belgium

swyna in belgium with friends from vox

woo, the first school day today! ;) actually, i really liked it 'cause i really like one of my classes (the rest of them i don't go to anyway).. this one is called 'environmental protection and sustainable development' and most importantly - it's in english. today we talked about 'silent spring' - a book by rachel carson from 1962. do any of you know that book?

ok, i promised to write some stuff about the trip to belgium. well, there is more stuff to talk about.. :)

belgium> part one> the choir contest..
the main reason of going to belgium this past week was to compete in a choir contest with vox iuvenalis (the brno choir i sing in). the contest itself took place in maasmechelen, belgium. the schedule of the contest was quite busy - it started on friday and ended on monday morning. anyhow, we decided to go on a trip a day earlier so we left brno on wednesday nite and spent the whole thursday in germany. we visited bonn and colonia (koln) where i'd never been to before so that was fun. and the whole trip itself was fine 'cause we had a very good bus and great bus drivers ;) but back to my point - the contest was very good because there were the best european amateur choirs competing.. in the final results we were 7th from 10 competing mixed choirs which is not the best result but considering the quality of all the contestants it is a very good result indeed. even being chosen to participate in this contest by a jury is a big honor to our choir..


the most shocking sight ever - janka singing in a choir!! ;)
well, she actually did pretty well in sopranos when she knew the melody.. it was just fun to have her with us there.. (the picture taken during a little choir workshop that followed the contest)


belgium> part two> the braeken-martens family
the very cool part of the trip was staying with families there.. this type of accommodation is often provided at this sort of contests or various choir events.. unfortunately, there were not that many choir members that could accommodate so many of us in beringen (a village where we stayed close to maasmechelen) so they asked some friends of theirs for a help. this way the conductor, his wife, janka and me ended up staying in a family that had almost no connection to the host choir of ours.. actually, almost everyone from their family has to do something with chemistry or engineering (or both) what i found very funny while i am going to be a chemical engineer myself in less than a year..
anyhow, i just wanted to say that this family took amazing care of all four of us, shared their home with us for three nights and days and fed us the most delicious food in the world (well, at least in this part of the world :))
mr and mrs braeken-martens and wim: thank you very very much for everything!!

coming up soon..
belgium> part three> police trouble.. again..


stano almost arrested in belgium..
..sounds like tons of fun, doesn't it? :)

..well, you gotta wait for the unabridged version ;))

off..

..for belgium! talk to you on monday guys!

hilarious miss scheflen

ok guys, gotta read this entry (and related vocab) by chenna if you haven't read it yet! seriously, chenna, you are a person with da maddest hilarious writing skillz!!! :) well, here is a taste of chenna's humor>

"..i have a super co-worker named shane. he and i share a love for belle and sebastian, but he thinks i'm a "prude" because i don't use the f-word a lot. this despite the fact that he self-beeps himself when he says it. as in, "toss that little "beeep"er into the can." actually, he said he was just kidding that i'm a prude. he's sure that we're going to get along because i'm a "little too happy" most of the time. and not from drugs, for once.."

restless week

i am all tired and sore. today we had a choir rehearsal for almost 8 hours straight.. i'm just done with preparing a test for one of my monday classes and i'm more than ready for bed. tomorrow morning i am travelling to slovakia for my grandma's birthday party and on monday morning i'm going back to brno to teach. on wednesday we are off for belgium with da choir for a competition and we are going to spent almost 5 days there! janka's comming with us..
so, it seems like there is no hope for much sleep nor physical rest this couple of upcoming weeks.. but i guess that is the prize of actually having a life to live outside of school and work.. does it make sense? well, it makes tons of sense to me :)

a new week..

mošny - folk vocal group, brno
just saw their concert a few hours ago.. pretty good! :) and just that you know - the pretty smiley girl on the very right is my and janka's boss..

the weekend's over and i'm all back into my schedule with teaching and singing and all the fun though tiring stuff.. BUT i am looking forward to mrrr and megs coming to brno this wednesday or thursday for few days.. :)