One year ago...

...we arrived back in Brussels, with two overloaded cars. I felt completely and utterly lost. We had just left our Barbizon-home, Fonty and all of our INSEAD-friends. I had lost the safety and security of healthy parents. I was about to loose my own little apartment as P and I were looking for a place big enough for both of us. All my belongings were or in boxes, or at my parents, or at P’s home, or simply lost. And I was still stuck with a job I didn’t want to go back to. It was hell. It was the beginning of the end. I fought for a few more months, but then it was over&out.
Looking back on last year’s summer, I can only be happy that it’s somewhere in the past. It can’t be undone, it’s still very present in my memory and the scars are still there. But life is much nicer to me now. And I’m much nicer to life as well.

Moving movies

I know, I know : I haven’t written a lot lately. Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve written loads. Entire textbooks. Literally. But I guess this blog would become a little bit boring if I started posting, let’s say, grammar exercises. (Hmm, maybe I could make a blog like that...Food for thought)

Anyway, this week was, beside a lot of teaching, all about movies.
I saw two movies in one week, which, for me, is an absolute record. The other exceptional thing is that I saw these movies not a) in you standard giant theatre or b) at home, in front of the TV.

Movie-experience nr. 1 was “Pirates of the Caribbean”. And we saw this one at what you could call “a home cinema”. One of our friends has an enormous projector screen, a high definition projector, a sound system that makes the entire building tremble, and lots of other geeky stuff of which I don’t even know the name. So with a pancake-induced food coma, we let ourselves sink away in the couch, armed with popcorn, and watched the pirates. I must admit I fell asleep a few times – it was just too comfy.

Movie-experience nr.2 was “Gran Torino”. For this we went to the Movy Club in Vorst (part of Brussels). The Movy Club has to be one of the best kept secrets of Brussels. It’s a very old cinema: stepping inside is like time travelling back to the Fifties (including flowered wall paper, and curtain in front of the screen). The theatre is kept by one old guy, who does the ticketing, the bar, the movie,...well: everything. A ticket costs 4,80 Euro, so it also has to be one of the cheapest theatres in town. And yet : there’s never a crowd. There’s also no heating. So remember, if you go in winter, to bring a blanket.

In our very own movie “The impossible quest for a wedding venue” we are still stuck at that point in the story line where you think there will never be a happy ending.
To be continued...

Seven Dials

Three guesses. Where is this?
....No
....Nope
....Sorry, wrong again!

It's London! In a neighbourhood called "Seven Dials", and more than one Londoner looked at me with a lost expression on his/her face when I told them about it. "Huh? Should I know that?" Well...yes. It's near Covent Garden, it has a village-feel to it with all the cobbled streets, and last but not least : it's full with all kinds of cool and funky shops. Check it out next time you're visiting the Queen!

Books, books, books

After my classes, I walked past this little second hand bookshop opposite the church, called “Het Ivoren Aapje” (The Ivory Monkey, named after a book written in the 19th century about life in Brussels). Outside, on a table were some books, and one, for some reason, caught my attention. It’s been ages since I bought a Dutch book, but what can I say? Maybe teaching my mother tongue has made me love it again.
There was no price on the book, so I walked in – immediately overwhelmed by that sweet, comforting smell of old books. The owner and someone else were hidden behind piles of books, playing chess.
Me : Excuse me, how much is this book?
He : One!
“Damn”, I thought, “this is one of those shops where you’re not allowed to buy just one book. They sell by the kilo or something.”
Me : Umm, yeah, just this one.....
He : Well...One!!
Me : (still in teaching mode) Yes, this is “ONE” book. (followed by an awkward smile, and the feeling that I was definitely missing something here)
He : So it is! So it’s ONE Euro!
Me : Ah, ok...!
I felt I had walked straight into one of Ionesco’s absurd plays.
But I mean, seriously, who would thing of “one Euro” when someone tells you the price of something?

