Well, it has been a little while since anything substantive went up on here, and there won't be substantial activity while my family is here (Mom-dukes and Brohan arrive tomorrow at the buttcrack of Belgian dawn--9:30am), so let's call this the seasonal post.

Since last we spoke, I experienced the Christmas market in Leuven and went on a pastry field trip to the capital of Wallonia. There was also an exam, an application and a lot of messing around. Let's take them in chronological order.

Phil and I had our Critical Theory exam on Friday the 15th, which was honestly easier than I thought it would be, but let's see what I get on it, that may have been a fatal misperception. I honestly have no idea what to expect.

After the exam, I went and bought beer glasses with Phil and planned to hang out with Marianne. Phil was going to some kind of lecture, but once a more relaxing alternative presented itself, he was easily dissuaded. So we're on our way back from the grocery store and we happen upon the christmas market that had completely taken over the Ladueze- and Hoover-pleins. I had never had the traditional gluhwein (sp?) or the genever (sp?) which is an original Belgian gin liquor, OR for that matter had the christmasy sausage sandwiches. So we stopped and had all three, to very pleasant effect I must say. I was utterly relaxed, though I did prefer the cherry genever to the mulled wine stuff, wine and I have never really liked each other.

We had plans to go out to dinner with Dave, and we convinced Phil to come (though he took a stonecold nap beforehand) and we called Cordelia, and Charles came with Dave, so really, by the time we got to the restaurant it was quite a party! The restaraunt (Muy Sapore) is really nice, the first time Marianne and I went there they treated us like queens because we were friends with Dave. It's Italian and Asian together on one menu, so there's something for everyone. We ended up staying up pretty late that night, went back to the christmas market just before it closed.

So that was Friday. Saturday morning Marianne, Mark and I went to Namur (the capital of Wallonia = French Belgium) on Mark's invitation to go to the best patisserie in all of Europe. It was indeed, quite spectacular. Like those dessert houses you see in period pictures about the aristocracy. We wandered around, I bought a new (blue) scarf, we went into this beautiful cathedral and made fart jokes (God better have a sense of humor). We also hiked up to this huge fort overlooking the city, which was something else. It was pissing rain though, and although I had an umbrella my boots were sodden by the time we left. I only have a few pictures, and none of them scenic, there was too much wet. I'll upload them when Photobucket decides to work again.

So yeah, those were two very full days. I had a few classes this week, that wasn't bad. I'm sad some of them are over, but I'm excited about only having two days of class scheduled next semester.

Have a happy break/religious holiday!

Cake

I have absolutely no energy to write anything, I'm totally burnt out. But I will compensate with a buttload of visual aides.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakerphotos/

Love,

Cakes

I'm hard pressed to take any decent pictures these days, kinda sucks actually because I sit down and realize that lots of interesting visual things have happened and I have absolutely no record of them. You'll just have to take my word for it.

In the news lately are a lot of Birthdays. My friend Viktor's birthday was on Friday, though he didn't care to celebrate. My friend Dave's was the following Saturday, and he threw a pretty splendid party at his and Frenchy's place (scene of the American thanksgiving bonanza). And now Phil's is today, so I spent some good currency on two beautiful fruit tarts and we'll be having a lowkey dinner at that house. I enjoy all the celebrating, for the most part everyone is very fun and gregarious and parties turn out to be really nice occasions, although the tendency to spill over into excess is pretty widespread, but ultimately I think that's probably a good thing.

Really the reason why I'm writing is to report the AMAZING concert I went to last night. It was Badly Drawn Boy in the Brussels Botanical Garden, and the show itself was almost the cherry on the cheesecake. The venue was beautiful. In order to get to the Orangerie (a smallish auditorium toward the middle of the main building) we had to walk through two beautiful indoor gardens, filled with large tropical water plants and those little white and orange goldfish you see in decadent places. The crowd was smartly dressed without being pretensious, and everyone was very friendly and I heard no fewer than 10 languages spoken. It was really wonderful, I felt encouraged on some existential level. I went with my friends Cordelia and Shannon, and we got there just early enough to get a good place in front of the stage. I was so close I could have pulled Damon's Gough's guitar cord if I wanted to. He played a lot of songs from Bewilderbeast, which I love as an album, some stuff from About a Boy, and then some of his new stuff, which I'll admit to not being terribly fond of, but they certainly play as a team and the drummer in particular was a thrill to watch. He looked like a blonde Toby McGuire, with that kind of sleepy, dorky slow smile. BDB himself played the crowd really well, alternating between Elvis-esque charm and completely insecure defensiveness, it was interesting to see. I know it's his trademark, but the knit beanie did not make any sense. It was so hot, and he was sweating profusely, and had a jacket on over two t-shirts! That seemed a bit silly, not that I'm to be excluded from such irrational practices.

What was a very special moment though, happened at the very beginning, before anyone played. Cordelia and Shannon went to the coat check and I stood around in our spot and people-watched etc. I was feeling pretty comfortable and pleased with the whole thing, thinking to myself how much better concerts are in Europe, and then the ambient music changed to the Kings of Convenience's "Homesick", which is one of my favorite songs of all time, but especially since I've been here. It was so perfect I almost jumped out of my skin, and I couldn't control my grin, even though I guess it's kind of a sad song. Sad songs that hit the mark are somehow not so sad really.

Anyway, beyond all that social stuff I've just been working. I actually started writing the intro to my thesis, which feels good, even though I know I'll have to rewrite it eventually. The idea is just to give a brief catalogue of all the references Lacan makes to Kierkegaard's Repetition, which are as numerous as they are impenetrable. The first one I site is from "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis", and just to give you a feel for Lacan's obscurity, the important sentence reads: "...the exhaustion of being consummated in Kierkegaardian repetition." Needless to say, I'm probably not going to be able to pull this one apart until the very end of my thesis.

I hope everyone is well, keep in touch.

Ashley

Another sleepy Sunday almost gone... for a while I was keeping track of Sundays gone and Sundays yet to come, but I lost track right around when school started getting heavy. I should count them up again, since now that school is heavy and socializing is occasionally blurring the distinction between one day and the next, I have completely lost track of whole weeks. I've been here for over two months! Where the heck did all that time go? Into books and glasses of Belgian beer, that's where it went. Not that I'm bitter, I only regret a few moments here and there--a much better ratio than at many other times in my life. Nonetheless, I wish I had about 60 more hours between today and tomorrow, hours wherein I didn't have to sleep or eat if I didn't want to. So many freakin' constraints, where's the manager! I have something to say about this! (The Young Man in Repetition has a temper tantrum against God at one point, very funny.)

Yesterday Marianne and I went on a hella shopping trip to Antwerp. Originally I had planned to go to a lecture, but I misunderstood the time slot, so I didn't make it. I needed new shoes badly, and I wanted boots so I could wear skirts in the winter. I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone out there how infuriating shopping can be for anyone who doesn't fit the fickle and changing standards of the fashion industry, with whatever mysterious means they have of producing such simple stereotypes. I alternately seethed with indignant rage and sunk into a pit of self-pity and loathing. If anyone out there thinks I'm exagerating, we need to get to know each other better. I HATE shopping. Even when it works I consider it the exception that proves the rule. Such a simple thing on the face of it: find a pair of boots that are both functional and not helatiously or hilariously ugly. I can't even talk about it it makes me so angry-slash-sorry for myself.

