough the same sounded good to her as well, so we headed up the street and returned without assortment. Eva actually opted to get a new item, some sort of fish-on-a-stick, and now it seems maybe she'll want to get fries a little more often now that she's found a new like at the frituur. We actually also saved a bit of money there by not getting our mayonnaise and instead using some out of the new bottle we have back home. I suppose we picked this up from Jessica while she was here, though we still haven't mastered the trade of saving our sugar cubes or napkins. (well we do save the napkins from Quick. Now that we've got a car, a car isn't complete if you don't save the napkins in the glove compartment?!)

IN THE NEWS:
Authorities said that rescue workers have recovered 132 bodies after two ferry boats capsized during tropical storms on different Bangladeshi rivers, and hundreds of people were missing.

ALSO IN THE NEWS:
Swaying and chanting, some bleeding from self-inflicted wounds of ritual mourning, an estimated 1 million Shiite Muslims marched to this city's holy shrine today, celebrating their freedom from years of repression by Saddam Hussein's regime.