Anyway, this experience kicked my love for books into fifth gear again, and I decided to check out the Dutch library of Brussels. After living here for almost 7 years, I must admit I haven’t been to it once. Shame on me. I had a quick look around, and decided to go for a useful visit : check out the Dutch courses and text books (where I bumped into a few of my colleagues).
All in all, the visit to the library was a strange, but nice experience. It’s like this bubble of Dutch in an otherwise 95% French-speaking city. I even found it weird to ask for information in Dutch – when I walk around, shop, etc in Brussels, I automatically switch to French. I didn’t do so the first six months I lived here, but after a while you just get tired of a) having to repeat everything in French anyway and b) getting unfriendly looks because you have the nerve to speak Dutch, and assume everybody will understand you.
So you realize “Ok, this is my capital city, and (almost) nobody speaks my language.” And that’s even more absurd than Ionesco.
Like the second hand bookshop this morning though, even absurdity can be charming.

A day in the hammock

Whenever I try guided meditation, and they ask me to picture a “save place” in my head, I go to the hammock in my parents’ garden. Hanging between the chestnut and the cherry tree, it’s the perfect spot to relax and dream away. I spent almost the entire summer after graduation from uni in that hammock – reading all the books I brought from New York, and dreaming about yet another date with P (who, at that time, was pulling every romantic trick in the book to win me over). Even the hammock itself was a gift from P. After that hot summer, the hammock was barely used. I started working (no time for daydreaming anymore), the summers got wetter, and I moved out.

A few weeks ago, I decided to ask my dad to install it again. All my meditation time spent in it, made me long for the real thing. And so today I hung between the chestnut and the cherry tree again. Looking up at patches of blue sky between the leaves. Listening to the silence and the birds singing. Smelling the spiciness of fresh cut grass and the sweetness of the roses. Reading until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. Mom, dad, and the two cats within close distance. For a moment, everything felt as safe again as that summer of 2001.

G's repair shop : you break it, we fix it!

Hospitals can bring me so down. I hate the smell, I hate the overly cheery people celebrating another birth, I hate all the pain and suffering I see, I hate the tasteless food, and I hate nurses who hate their job. I love the little yellow ducks in the pond outside though. And maybe also the newspaper shop, where you can pretend for 5 minutes that you’re outside, in the “normal” world.
To me, this hospital is a factory, or more accurately: a giant repair shop. What part is not working? Can we fix it? Do we have to replace it? Done. Thank God for it of course, but is it really so hard to remember that they’re dealing with feeling, thinking human beings – and not, let’s say ...bread toasters?
Hopefully my mom can go home today – and that’ll be the end of another week on Planet Hospital. I hope the next trip to this unfriendly galaxy is a million of lightyears away...

Cornetto

After a crazy week, I can finally sit back and relax a bit. On my terrace, with an ice cream. There was my little London-flu, basically pounding my head every single second wit a huge hammer. There were a lot of lessons to teach, and then there was a lot of rushing to hospital to visit mom in between foresaid lessons.
This morning was the last lesson of the week, and mom is finally doing better. And my flu is almost history. Pfew. I still have a ton of prep work to do for next week’s intensive course – but for now it’s just me and my ice cream. Zen.

Despite all the “setbacks”, I realised once again this week how much pleasure my job is giving me (sorry if this is beginning to sound boring). On Tuesday I dragged myself to my little group of 8 female immigrants to give the last full day of their crash-course. I came home with a fever, but feeling so happy and satisfied. On Wednesday there was another “first” : I taught someone who reacted on the blogpost in which I “promoted” my Dutch lessons! It was a great lesson, with a very motivated and talented student and I’m really looking forward to our next lesson (I have to write this, as he’s probably reading this ;-). And today another student decided to postpone all her lessons until after my holidays – she doesn’t want a substitute teacher :-).

All the fun of the new job aside though, I stumbled upon my “old job” today. In a rather strange way. At the language school around the corner, they have a magazine stand. Every week, there’s also an issue of “HR tribune”. Which I’ve refused to read ever since the beginning of “Episode 3”. Today I thought : “Hm, one of my students has his own recruiting company – an HR related article might be useful lesson material”. So I grabbed the HR Tribune. I opened it at a random page, only to stare at a huge picture of my former boss. I couldn’t believe my eyes. And I couldn’t believe all the lies in the article either. All the blahblah sounded so ridiculously untrue.

Conclusions of the week: there’s not only a Mexican flu; there’s a London one as well. Teaching is great fun. And don’t read the HR Tribune; it’s a load of crap.