Diane’s World

This song (”oh my God” by Jars of Clay) is one that I first heard while at chapel in Dordt College. The lyrics are powerful, and they kind of hit me this week. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!Since the last time I have written a few things have happened, but this will probably be a brief post. Sorry it took me so long to write this… it seemed like every time I needed to post, the internet in my room gave out.

The main thing is that I spent last weekend in Brussels.

Brussels is an absolutely lovely place. Instead of trying to describe it, here are some pictures:

St. Michaels (i think) church

There was some very beautiful singing going on inside the church. They were only practicing, so it was nice to roam the church with music going on.

Very nice shopping alleys like this were everywhere. It seemed like everything in Brussels was thought out aesthetically… which I really enjoyed.

A view from the city from a hill.

In the main square:

This is also from on top of the hill:

Classes are going well. I get frustrated quite often, but the learning is happening. Today I actually taught someone how to do something (in GERMAN!) so I’m feeling rather proud of myself.

I bought myself a Handy (Handy is what they call a cell phone in Germany. Yes, weird)

Amazingly, it only makes calls and does texting… and has the ability to tell me where I am. No email, no camera… just a phone. A pay-as you go phone. It’s so small and perty:

I got it mainly because I feel safer with it - it has the Taxi number in it should I ever get in a rough spot, and if I’m ever in a group and lose the group, I will be able to find them again. I think the thought of moving to Berlin kind of made me a little nervous to be alone without any form of emergency communication. I don’t plan to use it much, more as a safety net than anything else.

Ok enough of that. I think only my parents would find that part interesting.

I hope everybody is having a wonderful Valentines Day! I’m lucky that it isn’t nearly as big of a holiday in Germany as it is in the USA. However, my Korean friend surprised me with a little gift.

Here is my friend (her name is Hy0-Kyung… the one I have a painting named after)

and she gave me this:

and inside were these two little guys (they are paper clips):

So that made me smile pretty much the entire day.

Also, I got this book to entertain myself with:

Every page has a different way to destroy the journal - whether it be ripping out pages, licking a page after eating colorful candy, taking a shower with the journal, sleeping with the journal, scribbling in the journal, documenting a boring event in detail, and making paper airplanes/paper chains with pages of the journal. Heck, one of my friends even got to spit in the journal. Me and my classmates have found a lot of joy in destroying it so far, but I have a lot more pages yet to destruct.

Here is the first page of the journal to give you an idea :

yes yes… it is a very Diane-like thing.

Ok, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been struggling to come up with interesting information for this blog… and it’s very quickly dying

I am going to Berlin this weekend with my classmates… hopefully I will have a lot more interesting things to say after that!!!

Much affection!

Diane