Here's a scientific topic for ya. Bear with me, it's actually interesting...

So, I am reading all these articles for one of my classes (Economic Behavior) and some interesting ideas come up once in a while. In particular, one that caught my eye was on the norm of self-seeking. Basically, the concept is this: We have become more self-seeking over time because at some point someone told us that we, as rational economic beings, are always and only looking for ways to maximize our utility, to get the most out of every exchange for ourselves with no thought to the other person other than what is necessary to keep them exchanging with us. This is not a foreign concept to psychology - any long discussions on whether or not true altruism exists will attest to that. But at the same time, psychologists are very aware that people do strange things that don't seem to make rational sense, also in economic behavior. There are countless experiments and studies on the anomolies and "errors" of people's economic behavior. In fact, we are very often not rational, not self-seeking, and do not always maximise our utility. More specifically to this particular article, we, at least some of us, care about fairness. Now, there are different kinds of economic beings: those who care about fairness (prosocials), those who only care about their own outcomes (proselfs). You can actually measure who is which with a test that focuses on attitudes toward social issues. Anyway, some studies seem to indicate that the difference between these two sorts my partly have been enhanced by this self-seeking norm; in fact, we have all been influenced by this norm. Basically, we have been told for so long that we are only and always self-seeking that we believe it; we can easily think of many examples supporting this idea; we are suspicious even, of anyone's seemingly selfless behavior. As such, we are surprisingly (or not surprisingly?) not very willing to admit to being un-self-seeking. People are more likely to give to a charity if they can get something back, even if it is something small like a pen or a t-shirt. The theory is that this isn't because we are so willing to give large amounts of money for pens or t-shirts, it's because we can justify it later: "Yeah, I gave some money to the AIDS foundation, but I just wanted a t-shirt..."; "I walked with the breast-cancer walk cause it seemed fun and I needed to get out...". People who become involved in organizations working for some cause are generally better accepted by the people within the organization and without, if they have been affected by whatever it is they are working for or if they have some sort of personal investment; obviously you couldn't possibly care the cause for single mothers if you yourself are not a single mother or child of a single mother, right?
A major role in all this is played by our expectations of the behavior of others. We believe that everyone, including ourselves though perhaps to a lesser extent, are self-seeking; so we act as if they are all self-seeking. We justify our own un-self-seeking behavior, and we mistrust the apparent un-self-seeking behavior of others. Further, in any sort of exchange situation, we act as if they other is trying to get the most out of it at our cost so we must as well, perhaps in a way protecting ourselves. In experiments where one person is the allocator and the other is the recipient, the allocator divides a sum of money and gives part of it to the recipient, and the recipient accepts (in which case he gets only what he was offered and the allocator keeps the rest) or rejects the offer (in which case no one gets anything). Now, usually the allocator will give 50% or close to it; this could be fairness or it could be fear of rejection if the offer is too low. But in a version of this game where the recipient only has limited power, so if he rejects they both get a lesser percentage each, something strange happens. The less power the recipient has, the less money the allocator offers. But, when the recipient has zero power, the allocator suddenly switches and gives 50% again. Why is that? Some theories say that the powerlessness of the recipient invokes social attitudes, like when taking care of a baby or a helpless old lady. I personally think it has more to do with the other person being completely unable to act in a self-seeking manner and not the allocator is free to also no longer act in a self-seeking manner. Or maybe something combining the two ideas. Interestingly, those who have been highly trained in the economic theories that assume self-seeking nature often act in a more self-seeking manner. Studies comparing economics students to students from various other study subjects shower a large difference in the amount of money offered as allocators. Is this because they suddenly become more selfish? Or does it maybe have something more to do with their expectations of the behaviors and attitudes of others?

This is not to say that people are always and only really self-less under our charade of self-seekingness. There is too much evidence supporting self-seeking behavior. But it is nice to know that we are capable of being self-less, probably more so than we give ourselves credit for.

This isn't Nam.

I hate it when dreams stay with me after I get out of bed. I was dreaming that I was in the army in the middle of some war. We were caught by the enemy and put into some sort of retaining pit. We were beaten and someone tried to drown me but somehow I managed to find a way to breath under water if I took very tiny breaths through my nose. Then suddenly we were escaping, and I was no longer the only woman, another appeared out of nowhere beside me. We were running away from the male enemy soldiers for obvious reasons. We managed to get guns and started shooting at them, they shot at us, we ran but were caught again. This time it was by one of our own guys who must have been working for the enemies as well; he handed us over to a general on a train and told him that we were traitors and should be put to death. The general took us, and we were so weak from being beaten that we couldn't get up, they just dumped us on an open bed car. But at some point the general disconnected our car and left us; he was doing us a favor and giving us a chance to escape. So we ran, this time ending up in corn field. Some teenage boys saw us and started to chase us. They were French. We followed another boy into his farm yard, but suddenly found ourselves in water again, with tall reeds surrounding us, and a dog was barking at us from the yard where the water ended. We ran into the house and were followed by the French boys. A man resembling Johnny Depp sat on a rocking chair and watched from above his tipped glasses. He told us to defend ourselves and so we started beating the boys up for trying to hurt us. We were hitting them with parts of the guns that we somehow had in our hands again and they tried to fight back but we knew too many fighting moves and one by one we beat them down. Then I started to whip them with a stick on their butts and they all mumbled and cried that they were sorry. Then I woke up, in a rage, no one there, just birds chirping on the other side of the window. It took a while to shake off that lasting impression.

Wow do I have some fucked up dreams.

The pursuit of happiness.

I've often thought, and remembered again yesterday during a conversation with a friend, that one thing people rely too much on which leads to their unhappiness is the very pursuit of happiness. I think happiness cannot be a goal in itself. It an elusive goal, found best when not looked for. Have you ever been in a really dark room and tried to focus on the few things in the room that have a tiny bit more light on them? For some reason, when you look straight at it, it disappears, but when you focus on something else and look at it out of the corner of your eye, it's much clearer. I think alot of people are depressed because they find that they are not happy. Know what I mean? One of the best therapeutic approaches to depression is to give the patient an activity that he/she must do; by giving them an activity, their focus is brought down to the task before them instead of their misery and unhappiness; eventually they often can enjoy the activity and in the end there is some satisfaction to be derived from the completed task. Or, take a marriage, for example. If the whole purpose of marrying someone is for that person to make you happy, or you both to make each other happy, you will inevitably be disappointed at some point and possibly become very unhappy with each other. But if your purpose in the marriage is something beyond mere happiness, then perhaps happiness can grow out of the meeting of that purpose. If your purpose as a couple is to help each other grow and to become better persons, then encouraging each other and watching each other develop will bring some joy in itself. If at some point you find yourself unhappy it is a sign that something is not going right. But to focus on that happiness, or lack thereof, would be pointless; instead you have to figure out why it is that you are unhappy, what it is that is going wrong and fix that. Happiness will inevitably follow when the couple works together toward the same goal.
I'm doing a course on decision making; one thing that I read recently was that people constantly over- and under-estimate how they will feel about certain outcomes. We are terrible at predicting our emotions. In particular, we often think that our response to those things that we are dying to have or to those things we absolutely dread will be much greater than they are in the end. We are affected by so much more than just that one thing in any given situation and when we predict our emotional response we tend to forget that it will not be the only thing we are responding too. In our pursuit of happiness I am convinced we do the same thing. We focus on those things that we think will bring us great happiness, but when we actually get it, we are disappointed because it wasn't everything we thought it was...or rather, we had overestimated its capacity to bring us happiness. Instead, if we were to put our energies into other things, perhaps more noble activities like work or helping others or whatever it is that we feel called to do, we might find much more happiness in the mere process and outcome than we could have hoped for.

Oh, the ships are burning...there'll be no turning... back for you an me!

I had a conversation the other day that is still bothering me because I didn't feel I defended my case as well as I could have had I been first given three days to replay it all in my head and make up all the right answers in retrospect.
Egh.
Well, anyway, we somehow got on the topic of marriage and I mentioned that Luuk and I decided before we married that divorce would never be an option/solution. The response was that we were setting ourselves up for disappointment because what if something happened and we did end up divorced?, we would feel it was a personal failure. I said yes, I guess I would see it as a personal failure, and then proceeded to try to defend what I had just said with a bunch of unconvincing arguments that I have much improved in my head over the past few days.
But what struck me was that "personal failure" bit. Is that so bad? I would imagine, at this point in my inexperienced life, that if we ever divorced it would be because one or both of us hadn't done everything we could to not only stick together but to love each other (and I never met a couple who divorced still loving each other). Are we so averse to responsibility that we would hope not to feel like a failure or like it was our fault should something go wrong? (And we say "should something go wrong" as if it were some outside force that we had nothing to do with...). That we could ever take seperate ways and not feel any guilt or responsibility seems impossible to me; and if it is possible, then I suppose I should no longer be surprised at the state of relationships these days.
When Luuk and I said "no divorce", it wasn't without the recognition that things don't always go as you expect/hope, or that it won't always be easy (though I must say so far it's been a breeze...maybe it helps that he's out of the country...ha..ha... just kidding...sniff, oh, I crack myself up...). But "no divorce" is part of "commitment", "loyalty", "faithfulness". (In Dutch there is one word that seems to encompass them all: trouw). If we are both commited to each other, commited to sticking together, to helping the other grow, to encouraging and supporting each other, etc., and if we are loyal and faithful to each other above career, friends, and blonde bimbos and handsome colleagues, then it seems to make sense that divorce will not follow. But making the actual decision to never consider divorce does two things: it forces/enables (depending on how you look at it, I guess) us to look for other ways to solve things if we ever get to the point of not being able to stand each other, and it gives us more space for trust (or reduces fear/distrust), I think, given that we both know the other will not be thinking divorce or looking for a way out but will, like me, be looking for a better solution.
So, basically, I think that removing that option, or burning that good ole cliché ship, creates the space where a relationship can thrive in complete trust. And if something goes wrong, then it really is our own fault and we better take the responsibility for it or we'll never be able to patch things up. Doesn't that make sense?

