Beeeep: I'm in Spain

I'm sorry, the blogger you are trying to read has left the country.  She'll be back on the 7th of September.  (Unless, of course, some gorgeous and rich Señor takes her away to the Casbah in which case she'll be there, eating grapes and honey, surrounded by peacock feathers and golden sand.)   

Laaaazy Daaaaaay

Last night I dreamed about hummingbirds.

Today I woke up feeling lazy, and I did as little as possible.  I slept in, and I watched TV, and I did laundry (which always takes about 4 hours!), and I went to the shopping

 street to wander about.  I watched Knight Rider for the first time.  Hilarious old show!  Michael and Kit!  Way too cool.  

Hum, I'm boring.  But sometimes boring days have to happen.  I probably won't update for a while, since I'll be in Spain and/or Portugal for the next week!  Mwuahahahaha!

I did buy some house shoes today though:  

They are brown and fuzzy and warm, and my feet will be thankful for them in winter!  :-D

Updates

Phew, updating gets so difficult when you have guests.  So, here's an update of the past few days!  I've actually been pretty lazy in the past days, so you haven't missed much.  But there have been some cool developments.  On Monday I had coffee with Julia and then had my interview with ISN-R.  Their socks were significantly rocked, I believe.  (Actually, I know they were rocked, because I found out today I got accepted to the board!)  After my interview, I went to the Colloquium for African Languages and Linguistics (CALL)  to sit through a talk on the impersonal third person plural construction used as a passive form in Coptic.  It sounds mind numbing, but I found it amazingly interesting!  That night I went along to the CALL dinner party at a nice restaurant in Leiden.  SO MUCH FOOD!  We got to the restaurant at 7pm and didn't leave until almost 11pm!  We had bread with homemade garlic butter, then a salad (I chose the one with mozzarella, pesto and cashews!) By this time I was pretty much full, but then the main course came!  And they sent out more salad AND french fries(!) to eat with dinner.  And then came dessert of tiramisu, strawberry ice cream, and fruit!  Good lord!

On Tuesday, I taught a Charleston class!  The ISN people found out that I taught dance before, so they begged me to help them out on Tuesday.  They had the introduction week for the international students, and their dance teacher had bailed on them. So I got to teach!  It was so much fun too!  They were all really really good at it, picked it up just entirely too quickly, and seemed to have a great time!  There was one guy I was a bit worried about at first, because he came in telling me he wasn't a dancer, and then he struggled a bit, and looked really frustrated.  But he was the very one to come up to me afterwards and ask where he could learn more!  He got it in the end!  :-D  I hope I'll be able to teach some more classes with ISN.  Though I'd love to have a partner so I could teach some Lindy....  Afterwards, Marieke and Laura and I went to the pizzaria, and then went home and watched NCIS and House.

Yesterday, Marieke and Laura held their presentations so I went to watch them.  There was also a REALLY cool presentation about documenting a dying sign language in Mali!  I mean, how cool is that?!  Documenting dying languages was a one time dream of mine, but sign language?  Serious cool points!  There was also a presentation on the grammar of Orungu proper names that was held entirely in French.  I was very proud of myself, because the bits that I didn't understand, I wouldn't have understood in English either!  :-)  Afterwards we went to the organizer's house for some rocking cheese and wine and conversation (he had Morroccan cheese with cumin!  Apparently you can buy it at the market here!) with a bunch of really fascinating researchers.  Then Marieke caught a train, and Laura and I went out to dinner, and then headed home to meet up with Julia for coffee.

Only it didn't work out that way.  The plan was to meet Julia and an Erasmus student named Sylvia for coffee.  Sylvia is an Italian student who studies Chinese, just like my neighbor, so I invited Laura and her boyfriend Matteo to come along.  Sylvia brought a friend, also named Sylvia.  Turns out Sylvia and Laura studied at the same university in Italy!  On the way there, I ran into Yohann and one of his colleagues, Luther.  Luther is from China originally, but has lived in the Netherlands forever.  He was sort of nuts.  In a great way!  Really outgoing, and funny, and just sort of weird.  Haha.  We all went to Café Einstein, which is sort of an international student hang out, and we sat around and laughed for a few hours.  Quite the unexpected party! :-)

Updates Later, promise

I'll update more later.  Too tired for now.

Lolpod:  A boy holding a beer outside of a bank, serenading a girl working inside.  

He sang: "My baby left me!  Gotta do it all by myself!  Heartbreak hotel!"  

Hahahahaha.

African Language Conference

I had a dream last night that I found out that Robert had worked as a model for a children's picture book.  He was the famous Blumentopf,  (Flower pot) a beloved children's character.  This probably comes from a German children's character named Pumuckl.  He's a little red-headed kobold, and Robert loves him.  Still, hee hee, Blumentopf!  No clue where that came from!

I woke up at noon!  And I did NOTHING!  I sat around, and played on the internet.  And well, ok, I did my dishes and listened to science Friday on NPR.  But otherwise I was lazy.  And I don't feel guilty at all.

