Liesje

Unity rocked! and then all our plans fell apart. Sander was supposed to have lots of time this week, but he found out last week that due to circumstances out of anyone’s control he'd have a lot less time this week. Which required a lot of re-planning. This resulted in a very important meeting being well er... forgotten. It's fixable, but it's sure requiring us to be flexible... which you know, I'm just not very.
When I'm ok, I can handle a lot of changes. But when I'm not optimal, like stressed, or feeling dislodged, every change is an issue. My need for control kicks in with a vengeance, and while this has a lot of perks with regards to getting things done, it also requires a lot of coping capacity :s

Recently I've been spending a lot of time on chores. Especially chores related to the move(and leaving the house in a respectable state). We've ordered cutrains. We did so at the Karwei, which even though they had a fair amount of choices wasn't the biggest hit... although at the end we we're helped reasonably well. The machine we needed to input out order into was epically slow, and appearantly there was only one person who seemed to know any specifics, and he needed to be resurrected from the bowels of the storehouse. Also, today I painted the bathroom(the paint looked really bad, I just know we'd have to paint it anyway so I figured: let's just get it over with) and cleaned it toroughly. Still to do: a spot of gardening.

Outside of that we've started planning the move itself. For this we have da masta plan, which can be found on sna 's livejournal. I'm really looking forward to the new house. Although I'll prolly have to do a spot of emergency gardening fairly soon to discourage the jungle growing there( we visited recently to get window measurements), and paint that bathroom as well...

Just got called: the school where I want to work most, and where I also was in the furthest stage of the application process, has decided to hire me. W00t!!!!! :-D

Last weekend I went to Symbols, which was awesome. My character lost the worst of the effect of the butterfly, which implies that concentration is a little easier. That doesn’t imply she suddenly stopped being a scatterbrain, she just is a little less of a scatterbrain. Which translated into her taking over the Mage Guild, since as far as she knows she currently is the most advanced normal magic user living in Runewall. From that point on I’ve spent a lot of time training other mages, learning from them, and cornering visiting mages into teaching me. In other words: doing exactly what this character prefers to do, and what I enjoy doing with this character most. 

After the weekend however I found myself thrown back into a huge pile of stress and stuff I needed to do or arrange. Wednesday I had a resit, the only one I had to do this year, which resulted in enormous amounts of stress. However, I passed it and that helped a lot. Also finally finished all the arranging I needed to do for my thesis, so now all that remains is the actual thesis itself.

I finally sent in my application for my second bachelors degree to the UvA, and the indication that I wish to go into the second year of my masters to the UU after the summer. I also sent in a couple applications to schools for potential work places as an unlicensed teacher, so I can get the work experience I need to get my license. I can also do this trough a plain stage, but the E200 a month that results in will leave me needing an extra job anyway, and from what I’ve been told by the IVLOS there is a fair chance that I can find a workspace that’s willing to pay me (at least more then E200) while at the same time resulting in the experience I need. I already have an interview next week, however I’m afraid to put all my eggs in one basket, hence the extra applications.

Finally, my tax return for this year came in, and it resulted into me feeling very rich. Naturally, this is relative, since I am a student and it’s mostly intended to fund new furniture after the move come July, but it sure looks nice on my account.

Add to this all me watching Star Trek yesterday eve, I am feeling much better then I was last Monday, and am looking forward to what hopefully will be a week with much less stress.

I noticed I hadn't updated in a while again, thus it's time for one. First of, the last few weeks have seen exams. I’ll have to resit one, my first resit of the year. The other one hasn’t returned my grade yet, but most likely that one went better.
Last week I finally finished an assignment that was very overdue, for the last course I still have to finish for my Bachelors in Literature. I have enough point no matter what due to my second Bachelor, but want to finish the course anyway.
For Economics I’m starting on writing my master thesis, but even though I’m really into the topic I notice I’m finding it difficult. I suppose that mainly because I sort of need a vacation, but don’t really have the time for that before the thesis is finished.

 

On other news, last weekend sna and I celebrated being together for 4 years. We spend the day relatively quietly, walking some in a nearby forest, because working in Utrecht is leaving Sna relatively tired. After the move in the beginning of Juli, which we're both very much looking forward to, his work will be relatively close, but for now he's got a lot of travel time.
I’ve visited the Elf Fantasy Fair last Sunday. Had fun, and obtained loot. I got 2 books, Last Watch (sequel to Night watch, Day watch and Twilight watch) and The Watchmen, and the first season of Carnivale.

