date: 1109562227

mood: very very very happy. did i say i mention i’m happy? *grin*
listening to:di.fm euro dance channel / heart singing

date: 1105870038

mood: happy
listening to:something in the air tonight

i guess i haven’t done this in a while.

i finished a linguistic assignment day, and even started working on my next one. its pretty awesome, tobe responsible (i even cleaned my room and my bathroom) and then “go out” and relax and have fun.

while i’m happy on most levels, a level of me is really anxious, tired, worried, nervous. and so while im relaxed and chilled, i also have this stream inside of me gurgling with emotions. which isn’t bad, its good even. its just making it difficult to really feel relaxed at the end of the day.

i suppose a bottle of shiraz helps the feeling to speed along, at least for some time ;) nah, we were sharing it, … i think …

the only thing which annoys me on a fairly concious level at the moment (as in, not rightright now, but over the past few days) is the fact that i cannot change my sleeping patters to be more healthy and regular (i.e. i wanna fall asleep before 12, and wake up before 9, with no alarms and all). considering the time right now, i’m not helping things, am i?

good night!

date: 1100194558

mood: barely productive
listening to:my other music off external harddrive, right now russian, cause i miss the language.

it is tuesday “morning”. my sleeping schedule is absolutely messed up.

…

it is thursday. you know your schedule in general is messed up when you had the modblog add entry page open with the above phrase for … 3 days.

yeah, so my sleeping schedule. i fall asleep by 3, wake up by 12. i had an 8:30 class on wednesday, but i STILL went to sleep at 3am, without a day nap or anything.

my most major concern for this week was me spending a massive amount of money as of before this monday. in two weeks i spent [way too much, no numbers]. today, i wrote out all my expenses, neatly, and everything adds up. most of money was spent reasonable, on one time things (bus tickets, text book, stuff like that).

anyway… so my challenge, is to live on my current groceries for another day or two, so that my expenses become more reasonable. except i wanna go shopping and buy TASTY STUFFS. argh.

i have a soy sauce bottle on which it says “made by foodstuffs”. isn’t that neat?

yeah…

i’m 2nd best in my french class. the french guys are asking “why only 2nd!”. i should speak french to them more.

chinese is blaaaah. i should work more.

art class is fun-ish. last class i was praised by prof for an excellent explanation of why duchamps readymades are art/nonart at the same time. (they “blur the line between art and life”). which was nice. i still hate the 8:30 lecture… except the material is interesting.

today was laundry/coding day. i finished my large load of colors, waiting for a drier to free up to dry socks and such, all major stuff (coats, sweatshirts) are hung out on the outside line. as part of my washing i decided to wash the whites in my sink, cause i had very little. proceed to begin, then go to google out of curiousity.

there are a lot of articles describing how to do laundry, and even some that describe how to do it by hand. what i found hilarious was this article

the fact that people who so seriously discuss washing laundry in a tub with a plunger are posting online shocked me. as well as they have a computer and a functioning internet connection, but still wash by hand laundry for their families. “I wash all our things out by hand in the kitchen sink with hot water, using homemade soap. And let me tell you, it sure is nice to have running water!” i am not sure if that was sarcasm on part of poster.

but then i looked at the states.

ohio. oklahoma. florida. kentucky. kansas, tennessee, georgia, texas.

you see anything in common among those of the above?

make your own conclusions…

and no, i’m allowed to do laundry by hand, i scirbbled last spare change to buy the 3 euro laundry token. i’m currently down to exactly 2 euros and 35 cents. tomorrow i shall take money out and buy [a little] food.

the weather is becoming colder… and wetter… and greyer… blaah. maybe that’s why i’m craving nice foods.

au prochain!

date: 1095870423

mood:
listening to:

okay, wow, this is going to be loooong.

lets see… i have 4 days to cover:

friday evening

well… came home, ate… honestly, its blurry right now, because so many things happened since then (and the start of blog is always a bit daunting).

the most important even of friday was the breakage of my bike.

francesca, simon, thomas and myself went out. instead of going directly to [some place, i dont remember which one], we decided to go to maarkt (martketsquare) and check out if anything is happening there. all 4 of us own bikes, so we biked there. nice, fast, easy (downhill).