They talked about a really cool new technology that might just save the world.  Nano antennas (or nantennas.)  They're these teensy antennas that are able to gather infrared energy.  This means they can absorb the solar energy that the earth gives off (heat) long after the sun has gone down!  Super solar power!  They're also super efficient: they can absorb 80% of the heat energy put off!  The problem is that most of the stuff we use can't handle the high frequency of the energy (normal plugs are set up for 60Hz, and these nantennas produce ten thousand billion Hz!!!!)  But they're working on finding an efficient way to convert the energy!  The guy they interviewed today was talking about a typical morning with these nantennas which included a toaster, a hybrid car, an iPod run from the heat coming off the engine, a t-shirt (for keeping your body cool!) and wallpaper that serves as the building's climate control!!!  Wow!  I mean, wow!  

Around 3:30 I met up with Joel's friend, Marieke, and her colleague, Laura (British).  Both girls worked on a project to document dying African languages (!) in Camaroon, and both are giving papers at the conference this year.  We met for coffee, and chatted, and then I took them to the building where the conference will be held so they could register.  We met a bunch of researchers from all over, and decided to go out for pizza.  So, Marieke (Germany), Laura (UK), Naho (Japan), Robert (US), Maya (Japan), Jamal (Tanzania), (and their son, whose name I never got, but who was GORGEOUS and tiny and perfect!) and I met up with Julia (Germany) and jammed out on pizza and linguistics!  It was just a great day!  So many hyper-interesting people talking about unbelievably interesting things!  I'll probably be sitting in on a few talks.  There are two talks on Ancient Egyptian languages!  :-D  It is so nice to be among people with similar interests!  Or, rather, this particular interest.  It doesn't happen often! 

Laura and Marieke are staying tonight in a hostel in Nordwijk.  But they'll be staying with me for the rest of the conference since Nordwijk is far away, and my room is free!  :-)  They were both very cute about it, because I could tell they really wanted to stay with me, but didn't want to put me out.  They just wouldn't believe that I totally love to have guests!  They thought I was just being polite.  They just don't understand Southern hospitality!  :-D

Now I'm watching a show about India (in German.)  It's a seriously cool show!  People walking around, stepping over cobras (or letting cobras slither over their feet!)  People with otters on leashes (to help catch fish!)  People bathing in the river with their elephants.  Just beautiful!  I want to go.

I <3 my Mom!

I was woken up at 4am today by a huge boom of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning.  A storm!  And a good one!  I stood on my balcony and watched it for a while.  It was sort of scary, really, because there was no wind, only stillness and light and sound.By the time I woke up again, it was the perfect day.  Laura and I met up and went to the market.  The sun was shining, and it was brisk and beautiful.  Laura is a lot of fun, and her face lit up every time we passed a stall that sold candy.  :-)  We wandered around the market and the department stores for a while, then headed back home.

The sun was shining on my balcony, so I basked in it.  I studied some Spanish, and read my book, and chased the sunlight as it ran across my balcony.  I talked to my mom for a bit, and it turns out she's awesome.  She signed up for Facebook when I was in Germany, so I could send her pictures.  I just recently found out that my friends were buying her on the Friends for Sale Application and I've been struggling to keep her under my ownership.  My mom thought this was HILARIOUS, and quickly jumped online so she could start earning money to buy people for herself.  :-)  So cute.

So, I don't know if I wrote about this, but earlier this week, I was sitting on my balcony and the caretaker came by to show the building to a student and her family.  I invited them onto my balcony, and we spoke briefly.  They were German, so we spoke in German about what we study and all that, and I told her that if she needed anything she should find me.  Today I get an e-mail from her (I didn't give her my e-mail address!) and it said (in German) "I just figured out you must be Robert's girlfriend!"   ...   

Apparently, this girl, Julia, went to Robert's college, and he told her I would be in Leiden and that she should look me up.  She then promptly forgot.  Apparently it only hit her today when she decided there probably aren't too many Amy's studying Egyptology in this town.  :-D  What a crazy small world!  

So, Julia and I met up today and drank tea, and talked, and made dinner.  She's here until Christmas to study European cultural history, and then she's moving on to France.  I think we'll have a good time, she and I.  :-)  

Tomorrow, a friend of Joel's is getting to town.  She's another German, and she's coming here for an African Language Conference!  Joel thought we might want to meet.  ;-)

Lolpod:  I was walking down the street, enjoying the beauty of the day.  Sunlight, warmth, beauty.  I looked down, just in time to realize I was about to step on a pigeon.  He somehow just didn't hear me!  So, I stopped suddenly, and the pigeon realized I was there and freaked out.  He flew straight up into the air, directly at my face!  So I ducked and jumped, and the woman next to me on the street grabbed me, and her husband, who hadn't seen a thing, turned around and saw us freaking out and thought we were nuts.  And the woman and I laughed and laughed.  :-D

In other news, my mom is probably cooler than yours:  She made me a Lolcat!  Using my cat!

Almost Forgot!

Lolpod:  There's a street musician who always hangs out on the shopping street.  Today he started in on a song, and I thought it sounded familiar, but couldn't figure out what language it was in.  Then I realized, it was Ironic, by Alanis Morissette, only the guy didn't know the words!  He sang something along the lines of:  "A lool dan, floon sign me eight, shown fee lolly lee, man see cried me say day... It's like raaaaiiiinn on your wedding day...."  Cracked. Me. UP.  :-D

Serendipity

Last night, when I should have been asleep, I watched The Godfather part II.  Gah.  What a movie!

