Eat Pray Love

So I just saw the movie Eat Pray Love, which I loved. Of course. I knew it before I saw him that I would love him. I just adore Julia Roberts & the few images I saw of it where enough to make me curious about it. I thought about reading the book first but eventually decided to see the movie first because I wanted to see the places, the sun and Julia of course. It reminded me of my trip To Granada in June. Of course it wasn't the same but it was me, alone for the first time on a trip to a place I've been before and love so much. 

Everyone was surprised I went alone on a trip. Me, the girl who doesn't like to be alone, who is afraid of planes and who would have never done this. I did little trips on my own to Paris in the past months and years but there I still had some people to meet. It was a good practice as I learned very quick that I really liked to travel on my own. It has great advantages, you can eat when you want, you can eta what you want, you can eat how much you want, you never have to let people wait for you when you have to go to the toilets, you decide how much or how less you want to want and if you would like to stand before a painting for 30 minutes, you can. The biggest advantage of being on your own is that you feel, hear & taste more than with other people. You really should try it out.

I remember sitting in the paseo de los tristes in Granada, reading a book and I was only disturbed by the smell of the flowers nearby. I sat there in the sun for hours, reading and looking around. I managed to turn of my thinking for 8 days, very weird but true. I even thought about it and said to myself that this was the moment in life where I could think about myself, the past and the future. I don't think I did, not intentionally. Of course I thought about several things but I just enjoyed. I enjoyed the food, the wine, the view, the people and also saw a lot of couples having a fight or looking angry at each other. In those 8 days, there wasn't a single moment I felt alone. In contrary, I felt so surrounded by the world. When I came back, the weeks after, I felt lonely. I think I realized that it was back to normal life again and in my home, in the park or in the streets it hit me that I was single. Still.

I can't wait for the winter to be over to go back to Granada. I decided it's a place I want to visit more, just to have that feeling again, to refresh my mind and to walk in the streets without heavy thoughts or worries.

That's why I like to make these little movies when I walk, they let you see what I saw & heard. I've a few of them. The one above is from Granada. It's just a few seconds but for me it's enough to remember what I saw that day and the other day...

Just watch, hear & try to imagine how wonderful it can be when you walk in those little streets...

Priceless. It's my favorite word, but it really is priceless.

Baking waffles in pictures

And let me plead mea culpa for totally fracturing the world of janilani as I had to tell her that Belgians actually don't eat waffles that much....

Waffles without a scale..

So a few weeks ago I bought a new croque monsieur machine as the old one didn't work properly anymore. Nice thing about it is the possibility to also make waffles with it. Of course I've been thinking about it since.

Today is the day I'm going to give it a try. I don't have a scale but I've a very good eye for things like this and when the end result tastes good, you know your "product" will be good too.

OK, almost ready to start.

Apron? Check!

And let's not forget to mention that I'm wearing a skirt that I bought more than 10 years ago...which still fits perfect. Hooray for 3 years of body-styling, my figure still changes every year. It gets smaller every year, not that I loose extra weight but my fat disappears on the right places.

Ok, time to set up my ingredients!

The day after...

So this is the day after. A day filled with lots of feelings.

Rejection for the job of yesterday but with the message that "I'm a very strong candidate, interview was very good and written test was one of the best" but they choose someone else.

I already knew when I didn't got a call in the morning so I felt very bad for a while and then suddenly took a shower, put on my clothes and went to an interim office to give my CV and find temporary work. Woman said they didn't have work for me, which was a huge bummer. She said I should contact another office. I answered that I was already contacted that office 5 months ago and never heard of them. "I'll will give them your CV again." Yeah right. For once I take some action, they send me away.

Not fun.

So I went home and searched for jobs like crazy. Found 2 interesting ones but I don't know it's interesting to contact them as the contract is not flexible. It's a job for 4 months, very interesting but if I find a permanent job where I have to start right away, I can not end my contract... A dilemma, so I need to think about it. I just don't want to sit the whole winter inside without a job....

Around 5 PM they called me tell me I didn't got the job. Yeah, I already got the message. I really didn't need to hear how good I was and how good my interview went. That doesn't give me money to buy food. Let say the next 30 minutes it was a bit rough. I tried the whole day to think positive and to take some action but then, the energy was gone and the only thing I wanted to do was to burn my diploma. Having a university diploma isn't helping me, they need to pay me too much and I'm only qualified in family law. Only when you go to court, you need that, not for a "normal" job...

Anyway...

I had dinners plans with one of my best friends because we had to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. We've been friends for more than 5 years but on this day 5 years ago, it was the last time we saw someone who said us that we would have never been friends without her. Something we still disagree on and now 5 years later, we have done so many fun and crazy things. We went to Berlin, Gran Canary, Milan and even New York. We had the best 5 years! So if anyone dares to see we wouldn't have been friends, it's wrong. Very wrong.

