Just testing (again)

I’m just testing a plugin here. Nellie uses it on her site to make her favourite songs of the month-posts and I liked it, I might use it on my musical history page or here if I believe you have to hear something I “discovered”.

Anyway, for now, here’s a bit of acoustic the Cure…

I should be studying

Should of course being the operative word. My take-home exam is due monday and the first exam at school is tuesday. I can’t get myself to get started even though I really have to learn certain grammatical rules, I can apply them but I have trouble explaining them. Anyway since I couldn’t concentrate on my books I started playing around here again and the result is a nice little gallery.

A lot has been going on these past few weeks. We (my dad, sister and I) went to Rome for 5 days. We saw almost everything you read about in the touristguides and books. Day 1 we went to the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, the Roman Forum and part of the Quirinale. On day 2 we just walked around the city centre and saw the Trevi fountain. On day 3 we went with a hop-on-hop-off bus tour and visited all the places we hadn’t seen the previous days. Days 4 and 5 were reserved for Vatican City where we mainly went to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum. I loved the Vatican Museum and I made tons of pictures but I have to sort through them, I think I made over 300 photos those 2 days.

The most important news of the past weeks has been that I will probably get my own apartment in December. 2 Bedrooms, a huge livingroom, small kitchen and tiny bathroom and some extra space for a washer and dryer and a nice big balcony. I haven’t seen it yet though because they found asbestos in the kitchen tiles and those have to be removes before anyone is allowed in. But I was first on the list so it’s definitely mine!

I have everything picked out already, paint colours, wallpapers, vinyl for the floors. The best thing is though that when we’re finished decorating I can go pick out 2 cats to come live with me

In a few minutes

I’m going to pick up the papers for my very. own. apartment!

After 8 years of living everywhere and nowhere, back to my parents, moving out again and the last 2 years in the room I currently inhabit, it’s finally time for a grown-up apartment. I get the papers today, can hopefully view it tomorrow and then get the keys next week. I’ll keep you updated.

Pictures (and a report) of Rome will be posted as soon as I can find out how to get them on my computer

Rome

It’s my first school vacation in 8 years and it feels wonderful.

My dad, my sister and I will be off to Rome tomorrow for 5 days. Expect lots of pictures when I get back.

New layout

I hope everything will be like it should be by the end of the day…

Looks like everything is in working order again. These colours fit me more than the light blue and purple I had before. The pictures is also my own. It’s my necklace, the heart used to be my grandma’s, she had a bracelet with charms for all her grandchildren. My name is inscribed but you can hardly read it anymore. You can see the “S” in the picture though. I wear it every day, no matter where I go, I just thought it would be a nice image for my layout.

If you find anything not working or looking strange please let me know.

The first 3 weeks.

The first three weeks are over. And I’m having fun, who would’ve thought that? My class isn’t too big (only 18 people), I’m not the oldest and not the dumbest, so I’m quite happy about that. As for the subjects, we start on mondays with Grammar, which for now isn’t too hard, but we’ve only just covered nouns, so I can’t really tell yet.

After that Tefl (Teaching English as an Foreign Language), we’ve been covering language aquisition, not to exiting yet.
Last subject on Monday: Phonetics¹. I like it, but I’m rubbish at it. I just can’t recognize some of these sounds, I love writing and transcribing it though. Maybe I’ll get better at it at some point.

Then there’s Presentation Skills, which, as you might’ve guessed, is all about presentations. Not only how to give a good presentation, but also how to present yourself, how to act in front of a group of people etc etc. Next is Language Skills, everything we else we need to know about the language, how to write decent letters, how to keep a conversation going. We also learn how to listen and specific sayings and collocations.

Fifth is Literature, up until now we didn’t do much, but we did go on excursion to Oosterbeek yesterday. Exactly 64 years after Operation Market Garden, we visited the Airborne Musseum, after that we went to the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery and last we went to the small church which was heavily damaged in WWII. All places were very impressive but the cemetery got to me most, all these white headstones. Most of the soldiers died in Arnhem in September ‘44 weren’t over the age of 25, I only saw 1 who was over 30. The whole cemetery is so well cared for, there’s not a grassblade out of place, amazing if you think about how some people don’t even take care of their own parents’ graves. I particularly loved the quote on the stone of a 21-year-old soldier: “He died for our freedom, let us live in peace”.

If you can get your hands on it, go read Postcards from No Mans Land by Adain Chambers, the book is the reason we went to Oosterbeek and takes place there for some parts. It also about modern life in Amsterdam and what the city is like for a foreign (English) teenager.

So what’s up with all of you? Whoever that is

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

© Copyright 2008 Suzanne Vlak • Powered by Wordpress