I woke up too early this morning.  Not horribly early, just before 9, which I wasn't into. So I went back to sleep.  And woke up really late.  :-P  This happens to me sometimes.  If I wake up at a decent hour but just don't want to get up yet, I tend to get caught up in dreams when I go back to sleep.  And I have a harder time waking up.  This isn't always a bad thing.  I tend to have some pretty rockin dreams during this time.  This morning they were pretty scattered.  I don't remember much, except Robert was there, and so was Morpheus, the god of dreams.  

I rolled out of bed (ok, not literally, I sleep 10ft (3m) off the ground!) around noon, and decided I needed to get something accomplished.  So I went shopping! ;-)  I got a Dutch-English dictionary and a zucchini!  Haha, not exactly shopping until dropping, but I had fun!  For me shopping is more about looking at the beautiful things in the story, and especially about looking at the people on the street.  I don't really enjoy the buying part all that much, but I could look all day!  

I studied some Spanish today.  Not as much as I wanted to, but I can conjugate verbs!  A perfect start!  I also watched videos on Ted.com (which you should check out, if you haven't! Good stuff!) and cleaned the heck out of my room.  I am constantly amazed at the amount of hair!  And now that I literally have 6 or 7 times more floor space, I end up with lots of dust and fuzz.  I need to get house shoes, so I can just leave my shoes at the door.  Right now, I keep them on because my little be-socked feet get too cold!  :-)  I'm going to have to stock up on warming things for the winter.  House shoes, and blankets, and maybe gloves.  Ooh, and earmuffs!  I'm a cold natured gal anyway, and summer is about to kill me! 

I also watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Laura (my neighbor.)  She dragged her comfy chair over to my room, and we jammed out on a bag of popcorn.  I don't know if you've seen this movie, but you probably should at some point.  Absolutely hilarious!  Puts any relationship trouble you've ever had into a very nice perspective!  :-P

I think it's funny how the universe seems to send you little hints.  (Speaking of Ted.com, check out Amy Tan's talk on creativity for more on this!)  I think my view of the whole fate vs. choice debate is best summed up by the movie Serendipity: 

Jonathan:  Everything's predestined?  We don't have any choice at all?

Sara:  I think we make our own decisions.  I just think that fate sends us little signs, and it's how we read the signs that determine whether we're happy or not.

Anyway, here's the signal I've been getting:  GET OVER YOUR HATRED (read: fear) OF THE COLD!  Now, recently I got really mad at Robert for telling me that I shouldn't dislike onions as much as I do.  I got mad because I thought, hey, I have a right to dislike anything I please, thank you!  The point wasn't that I don't care for onions (you can't like everything, even if you try!)  The point was, I was trying to define myself by my dislike of onions, and defining yourself based on negatives is just dumb.  Besides, I might love onions tomorrow, or in 7 years.  And sometimes I really don't mind them all that much, anyway.  My relationship with onions is simply too complicated!  

So, maybe the universe was speaking through Robert, because even though I still like to laugh about how gross onions are, I can't say I hate them.  This little, seemingly meaningless exchange opened my eyes to what the universe is screaming at me.  I kept getting little signs that the Netherlands was where I was supposed to be.  Dutch showed up everywhere in the months leading up to my decision to study here.  I mean, everywhere.  The one thing I don't like about this place?  The weather is too cold.  

I'm a warm weather girl, and I don't mind defining myself based on that.  Warmth brings me joy, and I want to be defined by what I love!  But it comes down to this: If I continue to hate (fear) cold weather, I will not be happy for the next two years.  And I'm just not willing to let that happen!  If I can learn to love the cold, then I will just be opening myself up for more joy.  

So, here I go.  If you catch me complaining about the cold, please, gently remind me that I must love it.  I may need help! ;-)

I Want to Say Words That Flame As I Say Them

"Set your life on fire and seek those who fan your flames." --Rumi

"You cannot start a fire in another's heart until it is burning in your own" --Unknown

:-)

I met today with the head of my department.  I now have my schedule for this coming semester!  I'm only taking 4 classes, and 3 of them meet on Wednesday.  I'm taking: Coptic (MW), Classical Egyptian I (Th), Classical Egyptian II (W), and Seminar Mastaba (W)!!!  Three out of four classes are language classes!  Whoo!  It's possibly the perfect semester.  Please note: I don't have class on Friday....  :-D

I found out today why I was accepted to Egyptology, a program I didn't apply for.  The woman I spoke with today is the one who decides who gets into both the Egyptology department (which I didn't apply for) and the Islamic Studies department (which I did.)  Basically, she saw my application and decided I was better suited to Egyptology.  If she hadn't been in charge of two departments, I would have been flat out rejected!  This is why I think everything happens for a reason!  

I also booked my ticket to Spain today!  I leave next Friday!  :-)

The sun shone today, so I was outside as much as possible.  I bought The Life of Pi and Anansi Boys in Dutch, then went to the park and read more in End of Poverty.  I'm still not done with that book even though I only have 100 pages left!  There's just so much!  But it's changing the way I look at extreme poverty and a donations.  

