Subway never tasted so good!

The greatest thing happened to me today! Okay, well, TWO things! First, our stock trippled this morning--from 150-ish to 500!! (no...not real stock...just the stock of our simulated company. We're in the middle of a intensive, week-long competition at school.) So needless to say, my group is excited and motivated to see how much more we can grow before this afternoon. (I might as well note, though, that we'd have to reach 2000 before we'd even be able to touch the current leading group! haha)

So the second greatest thing that happened today was that I discovered the new Subway in Gent!! Yep, Belgium's first! The ONLY other fast food restaurants are McD's and the Quick (a belgian burger place)...and there's Pizza Hut if you count that as fastfood. Otherwise, you can go get fries at a local mam and pap's joint. But other than that, the pickin's are thin. I never realized how much I'd miss the choices in America...

The moral of this story is to APPRECIATE what you've got! =)

Spring is in the air!

SPRING!


Wow! The weather has been great the past week! And we thought spring would never come! I love it this time a year when the rain slacks of and the sun comes out! The whole city comes alive... everyone's sitting outside of the cafes drinking their coffees...students biking around town in shorts and skirts...birds singing...flowers blooming! At lunch we all sit outside in the courtyard to eat and soak up the sun. I feel so envigorated and full of energy! Thank you God for spring!


I especially love the flowers in Europe... They go crazy with flowers! The city has special gardeners who change the arangements in the "round abouts" every few weeks... and, like in the first photo above, they have flower baskets hanging everywhere! The flower shops are hard to resist too... this time a year, i'm iching to buy a bunch of plants to start a pot garden! I didn't do so well with my plants last year... haha! I have wide window sills, so I put my pots outside my windows. Well, the windows are kinda hard to open, so my plants didn't really get watered as much as they'd like, i'm sure. Plus, a few times we had some really strong wind, and my pots got blown out of the window and crashed in the courtyard below! oops! I guess plants don't have nine lives. I should stick to cats! =)
I guess we're appreciating the beautiful weather even more because of the harsh winter we had. Normally, it starts warming up by march, but we're a month overdue! We were still getting snow when it was supposed to be getting warm!



By the way, if you ever get a chance to come to Europe in the spring, you HAVE to make a visit to the Keukenhof. (see photos above and below) Its a huge garden in holland that borders tulip fields. There are thousands of tulip varieties in the gardens, and special flower expositions in inside. I saw one kind of tulip that was probably as wide as a CD and twice as tall (just the flower part!)

Whew!

Yea! I'm DONE with exams FOREVER! (at least, for now!) I feel so good. I'm not even sure how well I did (hopefully good enough to pass...!) But it doesn't matter, because I made it through the week--6 exams and a presentation--and I'm still alive!
Sleeping in has never felt better! Or starting a new book and not feeling guilty about it! lol. If you can't tell, I'm really enjoying my Easter weekend! =)
Friday and Saturday, Dennis and I were busying helping out with the youth weekend in Antwerp. I normally spend time with the older teen girls, but they were not here this weekend. It was a good thing, too, because it forced me to practice my Dutch and get to know the younger girls. (The older kids are better with English.) I felt like I bonded with a few of the girls and guys, and they all seemed really responsive to the bible studies. So overall, it was a great weekend. Then Saturday night, Dennis and I drove up to spend some time with his parents--something I haven't had time to do in a long time! It's always nice to get to see them and relax at their place. I am truly bless to have TWO sets of christian parents who love me!

Lucy

Meet Lucy!


...Mom and Dad's newest four-legged friend. They adopted Lucy last fall, after losing our old friend, Belle.

Lucy is about 7 years old, and is very much a lady! She's full of affection and makes the funniest faces! (See her "smile" below!) She's also full of quirky behavior--she's especially scared of loud noises like sneezes or unexpected sounds, like when she steps backwards onto a plastic sack.
She's a lot of fun, though! I'm glad Mom and Dad found such a good dog!

"Family Photo, Christmas 2005"





Lucy's "Smile"

My school...Vlerick

So this is my school...the place I wake up at 6:30 every morning, take a tram, a train, and a bike to get to!

It's really an amazing place to be at! Right in the middle of downtown Gent, in the heart of Belgium. On pretty mornings, I love my bike ride to school. I pass some really great architecture...first an old church with an acient stone wall, then over a wide canal (it's hard to bike up that curved bridge!), then past a tall, old elementary school, a fancy bank, and a castle!

Poland

Last month, my Masters in General Management class took an "International Business Trip" to Poland. It was the first year Vlerick decided to make this trip (previously the MGM classes had gone on a Ski/Study trip to France!!) so it was a little unorganized, but interesting.

The idea for the trip was for us to get a taste of what business is like outside of Belgium (or Western Europe in general). None of us knew quite what to expect, and many were imagining a cold, drap country still suffering from the effects of their communistic history. What we found, though, was a colorful, thriving culture! We got the chance to visit with some other business students in Warsaw, and visits some companies in Krakow (where we spent most of our time.)

Old town square, Warsaw

HRM Project video

Here's a funny video I made recently for a project at school. The project was really vague--it was supposed to be a reflection of the Human Resource Management class and also show how we are unique. Well...here's the results!