I have been a little busy with deadlines, which are going reasonable. Today however I can't seem to focuss, so I've been filling in the meme I has promised to do. So here it is:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you ANY five questions.
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

 nathreee

 asked me the following questions:

 

1. What is your favourite roleplaying game and why?

 This is a difficult one. I've found something nice about basically every system I’ve ever come into contact with. The thing I like about roleplaying games is the stories they bring and the stories they enable you to tell with a group. I suspect Grimm would be my favorite because it also touches on a topic I’m very much into, namely fairy tales, but I haven’t gotten around to actually playing or being a dm (for which I do have plans) in this system.

2. What are the stories that you would one day like to write down and publish?

 On the non-fiction side I’d like to write something about fantasy and or sci-fi, and specifically look at how these relate to older stories or fairy tales and patterns from fairy tales.

On the fiction side I currently have to story concepts I’m attempting to work on. One is about a girl who finds a vampire’s journal. I’m contemplating having her reflect back from somewhere far in the future, where she is a vampire as well, but am still in a highly conceptual faze.

The other one is about a little girl who grows up in a rural world, but from where all the children get taken by a clerical order. I’m planning on telling her story and the story of her world in several separate stories, the first ones shorter and simpler, to raise the length and complexity of the stories as the girl ages within the books. I've pretty much already an overarching concept of the story, and drafts of the first couple of stories.

 

3. Who is your favourite character from my novel and why? :P

 I like Melancholy best. I have the feeling that there is a lot still to be told about her, both about her future and past and I find myself curious to find out about them.

4. You're a sensitive woman, like myself. What precautions do you take to make your life easier?

 I make sure I get enough rest. I know myself well enough to usually be able to predict what will be too much, and when I know moments like that are unavoidably coming I try to built in coping mechanisms. For instance, all winters are bad for me. So I plan a lot of fun things, preferably long in advance, and I object more to things planned in that period that will upset my status quo then I would if they’re planned during summer.

   Also, I sometimes distance myself from certain problems. If someone I care about is in trouble, I always feel the need to try and help. But I can’t fix everything, especially if people don’t really want to solve the problem... which is surprisingly often the case. I can then choose to let it wreck me, let it wreck the friendship, or take a step back so I’m still there when either they leave the problem behind them or they do want to change things and I can actually help. However it can be very hard taking distance from something when you’re seeing people you care about either in pain or in trouble.

5. What book would you recommend me if I wanted to read about "the supernatural"?

 That rather depends on why you want to read more about the supernatural (I worked in the library for a while, and this is where my training kicks in ;-) ). If you wanted to know more about where certain things come from, I’d advice you to read good translations from the original Grimm tales and the Mother the Goose tales. Also, it would be wise to read a couple of academically annotated versions of for instance Dracula, Frankenstein and Beowulf. You good even look into Greek and Roman myths; they contain a lot of supernatural elements you nowadays still run into as well. There is much more, but this already provides quite a reading list I think.

   If you want to know more about the concept of the supernatural, especially in literature you can read something about psychoanalysis of literature. When you narrow it down to the fantastical Rosemary Jackson’s Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion and Todorov’s The Fantastic are very worthwhile. I used these both for my Bachelors Thesis. A little older is Propp’s work; he analyzed folk tales to see if he could find a pattern(which he did), which I found very interesting.

   Of course you can also read one of the books about supernatural history. That’s on my reading list for after I graduate, when I no longer have huge stacks of mandatory stuff from school.

   Finally, if you just want to read about fun concepts within the genre, I can advice you to just read loads. I can recommend Patricia Briggs and Cate Tiernan to you. You also might find it worthwhile to delve into a couple of bundles of short stories. I’ve just finished Unusual Suspects, which I loved, and I’ve read Wolfsbane and Mistletoe with great enjoyment. That way you get a brief taste of the concepts an author uses without having to dive into a complete novel.

 

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Well... sort of. Finished all the stuff I needed to finish the last couple of weeks, and while one grade is still up in the air, I have confirmation I passed the other course. There is only something I promised myself to do left, but there is no hard deadline for that, thus I can take it a little easier.