What is this world coming to when "world peace" isn't enough?

Ok, regardless of my usual disdain for this competition, and regardless of what I actually think on the subject of gay marriage, I'm annoyed with this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8009359.stm . Do they seriously want Miss America to be an airheaded bimbo who doesn't have an opinion of her own but takes on only those opinions regarded as okay or cool by the organization? Pff. To be appalled that she would say what she did...ridiculous. Freedom of speech and equality for all, my ass!

Also, yesterday I read an article in one of the free newspapers on the train (Metro) about how all of a sudden more Americans are "coming out of the closet" about being atheists. As if they were scared to before. It's some sort of reaction to Bush and the ultra-conservatism that was rampant in the past 8yrs. Since when have Americans been afraid to admit to not believing in any god? Did I miss something?
Sometimes the way other countries see the US just boggles my mind. Where do they get these crazy ideas?

Strange

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8007895.stm

A quote. Any thoughts?

We only regard those unions as real examples of love and real marriages in which a fixed and unalterable decision has been taken. If men or women contemplate an escape, they do not collect all their powers for the task. In none of the serious and important tasks of life do we arrange such a "getaway." We cannot love and be limited.

-- Alfred Adler

One of my favorite memories.

I must have been around 6 yrs old, maybe older, I'm not sure. We were on furlough/homeleave, staying in Canada for a couple months after traveling from Yucatan to Michigan to Alberta in the van. We were staying on my uncle's farm in the honeybarn. It had a kitchen and a bathroom and shower, so with a little bit of work it was easily turned into the coolest house we ever lived in. We could even rollerblade and bike indoors, though we got in trouble if we tried to go through the kitchen.
We had packed as light as we could for a six-month van trip through the continent. The kids were allowed to bring a few toys along. I had a cabbage patch doll with brown hair made of yarn. Carmela had the bald one.
My parents liked to listen to Paul Harvey on the radio every day over breakfast, or lunch, or one of the meals anyway. This particular day my cabbage patch doll was cranky. I had put her in a doll crib while eating but she kept fussing through the whole meal. When I was finished, I picked her up and patted her back and bounced her, but she just kept crying.
"Amanda, please be quiet, we are trying to listen to the radio."
But daddy, it's not me, its the baby.
Bounce bounce, sniffle, sniffle, waaaaa!
"Amanda...."
Shhh baby, daddy is trying to listen to the radio.
Sniffle, sniffle....waaaaaa!
"Amanda, how many times do I have to ask you?"
Baby, shhh!
Waaaaa!
"Amanda! Shut up!"
I almost dropped the baby in shock. Daddy had told me to shut up. That was a bad word. If we knew anything, it was not to say bad words to each other and "shut up" was one of the worst cause mom said it was rude, there were nicer ways to ask someone to be quiet. And daddy had said it and he never said any bad words except for shit but that was ok cause mom said he grew up in Canada on a farm, though we couldn't use it...
I ran out of the barn, into the farmyard, and hid behind one of the silo's. I cried and felt sorry for myself. It wasn't my fault, I was just playing with my doll. That's what babies do, they cry! Daddy had been so mean!
It felt like I had been there for a long time, though it was probably only a matter of minutes or however long it took my dad to find me. He appeared around the side of the silo and sat next to me. I looked away and sniffled, wanting to be angry but mostly I was just hurt. Then he said "I am sorry. Will you forgive me?" That was the first time I distinctly remember him apologizing, and to me. I don't remember what I said, but I am pretty sure I forgave him on the spot.

Who says the west is free?

"Singapore is a fine city;" I was told often. "A fine for smoking, a fine for chewing gum, a fine for this, a fine for that..." A typical complaint by a Singaporean who had apparently never been to a country lacking in clean streets and fresh air. They do not realize that those very constraints on their freedom provide the space to live more freely.

In Singapore I was free to walk through the streets without staring at the ground to avoid pieces of gum scattered literally everywhere that had melted in the sun and would create a nasty mess if stepped in; to walk out my front door without having to step over a gigantic pile of dog-poo that some asshole had not even thought about picking up. I could walk around at night, alone, without constantly looking around me and making sure I had my cellphone and house keys ready for just-in-case. I could get in the train without being assaulted with the smell of some passenger's onion-and-mayo french-fries or the occasional teenager who likes to see if he can get away with smoking in the back of the tram.

Singaporeans take for granted the freedom they have to go about their day without being bothered by these and other albeit small but very annoying factors because there are not only rules imposed on them, but people follow them (most of the time) even if simply to avoid a hefty fine.

Yes, a fine city indeed.

Neighbors

From our apartment, I can see two pigeon coops. One is across the street on the rooftop of another place identical but mirror image to ours. Once in a while a boy in a man's body stands on the rooftop calling to his birds, cooing and whooping to wake the world. The other is behind us, two houses down where occasionally I spot a chubby guy with a big smile standing quietly, watching and petting his little friends.
In our neighborhood there are alot of fat pigeons. They have full feet, no missing parts. Clean feathers. Fluffy faces. Sometimes, when they've enjoyed their roost for a while and are ready to set to flight, they lift off, then drop a foot or two, then fly off fluttering and weaving about under the strain of carrying their heavy chests through the air before plopping down again to rest and poop on someone else's railing.

Diagnosis: Temporary Adult-form ADD

I just read through a full article on the mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system...and don't know what I just read. Ever do that? Your eyes read the words, follow through the entire 10-20 pages, but none of it actually registers in your brain and at the end you don't even remember reading that last page with the weird graphs and have no idea how the article reaches the conclusions about bilingual language control that it does...? Egh. I am so not back in student mode. My mind keeps wandering.

"This system involved a process termed contention scheduling in which schemas..."

... I gotta remember to buy garbage bags. Hmm, should I use a green theme or a blue theme for my next painting? Oh, I should remember to call my old lady tonight to tell her I am back in the country...

"Simulations of contention scheduling system..."

... Where did I leave the user-guide for our phone that doesn't work? Hmm, the bathroom could use a good scrub-down...it's the only room I haven't fully cleaned yet since I got back.

Oh, right... "...evidence for the role of frontal lobes in regulating language tasks in unilingual speakers..."

...Did I email about that internship position yet? No, crap, I should do that yet... "And in conclusion, the IC model shares commonalities with existing proposals....".

Egh. I could use some coffee.

Byebyebaby

I am half-packed, just waiting for the rest of my laundry to dry. Tomorrow night I fly back to NL, without Luuk. You'd think that I'd be used to this idea, but I'm not liking it too much. At least it's only six weeks and not six months...

Nice Singapore.

The staff in our hotel building are some of the nicest people in this country. I am sure that is part of their training and whatnot. But they are really good at it. We never pass in the hallway without a "good day, ma'am". Walking into the dining area we are always greeted with cheerful smile and a bright "good morning!". Our cleaning lady always apologizes for cleaning the room when I am around and thanks me when she is finished. The other day, we walked out of the elevator into the lobby and were met with a chorus of "good evening!"; five smiling faces beamed at us from behind the desk where I assume they were waiting for the evening shift change.
I am never quite sure how to treat our friendly cleaners and cooks and receptionists. Their every move speaks of servitude. Even the way they take our money and return our change when we pay for something at the desk is one of respect, using both hands to hold the money by two corners. I fear being perceived as an arrogant colonial, so I smile back and thank them and probably over-do my display of gratitude for whatever it was that they just did for me. Yet since arriving here two months ago, I have become quite lazy with picking up after ourselves and doing the dishes...that is, afterall, what they are paid to do, right?
I wonder sometimes how we look through their eyes. Growing up with a negative response to the word "servant", usually equating it with something akin to "slave", I have a hard time imagining that working with a continual attitude of servitude would be satisfying or pleasant. To me it would seem so demeaning and I would find myself resenting the lazy foreigners who can't even do their dishes even when they have nothing better to do with their time...
But this place is different. It is not only the staff in this building that bear this attitude; everywhere we go we are met with a pleasant smile and an eager offer to help, by business men and street cleaners alike. Once, I asked someone for directions to a place where I was meeting some friends, and after being offered directions from several different people closeby, I was finally brought to the place I was looking for.
Perhaps a shift in perception is due on my part. I could learn much from these people.

(almost) discovered

A few weeks ago a girl walked up to me and asked if I would like to model for some pictures for her portfolio. She gave me the address, in a big busy mall, and I figured, "what the hey, I have nothing better to do" and made an appointment. I worried about it all weekend, what kind of agency, would it be safe, should I go...?...but decided that this being Singapore, and the office being in a mall, the likelihood of that sort of thing happening was pretty minimal, so I should just go to the place and check it out. Then the day of the appointment I completely forgot about it. Yes, forgot. Cause I am such a busy woman these days. Have so much going on in my day to distract me...

Anyway, I remembered two days later.

Today I got a call from someone I presume to be the same girl, saying that I had been recommended for some tv commercial and a magazine of some sort. She asked if I would be willing to come by on Thursday for an interview... "No, sorry, " I said, "I am leaving for Bali for a few days and when I come back I will only be here for two days before I leave again for home. So it won't work out." Undeterred, she asked if I could come by tomorrow instead. "But what would be the point?" To figure out if there are any projects I can do. "But I won't be here to do them...so what's the point?" Well, would you just be willing to come by and talk about it? I finally convinced her that I would not be here to do anything agreed upon in any interview, thanked her, and hung up.