After sitting in the sun for a long time, I went to the market on Harlemmerstraat.  I didn't buy anything, but I had a great time looking.  

Lolpod:  On my way home I rode by a family: a father, a mother, a grandmother, and a daughter.  They were all laughing, and the women all had the EXACT same face!  It was like looking at three pictures of the same person, only with make-up making her look older.  :-D  I wish I had had a camera on me, it would have been a perfect picture.  Wonderful moment.

I came home tonight and watched a little tv.  Some British murder investigation show.  It was actually a really well done show.  Much more realistic than American murder shows.  I don't mean the procedures, I mean the way the people interacted and came up with their ideas on who dunnit.  Naturally, it was a To Be Continued....  Naja.  

At some point while I sat there, I realized that I am content here.  Sometimes I don't feel completely content in this country.  The language is only on my tongue, not in my heart.  The weather is cold, and rainy.  But today, sitting there in my new apartment, with my lamp glowing red, and my orange scarf hanging by the door, I just sort of settled in.  

I don't want to stay here forever, though.  My soul and my heart cry out for other places.  

But I kinda like the music

My days are getting longer and longer, but going by more quickly.  Does that make sense?  I don't understand how it's already midnight, but this morning seems like years ago.  This is not a complaint.  I've just been too caught up in the moment to notice time properly.

I had an amazingly strange dream last night.  In the dream I was a super hero mermaid.  That's right, a super hero mermaid.  I was in Hong Kong and I was in a swimming pool talking to some guy in swimming goggles (in the dream I had no clue who he was, but he was almost certainly inspired by Michael Phelps since you can't go anywhere without seeing the boy's picture) about how I had swum all the way to Hong Kong, and how nice the oceans are.  There was a train track over our heads (like in Chicago where the commuter trains are raised) and it suddenly derailed and came hurtling toward the pool.  Everyone was going to die, and I knew I had to act.  So I flew up and caught it, and set it down gently.  The culprit turned out to be a huge dinosaur (actually, Reptar from Rugrats...) and we battled.  His powers of telekinesis were much stronger than mine, but in the end I won.  

The dream continued on to be very intense. Or maybe it was another dream.  I was in Nashville, and there was a war.  I knew it was coming, and I knew all the buildings would be destroyed, so I walked around and touched them all, trying to remember them.  Then men with machine guns came and started killing everyone.  Then I was at a prisoner of war camp.  I was in charge of taking the prisoner's their food (meat and potatoes.)  All the prisoner's were my friends, and they begged me to bring them lettuce, and they begged me to set them free.  All I could do was cry and give them potatoes.  The worst was Daniel Sword.  He was tied up and could barely lift his head, but he whispered to me that a revolt was coming.  So I became a messenger between the prisoners so they could plan their revolt.  And then it was past, and they were all free, and I was floating in a calm and cool pool of dark water, surrounded by floating candles.

The rest of my day has been sort of a blur.  I chatted with a few friends and family on Skype, and then I read and watched videos on Ted.com.  I also looked at Sinfest comics, and watched Doctor Who.  Vanessa and I met up for dinner, and I managed to eat an entire pizza!  

Today I also found out that my classes don't actually begin until the 8th of September.  That means I have an extra week to play!  And that means...I'm going to Spain.  Berni is about to start his study abroad there, and he and Robert are driving down at the end of next week.  And I'm going to join them!  I still have to double check with my department to make sure there's nothing I have to do in that week, but I've decided that there isn't.  Cause I want to go to Spain!

Dear Universe, 

If you need me, I'll be in Spain.

All my love,

--Amy

Libra Horoscope for week of August 21, 2008

The 19th-century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau accomplished a lot. Among his voluminous body of work was Civil Disobedience, a book that inspired Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. In the two-million-word journal he kept for over two decades, he wrote about nature with a precision and care that prefigured modern-day environmentalism. But Thoreau also knew how to relax, and he was free of anxiety about living up to other people's standards of success. One passage in his journal reads, "For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it." He's your role model for the rest of 2008, Libra. May he inspire you to give yourself the slack you need and compete with no one but yourself as you become more of the unique work of art you were born to be.

www.freewillastrology.com

In Which I Confuse Everyone And Write E-mails

I'd like to complain about the soreness of my body after two nights of Wushu, but I can't.  My muscles are simply too tired to feel pain yet!  I'm just feeling sort of weak.  But it's the sort of weakness that makes you feel strong!  :-D

Wushu is amazing!  Just amazing.  It's difficult, and I'm only just beginning, but it makes me feel so wonderful.  I've needed something like this in my life again.  A structured setting where I can test and expand my body's limits.  I've lost touch with my body in the past few years, thanks to travel and school and this and that and yadda.  But now I can feel myself sliding back in, gaining control of those pesky limbs.  All the better to experience this world with, my dear.

Today has been quite a busy and satisfying day.  I went to my information session this morning.  It didn't go as planned.  Mostly I just confused everybody since I've already done everything, and didn't have a contact person.  I'm also a pre-masters student which means, somehow, that I don't have to register, which was really the only reason I still had to go to the info session.  To get into classes I just have to e-mail some guy. So...I got nothing accomplished really.  Though I did have a nice cup of coffee and a good laugh with the poor woman trying to help me.  I asked her about my brilliant business idea, and she sent me to the International Student Advisor.

