Sex Change

Spent most of the day cleaning my apartment and listening to NPR.  At three I headed to my shift in the Common Room.  It was a super rainy day, and it was so nice to sit at the desk, work on Egyptian, and just listen to the rain falling outside.  We always leave the door to the CR open, so there was a nice rainy breeze too.  Friday's sort of a slow day, but we had one or two people drift in to sign up for Dutch courses, or just to say hi.  Anna, of the ISN-I board stopped by, and she and I had a really great conversation.  Apparently there's some tension between ISN-I (Integration) and ISN-R (Representation.)  Old drama that I know (and want to know) nothing about.  She and I talked about how we can reduce the tensions and bring the two halves of ISN closer together.  Conflict management skills, activate!  Anna and I decided to start the trend of ISN solidarity by hanging out much of the evening.  

Eventually, however, we parted ways, for dinner.  I met up with Julia, her boyfriend Gary, two Korean girls, Yoon and Christina, and an Italian girl whose name I can't remember (she said hello and then vanished to get ready for a party.)  We sat in the common room of Herengracht, which is the other International student apartment building.  They brought beers and wine and munchies and various things and sort of set up shop.  But there was an ISN party tonight at 11, and so I met up with Helen, of Scotland, and went.

It was called a Sex Change Party, and all the girls were supposed to dress up like boys, and vice versa.  I was planning on borrowing some clothes from Matteo, my neighbor, but he wasn't home.  So I had to go as a girl.  But LOTS of people dressed up.  I think boys secretly love to dress up as women.  They always seem to go all out when they do cross dress.  Wigs and make-up and fake breasts, short skirts, purses, even dangly earrings (to match, of course.)  There were more than a few guys there who completely passed as girls too.  There was this one guy, Sven, who looked so much like a girl that I thought he was one until I said hello.  I just thought she was REALLY REALLY tall.  I was amazed at how tall this girl was, so I went over to say hi.  To Sven.  

We danced and danced and danced.  The music was strange.  In this aspect I don't know that I'll ever be very European.  Beep beep beep (bum bum bum) sort of music is just not my forté.  But who knows.  I used to HATE bubbly water, and now, I secretly love it!  :-)

Best Pick Up Line of the Evening: "I speak Azerbaijani." 

Lolpod:  I was on my way to the Herengracht feeling down.  Sad.  Alone.  I was in desperate need of a hug.  I was thinking about this when I noticed a cat sprinting down the sidewalk towards me, meowing.  He ran right up to me and bashed his little head against my leg.  I could hear him purring all the way from the ground.  I bent over to pet him, and he purred harder, and loved me.  He followed me to the end of the street, purring the entire way.  Thank you, Universe.