Update

I can't ever come up with creative titles. And to be honest, maybe titles are a little overrated. I think from now on I should just title all my posts "Update" unless they are important, in which case I will title it something along the lines of "Important" though I doubt anything will ever be important enough to require that. It needs a title so you have something to click on to isolate the post, but other than that I am too boring for titles these days.

I apologize for having not posted recently, I've been a bit caught up in school. Thursdays are my days that I finish at 13:00 so I have plenty of time to post today. Actually both of these last two weeks that teacher has let us go at a decently early time, so Thursdays are even shorter still.  However, for some reason Thursdays are the days that it is hardest to wake up in the morning. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are the three days that I have class starting at 8:45, and for some reason Wednesday is fine, and Friday is fine, but last Thursday I was 45 minutes late and today I made it on time but I could barely stay awake through my first class. (In my second class I had a chocolate espresso drink that may have kept me awake, either that or I just like the class better. I think I just like the class better. Caffeine has never affected me much.) I suppose this is probably because on Wednesday, I've just spend Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday sleeping in  to a more decent hour, and Friday I've gotten up early enough the last two days to actually go to bed earlier the night before... Yes, I've decided that all makes sense.

Last Friday night, my whole class got together at someone's apartment for a few hours before we all went to the International Pub together. That was a lot of fun.  Also, the International Pub had a special (I think it's every Friday night but I'm unsure) where from 22:00 to 23:30, you pay €10 to walk in the door and then you get unlimited drinks until 23:30. A few people didn't think they'd be drinking €10 worth (including me) because the drinks are normally €1 (which is already extremely cheap) so instead the four of us went to Hannah's and played pool in this huge common area that her apartment building has, before we headed to the pub. It was a very good night. For most of us. Poor Mark lost his phone, and poor Emils was apparently accosted by some guys who beat him up and took his phone and wallet (this was after we all split off to go home, so I don't know the whole story).

On Saturday Tessa, Jenn, Simona and I met up at the beach and went bowling. Which was very fun. I've decided I should go bowling more often. Most of us were getting so many gutter balls that we decided gutter balls are the goal and if you end up with a high score then you probably fail at failing. It was a lot of fun. Now one week from today we will be in Disneyland Paris. With Jenn's family.  Actually I think it ended up that Tessa can't go, because she has a test on that Friday. That is extremely saddening because we should really all be there. And we all already paid, and it's a little too late for refunds. I also feel bad for missing school to go to Disneyland but I don't think it's an opportunity I would like to miss, and I intend to make it a point to be in every single one of the rest of my classes for the rest of this semester. (I was going to say for the rest of this term, but that doesn't seem adequate enough. The term ends the first week of November, the semester ends the second week of January, or some time around there. The last day of term 2 exams is my birthday. Yay! Guess that means I can party to celebrate a completed semester and to celebrate my birthday. The twenty-first, too.)

Okay, last I wanted to show you where my bike lives during the school day. The reason for this is that it's not something I've seen very much in the States, so I find it very interesting and I thought you might as well.

Welcome to the bicycle parking. It is situated in the basement of the school. How does one get a bike into a basement? Well...

Ramps and stairs. Which, by the way, I really hate. The stairs are so far apart, it's hard to lead a bike up a metal ramp while walking awkwardly up stairs that force you to step unevenly. (One step flat, one step up, one step flat... etc. I hate that even without a bike.)  I suppose it makes sense because if you are coming downstairs and the ramp it too steep, it would be difficult to keep up. Whatever, though. (Sorry that the picture is blurry, I was balancing my bike and my phone and my bag.)

And for those of you that don't know what my school looks like... It's a very neat-looking building. (I can't remember if I've posted from the inside...)

This is the inside of the Ovaal, which is the building I have all of my classes in. There are two other buildings, although they are connected to the Ovaal, so you can get anywhere in the school by walking in the front doors of the Ovaal (or, I suppose, coming up the stairs from the basement bike parking). The skyways all lead to the Slinger, and then you can get to the Strip from both the Slinger and the Ovaal.  I never have to enter any building but the Ovaal, so navigation in the other two doesn't really concern me.

That picture is taken from the 4th floor (in American terms, think 5th floor). One detail that I really love is the internal staircases that you can see on the other side over there, if you look closely, that go between the 3rd, 4th and 5th floor. There are more like that behind the aula (that's the big auditorium which is inside the green cylinder that you can barely see to the left in that picture. Also, in this older picture I stole from Sara's facebook you can see the staircases that comes down beside the aula, and those are nice too). There are 3 sets of elevators, and each set of elevators is accompanied by a triangle staircase in the back (yea, that's not really clear, but I'm not sure how better to explain). Since the whole building is a big oval, if you know that your next class is in 3.71 and you take the wrong elevator, luckily all you have to do is keep walking in a big circle and you'll find it eventually. Though after two weeks, I've learned that if my classroom is #.7# (as most of them are for some reason), I need to go to the far set of elevators/stairs, go up and take a right. Easy to figure out. I really like my school. Really.

Also, I have determined that I am definitely happier now than I was a year ago, or two years ago.

In other news, like I said I get out of classes early on Thursdays (today, we were released at about 12:15). I started writing this post at 14:30. Before that, I came home from school, then went to Subway for lunch to reward myself for not eating out this week (I know. It's probably lame to reward myself with the thing that I am awarding myself for not doing. Might be a step backwards. Oh well, I really needed Subway). Then I went to Blokker and spent €40 on things I probably could have done without, but wanted (a cheese grater, a garlic press, a frying pan, a bigger cutting board, a bowl, a serving spoon because all we have is flat wooden spoons, and a couple storage containers for things like rice and tea bags because we have ants). Then I came home and cleaned the apartment because it is my week to do so.  Thursdays are probably the days that I will aim to find an 8 hour job. After, of course, I go to the municipality and get my BSN and residence permit. I don't want to work Fridays or Saturdays because I want my weekends free. Sundays, stores aren't open long enough to matter.  I can only work 10 hours a week total, so I guess I'll see what I can find.

I said the bikes would be last, and then I went on to write an entire second half to the post. Oops. Sorry. Well, I'm done now. Finally.  I guess this is what happens when I haven't posted in a while...