Happy days, sad days....

Why is it that there's always such a big difference in your days? Yesterday was great! Today was awful... :-(

Here's what happened yesterday. I had my first private lessons in Norwegian in the morning from 10:00 until 12:00. How stupid, I forgot that there is much more traffic than in the evening. At the end of our industrial area I ended up in a line which would take me at least 20 minutes before I reached the freeway. Uh oh... make a quick U-turn, go the other way again, that might be better. But now I am in a real hurry, it is already after 09:30! On the freeway I seem to be the only person who is in a great hurry. I get so agitated when suddenly 7 cars in a row with bicycles at the back (obviously people going on a tour alltogether because of the nice weather) turn onto my road! They seem to crawl their way on the road, how annoying, get out of my way! The absolute limit has yet to come: a lady in the car in front of me applying her make-up in the inside mirror! Grrrr.. She's looking up and down the passenger seat, her car going from one side to the other side of the lane, and it is the left lane! The lane where I am because of my hurry. At one point when she leaves a big gap betweer her car and the car in front of her, I have enough. I slam my foot on the accelerator and overhaul her from the right, resuming my position in the left lane. As a reaction she signals with her lights. It's a miracle that she could find the buttons of her lights, while applying the mascara and the lipstick!

Anyway, I arrive at Nina's classroom at 10:05, already having rehearsed in my head the sentence I should say to her: "Unnskyld at jeg er for seint, men det var veldig travelt på veien". Until now the day maybe doesn't sound great, but when I am in a relaxed state again, Nina and I (well, mostly Nina of course ;-)) talk Norwegian for nearly 2 hours! That was so great! These are 'my' hours, I may decide what we are going to do. I tell Nina that I want to learn to SPEAK, and to understand.

After the lessons I end up in a lunchroom in Bunnik. I sit in the sun and order a fresh orange juice and a 'broodje gezond' (healthy sandwich). In the afternoon we had an outdoor activity, organised by our personnel community. That was also in Bunnik, so I could stay in the neighbourhood of Werkhoven. An urgent message from one of the department directors on my mobile (of which the battery is nearly empty and I have no possibility to reload it...and the battery of my private mobile is also low...) calls me to Wageningen. I don't care much for outdoor activities with my colleagues anyway.... At the end of the day I join them for a BBQ, and this was quite nice! (after I found the group, which wasn't so easy, I'm not good in finding entrances haha) Judging from their stories of the afternoon's acitivities I consider myself lucky to be called to Wageningen to see to urgent matters. One colleague was still sneezing today because of the fact that he had to act like a guiney pig on all four, with his nose in the grass ;-)

In the evening I had a lovely chat with my dear friend Mandylou (thanks for that!).

Today I try to hold on to the sweet memories of the day before, but it is hard. There's a lot of stress and I am accused of something I cannot help. We have a huge problem and somebody manages to make it my problem. Grrrr... I feel very frustrated and emotional, but showing my emotions is not very helpful. So I hold on to the end of the day, when I finally succeed in catching my boss before he leaves the office. Half of the problem is now solved, the other half unfortunately remains unsolved until Wednesday...

In the end the good news is that I have 3 full days to recover again from today! :-)