extremely loud &incredibly close

a book by jonathan safran foer.

i am so pleased with my new book purchase! its so good i cant stop reading it; which is incredibly convenient because i've needed entertainment while sitting in a empty apartment last friday and now sitting in my boyfriend's parents house; blaaahhh. nothing worse when you're not even in your own home to do nothing. at least then you're familiar with what to do to keep yourself occupied. but this book is so good.
i must admit i have a talent for picking out really good reads; i have friends that always want to bring me to the book store with them to help them pick out a book, like i'm some sort of expert or something.i'm really not, and its really easy to find a good book. heres how, according to me:

first you must not mind wandering around a bookstore. i've come to learn that i have better luck just going to the "literature" section rather than a specific genere. but thats me, i suppose if you absolutely know that you love mysteries or that your favorite author is danielle steel or whoever this doesnt really apply to you. but i dont have a favorite author, nor do i have a favorite genere, and i'm guessing those people who have asked for my guidence in a bookstore have the that same problem.

so anyway, i like to look through "literature" i then browse through the books stopping to look at anything that has an interesting cover or an interesting title. these are the first things to grab me. i then read the back of the book, i also read the reviews on the cover aswell. i do this because if it says things like "bitterly funny i laughed through the whole thing" blah blah, i think thats pretty important because i too want to laugh through the whole thing. but if the reviews dont say anything that makes me go "wow" or invoke a type of emotion i wouldnt mind experiencing through a book then i put it down.
after reading the back covers and the reviews i go to the first page. the first page is also very important for me because if i struggle through the first page than i dont want to even bother. if i find the writing style smooth and moves at a good pace and captures me then i'll def be sold. and thats all i do. so obviously the cover and the title dont neccessarily have to be fantastic, but if someone doesnt even know where to begin, like me-i never know what i'm looking for when i walk in, then its a good place to start because then you wont be overwhelmed by all those books.

like this book here, i just happened to be walking by and it was on the top of a stack of books on a table display. a bold red spine, bold red title and a drawing of a boy chasing a flock of birds. it caught my eye. the back synopsos wasnt terribly interesting but the reviews said "dazzling" "heartbreaking" and "beautiful" which sounded better so after reading the first page i couldnt even possibly put it back. heres a little clip:

"...another good thing is i could train my anus to talk when i farted. if i wanted to be extremely hilarious, i'd train it to say "wasn't me!" every time i made an incredibly bad fart. and if i made an incredibly bad fart in the hall of mirrors, which is in versailles, which is outside of paris, which is in france, obviously, my anus would say "ce n'étaispas moi!" "

how could anyone say no to that! and it hasnt disappointed yet!!it really is "beautiful" just as the independant on sunday says.

The apartment

We did most of our moving this past weekend. All we have left in the house are the clothes and dishes we'll need for the next week, a mattress, the desk and chair and a few boxes. It echoes in here its so empty.

we moved the mattress into the living room so we could have something to sit on. Gregory is loving it because now he can watch TV as he's going to sleep. I've told him I don't ever want a TV in the bedroom. Mostly because he's a fanatic. Plus he falls asleep to it and NEVER turns it off. So it'll wake me up throught out the night until I finally wake up enough to realize that its late and he's already sleeping and then I get angry thinking of all the uninterrupted sleep I could of been having. So it was my idea to move the mattress and I figured he could have a treat for a week. However, waking up this morning was no treat, for either of us! We both had stiff necks and backs. uggghhhhh sleeping on a thin, saggy, unsupportive-European mattress nearly broke us. And gregorys tone went from "yay!!!! Mattress in the livingroom for a week!" to" ugh god, can we do this for a week?"

1 thing I didn't think of about the mattress in the livingroom: you can see right through the kitchen window. And what's through our kitchen window? Only about a dozen construction workers working on the roof of the house next door. So I stretched and yawned and did all those ugly waking up things people do only to look over to catch eyes with someone on the roof across the street.yes. perfect.

so day 1 of 7 in the empty apartment is pretty much the same as usual only now I have more room to slide across the floor in my socks. Cleaning must commence. Thursday is a holiday so there will be a cleaning party here. Guests include: me, Gregory and gregorys mother. She invited herself because she's a cleaning fanatic. Saturday everything goes! Sleeping at his parents house for the weekend. And we get the keys to the new place on the 29th. And then everything starts all over, only in reverse.

