they just wont go away

last night i was in the middle of a dream involving sunshine and happiness (k, so the details escape me...) when i felt something on my arm. half conscious, i brushed it away and went back to my dreams. a few minutes later i again felt something on my arm and this time when i brushed at it i felt a little squished wriggling ball of something real on my arm. i freaked out and started screaming or yelling or grunting (not really sure which), flailing my arms and pushing blankets and all creepy crawly things away from me. then i was tackled by something much bigger which then to my total confusion started whispering that it was ok and that i could calm down and halfhugged halfrestrained me. but the crawly tickly thing was still there but now on my foot and then my forehead and suddenly my back. quick dirty little bugger. after more flailing, wailing, and eventual crying, i got up and turned on the light to find the little monster. never did find it. i am positive it was a spider.

luuk now thinks i am slightly crazy.

i am still not convinced it wasnt real.

4.

yup. that is the score for my second attempt at the functional biological psychology test. i needed only three more questions right to pass with a 5.5. but of course i had to read the question about increased reaction time due to increased alternative courses of action and totally didnt know how to answer the question about woodpeckers who, btw, i dont remember ever reading about, and then there was that one question about decibles and percieved sound intensity that i just guessed about and shoulda gone for answer b not c... egh. i hate multiple choice. i am bad at reading in dutch. this test was both. and i failed miserably. again.
i suck.

last chance in march. if i fail that... well... poor luuk...

back to the middle of nowhere...

i accepted to babysit my nannykids from last year for two days... their new nanny is off celebrating carnival. i should be studying. but a couple extra euros is nice. and its been a while since i really saw the kids again. so now i am back for a couple days and nights. and in a weird way, i have kicked right back into the old routine. 'cept jules talks more and raoul can walk/run/climb and fall down stairs/eat more neatly than his older brother which makes for a different sort of care. their dad is home, sick, so mostly i am just extra help, aka driver/diaper changer. i experience a mix of nostalgia and desperation being here. i unconsiously missed the kids. its fun to be with them again and play secondary-caregiver. good thing its only for a couple days though. being here reminds me of being depressed and lonely and lacking a social life (besides dane who was probably my life saver during the week). rowing the boat again was interesting...kinda lost my touch. gained it back fast though. and now i have sore muscles. maybe i should work them out more often...apparently they aren't used to real usage any more...

tonight i go home to my husband, good wine, quiet, and my own bed.

change of plans...

so, no masters program for me this semester. i might be able to take some courses on the side, as a nonregular student. which is what i am going to try to do. i am kinda bummed that i wont be in the official program though. not quite part of the group...go figure.

its sunny today!

De Schuilplaats: a kitchen, dentist, hairdresser, meeting place...etc.

I stood off to the side, watching, afraid to sit at a table right away...they might not appreciate my awkward attempts at friendliness. They sat, spread throughout the large, colorful room, at the tables we had set up a few minutes before the doors opened and they rushed in from the cold where they had been waiting for half an hour to get in.
Rob, who had introduced himself at the door, being first in line and first to tell me I was a beautiful blond and he was happy to see me, stood next to me. One arm was pulled up into his sleeve where he hid a large bottle of some strong smelling drink in his hand. He told me he didnt need anything, he had this. But other people, they needed help. And he knew everyone, he said. He pointed to and talked, sometimes grabbing someone as they walked by to shake hands and tell me how he knew them.

See that guy, the big black one? Yeah, I know him. Hey, HEY! Yeah, man! Good to see you! (Slap on the back, met with a big grin on the big black guys face).

A woman with a stroller full of cloth and wrapped up bundles came in, her hair wrapped in a turban of sorts; she looked Russian or Eastern European anyway. She was followed by a quiet guy with long stringy blonde hair who stared at the floor and blushed shyly if you happened to catch his eye. Behind him walked a man with dark hair, combed and parted in the middle, wearing a blue pinstripe suit with a bright red bowtie and brown shoes that looked slightly too big for him. I couldnt help but smile as his clownish neatness in this crowd.