maarkt was desolate and empty, and we decided to go back to … highlander, that’s the place (thats the closest bar to the guesthouse). on the way back, while biking on a bumpy street my dust cover was making an odd noise. it was making it for a while before that, but it just got weirder and weirder, like a part of it was rubbing the wheel.

turns out it was.

turns out, that it snapped, and cut into my wheel.

while, i am on the bike. pedaling. moving.

the front wheel gets locked. i hear a fantastic sound of metal breaking, barely have time to go “what the…” and feel myself flying upwards through air, with my bike, while seeing very clearly the front wheel unmoved, and the ground ohsoslowly coming closer to make contact with my head.

in the split seconds that my bike went from horizontal to vertical the following thoughts went through my head (in that order):

“i wish i had a helmet”
“i think i’ll die if i hit that pavement with my forehead”
“i dont have velocity to flip and land on my butt”
“therefore i must fall on the side now”

at which point i … dont know what happened. i dont have a clear recollection of what i did, i just know that the bike was broken on the ground, a few meters ahead of me, after making a 540 circle.

i’m on the ground. with my feet firmly planted on it. and me, not even having a bruise, not a skratch, not any pain. i seriously was born under a lucky star.

all that i had, was a mild shock that prevented me from standing straight for about 10 minutes. and, well, lack of bike.

we went back to highlander (i rode on back of simon’s bike), drunk a few beers, and then went home. all in all it was pretty uneventful, with the exception of the accident.

saturday

OMGOMGOMG! AMSTERDAM HERE WE COME!!
yeaah.. so we woke up at … 7? 7 or so. simon woke up first, knocked on everyone’s door. a few minutes later i dragged myself out of bed, crawled to the shower, more energetically crawled back. quickly packed clothes, took freshly charged battery (thank you nikon for making a battery that easily withstood 2 days of shooting/reviewing with no recharge!), packed soap, toothbrush, you know. ended up with backpack, plus camera back, plus jacket (which didn’t fit into the backpack, tsktsk, i shall improve).

anyway, went to living room. simon, thomas, fabio, me are sitting and waiting for jerome, who is hurriedly gathering.

man was i happy to NOT be the last one to be ready!

anyway, after waiting and finishing our lsat possible eadable supplies (all of us ran out of food, perfect timing), we deployed towards amsterdam.

drive there

thomas is driving, he’s french. i’m saying that because i was sitting in the front (jerome, fabio and simon are like 2 meters tall, so they were cramped at the back), and, well, french driving is all that it is rumoured to be.

laws are just a suggestion and blinker light is a decoration for christmas. apparently the air bags can be turned off (there’s a button that says airbag off…), but i decided not to inquire further into the matter. the seatbelt was working so i was happy.

of course his car is tiiiny :) fun, so.. european. and of course manual.

anyway, drive there was boring, backseat crew fell asleep. i listened to various music, nothing standing out.

we stopped for gas. it was 50 euros for the full tank. i think its like twice more expensive here. (netherlands, not sure abt the rest of europe)

anyway… amsterdam, we arrived. i figured out (without a map!) how to get to the centre (mmm, leet navigation skills). we parked (32 euros for 24 hours, 3 euros per hour otherwise), close to the centre, and as much later turns out, very close to our hostel.

finding the hostel

well, jerome had been in amsterdam previously. so we stumbled around for like 30 minutes, around hte area where he knew the hostel is. found some hostel. went in, they are full (looked COOL, free internet, huge area covered with pillows where people do what people do in amsterdam, lotsa students). we got directions to the hostel jerome was talking about. went there – blue sign on the door, “we are full”.

jerome says he will go to find another place, we sit/stand next to this place, and wait for the manager of it to return from lunch break (thats what they told us). about 3 minutes after he leaves, this COOL chick, with braided blond hair, pierced nose. fabio talks with her, and there are 5 beds! cool!

the price is 18 euros, and the breakfast is included.
later on i spoken to some girls that we met. they paid 24 euros, breakfast was NOT included, and the room had mattresses on the floor!

we get the keys, and bravely go in.

honestly, i was impressed. 9 double bunk beds, 1 shower/bathroom, with a locking shower, locking washroom, and 5 sinks (narrow room). VERY clean. like, i wasn’t going to be picky, but, its really clean.

