so it might not be a big deal for any of you, but i have not played minesweeper for one entire week - since i linked it with my odd illness, that magically disappeared with one night of solid sleep (and one day without minesweeper).

this is of great substance. before that vital moment where i informed the world (i.e. those who care to read this) of my decision, i had been playing a sickening amount. no wonder i got sick! i hate to think how many hours i spent, eyes glued to the screen... but then that momentous decision and i have done well. my addiction has waned.

okay so ive found this new game which requires being a yeti and hitting a penguin. but i dont play that very much. not in comparison. and its all about comparisons as far as im concerned.

thesis is not going well. the computer i am working on, which seems to have been suffering for many years, has come to a conclusive death. the files i use are too big to copy anywhere else and thus i am stuck, until next week when hopefully the man will come and fix the machine (or better yet, provide me with a new one!). so once again a weekend approaches and i feel things are not going my way.

however, despite the miserable predicament of work, the weather is keeping me happy, and distracted! it has snowed for three days now. three days. and this morning when i got up at 8, it had been snowing all night and the snow was thick and fluffy, all over the ground. i nearly slipped over about 20 times and found this quite amusing. i walked down streets and paths that were untouched and perfectly covered (until i jumped through them and caused footprints that would probably resemble a rugby team at training).

how can i be disheartened when there is snow??! its just not possible!

so, since i last wrote, a sudden realisation wave swept over me, and work had to occur.

1) next monday i am giving a lecture for an hour to the rest of my class, and yesterday i had to give them all an abstract and a run down on what i would be talking about. this required me knowing what i would be talking about... hence work was required. by 2am monday morning the typing stopped, and after a visit to the lab to print and then the photocopying shop to photocopy, i made it to my 11am class just in time, with handouts to deliver.

2) thesis. ouch. my eyes are blurry after spending the day down at the lab, struggling to work out the elevations and slopes of all of my sites. this is how i go about it: firstly i select one point from one computer programme. this point represents a village and the programme is made up of tables that give data about that village. however i want more than tables so the point must be transferred. so, secondly i export this one point out of the programme into what i shall call twilight zone, where it sits in a form that allows it to be manipulated into other programmes. thirdly, i import the one point into another programme. however, while the point can be seen, the programme does not yet understand it. thus, fourthly, i have to convert it into a file that this programme understands. in order to do that i have to create a fake map to act as a background for the new point, and then once the point is put on that fake map i can give it a name and then, fifthly, put it into the map containing slopes and elevations. the complexity has not yet begun. this little village then needs to be overlayed in such a way that everything is black except the little dot representing the village, which then shows the elevation map, that is behind it. i then zoom in, find the centre of the point. and mark the elevation.

one village down, 34 to go!

and then i do the slopes. and then i put a 1km radius buffer around each of the sites and find a mean elevation and a mean slope. then i compare the over all mean elevation and slope of the entire region (sadly my supervisor mentioned standard deviations and statistics today... so prepare to be ambushed with data if you know things about stats - heh heh, i have a few contacts up my sleeve. heh heh.).

then? i switch to another computer and start to use satellite images that give geology and terrain and vegetation stuff, which in turn can also be analysed. by similar type methods as above.

3) i have much reading to do before friday. but at least im not presenting this week.

enough about work. what else have i been doing? um. well. i am in the midst of planning a week long trip to spain. cool huh? morna, eric and shannon are heading to morocco for two weeks around easter time. and then me and joe are planning on flying down and meeting them in southern spain, hiring a car and driving up the east coast to barcelona. ryan air flights are pretty cheap and hiring a car, not only is cheap, but allows me to stop at every single deserted beach i see... need i say more?!! (ha, of course i will say more, but i have no more to say right now).

today is shrove tuesday. so tonight we eat pancakes.

for once the sun is still shining and its now late afternoon. what a breakthrough (note the literal play on words there). yet, unfortunately i am fighting internally with the feeling of illness upon me, thus dont appreciate the outdoors in the way that i should.

now really, i dont quite understand how this can be possible? i mean, up until now, apart from two days when exam pressure caused my head to hurt, i have been 100% healthy. which i have been quite impressed by. however i am not impressed that it has been less than a month since my last slight under the weather feeling and now the back of my throat is demanding attention. it just will not do.

the only suggestion i can put forward is that it is my body trying to tell me to stop playing minesweeper, which i have become far too addicted too. even if this is not the case, it is a good thing to believe and an opportunity to stop playing!