The great part about spending the day in Antwerp was really hanging out with Marianne. She staid my nerves and didn't dote on my helplessness, I could follow her along on her missions and still have the courage to stop in every GD boot store in the city. At a few points we got to laughing so hard my sides hurt, so that was another nice counterbalance to my otherwise abyssmal mood. I did get a nice pair of boots from Puma, in the last shop five minutes after they officially closed. I also got a really nice grey jacket that I really like and Marianne gave me a great red scarf that's way warmer than my plain old brown scarf, so really, I made out like a bandit. Antwerp is also really beautiful, I'll go to take pictures sometime. The train station in particular is stunning.

In other news I had a little visitor today, she got off the train and we went around and did stuff and took pictures, here she is having a hot chocolate in the Grote Markt. She's a great guest, doesn't say much, but not everyone's a conversationalist.

Anyhoo... I'm going to have my sleepy Sunday supper now, Indian food, Taj Mahal... again. It's good and cheap, what more can one ask?
At any rate I hope everyone is well and not too busy, it's almost paper writing season again. May God have mercy on us.

Me

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone!

Despite the fact that Belgium passed over our hallowed holiday without any ceremony whatsoever, I managed to have a thoroughly fulfilling celebration (minus my family and absent friends, of course, which always weighs heavily on me). My friends Chris (a.k.a. Frenchy) and Dave threw a very lavish celebration in their thoroughly lavish apartment last night, and many people feasted, talked, feasted, drank and feasted some more. All the usual all-stars were there, and also a bunch of cool people I didn't know, so I got to broaden my horizons as well as enjoy my already opened one. Originally, Chris' idea was to stuff a duck wrapped in bacon inside the turkey, but the farmer talked the butcher out of it, and then the butcher talked Frenchy out of it. We were all suitably dissappointed at first, but the bird came out wonderfully, and along with a complement of luscious sides (and a really tasty tempeh dish for the veggies) we were all groaning with an excess of thanksgiving. I made Mr. Sumnauth's famous sweet potatos, even though I had to use Marianne's only two sweet potatos since there were apparently no other sweet potatos in Leuven. I remember passing hoardes of North Americans in the vegetable section bemoaning the unseasonable lack of traditional thanksgiving foods, but such is the luck of the displaced I suppose.

Tomorrow is Dr. Rodemeyer's talk, which happens at the ungodly hour of 9AM, but I am looking forward to it nonetheless. Marianne and I might go shopping in Antwerp after that, since I am desperately in need of new shoes and some other things... Marianne's a really great person and we get along famously, plus she's incredibly together and industrious, so she exercises a much needed good influence on me.

In the meantime, I've been working on my Aristotle summary, which is (predictably, to those gifted with foresight) a lot harder than I thought it would be. The various connections I have to explain just to get to luck and chance is taking several pages out of ten, so maybe I won't fulfill my ambition to talk a little about Lacan's appropriation, but such is life. The end of semester classes looms just over the horizon (I have an exam in three weeks!) and I'm scrambling to make sure all my ducks are in a row. I have alas not started writing my thesis yet, but between the summary, the various readings, a certain essay, a new editing job and the revision of the workshop paper, I have a lot of writing on my plate, so I'm not being too hard on myself (yet). I'm hoping that once the summary is done I can dedicate a larger block of time to the other things, but to tell you the truth, my optimism is hanging by a thin shred of self-delusion, so my next blog may just be a series of unintelligible frustration expressions, but we'll see. There just aren't enough hours in the day, what with sleeping and eating on top of everything else.

The weather has been absolutely depressing. It rained for four days straight and the only reason I don't count today is because it rained only for about two hours, which is a vast improvement. I haven't been taking a lot of pictures, taking the camera out in the rain seems like a bad idea, but I did manage to get a couple of very blurry pictures of a bunch of us hanging out at Amedee on Wednesday night.
This is (from left to right): Phil, his girlfriend Julia and Arnis, with whom in particular I have had some very interesting discussions. Phil is a really good friend of mine here, we hang out and study all the time, despite the fact that he thinks I'm just a big angry reactionary leftist.
From right to left this time: Phil, Shane's friend Adam (visiting Belgium to give a Kierkegaard paper in Antwerp!) and Shane himself. Shane, Phil and Marianne all live together in their beautiful apartment. So with the addition of Shannon and Frenchy, these three make up pretty much my whole circle. There are a lot of people I really enjoy talking to and hanging out with, but these are the ones I go out and drink beer with night after night. You will perhaps notice two glasses in front of me, both Westmalle Dubbel. I love this beer, but the reason I have two is because it's a pain to get out from behind this particular table, so I was just trying to exercise my foresight. Amedee is a great bar, lots of board games and decent (though flourescent) lighting, and they only play classical music. So when you picture me studying in a bar, this would be it.

Anyhoo, I have to go to bed, get up early.

All my love,

Cake

Hmmm, well... I really don't have much to report, but let's give it a shot anyway.

I met with Dr. Moyaert on Tuesday, finally. He was still 25 minutes late, but I count myself lucky. It was an interesting meeting, though now that I look at my notes, I don't think he told me anything I hadn't already learned in class. But on the other hand, it's always good to hear it one more time, and in response to a specific question. It did help to tie it all together and see where I'm just chasing Lacan's terminology in a circle. The more interesting part came when I asked about the Aristotle Lacan sites in the 11th seminar with regard to tuche and automaton, which is a subtle (and not always consistent) distinction between luck and chance. Moyaert asks me (for the third time): "Are you doing a research paper or a thesis?" A thesis Dr. Moyaert. "Okay, good, good. Write me a ten page summary on this section of Aristotle, due in two weeks."

I'm actually excited about it, although I know he won't remember asking me for it. It's a good chance to get to know Aristotle a little (yet another gaping hole in my education) and to do some concrete writing, which hopefully will transcribe itself into a chunk of my thesis, though honestly I'm not sure how it relates yet. Since Moyaert won't remember, I might do 5 pages on Aristotle and 5 pages on Lacan's appropriation, which I'm sure requires some serious documentation of its own. Then I'll include some little note like: "My name is Ashley Cake, I'm doing a thesis on Kierkegaard and Lacan, we met on Tuesday two weeks ago, you asked me for this paper, here it is." I think it'll be good.

In the meantime, I'm planning a trip to Maastricht again on Sunday, which should be fun. I've been saving up to go. I need to start planning some other, bigger trips, but for now it's all I can manage to do to get to Holland and back. I need to go to Copenhagen specifically, get back in touch with my Danish (if there's any left). I've been working hard and enjoying myself, anticipating a visit from Dr. Rodemeyer from Duquesne, who's coming next week for a Husserl conference. She's really been such a huge help to me in the last year and a half, and her Husserl seminar last fall was really one of the highlights of my time at Duquesne, so it'll be really good to see her in this new context.

