The Life and Times of the Curious Cockroach

Written on September 27th, 2008
Location: cyberspace
Emotional state: perplexed

11:01am

Having a cellphone feels odd. I was sitting beside Chloe (one of my housemates) in the backyard, when something started to ring. I realized that it was my cellphone. I squealed out of happiness that someone out there was trying to reach me. But all Chloe said was, “Good for you – now you might want to pick it up.”

Oh yeah, that part.

12:30am

And I can even send text messages now. I’m a little overwhelmed: new country, new friends, new way of communicating with the world.

12:41am

My god. I think my entire life is changing, and I don’t know how I feel about it all.

‘

Location: Brussels
Below is a conversation I had dozens of times while on exchange

Dear Reader,

For the purposes of this post, I ask you to conjure up a certain image in your head.

You live in Brussels. You are in your early twenties and are almost broke. You are either an exchange student, or one of those prized locals exchange students love to befriend.

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Written on September 19, 2008
Location: Université Libre de Bruxelles
First day of classes

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

‘

“Qui est anglophone, ici?” [Who is anglophone here?]

Suddenly I was summoned out of my daydream, back into the giant Janson auditorium for my Twentieth-Century Literature lecture. I automatically put up my hand in answer to the professor’s question.

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Dear Reader,

I’ve just installed a new email subscription plugin (called “Subscribe 2″). If you’d like to receive updates from the Curious Cockroach, you can now enter your email address in the little box to your right, or in the little box at the end of this post. If you subscribe, you’ll always be in the loop!

If you encounter any problems with the subscription, please contact me at comments@curiouscockroach.com .

Thank you,
The Curious Cockroach

Written on September 8th, 2008 (Day 2 in Brussels)
Location: Brussels, or more precisely, the student district called Ixelles
Envy-inspiring Cockroach Fact: cockroaches can survive without food for  one month

This morning I woke up feeling weak and nauseous.

I had only eaten the three hard-boiled eggs I had packed for myself before leaving Vancouver, and that was a long time ago. There’s no way around it, I thought as I looked out my window onto the busy street below, I really do need to interact with the French-speakers to buy food.

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