October 27th

Just when I was thinking that I might - due to all the stretching and my cautiousness not to overdo it - have been spared the aching muscles, ... o yes, just when I was getting up after chatting with Tom, to go back to my room and do some work on my philosophy essay, there it is... muscle ache deluxe. Hello...nice that you're back again. I almost missed you! ... Can't wait to do contemporary tonight.

October 26th - Parkour

Parkour, thou art amongst the most beautiful and invigorating pieces of poetry I have ever experienced!

How wondrous it is to be crawling along the floor, feeling the stone of the ground still wet from the rain, moss and tiny pebbles beneath my bare hands - right next to the tramped-in chewing gum and bird shit - and becoming one with nature, where I thought nature had long ceased to exist.

Thou teachest me the most graceful ways of crossing even the highest walls, and walking along rails, as if it were a mere child's play.

And behold! 'tis through you that I land on my feet as if I were a cat-like creature, striving through the urban forest at night, seeking prey, seeking adventure, seeking freedom.

Dost thou never get tired of feeding even the most untalented of mankind with inspiration? But no! Thou art a neverending cyrcle of movement and in you lies the spirit of grace.

Not even my torn hands, bruised knees and aching muscles shall keep me from loving you.*

Why, should I get killed by you, it shall be a most painful and not at all unanticipated death. XDDD


_____
*ah yeah, and contemporary dance,... I love you too! :)

Here we go, I've been to Parkour again, obviously. This time it wasn't as hard as last time at all. I'd been practicing a little at home and done a lot more work-out in the gym. The contemporary and the Stretch 2 Harmony classes in the Sports Club at uni might have helped as well. I mean, I'm still clumsy and a beginner, one can tell, I still lack strength in my arms and legs, but it's gotten much better. And again I've been carried by one of my tutors...Zenon...on his arms. Freakin shit, how do they do it?

Other than that, I purchased a reading lamp for my books (cuz I don't have a normal desktop lamp) in the Oxfam shop for £6,99 and got a Pizza Express voucher for purchasing something at Oxfam that costs over £5. So the value of the voucher I got for a Pizza is £5 ... interesting...nice :-) I love vouchers. Got myself one for diving classes again. Will go for Paintball with Sébastien Sunday 7th - we'll be joining a larger group. Hopefully that'll be fun.

My Houeswarming Party was great, as I have probably mentioned before...I got a bottle of bubbly bath stuff from Krys (very thoughtful, given that I had told her I now have a bathtub) ,...failed to mention that. Really great, can't wait to use that for my bath.



I think, I'm gonna need a bath soon, when I consider my muscle ache from last time. But I've been trying real hard to strech better this time. Fingers crossed!

It's reading week by the way, so I'm more flexible, because I don't have to attend lectures, but at the same time I have finally had a look at my deadlines and decided, November 2nd for my philosophy essay really isn't too far away...darn!

October 24th - Housewarming Party

Today I went to Byres Road with Krys, spent some time and voucher+money in Little Italy and had our pizza in the Botanic Gardens. I introduced her to Peppa Pig and the Mumins and we spent an awful lot of time discovering the wonders of Waitrose (not that I bought anything there...not this time).

Went to a cookery class on 'Just Deserts' on Wednesday, I think it was... have I told you? The most amazing deserts ever. The lightest scones (blueberry, raisins) with butter and jam I've ever tasted, an almond, pear and apple tarte, chocolate dip with chili and pepper ...

I am now taking contemporary dance classes, as I told you. But I am now also taking master classes in the same dancing school. Those are longer (2h) and more demanding, you learn things from the start, but when you're not used to picking dance moves up quickly, it's going to be hard. Nonetheless, I enjoyed contemporary master class...a cheerful, bubbly woman from the famous dancing company smallpetitklein taught us a coreography they had recently performed on the Fringe Festival... it was about war...super demanding...a lot of screams in the music... great! I got nauseaous after a while though, because it was all so fast, got a little concussion from my head hitting the floor rather hard, then I hadn't had a propper breakfast (coming from Jessica's where I'd spent the night and just had a coffee) nor lunch and just couldn't go on. Don't think I remember much of the coreography, it was really so much in such little time and so fast... I'm hoping to be able to grasp and learn faster with time and practice. As a child I used to be able to pick up dancing moves and such like so much quicker *sigh*.