after droping off our stuff in the locked wooden box that we all share (just my group), we went into the city.

it would be impossible to describe each conversation that happened, therefore here is what we did, and when i have the energy i’ll post some specific stories :)

-> left hostel
-> found major road towards central station, stopped in a sandwich shop, we were starving, but i twasn’t that good
-> walked around amsterdam for 2 hours, just looking at everything, with no real aim.
-> got tea/coffee/water (they had a neat thing where they put a metal plate on top of the cup, to keep the water hot – and you can reuse it to put your tea bag!)
-> walked around some more. found a floating band, listened to them. jerome/fabio are music nuts.
-> walked through the market as it was getting closer to closing time. it was FUN. i got a blanket, for 8 euros, yellowish with chinese characters on it. looks cool, i’m happy. the market was fun, and i’d love to come back and buy more stuff, but i was worried of overspending.

after that, we went home, dropped off bags, and went out. after having some too expensive showarma, (i bit my tongue, SO badly – i bought some cool, cheapish ice cream after that, to soothe it), we went barhopping. all in all i spent 10 euros on that, which is reasonable, cause i was enjoying it.

oh, how could i forget! after showarma but before the beers we went through the red light district! that was FUN. helped that i was surrounded by 4 tall guys, who are my friends, (and 3 of them are my floormates – like family), i didn’t feel scared. otherwise i would – the crowd is fairly diverse and … yeah. scary. i’m glad i didn’t take camera but its not like i couldve gotten photos anyway – they dont like it.

so, yeah, girls, almost naked (like, tiny bikinis), in windows, with red lights. its shocking to a canadian girl (even if she is russian rooted), and its pretty fun to watch and be there.

we stayed out until 3am – i dont have the exact timing for any of the above cause – well, whats the point? :)

came home, fell into beds, waking up half the people.

3 minutes later, some germans came, fell into their beds, waking up half the people.

all in all, awesome day.

continued in next entry

date: 1094545272

mood:
listening to:

day 3:

well, its sunday morning ,around 11 am. i woke up about 30 minutes ago (yay for computer/palm alarms working!) , and got up around 10 minutes ago. time to have breakfast with my italian neighbours.

this is all so surreal.

i wonder what will today bring! hopefully, internet. i woke up thinking how much i wish i could email instead of just writing this.

going to go knock on her door now…

—

weeee.

okay, so we had “breakfast” – some coffee with steamed milk she made – was very good – she is very italian, she complained the coffee is not good! hehehehe.
she had a biscuit, i had some musli with milk, and tea. i also tried a bit of her coffee (i just had half a cup).

during breakfast we arranged what should be bought: eggs, salt, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, cucumber, potatoes, basil. she is allergic to wheat – so i’ll buy some flower (flour?) for myself, for little things, but not soon.

she loves pasta and said she’ll make pasta with some tomatoe sauce later. and she claims she is not a cook!

i hope that the division between the two of us as me cleaning/preparing and her cooking will mostly work. i’m ready to make potatoes and such (we have no oven but i’ll figure something out), but i just am not sure what should i get for sauces and such. we are undefined on what kind of meat we should get.

after breakfast as we were going to our rooms one of the guys from last nights indonesian party stopped by with his laptop, asking me for assistance on how to put photographs together. i just noticed a panorama making software on his desktop and just ran through with it, showing him how to fine tune. in the beginning, it was adorable, francesca was making these huge eyes at me, like “who is he?!” and then i explained that i met him at last night’s indonesian party on the 2nd floor, and that i will help him edit photographs. the guy is like 30, has a blurry photograph of his son on the background. the picture that we put together was a BEAUTIFUL photo(s) of a mountain in indonesia. looked magnificently beautiful, and … yeah, i wanna go there too one day. :)

it is sunny outside, so i think i will go shower, dry my hair and go walk outside for a while.

—

the shower is very nice. pressure is not insanely strong, but its strong enough to enjoy. water is very nice and hot, and the shower is fairly big (like canadian shower, maybe a bit bigger). i feel … at home, finally. at least in some sense.

