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[May. 1st, 2007|12:50 am] |
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
On a more positive note, in pretty much every other country in the world except for the one where we happen to live, today is a holiday. Happy May Day/Labor Day/Worker's Day/whatever to all those lucky enough to celebrate it, though we can't. And no, I'm not bitter. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 8th, 2007|11:40 am] |
Happy Easter Everybody!
Joyeuses Fetes de Paques a Tous! |
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| A Friend's PhD subject |
[Mar. 28th, 2007|05:16 pm] |
Okay, now when you see this, what do you think?
"NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF TURBULENT FLOWS AROUND MOVING BODIES"
Yeah...I have my mind in the gutter too. |
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[Aug. 15th, 2006|03:23 pm] |
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last entry from belgium. meeeerrrr. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 11th, 2006|11:52 pm] |
it's stinking 10 degrees here (i suppose around 50 F). and raining. so what else is new?
only four more days in brussels. i'm sick to my stomach from anxiety. not about stuff when i get home, but about leaving and not seeing anyone or anything for a really long time. mer. of course, said goodbye to most everyone now, as they are almost all gone off to their respective countries on vacation, but i've grown so stinking fond of just this house, and the city, and the brusselian culture in general. mer mer mer. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 10th, 2006|10:22 am] |
i'm coming back to the states tomorrow...that is sad...venice was the most amazing place i have ever been (you just had to avoid the main streets and the crowds) and i met some amazing people all over the place. I managed to keep up a conversation with two guys who only spoke italian on the night train to venice when we were stuck sitting on the floor next to the bathroom together. I figured out i don't like big cities, sightseeing or speed visiting.
Ciao -Alyson |
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[Aug. 2nd, 2006|09:06 pm] |
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in italia. going for pizza. how cheesy. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 22nd, 2006|08:54 pm] |
it's alyson again, upset about the lack of postings. :(
erica hangs out with the weirdest/still wicked cool foreigners. like jan, who looks like Mr. Bean to me and who reminds erica of grover. especially his laugh. grew up in east berlin, so he probably wouldn't get the reference.
erica is breaking a thousand foreign hearts as we speak. shocking. they can kiss their green cards goodbye. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 22nd, 2006|08:49 pm] |
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hello all, it's alyson! yay! um...went to antwerp today and i saw dozens of pregnant women, but that's about all. but it was uber fun. yesterday was a belgian national holiday, the fireworks were smaller than those at Wheaton Plaza, but I was dressed in the Belgian colors and being all Belgian (except for the fact that I don't live here and I don't speak either Flemish or French very well). leaving for london tomorrow night!!!!! *spazzzzzz* |
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[Jul. 21st, 2006|04:06 pm] |
guys+uniforms+french accent+scruffy cheeks for 'la bise'=HOT HOT HOT
and yes, the parisien gendarmes were TOTALLY checking us out. unfortunately for all, they were on duty. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 20th, 2006|12:39 pm] |
ALYSON: "don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"
ERICA: *silence* |
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[Jul. 7th, 2006|11:14 pm] |
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said goodnight for the last time ever to my kids. i REALLY didn't want to cry, because it was hard enough for them already today to say goodbye to their friends. but i couldn't help myself. god i love them so much. |
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[Jul. 4th, 2006|04:48 pm] |
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happy 4th of july everyone! |
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[Jun. 21st, 2006|09:08 pm] |
i'm really tired. got two hours of sleep last night and a full day today. i can't believe it's summer. at the beginning of the year, i thought i would be leaving the 20th june--yesterday. whoa.
laurence was in nottingham the past couple days and coincidentally, arthur's favorite movie this past week has been robin hood. laurence's dad is here working on some things for the house (though they're leaving, the landlord has insisted that somethings be fixed up). turning in my essay on friday, but it's essentially done so i'm pretty much free french-wise. i've come pretty darn far, but i think i need a couple more years to really get it down. on that note, i have figured that in order to stay, i will have to win the lottery, so that i don't have to go to college or get a job (at least not right away...) so we all put together some $ in class and guessed ourselves some numbers, haha. no, really, these things are horrible. you know you won't win, but you still can't help thinking, 'what if...?' and then it grows on you more and more and you end up being disappointed and frustrated. hmm...
went to leuven on sunday with stavroula. biggest University in belgium, flemish and catholic. it was nice (something the greeks say a lot, "it was nice, it was nice" apparently it is translated from something they say a lot in greece, which sounds roughly like "aurea". second greek word i know. first being "nay" which means "yes," a fact that has completely rocked my world). anywho, made plans to see matches in the future. which means yesterday got together for england/sweden. katerina was for sweden, and as much as i love england it is always nice to see a successful underdog, so i was pretty impartial. some crazy brits in the pub though. really, they really can't hold alcohol. well, not as the belgians do in any case. it was a crazy good game though. football is really quite fun to watch. then met up with the italians. gosh they're funny. the perfect stereotypes, you know. had a crazy wild time at an ice cream parlor (oh yeah). and i have been feeling sick all day. friday i'm off to katerina's, as she has planned to introduce me to greek food (of which i remain totally ignorant). omg. i just learned that italians eat horses. how upsetting is that?!? and marco has eaten cat, but that was more an accident...
turns out there is a farm, with sheep and donkeys, about 10 minutes walk from the house. how random is that? one of the donkeys started eating my pants--it was really embarrassing.
maybe more later. gotta go. |
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[Jun. 14th, 2006|09:30 pm] |
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hehe. kind of cute story. i got some pics of my brother's graduation today and i had left them laying around downstairs. there was one of my brother and alyson posing, but pierre when he saw it, exclaimed: "hey erica, who's the chinese dude you're standing with? oo la la!" haha. i got a kick out of that. |
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[Jun. 4th, 2006|09:31 pm] |
nom d'une pipe! it has been forever and a day since i wrote a decent-length entry. oh my! how lax i have been. well, i have been particularly busy, so i will most probably eventually forgive myself, but it is still a shock to me that it has been that long! and to think i will be with the kids only a month after this! ahhhh!!!