Oh, and see that one, (pointing at a wrinkled, skinny man in jeans and a large sweatshirt), yup, I know him. And that one. And that one. OH! AND HER!, HEY YOU SKINNY WHORE! (A short, not so skinny woman with frizzy redish hair turned, then smiled and rushed over to give him a big kiss and a Hello, hunny! Oh, I love this man...).
Yeah, this is the woman I live with.

What a strange crowd it was. Some dressed in rags, dirty and hagard looking, others in some attempt to decent appearance, looking equally as worn and tired with life. Some talking just a bit too loudly and laughing and slapping shoulders and shaking hands with everyone as bits of spit escaped from their over excited smiles as they talked. Others huddling in corners, sitting by themselves, or watching quietly the crowd around them. I felt the stares of many, some friendly, some admittedly creepy, most curious.

So, do you study? Ah...psychology. So, what, do you come here to study us? Right, you want to help out...but we are pretty crazy, eh? You want to examine us. Yeah, I know how it is.

The rest of the night consisted of dishing out food, smiling at people, not really knowing what to say, though met with general friendliness and some chitchat, and meeting Perry (whose real name is some French name that starts with Perry and continues for another ten letters or so...and who speaks four languages, apparently used to work in a hospital, has travelled to Florida Keys and the Spanish Canaries, and who has a son he never sees cause his wife wont let him) and Ron (who used to live in Rotterdam, was once a chaufer of sorts, and whose wife died three years ago, at which point he couldnt work anymore, eventually lost his license, and now is alone and travels 45min on Fridays to have supper with the others at the Schuilplaats).

When we left, Rob ran up to us to ask us to spend the night ith him and his buddies, so we could see what it is like to live in the streets. We declined, giving excuses of family waiting, exams to study for, etc.

Ah. You think we are criminals. Its too bad, we are nice. Nothing would happen. We just want you to see what it is like to live here. Yes, yes, you think that. Dont try to convince me. You said it. Maybe not exactly those words. But you said it. I know how it is.

so what does this mean for the rest of the year?

i dunno yet. gotta talk to the university this afternoon. if the program starts before feb 9 (which is the resit exam day), i cant start my masters this year... so i will have to find a job or have a baby or something (haha, just kidding...) and wait til september (assuming i have passed the exam by then).

in the meantime: back to studying for the same @$#%&*! exam...

bummed.

today for the first time in my life, i failed an exam.

:(

i am sad.

descartes forgot something

I have often berated myself for being so emotional, for sometimes acting irrationally, for being unable to make certain decisions free of emotion, for even experiencing emotion without always knowing the cause. Of course, much of that probably comes from those damn female hormones doing their monthly dance. However, to a certain extent, this emotional aspect of myself is part of what makes me human. A normal human able to do good and make good decisions... Reason is not everything. We do not need to experience emotion to be conscious, and we need to be conscious/selfaware to experience emotion. Yet, without emotion, consciousness is worthless. Yes, I think therefore I am. But it is not enough just to be.

Damasio (1994) studied a man who, due to a brain injury, could no longer experience emotion. He never became angry, was never sad (even about his own brain damage), he never enjoyed anything very much, even music. Far from being purely rational, he made amazingly stupid decisions, losing job, wife, savings. Though he knew and could rationally consider the consequences of any action, he could not decide which would be better because it did not matter to him one way or the other. He could just as easily make a decision that would win him approval as one that would get him into trouble.
Anderson et al. (1999) studied two adults who suffered from prefontalcortex injury as babies (thats the part of your brain linked to emotional experience); they never learned moral behavior, frequently made bad decisions, and did things like lying, stealing, etc. without showing any regret; despite having a normal IQ, they had no friends and could not keep a job.

Conclusion:
*while extreme emotions impair decision making, some emotion is necessary for making decisions.
* people who do not anticipate the unpleasantness of likely outcomes tend to make bad decisions.
* inevitably, emotions are inseparable from the idea of good and evil.
* i should no longer feel ridiculous for being emotional.

i shouldnt sit home alone..

was reading kevins blog and he had some questions i was thinking about lately too...

do you feel Gods love? does it exist? maybe freud was right, we just created this idea to feel better about life and ourselves. or skinner, and we have been taught to respond to certain religious stimuli and think we are actually having a spiritual experience.