—
alright. hair dry, clothes on, shoes tied (not running shoes!).

i’m going into the world! woohoo, brave me :D

—

oh my god! i left at 1:15, and came back at 5:15, and i was walking practically non stop for all this time.

soo, people are saying that sunday is a dead day… yeah, right. so i walked (by sheer intuition) to the main square, then to The Bridge (the one that’s on all photos and the one that’s closest to main sqaure), crossed it, walked around on the other side, then crossed on another bridge (the Modern Bridge, it was built recently. dont know its real name), came back to the square, hang out a little more, then walked around until i got back home.
so all this time the streets were *chockfull* of people (well, main streets).

i have so much to tell, that i am not even sure where to begin.

the main square and streets leading up to it slowly fill up with people as you get closer to it. the actual main square if *FULL* of people to the point where its impossible to walk through. there is wonderful live music, and a load of stores selling wine and beer and icecream. i stood there for about 15 minutes, listening to a band of like 9 men, with one drummer and the rest on various wind instruments, playing jazzish music. it was seriously nice.

then i continued walking, not looking at the (practically useless) map, just in the direction of the water and just where i felt like going. as you leave the market, there is a huge walking section of streets, where there is like an insane amount of stores, and again, and insane amount of people. all the stores were cool, clothing, shoes. no coffee shops (and not “coffee shops” either) in this area, people don’t sit, just walk.

i stopped by an electrical stores, 10 dvd-rs cost $19.99 euros. my palm costs 230 euros. ipod mini 250 euros (approx). i took a little ad as a reminder.

i kept walking, stumbling around different streets. eventually i reached the water front, where i walked to the old bridge. crossed the bridge, continued stumbling.

interesting stores: canadian naturals, mcdonalds, SUBWAY (?!), america today. a lot of cool shoe stores.

everyone are dressed to stylishly. even kids of like age 4 are wearing things i like. not to mention girls and younger women and adults.

no one looks like a teenager, everyone are either 20something or 40something.

no one walks alone: you either have 1 (usually 2) very blonde and young kids, AND a partner, AND/OR a dog, OR a bike. all kids are blonde, most people are blonde too. i’m talking white hair here. surprisingly most people are fairly tan (as in, not dark skin, but this even … bronze glow). it is sunday, and most people are fairly dressed up (damnit, i knew i should’ve dressed up too!), and an incredible amount of people have dogs.

i’ve seen maybe one other person with a camera. i was the only one with an d/slr.

on the waterfront there is a huge, huge area full of chairs and people drinking coffee. it feels almost like a zoo, because the area is so big and uniform.

people eating waffles, ice cream. drinking coffee, beer, coke.

the other side of the river is quite more quiet – people juts disappear. i walked a little, crossed on the newer bridge (nothing spectacular, the london millenium bridge was better).

back on the other side i decided i was tired.

went inside a church. sat for 15 minutes. listened to song. lit a candle for my grandma. it was very nice.

went outside, wandered until found an empty chair. sat down, waited for someone to talk to me (as in, waiter). didn’t work out. =p i got bored so i left.

walked back to the main square in a different path, there i got some icecream (yummy). then walked some more, picked an odd way that i didn’t take before, found some fantastic odd small streets and places.

i mostly didn’t take photographs, just some snapshots and even not too many of those. it was just better to enjoy the surroundings.

walked back home at this point, very odd backward way, through small streets, in a big curve. enjoyed small streets, its just awesome, the atmosphere. found some buildings with “ucm” on it (the name of the university).

came home, *ideally* walking out on the exact street that i needed that is closest to the building. i’m an ideal navigator, i tell you, did all this without a map!

came home, debated calling home, decided that nah, i’ll just figure out how to email tomorrow.

came home, drank 2 glasses of apple juice. dinner at 8, but i’m not sure *what* i’ll be eating, as i know francesca has pasta, however i’m not sure if there’s some for me. all convinience/supermar ket stores were closed, i was looking on the way. don’t feel like going to shoarma again, although the menu said they have lasagna, and its like 5 euro… and i didn’t really eat today yet.

well, we’ll see.

i’m extremely tired, sitting in the “dining” room of the floor, watching the marathon race of the olympics – last show! – and typing this, slowly. *dead* tired. so much walking and everything, its just deadning.

its sunset and hot in greece, it was sunny for the whole day today here (except now its again overcast), and i wonder how it is in toronto. i miss everyone greatly, i was thinking about how fun it would be to have each and single person here with me (not all together, haha). each one would have enjoyed a different aspect of the walk.

i think i’ll go take one of those sweet thingies i got yesterday.

more food shopping tomorrow, also 8:30 at reception to discuss lack of microwave and bookshelf (who cares but i need to make sure that they dont blame me for disapperance), then 10:15 have to be at this street (which i didn’t really find today, although i wasn’t really looking) to meet Ina (the woman who was arranging courses with). i wonder how many other people will be there. francesca has a seperate, different (later) thing. so its only cross ocean students that them make get up so early! hehe. i wonder what’s my schedule like!