I've been trying hard to save up some money, but studying in my room is getting pretty old. It doesn't help that my computer is right here, which means everyone I miss is just a few keypushes away. But also there's the bed, and I always think I can read in bed, but I can't, I just fall asleep. I am reading Alexandre Kojeve's (pictured) introduction to Hegel as nighttime sleepy reading, and it actually keeps me up because I'm beginning to understand how completely pervasive it was for Lacan and a bunch of other people in the same line. It's an interesting book for sure, though it's completely obvious that the guy thought a great deal of himself, as did the students who helped to put the published volume together. When you make a claim like: "This is THE book..." You can mean it, but meaning doesn't make it so, you know?

Anyway, I hope all is well with everyone. I hope to have more interesting things to report soon. Otherwise ya'll are going to be submitted to chunks of my thesis.

All my love,

Cake

You would not believe what I just went through with this computer. I got cut off by KotNet (KULeuven's ISP network) the other day, and they told me I had a trojan. So I go through the exstensive rigamorole to get the McAfee's yada yada and scan my poor little comp, and lo, 20something Trojans and over 4,000 viruses!! Poor thing, she must have been struggling in that sick state for some time, since I've been really bad about testing and firewalling pretty much since I got her. But, two OS restores and seven scans later, she's clean as a whistle and running better than ever.

In the meantime, I've been on this budget kick--wherein I try to stick to my budget--so I've been kicking around my little room, doing work and cleaning. Feels pretty good to sit down to work and have a nice empty area to fill. Even though Brad was very wonderful and cleaned my whole place and bought me flowers before he left, I've done a pretty good job wrecking the place since he flew back.

I guess besides the various modes of cleaning and working, I don't have much to report. I went to see Children of Men with Cordelia and Mark last night, which is only the second time I've indulged cinematically since I've been here. The last time was to see Science of Sleep, which I thought was excellent. Children of Men wasn't so good, I thought. Your standard pseudo-post-apocolyptic thriller with tons of shocking violence and many, many totally unbelieveable transitions and plot points. The best part though was Michael Caine's rendition of the standard enlightened-hippie-hiding-in-a-beautiful-house-in-the-woods character. As so many of these characters are for me--and I suppose are meant to be--his was an oasis in the otherwise dry and predictable movie.

Otherwise I'm just tired and feeling a bit overwhelmed I guess. So much to do, so little will to do it. I've been working pretty constantly, but I took this weekend off just to do nothing and fix my computer, which took most of the weekend anyway. At any rate, I did write out my research bibliographies for my thesis today, and I have a lot of really interesting reading to do, so I suppose that's something to look forward to.

I'll leave you on an upbeat note. This is my favorite stupid cat photo of the moment, second only to the Kitty Lime Helmet, which never gets old. She's a bit pixelated because I resized her to post on Phoebe's Myspace page, but you get the idea.


As if to say: "what?"

The man had a gift for understatement.

I'm a little weepy today, I'll be honest. The moontime's coming on and I don't feel much like my self. I spent three days preparing hard for a meeting with a professor, then was stood up without ceremony. Granted, I didn't make an appointment, but I made the (apparently typically American) mistake that the office hours on their doors actually mean the professors will be in their office between those times. So it's all my fault, but I'm still pissed about it. This would be the first thing (and relatively minor really) that I've found to be annoyed with K.U. Leuven over, so really we're still getting along fine. That kind of thing gets under my skin though, reaffirming my sense that I really have no idea what I'm doing here. Which doubt fits nicely into my personal theme of feeling that I don't really know what I'm doing anywhere, at any time. Bor or or, Ashley's paranoiac knowledge is getting the best of her again.

Nonetheless, I am thinking hard about what I want to do next year. I have this amazing offer to do an assistantship with my mentor, and I have the opportunity (the expectation really) to go back to Duquesne and teach, but somehow I still have hard choices to make. The sense of being somehow incompetant in some important way is really getting to me, and despite all my hard work, it isn't getting any better here, except that I am developing a sense that when I'm done with Leuven I will be a better person and a better scholar. Once I leave, I know I won't have another bar so close or attainable, that there will be a period of time stretching far into the distance wherein I will not find any bars at all, except for those I make myself. Self-determination is one helluva drive... no roads, no signs, no GPS, just the ceaseless forward. I'm going to burn bridges, go against advice, follow some call that could be coming from heaven or hell, and the only consolation I have is that ultimately, it was all my choice, my responsibility. Cold comfort if I end up flipped over in a ditch, or running out of gas in the middle of nowhere.
Funny how everyone goes through this, and has to go through this, all on their own.

In other news, I'm getting closer to understanding what my thesis is about. Of course I knew beforehand that Kierkegaard's repetition is a religious movement, and that Lacan's is not, but that didn't become clear in all its ramifications until just this week. Hopefully I'll start writing sometime this month, but I'm having increasing difficulty forcing myself to overcome the various neurotic boundaries that separate me from my goals and aims, but that's neither here nor there, it's always everywhere. Part of what is becoming clear to me is that this constant struggling with desire is somehow a permanent structure of me myself and there isn't anything I can do to escape it, it's just a fact of human life. So I have a long road ahead of me. The forever ironic coupling is of course how much I hate driving and how I refuse to let anyone else take the wheel. Meh, this is just the way it is.

Hello all,

So the prophecy came true didn't it? As soon as I'm immersed in the school life the bloglife slows way down. A lot has happened in the last two weeks actually, but I'm not sure exactly what to write about. I had a friend come and visit from New York for about two weeks, we went to Amsterdam, Brugge and Maastricht, which is this medium-sized Dutch town just across the Belgian border.

The trip to Amsterdam was nearly a disaster, one small part of which was the fact that I forgot the memory card for my camera, so I don't even have pictures of the many good things that happened. The hostel we stayed in was horrible, as in hor-ror. It was called D u r t y N e l l y's, write it down, because you don't EVER want to stay there. The bathroom (singular) was disgusting, I won't even go into how disgusting, and there wasn't hot water (or even warm water) the entire time we were there. It was like they had a kegorator underneath the pipes that actually refrigerated the water. We didn't get a single good night sleep while we were there--being interrupted twice by some sleep-deprived staff member confused about whether or not we were in the right beds--and the downstairs was this played out Irish pub that had nothing but loud sports events and even louder British rugby teams (or some other strapping congregation of young "old boys"). As cheap as it was, we paid too much to be so uncomfortable.

BUT, it all came together in the end. We decided to leave a night early, because we had to leave in the morning on Monday anyway, and another night in that horrible place was more than a mostly shut Sunday night in Amsterdam could compensate for. So we go grab our things out of the lockers, not intending to check out--just in case we can't get back to Leuven--but rather to get the 10euro deposit back in case we can. I hand the guy the lock, he hands me a 50. I look at it, I look at him, he hasn't noticed, I deliberate for a split second... I put it in my pocket and walk out the door. 40 euros bought us a train ride home, and we were back in Leuven by midnight. I know maybe I should have given it back, and perhaps I'm giving the fates a chance to make me by actually putting the name of the place on the wide open intraweb, but I would gladly give it back just to be able to tell the people why I decided to take it in the first place. Maybe the whole thing could be a learning experience for everyone. The worst case scenario is that that poor bartender got fired or fined or something for his mistake, in which case I would apologize to the best of my ability. Trouble with wearing a uniform is that you're obscured inside the identity of the institution, occupational hazard, in the broadest sense.