Seriously.

Well, there goes my modeling career!

Thoughts of a hopeless romantic.

Dane wrote a blog recently about love. I have lots of time to think about things. So I kept thinking about it. And here are some rambling thoughts...

That God uses marriage as an example/portrayal of our relationship to Him, has always fascinated me. Obviously, given the state of marriages today, this is not a perfect example... or actually, maybe it still is, though in some cases more of a "how not to..." sort of way.
Think of any marriage that ever impressed or amazed you. Most marriages are admirable, given the effort that sometimes must go into it. But I have seen only a handful (and I can proudly say that my parents' is one of them), that created in me complete admiration and the desire to have 'that' some day. The kind where more than just the cliches were alive, but where something like unquestioning acceptance, loyalty, servitude were all combined to create something that suddenly made all those Bible passages about love make sense. It is those marriages that create the desire to have that special kind of relationship with God that is reflected therein.
Obviously, it's different...I mean, God and I can't hold hands or cuddle or say sweet cheesy things to each other. But that's not even the stuff that impresses me about these marriages; these are only superficial evidence of a deeper underlying power that exists in their relationship. To think that that kind of love can exist between God and His bride the church, is, to me anyway, astounding. This picture of what relationship with God might be like is so different from the 'judging grandfather watching from above' picture that I struggle with so often, or even from the 'loving Father teaching His growing children' picture that I once in a while can handle.
Why we don't hear more sermons on this kind of love, I don't know. Maybe we can't understand it for lack of suitable examples so it's best not to touch on the subject. (Or maybe we get too caught up on roles and who is supposed to do what... Funny thing is, those particular marriages that I admired so much, seemed to work with little regard to those oh-so-important roles. Perhaps they naturally fit into their roles so well I didn't see it, but I think the reason the roles didn't seem to be important was because both parties were too interested in serving the other to care about who was doing his/her part.) It was those marriages and Biblical use of the analogy that began to form my ideal for marriage. I began to see marriage not just as a way to hook up/have kids/find yourself a life partner to make the treck more bearable, but as a way to broaden our understanding of love and of God. As if God actually created the concept of marriage, if at least in part, for that very purpose.
When Luuk and I were planning the wedding, we had to answer some questions for the civil ceremony. As we filled out the answers, we became more aware that we both wanted more than just a happy marriage that lasts. We wanted ours to be a marriage in which others could catch even just a glimpse of the sort of love that can exist between God and His people. I suppose that sort of relationship is one that takes a long time to develop. Somehow the best marriages are those that form a threesome (pardon the lack of a better term) with God.
We are still learning, still working on that(though I like to think we have a good start), yet even in this beginning, growing stage, I have found that my approach to God has changed. The way I see Him is different and the relationship that I desire to have with Him is different, better I think. This will sound incredibly cheesy, I know, but loving Luuk as much and in the way that I do now has made me aware a kind of a love that I did not know existed; I want to love God like that, but more. Because those marriages and because of my own short experience with marriage, I am aware of a different side of God. Does that make sense? I like to think that this was part of the purpose of marriage in the first place... But maye I am just a hopeless romantic.

Recap: the rest of our 'Nam trip

After a visit to the Cu Chi tunnels (where the Vietcon guerillas lived and fought during the war, which in the end was a great factor in defeating the Americans) and the War Remnant Museum (which made me glad to be in Vietnam on my Canadian passport), we escaped the dirt, smog, and traffic of Saigon and took a night train to the quieter, cleaner beachtown of Nah Trang.

Highlights included a trip on a bike-cart (picture a short, skinny, Vietnamese dude huffing us big Westerners up and down the hills of the town, though don't feel too bad, he was paid well by both us and the owner of the sea-food restaurant he took us to); a giant Buddha statue at a monestary (where we were guilted into buying some postcards from some monks-in-training and where we found a group of young boys of various ages who were well-experienced in begging and one of whom carried an expensive looking camera I am sure he did not get for his birthday, and where I was felt up by a 2-foot-tall four-year-old who was, it seems, being instructed by an older boy to either find hidden pockets or search for something little four-year-olds shouldn't even know about...); and a group of Hindu temples from the 7th century, darkened on the inside from hundreds of years of inscence and prayers.

The most interesting experience was the boat tour, the highlight of which was our crazy guide who kept making and laughing at his own jokes that no one understood; at one point he pulled out a styrofoam slab, on which was stuck a plastic basket with several bottels of what he, to the amusement of some and the shock of others, repeatedly called "fucking-mingen-Vietnam wine", which we all figured out really means "really really bad wine". This was our floating bar, around which we floated in our tubes, wine in hand.

Our next stop was Da Lat, a city in the mountains. This place has a bit of a French Alp resort feel to it, only tropical and littered with garbage. Apparently Vietnam royalty used to spend vacations there, and we can understand why. The mountains are beautiful and the temperatures are much more bearable. We took a tour with the Easy Riders (dudes on motorcycles); we each sat on the back of a bike and followed out guides through the mountains to surrounding villages where we saw how silk is taken from the cocoons and turned into the thread and then into cloth; then how "happy water" is made from fermented rice (it is some of the nastiest drink I have ever tried), and how mushrooms are grown out of fermented tapioca and sweet potatoes ("same same, but different", as they say). And of course we took many pictures of the layered farms where families grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables sold in the rest of the country. The day we left Da Lat we took golfing lessons at the incredible golf course on top of a hill, the view being green and mountains; then we flew back to Saigon in a propeller airplane.

Our final adventure was a tour through the Mekong Delta, the highlights of which included the boat ride through a palm tree and bamboo sided canal and the Jewish Israeli guy with a somewhat French accent we met whose greatest joy on this trip was not the food, culture, or scenery, but rather bargaining.

The strongest impression of the whole trip was how similar Vietnam was to Central America and Mexico. Different food, different language, but similar colours, buildings, people, professions/methods of survival, fruit, dirt, treatment of environment, poverty/wealth dichotomy, friendliness. Same same but different, I guess.

(Hmm...I was going to post some pictures but can't find our adapter...That's not good.)

P.S.: Interesting food we tried while in Nam included frog legs, crocodile, pigeon, and snails. Luuk will have to remind me if I missed any interesting ones...

Saigon Dance

The most notable characteristic of Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh) is the way traffic works despite the craziness of obviously untrained drivers and millions (literally, millions) of motorcycles and cars and taxis on the roads that also happen to be filled with pedestrians crossing anywhere and anytime, the occasional suicidal biker, and once in a while a short guy pushing a cart filled to ridiculous heights with some thing or other. There is really no way to describe the experience of maneuvering through this strangely coordinated chaos in a way that can draw a comparable picture. Traffic lights are no meaningless, just slightly ignored; right of way is not a matter of traffic rules, but size; lanes are suggested, not necessarily respected; and pedestrian crossings might as well be non-existant. How we survived our few brave attempts to cross the streets of this smoggy city is beyond me. We simply started crossing and hoped we would be avoided by the wave of motors and lights heading to and around us. Somehow, they always saw us and always missed us. Occasionaly we witnessed a slight fenderbender, but most of the time this dance (which is really the best way to describe it) went on uninterrupted and accompanied with the tune of millions of horns warning other drivers of their presence.

On a side note, Vietnam seems to be filled with extremely talented artists and painters waiting to be discovered by the world. I find myself continuously drooling at gallery and shop windows, wishing that we were not here with just a backpack and seriously considering daring to take the galleries up on their offer to ship for us, at "a special price, good for you, good for me".

so not a morning person...

The breakfast room can get very busy and noisy. I really do not like kids in the morning, especially loud, whiny, expressive ones. Some days I can tune them out; most of the time I amuse Luuk with my grumbling.

Once he leaves for work, I fill my cup with a second helping of coffee and sit outside where I hope to find some quiet amid the thousands of airconditioners hanging out of the surrounding buildings, honking horns on the street below, and the crows that dare to sit on the chair across from me and caw expectantly.

I always thought crows were the mean birds of the city, but the pigeons actually stole more from the crows than the other way around. Funny.

I saw a black pigeon with one single random long white feather in his wing... I wonder if random feathers on birds are like moles or freckles on people. Or spots on dogs.

And why do city pigeons seem to always have messed up feet? Ten points to the best answer.

Real rain.

There must be something basic or elemental to the pleasure taken in listening to rain fall. It's like staring at a bonfire. I could do that for hours and my best sleeps have been to the sound of rain and thunder. Soothing. Therapeutic. Fantasical, in a way.
Watching tropical rainfall from the 13th floor out our window over our pigeon-poo-covered patio is just plain lovely. If the pool weren't on the 9th floor or if there weren't thunder and lightning, I would be swimming in the rain right now.
This is one of the things about the tropics that I enjoy the most. Warm temperatures and heavy straight-falling rain. This is what I miss when I am in Holland, the land of fizzy rain and feel-it-in-your-bones cold.
Sigh. I love this kind of rain.

Take a walk down memory lane...

