Mid-Terms Over and Seminar #3

For breakfast I had a grapefruit. I ate it by peeling off the entire peeling and then eating it like an orange. It was good, but messy. I usually eat grapefruits with a spoon and sugar. Oh well. At school today we got back our mid-term exams from BAEN 460 that we took yesterday. I made a 45/50 but Dr. Munster threw out the question that I missed. So I ended up getting 100%. Brad made a 50/50 and was upset that we ended up with the same score. Haha! Today we had Dr. Munster's lecture from 8:30 to 9:30. Then we had Dr. Engler's class from 9:45 to 10:45. We worked a homework set about manure treatment during that time. I barely finished it along with about 6 other people. Later, Dr. Engler graded my homework (I made a 53/55) and then gave me the other 5 homeworks to grade. Then at 11 AM we had our third seminar speaker. It was given by Eddy Wille from OVAM. He is the department head of the soil remediation department. OVAM is the public waste agency of Flanders, Belgium. It is similar to the EPA in the United States. The title of his presentationw as: Waste Management and Soil Remediation: Role of the OVAM. OVAM stands for Public Waste Agency of Flanders in Flemish. So the acronym is kind of pointless in English. The seminar was good except it went over about 15 minutes, so it cut our lunch short. (Mr. Wille is hard to see in the pictures below but he is on the right side in front of the chalk board and behind the podium).

At 12:15 when we got out of the seminar, I rushed over to the sandwich shop on the campus of K.U. Leuven where our classes are. I got the panini benglisch again today. It is a panini with ham, cheese, tomato, and pesto. Yesterday it didn't have tomato and pesto. I also got Paprika Lays potato chips which taste like barbeque chips from America. And of course, I got a Cola Light. My total was around 5 euros. The line was super long today. Then when I was done eating, I went back to the classroom and started studying for Dr. Engler's mid-term exam at 1:30 PM. It was 5 multiple choice questions that were closed note/closed book. I think I missed one of them (worth 5 points each). Then the rest was 4 work out problems that made up the other 75 points of the test. I think I did well on this work out portion of the exam. The AGSM 337 students had a different test than the BAEN 465 (engineering) students. When I finished the exam, I started working on Dr. Munster's homework assignment. We had to work a problem about the amount of nitrogen flowing through a river and the amount of salt that needs to be added to the Rec Center pool to make it saltwater. It was about 215,000 lbs of salt. I finished the homework and turned it into Dr. Munster.

Then I left school and went to DelHaize to do some shopping. Today I bought 2 bananas, 3 oranges, a container of pineapple, a container of green grapes, 1 pomegrante, a package of cheese tortellini, a package of shredded swiss cheese, a package of pretzels, and 4 Minute Maid orange juice boxes for in the mornings. I still have 3 pears left from last week. My total at DelHaize was 15 euros. Dr. Munster had told us that we could buy postage stamps at DelHaize. I tried to buy them but they were only for Belgium. They were not international stamps. So, I need to go to the post office soon. I have 4 post cards that I have been wanting to mail. They are addressed and ready to go. If I don't send them soon, I will get home before they make it to America. When I got home from the store, I bought 2 wash and 2 dry tokens from Vincent, our RA. Brad and I separated our darks and whites and are doing 0ur laundry together to save money (and energy of course). Our clothes are still in the washer and dryer now. Then I graded the rest of the papers that Dr. Engler gave me. I also uploaded the 2 pictures that I took today at the seminar and checked my email. After I finish this blog I need to write my 1-2 page seminar report, finish my laundry, talk to my mom on Skype, and then possibly do some research for our plans this weekend.

At 5:00 about half of the students on the program went to the movie theater to see the movie Inception in English. The cost was 9 euros. I wanted to go but I didn't think I would have time to do everything I needed to do tonight if I went to the movies. When these students get back, we are having a barbeque here at our student house. The professors said we have some left-over money from the program that they could use to help us buy the meat. Yesterday, we each receive 120 euros from the professors as a refund from the cost of the program that we paid. They over charged us initially to make sure that they had enough money to cover all of the expenses. So, again I have a busy evening but hopefully more relaxing than last night was. Tomorrow we have our 3rd field trip. We are going to some groundwater facility and some caves. We are leaving on the bus at 8:30 AM. It's about a 20 minute bike ride to the bus stop. Then the bus is returning around lunch time to the sandwich shop at school where I ate the past 2 days. This is where we are eating lunch. Everyone has to buy their own lunch this time. Then we are getting back on the bus to go somewhere else. We are getting home around 6:00 PM tomorrow evening. I plan to work on my 4-6 page field trip report tomorrow night.

Today it rained really hard while we were taking our exam. But luckily it stopped by the time I had to bike home. The weather has been cool and rainy here in Europe recently and it is supposed to stay that way throughout the weekend. Some of the students on the program have booked plane trips/train rides to Rome this weekend. It is costing them about $500. Another group of students has talked about going to Normandy in France. I think I am just going to hang around here and explore Brussels, Oostende, and Leuven. I want to do some shopping before the sales end on Saturday. (Stores here are only allowed to have things on sale in January and July). Well, I guess that is all for tonight. I will try to have another blog post tomorrow evening after our field trip that includes some pictures, of course. To everyone back home in Texas - stay cool and I miss you!!!

Love, BRE