My health however isn't holding up the way I hoped. I managed to trip, fall and bruise my knee and part of my hand, and when the worst was over(small blue spot on knee, mild twinge in fingers) I got a mild case of stomach flue and a seriously upset shoulder. Don't know how I managed, but it kept me up all night. Hope it goes away again soon...

On other stuff, life has been interesting. Which might turn out for the better, but hasn't been helping Unfortunately I have no idea how those things will turn out (especially with the house stuff) so I'll post when I do, or at least when I know more. Which should be soon... I hope.

Every now and again I find myself on crossroads. On moments where all the little decisions knot up into one neat little bundle and are about to transform everything... or not.

This week and next I need to finish all big mandatory assignments for the courses I am taking. The week after I have exams, and after that my schedule changes. Next week I have a job interview for a part time job besides my studies. The looking for house thing is being very present in my day to day life.

Things are changing. Most likely for the best. Doesn't make it less scary though.

Aan iedereen die ik nog niet gezien/gesproken heb om hen dit toe te wensen:

Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!!!

Last Saturday was fun, with movies and friends. I ended up watching the Goonies, Mr. Magorium’s Magic Emporium and Gremlins. It also saw a bit of a doh-moment, since I caught a cold that has been doing it’s best to turn into a head infection. It managed to get my throat infected, but luckily my body managed to beat that somewhere yesterday. However, I then decided to finalize my Christmas-shopping and that might have been a less smart decision, since breathing trough my nose has been an issue ever since.
I was less sick then Sna though, who had been feeling unwell for a while and then in spite of taking it easy got to spend the Sunday hugging his new best friend the blue bucket. Fortunately he is doing a little better now as well and is successful again in keeping the food he inserts where it’s supposed to be.

Next couple of days will (hopefully) see us celebrating Christmas with family, and participation in a highly anticipated American Book Centre-raid. There are a couple of books I’ve been looking forward to that came out recently and other book stores just don’t carry them at all or have really long ordering periods. I’ve been looking forward to that very much.

Christmas here we come :-)

I’m holding up, more or less. Winter has hit and it hit bad. Having a couple of things I’d set my hopes on not turning out the way I hoped didn’t help and forcing myself to plan fun stuff is hard. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll have fun when the fun stuff is there. I’m even dependant upon it to help me avoid sinking into a permanent state of gloom until spring. But putting energy into arranging something while everything within you is insisting you should go into hibernation mode is hard, and I just can’t deal with any disappointment at all. It takes me serious effort to lift my finger to press the tv-remote, so coping with a setback has become a process of days instead of hours.
But I muddle on, trying not to get too far behind in class and to keep doing stuff that keeps me on the positive side of the spectrum. Plus it’s only 5 more days till the longest night, 5 more days till the worst is behind me. And then it's time for Christmas!

I had a blast at Lex. Was very tired afterward, but it was a lot of fun. But Lucy is always interesting to play, especially with the stuff that happened last Lex which had Lucy relaying orders by the prince.

  Last weekend saw me working on Sna’s coat (which I hope to finish today) and visiting Scheveningen. Sna an I walked on the beach(which was cold but fun), walked a bit about the town and visited Sea World, where I had never been but which I absolutely loved. I can heartily recommend it to everyone that likes stuff like the Nemo in Amsterdam.

   School is going relatively well, and my health is holding up reasonably(as long as I remember to spend time with my daylight-lamp). Plus as of today December has started, which is a month in which I religiously plan loads of fun stuff. Coming up are a day with friends planning larp-stuff, the Winterfair, Sna’s birthday, various Christmas celebrations, visiting the Winterefteling and first: Sinterklaas.

   Can’t believe I’m saying this, with my winterblah and all, but W00t for winter…

Life has been interesting, but in general I’m doing well. I’m just very, very tired. My health has been holding up reasonably, although I should get my shoulder checked out. It’s been more iffy then usual, and my mom looked at it and suspects it might be infected.

My exam went ok, but that usually doesn’t say that much. Not when I have a new teacher, and since it’s even a new university I’m facing completely unfamiliar grading standards.

I still have a lot of things I want to do and want to finish, but I’m starting with a coat for Sander and stuff for class. And of course Lextalionis next weekend.

I noticed that it’s been a while since I updated again, so I aim to fix that. I’m still a bit under the weather, which caused a slightly downward cast on the last couple of weeks. I had fun though, on Exodus playing Aurora and last weekend, when I had a couple of people over for a Halloween-movie-night and a games-day the day after.