during a biblestudy thing with my student union, we sang a song about worshiping God with heart, soul, mind. i think i kinda focus on the mind part, dont really work on the other two. i guess i dont really know how too.

ever wish for writing on the wall? i think thats part of my problem. seek and you will find, right? i just wish. dont do much actual seeking.
i have become very lazy.
and its affecting me in every way possible. i dont feel God anymore.

or maybe its just my winter depression kicking in and it will all be better in the spring.

still here. and fully married. :)

i am married.
the wedding was a blur; the only part i really remember well is taking pictures before the ceremony.
good thing we spent all that time preparing...
at least everyone seemed to enjoy the food, drinks, atmosphere. and it was fun. hence the blur.
the week before and the following two weeks were another type of blur, a combination of last minute planning, picking people up from and driving people to the airport, guiding the lost american and canadian family members around holland, trying to clean up our house then refilling it with more mess each time we opened presents or shopped with our wedding money.
somewhere in the middle we managed to break our new, yet unused, beatiful and no longer in production thus irreplaceable dish set by putting it all on a shelf that apparently wasnt strong enough.
that was fun.
i heard we werent the only dumbasses to do something like that. kevin and cassie have a story.
now the last family member has left.
and i am going to take a nap before doing some more cleaning.
i hope luuk gets home relatively soon from his job interview. he should be working by march. that gives us a few weeks to be lazy together. sorta. i have a test to study for. but whats a little studying... i never did overexert myself in that area...

happy christmas, new years, and cheers to all you all.

xxx

the nachttrein

a few years ago: the dutch train company started a nachtrein/nighttrain route that goes in a circle from den haag to leiden to amsterdam to utrecht to rotterdam to den haag. nice for people taking an early flight out of amsterdam. or for students who like to party late into the night. but if you start in den haag it takes a couple hours to go full circle to rotterdam, though they are relatively close to each other. anyway...

yesterday. leiden.
sinterklaas party with my dispuut. great fun, have new warm socks and candles for the house. headed home at 11:ish.
got to the leiden central train station just four minutes after a train left for den haag. had to wait for the next one, at 11:52. quickly checked with a passing trainstation worker if he knew if i would have a connecting train in den haag to zoetermeer. he said yes, one at 12:25, the last one for the night. ok, good. no worries.
waited for my train, realized two minutes before it arrived that i didn't have a ticket...oops. no time now though. didn't matter...no one checked.
bought a ticket immediately in den haag. decided to get a hot chocolate while i waited for the train. hotchocolate in one hand, newspaper in the other, headed to the usual spoor/platform where the stoptrain to utrecht leaves from; it would stop in little towns, including zoetermeer, on the way.
four ticket controllers stood there blocking the entrance. one offered to hold my hotchocolate while i fished my ticket out of my bag. nice man. joked about taking a quick coffee break, started to walk away with my chocolate. the others joked about him being such a gentleman. smiles all around, i laughed back, despite the predictability of each joke. stamped my ticket without really looking at it. i kept fishing for my ticket discount card. you get a fine if you don't show it with your discounted ticket. the man didn't need to see my discountcard, he was an old gullible man, he said. i smiled and said ok. walked away. they all laughed, "she just said ok! haha! you are old!"
got in the train, briefly checking the sign over the door. yup, train to utrecht. sat down, opened my paper, drank my hot chocolate.
somewhere in the back of my head i noted that the train was taking longer than usual to get to zoetermeer. and no stops in between. odd.
back to the newspaper... interesting article. no idea any more about what...
suddenly heard "leiden. station, leiden."
what???
quickly asked the girl across the aisle where we were.
leiden.
fuck.
this is the nachttrein.
i should have read the sign more closely.

i have a cold. i sound like i have been smoking nonstop for days. and i am tired. more than usual.
poor me.

bought sinterklaas presents today. while walking around the shopping area, we ran into two little zwarte pieten (really two white kids painted black...why dont they just dress up little black kids? save on paint?). a funny sight. cute.

we shopped for a washmachine and a tv today. kinda made me feel married.

currently wearing my new, comfy, soft, warm, extra long sweat pants that i got on a special sale cause some nice dumbass labeled it wrong but you get the price on the tag. i think it makes the pants feel extra comfy.

more wedding planning stuff today. well, this whole week.
only 27 days of this left! then the actual day will arrive and go by so fast we will wonder what all the planning was for... ah well. it will be good.