The good things of course were plentiful. Myself, Shannon, Brad, Corry and his friends Andy and Ivanna (sp? pronounced "ee-wan-na") all hung out and spent the night wandering around looking for various things, a good chance to see the city all lit up. Mostly it was the usual for Amsterdam: museums, coffeeshops, museums, coffeeshops. I enjoyed myself. I highly recommend getting the Museumkaart the next time you're there. 33euros for a 24hour transit pass and free admission to all the big museums. You have to start EARLY though, time flies looking at art and historical stuff.

In the Van Gogh museum's contemporary photography exhibit I saw that photograph of the woman in Italy walking through the gauntlet of leering men. I'm sure you've seen it, it was a woman photographer but I can't remember her name. Someone has it in their apartment, who is that? I wanted my friend Taine to be there so bad, I think she's the only one that would know where I was coming from when I looked at it, strange a thing as that is to say. I've seen it many times before, it's actually painful for me to look at, because the woman's face is distorted with fear, as all these dapper (and otherwise) men lean over banisters and motorbikes to harrass her. You can almost hear the whistles, sneers and tongue clucking. It makes my skin crawl even thinking about it. But I noticed this time, or at least I hope I saw, since I was so close to it, that there are three men who are standing in front of her and can see her face. They aren't whistling, or sneering, and their posture is almost confrontational, like they're ready to spring on whoever crosses the line to touch her. The one nearest to her looks surprised and concerned, like he's just on the threshold of figuring out what's happening, the second looks ready to whisk her out of there, and the third is an older man, maybe in his late 60s, who has his hands in his pockets and is watching the whole thing like he's seen it a thousand times before. I actually held up my hand to cover the rest of the photograph so I could just focus on their faces. I'm sure it wasn't the kind of nobility that would confirm all my fading ideals about the human race, but there was something there that was complicated enough to assure me that we are not entirely abandoned to the strange human propensity to view living things as objects, with all the cruelty that that brings out in us. I was happy I saw it, or at least wanted to see it badly enough that it seemed real to me.

Since then (more than a week ago now) I've just been visiting with my friend and trying, trying to get a handle on my work. It's crazy how the time just goes and I haven't done what I set out to do. I think I have a planning problem, gotta work on that. In any case I am getting closer to a fully in-charge position. I read the entire second book of Malebranche yesterday and besides the werewolf stuff, I think I have a handle on the imagination as far as he's concerned. A lively imagination is contagious, you know, and of course it is also a temptation to sin, so watch out on both counts. If anyone wants to have a good laugh, read the chapter on Montaigne in the last chapter of the third part of book two, I haven't even read Montaigne, but Malebranche sure hates him.

I'm off to the central library now, the boulder awaits.

All my love,

Cake

Let's continue the schedule rundown, shall we?

On Wednesdays I have a morning logic class. Predictably, I hate it like the devil. I'm required to take it (for real this time, not like Duquesne and U of T where I could limbo under the radar), and since I haven't had any logic up until this point I have to take the BA level course, which is fine, I don't feel the need to be excessively challenged in this area. But, like most things I hate like the devil (quitting smoking, taking multivitamins) I'm sure it's good for me. I value the opportunity to make some sense out of the arguments structures I've been hearing so much about, and there really isn't any excuse for my not having a clue about Aristotelian syllogistics at this point in my career. I do feel confirmed that now is the time to get this over with by the fact that a very nice logic professor from Mt. Allison (Dr. Matthews) gave me a Copi book when I met him this summer, which just happened to be one of the books I packed, and this is precisely the volume that my logic professor is teaching out of. I read that coincidence as a confirmation that it is just time to do this now, better in Europe than somewhere else I suppose. I still hate it though.

On Thursdays I have my other morning class, this one on Kant. I struggle with Kant, fundamental as he is, so this class does not give me joy either, but the subject is interesting and the professor is approachable, so I am learning a great deal. The topic of the course is related to Kant's underpinning his treatment of human freedom (morals) and his treatment of natural science (the world in concreto) with the metaphysics of his first two critiques, the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason. Like I said, I struggle with Kant, but the transition from transcendental metaphysics to the special applied metaphysics is interesting to me, so we'll see what I get out of it. The professor has this funny lecture style where he makes a lot of little hand gestures right in front of his face and repeats himself endlessly, so it's a bit of a bear to take notes, but once you get into the rhythm of the way he works, it's kind of hypnotic. Despite the subconscious suggestion, however, I think I will have trouble with this course. We'll see.

Then on Fridays I have my contemporary Philosophy seminar on Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. It's a very small class (5 people) taught by a very young professor named Dr. Geyskins, whom I like a lot even though we got into a tussle about whether the historical trope of faith that H & A are using in their geneology of enlightement can be considered in touch with Kierkegaard's conception. I mentioned it as a point of interest, and Dr. Geyskins thought I was trying to voice a critique, and it downward spiralled from there. I think I'm still right of course, given that Adorno's treatment of Kierkegaard is notoriously shallow and the Dialectic is not exactly an in-depth treatment of the history of philosophy, but rather a imaginary portraiture of certain trends in Western thought (a la Nietzsche's Geneology), but I wasn't going to take up class time with my arguments (undeveloped as they always are in those moments). Overall, I enjoy it very much. The discussion is good and the book is interesting, however much the flippancy and irony of the work annoys me at times. I'm not sure I'm altogether sympathetic with the Frankfurt School, but it's important to know something about.

So that's my schedule then. Alas, there will be no Husserl for me this year, despite the resources that Leuven has in that regard. I am taking a phenomenology class next semester, but we're doing something with Heidegger. What I'm really looking forward to is a class in the theology department on Biblical ethics, which will access one of Levinas' texts. In the meantime, I am trying to pull together the sources for my thesis, which is coming along.

I know I know I know... it's been a long time.

Two reasons: 1) My reluctance to move on blogwise from my Grandmother's death. There's something unsettling about the way time continues to pass after someone close to you dies. The idea of her memory being scrolled under by my everday happenings upsets me to a fair extent, but this is, after all, part of life. At any rate, I thought a hiatus was appropriate.

2) My life has been full to brimming. I'm starting to get into the meat and potatos of school work, and I am up to my neck. Not only for the things I have to do, but most especially for the things I want to do. So let's talk about school.

A rundown of my schedule in several parts:

Mondays I have an evening class on Malebranche's The Search After Truth. My professor, Dr. Breeur, is a modern French specialist who is able to connect Malebranche not only to Descartes and the moderns, but also to Bergson and Merleau-Ponty, among many others. I really like this class because I now have the background in Descartes (thanks to Dr. Selcer's seminar last spring), Malebranche is interesting and even fun to read and Breeur explains him well. Among the issues that interest me is this idea Malebranche takes from Augustine (huge Augustinian revival at the time, including some theologians at Louvain, where I go to school!) that the original sin of the first man in the garden weakened our connection with God and strengthened our connection with our body, while at the same time lessening our control over it. This leads to the concupiscence which is of course how we can be lead into error as creations of an absolutely truthful nature (God), which was also one of Descartes' problems. Before the original sin, Adam's only object of love was God and his attention to material things was strictly for the preservation of his body so as to go on loving God as God intended. Inheriting the sin, human beings can now be diverted from the love of God via an uncontrollable desire (concupiscence) for material goods, which is of course our downfall. Epistemologically, this leads us to believe that the effects that material objects have on our senses correspond to attributes of material objects, but really, Malebranche says, these are only modifications of the soul which can lead us to a better care of the body and be a means to our loving God, or they can lead us into the miseries of error and eventual damnation. The philosophical elaborations of original sin have become something of a preoccupation of mine, since I am about to study in depth Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety, not only for my thesis, but also so as to fill in a gap in the paper I "delivered" in New Brunswick. It's interesting stuff.

