A not-so-very-enjoyable day

So I already hate today and today isn't even yesterday up till now. What's that all about??? At noon we had a meeting with the woman who is supposed to teach us how to translate from Dutch into Russian. That is "to teach" and not "to terrify” us poor Belgians. First she gave us two full pages of text. If there wouldn’t have been a photo with the Dutch flag on it, I wouldn’t have known that the text was written in Dutch. The words that are in there are just horrible, we don’t even understand them in our own language, so how are we supposed to translate them into Russian? But no excuses, it needs to be done by next week, all of it. Now we’re talking about challenges! So yes, already a bit scary… And then that nice lady gave us another paper and told us to translate it immediately, on the spot. Again, how come I can’t understand my own mother tongue? All we could do was try, so we did, and…failed of course. It was just terrible! I felt extremely stupid and terrified of what is yet to come. Right, when that nightmare was over, another nice lady informed us on the pleasant fact that we’ll have more than 30 hours of class a week. Are these Russian people bl**dy crazy??? So on top of all the homework we get, 7 hours of class each day? Could someone please come and save me, because I’m afraid I won’t survive… Right, arriving at the student’s residence, my roommate told me that another teacher was waiting for us, as we actually had another class whilst we had that test. So I started running again… Apparently the boys nor Petra got this message and thus the teacher was in a rather bad mood. In the time we left the one Dutch lady, she called that other teacher asking her whether or not we had arrived in class. What does this means? They are following us, every step we take… After class I decided to go to the internet café (where I am now, at this very moment, obviously) and what a nice surprise: another email from my stalker. What is it about exes and the exes of exes??? So this is the girl who just broke up with my ex (from 3 years ago). She has been writing on every possible website she found of me. And now I’ve received an email in which she informs me on the pleasant fact that she was already messing around wit him whilst we were still together. Now that makes my day…

Above all that, it’s my mother’s birthday today and I feel really bad for not being able to be there and celebrate it with her. But I’m thinking of her, obviously, and hereby I’ll wish her a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY again! Mum, enjoy this day and think of me, thinking of you!

More news apart from these disasters? Not much, to be honest. I’ve only been studying (yes yes, I am becoming an even more pathetic geek), going to class, playing UNO and getting addicted to Lost. Yves brought the first and third season and, as I’ve never been able to follow it on TV, I decided to give it a try. result: I’m now wasting approximately 4 hours a day on watching it. The problem is thus that I now need the second season. Apparently the Russians are too selfish, as they dub all their films and programmes and don’t bother to provide any subtitles. Watching it in Russians would be just a little too ambitious, even for this supergeek. Any suggestions are thus very welcome!

I did try to do something useful this week. I wanted to go to the Tolstoj Museum on Tuesday but by the time I’ve arrived there, it was already closed. So that was the end of my cultural effort.

Another thing we’ve been doing ever since we arrived is cooking. Mothers, you can all be very proud of your children as even the boys are perfect housemen. They are really full of surprises, every day they come up with new ideas. Please give them a little applause, would you?! They’ll make some girls really happy one day. Right, I think I’ve flattered their ego's enough by now…

Another important fact: I finally went to the toilette yesterday!!! For those who don’t want to hear about this, please skip this part. It took me 2 weeks, but, after taking some disgusting medicine, my stomach allowed me to spend some time on the loo. Hurray! I was getting sick and tired of it, in the end I was eating loads of plums every day and getting more and more upset about it. My stomach was as hard as a stone and above that Yves kept on reminding me that he’s able to stink at least twice a day. No sh*t, I’m jealous of that boy’s abilities when it comes to sh*tting. And he too is very proud of it, it even tends to be his favourite subject of speech. (apart from Cedric’s “pens”, maybe…)

Petra, on the other hand, is getting more and more annoyed with Cedric, as he keeps on flirting with her. (don’t get all too worried, B.). Although she herself gave away her ultimate flirting secret yesterday. Excitement all around! Will be continued…

Yesterday 2 Belgian girls arrived, both of them are studying at ISTI, a university in Brussels. They told us that four more Belgians will arrive this week. I was very relieved to hear that they are also studying English and I thus won’t be alone in those classes.

There we go, I am now going to try to enjoy the end of this not-so-very-enjoyable day. I’m sure all'll be fine tomorrow…