Niet te veel, hé

yesterday afternoon gregory's friend Dimintri called me. he asked if i wanted to do something. i was very suprised because no one ever calls to see if i want to do something in the middle of a weekday. and even more so, no one ever calls from WEST FLANDERS to see if i want to do something. so i said yes. i was a little nervous because we dont see Dimintri too often and i never hang out with him one-on-one. i just really hate thoseawkward silences when you dont know what to say anymore. it makes me anxious. but there was none of that!

he came all the way to gent to pick me up with his little three year old daughter, Alicia, in tow. wow. what a great little kid, honestly. we drove in the car for well over an hour, do to construction work everywhere. we even stopped at an auto supply store for a half hour. during this whole time she only fussed maybe twice for maybe 5 minutes each because she was thirsty. hell, so was i, Dimitri's car was HOT. she was AWESOME and quiet. who doesn't love that about a child. after the car place we went to the park where she could play. we drank soda, ate apple cake and watched alicia play on everything. it was fun.

to round off my busy afternoon, Dimitri and i even saved a couple of children on our way back to his house. as we were driving along i happened to see 2 small children (one was younger than alicia and the other was probably around the same age or maybe a year or so older) dancing on a small ledge of the upstairs of a house. i gasped and Dimitri said "what??" i pointed to the children and he was worried too so he pulled over. he knocked on the door and asked the woman who opened the door if it was normal for her children to be playing on the ledge like that. she looked confused, stepped outside of the house and saw the horror!! she ran upstairs and grabbed her children. now i dont really think it was our place to question her parenting but we couldnt very well leave knowing there are children on the roof. the youngest one thought it was so funny. she was giggling and waving and dancing. meanwhile i'm in the car wringing my hands together mentally willing that woman's fat ass up the stairs faster. we were hero's.

after returning to Dimitri's house things calmed down. alicia had to go to bed. before bed she was drinking some ice tea. she apparently wanted alot, but in small quantities. so dimitri had to constantly keep pouring her more and more and each time she'd say over and over "niet te veel, hé" which means "not too much, eh" she said it in the most cutest littlest girlie voice that she made it sound like something worth writing about.

Moving

We officially have begun our move. We'll be moving into our new place for June 1st. Well, we'll be moving on the weekend before, really. This is good because if we hadn't found anybody for June, we would of had to pay rent for both the house and the apartment.
as we expected the apartment was really easy to get rented. We put our for rent signs up 2 Sundays ago and its rented already. We never even had a chance to post it on the internet. A few hours after we put up our signs someone called about it, they said they had another apartment to look at on Friday so they'd let us know. Then on Thursday night another couple called about it and they came to look at it on Friday night. They ended up taking it. They needed something right away and we needed to move right away so we both win. Plus we sold them our wardrobe aswell. Anyone whose bought something from Ikea knows what kind of hell their furniture is. For those of you who haven't: they have a DIY policy. Its suppose to be cheaper that way or something but you have to purchase EVERYTHING separate, right down to the screws. And their directions are just poorly drawn men assembling the thing. No words or anything. So you really only have a one page cartoon drawing to help you assemble your furniture. And basically once its up its up and don't bother taking it down because you'll never get it back together again. We wanted something different anyway. Our 550€ wardrobe is now sold for 425€ a little less than what I wanted it to go for but oh well.

so I started packing up today. WhatI could anyway. We know 2 couples that JUST moved andI asked Gregory to see if they have any boxes they want to get rid of. "no I'll ask my mom for some" last night he came home without any boxes."I'll get them tomorrow" he said last night. This afternoon "I'm gonna ask if my grandma has any" why he just doesn't ask the people that are SURE to have boxes I really don't know. But if he doesn't come home with any tonightI'm going to kick his ass. Considering it is my job to get us packed up and out, becausI'm home all day and he isn't. Just because he's unorganized doesn't mean that's howI want to do things.

