May 07, 2003 : long time, no entries.
Why? Because Bobbie is here and life at our little apartment is jam packed with all sorts of interesting scheduling. I swear that this must be the busiest part of my 2003, which promises to only get more and more busy the closer it gets to mid-June.
First and foremost, Bobbie and I have been trekking all over Belgium to attend various meetings of various sorts. Namely job prospects for me (yay!) as well as everything to do with my end-of-year-tentoonstelling. (By the way, Eva corrected me last night in my pronunciation of that word, so forgive me if I've been saying it the wrong way for several months now!)
On our first trip to Gent, Bobbie was supposed to wait by the bridge, and an hour and a half later, I return to the bridge only to not find her. We had had plans to stay in Gent for the afternoon, but she was no-where to be found. I waited on the bridge for another couple of hours and then headed to the station. I figured, well she's got her trainpass, so she can get back to Antwerp if she wants. Of course I was mildly worried, but I wasn't about to track down the American needle in the the gorgeous haystack of Gent.
Just 5 minutes before I was going to hop a train back to Antwerp, I see her. End of story.
Basically it's been jam packed. I should ask Bobbie for a synopsis of what she wrote in her mole-skin journal while she was here. Nothing about the "Andrea's too busy for me" as that is my worst fear, but at least something so I can tell what all we've done.
So I suppose that's the news I have to report.
May 12, 2003 : a promise
I know it seems that I have dropped off the earth, but I'll have you know that you should expect an update later on in the evening.
To put it simply, I've been really really busy. :)
Tot ziens,
Andrea
-------------------------
To put things simply, Bobbie's visit saw me running to the far reaches of Belgium for various reasons, job interviews, freelance possibilities, dinners with friends, and more. I felt rotten about Bobbie's being here. Not that it was bad that she was here, it was bad that I was so busy and poor when she was here! If only she had come 2 months ago when the biggest highlight of my day was writing a journal and eating pumpkin and tomato soup!
Today, as well, was just as busy. I got up with Eva so that I could finish printing the mock-ups I had to take to Gent. They were supposed to be there by noon, but after making a trip to Carrefour's to buy a round of black ink, well I was running behind. Good ol' glue-stick and exacto knife in hand, I printed, glued, pressed, and before I know it, it was 12:30, I was still in Antwerp, and the two pieces were finished.
Not wanting to be completely out of line, I called the lady at the agency to let her know that I was running behind. She didn't seem to mind at all, and so I hopped in the car and sped all the way to Gent. It's terrible to have to take a road that you know is under road construction. It's ok when you can drive away from the destination knowing full well that you have several hours to make it back to where you want to go, so it doesn't matter if you take a side-route into Germany or over to the coast, you'll get to Antwerpen soon enough.
It's not that the road construction stops traffic, they've just made it that two narrow lanes business, where the white-knuckled people ease back into straddling the center line after someone passes them. It sure feels like you don't have much room, but in all honesty, when a big BMW passes another it actually appears that they have gobs of room. Granted, they're sided by concrete, but still, there's room. That's what I keep telling myself when I'm the person wanting to go the prescribed speed limit instead of hanging out behind the white-knuckles. There's room, Andrea, there's room.
In Gent, I twist and turn and pull up to the exact point of where I want to be. I park, I pay for a parking stub (out of 10 cent pieces!) and ring the doorbell. I try three times. No answer. What to do? Finally I ring again, and I walk in only to see that only one person is there, who asks me to kindly leave the package and write out a quote.
Funny part of the story goes as follows. Last week I emailed a quote for the entire project, creation, mock-up, and post-production. I knew it had been a low number, but after consulting with friends and Eva, I realized it was REALLY low. This morning I wrote another email that said, "well look, I have to re-quote it, as I've been told that I would be ruining the global freelancing trade by having such low numbers" and promised a new quote...to which she responded that she had never received the first quote.
So there on a piece of paper I scribbled out a price (lump sum) and made my way back to Debbie and back to Antwerp before heading out again to Hoboken for school.
