Day 13 - 17: Making up for lost time

You know, this is very strange! I'm usually not so bad at the blogsphere thing! In fact, I keenly remember when I would spend hours and hours on and around my blog. How the times have changed, eh? ;) Let's see what I can do to keep you up to date on my adventures. Ahem. :p

Day 13: Saturday, March 7

It's getting harder and harder to remember what I actually did last weekend! :/ :/

But, I will try my hardest! Saturday morning was spent sleeping in, mostly. I know y'all probably think I'm the laziest person around, but. Well, yeah. I love sleeping, so sue me! :p And in my defence, I make up for it by staying up pretty late. Plus, I was prepping because from Monday onwards, I would have to get up at an hour that started with SIX!

Okay, enough rambling. :) Saturday afternoon was filled with ironing, mostly. I hadn't actually done any ironing since I was in elementary school and Mom would keep the hankies aside for me to iron. Boy, was that an adventure then! And I guess it was now, as well? ;) After laundry on Friday, ironing was the logical follow-up, much to my displeasure. :p But it was a follow-up, I should add, that I completed without any problems! No clothes damages, nothing set on fire. Once again, go Team Me!

I figure I must have made quite a sight for the old couple next door, though. One of their windows on the second floor is directly opposite mine, so if I leave my curtains open they can see exactly what I'm doing. I imagine it must have been a funny sight to see me half-dancing (ironing sans music? Come on! :p) in a top (sun + ironing makes for high temperatures!) while doing the ironing. :D

Obviously, though, I should keep up with the time better, because by the time all the laundry was ironed and folded (folding is the bane of my existence, no joke. >.<) I only had 30 minutes before we were headed to a birthday party of another Belgian Erasmus student! I know, I know, 2 parties in a row, proof that all Erasmus students do is party. :p Shut up. :p

The party in itself was great fun! There was cake (hooray!) and it turned out the birthday girl's boyfriend and 2 friends had showed up overnight as a surprise! Dutch trumped every other language then, which stumped our fellow Erasmussers a little bit. :p Less German, more Dutch!

Day 14: Sunday, March 8

Sunday was, as most weekend have been lately, also a bit of a lazy day! Although I did try my hand at genuine cooking! And it worked!

Applesauce and chicken, not really a Sunday Dinner (or so Mom said), but it was tasty so who cares, right? It was funny, though, that while I was cooking Regina (a housemate) looked into my pot and went all "Is that...applesauce? And you're...heating it? *perplexed look*" Apparently one of my favourite foods isn't so common here! :p

After the cooking experience I finished Twilight! Finally, too, that book was totally sucking up all the brainspace I had left. And yes, I liked it. :p I'm sure this is making several people go "No! Fia! :o" but yes. :p

Aside from the lazing about, I did get around to some school work, but it's not very interesting so I shan't bore you with it. :) Just thought I should mention it, to prevent you all from thinking that all I do is laze about!

Oh, and because the weather was gorgeous again, I took some more mountain pictures. Yes, I am infatuated with the mountains. I'm going to miss seeing them when I go back home. :( Have some scenery!











Day 15: Monday, March 9

Monday is definitely more clear in my memory! This is mostly because I had to get up at an Ungodly Early Hour. 6:40! I was terribly tempted to just turn around and stay in bed (especially since there wasn't a mother around to knock my door and haul me out of bed ;)) but it couldn't be helped. :(

The early hour thankfully had a decent reason: from March 9 'till March 12 Kevin and myself had signed up for something that's called "Kreativmodul". We'd gathered it meant that we'd be seeing some more creative things to use in the classroom and turned out to be mostly right.

Mrs. Egger had advised us to take 2 of these modules since they stand on their own and as such we'll definitely be able to finish them before I leave. This is necessary because most modules here go on untill halfway through June, a time when we'll be long back in Belgium. The more modules we can finish before we leave, the better!

In school we met up with Veerle, the other Belgian Erasmus student, and proceed to try to find our way to where the module was. As we had suspected, the most common language was German, which was a bit of a problem. Our fellow students seemed quite amused by how we would sit around while the teacher explained the whole deal in German and when he was done, one of us would tap another student on the shoulder and ask them to please explain what we were supposed to do?

