Have felt a bit guilty since I know there must be a disgustingly large amount of people bristling with nervous excitement and anticipation, wondering how my Portuguese course went. Did I finish it? Did I pass? Was I the teachers pet?

Yes, yes I did finish it! Although my optimistic schedule of completing one week a day didn’t really work out in the end. It started off being as easy as a walk in the park. But then again, language courses always do. “This is Spot. Spot is a dog.” But my problem wasn’t that it was too hard, but that I suddenly didn’t have as much time on my hands to study. During the days when we were on the beaches of Tavira…

…and Praia da Rocha...

…it was relatively easy to pick up the book and start going through the texts and grammar. A few words here, a few there, forcing Joanna to participate in rewarding conversations containing my new nouns (“are this spot on me shoe an dog?”).
After all, most of the time it only involved a few simple hand and eye movements while being quite horizontal. Easy life.

But then after reaching Lisbon, things got harder. It turns out to be relatively tricky walking around in a heavily trafficked capital, reading instructions about how to complain in case your cod cake is not warm enough! I would even go as far as calling it dangerous! And also, we had a very large amount of stuff to see in a quite small period of time. But during the last day, in Porto, before taking the flight back to the UK, I managed to catch up a bit. And even if I didn’t manage to finish all the exams before the plane was back on British ground, I made up for it the next day!

Well, did I pass? Did I pass? Well, of course I bloody passed! Doesn’t anyone have any faith in me at all? Then again it’s usually not to your disadvantage having yourself correcting your own tests and giving yourself your own grades. But I mean, as in all universities, the most important thing is that the teacher is to be trusted to put the most appropriate grades to his or her students. And to be honest, I thought about this quite hard, before designating myself, and I reached the conclusion that, yes, I was the most fair candidate! In fact I’d proved to myself over and over again that I was seriously good teacher material! As an example, I would never give myself a lower score than I deserved. I would never ignore myself or put another students needs in front of my own. And every time I’d had a question, I’d always answered myself almost immediately!

In the end I gave myself a 4 out of 5. But somehow I just haven’t felt totally satisfied with that, and I’ve been wondering whether I should complain to myself about it or not. Somehow I feel I deserve getting a distinction, a first class pass, since after all I did complete a six week course in not much more than a week. I think maybe I should grant myself a higher score.
Hang on, guess what? I think I just did!! :-D

Either way, I felt that I had completed my latest “weird thing to do” (for a definition of my “weird things to do”, please check earlier posts), and that the time was now ripe for a new odd challenge. As I’ve mentioned I live in Notting Hill. Notting Hill is full of tiny little bookshops (as I’m sure you can easily imagine after seeing the movie “Notting Hill”…) Most of these have stands outside with stacks of second hand books for 50 pence, or at the most 1£. Sometimes when I pass them I feel compelled to walk up, close my eyes and pick a book at random and go in and buy it. Somehow this makes sense to me. This is a way of letting the forces of the universe, or as I prefer calling it (him), Cosmo, talk to me. If I’m thinking about something, pondering on a question, or just need guidance in general, well, then this is a simple way to let IT give me sign. This is one of my ways of letting, let’s say God, showing me a few steps along the way of the incomprehensible maze that life really is. It’s all pretty much common sense really.

Sometimes it works wonders, sometimes it can leave you feeling quite bewildered. Trust me when I say that I’ve got a very, very confusing book collection. Sometimes when people visit me and spend a few moments looking through my books, it’s hard to ignore the look of confusion mixed with upright concern (and perhaps, a little bit of fear) in their eyes! Well, I can’t possibly blame them after finding stuff like “Great Victorian murderesses”, “142 ways to tie your shoes”, “BIN LADEN – the man who declared war on America” (it was for a university thesis in Political science! But you can imagine the faces at customs at Heathrow airport finding that in my hand luggage a few years ago…) and “Tinkerbell – the diary of Paris Hiltons dog!” stuck in between Shakespeare and Hemingway! That’s simply not a normal book collection of any sort of psychological profile!!

Well, either way, I was walking down the road in Notting Hill, wondering what should be my next weird challenge. I was out of ideas and thought of my old friend Ullis that I’d met when I was in boarding school in Sweden. She’s got a similar spirit to me, and has also always been attracted to (…let’s not call them weird things..oh, what the hell, let’s be honest…) weird things to do. She’s the girl I went to Malaga with studying Spanish, ending up backpacking through Granada, Gibraltar and Seville rather than studying “soy, eres, es, somos…” She later ended up in Miami dreaming of starting a Brazilian orphanage on a beautiful beach.

Today during my stroll, I found myself thinking of her everlasting optimism and excitement over small insignificant things in daily life. And I found myself missing her and wondering what she would have chosen as a “weird-thing-to-do” had she been in my shoes right there and then. She told me, not that long ago, about a new hobby of hers, that included going to Miami Beach each morning doing “fire dancing”! Basically it involves a fair bit of fire and a few ropes and…fire. Supposed to make you feel really in tune with yourself spiritually. Ehum. I thought of myself practising that as my new hobby in Kensington Gardens, or Hyde Park, trying to explain to the Fire Brigade that I meant no harm, really didn’t, I just, I just…just wanted to find my inner yin (or yang) and that I didn’t mean to burn down Lady Diana’s children’s playground, or the Italian Gardens, I just…I just… I was just contemplating the fact that I didn’t think London was quite ready for Ullis hobbies....when I walked past one of the many Notting Hill bookshops…

Obviously, as I said, I ran there, hand over my head, picking up a book that turned out to be about life on Mars (oh, but it was from the National Geographics! It must be taken seriously!) and a shart book about bugs! (We already know that I’ve got a soft spot for bugs…who doesn’t?) It was a book that asked you a lot of questions about all kinds of bugs (more kinds than you would like to imagine!) and then presenting you with a secret bonus chart…come on, who would not be fascinated by that?!
I ran into the shop, as if I was scared that someone would find out that I accidentally just caught the book of the century and would try to rip it out of my caring arms (no one actually did by the way). Anyway, pleased as I was, I got into the shop, presented my bug-book to the store owner with a smug look on my face and asked how much he wanted for it. I expected to pay a lot. This was not just an ordinary book. I love bugs. Surely so does everyone else. I was convinced that the shop was filled with eager buyers just standing there waiting for me to give my bugs away. It wasn’t going to happen.

“-How much?”
-“Ehhm…, that one you can actually have for free. Has been there for months now, can’t get rid of the damn thing…” “You actually WANT that…err.. thing??”
- “Well…yes!” (I was trying to talk quietly so that no one else in the shop would hear me and automatically start bidding for my catch).
- “Hehe, well I’m just happy to get rid of it, love!”

I have no words. I feel numb. Did I mention that it was about bugs?

Nevertheless I can almost hear all the thousands (possibly b/millions?) of readers who were earlier worrying sick about my language classes, now screaming in unison – but what happened to you finding a weird thing to do? What did you find? Evelyn, what did you do? We need to know!! Did you end up finding a mysterious challenge in that shop? What happened? Did you? Did you?

Well it’s Friday and the evening is approaching rapidly which means before I know it I’ll end up being in a hurry. Again. As usual. So I’ve got to go…
But let’s put it this way for now - I’m going to become a weird, wise Chinese man, standing with his eyes closed on one leg in the park! How cool is THIS!!