6:07pm, i’m going to go eat and watch olympics, and relax, and miss you. (well, not you, but the other you).

—

oh my god!
okay, i ab solutely love my neighbour. we spent like an hour talking about paris and rome and taking trips to them, and she told me that i can get an airplane ticket from brussels to rome for like 25 euro. !!!!
and then i just need to take train to brussels (like 2 hours), so that’s fantastic.
i can book over internet, so that’s what i shall do tomorrow. and train from rome is not 18 hours, its 10, according to her. she said a friend took train from northern netherlands, and it was 12 hours.

and she looked at my rome maps and gave me more advise.

did i mention that i’m thrilled?

so now instead of dinner here, she invited me to go with her to her friends to have dinner with them. since i’m starving, and we have no food, i agreed.

we *might* go out afterwards. judging by last night its unlikely, plus i have to get up early, but i’m not going to refuse ahead of time.

she’s getting very dressed up (make up and all).

i’m wearing boots, pants, black shirt, jacket. simple. i COULD get dressed up, but i don’t really feel like it.

YAY food! its 9:40pm so i’m pretty hungry.

i’m happy. but i still miss everyone!

—-

wow, i’m extremely late writing this. this is almost exactly 24 hours later, its 9:17 the next night. so many things happened!

so i went with her to the other building.

there were about 16 people there, italian, brazilian, french, austrian, (and me). we all sat in this common room: it is very large, as the building is far better then the one that i live in. huge ceilings! anyway, the room has 3 couches, a coffee table, and a tv, and behind all that there were two large wood tables surrounded by plastic chairs. everything is ikea or similar, but i’m fairly sure its ikea.

after about an hour, italian people made pasta with tomato sauce and bacon for everyone. while waiting we all just talked, conversations was just flowing between different people. the music was smashing pumpkins, evanecense, queen, coldplay, prodigy, and then during dinner real italian music (like, ballads/pop, not dance or trance). it was absolutely fantastic!

the people that i met:

francesca: my neighbour, very nice girl, about 20, going into economics, very cute and friendly, claims she can’t cook but knows a lot of basic dishes, allergic to wheat, has very poor english but adorable italian accent. talking to her makes me laugh because she is so extremely emotional!

dolphina: a french girl, from south of france, speaks fairly good english but also with problems, we got along very well. it was her birthday.

eva: austrian girl, not from our school, she studies in leiche, but she’s here because she an dolphina met during dutch language classes (somewhere). also very nice.

brazillian girl: who’s name i AGAIN forgot! ARGH, i just asked her for it yesterday. very shy, very quiet, never talks, but when i did talk to her she is very friendly. when we go out she comes with us.

diego: a brazillian guy that the girl met at the train station, lives in the same building as me and francesca. curses a lot. loves soccer.

a bunch of italian guy who i gave up on trying to remember their names. they don’t speak english that well (most of them) so we get along fine by just waving hi.

oh, there’s one italian guy who’s name is … (goes to francesca to ask) enrico. he went to toronto 2 years ago, and there was this hilarious story that happened to him:

he was in finch station, and he entered through “outside building”, which is i assume the passenger pick up. a cop stopped him, and tried to take his documents. enrico didn’t recognize the cop being, well, a cop, and kicked him. (when i asked how come he didn’t recognize he said “well, his clothes looked dirty and he smelled bad!”) the cop punched him (like, duh), breaking his lip and sending him to the ground. he ended up going to the police for a few hours, where they said that he could have went to jail.

anyway, that was a fairly reasonable person to talk to, except i have no idea how he lived in toronto, their english is … well, sucky. i feel my english becoming much worse as well.