okay, well before anything else: i am still in belgium. i am working until the 8th (July), so you will not see me after that. BUT you will most probably not see me right after then either. probably middle/end august. have yet to work out the details. at that time, i will hurriedly do everything on my "to do this summer" list (which gets longer everyday that i decide to shorten the number of days to do it in...), before sweeping off to good ol' smith. hehe, i will be a froshie. alyson can haze me with all her cool sophomore friends. 'twill be loverly. but i really really don't want to leave. i'm only just getting really settled in. i've even met some belgians (a rarity), coolness struddle!! gahhh!!! so much to do!! tomorrow i am acquinting myself with western belgium (and going to the beach--though i don't think my travelling companions were planning to do any swimming...), and hopefully next weekend or the one afterwards i will spend more than 10 minutes in luxembourg.
it has been cold and rainy. today was better, being "partly sunny" and me needing only a turtleneck and a sweater. haha. it is only just getting dark now, as we are a bit futher north than DC (50 N--same latitude as kiev, fun fact of the day) and we get more sun in the summer.
i got a "le neerlandais toute suite" book out of the library. everyone should take dutch. it is amazing. and it is essentially funny-sounding english. with some french thrown in. everyone should learn it. now.
on that note, i think spanish should be an official language. yeah, that would suck for me, but darn it, who decided that the states would only speak english? a whole bunch of old farts a couple centuries ago.
thinking about that...i cannot speak english. or write it. or even think it. it actually takes a conscious effort to create decent-sounding sentences. i meet people here who only speak english besides their native language, so i have to resort to english. and whoa is it bad. i feel completely uninspired when speaking. oh well. i'm getting to know people. this is good. i am also learning british vocab (as everyone learned britannic english over here). note to self: flat=apartment. it's the little things like that. hehe.
i'm tired. well, not really. slept until noon, didn't move my butt until 2. also spent more than 2 hours sitting in a movie (Volver--everyone should see it--cruz is amazing). so i should be feeling hyper and refreshed. but no.
hmm...what to say? ooo! i got tax forms the other day. need to ask laurence about them, don't want to screw up, especially as french legal jargon is still completely foreign to me (as in english, but we'll just look over that fact for right now...)
WORLD CUP IS COMING!!! gahhhh!!! the boys are naturally spazzed, rooting for the french and all. zidane's name is mentionned about every 10 minutes in the house and to tell you the truth, i'm nearly as worked up about it as they are. it's this kind of fever. once it gets hold of you, there's no stopping it. the belgians aren't in contention this year, but the walloons are generally for the french and the flemish for the dutch. i'm personally for whoever looks hot running around the field (aka literally every single player--who knew that football could be this interesting?), but there is something about it that really stirs up one's feeling of patriotism. of course trying to convince anybody else here that the US has a chance is a completely futile activity, but i really wish we could prove ourselves on the pitch.
fun fact for you all: in 1986, belgium came in 4th place in the world cup. it was followed by national celebrations, and is considered by some to be the greatest event of the century. the walloons and the flemish alike were glued to their television screens, and songs have since been written of the glory of mexico city. i just think it is a wonderful example of belgian patriotism. yeah, they're small. and, yeah, they didn't get the cup. but they still put up a fine attempt, and still remember it today.
belgium does not equal france. belgian does not equal french. poirot says it a million times, and i will only reiterate. my grandmother (not the french one) asks me how things are in france, how the french are, and no matter how many times i tell her i'm in brussels, we always end back up on france. but it isn't just her. it's the general lack of education. being geographically neighbors doesn't mean you are the same. but in the states we learn about england, france, spain, italy, china, egypt, russia, germany, india, australia, mexico, and canada. greece is decently covered as well. the rest of the world might as well be classed as exactly that, just "the rest." while i can understand it, it really should be changed. and belgium is becoming increasingly important with the growth of the EU--we can no longer simply overlook it. (interesting fact, of my friends, about half consider themselves "european" ABOVE their respective nationalities--makes you think, doesn't it?)
been watching the "dirty harry" series. very clint eastwood-y. but, hey, whatever floats people's boats. they're all right with me. also been spending time with another favorite "harry" (that being harry potter, what else?)
taking two french exams end of this month. the one with school is the belgian exam, but it hasn't been officially recognized to be the same as the dalf, which is the other, more international, exam. the belgian one requires much more preparation, which i really, really should get a start on, but the dalf is just a regular ol' test. i'm hoping that between the two i can place into more interesting french classes at smith, but we'll see how it goes first.
that is all for right now. it has been almost an hour. my goodness. how did i have time for this earlier this year? gah. well, have fun with your summers people. i will eventually see you, to be sure. bisous!! |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 29th, 2006|02:17 pm] |
omg magda is pregant! and with twins!!! gahhhh!!!
on that note, this whole thing is beginning to look like an epidemic. first celena, then anna, then magda... who next?!?!? |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 20th, 2006|03:08 am] |
my head is buzzing. just got home (it's 3 am), escorted by a greek, two italians, and a real live belgian (believe it or not). i had gone downtown to the jazz fest, ran in katerina, who is a friend of a friend of maria jose, roberto's wife, so decided to join her group. went to THE coolest pub in town, were the first to start dancing on the tables, had a blast. was totally swing dancing with michel (the believe-it-or-not-belgian). that is all. have to wake up in less than four hours for arthur. nooooooo!!!
and i haven't packed. darn. |
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