After arriving home, I get a phone call from the money-person at the agency who tells me that my quote is extremely high and that they can't pay that much. That the price was fine if it had been for the whole project, but not a price for the dummies...to which I replied, well it was for the lump-total, and not just for the dummies. (apparently I had misunderstood completely)
So much for my attempt at legally freelancing in Belgium. I most likely have botched the opportunity for me to work with them again (do to stupidity and misunderstanding) and who knows if I'll get paid for the creation and making of dummies.
On at my dutch lessons, I humbly apologized that I had missed the infamous couscous cook-off last week and I promised that I would attempt to bring something American in to eat. (not bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches, and not ribs drowned in barbecue sauce!) That was, of course, a joke, as our resident Taiwanese is vegetarian, and the rest of the group minus a couple of people, don't eat pork.
We, of course, had great fun. I asked Lut if we were going to talk about the elections coming up in Belgium, and before we knew it we were in a great discussion about it. One man who rarely speaks at all, went on and on how not every black-haired youth is a Moroccan. That everyone things if someone has black hair that they must be an immigrant from Morocco. He went on and on about it. I suppose he made his point when he said that Abu Ja Ja wasn't Moroccan either. Most of the rest of us said, "no? he's not?" And the man said, "See? just because he's got black hair..." :) To which we all chuckled a bit.
I thought it was dead interesting. I almost didn't want the class to end.
I came home and Eva and I went up the street to get fries. She waited outside talking to one of her friends, and I went inside to order and chat-it-up with the lady inside. When we first moved here, I thought she was sort of mean. Now, however, she's so nice and is really patient with me about my Dutch. It's funny how I was standing there thinking "what else can I tell her?" whenever there was a pause. I suppose I was having a fairly decent nederlands day, and I just didn't want the English to take over. (which it did, when we started watching Inspector Frost.)
IN THE NEWS:
Hours before a visit by the American secretary of state, four explosions rocked the Saudi capital late Monday, including car bomb attacks at compounds housing Americans and other Westerners. The attack that killed more than two dozen people, including eight Americans.
May 14, 2003 : no yoga, lunch, dinner, no yoga
We had originally planned on being very strict with our yoga practice at night. It was so great for the first two nights to go to bed so relaxed and exhausted. But last night we stayed up so late, that we didn't have time to do it. Obviously it's an excuse, but it takes us at least an hour to get set up, do the routine, and then get to bed. I'm beginning to think that our being graceful and our really-slow motions are a bit too graceful and slow. I suppose we just have to concentrate more to be graceful! :)
The weather here in Antwerp/Belgium is as schizophrenic as ever. It's living up to the saying that in Belgium one can have 10 seasons in one day. This morning it was nice for a spell and then broke out into drizzle. It is, in fact, quite chilly, and the rain doesn't help much on that account. I would, however, choose chilly over humidity any day.
Today I went to Mechelen to meet Eva. I had already stuffed myself full of an egg-salad sandwich, so I vowed not to eat anything additional. (my form of dieting!) Apparently her boss is now starting to time people and their length of lunches, something I find completely ridiculous in a company the size of Lu's Paragraph. If it's a corporation, where long-lunchers can remain undetected for hours upon hours it's a somewhat different story. I'm all about trusting employees though. I suppose I was in a very extreme situation of trust at Tellme, but even at GalvinKemper were we "allowed" the occasional long-lunch to make up for the times that we ate and worked at the same time. It all evened out in the end.
All of this to say that Eva readied her watch. She knew exactly what time she had to be back and not a second before or after. We decided to kill two birds with one stone (very violent saying, isn't it?!?) and went to Del Haize to buy spaghetti sauce, a sandwich for Eva, and any additional things we wanted to buy. We were wanting to buy bubbly/sparkling red wine as well (we tried it at Fredrick's and Anne's a couple of weekends ago and it's delicious!) but as soon as we had it in our hand, we put it back and said, "maybe next month."
We checked out and headed to the car where I sampled a wasa and fake-meat pseudo-sandwich, and Eva munched on her chircurzo (Italian pepperoni with strange bits in it) broodje. There in the privacy and rain-protection of our car, we had the most wonderful picnic, with even the occasional remark of, "20 minutes to go..."