The International Student Advisor suggested I apply for the ISN-R board.  ISN (International Student Network) is in charge of making the lives of international students easier!  Woot!  I'm telling you, this university has got it together when it comes to helping internationals.  I'm in the perfect place to learn about this stuff!  So, I spent most of my day sitting on my balcony, writing a Letter of Motivation and a CV.  It was a very strange day, weather wise.  I would be sitting in beautiful, bright sun one minute, and literally watch the clouds bringing pouring rain blow over and past.  Very strange, but comforting.

I also e-mailed just about everybody at Leiden University for one thing or another.  ISN, Egyptian classes, Spanish classes, tuition fees.  I also found out about a few more student groups in town.  Amnesty International, and the official student's UN organization for the Netherlands.  They have debates and lectures over international topics.  I'm considering looking into them, because it would be nice to surround myself with people who are so in touch with how the world works.  I've also never done any real debating, but I think I might just be good at it!  It would also be a cool way to improve my Dutch.

Although, my Wushu friends will probably help with that too!  We speak mostly Dutch, and they're all really cool about my muddling through.  They actually have all said I'm doing a great job, and I guess I can't really complain after only 5 weeks of learning this language!  I played doubles ping-pong before the class with a guy whose name sounds like Johnson, another whose name sounds like Merlin, and another whose name I never caught.  Gah, non-American names are hard!  There's also Hannah, Jonathan (I think!) and gah, a Chinese name.  Embarrassing!  Everyone is super friendly!  :-)

I feel like I've fully emerged from my cocoon, and now I'm pumping life into my brand new wings.  Get ready, folks, I'm about to fly!

Moon-Fu

I woke up this morning determined to find chocolate croissants.  I searched through the bakeries and grocery stores of Leiden, to no avail.  Truthfully, the chocolate croissants were just a good excuse to get out of my apartment to explore my city a bit more.  When I lived in Berlin it was my Sunday ritual to just walk aimlessly around.  I usually got lost, which is really the best way to spend a Sunday.  Wandering with no goal other than to get lost is a nice way of clearing your head.

I came home and finally got to meet my new neighbor.  Her name is Laura.  She's from Italy.  She studies Chinese language and culture.  She's here for one semester and then she's going to China to study!  Quite an interesting girl!  We went shopping (she needed toothpaste) and we chatted quite a bit.  :-)  I also met David, from Spain.  Unfortunately, he's leaving soon.  But he's super friendly, and told me to come by his apartment if I needed electricity for anything.  Haha.  Everyone is so friendly here!

Laura told me all about the fitness center here, and told me how to sign up and gave me a class schedule.  I could totally take pole "fitness" classes.  ...  I'm not going to; I don't know how I'd explain it to my mom.  But, yes, "pole fitness" is offered.  Instead I'm going to take.....Wushu.   I'd never heard of it, so I looked it up.  And found this:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVDPoyVuZZg  Wushu is totally Kung-Fu!  I'm taking Kung-Fu!  Hahaha!  I had been looking at taking Capoeira again, but they don't have classes.  So I thought another martial art would be nice.  So why not Kung Freaking Fu?!  My parents have already started calling me Panda...  I start tomorrow!  Aiieee! 

I'm also planning on taking their Salsa classes.  My dad warned me not to get the two mixed up or no one would dance with me!  Haha, the man is nuts!  :-)

There was a partial lunar eclipse here last night.  Unfortunately, it was cloudy.  The news said the peak would be at 11:10pm.  Lo and behold, at 11:00pm the clouds broke just where the moon was riding, and I got to see it after all!  :-D  

Dreams of Houses

I often dream of houses.  Dream interpreters say that houses in dreams represent yourself, your soul.  I hope this is true.  The houses in my dreams are always different, but some things are always the same.  

In my dreams, the house is always new to me.  I've only just gotten it from someone, sometimes my grandmother, sometimes someone else.  The house is always impossibly huge, with never ending corridors to countless rooms.  In the dreams I'm always  exploring my house, and I'm always finding something amazing.  My house is always filled with beautiful and interesting things.  Sometimes there are interesting rooms, with huge columns, or beautiful furniture.  Sometimes there are entire rooms filled with fascinating things, like in a museum.  Sometimes strange things happen, like when you look through the windows of one room, it's always raining.  I always find a ghost.  My house is always haunted.  But I never run away, and the ghost never bothers me.  I just feel that its there, and I'm afraid.  Though sometimes I do make friends with my ghost. 

I recently dreamed of a house.  New to me.  Huge.  I knew there was a ghost in the living room.  Only this time I was outside, exploring the grounds.  It was night time, and everything was silent.  My house was in a huge neighborhood.  I had a swimming pool.  In the back yard I saw huge couches, maybe 10 ft (3m) long.  Someone was curled up asleep on the couch.  I watched him sleep for a while, and he looked so comfortable in his white blanket, I didn't want to wake him.  I walked to the gate around my house.  It was open, and I saw that I had a very complex and effective security system.  I considered closing the gate, and locking myself in for the night.  But I decided that I didn't need to.  I decided I was safe.  And so I left the gate open.