On Tuesdays I have my beloved Lacan class with Prof. Moyaert. I just love this class. As it turns out, I think we will probably only read the seminar on ethics, which precedes the seminar on transference, but I'm fine with that, it fits better with my thesis. Moyaert has been laying out the Freudian background to Lacan's discussion in terms of the pleasure principle and the reality principle, and this burgeoning desire that emerges from their double intersection. Yeah, it's really that simple. The idea is basically that if the p.p. wasn't held in check, it would simply hallucinate the object of satisfaction, and this is bad for the subject. So the r.p. steps in and is able to mentalize, to interstice words essentially, between the drive of the p.p. and the object of satisfaction, postponing desire indefinately. Basically we can talk about things or sublimate our drive for the pleasure of inertia through a kind of substitution, words and ideas for objects. The upshot of this mutual intersection between the two principles is this desire that goes beyond both, and which Lacan identifies as the desire for "Object a" which has emerged as an indefinite lack that can never be fulfilled. Essentially, desire and the anticipation of satisfaction become an autonomous force of the subject, which in some sense constitutes our relationship with the world. Moyaert takes great pains to emphasize that the reality principle is not an advocate for reality, but maybe something more like our sense of a lack, which opposes the pleasure principle. Anyway, it's a great deal more complicated than that, but I'll stop there. Needless to say, I'm all kinds of into it.

I'll continue this later, but for right now here is a picture of the path from the front door of the lecture hall down the path that leads to Tiensestraat. Beautiful no?

Requiescat in pacem, Babcia.

Genowefa Michniewicz (my Grandmother) passed away last night, unexpectedly. It's hard to think about, especially being so far away. I can't be with my family, except through this contraption, and all I have with which to express my grief and share in theirs is these words, which are wholly inadequate. My Babcia was a complex person, surviving the war and marrying my Dziadek, who loved her without reserve or qualification. She was boisterous and stylish, demanding and generous, always at the center of everything in my family. Now the Main House is empty, both my Mother's parents are gone, and I may never walk through those doors again. I will never hear her voice, or feel her weight on my arm, or smell that strange blend of perfumes... My grief washes over me in waves, I am at the mercy of however I feel, which is too complex to sort out, and all by myself. I wish more than anything that there wasn't an ocean between my family and me right now, I want to be there when she's laid next to my Dziadek at Our Lady of Czestochowa. My Babcia's grief after Dziadek died never dulled, she never accepted his death, and so now, almost exactly three years later, I want to believe they are together again, that is a comfort to me.

Before I left to come here, my Momma gave me Babcia's engagement ring, which I had remembered being on my Mother's hand for most of my life. Since I was thirteen, I have also been wearing my Dziadek's ring, which has his name and the date that they were married engraved on the inside. These are the only rings I wear, and now more than ever I feel the weight of what these symbols represent. They rest together on my finger, denoting my commitment to their memory and to my family, the continuity of love between my Grandparents, my Mother and me. Maybe there is no immortality but love--but love there is, and love there always will be.

Ja kocham cie, Babcia, Dziadek. Pogoda jest do kitu, ale ja jestem wasz wnuczka, na zawsze.

And here's the much longer video of the academic procession of September 25th, 2006. The professors proceed from University Hall on Naamsestraat to St. Peter's church for the opening mass. At first I was a little annoyed at the students who were dead center in my shot, but they were so adorably oblivious I think they really just enhance the video.

Okay I lied. I figured out the embedded video thing (thanks to YouTube.com) so here is a short but noisy clip of the party in the Oude Markt. I'm not a film maker, so please excuse the quality.



That's Viktor towards the end, I thought I got Phil and Marianne too, but I guess not. Isn't technology wonderful!

Alright, last post of the day. I have to run the numbers for last month and that always takes me a few hours. But I couldn't stop without telling you about Shane, Phil and Marianne's fabulous house party on Friday night. First of all, their apartment is something else. It's huge, on the fourth floor of a building just across from St. Michael's Jesuit church (I took a picture of that sometime before my birthday) and it's very... umm... let's say modern, maybe kind of Frank Lloyd Wright-y, whatever that genre of architecture is. The inside has glass walls, exposed brick and Parque floors. They have a balcony in the back and a sweet kitchen that even has a freezer!

We all gathered there Friday night to get to know each other, even though most of the 2nd year MA students seem to be pretty tight friends. I met a lot of people and had a lot of great conversations. I brought my Jim Beam, which was promptly drunk, and I feel pretty good about emptying my loneliness bottle at such a great gathering. Symbolism is important, don't ever let anyone tell you it's not. Phil also gave me a shot of this homemade pear liquor someone had gotten in the Czech republic. It smelled like battery acid, but it had a nice aftertaste and I was reminded of the Calvados days back at 84 (is anyone reading this that would remember that? woo boy). At any rate, at some point I look around and Shannon, Phil and my new friend Chris (a.k.a. Frenchy) are missing and Marianne tells me they went to the Nachtwinkel for more booze. Incredulous, I head out after them, feeling my customary craving for Asian noodle packs. We went, I paid an outrageous price for some noodles (though that didn't lessen my enjoyment at all) and came back to party yet some more. At some point Shane announced that it was quarter to five (!!) and I had no poopin' idea where the time had gone. Shortly after that I headed home, although my hosts were kind enough to offer me a space on one of their numerous couches. One of the other little things I love about Leuven is how close everything is. I only had to stumble two blocks home, and I feel pretty safe here, so I opted for my own bed. There were still people there when I left, God bless them.

I had to wake up at 9 this morning to catch a train to this place Vilvoorde before 10. This was all very hard in my rough condition, but there's this package that has been floating around in the Taxipost system for about a week now, and though they tried to deliver it twice, I ultimately had to just go get it. The trip was interesting. I had to go to Brussels Noord to catch another train to Vilvoorde, but the trains run like clockwork here so it was easy-peazy. When I finally got to Vilvoorde, which is a charming and beautiful place I wouldn't otherwise have thought of, I had to walk for about half an hour (asking directions from everyone but finally only getting them from a very nice Policeman) to get into this industrial zone (just passed a crematorium) where Taxipost has its station. The walk into the industrial park was long and scary, especially given my fragile state, but I finally got there and received my birthday card from my Mom, which was a really nice bonus.

I was so tired when I got there that I called a cab for the ride back, which cost me a fortune (I won't even tell you how much it's so offensive) but the cabby was French speaking so I got to practice ("Ici ca bien, monsieur, merci.") and he dropped me off in the Grote Markt of Vilvoorde. It was filled with the Saturday market, which consisted of a lot of food stands and clothes trailers, so I grabbed a hamburger and sat on a curb. Best damn hamburger of my life, let me tell you, with the carmelized onions and everything. It was altogether a very pleasant experience. After a brief look at the shops (much less pricey than in Leuven, I think I will be back to Vilvoorde) I caught two trains back home.