We've decided that we should do this occasionally, only realizing how fun it is after we've had the car for almost two months already and she only has a little over a month left at her job.
We are still, of course, occasionally freaking out about what happens after November. We're actually only trying to think in reference to July. I say we should go away to Barcelona for a couple of days after she's out of work and I'm done with school. Only then will we be able to truly get ourselves straightened out.
Tonight, after a dinner of meaty spaghetti for Eva and tomato sauce with meat-ball spaghetti for me, we stumbled upon our back-burner option.
Today I sent even more emails regarding teaching positions in the states knowing full well that only a handful will get back to me. Besides, school's out in most universities I expect, so the teachers are probably either about to rest or in full end-of-year swing. (so am I, for that matter!)
Our back-burner option is heading off to Paraguay. Ok, so it's not the most feasible option, but it sure lights up Eva's eyes when we talk about it. What are the chances that we can legally be in the same place at the same time after my visa runs out? Besides, I want to learn Spanish, I owe it to myself. Well, like I said, it's a back-burner idea.
So no yoga tonight either. Eva sat on the couch until nearly 2 in the morning working on emails, updating her CV, and scheming for ways to convince schools that she would be a great teacher. I sat at this computer staring blankly at the screen wondering what I should do next. When it gets to the point when there's no more internet/computer stuff left to do, I suppose it's time to do something else. I should have switched to War and Peace. I'm only a hundred pages to the end.
IN THE NEWS:
Well I wish I could still find the story. Maybe it was so troubling that they decided to remove it. The New York Times reported that the US had told their soldiers working in Iraq that they could shoot looters on site as to curb the looting currently going on. Someone was even quoted as saying that shooting a few would send a message to the others, though they admitted that they didn't know how to tell the Iraqi people of the new trend.
May 15, 2003 : a night with leila
Since Susan is in southern France, it seems that we've seen quite a bit of Leila this week. Tonight she came over at a fairly late hour (she's always welcome) to work out her problems with politics with Eva.
I was busy bolding, deleting, and fixing my soon-to-be home-bound journal printout while they had a nice discussion on the couch next to me. Over the past few days I've been working in that same position (laptop on lap! how true-to-name!) for hours at a time. I was so engrossed in journals from yesteryear, that I didn't care how animated they were in their speech or if they ever spoke English. At first I tried to follow along, but I soon realized that they were not into langzaam, and I was too stressed about the project at hand, so I just found myself deeper and deeper in the spring of 2002.
They left to go grab a bite to eat and Eva promised to return with a beer. As I had been siting in the same position for nearly 4 hours, I switched to the kitchen table. At 2 in the morning I heard them outside, saying their goodbyes two stories down from our open window. A few minutes later, Eva returned with a beer that I couldn't possibly drink because I was now officially exhausted.
She caught me up on a bit of Leila's political quandaries while I shut down the computer and brushed my teeth. It was one of those nights when we had eacj so perfectly done our own thing (most of which occurred in a 6 foot by 6 foot area of our house) that we could have laughed about it.
Thank god it's a Thursday and that tomorrow is a Friday which means that Eva won't mind that she was up until 2+.
IN THE NEWS:
Today China threatened execution for people who knowingly spread the SARS virus and cause death or serious injury, as the government attempted to force compliance with quarantines and other measures to stop the disease.
May 16, 2003 : mouloud and big houses
Today I met my friend Mouloud from my Dutch class. We met at the library in central Antwerp, got a coffee and headed out to the little garden surrounded on all sides by the building housing books. Is was one of the most beautiful days this year. It was the perfect temperature to where a t-shirt and a light jacket and sit in the sun. I told him, "look, Mouloud, we're not going to study in the library today, let's go somewhere else."