Sna was at Unity, but JWB, Judith, Simon, JWK and Jo joined me for the movie night, and that group minus Simon and plus Richard joined me the next day as well. On the movie night we watched Sleepy Hollow and Army of Darkness, which I hadn’t seen yet (like most of the people there, to the great shock of JWB and Simon). I had asked everyone to bring something to much and to drink in theme, which caused a few hilarious moments. Judith, who hung out at my house both days, had made spiders and hammers, and we had a blast ‘killing’ the spiders and munching them. Simon had brought a couple of skeleton-leg-lollipop’s which resulted in four people in a row to have a skeleton-leg sticking out of their mouths.

On the games-day the next day we had a blast playing Guillotine, which I’m contemplating adding to my own game-collection now.

 

Outside of that I’ve been very busy with a paper I needed to hand in today, and with preparing for exams later this week. I’m really relieved I’ve finished the paper, it was a lot of work and I found it difficult to motivate myself since all I really wanted was to take it easy in the hopes of feeling better. Now on for the exams, and then next week back to classes again…

Meme from Nathree. It took me a while(school's been busy), but here it is:

1. speaktothevoid 

2. hermanismijnkat 

3. watzalikzeggen 

4. woran 

5. nathreee  (in a virtual and positive way)

6. watzalikzeggen 

7.twilightbanana 

8. ningyomatsuri 

9. sna 

10. sjuuls 

11. ghost_musician 

12. ningyomatsuri 

13. sna 

14. fyrane 

15. fyrane  (‘cause she’d make it look good)

16. sjuuls 

17. moriestiel  (in a can’t-forget-that-one-character kinda way ;-) )

18. steelweaver 

19. steelweaver

20. watzalikzeggen 

21. sna 

22. nathreee  & watzalikzeggen 

23. watzalikzeggen 

24. wannabe_bitch 

25. sna  (in my case anyway…)

26. sna 

27. selmaika 

28. selmaika 

29. sna 

30. If you want the questions, I’ll send them to you if you promise to answer them too. I have to agree with Nathree, they’re not as easy as they seem. Some questions I had no answer to, and others were hard to limit to one person (I even cheated once, but still had to cut down on my list).

Today I went to pick up my Bachelor-diploma. I am now officially a ‘Bachelor of Science’.

 

I still have several diploma’s to go (like ‘Bachelor of Arts’, and then my Masters) but still I have to say: W00t!!!!!

On brighter news:

The birthday was nice, and even though it’s weird to be 25 it so far promises to be a good age. School started and though I had hoped for a higher challenge level (it’s mostly a lot of stuff that just needs to be done or read) I am happy with my choice. The teachers and my fellow classmates are all very motivated, and the topics are more or less interesting.

 

On less bright news:

I’ve been noticing the decline of daylight extremely early this year. It started early September, and I’ve been more or less ignoring it till this week, when I noticed it was seriously time to start sitting behind my daylight lamp again. Pluh. I’m just really tired, grumpy and scatterbrained, and totally out of touch with the world at large. I'm having trouble focussing, plus I am totally not flexible and need to force myself to stay on the upside all the time. If anything negative comes along my path, it hits way too hard. This does not promise to be a good winter for me… *sigh*

Comment and I'll give you a letter. Then you have to list ten things you LOVE that begin with that letter. Afterward, post this in your journal and give out some letters of your own.

I got a J from woran 

Jeans – Because it’s a nice fabric, and the trousers match with almost everything
Juli – Because with a little luck we then actually see the sun
Jaap – Because it’s the name my dad and brother have
Jan, Jansen en de kinderen – Because the cat in this comic always makes me smile
Journals – Great places to (attempt to) store knowledge and experience, and to help us remember the fun/cool stuff we've done
Joan of Arcadia – Fun series, too bad it got cancelled
Januari – cause days get longer and opposite to rumor I do like snow, I just don’t like being in it
Jackets – cause when you do end up in the snow the keeps you warm!
Judith- Cause many cool people go by that name
Jolanda – well… see Judith ;-)

You Are 52% Goth

You definitely have some gothicness going on, but you're far from being a stereotypical goth. You enjoy certain elements of goth culture, but you're not going to be into something simply because it's goth. It's likely that you're the type of person who totally defies labels. Good for you! If you are into something, it's because you sincerely love it. Not because it projects a certain image.