Last night, Luuk went to bed early cause he wasn't feel well, so I looked for ways to quietly entertain myself in our little hotel room. I started reading my old blogs. I began with the first I ever wrote, continued on through goodbyes to Dordt, the big move to Holland, my oh-so-long year as an aupair, driving lessons, university struggles, wedding plans, homesickness, frustrations, questions about God, and finally up to the beginning of this past year where the memories were still fresh enough to less interesting to read through. The experience was... well, I can't say cathartic or therapeutic cause that would assume I still had some pent up emotions, tensions, or issues to work through from the past three years... but it was something akin to that. As I read, I could remember so many details that I had forgotten. I could picture the very situation, dream, or feeling that had created the necessity to write it in the first place. I relived so many struggles and small triumphs in a matter of minutes before I moved on to the next entry. I realized just how much this blog has been my therapy. It keeps me sane.
And I read through every comment left by fellow blogger friends. Wow do I miss some people right now. The feeling of nostalgia accompanied me through the whole session and didn't leave even after I finally went to bed.
I have a private journal where I write all the thoughts and feelings that I dare not share with the world. It's the kind of journal that is mostly dark and depressing and doesn't really remember the details of my life, only the worst parts of it with only occasional relief. It's not the sort of book I would like to reread through. So I am very glad today that I have kept this blog. This has become the sort of journal I can reread later when I am old, forgetful, and have grandchildren to shock with stories of my youth.

So, yeah, just thought I'd share that with y'all.

The modern child.

This morning at our buffet-breakfast included in the room deal here at our serviced-apartment building, I filled my bowl with papaya and watermelon. A full cup of some incredible coffee, of which origins I have yet to discover, in one hand and a piece of toast in the other, I enjoyed a quiet wake up to the day. The tv shared a news piece on the detrimental effects of high-heels, in the background. Fellow residents from different countries and cultures chewed quietly at various tables spread strategically through the room. A mother and her approx. 2yr old child walked into the room and I groaned. I dislike children in the morning. They are loud, whiny, and annoying, too early in the day. But this one seemed quiet enough, so I smiled at him and went back to sipping my coffee. He noticed the tv on the wall. Tugging at his mother's sleeve and pointing at the tv, he asked, "Obama?"

Kusu

This past weekend Luuk and I took a boat, fashioned like what I would imagine an old Chinese sail boat for royalty used to look like, to a tiny island of Kusu. It is small. I know people who's yards are bigger than this island (no, not in the Netherlands).

Anyway, story goes that years ago some fishermen were caught in a storm and would have died were it not for their rescue by two giant turtles. These men built a shrine on the island where the turtles brought them and today this island contains a Buddhist temple (where a family lives and spends their days watching tv next to shrines, candles, and fat smiling Buddha statues) and a strange haphazard semi-open completely yellow 'building' of sorts on top of what looks like one giant rock. People come to the island to climb the 152 steps up to this yellow place to ask the gods or ancestors or turtles to give prosperity, luck, and/or children. It's especially good luck for a newly married couple to climb the stairs, pay a few dollars, and ring the bell.

The island also contains a turtle sanctuary with seriously a good hundred or so turtles of all sizes. They are not afraid of people. In fact, they scramble straight to you in hopes of being given some of that nasty looking red crap we were handed to share with the turtles. Some of those turtles have some pretty freaky looking mouths. But they are still cute. Especially their little bums, with their fat legs sticking out of their shells and that cute little tail... (Teehee!). If they were more interesting, maybe I'd adopt one.

The website describing the island claimed that people loved to come here to swim in the beautiful lagoons. When I think lagoon, I think lush tropical trees on either side, backed by cliffs and waterfalls, with clear blue fresh water in the middle with perhaps a shiny fish or two... Well, it wasn't exactly that...but good enough. Sunshine, palm-trees, sand, water...what more could we want? And all this with almost no one in sight. We bought lunch from the family at the temple and spent the day reading next to one of the lagoons facing the Singapore sky-scrapers across the water. That's hard to top.

But we are gonna try: 28 Feb, we are on our way to Vietnam!

Interesting...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7871783.stm

What does one do to deserve coming back as a lizard?

I made a friend at the Chinese gardens yesterday. A black lizard 3ft long appeared repeatedly in front of me during my walk through the bonsai section. He flicked his tongue a couple times and staring at me, crawled carefully to his next hiding spot. I didn't know lizards could swim. Now I do.

Day before last, I checked out the trippy Haw Par Villa, where I was informed that there are ten courts of death for those who lived bad lives. Different sins require different penalties. Robbers get the volcanic pit; gamblers are turned into blocks of ice; ungrateful bastards get their hearts cut out; and gossips get their tongues removed. After all this, the punished sinners are sent to an old lady who gives them tea that causes forgetfullness so that they can go on into their next reincarnate lives in whatever form they deserve without remembering their punishments. Ah, yes, that'll teach them.

The day before that, I visited the Sultan mosque, where I was given a scarf to cover my shoulders and received a tour and story of the mosque from a friendly teenage boy. I found out that little boys blush when you shake their hands in a mosque. Or maybe it was just that boy.

Today I go in search of Holland Village. That ought to be interesting.

Update for the interested.

Events of the past few days:
-Friday: I wandered into a market, a very modern and beautiful Buddhist monastary, a colorful Hindu temple, and a run-down, quaint Malaysian Village where I met a very friendly man who sold me a Coca-cola and told me about living in Singapore and then introduced me to a goofy old guard with a heavy accent who gave me a personal tour of the old village with some detours to show me off to his friends.
- Saturday: Golfing with Luuk at 11am (the hottest time of the day). Then Chinatown with a Singaporean girl from church and an American business man from out building. We took pictures, tried strange fruits and candies, visited another temple, then finished the night off with dim sum surrounded by the ever growing crowds of people. Back at the apartment, we started "Band of Brothers" and got hooked.
- Sunday: Went to the middle of the island where there is a tropical forest reserve to be found. Five minutes walk into the forest and the surrounding city was forgotten. We walked a total of 10km; crossed a bridge swinging over the jungle canopy; took pictures of the tree tops with city towers in the background; met some monkeys who were kind enough to pose for us long enough to take many pictures of them picking each other's butts and swinging from branches; then fed some turtles in the pond before coming across a sign with a picture of a hand dropping food to the turtles with a big red X over it...oops. Dinner was followed by more "Band of Brothers". It's addictive.
- Monday: Started the day with "Band of Brothers", felt sick after lunch, postponed a trip to the famous Singapore zoo. Felt better after more "Brothers". Golfing at 3 when the sun was a bit lower (we learned our lesson), then a walk through the Botanical gardens followed by a yummy Indian dinner...
- This morning: woke up at 6am with intense sharp abdominal pain, followed by some digestive...issues. Luuk woke up a bit later with similar complaints. Yay for yummy Indian food...
- The rest of today: Options limited. Everything is closed for New Year's... cept for the zoo. "Brothers" is done, even the extras. And we don't want to go too far without our new best friend, Mr. Toilet. That leaves...swimming pool?

Cosmopolitan

This is one big shopping mall. I have yet to find a building that does not have some sort of shopping centre in it or around it. Not good for my habits of self-control. And dangerous to Luuk's wallet...
It's also one big fashion show. Not good for my self-satisfaction. Suddenly everything about myself, how I dress, etc., that I had no problem with before is continually more and more flawed in comparison with them. These petite, skinny, beautiful Asian women who would look cute in anything but of course they have to make it worse for us big, tall, fat, ogres from the west by dressing in the most feminine, attractive, fashionable clothing out there. Jeans are for losers or lazy Americans. Bring out the dresses, skirts, flowing, colorful, and beautiful. While we are at it, we will make it difficult for you non-Asian women by making every dress 4inches too short. And size L...we've never heard of it.
How these people afford it, I don't know. You pay big bucks to look so hot. Nothing is cheap in this place. Maybe at one of the little market stands I might find something costing less than back in Europe, like the hand carved chess set with only three knights we got the other day, but the necessities like food, shampoo and alcohol will suck your bank account dry. But then, why buy in when you can eat out for 2bucks a meal?
This place... Hip, modern, beautiful and nothing I expected. It's so easy to get lost.

Little India.

Little India, a section in the northern part of the city, is like a village from another world that somehow got lost in the modern Singapore that surrounds it. Streets are wide enough for a row of tightly parked cars and trucks, leaving enough space for one way traffic to flow at ridiculous speeds, somehow avoiding the criss-crossing pedestrians. Sidewalks exist somewhere under the restaurants and stores that spill out of their front doors. Flowers and pottery and bangels and little statues of a fat buddha sitting next to multi-limbed hindu goddesses and fruit and scarves, all for sale at special new-year prices. How much does this cost?, "Ah, that is 120, but I will give you a good price, let's talk. You like it?"

Past the market, down the street, an old mosque, more beautiful than any I have seen in Europe. Leaving shoes at the door, I ask for a robe to cover my bare arms but am told my a smiling lady that I am dressed "ok". There is no one around and the room decorated in intricate green and gold carvings and arches is peaceful and cool. I feel the urge to pray but not knowing how well that would go over from another god's temple, choose instead to wander quietly and take pictures, hoping Allah won't mind my irreverance too much. A few blocks down, a tall, simple, inspiring Methodist church. Then a colourful, aging building once belonging to a mission, now a women's centre. A man smiles at me from his truck where he sits in the heat, waiting for something or someone. Men here are friendly and polite, not yet once making me uncomfortable with their attention.
Later I find a hindu temple, covered in stories told by minature statues. Flower garlands drape the necks of gods and goddesses, men and women bow and cry and murmur in front of them, blessing, thanking, begging for good things to come. An old woman sits in front of an eight-armed goddess, moaning and wailing, eyes wide, crossed and wandering, her arms shaking as she makes a motion of pulling water over herself. A hindu priest in a long white cloth wrapped around his waist, his dark hair in a tight bun on top of his head, a red dot on his forhead, his bare chest spotted with white and red paint, accepts gifts from devotees and drapes them around the neck of the goddess of fertility. The temple is beautiful and sad, I leave with a strange feeling of dissatisfaction, the smell of inscense following me for another block.
The sun is higher and hotter now, my feet start to hurt as I approach a buddhist temple. Next door is another, and across the street yet another. I briefly think of Sioux Center and smile at the similarity. This temple is tall, to fit the cartoonish 15m version of a cross-legged, sitting Buddha dressed in bright yellow. At his feet, rows of candy, creams, milk, flowers and other gifts. A stern looking woman sits behind a sort of desk, playing with a cellphone and not-so-subtlely watching my every move. Next door, "the temple of a thousands lights", a room full of statues and flourescent bulbs of all sizes. No pictures allowed. Across the street, another temple, this one speaking of centuries of use, built out of dark wood covered in carvings and gold symbols. Gold buddhas in different forms sit under glass cases, oil lamps burn on stands in front of them From the ceiling hang chinese lanterns, to the side a large wooden buddha, fat and happy with big droopy earlobes. The roof is covered with hundreds of clay dragons.