There was no possible way I could have endured sitting inside with it so beautiful outside. We've had so many days of drizzle that the whole of Flanders was ready to sit in a cafe and drink a beer and practice a new language. :)
We headed over to a student-area square over by Eva's old university. We sat there in the sun, drank a few beers, and spoke only in Dutch for 4 hours. We talked about everything, from Belgium to politics, to my being a lesbian to what it's like in Morocco. Though I'm sure some of the people in our class have just as much to say in their native tongue, somehow we've managed to understand each other to an extent in a new one--though in the summer months I imagine that he'll become light-years better than me in Dutch, as he studies several hours a day. (maybe that's a good challenge!)
We parted ways and I told him that in light of Leila's political crisis last night, that I would try to see if the four of us could get together tomorrow sometime. I told him that he could even resort to French sense Eva and Leila are fine/great in French as well. Once again, I'd just be in my own little world with language flying all around me. I don't mind, I'm sort of used to it.
I came home, hopped in the car, and went to pick up Eva only to learn that her former co-workers (read: fired co-workers) had decided to come by for a drink with their old co-workers. (read: people that still work there)
Eva works/worked with a great group of people, so I never mind getting together with them. I was starving by this time and went to the frituur stand and waited 20 minutes (for no apparent reason) for my viandel before heading into the cafe to drink with them. I wasn't really in the mood to drink anymore or be really social, but I did my best.
Sometimes I get slaps in the face that I'm not in one-state-away from Kansas anymore and today I was reminded of this fact several times. The cafe was full of people from your typical old-men bar flies to young working-types celebrating the fact that it's a Friday (Eva's category) to bikers who were pedaling by and decided to drop in. Am I mistaken, or is this not a part of American culture. Duh, I live in Belgium now. :)
We came home and I plunked myself in front of the off-TV and stuck myself deep into the lengthy entries of last year. In a few weeks I should be a master of do-it-yourself book binding and will probably be so bad at it that I'll never want to do it again. As for Eva, she slept. Once again, we were so good at doing our own thing in a 6 foot by 6 foot portion of our apartment that it was almost laughable.
IN THE NEWS:
Just days after U.S. officials warned of possible worldwide attacks by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, a quick succession of five suicide bombings in Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco, killed 31 bystanders and 10 terrorists Friday night, officials said. The Moroccan government did not directly implicate al-Qaida, but the attacks confirmed fears that terrorists are striking lightly defended sites. The buildings targeted Friday were the Casa de Espana, a Jewish community center called the Israelite Community Circle, an old Jewish cemetery, the Belgian Consulate and a major downtown hotel. (consequently, since Friday evenings are a part of the Jewish Sabbath, the community center was empty.)
May 17, 2003 : a night out with mouloud
Today Eva and I ran some errands in perfect harmony and then ran into a snag over my working at Cafe Den Draag. We both think that it's a great idea for my learning Dutch, but somehow or another I have interpreted her lack of helping me do the wee bit of paperwork for it as her being unenthusiastic. Well we ran into the snag, repaired the snag, and then met Mouloud in town at Mama's Garden.
Eva and I were running about 10 minutes late, but as fast as we pedaled, we made it there in record-time and were only 5 minutes late. I wanted her to meet Mouloud since I talk about him a great deal, and because I think he's pretty interesting. As I mentioned before, I knew that French would be easier for him, so the night was half Dutch and half French which meant that it was half paying attention and half not. I didn't mind at all. I love to hear Eva speak French, so I got a kick out of it anyway.
Well let me tell you something! Learning a new language is totally cool! When you start understanding without having to translate in your head, well it's damn cool! I don't know how to describe it. I'm spoken more Dutch in the last two days than I have in any two-day time span since I've been here, and I can't imagine what it would do to me if I did twice as much. It's like I'm always on the verge of another breakthrough, just like I'll never forget the word vlagbij (that's spelled wrong) after the fact that yesterday I couldn't remember the word at all. Now it's stuck somewhere and somehow. Where on earth does it go? And does it mean that these new words are forcing out wonderful remembrances from childhood? ;) No, I know, there's room enough for my childhood as well as 10 more languages. Bizarre.
