Quick update

Considering I don’t have a lot of time these days, you’ll have to do with only a short update. Please accept my sincere apologies!

In the past week I’ve been:
- working my a*s off for school as my English professor thinks it necessary to make me write essays (only about 10 pages…) each week;
- working my a*s off for my Master Thesis as me and my big mouth promised to already hand in a interim plan of work on Sunday and I thus had to spend the entire weekend in bookshops, libraries and the internet cafe;
- happy, seeing my proposal regarding the equivalents was approved;
- spending time with a few Russians: going to the cinema – next week real Russian theatre –, wandering around, having a drink and practicing my (their, actually) Russian;
- visiting a few markets
- cold – next week minus 5 and snow;
- over the moon as Danny has found a job!!!! Congratulations again krullebol! ;
- jealous of Yves because his family (parents, sister, girlfriend) arrived on Saturday and will stay here for an entire week;
- getting enraged at the whole money-situation as all of the sudden they’ve decided that 4 students will come to Belgium in the second semester. Our professor told us Moscow University insisting on that and Moscow University told us our professor did. Once more, it gets one to thinking… However, they told us they are not sure they’ll find students and we’ll thus have to wait for another few weeks. Considering I don’t have a few more weeks as I need to decide whether or not I’ll terminate the tenancy for my student’s room in Antwerp, I am getting extremely annoyed and fed up with the whole situation;
- cursing at the Russian workers – when I came back from class and good-tempered entered my room all was covered in white dust and dirt. Apparently they had been installing new smoke detectors and did not find it necessary to cover anything while drilling wholes into the ceiling. They were even too lazy to clean up their mess, so I grabbed a pile of wires and pipes and threw it out into the hallway. Everything was covered in dust: the entire floor, my bed, closets, table, seats, towels, books, food, cutlery, plates, glasses, mugs, cooking utensils, my notebook (which was btw open), my clothes that were hanging over the chair, my laundry that was drying on the thread, … Yep, I spent almost two hours cleaning everything from top to bottom, then had to do the laundry once more and then I went to do the exact same thing at Cedric’s room as Yves and his family were arriving within an hour for a true Pelmeni feast ;
- making a very hard decision – last week Petra told me she was about to buy another ticket seeing she had decided to return home in December as well (Yves already bought his ticket a month ago). To be honest, I think that is a rather wise decision – class ends in December and we’ll thus have nothing more to do for another month, I can’t properly work on my thesis here as I don’t have internet nor the right environment, a new ticket is much cheaper than staying here another month, I could arrange things for the 4 Russian students that are said to be coming to Antwerp, I could start getting used to my natural biotope again and getting settle before the second semester officially starts, I could start working again, most importantly I would see my family and friends and finally have a bowl of granny’s delicious soup, … – and so I was considering to follow suite. On Monday I surfed on the internet for a while and found a ticket for only €98 which is close to nothing. I filled in all required data and only had to press “enter” to make it official… But I couldn’t do it. Don’t ask me why, probably just pride as I decided to come here and I don’t want to give up just like that. Anyway, something held me back from pushing that button and I’m glad it did. I have no regrets whatsoever and am pleased with my final decision: I’m staying until the 3rd of February and thus expect some visitors (Lotte, go and get those visas for the English gang – Marie, Moscow is waiting for you). I am also thinking of jumping on the train in January and travel to Siberia, Lake Baikal. Anyone interested???.

That’s all for now; a few translations, an essay and a thesis are waiting for me…

До следующей недели, друзья!