Nonetheless, still gut bruises and bumps everywhere from the canyoning. Had my first full-body and facial massage the day before yesterday, which I got with a voucher...awesome...really good. It was all female staff there...I found that men can do massages better...nontheless, it was really relaxing and I was sad when it was over. Nice relaxing music in the background. you could just close your eyes and imagine you were on an island in the caribbean or something. That was so necessary after all that's been going on.

I have now different options, but none of them involves staying here as a student for one more semester. Dammit!...will list them all later.

And yesterday I also had my housewarming party, which was a huge success and there was yummy food...all cooked by me, of course :-P
This is Sébastien with my wig. I laughed so hard, it was hilarious!

October 17th - Indian Food

Yesterday, I went canyoning, which was great, incredibly cold and tiresome, but great. Now I have aching muscles and haematoma everywhere again. Started aching much later though. Cannot move my head properly.

In the evening I went to the couchsurfer meeting. Met a guy from Germany - Martin - who works as an electro-technician (for lack of a better word, I don't know whether that's the right term). He might have guitar strings for me - the busker finally got back to me to tell me that I might get the guitar soon. We went to karaoke in the same bar again, but this time too many other people wanted to sing and it was 11pm already, we didn't get to sing at all, because the bar closed at midnight. I didn't get any bus that drove directly back to my new home so I spent most of my time taking one bus after another to get as close to home as possible and then realised that I was stuck on Great Western Road, which was close to my Mum's hostel (btw, my brother stayed at Luca's place, where we had an incredibly good chicken...Luca, you're the best cook). So I decided to pay my mum a visit and stay in the hostel over night. She therefore decided to sleep in the living room while I got her bed (feeling only a little guilty, because she'd already gotten home early and slept most of the time anyway), so noone noticed and we didn't have to pay extra.

Today my family and I went to the Science Centre, which was not that great at all. It looks great from the outside, but it was super expensive and if you went to the Science Mall only, there was hardly anything that you wouldn't get in a good German science museum or exhibition for free. We could have paid for the planetarium or the IMAX dome, but I really had been to both in Germany too and felt like if the mall had been a disappointment, the rest couldn't be much better.

The main theme was Wallace and Gromit - it was largely for children. I learned something about copyrights that might come in handy for my homepage in Arts and Media Informatics and Multimedia Analysis and Design. Also, after that we went to the Exhibition and Conference Hall, which was really not impressive from the inside, but I found a flyer of something I might go to, that includes Gordon Ramsey and is mainly about cooking...

When we came back to my new place we were invited to dinner by my new flatmate Bhaskar from Dehli, India. He treated the entire family to some very expensive, really delicious food in a super fancy restaurant...and I thought 'so that's what it's like when you have money'... I felt super lucky. He even called a taxi for us. Great evening.

October 15th

Whoa!!!! Guys, I don't even know how to communicate all that's been going on in such a short time again. So basically, what's going on is that I had to cancel several appointments, especially today, because I'm moving out again. About a week ago I've been having serious issues with one of my flatmates again and it's just been too much for me, so I decided I'd go for something else. I'd rather spend two days moving out than one hour debating with her, because that's what makes me miserable for the rest of the day. Can't really say what it was all about, basically we have different opinions on human interaction in general. I found another flat which is the most gorgeous I can think of (my own bathroom with bathtub, washing machine, internet, only one, mature, male, uncomplicated flatmate - as it seems...and my family's met them and says so too), and it is in West End. Today, I'm gonna take the coach to Aberfoyle and from there go to Easterhill Farm and tomorrow there'll be canyoning. :) My family's been here since Wednesday.

October 10th

Finally! Yesterday night was my first karaoke night here.

(I sang: Norah Jones 'Don't know why', Alanis Morissette 'You outta know', Travis 'Why does it always rain on me', Vanessa Carlton 'A thousand miles', LeeAnn Rimes 'Can't fight the moonlight' with Krys, Monthy Python's The life of Brian: 'Always look on the bright side of life' with Séb)

I knew several karaoke bars from just walking around the city, collecting them and putting them onto my map. I didn't have the map yesterday, but more or less knew where they could be found still.

Spontaneously decided to do this after I had 'cappuccino' with Séb. 'Cappuccino' in quotes, because I infact had two (or 1 and a half) huge Starbucks Lattes, while he had two cappuccinos. He had ordered two cappuccinos for us (treated me to one *gg*) and the staff at starbucks put two lattes in front of us instead. Nobody else claimed them and they were not aware of that, Séb asked for the cappuccino again and I took the latte in the meantime. So we had more than we could actually drink. The lattes were so huge.

