Day 116

Woensdag, 30 November 2011

Yeah, I was almost late for school again.  I really need to stop turning my phone on silent when I sleep.  Actually didn't go to school, as my class had a little field trip.  We went to a local castle/courthouse just down the street from the school, and watched like the preliminary hearings for cases.  Or at least that's what I think they were.

The place

Basically, we went in, sat down, and then there were a bunch of people walking in and out.  The lawyers had this (what I think are kind of silly) outfits, which I'll just post a picture of instead of trying to describe it.  They walked up, usually one at a time, sometimes with clients and sometimes without, and talked to the people behind the desk.  Only a few times did the client speak or come in in handcuffs.  The girl next to me said if they were in handcuffs that was because they had either already been committed of a big crime (basically like murder), or that's what they were being tried on this time.

Today they also had another part, but I won't describe it because it's just silly

And the cases went by really quick.  Like, a minute or three tops.  One guy in handcuffs came in, no lawyer, so he spoke for about a minute, they gave him another date, and then it was done.  He was as surprised as me - he's like, "That's it?!" (and he said it in English so I understood!)  There were a bunch of people that didn't show up for their cases, so we had like almost an hour of free time to ask them questions and to walk around.  The final case was a bit long (like, 10 minutes), and after that we were free for the day (so, around 1120).

Since some of the people had lessons next, we stuck around Turnhout for a while.  When we were leaving the courthouse, we saw two of the policemen leaving (the police are so much less intimidating here!), my friend asked if he could try the handcuffs out.  It was pretty funny, since they were designed for smaller hands, so they didn't fit him terribly well.

See, the policeman doesn't look intimidating AT ALL

Went to a frituur with my classmates, hung out a bit, and then got the bus home since they had to go back to classes (they have extra music classes on Wednesday, but as an exchange student I can't take those).  Home, ate, and then slept until dinner.  Was going to sleep more after dinner, but they said I couldn't (I was "sleeping too much").  :(  So, I read some Catch-22 until Siemen and Patrick started watching a movie - Comet Impact.  Oh my goodness, it was so bad.  Like, I think it was worse than Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, and that's like a B movie.  I mean, at least Mega Shark has the whole cheese factor - sure, it's a terrible movie, but it's so terrible that it's amazing.  Comet Impact was just predictable and boring.  And the special effects were really obvious and not terribly well done - it just looked fake.  And this is coming from someone who still plays PS1 and N64 games and thinks they're well done.

Anyway, enough about that.  Got done with the movie, used my donorschoose money, looked up some Christmas presents for people, and now bed time.  Slaapwel!

Day 115

Dinsdag, 29 November 2011

Woke up pretty late today, barely made it to the bus on time.  Luckily I remembered to grab a Mountain Dew, so at least I was able to stay awake during the Dutch class today.  Lunch with Santi and Marcela, then real classes.  The acting class (didn't do my part, whew), two periods in the library where I alternated reading science news articles and studying Latin, and then acting again (did my part for like, 5 minutes).  Simple day.

Got home, ate right away, and then slept.  Actually slept until like 1045 because my alarm didn't wake me up (though Marcela did, thankfully).  Had some food so I could take my meds, went online for a little bit.  Anyone reading this from the US (and I know there's a few of you - the "stats" on Blogger says like more than half the pageviews come from the US) should buy this groupon.

It's only $10, and you get a $50 dollar credit to donorschoose - that's like $40 free dollars!  And donorschoose is an amazing website.  Basically, teachers (usually in mid to high poverty areas) can submit "projects" to the website.  Sometimes it's to buy extra things, but honestly, I've seen so many projects that were just teachers asking for crayons.  There's no budget, and they can't afford everything themselves.  Anyway, they submit the project, which details what they want, why they want it, and how it will help the class.  A little table at the bottom shows how much everything in the project costs, and where they're going to buy it from.  You can donate anonymously, in honor or memory of someone, or even just in your name.  And you can ask for updates on the project from the teacher, or ask for thank you notes from the kids.  It's really great.

So yeah, buy the groupon.  Beat my donation amount.  With this, I'm up to $80 donated, but I'm sure you can beat me :P  (Seriously, buy 2 groupons and you're ahead of me already).

Well, I'm tired and sick, so slaapwel everyone!