We had some cava rosé and a delicious burger, that reminded of us our trip to New York. Lovely evening.

I've said it before but these days I'm surrounded by so many nice things and people. Searching for a job is really hard but I'm not going to give up. I won't. It can get more difficult but I must be prepared for it.

Welcome to the real world.

And there are always worse things. The government pays me, it's not that I will die of having nothing to eat, 1200 euro is a lot of money. On the other side, I did almost work 9 years to get this money. There are some countries where you get nothing when you don't have a job.

So I'm going to repeat it: go go go!

Job interviews feels like exams & dating!

Oh, what do I hate them!

Job interviews are like dating & exams. You can think it went OK, but it can turn out different. Like on a date, you think there is a "match" after a lovely evening but the day after you wait for a phone call and nothing happens. The day after you still wait for a phone call and still nothing happens. After a week you think you imagined everything and when you text the person to ask if he would like to have a drink, there's only silence.

After an exam, you think: I think I answered all the questions right and after a few hours you realize you made a mistake.

I just had this feeling, I think I made a mistake in the first question! Thank God there are 4 other questions, but still... The questions were filled in without a name, with a number, so they don't know who is behind the questions. At the end of the day they will now, but still. They know I don't have experience with question one... At least the oral part was good. I could answer every question and I feel very good about my responses...

I must say the interview was wacko. When I arrived there was sitting another woman also waiting. I think I've seen her on university many years ago, also in the law department. She wasn't friendly and seemed very nervous. When a woman came to get us, she acted like a shy person while I was talking and answering the person's questions. The woman first gave us some info and while I looked at her, interested, the other candidate kept looking at her papers and didn't respond on what the woman of the firm was saying.

They put us together in a small room, together! So wrong! I don't think it's OK to put 2 candidates in one wrong to prepare for a written test. Anyway, the candidate refused to look at me and when she did, she tried to kill me with her eyes. No problem with that, I'm not open for those things. People can't get me freaked out by this, in contrary.

So when they came to get me for the interview, they said I could leave my papers there. NO WAY! And the other candidate could look into them!! So I took them with me. I just don't get that they couldn't think of that themselves. Obvious they don't things like this all the time. We even had to write out our answers, normally you get a computer to type them out...

Wacko...

Now the waiting can begin, I only know there are a lot of other candidates but the interview was very good and ignoring that stupid question one and the fact that I would have preferred not to write my answers (of course I had to write a few mistakes and change them) it went good. I'm not going to think that I have the job, I thought this after my first interview but seemed to be a dating experience. "I'm going to call you very soon" and then I never heard of him again...

Yeah yeah, the struggle for a job, oh the joy!   ...not...

So another week...

And what do we do on a Monday evening? Putting on fake eye lashes, trying out some make-up and trying what you can do with your hair now it's kind of "very" short. It's for a birthday party on Sunday and as it will be Halloween, the birthday girl suddenly decided we need to dress up...

Oh.. Hmmm...Ok. If you want me to dress up. I will, but it will be my kind of dressing up...

I like to dress up as in putting on a prom dress or a cocktail dress or (of course) dressing myself as someone from the sixties for a movie! But dressing myself as an animal, nurse, (doctor I don't mind as I played a doctor a few times in the new telenovela and that was fun), a witch or some stupid character from a book or a movie, no, I don't like that. Minnie Mouse for example is lovely, but not if you have to look like her.

The fact is, we don't celebrate Halloween and we only know it because of the movies and the stories we once heard from other people. Those "other" people live not in Belgium but in the US. Another fact is that if you tell people to dress up in something or someone, nobody does and your evening will be spend sitting there feeling kind of stupid in your cat suit or blue wig :)

But anyway, if they want me to dress up, I will, no problem. But don't expect me to walk into the room as an animal. Sixties woman it will be! With this outfit I will look a bit different but not weird if everyone decides to come in a jeans and t-shirt.

The rest of the day was spend with reading legal letters I once wrote to my clients and made a few fake ones for myself to see if I can still write good letters. Tomorrow more practice and some laws that I want to read. Yes, there is another job interview. It's for a temporary job but I've the feeling it could be a very interesting one. It's not that I've already another job so I'm going to take what I can. They even don't pay me as a master in law but as a bachelor. But that's almost 400 euro more than I would get from the government. Interesting!! Last week I got a mail that I did fail the selection test, the day before my birthday, which wasn't a surprise at all... I still don't get it why you need to do a mathematics test for a legal job. I felt bad for 5 seconds and then realized that this isn't the kind of job I'm looking for. Don't let me work with numbers or statistics because it will kill me and the firm I'll work for..

It was nice to finally get a phone call after sending out mails, yes, mails. For every 10 mails I send out, I get 1 phone call, which means: not many...

Well, I guess that's the life of a jobless lawyer.. I can't change it, I only can prepare myself for a good interview and keep writing mails!

Go, go go!!!

Flowers

Flowers do make the livingroom more cosy :)