anyway, i refuse to accept the condition at hand and shall 'soldier on (with coldral, solider on... solider on...) - eh dad?

today i gave a presentation in class. its a class on the origins of christianity and naomi and i were cast into the limelight as we discussed paul and his missionary journeys through asia minor. the limelight was actually more of a spotlight, a spotlight that moved between us and our lecturer who loves to interrupt! ha. but we kept it up for the two hours and he gave us a big nod of approval and a thank you at the end. and now i have a much better understanding about many things.

i think thats all. time for minesw... oh no wait. nope. time for... other stuff.

yawn. am being extemely lazy. so lazy that ive felt the need to update this site three times today! what does that tell you about my state of mind eh?

so firstly, i just came to a realisation that the little ads that appear at the top of the page, somehow have picked words up out of my entries and turned them into ads... i.e. the other day they were talking about buying owl pellets (coincidently after my blog about seeing an owl) and now its all about squirrels. perhaps i should have noticed this months ago. probably all of you did. this obviously shows my disregard for advertising - which i view as quite the positive thing!

secondly, hurrah i got mail! and its none of this 'youve got mail' internet stuff either. but real mail in the post. thanks rachel. am listening to the cd now and am bobbing my head with the rhythm. just like when we used to study (or where i pretended to study and you got terribly distracted and couldnt study, due to my amazing bobbing and dancing abilities).

thirdly, tonight morna and leigh are the djs at a bar called wink. its sort of the international bar - it apparantly has international parties every saturday night. this is exciting. the dj-ing i mean. they will be playing classic indy-rock tunes. but good for them for getting in the door i say. so we are heading off to that. later.

anyone planning to visit me soon by the way? five new canadians have arrived (either they are extremely loyal, extremely rich, or flights here are ridicuously cheap!!). no, to be honest, most of them are studying somewhere in europe. seems half of the humanities department from carlton, ottawa, are on exchange this year, somewhere in europe. 7 of them are here. anyway, its not christmas and im not at all homesick, so i welcomed them all with a 'gday'.

thats all really. might go play another game or two of minesweeper. i need some serious motivation to get work done these days.

today is the most beautiful sunny day. bright blue sky. white fluffy clouds. the sun is beaming, happy to not be concealed by fog-like, overcast-like matter usually dominating the scene. ahhh. after what feels like so long in greyness, sunshine is, quite literally, a ray of light urging me to venture outside. i can almost smell the possibilities of spring in the air. if only the weird grinding noises of some construction drill tearing up the concrete in the very near vicinity would cease, all would be right in the world.


update: hmprh, two hours later and somehow those little fluffy unsuspicious clouds have mutinied into one giant blanket, once again covering the city and in doing so, have merged into the ever familiar greyish tone ive become so use to seeing. meantime - concrete drill work has quietened down, or at least is more periodic as opposed to continuous.

apparantly belgium has squirrels. apparantly these belgian squirrels are big. big and red. and fluffy. as squirrels should be. as i've always imagined squirrels to be. and just how i want squirrels to be. apparantly they run about, up and down trees, collecting nuts, making squirrel-type noises, and just generally being squirrelish.

now i've known about these so-called facts for some time. i've known that if i leave the cobbled streets behind and head to the outskirts - no further than the outskirts of leuven in fact - that squirrels will appear. and they will appear in big and red and fluffy forms. i know this.

and so saturday was 'the day to find a squirrel'. of course this required me leaving those cobbled streets of leuven behind. and finding some trees. because, as far as i'm aware, squirrels like trees. and so that seemed like the logical step to take. in my mind, this is how it should work:

bex + camera + multiple trees (preferably with some sort of nut attached) - cobbled streets = big and red and fluffy squirrels.

and so off i went, camera in hand. and i found the trees, equipped with some nut variation, and i departed from the streets of leuven...

squirrels? no. none. not one. horses? yes. dogs? yes. birds? yes. water buffalo? yes... okay, well they looked like water buffalo but actually ended up being some large 'water buffalo look alike' rocks. but squirrels? no.

in retrospect i am wondering exactly what went wrong. i'm not that much of a squirrel expert. so i cannot come up with any definite solution. though, it has just occured to me, that despite entering a forest, the tracks were all like miniature cobbled streets... perhaps my fundamental 'seeing a squirrel' equation was foiled as i didn't specify that cobbled paths in forests are different from cobbled paths in town. hmmm.