The things that keep my life interesting

*I might have to stay here illegally to be at my own wedding.

*The immigration office here keeps giving us different advice, sometimes contradictory, never really conclusive or helpful to our situation. Go figure.

*Apparently I have not paid for the course which I distinctly remember having paid which means I cannot take the exam yet that I need to take soon to get into the masters program in Feb...

*Most of our stuff is now finally moved to the house... currently piled on the floor in the dining room.

*Painting. I feel so productive when I paint. Maybe cause its the one activity from which I see immediate results. It is so simple. It makes me happy. (Though that could also come from paintingin a small room with windows closed and no fresh air...)

*The patio door opened mysteriously on its own at the apartment yesterday. The front door was open this morning at the inlaws house...where I am currently sitting, alone. All alone. (Im not scared.)

*I just made my sinterklaas gift wishlist.

officially wedded

i am legally married.
weird. i don't feel any different.
really, though, we are only half-married. maybe 28 dec i will feel like a completely different person.
i doubt it though. it's like birthdays.
cept for the whole new person moving into your house with you. i suppose that will feel strange. and good.

spanish tapas restaurants are great. (i find myself completely lacking any interesting english vocabulary. i'm losing it folks. next time you see me, i will be blubbering some combination of english dutch and spanish that make sense to no one from either lingual background...and it will least of all be interesting.).

spanish tapas restraurants are expensive. but the dishes are so good!
i can still taste the garlic.
mmm...

i have officially passed the party stage. we went out last night for birthdays of friends, ate tapas, then drank lots of beer, then went dancing. somewhere in the middle i realized that if i had one more drop of alcohol i would be spraying yummy garlic shrimp chunks over my half-husband. (yeah, that does sound weird). so i drank water for the rest of the night, despite the odd and disappointed looks from the bar tenders each time i went up for an order. apparently i look like someone they'd expect to be drinking something more exciting than water... or maybe they were hoping to have yet another girl dance like a stripper on the bar.
what is wrong with some girls anyway? do they not realize how stupid they look bouncing around with almost total lack of rythm in a lame attempt to be sexy? all they get is guys oggling their round parts. no real admiration. if you are gonna get up on the bar, at least know how to dance. or, just stay on the floor. that's an nice option too.
anywho. back to my previous point. i can't drink too much any more, and staying up till 4am just is not healthy. i am pretty much useless the next day. how did i do that before? actually, i probably was just as useless, but at that point it didn't matter... generally my roommates were in a similar state, so we just became one useless bunch together and no one noticed the fact that i had turned into a headachy blob.
ah. good times.

blushing bride

next week friday luuk and i will sign our names and our lives away to each other.
because church and state are completely separate here, marriage occurs officially in the city hall or anyother selected location where civil ceremonies are legal except never never never in a church. and of course, a pastor performed ceremony does not count.
because we seem not to be the only poor people in this country, all slots for free conduction of the civil ceremony are full from last month through the end of january, we have to pick some other random time before 2pm 28 dec.
and finally, because of some nice little glitch in the paperwork having to do either with visas or time between application for and the actual marriage, and some mis/lackofcommunication at the city hall, we have to have the civil ceremony before 28 nov.
thats fine, though we had wanted to do that part on the 21st of dec, so the two occasions wouldnt be so far apart. but really its no big deal. we see the church ceremony as THE ceremony, the one that counts. the rest is just names on a paper, the stuff we have to do for the law.
so, the plan was, take our four witnesses, sign out names, go out for pizza and have a couple beers to celebrate.
it is suprisingly difficult to get people to understand this foreign concept, however! the only people who do the civil and church ceremonies seperatly here are the royal family, and thats cause their weddings are several day long occasions...
anyway, since we picked the date last week, plans have changed a bit. parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, some cousins, and of course grandparents will be there as well, and who knows, maybe some friends. and i will be wearing a cute dress, which i still have to find but jeans is not an option, so i have been told... because of course, this is the point where we will be married. the church ceremony is symbolic, where you get your blessing from God. but once those names are signed, we are hooked. in fact, someone told me, after this point, we can even have sex! (after five years waiting...its a tempting option...which in case you were wondering, we arent considering... though... no. nope. egh. crap. i am off track.).
back to the point... which is, i am frustrated. (no double meanings intended). its really hard to keep things simple. really, i should just stop fighting it. and enjoy the festivities and details that have pushed themselves upon me in some ways.
i still refuse to consider corsages.
no one misses them anyway, right?