House

Gregory and I have an appointment to look at a house today. The house is for rent through the real estate office I tried to get a job at. The only house for rent in their entire portfolio. So naturally Gregory called his father to call his friend, the boss, of this real estate agency. The house was for rent at 466€. Too high for gregory's standards. So the boss guy said that he does a lot of business with the landlady of the house and he would try to persuade her to lower it to 400€/month and also drop the 3month security deposit. Sounds like a lot, huh. I thought so too and I told Gregory I think 430 would be a more reasonable drop in price. And sure enough the lady agreed to drop it to 425€/month AND drop the 3 month security deposit. Which i think is ALOT shaved off! And also really good because, since we're breaking our contract with our apartment (if we decide to move into that is), we're not so sure we'll be getting our security deposit back.So if we don't who cares because under normal circumstances we would have had to pay that for the house so its like we're not losing money there.

so we'll look at it tonight and see if we like it. Here are the pictures from the real estate site: it's the house with the scooter in front. its a pretty good size house. I've seen houses where its only the width of this house's door and 2 of its upstairs window. Talk about narrow, eh? red cabinets. Very, umm..porno set? I'm thinking the fridge is separate. i cant imagine a nice stainless steel fridge with an ice maker being part of the deal.

SO if we get this not only will we be saving money in rent, but in gas money aswell because gregory's work is only 5 minutes away BY BIKE. He's excited about that. He would like the exercise.
when we go look at I'll try to take better pictures.


******UPDATE*********
we viewed the house yesterday. i didnt take any pictures because its super messy!! But its an awesome house. gregory's dad also used his power of persuation, or bullied the real estate guy to get the landlady to lower the price to 400. she agreed. so we've agreed to take the house.
but now that i've seen it i can give a little more detailed account of it.
i'll give you all a verbal tour. walking through the door theres a small hall and then another door that opens to the living area. by picture 2 and 3 listed, thats the whole living area. they're currently using it as a dining room and living room. as you can see in picture 3 theres a glass sliding door into a breezeway and what you cant see is another sliding door into the garden. the garden is fabulous!!! it has a small patio and a good sized lawn, aswell as a small shed. i love the back yard and we plan to barbeque this summer!!gregory loves that he wont have to go all the way outside to smoke. i told him the breezeway is fine as long as the back door is cracked open to create a breeze so it wont totally wreak of smoke in there. the kitchen is tiny. the fridge is seperate. but honestly i think their fridge takes up alot of room, so i think something a bit smaller will create more room anyhow. on the ground floor is the bathroom and apart toilet. in the bathroom theres a stand alone shower and a tub. the stairs to the upstairs is through the kitchen. upstairs theres ANOTHER toilet, but the room is larger than the one downstairs. downstairs the toilt is just enough room for that. a toilet. and upstairs has a rather large vanity and a toilet. the current tenents are using that for laundry (ironing and drying racks) which isnt such a bad idea. theres a large master bedroom, probably the same size as ours now and a smaller spare room. theres an attic that we didnt see and i think maybe a basement aswell. the front of the house will be power washed and the door and window frames painted! it should be available in june. we just got the news of the reduction price today so we havent signed anything yet but we're really excited and cant wait to tell our landlady "see you later!"

Belgium has wood

taken from my kitchen window to the street below.


Just in case they forget....


and a completely unrelated wood story. I saw a sign that said "animal center" and I thought it meant that it was an animal shelter because Gregory and I want a puppy (if we ever move out of this apartment) so I got really excited and Gregory was like "oh..That's the name of a STORE. We wouldn't call a shelter animal center, we'd say [insert Dutch word for animal shelter here]" and I argued that they write many things in English and how would i know know that reading animal center in english didnt mean just that. an animal. center.

so my question to you is, do you think they actually SELL wood at this WOOD CENTER or just wood accessories??

