MY bubbles
It’s not exactly my favourite season, but I can’t help noticing there was quite some nice weather out there. It was sunny for many days, even if the mornings prove to be uncomfortable on the way to the station. We did manage to go biking this weekend, exploring our new town surroundings. Hilly surroundings. Much as I loved the weather, I had some minor difficulties in coping with the upwards parts.
Now, the downside of autumn had to take its place too. My husband has been fighting a throat infection for a while now, and guess what, it’s coming my way. Air conditioned at the office doesn’t make it any easier. Not to mention that in a few days I will have an important meeting where I have to do some extensive talking. If I still have my voice…
Luckily, we will very soon be able to take a decent bubble bath! I really really can’t wait. My first real bubble bath in years! The ones at my parents-in-law where you have to pray there’s water left to rinse don’t count :-) MY BUBBLES! MINE! MINE!! MINE!!!
Good news and bad news
Note: I wrote this post actually on Monday morning, but I can't update my blog at work anymore. That goes into the bad news too...
First bad news, it's Monday morning. Whoever invented that... I found a nice text regarding work last week.
You always have to give 100% to your work:
- 12% on Monday
- 23% on Tuesday
- 40% on Wednesday
- 20% on Thursday
- 5% on Friday
I am normally a very motivated person, however I might have difficulty reaching the 12% in being awake today. But you never know, there's always something that makes your day.
More bad news can come from this. Of course it is always my fault for reading the press every morning for at least one hour, wherever I am. Unavoidably, you come across the ups and downs of modern civilisation.
And then there's more, you wonder which are the things that would have an impact on you, the ones very far away, I mean, North Korea is not exactly in the neighbourhood, or the ones closer to your reality. This was as well front page of international news. This is my current back yard and it is not funny. Not because I fear they would kick me out of the country for being foreign, but just the thought that I live in a place where almost one person in four votes extreme right. They call it mostly “protest vote”. Sorry to say, but I could find a dozen other different ways to protest about politics.
After one whole night of fun and dancing on Friday (yes, the stage party was quite ok and a good opportunity to meet old and new people) my clothes were obviously not-wearable anymore because of the smoke. So this comes as good news. Of course, a full smoking ban is still to happen in Belgium, but it’s at least getting closer.
I am unsure how to categorise this one though. I always thought Volvo’s are big reliable safe family cars. Maybe it’s not that safe and that’s where the ‘family’ starts from for some. Now I have to consider the fact that I intend to buy a Toyota Aygo, the smallest possible car they every made. It hasn’t really made top 10, even if it’s marketed as a young dynamic city car. I still have time to change my mind I guess. If I have enough money, or it comes as a company car, I will definitely go for the VW Golf. Only number 9, but practice makes perfect (you have to believe me that the last sentence is actually a Toyota F1 slogan; I haven’t found a link for it however).
I am still on the look for more good news for setting a balance here. I shall let you know.
One year later
I can't believe it's been a whole year since this:
One year since I started my Commission stage. I probably would not have thought of it like this if I hadn't been in the same place yesterday. I went to say hello to the people I knew from the Traineeships Office, the ones who are managing the whole stage programme, and to see two of my former university colleagues who just began their stage now. Same crowd, same cocktail, same unknown faces. It does bring back memories...
I went to buy a ticket for the welcome party on Friday. Yes, after about 7 months I'm going to one of those things again. Quite funny, when I bought it, a girl from the current committee saw my name and said 'Oh, my god, you're Dana?!'. I was unsure what to believe. Apparently, 'posterity' heard of me.
I actually started this blog the last days of my stage, because I so much wanted to write about it and remember it. I know I sound, still, incredibly excited about it. But I can't help it. I can only hope that most of the ones doing it would feel the same at some point. It's in this Brussels thing of loving it or hating it. I guess I was meant to love it.
Hopefully, from January on, I can go back to the lunch-in-town tradition. That's what I mostly miss now. And the long phone conversations alone in my office. And the everyday mailing and chatting. And walking around with my nose up in the Berlaymont. And the Thursdays and Fridays in Place Luxembourg.
One year wiser.
