Wednesday was an interesting day.
2 hour French lesson, inc. translating from French to Swedish and back, explaining said exercises to an Italian friend (in Italian) and then trying to grasp a complex grammatical point. For some reason I deigned to make this harder by simultaneously applying this grammatical point to my existing knowledge of Italian...
The perk of this, however, was that my 3 hour Swedish lesson after it was a breeze- "What? Only one European language?!".
Then again, I had other things on my mind- the German girl sat next to me had just split up with her boyfriend and I appreciated all too well what she was going through, not least when the topic of conversation coincidentally got round to "the best and worst ways to dump someone"... poor thing.
Unlike my resolution after splitting up with Steph not to fall back on any vices (partly because I actually couldn't), Connie had decided she wanted to get trashed and I felt like I ought to go along and show some solidarity with her... not in the getting trashed, but more in the "lamenting our losses" stakes. Trouble was, she was with all her German friends and I barely speak a word of German; that and I didn't want to seem like I was hawking on a vulnerable young lady, so I wasn't sure what effect my presence would have.
Eventually I decided that I would go, 'cos it was more important to me that she felt supported, even if people got the wrong impression or I made a fool of myself. Fortunately, her friends all spoke at least moderate English (which was a little humbling) and I understood patches of what they were saying from my accumulated knowledge of European language. Most importantly, Connie seemed very appreciative of the support and stayed reasonably sober, which I think was evidence of how supported she felt...
It was nice to suddenly have the feeling that splitting up with Steph had a positive come out of it. She is also mailing me, which is nice, but I'm not sure why: if she really does want to be friends or if it's just trying alleviate some of her guilt...
I'm having a week (in fact, possibly a month) of really intense experiences and generally stuff which is changing my P.O.V. on a few things... I guess this is what being abroad is all about, at last.
2 hour French lesson, inc. translating from French to Swedish and back, explaining said exercises to an Italian friend (in Italian) and then trying to grasp a complex grammatical point. For some reason I deigned to make this harder by simultaneously applying this grammatical point to my existing knowledge of Italian...
The perk of this, however, was that my 3 hour Swedish lesson after it was a breeze- "What? Only one European language?!".
Then again, I had other things on my mind- the German girl sat next to me had just split up with her boyfriend and I appreciated all too well what she was going through, not least when the topic of conversation coincidentally got round to "the best and worst ways to dump someone"... poor thing.
Unlike my resolution after splitting up with Steph not to fall back on any vices (partly because I actually couldn't), Connie had decided she wanted to get trashed and I felt like I ought to go along and show some solidarity with her... not in the getting trashed, but more in the "lamenting our losses" stakes. Trouble was, she was with all her German friends and I barely speak a word of German; that and I didn't want to seem like I was hawking on a vulnerable young lady, so I wasn't sure what effect my presence would have.
Eventually I decided that I would go, 'cos it was more important to me that she felt supported, even if people got the wrong impression or I made a fool of myself. Fortunately, her friends all spoke at least moderate English (which was a little humbling) and I understood patches of what they were saying from my accumulated knowledge of European language. Most importantly, Connie seemed very appreciative of the support and stayed reasonably sober, which I think was evidence of how supported she felt...
It was nice to suddenly have the feeling that splitting up with Steph had a positive come out of it. She is also mailing me, which is nice, but I'm not sure why: if she really does want to be friends or if it's just trying alleviate some of her guilt...
I'm having a week (in fact, possibly a month) of really intense experiences and generally stuff which is changing my P.O.V. on a few things... I guess this is what being abroad is all about, at last.
Intense experiences and constantly changing P.O.V's is all apart of growing older.