NATO

Today I had a job interview at the American embassy in Brussels. I'm not exactly sure how its going to go but my magic 8-ball says outcome looks positive. The only negative part of the interview was that usually everyone working there has to have a European nationality. Little did I know, I could apply for dual nationalities and not lose my American one. But the man I spoke to today said he'd speak to the other 2 people that I would have to go through before getting a job and see what he can do. I've been learning through this job search process how political Belgium is, in that, you really must know people to get anywhere. So I know someone who knew this guy I saw today and he likes my someone and appeared to like me so he's going to try and pull some strings. He said if it doesn't work out than maybe I could become his personal assistant because he's been without one for 2 weeks and is apparently swamped with work. So we'll see.i'm hopeful, but as he said he's not going to promise anything he cant keep, which I appreciate. So my feet are still on the ground but I am crossing my fingers real tight.

Easter

Hope everyone had a good easter. NOTHING exciting happened here. the bunny didnt even stop on by. bugger. oh well, the bunny didnt stop for gregory either. we're both bad children, i guess. we didnt hunt for eggs, go to church or have dinner. we didnt even visit his parents. gregory worked on his translations all day and i cleaned the house, only to have it soiled again when gregory took a break. it went from sparkling, to exactly how it was. we then later went to a welcome home party for a girl who spent the last 3 months in spain. she said yesterday she was lying on the beach!!! ohhh i wish i could be lying on the beach right about now.

today is easter monday and no one has to work. gregory is still sleeping. it looks like we have fairly good weather today and i'd really like to do something. we'll see.

not really too much to report.

sew buttons

sew buttons

FINALLY i have my very own sewing machine! sewing machines are generally really expensive and i have found some inthe price range of less than 200 euros, which didnt really sell gregory. so as i was browsing through a large beauty store (kinda like cvs only without the pharmacy) i found sewing machines on sale for 69.99! so i told gregory and he said i could buy it!! ohhhh yesss. so i walked there in the rain today and hauled that heavy bitch back to my house and set it all up. its beautiful. i thought it would be super ghetto since its considerably less money than the ones i've seen even in the grocery store! but its not at all. it has 26 stitch functions including zig zags, 3 button hole functions, blind hem etc etc. it came with all its little goodies like extra bobbins, seam ripper, screw driver, extra needles, zipper foot, button foot and even a cover for it! oh the possibilites!!

i've had a shirt laying around that i got from a thrift store and i havent worn it since it was considerably too big. i began to hand sew it but i have the patience of a fruit fly and just couldnt do it. but i finally altered that bad-larry today and now i can wear it without feeling like a pregnant woman. i am so so so excited. this is my first very own. i've always used mom's circa 1970's. the old gal was a bit rickety and liked to gradually loosen her tension on ya but she did the trick. i want to make a summer dress for myself. if anyone feels a sudden urge to buy me something, you could buy me sewing patterns. maybe for a chocolate exchange (hint hint, you know who you are) here are some that i really like:butterick b4513 newlook 6377 simplicity

gregory and i are also looking into a new house. keep your fingers crossed. 2 bedrooms, a small garden and garden house and it looks like it has a dishwasher too! how sweet would that be?????????

Belgium package delivery system...Has NO system

Since WEDNESDAY, nearly a week now, I've been trying to receive my package that came from America. They delivered it here to the apartment on Wednesday but since our landlady is such a douche-bag, our bell doesn't work. (however, convinently, her daughter's bell work) so I never received it because how was I to know anyone was here with a broken bell? I have Gregory call because he can communicate with these people better than I can. He calls THE VERY NEXT DAY to have it delivered to his grandmother's house since he goes there every afternoon and there's always someone home. This is not the first time we've had one of my packages shipped to her house. Well to make a long story short it never got there, Gregory has called multiple times everyday, either people have no idea where the package is, or they're reassuring us it'll be shipped out that afternoon, or the very next morning. Last I heard it was found in the "return to sender" corner, but then was going to be shipped out yesterday afternoon. It never made it yesterday afternoon because it went from gent (on Wednesday) to Brussels for days, back to gent yesterday because someone looked at the address on the package rather than being involved in what's going on and looking to see if there's a second address to send it to, bell still didn't work yesterday so we STILL didn't get it and then it went back to Brussels only to be lost yet again. So the lady we talked to said she didn't know what to do anymore. If she doesn't know what to do then who does???????? I am so pissed off at these people. I BETTER get it soon or they're going to start hearing a very angry American person on the phone and I don't think they want that.
oh an ps taxi post-I refuse to pay the 9.90 you're charging me. Maybe if you could do your job effectively then I would pay your fee but after the hassle you're putting us through, there's no way I'm paying that anymore!

