31 Mar 2009 No Comments
in Human Nature
I have just written an email to someone close citing that strength and intelligence often goes together. And Voila!, I stumbled across an article entitled Why We Need To Increase Our Intelligence.
The 2 things that achievers do differently:
28 Mar 2009 No Comments
in Belgium, Happenings
D and I managed to catch the last bit of a cycling race known as E3 Prijs Harelbeke. Standing in the cold, I am once again reminded of the crazy love that Belgians have for this particular sport.
I am also reminded of how small this country is! Among the international and well known cyclists were a mixture of Belgian politicians and celebrities. I found out later that one of Belgium’s top chefs was there as well, braving the rain and cold like I did! I would have loved to have a picture of him. 
27 Mar 2009 No Comments
In celebration of Spring and our mutual liking of dining out, D and I decided to have dinner at Faim De Toi this evening. It is one of the listed eating places in Gent we wished to try. It is quite well known and was mentioned in magazines and internet reviews.
The interior is nicely designed. I would say it is a little on the fancy side. The patrons were mainly tourists and business people who stayed at the hotel across the street. The atmosphere were a bit uptight and cold. I didn’t like it so much…
The service was not so good. Aside from a friendly and helpful waitress, the rest of the servers looked annoyed and bored. The menu was hard to understand, and here I am thinking that my Dutch has improved. Both D and I were surprised that his appetizer was a soup. Hehee! And that took 2 hours before it arrived at our table! Luckily my boyfriend was hungry and ate fast. But then again, we waited for another 30 minutes before our main dishes arrived.
After our experiences at Pakhuis, D decided to play it safe this time and ordered steak and fries. He liked it. I ordered the scallops and they were served with cooked and unidentifiable vegetables that didn’t really taste good. The scallops were a bit too charred on the outside. D looked at me with disbelief when I told him that the scallops I had at a brasserie were much better.
Well, that’s that. One down and a few more to go before we move back to West Flanders. This I am sure… we won’t be heading back to Faim De Toi in a hurry.
26 Mar 2009 No Comments
in Quotes
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you’, that would suffice. ~ Meister Eckhart
25 Mar 2009 No Comments
in Happenings
What a horrible thing to happen to anyone. Especially one so young and full of life!
http://peacecorpsconnect.typepad.com/peacecorpspolyglot/2009/03/in-memoriam-kate-puzey.html
Kate was a passionate, joyous, and insightful young woman. Her last blog below showed that she had so much to live for!
http://beinginbenin.blogspot.com/
Slaapwel Kate… you have lived a wonderful life. Tears will be shed for you.
24 Mar 2009 No Comments
in Human Nature
Yep, this is one of those cheesy posts that I adore so much… 
When I read this… I went “Hey? Wow? Did she read my mind?”. Oh by the way, I didn’t run a background check on the author. I do not have the habit of checking for credentials, unless it is someone I am hiring. Besides, does it matter?
Regarding actions:
Regarding personalities:
Here’s the link to the entire article entitled: Take A Chance On Life And Make It Count.
22 Mar 2009 No Comments
in Health
5 Ways to get rid of worries, anxieties and emotional trash:
Source: ezinearticles.com
20 Mar 2009 No Comments
in Quotes
19 Mar 2009 No Comments
in Belgium, Movies, Books & TV Shows
Today in class, we practice our elementary Dutch by role-playing a telephone conversation. One person is sick and can’t go to school the next day. He or she has to inform a classmate. We were to apply appropriate responses with the right intonations!
Lamiea (a young Moroccan girl) and I had the first shot. We did quite well despite a few minor goof ups. The rest of my classmates struggled with the usual stuff like pronunciations, sentence structures, etc. Then, it came to Ivan and Malihe. Ivan is a Cuban who speaks several languages but Dutch. Malihe is a shy Iranian woman who had only moved here 3 months ago. The pretend conversation dragged on for quite a bit. Ivan probably felt stressed when it was his turn to say ‘feel better!’. Instead of veel beterschap, he said veel boodschappen! (a lot of groceries!) with much gusto. Oh, that was it… everyone just started laughing! The Russian reached for his handkerchief to wipe his tears. Ivan buried his face with his hands. Malihe looked devastated. Lieve, my teacher was speechless with laughter. It took us about 5 minutes to regain normalcy.
This reminded me of a TV series called Mind Your Language. I think I will find the comedy series even more hilarious now that I am in a similar situation. Who said going to school is boring?!
17 Mar 2009 No Comments
I first encountered this little fellow yesterday. How it flew up 3 floors in the dark is beyond me. I told D that I saw a humongous bee the size of my thumb. When I cut up a piece of my dinner to show him how big, he said that I was pulling his legs. And the unidentified insect was no where to be seen. Grrr, I’m no liar!
So today when I saw the exhausted UFO crawling about on the floor near the stairs, a few things came to mind: Catch the damn thing, take a picture and let it free.
I didn’t see the bee fly off when I flung it out the window. I would like to think that it probably landed in the rain gutter downstairs and flew off after it regained its bearings.
Do pigeons eat bees? I hope not.
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