We went from cafe to cafe along with Mouloud, showing him some cool places where we like to grab the occasional beer. The underground cellar bar and the typically Belgian cafe where we had a few drinks back with Liesbet and Sophie several months ago. Eva had him try a couple new beers and only after he'd said that he liked Hoegarden did she tell him it was a "woman's beer." He said, "What?" And the three of us laughed and she kept promising him that it was only sort-of a women's-type beer, but that many guys drank it. I don't know if he was convinced.
It started raining again, but since we were dirt-broke and Eva had promised Leila that she'd vote with her early in the morning, well we headed home. We escorted him to the tram and we pedaled home. It's funny that I had wished that it would be sprinkling on the way home, as I knew that it would make coming home twice as nice. We peeled off our damp clothing and climbed into heaven, with me thinking thoughts of agelev and Eva thinking thoughts of more windmills and social initiatives.
IN THE NEWS:
A top Vatican official acknowledged today what many observers have long suspected — that Pope John Paul II suffers from Parkinson's disease. He said the pontiff's prayers helped him cope with the degenerative neurological disorder.
May 18, 2003 : elections and a sad day for green
Politics has been on everyone's mind here lately. Today was the big day. I can't help but be enthusiastic over such an election when the voters here have so many options! I'm sure if you asked people here they'd say that they either had too many or not enough, but I just think they should be happy that they have more than two.
Eva went to vote early in the morning with Leila. Apparently they had a great time together (they always do) and were making other people laugh in line by saying things like, "Hey, I'll stand up there and say you're voting for such and such party" and the other said, "if you say that, then I'll stand over there and say that you're not even Belgian..." and it went on and on. At least they were showing some good ol' humor in the face of Belgians verplichting (?) (required) voting practices. Apparently you get a steep fine if you are 18 and over and don't vote.
There are pros and cons to this issue, but I can't defend it either way. On one had it's nice to force people into participating, and on the other hand, well people who don't care probably don't sit up all night toiling over which party to vote for and simply vote the party of their parents.
I got up and did the laundry. While folding my clothes a black guy with dreadlocks started up a conversation with me. "Did you vote or are you not Belgian?"
I said, "Not Belgian." And we proceeded to talk for about 15 minutes or more about the politics of the world. He been here for 6 years after coming from East Africa and is a welder. He had all sorts of interesting tidbits to share, and it was great to see a working man fold his clothes so precisely. :) We talked about American politics and fear in general. He said that we couldn't let fear control where we traveled and where we went dancing, and I couldn't agree more. He also said that he gets really pissed off when Belgian people he works with get pissed that he's a foreigner working in Belgium. "I'm working in conditions that are hazardous to my health, just trying to make a better life, and still they give me shit." Yeah, that's not quite fair, is it?
Back at the house we had a house-guest. Tom dropped by just to chit-chat, and it's great when people just stop by. When he left, Eva and I headed to Broechem to her mother's house to eat dinner and watched the results.
SP.A-Spirit did very well this time around as well as the Vlaams Blok (a fascist, right-wing anti-immigration party) and much to my disappointment, the green party (typical in the fact that they are more eco-minded) did very poorly. I suppose it's to be expected, as they did really well last time around because of a chicken disease, but they did noticeably horribly.
When I did the stem-tests (voting tests) last week on the internet, I had both SP.A-Spirit and Agelev (the green party) as my top two both times. I'd go green only because if we don't go green now, the less likely we are next time around and so forth. What does it take for people to realize that the environment is important? I suppose I am looking at it from the American perspective, as we only have two parties to choose from, and if you vote outside of those parties, then you're practically throwing your vote away. It was never more obvious than in the last presidential election in the states which I won't get into.
I like the concept that you at least have more of a choice. You at least have more of an opportunity to vote for someone with alliances and beliefs closer to your own. It would probably revolutionize the US system if we had some sort of options like they have here. Granted, politicians will always be out-of-touch with what the common people want/need/think, but at least you have more of a voice. Besides, I like the concept that different parties have to work together. Back in the states it seems more like they have to work against each other for democracy to work.