My feet hurt and the skin on my arms starts to itch, indicating a deep burn from hours of walking in the sun. I head back to our apartment where smiling workers dressed in smart suits greet me. The pool beckons, where I soak in more sunshine, this time with sunscreen on my nose, and stare at the tall buildings surrounding the pool deck on every side, my blue pool towel the only bright color to be seen.

Ranting.

I watched alot of in-flight movies the past month. Some were quite good; others I would say that I wasted my time on but as they really just served the purpose of helping me pass the time on 8+hr flights, I guess I can't really say that. But they annoyed me so much that I am going to vent on you lovely folks.

Mamma Mia!: Absolutely ridiculous movie. Potentially amusing plot, lost in Abba songs that didn't quite fit the story line. Who makes a movie based on Abba songs anyway? A warning before I started watching would have been good. I never listened to them before; now I hate them. And the ending! Pff. As I am sure none of you will be watching it, being probably better informed than I was, I can spoil the twist... The girl finally figures out that she is ok not knowing who her dad is, is happy having three new men in her life who are equally as happy to accept her as daughter and spoil her as such (go figure), and then decides that she doesn't actually want to marry the guy she was going to marry and tells him at the altar that they should hold off for a while and travel the world together first. As if they couldn't enjoy traveling together married. What is with people and thinking that you need to experience life and the world before getting married, as if after that point you can no long experience anything worth while? As if it somehow magically changes the wonderful, happy relationship you had before you married into something less wonderful and happy? Marriage is a dead end; no wonder half of married people want out.

The Women: Meg Ryan's great come back. Usually I'm ok with, even enjoy, this sort of cheesy, girls-porn chick-flicks in which after a period of uncertainy (i hate him, i love him, is it really him, why won't he call?), the girl eventually gets the guy, he fufills her every dream, totally (and very realistically) reading her very mind and of course changing from the frumpy, disgusting, frustrating man to the perfect prince that she always wanted because he finally realizes how much he loves her, can't live without her, etc., and all live happily ever after. In this movie, starring only women (the men are mentioned but never seen, even though their existance controls every aspect of their lives), her husband is found to be cheating on her with some slutty hot easy-to-hate dumbo who is obviously inferior to her in all aspects except the attention she eagerly bestows on the said man (who of course happens to be rich and goodlooking). In the end, Meggy leaves her man, finds her self, and in the midst of it all suddenly becomes attractive to her husband again who wants her back (though of course he doesn't actually dump the slut till Meg says ok to a second try...bastard). So the moral of the story is: if your husband cheats on you, it's your own fault for not paying enough attention to him and allowing yourself to become dependent, predicatable, busy, and uninteresting. To get him back simply 'find yourself' (whatever the hell that means), create your own life that does not include him, become independent, throw your insecurities and, if possible, a bit of that old fashioned modesty into the wind, and then he will suddenly find you as interesting as the slut he's banging and all will be made well. In other words, change everything about yourself and show him you won't need him and he will want you back....and you will live happily ever after. Of course, men are just like babies and wives their abandoned toy.

Ahh.
I feel better.

Back to sunshine and 28*C weather. Today I am going to find some Buddhist temples and an Indian market. Lovely.

I'm sitting in the family van, on the way home after a game of putt-putt. I feel a light tap on my shoulder but ignore it. A few seconds later, another tap. I see in the rear-view mirror that Kayla is giggling to herself. She slowly reaches forward, unaware that I can see her. Her hand almost touches my shoulder and I quickly reach around and grab it. Ha! Gotcha!
"How'd you know my hand was there?"
I have an eye in the back of my head. Didn't you know?
"No way. You don't have an eye in the back of your head." Her voice pitches a little higher than usual, a hint of doubt.
Yes, I do. Every one starts growing one when they get married so by the time they have kids, they can always see what is going on behind them.
"Nuh-uh."
Yes, it's true. Ask dad.
"Dad, is it true?"
(Stiffled snicker...), Yep... (Hehe!)
"Nuh-uh. He's lying."
Well, just ask mom when you get home. You'll see.
"Nuh-uh. It's not true."
It is. Just wait till you get married, then you will get one.
"No, as soon as we get home, I am looking it up on the internet!"

Quickie

Lucy is drinking the last bits of my coffee out of my cup. I was thinking of getting seconds... A new cup might be a good idea.

Something that made me happy this week: finding out that there is a place in town where I can buy clove cigarettes! I haven't had one of those in over two years. I am so excited!

Another thing that made me happy this week: yarn. I took up crocheting again, just for a bit, to make a scarf for my old lady. She keeps commenting on all my big, fuzzy scarves, so I decided to make one for her. I had forgotten how therapeutic crocheting can be.

I have two weeks left of this semester. Before we leave for Texas I have to: research the Challenger accident, prepare my part of a one hour presentation, study for Cognitive Aging final exam, catch up on all the Cog.Aging reading (meh), get and finish the take-home exam for Human Error, pack for two trips (TX; Singapore), arrange someone to take care of my plants, stock up on Lucy's basics and take her to friends, work out details for when/how/with whom to do my masters thesis, find out of I am getting that internship at Vopac while in Singapore... and yeah, that's about it... Oh, and before Saturday I have to write a poem in Dutch about my father-in-law for Sinterklaas.

Oh, and a third thing that made me happy this past week: we put up our Christmas tree! And I love it, in all its gaudy glory!

and they will remember me for my amazing achievements reached with such incredibly little effort...

are psychologists allowed to self-diagnose? i think i am exhibiting some symptoms of SAD or winter depression or whatever you want to call it. i sleep alot, but not well, am always tired, feel very unmotivated, can't concentrate, hate going outdoors, and just want to curl up under a warm blanket all day. or maybe its cause i don't exercise enough, don't make myself keep a regular sleep schedule, and it's just plain cold in our house... hmm.

so, this masters program is (deceivingly?) easy. i will take a total of 6courses by the time i am done. i go to class max. 4 times a week. i have one big assignment for each class and only have one test, so far. what am i really learning, anyway? i am afraid i will leave this program feeling as incompetent and unskilled as i did before i started. shit. or maybe i know more than i realize i know and will be the brilliant psychologist who comes up with some world-saving theory or system that beats them all. yes, yes. that's me. the unmotivated, lazy, student who can't even bother herself to use capital letters when writing her blog, with dormant genius, just waiting for the right moment to show it's potential.

'tis the season to pull pranks...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/black_country/7704603.stm

"i'm all aloooone in the world... there's no one here besiiii-hiiide meeee-hee!"

i hate it when people go and get one of those things for their blog where you can only read it if you are invited.
and of course they don't invite me.
bastards.

luuk is gone for 10 days... 2 down, 8 more to go. i slept like a baby last night; 8hrs straight. if you know me, you know that is a feat worth celebrating. but i hate being alone in this house. its creaky and spooky when alone. and there are spiders, which i now have to kill on my own instead of calling my brave husband to do it for me. and when i am alone, i get lazy with cooking, so i start eating like crap which means either i get fat or i get under-nourished, depending on the mood of the week.

a once close friend who i lost touch with for the past four years found me on facebook yesterday. it's really quite cool to hear people's stories after you have been out of touch for a while. this guy, i though would spend his life in the same town he grew up with, married to someone he had known all his life, and send his kids to the same school and church and die only three blocks away from his childhood home. but now he is an engineer now for some nascar team in a completely different state. traveling the country. granted, he is marrying a girl from hometown...but he's taking her with him.
funny how things work.
i like facebook.

we bought a basil plant a few weeks ago. it started dying so i thought i was watering it too much so i stopped watering it as often and then it really started to die and i found out from an italian friend (of course she would know) that it needs to be soaked in water all the time and so i really soaked it and now its alive again... anyway,so this basil plant also came with a steady flow of fruit flies. they are everywhere. i thought i woulda killed them all by now but they keep appearing. and they are little bitches to kill too, cause they are small and they fly really erratically (wow that can't be how you spell that), so i end up swatting at the air most of the time. fuckers.

my cold is finally starting to wind down. i spent last week on the couch drinking tea and blowing snot all day. now i just sound like a dying smoker hacking her lungs out. this is slightly less annoying and disgusting. and my head doesn't feel 10lbs heavier. yay.

on that note, y'all have a good day. cheers!

d'oh!

my ballot application came back in the mail with no explanation. so i sent it again. but now i think it really is too late. crap.

Don't forget to vote.

I filled out my absentee ballot today. I think I might be late. Why doesn't Iowa have an online option for procrastinators?