however i will not give up. i will succeed. the squirrel will not pull wool over my eyes and lead me astray. the squirrel will be found. and i shall reign triumphant. (and this is sounding like one of those speeches the president gives in the movies before they attack the aliens...)

so the results are in.

and after sorting out a slight mishap whereby they thought i didn't sit one of my exams, i can now be very happily contented with the following: three 15s, two 16s and one 17. out of 20. so it looks like i can handle a university system on the other side of the world after all!! but the best news? the 17 was for the course my thesis supervisor lectured... i.e. hopefully i'm in his good books, despite the lack of thesis!

and in other news. frank and i have decided to write a rap. i'll be keeping you informed as it comes together.

i have this friend. his name's dermot, which of course means he's irish! and a lovely one at that. he's studying at the music school here in leuven. we met on the very first day i arrived in town, when i was still very sleepy and confused from 37 hours in travel mode.

last night i finally got to hear dermot play the piano. the piano.

now, i know a thing or two about the piano. i myself played it for 7 years, members of my family have, and still do, play... but when dermot played last night, i was swept up into a world i have never been to before.

he played, not with music, but with his heart. i have never heard a piano be played in such a way. i felt like i was inside each note that sounded. and all i could do was shut my eyes and let it all soak into and through me.

one of the pieces, i later was told, he had created himself... at one point, he was joined by another guy who played a bass jazz type rhythm and dermot just started playing melodies - completely ad lib and free, in a way i have never seen or heard or experienced before.

it blew my mind and has left me refreshed. if there could ever be such a thing as musical cleansing, i have just come up from total immersion.

thank you dermot.

so i found this material store. uh huh. and there was a sale going on. a half price sale in fact. which of course requires a rummage about to see what was on offer. typically i found some random orange type material that is always useful to have about. and this great purpley pinky fabric with big flowers - very 70s curtain look i suppose. i am not in need of curtains, i have them already. but i am in need of brightening up this grey and bleak town that consists of people wearing the darkest or dullest possible colours invented. they might blend beautifully into the overcast sky, but really... what this place needs is some colour. some action. some boldness. and of course, that is where i come in. yeah, so there's no sewing machine. but since when has that stopped me? that's what safety pins, and tape and string and other handy devices are for...

ahhh, when there's work to be done, there is nothing more satisfying than putting it off with great ideas about starting new fashion trends throughout europe.

hmprh. it is still raining. and i don't feel like leaving my room.

now this brings about slight complications to my plans. my plans had been to get up bright and early and walk down to the lab and put in a solid day's work on my thesis. it is nearly 11:30am. i am still in my pyjamas. hmmmm. the things is, rain just doesn't inspire me to go outside. unless i really have to. in fact, it doesn't really inspire me to get up either. but i successfully pulled myself out of bed by 9:30 this morning so am quite pleased with myself (despite the fact that i had set my alarm for 7:30...)

this is most frustrating. however i have reshuffled my plans slightly and now will spend the day attempting (no - accomplishing!) to write chapter one. inside. without needing to leave my room. and going to the lab can occur tomorrow. when it will hopefully have stopped raining...

why does it have to rain? and why don't i have a car that would allow me to get to places without getting wet? and why did i leave my umbrella at davis' place?

today is raining. and rain just isn't as fun as snow.

however i currently have my hands on the book 'flowers for algernon' by daniel keyes. hence meaning i do not need to go out into the rain (except to go to the laundromat...). anyway i've read it before but reading it again, now having noticed the quote at the start by plato, gives it such a new meaning. if you've got time on your hands (or even if you don't) - i highly, highly recommend it.

"progris riport 1 martch 3: dr strauss says i shoud rite down what i think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. i dont no why but he says its importint so they will see if they can use me. i hope they use me becaus miss kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. i want to be smart. my name is charlie gordon i werk in donners bakery where mr donner gives me 11 dollers a week and bred or cake if i want. i am 32 yeres old and next munth is my brithday. i tolld dr strauss and perfesser nemur i cant rite good but he says it dont matter he says i shud rite just like i talk and like i rite compushishens in miss kinnians class at the beekmin collidge center for retarted adults where i go to lern 3 times a week on my time off. dr strauss says to rite a lot evrything i think and evrything that happins to me but i cant think anymor because i have nothing to rite so i will close for today... yrs truly charlie gordon."