I barely make it back to my apartment, collapse into my bed, and Marianne calls me. The three of them are going to Ikea. Now, my clothes are all on the floor and draped over my closet doors, and I need a reading light like no one's business, so I reluctantly agree and off I go for more domestic travel. It was fun, honestly. The three of them are a great group. Shane is from Kentucky, and has inexplicable sympathies with the Anglo-analytical strain of philosophy. Phillip is from the Boston area and come to think of it I don't know his specialty, and Marianne is from Halifax, so it's really a fun North American group. We managed to get out of the Saturday Ikea crush in about an hour and a half, and Phil and I had some 50cent hot dogs which just made me feel worlds better. Altogether, it was a pretty good day, expensive but good. Marianne (poor thing) was meeting her boyfriend at the airport later in the evening and he wanted to go out again that night, which from my perspective was just crazy. Nonetheless, I probably would have gone if I hadn't been dead to the world by the time she called me. At any rate, I'm having some kind of fun here in Leuven. I think my lonely days are over.

Today, I am planning to finish my accounts, do laundry and just read, read, read. I think my body requires a tremendous amount of rest now, so I will sign off. I hope all is well with you all!

Cake

After the nighttime photography sesh, we went to meet Viktor (an awesome guy, fellow Kierkegaard scholar, and a friend of the famed David Hoinski) at the Blue Cat, pictured here. It's an awesome but tiny bar that apparently has some tight live music every once in a while. The entrance is a long ally off the Naamsestraat, which is packed with tables this time of year. We had all gone the night before with my new friends Shane, Marianne and Phillip, who all live together in this amazing apartment on Naamsestraat, of which I will have much more to say later. The three of them had SMSed (European for text message) me earlier saying they were at a place called Giraf in the Oude Markt, but I had arranged to meet Viktor earlier in the day, so we hung out and had a couple beers at the Blue Cat. But after the first round, Viktor suggested that we go to the other bar, just to see some different ones. Shannon and I were game, so we went down the little alley that links Naamsestraat to the Oude Markt and lo and behold, it was a GD mass event. The Oude Markt, as big as it is, was FILLED with students, and there was some kind of musical happening, not a live band but the typical remixes of old American music blasting from the direction of Taj Mahal, and man the place was bumping with lights and the smell of a certain smokable substance and the beer was most definately flowing in the streets.

We had to get across the whole square in order to get to Giraf, boy was that a challenge. When we finally did we found Phil and Marianne sitting at a table with some of their friends, whom it was too loud to meet. We had a few beers, I tried to take some video of the party, since it was far too massive to take a picture of, but I haven't figured out how to embed a player in my blog. I'll do some experimenting and maybe I'll get it up here (along with the academica parade, which I haven't forgot about). Then Phillip suggested that we all meet some of his Belgian friends at the Politics Fakbar. Now the Fakbars are the student bars, and every faculty has their own. The beer is a euro and it's really more like a house party than anything else. There's no frills or table service, but you can party hard until the not so wee hours of the morning. It was a great time, Phil and I did shots of Jameson and the beer just kept on coming. We talked about interesting stuff, and I think I staggered home around two.

We took a lot of pictures, let me tell you. Here I tried to grab a picture of the Stadhuis from just under it, but as you can see it was too steep to set up the tripod, so the focus is off. The next up is the pile (mountain pile) of bicycles that sits just off to the side of the Stadhuis on Naamsestraat. In Leuven, a Wednesday night is a pretty busy night, since on the weekends all the Belgian students go home, so Wednesday and Thursdays are stupid busy in the bars, so this pile is just pooping massive. There are piles like this all over Leuven, but you'll never catch me on one of those contraptions, because for every one in the pile, there are probably two or three on the street competing with the cars for a slice of the tiny roads. Not me, no sir. Shannon does it, but that just contributes to my admiration.

The upper two are of the area around the Economics faculty (see orientation days post) which is really awesome at night. It's all gated and secluded and dark, with statues and gardens, even if I don't believe they've lit the Economics building itself very well. Just in case you couldn't figure it out, that's Shannon taking a picture of the statue. It was a hard shot, because there's almost no light, but my Cannon has the uber-flash, so I managed to get at least a dark picture.

So this blog will be more of a social one, since at long last I have been very, very busy. These pictures are from a night when I was sitting alone in my room and my new friend Shannon (one of the Carleton students from Ottowa) calls me and makes the astonishingly awesome suggestion that we go out for some nighttime photography. I immediately dropped what I was doing and packed up my tiny little tripod. It was pretty awesome, we walked around and took a lot of pictures, chatting the whole time. Needless to say I think it's safe to assume that Shannon will be a staple of my social life here, she's pretty pooping awesome. So these pictures, from bottom to top are a) a picture of Saint Peter's from the bottom of Tiensestraat, b) the central library from the middle of the Ladeuzeplein, c) the stadhuis from the middle gardeny island that separates the traffic, and d) some random colorful building off the Ladeuzeplein.

And yet more.... This top one is of the little inlet to the Minnenwater, which is covered with those little water plants I love (like at the swan pond at the Plantations), they're like tiny little pixels of green.

Here's some more pictures of Brugge... A week later....

We got off the bus in Brugge (after two hours on the harrowing highways of Belgium, through which I slept the majority because I was forced to awaken at 7am and wasn't co-ordinated enough to operate my french press) in front of this strange modern structure, just a little ways down from the train station. We crossed a bridge just on the other side over the Minnenwater (I know I'm spelling that wrong) which was commonly called the "lovers river" but actually from the old Dutch means something more like "the ghost of the water." From the bridge we could see this other big beautiful building that turned out to be a hotel/restaurant, and this tower that used to hold gunpowder safely away from the city center. We walked through this area outside the city that used to be a community of religious women, (I believe Benedictine nuns) and there was mass going on so we couldn't go into the church. The whole area was very hushed except for the plethora of tour guides, and the cobblestones were very uneven due to their being incomprehensibly old.

For the most part, that was when I stopped listening to the tour guide. He wasn't bad, but it didn't really make a difference to me what he was saying. I took pictures mainly for you guys, because you're not here. So what follows (above) is really just pictures upon pictures, and you can take them as you will, just like I did. My one real regret about Brugge is that I didn't see the modonna and child by Michaelangelo. But hey, it's only two hours away and I'm going to be here for another 9 and a half months! Please enjoy...

Okay so, I know I'm behind on the happenings, but I think you'll all just have to forgive me. Classes have now started, even if the next two weeks are only a trial period, but let me rave for a moment. Today I had Dr. Moyaert's class which was inocuously titled "Advanced Course: Philosophical Anthropology." Had I been able to read the student guide the way it was meant to be read (i.e. to be informative) I would have known that the entire class was on Lacan's seminar on transference!! As it was I realized only a few hours before stepping into the room. Through a broken French (?) accent his introductory lecture had me rapt, the likes of which feeling I have not experienced since the high days at UofT. Yeah, we're talking Comay/McGrath intensity here, and on Jacques Lacan! I was so excited I could barely write my extensive notes. Talking to him at the break was a big challenge, given my awkwardness in the midst of such intense experiences, but he pointed me in the right direction for beginning research on my thesis, so at least I was able to function.