Actually, we were supposed to go to Jessica's Thanksgiving Party, but Jess cancelled it, because she felt sick and Séb decided he wanted to at least go to the city and just do something other than hanging out at home with his flatmate whom he doesn't like too much.

I'd been thinking of going to karaoke ever since I came here. And it was really cool. There were soooo many people singing (till midnight, when the pub started closing...no alcohol after midnight) and it was a cozy little pub, people were dancing between the tables and cheering you on and all of them were clapping and singing along with songs they knew (mostly songs that I didn't even know).

The day before yesterday, I had spent the night at Séb and Andy's place on their sofa, because I'm currently experiencing a few problems with my flatmates and they have a very nice, slightly remote flat (in Mosspark - 10 minutes from Glasgow Central by train). So yesterday morning I went from them straight to the Beatston Pebble Appeal Abseil in Fallkirk, which was really cool and fun (just a little expensive, because of the extra transport costs). I was really glad I made it there in time all on my own by train and bus. Busses in Fallkirk are even more expensive - 2 pounds - and you don't have to hail them...for a change. As for the abseil, I wasn't too excited, but all the women around me were totally edgy and shivering, before, while and after the abseil. I'd done some climbing before and this was just like it, except that it was higher and there was no wall you could do it along. Just a huge edge where you had to push yourself away from and then you'd just dangle in the air. Got a nice picture of me, all harnessed and hanging over the bridge, but it's not yet digital.

Finally, today, my muscles stopped aching so terribly from Parkour. :-)

I should maybe add, that I spent two nights in a row at Séb's and Andy's, because of those flatmate problems. Really don't want to talk about it too much. It's little things that piled up and made me feel so uncomfortable that I couldn't even talk about it to her...basically, because I knew it wouldn't make a difference. And then the sad climax came when we were cooking in the kitchen together.

Séb told me, he's thinking of moving out and hiring his own flat and we've been thinking that I might move in with them, in case I am looking for something after December.

October 5th

Hi guys,

I know, I know, it's been an awful lot of time since I've written anything, but there's been SOOOOO MUCH going on, I could hardly keep up. So it's gonna be hard to sum it all up in a nutshell, but I'm gonna try to fill you guys in with the news. But first, I must tell you that, today, I had my very first class of 'le Parkour' which I've been wanting to learn for such a long time and I always thought I was probably in a too bad shape to do it...I'm in a really bad shape, compared to sporty people and especially to the people who do Parkour...all that even though I've been working out hard these past two months. Nonteheless, I made it to the end of the class, barely taking a break and giving it my very best. Got away with two torn hands (and surely some calluses), a bruised arm and a large haematoma on my leg. :) That's how it's supposed to be. I'll definitely go more often, maybe this Saturday to the jam session, but I don't really have enough money or time to do it again for the rest of the month. I'll have to postpone it to next month. But it's good I started it this month, as it will only get a lot colder and I would probably feel even less inclined to do it without having experienced it during a more mild weather. And the people are all...awesome. They look cool, they study cool things (mostly something with art and performance, as far as I could find out) and have cool and interesting hobbies. I can't wait to meet them again. Today was also the first time a guy - David, one of the instructors - was actually able to lift me on his back...and he really didn't look like it, cuz he was so skinny. But not only did he lift me on his back, he actually balanced me on the balls of his feet. Incredible. There is a lot of strength in those Parkour guys. I really need to learn it more properly and get some more muscles. The group was huge, btw, I think the biggest group they ever had, I didn't even get around to counting how many there were...and it was a girls only group - except for the instructors.


Soooo...

the Highlights - these are by no means chronological, they are just a random brainstorming - I am really sorry noone got a post card from me yet (except my boyfriend). I bought loads of them, but I didn't get to write nor send anything yet:

-hitch hikining to Loch Lomond, 5 hours hiking through the hills

-Sushi at Sapporo yesterday, funny Sushi Chefs doing tricks at the Tepanyaki grill, met new people...all Canadians. We were looking for Karaoke, but there seems to be nothing on on Mondays :-( The food was super expensive, but I got to try some new stuff. Like monk fish and lamb with strawberry sauce, both delicious. Chocolate spring rolls...great idea

-met Andy, Sébastien's flat mate...he's probably the weirdest, most confusing and interesting Brit I've ever met. He's somewhere from England. He and Séb and I went to 87, a very nice, cozy restaurant/pub/café kind of place. A night full of in-depth, really interesting conversations and a lot of music. We met a busker in the streets, his name's Ryan, he's my age. We played his guitar, Andy plays well. I got his e-mail address and will be trying to get one of his used guitars...just need to replace the strings.

