August 20031 August – 6h – It’s almost here! I hav…

August 2003

1 August – 6h – It’s almost here! I have to teach 9 – 12h15 today and then I’m on holiday! I can’t wait!

18 August – I’m back from holiday, and had a great time. Back to reality now.

I’ve decided that I want to visit at least one new country per year. This year I’m visited two: Croatia and Thailand. Next year? Perhaps Slovenia. I won’t visit places that charge way too much for visas or accommodation, such as Russia, until they bring their prices down. Let’s see, where haven’t I been in Europe? Bosnia–Hercogovenia (they charge too much also), Albania, Austria, Romania, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Scotland, Wales, Ukraine, and possibly a few others.

My trusty old laptop is still going strong (other than the two times it’s crashed since I’ve had it, but they were both user stupidity). It’s quite old now (ancient by computer standards) and has survived numerous airplanes, busses, trains, trams and cars, but still carries on, and I still like it. The letters have worn off of the ‘M’ and ‘N’ keys, but as long as I don’t have to look at them, I can type fine on it. Isn’t that odd? When I have to look for either key, I haven’t a clue as to which is which, but when I don’t look, my fingers never mistake them.

I’ve been trying to decide if I should get a better film camera or go digital. I really like photo albums and looking at pictures, not seeing them in the computer, but digital seems to be good also, and it would save me the money of buying film and paying for processing. Also, there’s the anticipation while waiting for them to be developed. I’ve just made a post on a bulletin board I’m a regular on and see what others think. Here’s the post

Should I go digital?

Have many of you switched from film to digital photography? I’ve been considering it for quite a while now, but don’t know if it’s right for me. There’s something special about waiting a few days for a roll of film to be developed, the anticipation as you open the packet for the first time and (of course) putting the prints into photo albums. Digital seems too easy. Point, shoot, see it on the little screen, keep it or delete it and upload. That’s it. Does it take the fun out of photography?

24 August – Where does the time go? I’ve been back a week already, but it was a good week. Actually, it was a quiet week. I only had my regular night classes, plus an additional afternoon class. The afternoon class is a 20-year-old young man (Hannes) who is starting uni in Oct and wanted to refresh his English. His level is quite high and I enjoy teaching him. He had classes Tues – Fri this week and one additional one on Monday. That’ll be it.

Today’s project is figuring out how to use the washing machine that’s in my building. It’s two floors down and my clothes are in it right now. I think it may also be a drier, but that’ll be next week’s project. I’ll hang them when they’re done today so I can go out for a bit.