Just after the break he launches in again, and the utter high point proceeded from the following (quoting from notes): "Lacan wants to protect/save the complexity of our spontaneous moral experience from the violence of the major moral theories (utilitarianism, the categorical imperative). Thus, a hermeneutical moral philosophy (!!) that uncovers the elements of our experience which are otherwise obscured, without making the facile judgement that the value of moral decision/action is relative to the particular context."

Okay, seriously. If you have heard anything remotely philosophical that I have said in the last 5 years or so, even if you don't understand any of this, you must be able to appreciate how the smile just split my face. My head practically nodded off my shoulders, I could barely contain myself. I am SO excited about this class. It's gonna be a bear, there's no doubt about it, we're reading not only the seminar on transference, but also the preceding one on ethics. But all the anxiety and melancholy of the last bunch of weeks just paid off in one shot, and it's just the first day!!

I'm going to end this one just here and bury it under some pictures of Brugge, because I don't have the patience to wait until after I wrestle with pictures and half-remembered descriptions. But there you have it, my first day of school!

Happy Birthday to ME!!

Thanks for all the various greetings and congratulations you guys, you warmed the cuckles of my heart as always. In addition, Elena and Ksenia very sweetly got me a card, which was waiting under my door this morning, so all in all, it's been a pretty community-love kind of day. I did in fact go to Brugge, and took a buttload of pictures for you guys (so much so that the tour guide asked me if I was a photojournalist) but I haven't decided how I will lay them all out on here, since it's a big pain in the butt and I am super, super exhausted. The big opening day parade is tomorrow too, so I need to be up and ready for that bright and early. It probably won't be as great as the frosh parade in Toronto, but you know, who can beat walking en masse through the streets of a major city chanting "These are your tax dollars at work!!", "The beast from the East!!" and what not.

Overall, I think the day exhausted me for two reasons: (a) I didn't take the boat tour the way I should have and wanted to; (b) looking at buildings all day and not getting any sense for the people leaves a hollow feeling in my chest. I love buildings, and Brugge is beautiful. Really, really beautiful. But all I can think of when I look at them is how much work must have gone in. Maybe it was 70-30 love-suffering, maybe more, maybe less, but here are your ancient gilded statues, here are your mile-high clocktowers, and here are the cobblestone streets teeming with tourists craning their necks to see these things, and the people who made them are forgotten. Now it is Brugge that is so beautiful, SO beautiful, and so abstract. There's no one to thank or embrace or even ask how hard it all was, there's just the sound-byte stories about the judge who was flayed here or how some Dutchess of Burgundy fell off her horse and died at 25 ("She couldn't have been that nice-looking since she only had two teeth! HA ha ha ha ha...") I get tired of it.

There was one really nice moment though, when I went into the chocolatiers. I ordered a lot of chocolates and it took him a while to get them all ready, so we chatted a bit about Brugge and the U.S. and the differences. He told me that his was the oldest Chocolatier in Brugge (surprisingly only from 1955) and that all the others had either gone under or had changed families. I had veered off the busy touristy streets as soon as I could get away from the group (hopefully not offending anyone) and I was the only person in the store. He gave me a piece of dark chocolate while I waited and I felt like a little kid, like it was Christmas back before I was jaded. It was round and flat and pressed into the shape of an elaborate budding rose, just so GD wonderful it made me want to cry. I bought some sour gummies in the shape of sea shells just to postpone the effect, and since they came in this cone shaped plastic bag that made me feel very European. That was wonderful, talking with people is wonderful.

Another really beautiful moment not (directly) involving people was when I wandered into the modern art garden and came across these sculptures by a Uraguatian artist whose name I will look up and post when I get a chance. There were all in either white, grey or pink marble, and something about them made my heart expand. It was another of these moments when I was just tired and unsatisfied with the way I had spent my time, and here was this little encouragement. They fairly glowed, especially against the deep green of the garden.

I think I'll stop there and leave the architectural musings for tomorrow. After all my birthday is almost over in this timezone and I haven't licked any knives yet.

I know this is silly, but one of the things I love about this city is the little tray you get your coffee on in cafes. You get your coffee, in a cup AND saucer, a little thing of creamer, two sugar cubes (or tubes), a spoon and a cookie or chocolate. Yesterday I had a coffee that came with a little dish of whipped cream, and you KNOW I'm going back there. I've been saving up my cookies for the last few days so that I could share this trivial delight with you. There are all kinds of cookies, though my favorites are the little chocolate wafers and the fruit creams from the Cafe Universum that remind me of my beloved Peek Freans. Sometimes you get chocolates instead, and of course the chocolate here is bomb. I haven't forgotten my promise of chocolates to many of you, don't worry, they're coming, as soon as I figure out the postal system.

I also changed the comment settings on my blog so you don't have to be a member to leave one. I didn't realize that was the case or I would have changed it earlier. Please don't post anonymously though. If I think I don't know you, I might erase your comment.

Today was a day of spending money, and getting things. I finally got a mobile phone, which cost me a fortune, but that's Europe I'm told. On the other hand I got a wicked phone (Sony-Ericsson Z520i if anyone's curious) and I am now able to give my number out when I meet people, which thus far has been quite the stymie on continuing social relations. I also bought a sweet coat that I had eyed in the H&M here (you better believe this store is even better in Belgium! And cheap compared to everything else on the fancy strip), but I hesitated because they didn't have a size bigger so I could wear a sweater under it. But it's such a sweet coat that I figured, F it, it's almost my birthday. That's me all zipped up and shadesed to make the coat look all the more badass, but it still doesn't do it justice. It's hard to take a picture of yourself with a tripod upon which the camera can only be oriented laterally, if slightly at a diagonal (thanks for the mini tripod Mike!). I also bought a pepper grinder (which as many of you know I cannot live without and will someday have the balls to carry around in my purse like a finicky old lady) and a small french press. The coffee here, with a few exceptions, sucks ass, it's mostly Nescafe, and I would rather just make some in my room in the morning before I'm out of my PJs.

So that was a lot of money spent, A LOT of money. I didn't feel too bad about it though since these are all things I need, and I have some extra startup cash because September (as well as blessed March, the month after dread February) is a three paycheck month. Anyhoo, when I got home there was waiting for me my first piece of mail in the new place, a little slip of paper that said a flower delivery person had come and gone not finding me at home. I had my suspicions, since there are certain longstanding traditions between certain beloved persons and I with regard to flowers, but I wasn't entirely sure and called the place on my new mobile. I walked down to Brusselsestraat to pick them up, and my goodness the fuss! The people in the flower shop were so taken with the bouquet (which presumably they had designed themselves) and the note my poetic Maman had written me that they were cooing and congratulating me to high heaven above. It is, indeed, a beautiful bouquet, and I felt very happy and special walking all the way home with it. There's something lovely about walking around with a fancy bouquet, everyone smiles at you and thinks they know what it's all about. I wouldn't rob them of their private versions for all the world, whatever makes strangers smile at me is A-okay.

