Vlaams

So I am completely wiped and about to passssss out. But I thought I would say hi. What a day! My new job is completely crazy - but in a good way! So much to learn, so many faces to remember but I'm enjoying it. It's really cool b/c there are spontaneous intellectual discussions happening a lot - well some may be pseudo-intellectual but it's an environment where having an opinion or actually knowing what is going on in the world is VALUED and not looked down on. LOL what a concept right?! I also think it is pretty funny that even though I have the title of "Administrative Manager" a lot of my work is managing people and not paperwork. I actually have 10 people reporting to me (grad students, but still I'm the boss LOL me oh my - who entrusted me with people I'm a big pushover!) and I'm in charge of getting 3 new faculty hired - neat!

In other news I had my first Dutch (well Flemish Dutch) class tonight at the Belgian Embassy in DC. It is up by the National Cathedral - was a pain to get to since the bus stop listed on the Metro website wasn't there! But I digress. It was fun, we had a mini-class after registration. The room was packed, like 26 people in Beginning Dutch - who knew?! Of course I made friends with the other gay in the program - a sophmore at Georgetown (who almost was a linguistics major like me! He's smart enough to be a foreign service major now! LOL). Class was fun but way to easy. I have been listening to Dutch radio off and on for 3-4 years now so believe it or not I understand a lot (speaking and pronouncing is a different story). At the end of the class the teacher suggested I move up to the advanced beginner class so I'm going to do it. It promises to move a much quicker pace so I'm all over it. This is SO exciting I'm psyched I haven't learned a new language since Spanish (well I took 1 semester of Intermediate Korean 2 not having taken Basic Korean 1 or 2 -but I remember nothing - it was 2nd semester senior year!) so I aim to be fluent asap. I hope by the next time I got to Holland or Belgium I will be able to really hold a conversation - and blow away the native speakers (an American speaking Dutch for no reason is a subject of immense humor! Even some Dutch don't want to speak Dutch) hee hee!

Oh yes! My boy made me veal stew last night. It was amazing. It was so nice to come home and smell my place all warm and stew-y umm yeah that's a word right? It was getting cooler last night so it was perfect - I love stew and cuddling, fall is my season! I'm a lucky guy - I don't know how or why he puts up with me (and yes) my incessant yapping and occasional paranoia but I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth! :-)