got a couple extra bucks?

k, i admit i saw this on oprah. but its a great idea...

check out: www.kiva.com. help someone from almost any where in the world build their own business with a loan of any size you want from 25dollars on. and you are guaranteed to get it back (well, 99.7% guarantee).

cook.

i am currently wearing a pair of socks that somehow got separated in the laundry and went through different loads...one made it to the dryer, but apparently the other didnt and itsnt fully dry. now it is sucking the warmth right out of my foot...exactly what socks are meant to do... but the other one is so warm, i hesitate to put on another pair. this semidamp one will dry in time, and then it too will warm my foot. in the meantime, i will just sit on that foot and let it suck the warmth out of my ass until its dry.

last weekend i took part in what is called the ontgroening of the first year members of NSL (navigators studentunion leiden). this is also known as the hazing period. being a christian union, it was pretty mild. mostly, it included shitty food, getting yelled at alot, and being allowed a total of 2.5hrs of sleep each night. also, we couldnt shower and they took our bags and extra clothes. se we were a very tired, smelly lot by the end. despite the hardships that we had to endure for an entire weekend, we made it through with little harm done and now are all happy ungreened aspiring members, till january when we become officially part of the club. the worst moment of the whole ordeal was standing before the committee at 4am on the last night, answering questions about the union and its history and singing songs that we had been studying for and learning the past two days. there is one particular song that you are allowed to sing if you cannot answer any question asked. its like a free pass. so, i and this other american girl who has decided to move to holland and coincidently studies a psych master at leiden and also joined NSL, practiced this song more than anything else, hoping it would be our saving card. of course, the minute we stood before the committee all the words mysteriously disappeared from my head. in the meantime, i managed to knock over a guitar, almost step on a pile of lit candles on the floor, and forgot the names and positions of each of the committee members (absolute must know). ah yes. i made a great impression.

its intersting how incredibly nervous one can get even about the things that you know really dont actually matter. the standing before the committee is really just a funny formality purely for the entertainment of the committee itself; if you do shittily, you still get in. so why the nerves? the loss of words? the blood pounding in my ears? who knows. i suppose its this weird psychological anticipation built up by role playing all weekend. we, the fetuses as we are so lovingly called, are new and ignorant and small, and must therefore listen to, respect, and obey the committee (despite the fact that i am actually older than most of them...). funny how that works. this big bunch of students allowed ourselves to be yelled at and mildly abused all weekend by five other students who have no authority over us other than that which we allowed to have.

now that i think about it, it was all pretty ridiculous.

but fun.

though now my sleep rythm is all fucked up again. ah well.

this weekend: painting, putting floors in, cleaning!
next week: move in???

!!!!!!!

We have an apartment!
Yay!

I am so excited!

ever have those days...?

living off of other peoples money is not fun.
i hate it.
every euro i spend, i think twice about and unless its use is absolutely necessary, consequently feel guilty about...
i suppose, the upside is that i am becoming very thrifty and responsible with money.

actually, i whats the most difficult to swallow is depending on others. i feel so indebted, though im not actually... why is it so hard to accept dependency, no matter how temporary? or how generously and openly responded to?

apartment hunting is turning out to be not alot of fun either. i have visited so many apartments in the last month that i have lost count. and yet, nothing.
why cant i just put in a list of requirements/desires in some box somewhere that could be met with a call and a key the next day?
i guess it will make it all so much more valuable in the end when we do finally find something, right?

i am getting excited for december. i am gonna see so many people i have missed for so long!

lately, i have found myself more concerned with what people think of me. little things, unimportant stuff, but also basic stuff... why is that? i cant figure it out.

in response to this apparent current depression, i am watching love actually. always makes me feel better.
yay for chick flicks!