I really didn't do anything after that. I hung out on the internet, made myself a lovely dinner, and then went for a constitutional. All of three blocks down Tiensestraat to Erasmus, where the evening regulars smiled and made jokes to me about my perpetual writing in my journal (I am only recently comfortable with being so noticeably hypergraphic, but it does serve as a good conversation piece with utter strangers). It's nice to start feeling like I belong here and people know me. It's a small thing, but it's why I repeat my visits so often to the places I like. People are emboldened to talk to you when you are a) alone, b) young and female and c) in their face all the time. I don't know anyone's name, but I like hearing the Dutch spoken and spending time pretending I've been here all my life.

Now it's 10:30, or rather 22:30, and I should be thinking about bed. I didn't sleep well last night at all because the international party was such a clusterpoop that I left early feeling pissed off, lonely and homesick for some decent dancing music and partners. Such feelings come and go, but whenever they come I have to sit up with them for a while. I bought some Jim Beam at the nachtwinkel the other night because I've been eyeing it in the window. The clerk was so surprised he had to ask me twice what exactly it was that I wanted, and when I finally convinced him, he made the comment that Belgians don't drink Jim Beam. I said something like, ah yes, well... this is maybe why I am so homesick. "Ah! You are American! What is it like to live there now?" So when I'm feeling blue I sip my Beam out of the bottle and wish you would all just hit the numbers and come drink with me.

This is a canal that runs across Brusselsestraat. I like to stop here on my way to the only grocery store that's open on Sunday (GB Express).

Where did we leave off? Ah yes, at the Alma. Alas today was a lot of blah blah that I had already read off the intraweb, so we'll just confine our talk to the events of yesterday since I am pretty poopin' tired and I need to take a nap before "internationally partying" again tonight. Le sigh, life is so hard.

So after lunch I met a whole whack of new people, including a few from the States, but generally I reach critical mass around seven or eight, so when Kristjana and Antonella went off to hang in the park with some of their buds, I hung back and found a quiet spot to finish my excellent book (No God But God, an excellent history and interpretation of Islam by the religious scholar Reza Aslan, I know a lot of you have heard me talking about it, featured on the Daily Show yada yada, but it's a great book, I highly recommend it). Eventually we headed out for our guided tour, on which I took a bunch of pictures some of which I don't have explanations for because the tour guide spoke quietly and was generally inexperienced, so I didn't get a lot of what he said. Some are just neat architectural things I liked, especially old and new juxtapositions that have always fascinated me.

Yet, I do remember the top two. The very top is the clock and bell guy from St. Peter's cathedral in the Grote Markt, of which there are other pics from other days. The second down is a part of the old city wall (circa 13th century!!) that is currently being restored. The second to last is the economics faculty building, which I took for my Dad because I think it's a pretty sweet modern building (correct my genre, Dadiji).

The tour ended abruptly a block from my house, so I went home tired and uncomfortable. It's freezing in the mornings here, but by afternoon it's easily mid-eighties, so when I go out in a sweater I'm usually pissed off by the end of the day. I decided to finally do laundry and headed down to the laundromat. After putting in my wash I slipped into this little sandwich shop across the street and had a really nice conversation with the owner, who was very curious about the American domestic situation. True to my persistently bleeding heart, I almost started crying talking about health insurance, university tuition and Louisiana, not to mention the military spending/escapades and the very generous gentleman bought me my first coffee, which was really nice.

Overall, with very few exceptions, the citizens of Leuven are really wonderful. Almost everyone speaks English, which makes me feel very spoiled, and almost everyone has the patience to help me when I need it. Today I went to a sandwich shop and told the woman behind the counter that I had never ordered a sandwich before and she took ten minutes explaining the process and translating the Flemish for me. I have heard some stories about anti-student sentiment and acts of racism and discrimination, but so far I have not experienced any of that. I think people who don't speak English are far worse off, so again, I am very spoiled here.

After my truly lovely coffee break (during which a student came into the shop, overheard us talking and turns out he's a first year in philosophy as well, his name was Peter, I have to try to remember) I went back to the laundromat and tried to dry my clothes. The stupid dryer was broken. Even though it was turning it wasn't heating up, so I was just throwing money into it without realizing. Stupid laundry, all told, cost me 8.10 euros and almost three hours. I was so pissed off by the end that I just wanted to come home and bury my head somewhere.

Alas, no such luck. I had to eat, so I fixed myself some pasta, and by the time I was done with that Elena was knocking on my door, ready to go to the faculty bar hop. I hastily dressed and headed out with her and Ksenia to Pangaea, which is sort of like the central student union for all of K.U.Leuven. I met Kristjana there, as well as Riszard and Julia, and they separated us out by faculty and off we went. It turned out not to be a bar hop, so we ended up at a really expensive bar on the Ladeuzeplein that was very chic and fancy, with english quotes all over the walls (e.g. "I'm not young enough to think I know everything." -Oscar Wilde)

The night progressed very nicely. I started with a Guinness and then had a Wild Turkey and soda, which the bartender didn't understand at first but was particularly wonderful with the bubbly mineral water they have here. I had another beer after that and that was it, yet I was both drunk last night (stopping at the nachtwinkel for a microwave lasagna on the way home) and hungover this morning, which I attribute to the extra strongness of the beer and my lack of adequate hydration. I'm trying to fix the latter, as I found out today that the tap water in Leuven is especially nice. Oh Leuven, let me count the ways...

Our philosophical drinking crew was also thrown in with the theology and applied ethics people, since we are all so diminutive in numbers, so I got to know a couple of theology students too. Among them Jerome, a pastor from Nigeria and Benjamin, a theology graduate student from Switzerland. It was really very nice, and many lovely conversations were had. I always end up talking about American politics in the end though, because everyone is so curious and surprised to find that I am not a happy American. I let it slip that I am looking for a nice Belgian boy to fall in love with, and everyone thought that was good idea. We'll see how that goes. The orientation people told us today that the vast majority of Belgian students are not even back yet, so I suppose the streets will be even more teeming when they get here. I believe it, if only because there are still only around 5 of us in a house with 15 rooms, and we are all international (did I fail to mention my Bulgarian housemate, Rozhen? He lives on the floor below me).

Phew, so today I got my bank card for the KBC, and it has a little sweet chip in it (like my old UofT card) for Proton transactions (it makes me laugh that one of my friend's names is emblazoned all over Belgium as a sign of financial convenience). It's a neat thing with the small change stuff you have to do, (soda machines, lighters, one beer) you just put it in the little machines they have at all the stores and vending machines and press "yes" and whatever it is comes off a designated section of your bank account that you can refill at ATMs. It's nice, I love the money systems here. Everything is signed for even though it is electronic, and to make large payments (rent, tuition, utility bills) all you have to do is a bank transfer, which can be set up as "permanent instruction" at any interval you want. It's pretty F-ing sweet. I wish all my money systems were so thoughtfully engineered, although I do love my PNC and my little Tompkins Trust account (who incidentally are sending me 50 free checks all the way to Belgium at no charge).

Okay, well now I'm just rambling because I'm exhausted. Enjoy the pictures and know that I miss you.

Love,

Cakesta

P.S. I know I write a lot in this blog, but let's just curb the incredulousness okay? It's the same kind of annoying as saying I think too much (even if I do, let me land on my face when it's in the cards, no?). I assure you I enjoy it and I spend plenty of time outside (hence pictures?!). Besides, I'm pretty sure these entries will dwindle once the grind gets going and the newness dulls.