Belgium | OppositeOcean

For the love of hygiene.

Posted on Apr 18, 2013 | 10 comments

On Wednesday it happened. The last straw was placed on the delicate little camel’s back and my toes crept right up to the very end of the ledge of sanity. I was washing my hands in one of the women’s restrooms in my faculty building and as I rinsed away the soap bubbles a girl exited a bathroom stall and came up to the sink.

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Testosterone Terrier

Posted on Feb 27, 2013 | 0 comments

I regularly take the tram to and from the city center of Ghent and I’ve found that there is a pattern involving the occurrence of unusual events and my presence on the tram. The other day I was just on my way home after a long day of classes at Ghent University and I was allowing my brain a few moments of relaxation while I enjoyed the warmth of the tram car, watching people going about their day on the other side of the glass. We went slowly past the Kouter and that was when I saw something unusual.

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Now on Pinterest

Posted on Jan 30, 2013 | 0 comments

I’ve been working on building a Pinterest board for OppositeOcean for a while. At first I was using my personal Pinterest account and had created just one board for OppositeOcean but I experienced a lot of limitations with this. Therefore, I’ve created a separate Pinterest account just for OppositeOcean where I will only pin things related to Belgium. I wanted to be able to create more boards so that the links would be more useful and organized. I think it will be a fun and easy way to organize different restaurants, museums, stores, attractions, videos or anything else that I find interesting that is relevant for the blog.

Check it out if you would like to see some of my favorite Belgian things!

Click the photo to go directly to the Pinterest boards for OppositeOcean

Do you have any suggestions about how I could make the Pinterest boards more functional? Don’t hesitate to suggest!

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Signs of Life

Posted on Jan 20, 2013 | 0 comments

Mr. Dorian takes a break from attempting to catch snowflakes.

Although freedom is rather temporary at this point, the taste of it is still sweet. I finally have some time to let my brain rest and to publish my first blog post of 2013! I can’t say that I have any interesting stories that will bring a smile, any weird new Dutch words, or any other interesting event in particular to talk about. My last 30+ days were dedicated to a whole-hearted effort to pass the University courses I was taking this semester. The most that I can say about them is that (for the most part) they are over. I’ve learned that I seriously have to work on developing a better learning technique to deal with the whole ‘learning things in another language’ thing.

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5 Things to Eliminate Wintertime Woefulness

Posted on Dec 21, 2012 | 2 comments

If my second winter here has made anything clear about the relationship that Belgium and I have with each other, it is that she often does little to cheer me up during this time of year. The combination of gray and drizzly skies, permanently statically-charged hair, and an aching brain brimming with language and terminology combined with the stress of approaching exams in multiple languages has made me realize that during this time of year it is more important than ever to see the things I love about this place and to cling to them, allowing them to warm up my thoughts and inspire me to treat Belgium a little kinder until she starts to return the kind thoughts in spring.