-they have keyboards on the 4th floor (or level? still don't fully grasp the concept of levels and floors in Britain) of the library...I forgot nearly all songs I could play, but the most important theme of Für Elise came back pretty quickly...

-keep meeting Germans in my lessons, two of which have become really good friends...darn!

- I had my first ostrich meat, on a burger in "Ketchup" (great restaurant) ...yummy!

-just when I finally learned how to open the lock to the back yard with the keys (it was a real challenge) they finally replaced the lock

- I subscribed to dancing classes: Ballet and Burlesque and am hoping to take Master Classes in Highland Fling, Tribal Fusion Belly Dance and Contemporary (one of the girls at the Parkour lesson does that...it looks awesome)

- I almost cried when I saw the beautiful architecture of Glasgow Uni and then again almost cried when I sat in my first History of Art lecture, because it blew me so full of beautiful nostalgia

- I spent about two weeks basically organising my schedule for uni, because that was really hard to do, given that there're so many interesting subjects and I was experiencing some misunderstandings with my advisor of studies and a hard time choosing. Finally ended up taking: Philosophy, Art and Media Informatics and Multimedia Analysis and Design as courses for which I get credits and Psychology, Computing Sciences, History of Art and Business and Management as audit only courses. I really especially enjoy Art and Media Informatics and Multimedia Analysis and Design. Both have a lot to do with HTML. I enjoy each of the courses I am taking, but since I subscribed to 'Moodle' the sort of intranet of Glasgow Uni, I feel free to not visit all audit only courses all the time and just download the respective Powerpoint Presentations, when I feel I need to get home and do some more organisation instead or just catch a break.

-went 'window shopping' with Jess, which ended up in clothes shopping, but I tried to pull myself together...spent more money on bathing suits after all...later...when I went to BHS (british home store) with Damisha, one of my flatmates

-had free Salsa classes in Princess Square - had the first alcoholic cocktail there that I liked,...mostly because one could hardly taste the alc, but really...what's the use of the alc then? :P ...still can't stand alcohol on the whole...very close dancing with men that I don't know...I can't really get the hang of it...but there were moments when I really enjoyed myself, though, overall, I feel Salsa is not for me...I wasn't bad. I'd been asked to dance quite a lot of times and been told that one could tell, I'd danced before...really didn't make a difference. I prefer other, more unconventional and creative dance classes

-got myself a membership at the sports club at uni...go swimming and did several other fitness classes

-we had free pizza at the freshers week...and free sweets...good...but not good

-about half of my lecturers have a great Glaswegian accent. My Philosophy tutor looks like a laid-back Jesus

-Been to a wonderful art exhibition in the Kelvingrove Museum, called 'the Glasgow Boys'...most beautiful and interesting exhibition of fine art I've ever been to

-bought books though I didn't want to...they were 1 or 2 pounds or 50 pence each...couldn't resist

-had no internet till the 24th of September. It was torture. Had to go to Gorbals Library all the time or use my laptop on the campus, where I wouldn't be allowed to use skype or any chat programme other than Facebook. Hardly found any time to do anything other than organising when I was online

- I finished furnishing my room, very proud to have gotten a printer and a desk for free (but didn't want to pick it up, so I paid 3 pounds for the delivery of the desk and bought a train ticket to Neilston to get the printer + about 10 pounds for the cartridges...but was worth every penny), got TV with one programme...I enjoy accessing British culture through that as well...get up to children's programmes every morning

-got myself a job (over gumtree)...I am now giving French lessons to a guy in his 40ies or 50ies with a heavy Glaswegian accent :D

-gave swimming lessons to my flatmate Damisha...had some dispute with her...trying to avoid her now, nothing too serious though, I still like living here, even though it takes me between 30 and 45 minutes every morning to get to Uni

- Been to Balloch with friends doing another hiking trip, had some very deep conversations, I enjoyed it very much

-went to a housewarming party organised by Antoine, with whom I went hitch hiking, and got a free mountainbike from him. Rode home with Sébastien at 2am on my new bike, which needs some fixing at the saddle,...and all that with left-hand traffic (I sometimes still expect buses to stop on the other side of the road. So when I saw them passing by, it happened twice to me that I'd try stopping them, though they were actually on the other side of the street going in the wrong direction). Sauchiehall Street at that time of night is really fascinating. Looks a bit like a red light district. really weird creatures all over the place...wouldna've done it without Sébastien. He was my guardian angel back then. Things went so well...he was very good at looking after me.

