WEEKEND # 1

So today was the first day of my first "weekend" here. Some of the teachers decided to meet this afternoon for a picnic at some local forest/outdoorsy area but I declined hoping to get some work done and have dinner with friends I haven't seen in a while. Eventually, I bailed on them because I felt I had way too much to do to prepare for the first day of school next week.

I spent quite a big chunk of time trying to figure out how to use the washing machine. It started off as my flatmate just telling me the setting that she always uses for everything, where the laundry detergent goes and how once you close and start the machine you can no longer open and add clothes to it.

Then I recognized a few words and thought, "It wouldn't hurt to figure out what all of these settings are seeing as how I prefer not to wash all my clothes on the same setting".

It turned into at least 2 hours of reading all the different settings, trying to decipher or interpret them with my dictionary. "Attempting" to read the manual (I got tired after about 10 minutes) and finally just writing all of the settings in English next to the ones on the machine.

All in all, not too bad. I learned lots of new words like colors, gentle, wash, rinse, dry, pre- and wring. You know, words that will come in ever-so-handy if in the future I decide to open my own laundromat or give step-by-step lessons on how to wash clothes using a washing machine here. And now I know several options for how to wash my own clothes. It was a good language manipulating experience but definitely very taxing and time consuming! Now all I have to do is get someone to explain to me how/if I can use bleach.....