So politics. We watched and listened to the results and I did more watching than listening. Everyone seemed to think it was quite funny that my not-listening made me notice completely random things on the television. In once instance, it was a guy in the background with his red T-shirt and emblem right next to the speaker's head. In another, it was a man behind the speaker who was checking himself out on the monitor, making faces, looking at the camera, checking himself out again, and on and on doing the same thing. In another instance it was the interviewer and his leading the speaker on with his placement and removal of the microphone. In another it was the Vlaams Blok centerfold-lawyer and her neck-tie outfit. (it was a suit-coat and a simply a necktie as the shirt!) In another instance, it was the guy I spoke to at Gay Pride, Steve, the man from Hassalt, speaking like he had a mouth full of water. In another setting, it was a hoarse man who seemed like he was constantly on the verge of burping.
I've also decided that I'm probably not cut out for TV politics. I'd probably do fine on the radio, but if I had to be on TV during such interviews as what we saw tonight (primarily speaking of the green party's Mieke Vogels), I'd probably flush so bright red in the face that people would start adjusting their TVs. I'd also be prone to cry or at least get really mushy on occasion due to either excitement, anger or emotion in general.
It was fairly exciting, though not as exciting as the city-elections that took place when I was visiting Belgium back in 2000. Back then, everyone was glued to the screen because of what the Vlaams Blok was going to do in Antwerp. Today, it was simply bits of disappointment mixed with sentiments that the makeup of the government was going to be ok this time around.
Eva and I came home, dropped Joris off, and set to giving ourselves a half-hour to prioritize our week/future. We both made a list of what we should do this week in respect to my staying on an additional year in Belgium, and made some headway. Apparently this will involve getting a piece of paper that proves that I'm not married in the states and that piece of paper alone should be a great hurdle to overcome in reference to staying. I would be easy if you simply looked up "how to get proof that you're not married" in yahoo or google, but I had to do a bit more detailed searching.
There is still no news on my show whereabouts in June, but I'm still hopeful that this will be the week I make great headway in that category.
IN THE NEWS:
Belgian voters gave Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's coalition of socialists and free trade-minded liberals another four years in office and backing to proceed with its program of economic reforms and tax breaks. With almost complete results in, the Liberals won 47 seat and the Socialists 46 for a total of 93 of the 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives. Final results were expected by Monday. But the Greens, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's junior coalition partner, suffered a huge defeat in Dutch-speaking Flanders and Wallonia, Belgium's French-speaking southern half. Their loss was as remarkable as the gain of the anti-immigration Flemish Bloc and the failure of Christian democrats to return to power after four years in opposition.
May 20, 2003 : shock and awe
I am borrowing the term from the war with Iraq, but don't confuse my using the verbage as anything more than the words themselves. Shock and Awe.
In my Dutch classes I'm friends/partners with a girl called Fouzia. She's one of those people that if we could express ourselves in a common language (dutch does not count), we'd be great friends. (this is the vibe I get)
I've been thinking that during the summer the two of us could get together over coffee or something, just to practice our new language. That's how it all started. Simple enough. I know she likes coffee, I've heard her say it, and so I thought today might be the day that I discussed the option with her.
We were filling out a worksheet about what expenses we have living here, we came up with the usual stuff; electricity, rent, food-stuff, etc and then it came down to the question of cafes.
Eva and I don't spend all that much on "going out" but Fouzia doesn't spend anything on eating out at restaurants or nights on the town. she doesn't do either one. Then I thought of the concept of Belgian coffee. I said, "you've never had a belgian coffee with it's little cup and saucer, little cookie, and little bit of milk?" To which she said, "no." I was so shocked that I told Lut the same thing. Fouzia has never had a Belgian coffee.
Then hell broke loose. Or rather language broke loose.
Now let me describe another person in our class. Muhommed. We have two guys with the same name, but the younger one is a striking character, as he seems a great guy. He's calm, easy to get along with, funny in class, and just one of those "good guys." Of course he's Muslim, who isn't in our class?
Well in his best Dutch he starts telling us that a women's place is in the home and in school. He only added school when Mouloud reminded him that we had two Moroccan women in our class.