The first day turned out to be quite fun! We started out with some sports: Mr. Kirschner (the teacher) pulled out things for tennis, gymnastics, basketball, some circus things (juggling balls, diabolo's, etc etc), badminton and so on. We could choose what we wanted to do.

After the sports, we headed over to the workplace where we were instructed to make simple toys out of wood. Yes, you heard it right, wood. Which requires SAWS! And DRILLS! I was definitely apprehensive and unsure if I'd make it out of there with all limbs still attached. In the end, though, it went great! :D We started making 2 simple toys (that are still too complicated to explain :p) and were really getting into it when at 11am the teacher called us to an end.

We were staring at each other all surprised: we'd been sure the day would last until 3 or 4pm! We'd even brought sandwiches with us! But, nope, we were done for the day. Not at all an unwelcome surprise! ;)

In the afternoon I once again worked for school and started on my short story. I hadn't written anything decent in over a year so I was quite apprehensive, but I could still do it! :D I could still do it a little too well, apparently, because it didn't take me long to cross the 2 page limit the teacher had set us. :p And I hadn't even started on the plot! :/ Cristina had said that the teacher wouldn't mind if I crossed the limit, but at the rate this was going I'd be surprised if I could finish it on 10 pages!

In the end, I decided to cut out one particular scene and hand that one in as my short story and attempt to write the monster out for myself. Still working on that, though. :) Yay writing!

Day 16: Tuesday, March 10th

Another Ungodly Early Morning, another day of creativity! The sesson seemed to start out nicely: we were going to do some basic Tai Chi, something I'd always been interested in!

Unfortunately, I had forgotten the teacher's instructions would all be in German. :( As you can imagine, it's a little hard to relax and center if you constantly have to peek through your eyes to see what your fellow students and/or teacher are doing. :(

The Tai Chi didn't last very long, the gym was apparently taken by the adjoining elementary school, so we (Kevin, Veerle and myself) headed over to the workroom a lot sooner than yesterday to work more on our toys. We were given a third toy to start and complete, more woodwork, hooray! \o/

After the toymaking, we went to the next room where we proceeded to make plasticine out of a mixture of hot water, salt, flour, oil, aluminium sulfate and some colouring! It had to rest and dry for a night so after that, we were free again! A little later than the day before, but still plenty early. :)

The afternoon was filled with more writing, more homework and once again, I seemed unable to go to bed early, despite knowing I would have to get up at the Ungodly Early Hour the next morning. Oops?

Day 17: Wednesday, March 11

It's quite funny to get up so early here, you know. You see all sorts of people you miss when you still in bed till the absolute end of breakfast. :)

This Kreativmodul day started with a bit of...actually, I don't know what it was. :| Like yoga, with the soothing music and the mats and the calmness, but without the moving? I don't know, but it was nice to wake up with! (Yes, I was still asleep. It was early! :p) A suggestion, Belgium, make highschool start with a nap! :p I'm sure the pupils would not object. :p

After that, it was mostly more of before. :) The plasticine was finished so we got to play with that (very useful to know that it's so easy to make, too!) and we did some more circus sport things. And after that: back to the workplace for the toolworks! :) Rather than bore you with the explanations, let me show you in pictures! :)


Kevin trying his hand a pottery. ;)



Overview of the classrooom!



More pottery enthusiasts.



Veerle hard at work! ;)



The painting table!



The products of our hard work!



Veerle with her, uh. Sort-of-but-not-really tennis planks? :p



Don't you think Kevin's love for pottery shows? :p


In between we got a very surprising bit of news: today was the last day of the module! We'd expected to have more classes tomorrow, but we didn't! And when we then realized we'd have to go to Praxis instead, someone else told us that the highschool teachers were on strike tomorrow. Apparently the government wants to make them work 22 hours a week, rather than the 20 they put in now; and they're none too pleased. :)

So, I shouldn't say this, it's mean, but I can't help it: WEEEEEEEEEEKEND! \o/ :D

Auf wiedersehen, meine Freunden! :)

Fia/Lindsey