Ok , i just rounded up my little tri-annual checkup and have some time to kill. Class doesn't start in 3 hours and its not worth the while to drive all the way down to limburg and back. So after doin some walking about in Leuven i've landed at Groept and dove right back in my linux book. After the fairly interesting chapters i'm now down to the increadibly borind stuff. Man i do hope it gets better cause i'm fighting sleep like a dragon on fire. I strolled into the bookstore, checking out some books and cd's ( that i'll write down so i know what do download on Emule next time :p ) Plenty of IT related books but i know that @ home I have enough books around to defeat the next invasion of gian ants. Hmm. Must be the boring Linux chapter i'm reading right now that makes me so sleepy cause i allmost dozed off a few minutes ago. But i'm trying to lay of the coffee so Java will offer me no support in this one. One big latte this afternoon will just have to keep me going for the day. Outside we are enjoying the last rays of autumn sun and in between the long shadows the land is painted gold and green. As i sit here the world moves around me. People come, people go.. and for once I find mysellf silently waiting as time flows by. Well not doing nothing (studying, remember) but still. As the atmosphere of GroepT surrounds me for the third year in a row, i'm not surprised how much i feel at home down here. I walk the big spiral way to the top as commonly as my own stairwell. Plunge down in the cafetaria as i would in my own kitchen and drive trough the streets of Leuven as if i have been coming here for years. Well.. I have but.. thats not the point. The point is that the DISTANCE between Hasselt/Leuven is sometimes a bigger issue for those around me than for mysellf. Whenever I talk to people here and tell them where i'm from they go like : 'waaw , THAT far' while to me.. Leuven isn't at all that far. I mean , ok , its 45 minutes driving when its busy , 30 min's when i can push the envelope. But.. I don't see it as far.. I mean .. Thats what you get when you live in a backwater province like mine. When you wanna do something you just have to get around. It makes me feel a little 'metropolitan'. I shop in Maastricht, get my PC stuff in Aachen, study in Leuven. Try to grab a Cappuchino with a muffin in Antwerp once in a while. Even though we live in the city of Hasselt right now its funny that I'm still more on the road then home. So hey ! I get around ! Whats wrong with that. Leuven isn't far. Neither is Aachen or Maastricht , Antwerp is up the highway straight ahead. Whats the big deal anyway. I guess people see the journey from Limburg outward like some epic trek 'lord of the rings style' well I must disappoint you my friends. Its just a hop in the car and after a few years you get pretty used to it. (The innards of Leuven have become boring to me.. THATS how much I come here) With the week fully booked (have to go to Heverlee tomorrow and back to Leuven on friday and saturday) (not forgetting Antwerp on monday) i've seen quite a little peace of little belgium these days. Good thing for my GPS-lady (Mia) who helps me get around to where i gotta be. I would not now how to get to all those places just by mysellf. Hmm. coming to think of it I could come by train friday. It would be more convenient and i could just bunk out in the train for two hours. I mean whenever you have to travel an hour to get somewhere its WHAT YOU DO during that hour that makes it lost time or not. Suppose your by car, stuck in traffic and you stress up and eat your steering wheel for f*** 60 minutes striaght.. Then thats lost time. Spend that time listening to music, arranging your thoughts, or even listening to an Audio Book.. Its not really lost time is it ? Suppose your in a train 2 hours a day. You CAN spend that time reading, listening to music , working on your website or whatever. Its a little bit of a luxury to have 2 hours to fill in to your own discretion. The thought occured to me this morning when stuck in traffic. One does not control the situation one gets into , but we do control how we react in that situation. I could have been stressed up for losing time. Instead i listened to classical music on the radio and watched the sun rise over the hills around me while peeking at the people around me and wondering who they where and where they where going. Life is a big boardgame sometimes. You only have to make up your own game to play on it. Of to school it is my friends !