Thankfully we had Mouloud with the far-left though in there to stew the fire. It was completely amazing. The rest of us sat there trying to figure out what all the shouting was about. We could make out only a few things. Mouloud was saying that Muhommad was backwards and had a closed mind along with anyone who thought the same way. The two girls were saying that they agreed with Muhommed, and that they'd be looked down upon if they ventured to go out on the town.
It aweed me. It also sicked my heart a bit. Just when you think we're as close as we can be to being in the same age and of the same frame of mind, the coffee conversation drops out of my mouth and leads us on a windy path to the unknown.
I left no knowing what the state of the country was in...or the state of the world. And then I asked Fouzia "why." I just wanted a simple answer. I totall respect people if they provide a clear reason. If you have a reason, it gives weight to your belief. She told me nothing except, "that's how it is."
I came home pretty numb from the whole experience. The "coffee experience." All I had wanted to do was drink a coffee in the Belgian sun sometime in the next few months. Now it's not only a impossibility, its not going to happen. It makes me sad.
IN THE NEWS:
Canada said today it had found a case of mad cow disease in the western province of Alberta but stressed that the affected animal -- the first mad cow case in a decade in Canada -- had not entered the food chain.
May 23, 2003 : ik ben bang
Not really scared, but that's the only word I know at the moment. In just a half hour, I start my first cafe job in an effort to make leaps and bounds in my Dutch. :)
I've already been to the library this morning with Mouloud. We had a nice time going over werkworden and putting them into tenses and sentences. Our exam isn't for another couple of weeks, and apparently it's quite easy, but he's the sort that wants to excell, so I'll attempt to excell as well.
As I start thinking about working here in Belgium (not just the cafe job) I start thinking about how to organize my time. I'm looking forward to having to organize it better and thus get more done (the same amount done) in much less time than it currently takes me. Now I can take all day to simply take a shower, get dressed, and be productive, but soon (hopefully) I'll have to cut that time in half and still find time to work on the occasional art project, read a book, and spend time with Eva.
June should prove to be a test of my inner strength, motivation, and problem-solving ability. I'm actually looking forward to it, as I can already invision the work still ahead of me as well as the knee-deep-in-work that I'm currently doing. Just taking last year's journal and formatting and fixing it into a printable format has taken more than a week. (I'm still working on it)
Unfortunately, this journal has been moved to the backburner, and actually so much has happened in this week alone, that I've practically been busier this week than last week. This is actually a good thing, as I haven't had to spend any money that we haven't had. Even going to Brussels by car yesterday saved us about 15 Euro. If only the people had still voted Green...maybe that would change. ;)
More later when I see if I'm cut out to make this learn-dutch-in-a-cafe-setting work.
Notes to self regarding thigs to get finished this evening...
- email Koen about schoenen
- email gent people again
- send off technical rider for argos/sint-lukas space (additional spaces)
- attempt to get through remaining portion of bound-journal
- help lay out Eva's letters for schools
- use ground pork and beef meet and/or the porkchop in dinner.
May 24, 2003 : my own eurovisie...
We went to Amsterdam to visit Eva's childhood friend Elke, picking up an additional childhood friend Ellen in Antwerp before heading out. Don't ask me how I handled the stress of going on a mini-vacation during the middle of my busy time! (I handled it ok...)
Little Debbie handled the trip very well and we arrived in Amsterdam, parked our car, and headed into town to pick up the dinner fixings.
I don't know what it is about Holland in particular, but I absolutely love it. I'm not talking about architecture or the glottal "g" I'm talking about like in general. It's beautiful there. Amsterdam has to be one of the most-alive cities I've ever been in. It's not that the city is cool, but it's the inwoners. :)
Whenever I go to Amsterdam I'm always a little overwhelmed by it. I get in the sort of mood where I feel that life is too short and that life itself is hurling at speeds I don't want to even mention. Thankfully, Eva gets that way too so it's not just me bumming our little couple out, we were both sort of bummed. It's terrible to be bummed when you are in the company of good friends. But what can I say, it's sortof Elke's fault since she lives there. :)
I'm also reminded in times such as these that Amsterdam is only a couple of hours away. (note to self, go more often and therefore either silence the bum inside of you or just make it so bad you never go back.) It's so bad that I'm close to crying most of the time when I'm there. I suppose that's a bit extreme, but it's something like crying, like my soul is completely burdened by my being there! I suppose it doesn't help that I'm on my period.