I hope houses in dreams represent the self.  If so, my soul is huge and filled with wonderful things.  I am always finding something new. There is fear in my heart, but I don't run from it.    And I'm no longer interested in protecting my heart from the outside world.  I'm not afraid.

May love rest peacefully in the garden of my soul!

From Deutschland to Dutchland

I'm back.  I spent the past week in Germany!  It was an ideal vacation.  Adventure every where.  Bike rides, and canoeing.  I can't describe it all here.  There was too much.  Just too much.

I am happy.  But I miss Bavaria and my family there.

Robert's dad sort of changed everything though.  We sat down on the banks of a river and he asked me simple questions.  What is important to you?  What do you want to have accomplished when you die?  What is the biggest danger to the world?  I answered my simple answers.  I'm good at language, I want to do something to make people's lives better, I think the root of all evil is fear.  And he very simply responded, Ok, clearly you have to do something with language that reduces people's fear.  Simple as that.  Why did I not see it?  Forest and trees and all that!

I told him about an idea I had.  I would love to work with American students who are studying abroad in Germany.  I would be a mediator, an intermediary between the students and the scary German bureaucracy.  I would arrange their appointments for them, I would tell them what they needed (passport, birth certificate, etc.) I might even go with them to get the paper work done.  I would also offer cultural advice.  I'd warn them, for example, that Germans don't make friends the way Americans do.  I'd tell them that Germans are quiet on the train.  It's the little things that make moving to a new country so difficult.  And not speaking the language, of course.  

Rob's dad again very simply said, ok, so do it.  Just like that.  Forest.  Trees.

My plan right now is this.  On Tuesday I have an information session.  The session is designed to help incoming students get all their paperwork and junk organized.  I've done this all already since I came early (and that was the inspiration for the whole idea: having no one around to help me fill out my very important documents written entirely in Dutch) and I only really need to register for classes during the session.  However, I'm going to be taking notes.  I'm going to figure out what students need to have to be legal and happy here.  Particularly for the Americans.  We have a rougher time than the EU kids.  And I'm going to talk to the information session people.  Maybe I can work with them!  They're doing exactly what I want to do!  

In the longer term, I'm looking to Germany.  After my masters, I think I'll head back there to see if I can find the sort of work I'm interested in.  Munich is my goal right now.  But Berlin isn't out of the question.  None of the university towns are out of the question.  Nothing is really out of the question! 

At the end of my time in Holland, I have no where that I have to be.  After Berlin I had to go back to finish my bachelors.  But now I am free.  That's scary, but exciting.  So very exciting!

Today was quite wonderful.  Beautiful weather!  I went shopping since I had no food.  I then organized my apartment, talked to my mom, and went to the Burcht to write in my journal.  I also bought an extension cord.  My electricity doesn't work, and there's nothing they can do until Monday, so I'm in the dark.  So, I got an extension cord (which I needed anyway) and plugged into the hallway plug.  My computer works, and so does my brand new used tv!  And Doctor Who was on tonight!  Twice!  

Now I'm sitting with my door open so I can have a little light, and I'm watching German tv.  Just to hear the language.  I suppose I should watch Dutch tv, but for some reason I feel like the show has to be really interesting.  I guess because I'd have to actually pay attention to understand.  German can just sort of run in the background.

"Once you choose hope, anything's possible."  --Christopher Reeve

  

To make your crying seem small

...he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby's face to the sky
to see for the first time
the earth's bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.

And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.

And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand.

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.

~ Billy Collins ~

In Other News: Doctor Who

I don't really know how I've missed out on this show for so long.  Tim has known about it for, well, ever.  Just like Tim, really.  To know the BEST THING EVER.  And to tell me about it.  And for me to not listen.  Gah.

It's Sci-Fi. He's an alien.  And a time traveler.  This show is INTENSE.  I mean, wow.  It's ridiculously funny, but, in true sci-fi fashion it has a LOT to say about society.  

Also, the Doctor is hot.

Listening to Ecouragement

Tempus fugit, my friends.  Tempus, if nothing else, fugit.  Today was the last day of my language courses!  I have the spoken part of the test tomorrow, and the rest on Friday.  How quickly it all went by!  Though, I do admit there were certainly times I thought it would never end.  I hope to keep in contact with the girls from the class.  And Sören.  :-)  

Today was so beautiful!  After class we all went to a restaurant and sat outside and chatted.  In Dutch, English and in German!  :-)  Afterwards, I biked around with Susanne for a bit, and then sat in the park and read.  Then I came home and did all sorts of boring things like cleaning and organizing and reading and yadda.  :-)

I went to the Burcht to read my book, and sat in the grass by the punk teenagers.  They're always there.  I'd say they range in age from 16-19 or so, and they always sit around, laughing and playing guitar and making lots of noise.  :-)  There are two girls with particularly cool hair. The left side of one girl's hair is white, and the other side is black.  The other girl has long long long bright purple braids.  The boys all have long hair too!  :-)  

There was also a family in the park, a mother and two children.  A girl, about 8 years old, and a boy, maybe 4.  The girl was trying to teach her family some sort of game.  It was like a mixture of cat's cradle and double Dutch.  Two people stand about 7-8 ft (2-2.5m) apart with this long thin rubber band thing stretched between them (think of the string in cat's cradle.)  One person stands in the middle, and jumps over the ropes in various patterns that the other two people must call out.  Left foot in/right foot out, right foot in/left foot out, both in, both out, both on top of the ropes, but they all have cute names.  You can even jump over the bands, taking one with you on your feet, twisting it around, making it even more complicated.  Yikes.  