after we all ate (and drank tiny glasses of red wine to share with everyone), i went to wash the dishes, as i didn’t cook or buy food or anything, and i was STARVING and ate this huge serving of DELICIOUS pasta. i figured people wouldn’t particularly notice, but *5* people came up to me seperately, *each* one asking why am washing (“because i didn’t cook so i want to do something”), arguing that i should stop washing (“but cooking is easier than washing!” said by an italian guy), and the last person was the brazillian girl, who came in to offer to help me, but i was already done (it was like 16 plates and some forks and such, its like 5 minutes of washing), and was very surprised. all in all it was very nice, i felt appreciated and happy.

after that i went to call my parents, spoke to them for a while, and then we went out.

which is where the sad part begins.

we were walking to find a pub (some people wanted coffee shops, and there were plenty of those, however francesca, myself and the two brazillian people don’t smoke). while we were walking on a very narrow street, a person on a bike passed us. he was riding downhill and going very fast, and swerving, and he hit the last girl in the line that we were going at. she had a bruise on her head and otherwise she is okay, however he fell on the ground, and hit his head to the point where he wasn’t blinking, wasn’t concious, and had a huge pool of blood around him. police was there in 1 minute, and ambulance took him away in like 5-10 minutes. the girl went with them just in case (for her bruise). i have no idea what happened to him.

anyway, aftewards, we all went straight to the home, and very shocked just sat for about 2 hours. went to sleep at 4am, after drinking the medicinal tea to relax (me, francesca and diego).

date: 1092196264

mood: sick to my bones
listening to:

i’m sick, again! that’s twice, fever and really headache in 2 weeks. and throat hurt for whole week.

the world is ending, i came to check on people and almost no one updated their blogs.
like, we’re getting a life. or growing up. or just its summer and we’re all busy not doing anything.

being sick, sucks.

16 days left.

date: 1084936700

mood: tired
listening to:olya – I HAVE A JOB (didn’t you hear it yet??)

at my new job i have been studying project managment.

one of the 9 parts of PM knowledge body is procurement.

i made a specific note to look that word up cause books explain procurement – “to procure”

anyway.

tadaaa

check this out

Verb: procure
1. Get by special effort
2. Arrange for sexual partners for other

i knew they were fishy.

also today.

hesi exhibit. cooooooooooool. hesi is like, a real exhibited person now.
me 4.5 hours sleep
me wake up 6am tomorrow.

to talk about procurement.

haha.

i’m glad b6’s car is okay.

date: 1082690953

mood: crippled and consumed and depleted
listening to:silence

http://www.neimanmar…ml?item=prod11490007
http://www.neimanmar…splayImage=alternate
http://www.neimanmar…ml?item=prod11400048

my brain is in shock
i’m not happy, i’m just dead, tired, empty inside
this state where you just have no clue what just happened and the last 12 hours seem like 48 hours long and every cell wants to sleep and not at the same time

*

date: 1080942185

mood: procrastinating, oh, so much. oh make me work!
listening to:

male: are you mad?
female: no.
male: …diappsointed?
female: no.
male: …so we’re okay? (hopeful)
female: no.

heeheee.

date: 1079465900

mood: grrrrr
listening to:dune – rainbow to the stars

i was making scrambled eggs.
i put a little bow into the microwave to warm it up
on take it out after 15 seconds i proceeded to accidentally smash the bowl so hard against the edge of the microwave plate that it shattered into my scrambled eggs which were made with the last drops of milk we had.
no scrambled eggs, and no time to have a nice shower and breakfast as i needed to clean up everything. the glass shards are tiny and they are EVERYWHERE. its insane. i vacuumeed every tile with the narrowest nozzle. i wiped everything three times. i’m still paranoid. and the fucking plate is broken.

*sighs* while cleaning up i noticed how pretty much every action i do is so clumsy. i smash into stuff, i bump into stuff, i don’t stop my hand fast enough from getting something and i get another bruise. seriously, i’m 20. why the heck am i so clumsy?

i have an honest jealousy for people who can take things and look graceful like doing it.

maybe that’s why i can’t dance. i don’t have good control over my body movememnts, be those controlled or not.

i’m annoyed, pissed off and running out of time because i’m clumsy. this is not fair!