-went to see Lewis's ballet performance (he's a professional at the Scottish Ballet) at the Royal Theatre, really enjoyed the modern parts of it. Decided to try it myself, when he told me normal people like me who hadn't practiced all their life could also do it...will probably go back for Cinderella on Christmas

-thought about getting Piping lessons at the National Piping Centre, but it was 630 pounds...no way, thanks

- I am trying to convince Glasgow Uni to let me stay one more semester and am trying to find out how to do that financially...it's all so expensive here

-met Ann-Christine. She, Luca and I went to see several theatre plays and art installations, which we all enjoyed, with a day pass. Especially 'How Keanu Reeves saved the world' was great. I lost my tickets, but Annki managed to convince the people at the desk to actually replace them without spending money on them again. We met up with Krys and Jess in between and had a Chocolate Calzone, because the two of them bought it at 'Amore' and wanted to try it and it was really good. Damn you, chocolate!

-my Mum and Brother are coming to visit me next week.

-went for Sushi at Yo! Sushi with Sébastien. Enjoyed myself immensely. Yummi chocolate mochis.

-I'm going to take cookery classes and learn about desserts and fish

-I've been trying to eat very healthily...and on the way there found out that Scotland probably has the best Muesli (and also Muesli Muffins) I've ever tasted... how weird is that?

-went to a French conversation evening...been too lazy to do that all the time when I was in Germersheim, though I coulda done it and probably had more time to do so...my French sucks now. I used to be really good at it. Lack of practice. Too many other languages in my head.

-I'm going to a charity abseil in Fallkirk this Saturday. It's for building a cancer research lab...so we're gonna drop down from a huge bridge or something, secured by a rope. I'm very excited.

-Been trying to get a voucher for paintball, but failed...will try again though, because it's not that expensive and there's loads of paintball sites around here. maybe I'll do it when the weather is nicer.

-got myself a voucher for "canyoning, including descending rapids, waterfall abseiling, diving into plunge pools and much more with Action Adventure Activities" - doing it Saturday 16th

-saw this outside of the HATII (my department for Art and Media Informatics and Multimedia Analysis and Design) http://www.angelfire.com/art2/antwerplettuce/hamlet.html - Enjoyed reading it very much, had a good laugh. Also laughed at the following T-shirts I came across these days: "No, I'm not on f#@*ing Facebook!" and "Everytime you masturbate, God kills a kitten" ...

-Had a sleepover party at Jessica's - she lives outside Glasgow. Had to go there by train.

-Tom would have enjoyed the following: I have my History of Art lectures at the Zoology department where they hold the classes on evolution and one of my lecturer in HoA referred to Richard Dawkins several times during his talk and actually put a link to one of his papers on Moodle, on teleology and he indirectly mocked Creationists
Tom would've also maybe enjoyed the posters outside the Presbyterian Church of Scotland "THE FOOL HATH SAID IN HIS HEART 'THERE IS NO GOD'!" and "REPENT AND BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL"!

-actually met a guy from Mainz at a couchsurfer meeting, Steffen...he's been here a wee bit longer than I...interesting guy

...There's been so much going on. I wrote some of the things down. I'd have to go through my e-mails, to be more precise about what happened when. I am sure I left out some important things.

It's amazing, I'm just cooling down from the Parkour lesson...it was 2 hours and really the hardest exercise I've ever been through, as far as muscle work is concerned. I've really pushed myself to the limits. Now I can feel the muscles are getting tired and a generall tiredness is kicking in.

...just got up to get my mobile...don't think I've EVER had heavier muscles. This is going to be a major muscle ache ...dunno how I'm supposed to get up tomorrow. Yikes!

I'll get back to you guys as soon as I feel that I can.