We came back to find that we were 30 minutes over on the parking space with only a couple of hours more to go before it became "free parking." Thus, we ended up with our first parking ticket. My very first EVER, and my first violation in Europe.
(this also bummed me out, as we are so short of cash we are thinking of going into counterfeiting.)
I was also sort of bummed out because whilst shopping, we realized that Elke was going to make a dish with fish. I abhor fish, and kindly requested that Eva drop the hint that I really didn't care for fish and that I was deeply sorry about it. Elke didn't seem to care and was happy to fix me a chicken alternative, since all of the dishes were per-person only and not one lump dish. Whew!
We came back home, ate dinner and then settled in for the last-half of Eurovision. I had wanted to watch the entire thing, as I think it's one of the most novel of all tv-cultural-pop-gimicks. We, however, only caught the last half and didn't realize that Belgium was sort of in-the-running.
When the votes started pouring in, we realized that Belgium was doing very well. So well in fact that we were always running neck-in-neck with Turkey. We got so animated that everyone was laughing at themselves and at the thought that Belgium might just win. We even made plans that if Belgium DID win, we were all going to go to the Eurovion festival next year.
But, our joy ran into slight depression when Turkey edged us (I'm considering myself a Belgium at this point in time) when they won by 2 points. Damn!
A little wine later and everyone was ready for bed. Eva and I got a good nights sleep on a mattress that made us promise ourselves that once we figure out our lives (ha ha ha) we too will get a good nights sleep and buy ourselves a cheap, but better than decent mattress.
IN THE NEWS:
Turkey wins the Eurovision Song Festival.
May 28, 2003 : sunny days spent inside
I headed to Brussels today with the temperature and sky so welcoming it nearly brought tears to my eyes. I spent much of the winter inside tending to things sometimes not worth tending to, and now I'm as busy as I can possibly be...and I have to spend it indoors.
I headed to the train station in a t-shirt (!) with my mp3 player's earplugs stuck deep into my ears. If I couldn't spend the entire day outside, I was at least going to make the most of my walks to the station and from the station.
At the station I stood patiently in line with half of the population of Antwerp. There's nothing extrorinarly about today except the fact that tomorrow is a holiday which no one seems to know what it's about. (I'm sure there are a few that know, it's just that the people I've asked don't.) The person in line stood there putting away her things when I noticed that her hands were connected to smallish arms at right angles instead of just connected. One wouldn't have been able to tell by looking at her from the line, she looked like any other Belgian off on a holiday, or perhaps work-oriented, trip on the Belgian railways. I'm always caught a bit off guard (who isn't) when I see someone that looks obviously different. I wanted to stare but quickly found myself digging around in my bag, playing with the leather bit of my new wallet, out of avoidence and respect.
On the platform I diligently searched for a pen and had I not found it, I would have asked to borrow one from a group of 4 American women who were obviously headed to Brussels as well. It's like I would have found any excuse to chat-it-up with them, all for the sake of language.
On the train, I heard something I've never heard before. In fact, I heard two things I've never heard before. One was an announcement in 3 languages (Dutch, French and English) that there were "pickpocketers on board the train" and that we should "carefully guard our personal belongings." The additional newbie, was the announcement that we had arrived in Brussels North...this time in 4 languages (the addition of Spanish.)
I headed on into school, sought out the key to the room, and busied myself with printing the first year of this journal. I had already inquired if the printer was set up and if everything was configured properly. What did I find? The macs have no Word and Appleworks butchers images and layout, and that the PC wasn't connected to the printer. 3 hours later, after much fixing and figuring out with the help of a fellow transmedian, I started printing.
To be quite frank, I still am printing.
to be continued
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