Goed Nieuws

OK. I have some pretty good news. This coming Tuesday I have a demonstration of my language skills for a prospective employer. Its within a real estate company. I would be answering phones n giving information about the questioned real estate. I MUST speak Dutch.

I'm pretty scared since I don't speak it much and when I do its only with Gregory. So everyone please cross your fingers, light a candle, pray, do a dance, do whatever it is you do to send luck to someone because I NEED it.

Appendix I

As many of you know by now, last week, to the day, I had my appendix removed. My experience with European surgery wasn't too bad. The only thing I didn't enjoy, besides surgery of course, is the interns, for one. While in the emergency room they needed to take blood and insert an iv. Ok, no problem I can handle that. What I didn't know was that they were going attach the tourniquet for an hour BEFORE even having anything ready or attempting to draw blood. So as I'm laying there with my arm slowly decaying, an intern that clearly had not been practicing on her oranges came up and took another hour assessing her next move like a champion chess player. Now I've begun to sweat and am nearly in tears. I've told the others my arm hurts and they just nod. In my head I'm screaming "HELLO! Patient is in PAIN because of YOU loosen the damn thing" but they didn't until what felt like years later, after the intern poked me WRONG. My arm was entirely purple and I thought for sure I was losing much more than appendix that day. All that and I didn't even get a needle in me. So then I had to endure it again a few moments afterwards, only this time tourniqueting my hand, which still doesn't feel good as its necrotising, but at least it was just a hand rather than my whole arm. The other unpleasant thing was when they wheeled me into the operating room. Once in the room they made me lay on the metal slab they call a table. Now ordinarily that wouldn't matter because I would expect to be knocked out before I even saw the operating table but no, I layed there shivering because its about as cold as an arctic tundra in there. So then this brutal woman comes over, rips off my socks and underwear on a side note: . Those were a good pair of underwear! All those rumors "clean underwear for the hospital" total crap. I had been sick the entire day so I never got a chance to shower, so before heading to the hospital I at least changed my underwear, putting on a comfortable, yet nice pair that I wouldn't mind everyone seeing and they never gave them back!!!! Next time I'm wearing a pair I'm thinking of throwing away, anyway.

she also popped open all the buttons on my johnny, roughly forced my hands at my side where she wanted them; my feet aswell and then left. So all this fussing and hurrying and being forceful, one would think they were ready to go. NO! I layed there like that for about a HALF HOUR. I know, there was a clock there. I mean Christ, I would have rather of layed in the more comfortable emergency room bed with my socks and underwear and blanket than the metal, cold table with nothing but the flimsy johnny covering my privates for a half hour.

after all that I made it out alive. In some serious pain, but alive. The nurses on the floor were pretty nice and helpful, so that's good.

I also should be getting my bandages off either today or tomorrow. Hurrah.

GEEK

You know you're a geek when you officially own 3 library cards. Yes that right, I have THREE library cards in my wallet. You know just in case I want to go to one within the sails network aka north attleboro, attleboro, then hop on over to the Boston public and then skip the country all together so I can evade my late fees and go to one here in Belgium. Quite a scam I have going. I hope by the time I'm 65 I have a whole fist full of library cards. That's how much of a geek I am.
unfortunately, the 2 sections of the library I wanted to go into today was closed. The literature section aka learning Dutch stuff and English books and the children's section (that's the reading level I'm at in Dutch) I don't know when the literature section will be open again, they're working in there, like re-doing the floor or something, and the children's section is only open in the afternoons. I'll go back tomorrow afternoon. It'll give me something to do. I'll have to be incognito though because a friend of mine works in the building next door, and as I was standing outside the library today she saw me from her office window and wrote me a cryptic message of "I can see you.." Very creepy. I don't like people watching me. I don't want anyone to see me going into the library everyday. I can hear the conversation now friend:what do you do in the library everyday? Me: umm..Read children's books with all the other little kids...
GEEK

