From 14 January - 21 January

• I was still in the throes of exams; but because of the January sales, I discovered the joys of retail-therapy as applied to post-exam funk. Or, as the wife of my sensei put it, during a chance meeting on the main shopping street of Our Town, when I said I wasn't sure what I was looking for, except maybe for some bargain, she said I was working on "leeglopen", or running myself empty. Sounded about right to me.
• I had to note, with consternation and dismay, the deaths of Patrick McGoohan and Ricardo Montablan - actors, yes, no one close, and yet both gave physical form to some icons of my angsty teen years and after. I'm trying to remind myself that while I will continue to have to say goodbye to such icons, I can also look out for the new ones. They might not be as find-able - not that I'm pickier these years or less liable (labile? *wink*) to be primed by my personal chemistry and lack-of-outlook, but the world of story-telling, and the industry of getting those stories to us, seems geared ever more direly to lowest common denominator crap. The ones I like, seem such flukes.
• There were exams which I wasn't so happy, and then the Chinese modern history, which was an unmitigated disaster - not quite 100% of my own making, although I do have to own that at the end of this semester, my head was just not in the game. The exam, awful as it was, I admit was a fair one. Ah well... after, I met up with nhwhyte, and he showed me yet another Irish pub place in Brussels. (I have to say, the Irish are really well looked-after in that city!). I had just the thing for a grieving girl-student - a cheeseburger, while he and I mourned about our struggles with rising BMI. Not that either of us has that much to complain about, but it's a case, I think for us both, that we're being vigilant before the problem really becomes manifest. Even for such a short time,nhwhyte was the perfect guide/host - before lunch we visited the building where the controvertial "Europe" artwork was on display (parts of it are really silly to the point of being too cute, but it's a shame that in order to pull it off the artist had to engage in subterfuge about the work's origins...) Lunch, however, does not last forever, and so after saying goodbye, I met up with Mr Sweetie and saw a rather more worthy exhibit: Buddhist artwork out of Korean history. That might sound a bit too much, except if you've been studying some Asian history and know that a lot of what the Japanese received of Chinese culture and Buddhist religion, came via Korea. So, it was kind of a time-machine, which was cool. Not to mention beautiful and fascinating.
• This was the week that saw the payoff of my slog down to my doctor's office when I was ill - the sicknote delivered to the advisor pretty much tripped a process in motion, so that I was offered, and accepted, an opportunity to sit the exam that I'd missed because of that illness.
• Made a visit to friends, associated with our dojo although not practicing due to a variety of health issues. Still, they usually make it to the Saturday session, just to visit after, but not this time - and when I enquired, sensei told me that F. was still at home with his back, which he'd thrown out seriously due to a slip on the ice remaining on the road during the cold-snap. Now, we're to "normal" or even slightly mild temperatures, but of course, his back is still in a Bad Way. The visit was appreciated, not just for the goodies I'd brought from the Asian supermarket trip, either.
• Not a good week for friends of ours, either - Mr Sweetie informed me one morning that an old family friend, who's been married less than 2 years, and has a daughter of around that age, is about to lose his wife to cancer. They're at the "making her comfortable" stage at the hospice, and we can't begin to imagine what is going through his head.
• I'm trying to get a dinner party going... the various people concerned are all still trying to match calendars, but at this point we're looking - ahem - at the end of February or early March. *headdesk*
• The morning after the inauguration, I was awakening for that make-up exam. We have a radio in the bedroom, and it was on as I was awakening. The first item was from the US, and I got tense, a reaction from all these years, when the word "President" was followed by the name "Bush." But NO MORE as the radio announcer went on to mention whatever it was Obama was doing that day; my goodness, what a change!