Frankly, I am so sick of this year's political mess that I really don't even feel like voting. Maybe I subconsciously delayed my application for absentee voting so I would have an excuse not to vote. I am an irresponsible citizen. But seriously, what a circus. When did American elections get so crazy? Do candidates/parties in other countries spend billions on making a big show of self-proclamation and the defamation of the opposition? It makes me nauseous. I was actually excited to see Obama as a candidate. That excitement has turned hard and dark, like something cooked too long and too hot. The only thing motivating me at the moment to vote is the slight possibility of Palin becoming President. What an embarrassing disaster that would be.

If it's not too late, I will do my duty. And then, I hope never to hear the words "maverick", "change", "Obamarama", or "McLame" ever again. And if people even start thinking about the elections again before Jan 2012, I will sew little Canadian flags to all my bags and jackets and start saying "eh?" in every other sentence.

Vitalizee

yesterday, i had my first experience at a european spa.

a friend of mine is getting married and needed a de-stressor; three of us spent the afternoon together in much more intimate circumstances than i am used to spending with friends.

we feel much closer now.

i have never seen so many naked people in one place.

i have never been naked in front of so many people at once.

after about 5 min, i got used to it. no one is really looking any way.

4 hrs of steam rooms, saunas, herbal baths, whirlpools and salt scrubs: pure relaxation.

next time i am going to book a massage.

pre-quarter-life crisis

today as i sat in my 9am class for which i had pushed myself out of bed at 7:30am and forced my breakfast and coffee down my throat and rushed to the tram stop to get into the overfilled, sweaty, smelly tram, so i could again rush to the train where i could sit next to van Morningbreath, i realized that i was not met with the reward that any subject that i have ever loved learning about has ever provided. i am forcing myself through this because i have to. because i chose this masters program over others. because this program would require less premasters courses. because i thought i could start last year. which i didn't. so now i am regretting my overenthusiasm and lack of patience. maybe i shoulda waited for something better.

the art of applying psychology... really, marketing psychology or selling psychology... so not my thing. and what about this applied data analysis class i am doing? again, not my thing.
what if human error and cognitive aging turn out to also not be my thing? the only two other courses left in my masters program are neuromodulation and some other one that i momentarily can't remember. is that what i really want to work in after i get that nice little paper entiteling me to a bigger salary?

what i am i doing in this program?

i don't even know what i would prefer to be doing. all i know is that i don't like this at the moment.

maybe it will get better. maybe cognitive aging will turn out to be the class that starts my amazing, fulfilling, lifelong career in...old people.

when i started studying psychology, i did it because i thought it was really interesting. few subjects interested me as much. but the prospect of applying all these interesting facts about how people work and think, and actually doing something with it all seems so unsatisfying. so maybe it's not this program. maybe it, whatever 'it' is, is me.

i must be tired...

i fell asleep on the couch after getting back from a morning of babysitting and workgroups. i woke up two hours later. now i feel medicated.

oh, the big question... what is the meaning of life?

started my masters program this week. immediately swamped with assignments and work. will be a busy year. thats good, i guess. i feel slightly lost though. this is very different than what i thought i would be doing when i first started studying psychology. the current class i am taking is somewhat more in the direction of business and sales. its called the art of applying psychology but really it should be called the art of manipulating big companies into giving you their money. (the exact words of our professor himself).

shit, i just realized that i forgot it was garbage day today. now our garbage will be sitting in a bag on our porch for another week. ugh.

anyway... so not sure yet if i should be disillusioned, excited, or remain undecided until my other classes start and i can get a fuller picture of what this master entails and what it might mean for future career possibilities. in any case, i am not heading to life of listening to other peoples problems and trying to fix their emotional issues. or at least, not one that pays for it.

i will have to wait and see, i guess.

the things that make me smile...

the day i look forward to most in a week is usually thursday, when i visit my old lady. weekends are an automatic trump though. weekends are great.

the highlight of my week so far was when i walked into the door at the house where i tutor spanish. the youngest, eva, immediately burst into a tears and wailing, knowing that my presence means that mommy is leaving for what must seem like forever to a kid. but then the oldest, gabriel, came running up to me while yelling Bye Mommy!, asked me for Huggy, which means pick him up, and then wrapped his little arms around me and stuck his sticky nose into my neck and said I love you Amanna!
they are starting to say some spanish words, too. finally. which is great, cause it means that i am not a total failure at this tutoring stuff and i dont have to feel guilty for the money i make on it.

the most interesting point of this week has been the end to a drawn out fight with a mouse. he made his appearance last week when we were in the living room and lucy was running around freely. you would think he would be smart enough to stay out of sight. anyway, we tore apart the living room trying to catch him and/or squish him with the broom, but to no avail. he even ran across the tops of three mouse traps we have put in front of the space he would come out of behind one of the book shelves... and on sunday when we had 8people over, he came out again, even running around on the window sill next to the heads of several of our guests (much to the displeasure of some of them who prefer to stay away from these sorts of creatures).
we finally decided to use the same strategy as before and keep the door to the living room closed so he couldnt get out and to offer him only one source of food. on the mouse trap. finally, after days of chasing the pesky, though cute, mouse and after several failed attempts to catch him and after surviving several personal encounters with the mouse traps that never managed to get the mouse but always managed to get my thumbs and fingers, last night while we were falling asleep luuk suddenly exclaimed "I heard the trap!" and lo and behold, this morning there was a dead little mouse waiting for disposal.

after dealing with my mixed feelings of guilt and relief, i decided to head out for my day of babysitting/tutoring. i opened the door and for some reason looked down. right there, next to the door was a dead mouse. it seems that he had met his demise in the corner of the door as it was closing. the shape of the corner was seriously imprinted into him and his whole body was squished flat and well, in an L shape.

i wasnt sure if i should laugh or throw up. i chose for the former and picked him up with a bag and threw him out. now he is stinking up our garbage can. good thing its garbage day today.

Back to business as usual.

Luuk and I spent two weeks on the island of Vlieland (north, above Friesland) with his parents at the family summer house. The island is like a giant park, complete with forest, dunes, and beach. And a tiny adorable town on one side and summer homes and camp grounds on the other. We read alot, swam occasionally (in the freezing north sea water), played alot of Rummikub and a game called Toup (or something like that), and biked into the wind from one side of the island to the other (I still havent recovered). Relaxing, quiet, calm, restful...perfect for a short vacation.

Meanwhile, a friend was taking care of Lucy for us. The day before we got her back, they found out she is allergic to bananas. I have tried to feed her banana before but she wasnt interested, so I did not have the pleasure of finding this out on my own. At some point after taking a taste of someones banana, she started making gargling noises and wretching and foaming at the mouth. After googling what to do with a wretching rat, it was decided that the best option was to take her to the vet. So four people rushed this poor rat to the animal emergency room where she was injected with steriods and sent home after her swollen throat started to go back to normal size and she could breath again. She is now fully recovered and back to digging holes in my flower pots.

Today Luuk started working in a new section of the bank, part of the training program where they use the trainees to fix their lack of employee problem, a result of bad management, instead of sending them to the sections that they were promised. A bit of a bummer. But I guess that is the real world. It will be interesting, anyway.

I am back to an empty house, being the good housewife, until the masters program starts in two weeks. In the meantime I will be finishing the book for my old lady and putting the finishing touches on a three party bachelorette night with some friends. The possibility of coffee with Inge Henderson somewhere in the next two weeks has also come up.

I will post again when my life is a bit more interesting.

Cheers.

favor

anyone in the sioux center area can/want to pick up luuks sister from minneapolis airport on aug. 19, around 6pm? you will be duly compensated. :)

she has been smoking all her life and just turned 81.

writing in the morning will prove to be a mistake. it is not my brightest time of day.



today i visit my old lady. i really dont know why i call her that. i could call her mrs. gemert (with that gutteral g). or tante sis, which is what every one else calls her. but somehow i like my old lady better. mrs. gemert is too formal; tante sis too informal (though she did say i could call her that). hmm...my old lady....its personalized by using my, but the old lady part...maybe thats too impersonal...

whatever. i like it. i am sticking with it. till i am comfortable enough to say tante sis.



she is sweet, my old lady is. sweet and very direct, which is an interesting combination. and she likes to tease, though i dont always catch it right away so her jokes are sometimes followed by a look of slight disappointment. usually though, they are followed by a good laugh, even bigger when i look at her with a dumb confused look on my face. jokes in another language are just so much harder to catch...

yesterday she called me to make sure i was still coming today. i told her i was still planning on it. and she said that was good, cause she really enjoyed our visits and didnt want to miss it. i almost cried.

the book i am writing for her is going to be very short. maybe i should look at it as a long essay. or a short story. so far, 16 pages. but its the content i am worried about. i am writing in dutch. and my literary dutch is at a very childish level yet. so the book sounds like it was written by a ten year old. at least it will be easy to understand, if they can get past my various grammatical and structural errors. in each sentence. yeah, i am gonna need luuk to edit for me.

i hope i live a long and happy life such as hers. it wasnt without heartache. but it was happy. i just dont like the idea of living longer than all my friends and loved ones. that seems depressing. luuk and i are going to travel alot when we are older, so the likelihood of us dying together in a plane crash is higher. thatd be a way to go. i dunno what would be better. to die in your sleep, unaware that you are going. or to die watching the earth rush up to you, knowing these are your last seconds. hmm.

thats too morbid for a morning.

anyway. so my old lady. she is a happy person. but i think she is lonely. i wish i could do more.

i think i will bring a pastry for the coffee today. it was her birthday last week. she might like that. i would get her flowers, but the guy who walks her dog gives her flowers every day and she sometimes gives them to me when she doesnt know what to do with them all. i think he is secretly in love with her. but she thinks she is too old for love.

this made me smile.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7513571.stm

(watch the video too).

cheer up, little one.

