I was a bit more diligent with photo taking this week, plus CB and I went into town one day, and I always remember to bring the camera when we do that.  So here are my top picks for this week.
Dont you just love cute little kitten paws?

Precarious

Can you guess what this is?

Plastic blooms in a mall café

I had to camera set to something other than automatic for this…I have no clue what it was set on, but I loved the composition of the picture.  I love the sense of speeding movement from the bus while the rest of the shot is still.  I love the woman waiting and the men talking.  I even like the surrealism of the lighting.  It just came out very cool by accident.

Comeraderie

Vrijdagsmarkt (another major square in the city center)

Flowers blooming in the dark

The notorious eye goo…not because it was a good picture, but to celebrate the last day I have to use it! Yay!

For other Weekly Winners head on over and visit Lotus at Saracastic Mom

Goo eye is giving
Me killer headaches today.
Time to watch South Park.

Click the banner above for more haikus (of much higher quality)

Wordpress is being a turd nugget again so I’m not going to delve into the moist little crevices of my inner ponderings for this post. I’m simply going to answer the question of the moment.
Did I pass level 5?
Am I free and clear to start grad school at the end of next month?
Have I successfully completed the UTC Preparatory Year of Dutch?

Nope.
Sorry for all of you out there who had faith in me to complete things without a mulligan, but I think we’ve already covered the current state of things here for me.
If something can go wrong, it will.
And it did.
And I’m oddly calm about it.

Dissapointed? I guess, a bit. But there were 40 people enrolled in level 5 for the month of August and of those 40, 9 passed. Yeah, you heard me right. If less that 25 percent of a group of people are able to successfully complete the hardest level of Dutch on the first try, I’m not going to beat myself up over it if I’m not one of them. I do tend to think there’s an inherent flaw in the system to have such a dismal success rate with a group that has already been gleaned of the proverbial chaff, but what do I know. So I’ve been re-enrolled in level 5 again. I still have class from 9-12 and my job in Antwerp will start on september 3rd. It means I won’t be home very much for 4 days of the week and when I am home I’ll have to put studying first.
Usually when I warn you that I won’t have time to blog though, I end up blogging more frequently, so this time I’ll just let the blog chips fall where they may.

Despite the lack of comments yesterday, I’ll assume that I left you all in a state of cuticle gnawing anxiety over my exam and the state of things in general.  Cause that’s how I was feeling after coming home from my test on Monday.

I’m sure my stress level was higher due to the washing machine, which we originally thought was fixed but turns out the repair guy who fixed the electrics also tore the piping out of the wall, causing the kitchen to flood on Sunday morning and preventing me from doing the laundry I wanted to do before the funeral today (that got done last night and is in the dryer as we speak because Cabanadad said we could solve the leak temporarily by running the broken pipe into the toilet….yay Cabanadad, but no yay on the pipe that is electric taped to the toilet seat).

And it was probably jacked up higher still after I went to the doctor on Monday evening and found out that Luna scratched my sclera along with my cheek, which explains that constant “eyelash feeling” in my eye and the blurred vision when trying to read small print.

Between fretting over laundry (yeah I’m a regular Donna frickin frackin Mills, I know), applying antibacterial eye-goo four times a day and wondering what kind of score I got on my test, I wasn’t able to sleep until after 4 am Tuesday morning.  But that was okay because I slept till 11:00 which reduced that pulse quickening, vomit inducing, dizziness from sky rocketing blood pressure period of time called “anticipation” (or as I like to call it, a panic attack in a jar…my brain is the jar holding the panic in and a thing like this exam is the tack hammer that smashes the jar and lets my panic run wild until I’m able to pick up all the glass and solder it back together…only it’s harder to see the glass when your one eye is all cloudy with anti-bacterial goo).

Right.

The teacher told us on Monday that the results would be available at 4:00 pm on Tuesday.  I got up at 11:00, fretted for a reasonable amount of time, hopped on the bus and got a sandwich and coffee at the mall near the language center, read a book for a while and then headed up the hill to see the results.
When I got there I noticed an atypical lack of people milling around the entryway so I went inside and saw, written on a giant whiteboard: “Eindtest resultaten voor Nederlands voor Anderstallingen Woensdag na 10:00.”
Translation? Test results for Dutch for other languages Wednesday after 10:00 am.

Fuck me sideways.

I felt my brain reach it’s boiling point and bubble out of my skull and down my spine.  I think my eye started to twitch (the good one…the goo’d one just sort of slid around in the socket).  The two Portugese sisters, we’ll call them Jo and Mary, were already there, talking to the secretary (both sisters started out in my level 1 class but Mary failed level 3 and had to take it two more times while Jo has been in my classes the whole time).  Mary had complained that the all the teachers had told us the results were available Tuesday and that this was unacceptable.  The secretary (who doesn’t seem to comprehend impartialty…the bitch) told them both their scores.  Mary passed and is in level 5 now and Jo failed so she’ll have to take level 5 again.

Well, shit.

I typically get about 2 points higher than Jo on the ending grade.  She got 5 of 20.  That means I most likely got 7 or 8 of 20.  You need 10 to pass.
I’d love to tell you that after I went in and complained and explained that it would be difficult for me to stop by and/or call them because I’d be at a funeral all day that they had the same pity on me as they did on Jo and Mary and told me my result.

But that would mean that my week was going well.

And that’s not the current trend in the life of Lilacspecs.

Although I guess it could be worse.  I live in Gent.  There were people driving an hour from Antwerp or Brussels for their scores, so I’m sure it was much more annoying for them.  Good to know the language center has so much regard for paying students.

Fuckers.

I scheduled this to post during my final for level 5. Hopefully while you read this I am recognizing all the vocabulary words and correctly using passive tense as well as all the proper prepositions and articles. But you don’t have to agonize along with me in silence.

Here is Alphabeat, a pop band out of Copenhagen that has been gaining in popularity here since somewhere around June. When I posted this song on Plurk the other day I found out that it apparently has yet to hit the US radiowaves. Well, now I’m giving you the opportunity to be on top of the latest pop trend. Take a look at their hit single “Fascination”:

Fascination Alphabeat

Easy living,
killed the young dudes,
in the high boots.
Teenage,
in the pace age,
that’s when love burns,
now it’s your turn.

Fascination
Fascination
It’s just the way we feel.

Fascination
Fascination
It’s just the way we feel. (yeah)

We love this exaltation (woh-oh, o-o-oh)
We want the new temptations (woh-oh, o-o-oh)
It’s like a revelation (woh-oh, o-o-oh)
We live on fascination

Passion,
is our passion,
in the moonlight,
on a joy ride.
Easy living,
killed the young dudes,
in the high boots. (oh yeah)

Fascination
Fascination
It’s just the way we feel (come on).

We love this exaltation (woh oh, o-o-oh)
We want the new temptations (woh oh, o-o-oh)
It’s like a revelation (woh oh, o-o-oh)
We live on fascination.

The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
The word is on your lips - say the word
Fas-ci-na-tion!

We love this exaltation (woh-oh, o-o-oh)
We want the new temptations (woh-oh, o-o-oh)
It’s like a revelation (woh-oh, o-o-oh)
We live on fascination (o-oh…)

Say the word now (fa-sci-nation)
Say the word
Come on say the word now (fa-sci-nation)
Come on (fa-sci-nation)

Now, I’m not typically the pop loving type, but this is just so catchy, I love it. And the guy singer? Isn’t he just adorable?? I would totally have posters of him up in my room if I was single and like, 5 years younger. So anyway, yeah, click on that link up above if you want to learn more about the band. Hope you enjoyed the music!