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is the day of love. Gregory and I didn't wake up very lovingly, I opened my eyes and thought to myself "the only time I wake up voluntarily, with no assistance from my alarm is when I've gone BACK to bed after Gregory has left." this also made me realize how light the sky was, so I looked at my clock and shouted "Gregory it's EIGHT THIRTYYYYYYY" and that was that. We're not doing anything special, just mussels for dinner and and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.

Yesterday was Justin's Birthday. I called him, hope he got it (HAPPY BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY AGAIN JUSTIN) I also went out to dinner with a friend yesterday. Its not very often I go out on a weeknight without Gregory, so I was pretty excited to be doing my own thing. He had work to do anyway and its always boring sitting there while he just came home from work and then he goes straight back to work. Victoria and I ate at a Turkish restaurant and had Turkish pizza. It was super good. Afterwards we headed for one of my favorite cafés (Pink Flamingo) and had a drink.
I didn't get home until 10 and Gregory was still working so it looks like I didn't miss a thing besides TV programs but who cares about that! I had fun. I hope justin had fun on his birthday too.

Let it Snow, etc...

Yesterday it snowed here. I heard there was a nor'easter over in Massachusetts aswell. Our snow certainly wasn't a storm, but to Belgian standards it was a lot..It covered the ground! What a mess though, very slushy snow. Fun to watch though.

last night Gregory and I also went to see "Walk the Line" with our friend Els. What an excellent movie! And for anyone who has seen it, and doesn't know, both Reese witherspoon and the dude who played Johnny cash had to learn how to sing for the movie, and from watching Oprah I know that Reese tried getting out of doing the movie because she would had much preferred lip syncing. Well for people who couldn't sing or play instruments they did an AWESOME job. Really worth a watch. Though be warned, it is 2 hours 20 minutes long. Another highlight to last night is that Belgium FINALLY came out with salty popcorn!!! Boy was I in heaven. They had a "menu" option. A menu in Dutch is the same a value meal in English. So I got a "normal" popcorn with SALT and a "normal" soda. My salty popcorn had a few handfuls of sugary popcorn in there but whatever, it was still good to eat tasty popcorn at the theater.

Saturday night I went to a lingerie home sale. There's this girl, Muriel, who designs, makes, sells her own lingerie. I think she's even sold to people such as pink. Her company name is lafilledo <-click to see her website. she makes really nice stuff. you can browse her products here http://www.eroyin.com/Main.php?taal=en I think for the summer I want to get a bathing suit from her. Perhaps the "crazy" bikini shorties paired with the "dream" push up bikini top. OR if she has a new line out maybe something diffrerent. we run in the same crowd so i can always just go over to her house and buy something there rather than at a store. i think it would be better to ask the designer herself how things look on you than a store clerk anyway.

(almost) free dinner

last night Gregory and I had dinner at our friend els' house along with our other friends, Laurent, laurance, Colin and Eveline. It was good and fun. We had a vegetarian lasagna. Gregory didn't much care for it, he complained (to me) that it didn't even have meat in it. But seriously, he was the only meat eater at the table, what does he expect?! It had carrots, onions, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds along with a tomato cream honey sauce (the only thing Gregory liked about it) and only cheese on top, so it wasn't a big ole cheese bomb either. I thought it was really good. And then for dessert I had made cookies and Colin and Eveline brought over a chocolate mouse cake. Now, the dessert is where the ALMOST free dinner comes in. I had planned, and tried to make banana bread. It was perfect for me because I had just enough ingredients to make it, and that's why I chose banana bread. But as I posted yesterday it went horribly wrong. So I had to go out to the store and buy more flour, and more eggs. Luckily I already had chocolate chips in the house and half way through the directions I realized I was out of vanilla!!!! But I substituted some vanilla sugar we had in replace of vanilla extract. It may have had an impact on my cookies, either that or it really wasn't a good baking day for me because, though they tasted good, they came out way flatter and crispier than ever before. People still ate and enjoyed them though.