my life is so small. i was browsing around in the blog world and reading about the lives of friends and acquaintences who are off saving the world or at least talking about saving the world while i am barely even thinking about the world outside of my little life...and i just got kind of depressed. partly because on the one hand, so much that other people are doing seems so futile in countries where their efforts barely make a dent in the larger picture of poverty, injustice, etc. (though i am sure the lives they do affect are better off and appreciative), and partly because i feel only more useless, lazy, and ignorant than i did before. in fact, my biggest concern at the moment is this very fact, that i lead such a small life, how lame is that? of course, i keep telling myself it is only temporary. i am waiting for the next step and cant really do much until then. i feel kinda like i am in limbo. though, i shouldnt be too hard on myself. i can give myself credit for holding out till the end of the year with that daycare project. i didnt really feel like i was doing much there and sometimes it was just so hard to make myself go watch a bunch of two year olds run around the room playing or crying for mama. but today was the last day and the mothers seemed very grateful and seemed sorry to see me go. i got a bouquet of flowers and a coupon for a spa and a couple of sticky handshakes from the kids who still cant pronounce my name correctly (to one i am tarratata, whatever that means). and then there is the old lady project, which despite the fact that my dutch story writing is going very slowly, is proving to be a success because we both enjoy each others company and that is really the whole point of the project in the first place. and my little guatemalan spanish tutor kids are starting to repeat words in spanish sometimes, so i view that as a success. perhaps a small life is good, after all, with its little successes and tiny accomplishments and small circles of influence. perhaps i should accept that i will not be a saver of the world but just a...what do they call it? a cog in the whole machine of human civilization? whatever.
i will stop feeling sorry for myself.
and maybe next year i can put my efforts into saving the insane and troubled of this little country so i can pat myself on the back once in a while.

yesterday luuk and i dined with the hendersons. we get to have them on this side of the world for a year. they havent changed much, though all the kids are taller, sabine seems quieter, rose seems to talk more, roger seems more relaxed, and inge seems happy to be home. they found the perfect house for a philosopher to write and think in, and it seems like they will all be happy in their little nest surrounded by fields, canals, and sheep. it was good to see familiar friendly faces and catch up on lost time. we will be taking advantage of this year with them only 1.5hrs away, i am sure.

meh.

its amazing how quickly i become incredibly lazy when i have nothing to do or anywhere to be in particular. i turn into this big lethargic blob staring blankly at the computer or tv screen, allowing ridiculous amounts of empty and useless shit into my head instead of doing something useful, productive, or educational with my time. you would think that i would take advantage of the opportunity to finish that book that i have been working on for weeks. or maybe start some repair work on some of the old furniture. or that painting that i cant quite get to look right on the last corner of the canvas... the only interesting thing that i have done with my time lately is play with Lucy and attempt to teach her not to dig holes in my flower pots.

i am not tired.

you know what is one of the best feelings? waking up refreshed, feeling like that (almost) uninterrupted full night of sleep was useful. for once, i am not tired. and its great!

lovely way to start the day...

our friendly and unafraid little mouse has been making his appearance in our living room quite often throughout the week. we decided to keep the door to the kitchen closed so that he might starve and be forced to eat off of our traps... instead, he decided that the food in Lucys cage looked good enough to try to sneak out. no idea how he managed to fit through the cage bars, they are barely over a centimeter apart.
this morning i noticed that Lucy had made a big mess around her cage. wood chips everywhere. when i took a closer look, i saw a suspicious looking grey little blob in the middle of the cage. upon closer inspection, i realized that it was a mangled, bloody, and completely headless mouse.

yes.

our rat fixed our mouse problem.

close encounters of the worst kind

last night (or was it the night before last?), i had just sat down on the toilet and was in a very compromising position when suddenly a big grey mouse ran in under the door and did a couple circles around my feet while i sat there screaming and completely unable to run away or do anything about it. then he quickly scurried away and disappeared while i pulled my pants up and ran to the nearest chair from which i could yell at luuk to come to my rescue with the broom.

yesterday i bought four new mouse traps. and my new secret weapon: butter.

so far, no halfdead mouse stuck between wood and wires, though the trap did snap in the middle of the night and the butter was gone when i checked in the morning.

how the mighty do fall...

holland was defeated in an embarassing game with russia last night. they barely even put up a fight. ridiculous. humiliating. disappointing.

this weekend involved my last dispuut night (with the student union), babysitting for kids who have never been left home alone with a babysitter before, hung out with my sister in laws and watched anchorman, slept in, helped our pastor painted her new apartment with others from our biblestudy group, watched the the most torturous game ever, biked home through a dead quiet den haag, slept in again, and was half an hour late for church this morning. as much as luuks constant nagging to hurry up, we are gonna be late, what is taking so long..., annoys me, apparently i need it to actually be ready on time.

lucy, our rat, is learning to come to me when i say her name, and i taught her that eating my plants is naughty. she stops when i start yelling. :)

holland massacres france (after humiliating italy) in their second european championship game. den haag is going wild! and i am writing about rodents.

i have a pet rat.

and today i bought a mouse trap.

two actually...

i set the trap with a piece of potato. within minutes i heard the trap snap. no mouse. i reset it, and this time it did not snap, but when i checked on it again the potato was gone. the mouse got a free meal, the sneaky dirty little bastard. he has been leaving evidence of his presence all over my kitchen. i have to scrub my cutting boards and wash my dishtowels and am even considering buying a new agenda because of him! and now he got a freebee.

oh well. he came back for more.

i was in the middle of a movie (under the tuscan sun...probably better as a book. but great for a lazy night home alone when the only other movies on tv are horror flicks and you dont feel like going through your own collection), when i heard the trap snap again, though it was a bit more muffled than the last snap. when i peaked into the kitchen i saw a squirming mouse stuck in the trap. i let him sit there for a while till i built up the nerve to do something with him and well, until he finally stopped squirming and died.

now he is in the garbage can, wrapped in a seperate bag, trap and all. i dont know how we are expected to take the mouse out of that tight trap without getting mouse brains all over the place... good thing they are cheap. the traps, i mean. trap number two is still in the kitchen waiting for any unsuspecting hungry friends of the late mouse...

i killed a mouse. happily. and i have a pet rat sleeping in my living room. what does that make me?

i hope she cant tell... so far she is pleased enough to sit on my lap and eat pieces of left over potato.

sigh.

it has been an eventfull week.

people over for dinner every night from wed through sat.

bought a rat; her name is lucy and she provides much entertainment.

got sunburned on sunday; helped with the youthgroup barbeque; realized i have somehow become very incapable of communicating with teenagers.

found ourselves a hungarian biology student at church; he decided the best way to travel and see a new country is to work in it for the summer so he just picked up and left home with nothing but good intentions and backpack. found out he was sleeping on the street in utrecht and offered to let him stay at our place for a couple nights. turned out he was very very uncomfortable with the idea of accepting help from strangers if he couldnt pay them back (though i guess the street seemed even less attractive); he kept trying to give us his bread and other food that he had accumulated along the way, refused to accept food from us till i told him he would insult my cooking if he didnt take it, and kept doing my dishes when i wasnt looking. no luck finding jobs, poor guy, and less luck finding someone who would rent an appartment to a jobless/moneyless student. today he took all his stuff and said he had found other means of accomodation but i am guessing that means a doorway somewhere next to the university which has lockers and showers that he can use when necessary. i am slightly relieved because he was so awkward to have around but feel guilty and worried for him at the same time. i guess he will learn to take money with him next time or at least to make more concrete plans...

tutored two kids adopted from guatemala by an american couple who now live in holland and will be moving to switzerland next year. the parents want their kids to keep some of their heritage. the kids are 16months and 2.5years old, barely talking, and not used to strangers. they are starting to warm up to me. the 2yr old, a boy, let me hold his hand when we crossed the street and the girl actually didnt cry any more when her mom left the room by the end of the day. the project is, i guess, a combination of playing in spanish and getting used to not being by mom all the time. in a couple of weeks we will be trying having the mom leave for a bit while i stay alone with the kids. i wonder how that will go.

volunteerd at the daycare this morning; put a kid on a chair for the first time cause he hit another kid...he didnt know how to handle that...i dont think he was used to discipline. but he actually apologized and was nice the rest of the day. good boy.

how do i keep ending up with jobs involving kids? if i believed in specific callings i would be slightly worried that God has somehow sneakily brought me to it. instead, i am ready to analyse whatever subconscious underlying factors might be leading to choosing these sort of jobs above something involving anything other than what i claim to really dislike. maybe i dont realy actually dislike working with kids. maybe i secretly like kids. or maybe i am just comfortable with this cause i have done this so long and am afraid to try something else.
egh.
september will bring change...

I am not a morning person.

6:30am : I find myself in the bathroom of my parents old house in Grandrapids. I am relieved that the bathroom is on the same floor as the bedroom and I dont have to scramble half asleep down the stairs, like our bathroom at home. Finally, the toilet. Ahhhh.... but why do I not feel relieved? What is wrong with this toilet? I try to look around the room and suddenly I am suffocating; there is a big fluffy thing on my face! I struggle to break free and hit my hand against the closet. What is the closet doing in the bathroom? And why am I laying down? Why cant I move? Everything is going crazy! And I still have to pee! Suddenly I open my eyes and realize I am still in my bed, my bladder is still full, and I still have to scramble down the stairs in my halfsleep darkness, after which I can crawl back into bed for the next 15min before the alarm goes off. Egh.

6:40am : I feel myself falling back into sleep...

6:45am : What is that beeping?! Luuk hits snooze.

6:47am : Mmm, sleep, wonderous sleep...

