Desespero

Yesterday was a day of total panic and désespoir! When I got up in the morning, I had no idea of what was waiting for me. I got up, did my laundry, had breakfast, and went to class, a práctica of Economia Social. There, the professor explained to us that by the end of the month we have to create an asociación (whatever that may be) in groups of two or three, and present a 20 to 30-page paper on the purpose, workings and administration of the association, ánd - I repeat, ánd - by each practica-class we have to hand in a short, 1 or 2-page long commentary on a text or a documentary. Wooohooow! They´ve never made me work this hard in Leuven for only HALF a class! Because there´s theory too!

Then he made us watch a documentary called The Corporation, which was, of course, dubbed in Spanish. If it were only in Spanish, that would´ve already been a challenge, but a feasible one. The problem is that during the interview, the English originally spoken is not erased! The Spanish is simply put over it! So I kept hearing two languages at once, having enormous difficulties to separate both languages, of which neither one is a maternal language to me. I guess that Spanish people are accustomed to hearing dubbed interviews without having the original language erased, but I most certainly am not, so I caught like, 50% of the information given in the documentary?

So after the class I went to the professor to ask him whether I could not borrow the dvd to see it again to be able to do the work properly, and he said: "But you´ve just seen the documentary!" to which I replied: "But I´m not Spanish! I didn´t understand everything that was said in the interviews!" He replied that the dvd was available in the library and that he didn´t have any more time to talk to me, because he was going out on vacation! ON VACATION! Right that instant!

Now if I could just get the dvd in the library and watch it at home again to do the assignment, then there´s no need for me to be writing all this desperate stuff about the incident. You can guess of course, that I CANNOT just get the dvd from the library. Here´s why: because I´m an erasmus student, I have to enroll later into the courses that I chose. Even if I wanted to, I cannot enroll before the 24th of October. And until I´m officially enrolled at the university, I don´t get my official student card. And without the official student card, you cannot borrow anything from the library. Gracioso, I think they would call it that in Spanish... So you see, I had every reason to panic!

Lucky for me, my inventive mind did come up with a possible solution for the problem: Guillermo! (This must be very funny for you to read, Gui! By the way, can I call you Gui?) So I called him to ask whether he could not borrow the dvd for me from the library. He came over to campus and we went to the part of the library where the dvd was supposed to be and that part was... of course... closed.

So the next morning (we´re talking Friday now, which is today) we agreed to meet in front of the library at 9:30am, sure that the dvd-part of the library should be open at that time. Lucky for me it was open! Unlucky for me... they didn´t have the dvd. The ladies behind the counter had never heard of it and didn´t find any vestige of it in the database... Grmbl.

So far for my brilliant ideas to try and do the assignment properly. Now I´m just going to jot something down, head to the professor office next week, hope that he will have returned from his vacation and ask him to tell me whether what I´ve written will do, or ask him to borrow me the dvd instead. Seems fair, don´t you think? Well, at least I´m demonstrating the wíll to do well in the assignment.

Again back to yesterday. In the afternoon, I tried to make reservations for bus tickets to go to Madrid this weekend. (Did I tell you I´m going to Madrid this weekend? I´m going to Madrid this weekend!) I tried to buy the tickets on the internet, but to buy tickets you need to fill in your ID number. I filled in my Belgian ID number, which the website refused. I tried again and again, but Belgian ID numbers just don´t do, I guess. So far for globalization. So I rang the bus company to make the reservations by phone. I was welcomed by a friendly electronic lady who asked me where I wanted to go. Confused, I tried to press one to see what would happen, but no, the lady kept insisting that I say where I wanted to go. So I told the electronic lady: "Madrid." The electronic lady repeated: "Do you want to go to Madrid?" To which I replied: "Yes." Oh. My. God. I was talking to a machine! The electronic lady kept asking me questions about the date of the journey, the hour, the return journey, and so on. This took about 10 minutes. The last question she asked was: "How many seats do you want to book?" to which I replied: "Two." (I´m going to Madrid with Morgane, fyi). And the electronic lady says: "Sorry, there are not enough seats available on the selected buses. We will put you through to an employee."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!! I spend 10 costly cell phone minutes talking to a machine, which then can´t do what I want it to do and then PUTS ME THROUGH TO AN EMPLOYEE! The human lady asked me the exact same questions the electronic lady had asked me, to which I all replied, desperately trying to ask after each question: but are there seats available? The human lady very decidedly followed the prescribed procedure and only told me at the very end that yes, there were seats available. Then I asked whether I could pay by creditcard upon arrival at the bus station on Saturday morning and she said that no, I had to come and pay 24 hours in advance at the bus station! Which meant, yesterday afternoon or today before 9am! So I had no choice but to take the metro immediately to go aaaaaaall the way to the bus station to pay for the god damn tickets, and come all the way back just in time for class. Very fancy, to have an electronic lady attending the clients, but so so very unfancy to make those same clients undertake the whole journey to the bus station TWICE in order to get the tickets 24 hours in advance. All in all, I lost almost one hour and a half to buy bustickets. Morgane owes me a big, big ice cream cone when we get to Madrid.

Yesterday night Morgane came over and we complained all night to each other about all the dreadful things that had happened to us in the past 24 hours. We felt soooo much better after that! We went out in search of ice cream (to make us feel 100% better, all you girls out there understand) but all the ice cream places had already closed. We ended up in a nice café (the one I went to with Gui, actually. I´ll go back there and take a picture to show you) where there was supposed to be brownie and ice cream, which we entusiastically ordered, but which was out of stock that night... I guess the looks on our faces were so disappointed that the waiter brought us some chocolates (those ones that come with coffee) for free. That did brighten the day. :-)

But anyway: tomorrow I´m going to Madrid! So no more complaining, bravo actually, if you´ve gotten to the end of this epistel, and after the weekend: news from Madrid!

(No photos today. I´m not in a photo mood.)