Blog Challenge Day 30: What’s been going on this month

Today’s the day: The final day of my blog challenge! When I started it, I wasn’t even sure I would manage to write something on here every day for 30 days, but I did! Somehow I did it and you know what? I actually liked doing it. I hope you guys liked it too! I would appreciate it if you could leave a comment telling me what topics interested you most and which ones I should continue blogging about, and which things I should stay away from. Since I haven’t really blogged about what I’ve been up to for the past 30 days, I will now give you an overview.

1.    I went to see Hurts, The Coral and Justin Nozuka live in concert. All those concerts were great. Hurts has a bit of a new wave/ 80s vibe to it and their lead singer is totally into that Franky Goes to Hollywood type drama thing. They were great live though. The Coral was amazing too. It’s seventies rock with a hint of psychedelic updated to now. This concert only picked up about half way through when they started playing some older songs and threw in a Beatles and The Byrds covers. They were totally jamming by the end of it, which kept me wishing for more, but then it was all over. Meh! Justin Nozuka was totally awesome as well. I already saw him last year, so I knew what to expect and since I was not entirely feeling his new record, I was very curious how those songs would work out live. And indeed, the live versions are 20,000 times more amazing than the record version. Next time he’s here, I’m going again! Thanks Janske for the picture!

Me & Justin Nozuka after his concert

2.    I crocheted a scarf for a friend. I sometimes do this: crochet. It’s old-fashioned perhaps, but my grandma taught me how to do it when I was 8. I don’t get to do it as much as I’d like. But I already have a next project set up, all I need is some wool! What is is I wanna try? Make myself a matching ice hat, scarf and mittens!

Two colored scarf, hand made by yours truly

3.    I finished my first term at university. YAY!! Till have to complete a take home exam, but I finished the essay yesterday so WOOT for that. Here’s to hoping that I actually pass the courses!

4.    I have decided I will be going to London & Dublin next year. I already blogged about this so you all know!

5.    I threw a autumn dinner party for some friends, which included pumpkin soup, a Dutch dish with cabbage and mashed potatoes and smoked sausage and apple pie for dessert. It was a bit much, but most of the food was gone by the end of the night. My house mate came round a little later and finished the pumpkin soup and apple pie!

Pumpkin Soup

6.    I had my planning interview at my work. This means I sat down with my boss to discuss what it is that I will be doing this year aside from teaching. Because it’s not just teaching what I’ll do. Apart from supervising international placements, I will also be doing assessments, will be part of internationalization policies as well as intercultural communication (which I’ll help develop and hopefully next year, I’ll be teaching it as well).

7.    I worked out and went to dance class as usual. Same old, same old there, but since my vacation I’ve been very tired and so I’ve been slacking a bit.

8.    I had fall break. Great time to chill, only with daylight saving time being over I just can’t keep my eyes open! I don’t know why, but the changing of the clock always messes me up!

9.    I went shopping in The Hague, at Primark and Ikea. You can see the haul vid for it somewhere in the 30 day blog challenge posts.

10.  I visited my parents and spent some time with my mom. We ended up drinking tea (no surprise there) and watching Coco Avant Chanel with Audrey Tatou.

11.  I wrote my final paper for a class at uni about discriminating media. Finally, finally, it’s done. I just have to give it another look on Wednesday morning and then I can hand it in. Way before the deadline of November 15th.

12.  I finished reading two books: Martin Amis – Money, Stephen Fry – MOAB is my washpot. I really liked both, for different reasons. I really liked the way the character in Money played out. I just didn’t like the way the book was written at times, which is why it took me so long to finish it. Once I got going it was okay, but before I got going… well that’s an entirely different story. I also talked about MOAB is my Washpot in my October Favorites video. So watch that if you haven’t already!

13.  I am almost done with my hayfever shots. (I will post about this soon)

14.  I completed my Go Pink for Pink Ribbon project. Although in the end it usually came down to wearing pink nail polish.

15.  I rewrote a course for this year’s classes. Yet again. It is one of the most fun parts of my job though: getting to think up what students are required to do in order to pass, but still make the workload bearable, not just for the students, but also for the teachers!

16.  I finished my classes at work and am now still grading papers. (It never ends!) Still have a big stack waiting for me and there’s more to come tomorrow afternoon. I hope to have it finished by the end of the week.

17.  I already started my new classes at uni last week and WOAH can you say work overload. But it’s really interesting! I am now taking a course on power in conversations and politeness on the Internet. But unfortunately the book that I had ordered from Amazon, never arrived, I just received an email that my delivery was returned to them because of a wrong address, which I find odd, but oh well. I guess that means more photocopying to be done on Wednesday!

Again if you have any suggestions for topics: please let me know!