oh, and on a completely unrelated note, I finally got my letter of recommendation from the professor last night. He wrote it in English (why????) he also gave me the disk in which he wrote it on. Is that like don't ever bother me for this ever again?

heh

The most interesting this i've seen in a while:


a man peeing on the roof for well over a minute. the funny thing, he didnt even know someone (me) could see the whole show from my kitchen window. keep it in your pants, buddy or next time i'll take a picture.


Worst thing that happened all day:

i fucked up my banana bread. it looked, smelled and tested as done. when i tried to take it out of the pan, a wall collasped and a pool of banana goo came out. what happened?!?!

Emerged

Hello,

I haven't posted in quite a long time, I know. Nothing has really been going on for me to say anything. When I arrived back in Belgium I had to wait to see about a job in a nursing home. Turns out that it was only to be for a kitchen aid for a couple of weeks in a far away town so I didn't take it. Then I heard that the professor, who I previously worked with was going to finally (after hounding) send me a letter of recommendation along with an invitation to go to the university in Brussels to see about a job as a prosector. He has yet to e-mail me, and I've been e-mailing him!!! What the hell! So this week I've sent my resume to a big funeral company that does embalming and everything, along with various other jobs such as a legal secretary and a help desk person.The legal secretary job called me back and boy was I NOT prepared for all the questions they were about too ask. Such as : what interests you about becoming a legal secretary? I was thinking "shit, I just want a job! All my answers I awkwardly pulled out of my ass because I had no answer for them. I don't give a shit about legal secretarial work. I just want a job. So needless to say I didn't get that job. I have a feeling the help desk people will call either today or tomorrow. Both companies make you fill out an online application form with all the same questions that can be answered by looking at the attached resume. The legal secretary's form came in first and they called the very next day, so based on that I'm assuming the help desk people will call today considering I filled out their form yesterday. I hope they don't ask me questions like why I want to work as a help desk person. I mean, is that really a career goal? Does anyone REALLY want to work at a help desk? Still waiting for a word back from the funeral place. That one I mailed in through the post so it might take a bit and I'm STIIIIILLLLLLLLLL waiting for the professor to get back to me. He's really beginning to press my buttons. Anyway that's it for now.

MY Birthday

Gregory, amazingly, without my knowing bought a huge cake for me and (the even trickier part) got me to the skate park where everyone was going to be. When I got there a beautiful David Bowie cake was waiting for me, garnished with fruit and everything. It was delicious. I was so surprised. And today it's snowing!

ah shit

yeah, its been a while since I've written. Nothing really exciting is going on. Yesterday was St. Nicholas Day here in Belgium. That's when SinterKlaas arrives from Spain on his boat with his "helpers" zwarte pieten. Also known as black petes. Its a holiday just for children so we bought, I mean SinterKlaas left at our house, 2 remote control trucks for the twins. They loved 'em.
it snowed here once so far. I know its nothing to what you guys are getting back home, but for Belgium it was a pretty decent snowfall. We also have our decorations up. Since we're poor and don't really have enough for decorations, I went with the paper snowflake theme. Well, its not that we can't afford decorations per se, its just that they're expensive and we have finacial obligations which keep us from spending frivolously.

so the pictures you can see our tree, my pink and blue snowflakes on the window, some white snowflakes hanging from a shelf, and some stars hanging from the archway. Mom sent me a link from hallmark on how to make stars from greeting cards so I tried it. We also have snowflakes in our bathroom. There are a few other random decorations aswell, so I think for not being able to spend a butt load of money on decorations we did alright for ourselves.

so in 2 weeks I'm headed home for Christmas. Should be awesome. Pray to the snowgods to hold off their snowstorms until after I land in Boston. I reeeeeeaaaallly don't want to be delayed. Traveling that far is hard enough nevermind having to sit extra hours.
see you all soon!