The thing that really hit me about the family, was the relationship between the girl and her brother.  The boy got in the middle at one point to try the game, and he just wasn't good at it.  Not surprising really, he was still on the young side of 4.  The girl was just so patient with him.  She encouraged him every time he messed up, and praised him highly when he did something right.  She treated him in such an adult way.  And thanks to her help, he never got frustrated.  And finally, he could do it.  Not perfectly, but he even managed the really complicated jumps!  

:-)

Tired

I need to listen to myself more often.  I'm a very powerful person.  I tend to change my own world with very little effort.  If things aren't going the way I want them to, I change them.  If I'm feeling sad, or down, I just stop feeling that way, and feel happy.  Or at least calm, content.  Angry?  I let the feeling wash over me, and then let it fall away.  I just don't see the point in not enjoying life.  Sure, happiness is fleeting, but so is pain.  So why not choose happiness over pain?  I don't brush pain off.  I try to learn from it.  Emotions are there to guide you, but you can't let them rule you.

Why is it then that I so often let stress take over?  Of all things!  I need to listen to myself more often.

Today has been good.  I'm not feeling very poetic tonight.  Mostly just sleepy.  

I'm sitting in my black comfy chair, and it's raining outside my window, and I'm just plain sleepy.  Happy, content.  The stress has resolved itself, as it always always does when I take action.  I knew it would.  I just have to listen!  I have a lot going on in my mind.  Most of it very good and interesting, some of it not yet fully thought out.  There are negative emotions bumping around in there too, (anger and fear) and I'm trying to learn from them, so I can send them on their way. 

Interesting

I didn't update yesterday.  But it wasn't for lack of trying.  My internet was just not cooperating.  In retrospect, it's probably for the best, because I had a sort of boring day.  I mean, I enjoyed it, but you would have found me horribly dull.  It rained, so I didn't get out much.  I did take my pretty red and orange umbrella for a walk, though.  :-)  (Ever had one of those days where everywhere you go, the perfect song to fit your mood is playing?  That was me, yesterday.  I walked out of a shop to find a street musician smiling at me singing "Drops of Jupiter."  Just what I wanted to hear!  I gave him money and a smile!)

I also watched a lot of Doctor Who on You Tube.  Well, ok, two episodes.  What a cool show!  I don't really know much about it except what I learned from these two episodes.  It's about a man (who is extremely attractive, ladies) who is a time traveller, and well, an alien, I think.  He flies through time in a big blue box (which is much bigger on the inside than on the outside, of course) and saves people from creepy, and confusing things.  

Today has been far more exciting.  After class Susanne and I went on the search for webcams.  Her boyfriend lives in Germany, so this is important.  :-)  I then went to the bank to see if I had an account, and talked to the guy completely in Dutch.  Then I biked home, read a bit online, and then met up with Susanne again.  We sat in the sun on the Burcht, and then we went to a cafe and sat on the water and drank coffee and spoke Dutch.  I also got to talk to Pöhly online for a bit, which was entirely too much fun!  Pöhly is Robert's bff and I've only met him, oh once?  twice? in real life, but he's absolutely hysterically funny.  We talked about everything from Norwegian to Octopi.  Naturally.

Hm, ok, apparently today hasn't really been that much more exciting than yesterday.  I just felt like it was.  For you anyway.  Though, I suppose you missed out on the green of the leaves standing out against the blue sky.  You also didn't feel the sun shining on your face while you sipped hot coffee.  You didn't get to see the boats filled with smiling people sliding by on the canal.  You missed the conversation about jazz pianos and debate clubs.  You didn't even dance along to Dr. John today.

Maybe I should stop trying to blog about what happens in my day, and just start listing all the little things that bring me joy.  They may just be the important bits.

Ok ok, I can't forget about The Store.  On my walk through town, I decided to go into this little antique store.  I keep passing by it, and wondering what's inside.  Well, am I ever glad I did!  This place is AMAZING!  First of all, from the outside it looks very small, but inside it's huge!  Three floors!  (Hmm, smaller outside than inside?  Maybe it's a time machine!)  And the stuff!  This is the sort of place where you half expect to find a magical necklace or a king's treasure, stolen long ago.  I kept half expecting the shop keeper to insist "This book is not for you."  It was like a mixture of a really nice antique store, Goodwill, and your grandmother's garage.  There were beautiful, clearly high quality things.  And there was junk.  There was beyond junk.  There was an 8ft (2.5m) tall chili pepper, smiling at me.  There was a huge lamp surrounded by lots of tiny, identical lamps.  Dolls in lace and mannequins in furs.  A beautiful wooden cradle filled with ice skates of all sizes.  It was just a breathtaking place!  So much to see!  And the whole place smelled of cigar smoke.  Brilliant, just brilliant.  