6:50am : Seriously, what is with the beeping?! Luuk turns it off and gets up. I roll over and put a pillow on my head and mumble, Please set the alarm for 7:30...

At some point between the front door shutting behind Luuk on his way to work and the time the alarm is set to go off, I crawl out of bed, set the coffee maker, get ready to travel across town to my tutoring job, chug my coffee which is still too hot to drink, and head out to the tram stop. At Central Station I wait for a half hour before I realize that my bus is late and I havent seen any other buses from that bus line... Shit. I check at the ticket booth. Yes, all the city buses are driving today, except the line that you need. They are on strike. And there are no other buses to the area. Wonderful.

why do i care so much about stupid things?

i love pictures. i love to take them, pretend i actually know what i am doing behind the camera lense, looking for the best angles and shots; i love to print them out and put them in books, to show them to people in person or on facebook or whatever means is available. i love playing around with them and turning memory into a form of art or at least something interesting to look at when i have the need to remember times long gone.

wedding pictures are the one set of photos that one would want to have the liberty to do that with. and they generally end up in the hands of photographers, simply because we couldnt take the pictures ourselves that day and had to depend on someone else to do so. what a ridiculous set up.

everything is different when it comes to weddings. and people accept it cause, well, its a wedding and thats just the way things work. and not to mention that there is alot of profit to be had in the whole business...

i am realizing more and more that i have a really hard time accepting the things over which i have no control. i lose sleep over those sort of things. and i play over and over in my head how i should have handled this or that situation to avoid being in the position i am in at the moment of no control. or how i will attack the problem to gain control again.

egh.

i am frustrated. and i cant sleep. and i have no one to yell at, even if i had the guts to actually do so. and what for, anyway? some things really are not as important as they seem to be.

i mean, seriously, there are people starving in africa; what have i got to complain about?

let the good times roll (but not too long cause i can only handle so much these days...)

this weekend was spent in antwerp with my dispuut (small group within a larger student union). i forgot my camera. so i am at the mercy of those who did take their cameras; probably, i will not actually ever see any photos. silly me.
our ride there shoulda taken less than two hours. we made a couple stops and get to the Scouts Center where we were to spend the night about four or five hours after leaving... coffee and icecream and traffic jams, good conversations and silly songs made our trip more interesting than any of the other cars packed full of tired students (this is the song that never ends, was a big hit).
the weekend included alot of walking, some alcohol, late nights talking outside in the drizzling rain, sleeping on a bad mattress with a bad pillow, fighting off mosquitoes, a tour of downtwon in the back of a horse buggy with a funny little old belgian dude explainging every interesting or old building in an accent that we could hardly understand, and coffee and beer with a group of hippies who play their incredible music on the streets to promote themselves and make the city happy. conversation with them was really confusing for me; belgian dutch is not normal dutch. very very hard to follow. but they enjoyed their beer and we enjoyed trying to catch their jokes and apparently funny comments that they kept throwing back and forth to each other.
luuk was in groningen partying with his old student union and joining a bachelor party. needless to say, we were both tired and probably a bit dehydrated when we got back and sleeping in our own bed was all we could think of when we finally saw each other again sunday night.
and now its monday again. i have a load of laundry that i am purposely avoiding, i need to buy some garbage bags and groceries, at some point i have to do some bills and loan stuff...and i am still wearing pajamas after noon and finding every excuse to just stay on this couch. :)

i could drink a case of you...

queens day came and went in a blur of orange, music, dancing, barbeques, and volatile weather. all in all, it was highly enjoyable. i love this side of holland...

the last few days have turned out to be warm and sunny. i now have a lovely farmers tan around my arms and neck. and today i washed our bedding and changed our blanket from the warm fall/spring layer to the cool summer layer. what an event. i almost feel like raising a toast to it.

tonight luuk is staying in some castle somewhere with the rest of the ING banks trainies and interns. they will all spend two days at this castle for a short training session of some sort. what a hard deal, being the newbies to this bank. weeks in a hilton, stays at castles, top class food and drinks... if luuk ever complains about this job, i might just slap him. but i dont think he will.

this past week luuk fought an ear infection. apparently it feels kinda like something is boring into your head and blowing up like a balloon on the inside. sounds pleasant. i usually complain about men being babies when they are sick, but this time i actually felt really bad for him. he was in misery. and kept me awake at night from rolling around in his sleep from the pain. poor guy. but now, thanks to antibiotic drops, he is himself again and getting better.

i am considering buying a rat. i need some pet of some sort. its been too long and i miss it. and no, luuk does not fulfill that need, despite animallike hairiness.

the neighbors across the street have a small fish tank sitting in the window. so far three different people have fed them since i have been sitting here typing this blog.

i could smile all day!

i slept last night. from 12:30 to 7am. didnt wake up once. that is, for me, an incredible feat (is that how you spell that???). and then i said goodbye to luuk who went off to work and i wont see till monday cause he is going to paris with some friends, and then i went back to sleep and slept again like a rock. it was amazing!

today it is sunny and will become relatively warm (in my opinion it is never actually warm here). i am going to find somewhere to sit in the sun. and hopefully find some people i know to join me.

wakeup, sunshine

its so much easier to wake up in the spring/summer than in the winter. especially here, where in the winter the sun doesnt come up till almost 9am.
but this morning, i woke up to sunshine pouring in around and under the curtains and it made me happy. i like waking up happy.

holland is beautiful in the spring. the people come out with the sun, sprawled out in chairs set in every available sunny spot between downtown buildings, drinking tea or beer or other refreshing liquids. they soak in the rays as they walk to and from work and smile quietly, unconsiously throughout their day. life slows down and the air smells sweeter. flowers pop up all over the place, and never in neat little rows, but wildly running everywhere that space and sun and sidewalks allow. and they grow undisturbed, with nice little fines handed out for those who might attempt taking a bouquet home for their moms.

sigh...i love this country in the sunlight.

love is about sharing.

so i have this cold.
first it started with an itchy throat.
so itchy i couldnt sleep.
i actually woke up at 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8:15 one night cause it itched so bad.
and at one point, i couldnt breath cause stuff in my throat got stuck shut or something. i woke up gagging. that was fun.
but now that is gone.
replaced by one clear nostril and one runny/stuffy nostril.
know whats fun about the runny/stuffy combination? i cant sniffle. so my snot starts dripping out onto my face. and half the time i dont notice it till i feel something trickeling on my upper lip.
lovely.
at least i can still breath out of the clear nostril.
so i actually slept last night. only woke up once.
nice.

apparently the goldblonde i went for actually is orange. i have orange hair.

the tulips we got last week for luuks graduation are long dead and starting to mold. but i just cant make myself throw them out. i keep hoping i will wake up one morning and they will just be gone.
i really dont know where i would put them. we dont have a backyard, so throwing them outside is not an option. unless we want to finally get to know the neighbors downstairs... we can smell everything they cook through our bathroom vent. and we can hear their conversations word for word if we listen hard enough, though its generally in some other language. we kinda feel like we know them quite well already, even though we never met face to face. i suppose this would be a great opportunity. i doubt they would appreciate the effort though. those flowers are kinda nasty. interestingly enough, they dont stink. youd think moldy water would smell bad.
luuk is gone for a couple days. so liesbeth is coming over tonight so we can do girly stuff (read: drink lotsa wine and talk alot). one of our favorite activities is discussing our men. (no, that is totally not lame. so just pttsssttt!) its freaky how much alike they are. the latest similarity: they both bought the same briefcase on the same weekend. this will only add to their similar wardrobes(a ridiculous number of blue shirts), taste in music (trance anyone?), love for soccer, funny men quirks, and sense of humour that they both uncannily share. (is that the right usage of uncanny? meh...)

saturdaynight: we get our wedding pictures! its only been 3months and 2weeks. thats not too bad...

sunday: probably will be visiting the inlaws to show them our pictures.

this whole weekend: sunshine! finally! so i have to find a place somewhere in the neighborhood where i can sit outside and soak in the rays. maybe i can find a way to sit on the roof.

i stop watching myself for one second, and suddenly its chaos!

ever catch yourself doing something that you hate in others? like talking too much at biblestudy. or giving advice where it wasnt requested. or making lame jokes. or cutting people off midsentence, several times...

egh.

doh.

ok, in wishing to do something new to my blog, i managed to completely fuck it up. also, i lost my links to all your blogs. and the ones that i do remember, i am no longer allowed to see. what the hell?

new plans and a visit from the watchtower folks

wednesday i will be helping (for free) at a daycare for two hours.

after that, i will be joining a group of likeminded folks to take a short training course on listening and writing, so i can later be set up with an old person who i will visit weekly to listen to his/her life story and set it down on paper.
i am excited!

this morning: i was on the crapper when my business was interrupted by two friendly jehovas witness ladies at my door who were all geared up to convince me that i need jesus. i told them i already met jesus. not ready to leave without having had some sort of convincing discussion with a potential convert, they told me that as a christian that i should be aware of all the division within the christian church and all the denominations and whatnot and that i should be asking myself why this is and that i should be surprised at this division, etc. etc. i told them that no, i was not surprised, seeing as people are kinda like that in general, not always agreeing and stuff and that probably in this world we will never know the whole truth but only glimpses of the truth. as if they didnt hear me, they tried to tell me then that i needed to find the true religion and i told them i was quite happy with my religion but that i would continue to look for truth. and they gave me a nice little magazine that is supposed to aid me in my search. such nice ladies.

in their little magazine i was informed that a true christian can be identified by his/her belief that jesus is the son of God but not equal to God because he is a mere creation of God.
huh.
and i always thought that christianity was all about the divinity of christ.