I'd like to go back.  But I doubt it would be there. ;-)

Sand is Still Everywhere

I woke up too early this morning.  I first woke up at 6:30am!  In the past week I've been waking up about 10min before my alarm.  But not at 6:30!  I struggled, but I was finally able to get back to sleep.  I still woke up again at 9:30, which is just unacceptable for a Saturday!  ;-)

Actually, it was quite nice to have so much morning.  I spent the time reading through the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs.  (www.foreignaffairs.org)  My mentor suggested I read this journal, and so I have been.  I really enjoy the essays, but it's often difficult to find the time to read them with the attention they deserve.  He also suggested I check out the Council on Foreign Relations website.  So far I've only skimmed it.  

At one I met up with Keith and we biked to the beach at Katwijk.  We rode through the dunes, which are GORGEOUS, and sat on the beach and ate sandwiches.  There was some sort of coast guard training session, so we got to watch the boats, and planes and helicopters float and fly about.  Quite exciting.  The plane and helicopter did really cool climbs and dives and turned in impossible circles.  Sometimes I thought they were going to land on my head!  Either way, the day was amazing.  Keith said that all in all we probably biked about 30km (18.5 miles!) today!  

I came home and it started raining.  So I watched Zeitgeist, the movie.  Talk about intense!  If you know nothing about it, Wikipedia it.  It's very interesting.  It starts out talking about religion, then moves to conspiracy theories about 9/11, and then on to the Federal Reserve Bank.  Heavy duty stuff.  I very much enjoyed watching.  It gives you a LOT to think about.  

I was glad that it started with religion, truthfully.  It seeks to prove that Jesus was just another in a long line of sun-deities with similar birth, death and resurrection cycles.  It then goes on to try to prove that the Romans invented Jesus to aid in world domination....  Either way, since I studied the Ancient Near East, I was well aware of most of the deities to whom Jesus was being compared.  And a lot of what the guy had to say came out of NOWHERE.  Mostly about the Egyptian god, Horus.  The narrator cited some pretty strange stuff about that guy.  I actually think that most of it was based either on Roman-era Egypt, or on medieval Egypt.  Either way, I was glad to see so clearly how the arguments were structured, because later on, when it got into the really intense images and clips from 9/11 it was very easy to get caught up in the argument based solely on emotion.  

Anyway, definitely an interesting film that really makes you think.  Just, please, do think when you watch it.

Afterwards, I talked with my Aunt Jeannie, Uncle Chuck, 8-year old cousin James, and his Todd on Skype.  They all live in Indiana, so we had a nice long distance discussion about corn.  It's the height of corn season, so Uncle Chuck has been in the fields all day.  I actually worked one summer in the fields myself, so I remember well the extreme heat and the dangers of corn leaves.  Those things can scar you bad.

Lolpod:  A grown man, maybe in his 30s, and his two young children start running toward the ocean.  The man sprints, leaving his children struggling with the boogie boards.  He runs full speed into the water, splashing and lifting his legs up like a 5 year old and then leaps into the air and belly flops!  :-D  

Roxanna Limps

Today on the way to class, Roxanna Fiets was wounded.  I have no idea what happened, but there was a sudden pop, and then my back tir
e was completely flat.  Poor Roxanna Fiets and I had to limp around town today!  Fortunately, my neighbor Keith was more than happy to completely dismantle Roxanna and patch her poor damaged wheel balloon deal.  I have never been around for the mending of a bike tire.  (Actually, I only have one, very vague, memory of my dad fixing a bike.  The chain was very problematic, if I remember correctly.)  I had no idea how they worked!  I've actually found myself staring at bike tires wondering how they work.  

For those who, like me, are curious, there's like this little skinny-intertube that's stuffed inside the rubber, treaded part.  This little guy holds the air!  Maybe I'm the most naïve person around for not understanding bike wheels, but man, they are fascinating! (Of course the only picture I could find was of soldiers changing a tire in the Negev....)

  Keith and I took over the hallway and did our surgery.  Keith played some amazing "bike repair" music.  Actually, it was really just amazing music by a band called Whapweasel.  This is a céilidh (Gaelic for social gathering or social dance) group who play this awesome sort of Celtic dance music.  Very upbeat and folky, but in a very modern, rockin way.  Think Flecktones.  Perfect for doing rather annoying tasks involving lots of grease and tiny, slippery parts.  :-)

The rest of my day was good too!  After class Vanessa and Susanne and I went to Susanne's apartment and hung out on her Dachterasse.  She lives in a student apartment, which is basically like a mini-dorm.  Or a really big suite.  They have an awesome terrace on their roof (Dach) so we sat outside in the beautiful sun and drank coffee and ate vla (pudding.)  :-)  My German is getting better all the time!  

I then came home and chatted with Robert for a bit about webcomics.  He also told me that his brother has been nominated for a CNN-journalism award!!!  That's right, I personally know an awesome journalist.  That makes you just two steps removed from greatness (um, unless "you" happen to be Robert...or their father...in which case: way to be genetically similar to greatness!) ;-)

I'm now chillin, listening to Whapweasel, and reading cool quotes online.  I have a million collected, and they're all great.  Quotes have always helped me on my little journey through this whole Life thing.  I like it when people with much more experience with Life can point me in the right direction with their words.  My favorite of the day:

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."   --Antoine De Saint Exupery