BloPoMo conclusion

I’ve run out of October days, which means Blogtober is over. And just like the time I tried to post a blog a day a couple of years ago, I found it really hard. I don’t understand how other people do it…

At this point I am satisfied I managed an average of a post “(almost) every other day”.

As far as work stress is concerned, I probably should have chosen a different month… I’ve been really tired after work, feeling like I never get enough sleep, even though I did usually manage my 7-8 hours of shut-eye.

So maybe I should give it a go again in the new year, when things have settled back down at work and my energy levels are restored.

To all of you that completed the Blogtober “blog a day” goal: you are awesome!!!

 

Oh hi there, November… You sure sneaked up on me. Make yourself comfortable, old friend. You are most welcome here!

 

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The seven sins; minus four, plus one

All though I have a certain fascination for religion and spirituality, in truth I am a devout atheist. My interest stems from an anthropological curiosity for mankind, its history and psychological necessities.

A thing that I have spent many hours philosophizing about is the role of religion in defining the boundary between good and evil. As I am most familiar with Christianity and I run into its symbolism almost on a daily basis, I have often pondered about the value and appeal of the seven sins.

Dismantling the seven sins

I have come to the conclusion that of the seven, there are four that I don’t consider to be all that bad;

• Lust – Why would you demonize sex?
• Gluttony – what’s wrong with enjoying good food?
• Pride – I suppose they mean arrogance, which is an annoying trait for sure. But a cardinal sin? Mwoah….
• Sloth – Aaaugh, don’t judge my laziness; I need it! Even neuro-scientists agree.

The one in the list I haven’t made up my mind about yet, is wrath.

• Wrath – Merriam-Webster dictionary say wrath is “strong vengeful anger or indignation”. I think everyone has the right to feel anger and definitely indignation. However, I know people that douse their words with the poison of bitterness and hate and that is really sucky, to say the least. At the same time, I am convinced such words always come from people that are hurting themselves and in a very distorted way are actually crying for help. 

And then there’s the two that would also qualify as evil, dark and nasty in my book;

• Envy – No doubt about it; envy is ugly and anyone that feels this needs to work on eradicating it from their system. No good comes from it.
• Greed – The core of almost all of mankind’s suffering, if you ask me. 

The eighth sin.

Envy and greed are both dark paths, that every person has walked down, albeit briefly.

A state of mind that may come across as innocent to some but deserves strong condemnation is the passive aggressive feeling of:

Indifference

All though I know many people that let matters of the world get to them in a degree that I feel is unhealthy, indifference is probably the feeling I fear most in the world.

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Hutspot, herring and happiness!

It’s the fourth day of Blogtober and I have published a blog only once (but this will be two, as soon as I press the button).

A bad start? Maybe.

But I have a good excuse. I live in a Dutch town called Leiden, which explodes every year around the 3rd of October, when the siege and relief of the city is commemorated and celebrated. It’s a actually a very interesting history that you can read more about here.

The 3 October festival is something kids and grownups from Leiden and surroundings save up for all year in every sense. People go CRAZY!

There is a huge funfair with rides and activities throughout the city center. Several parades take place, food of all shapes and sizes are on sale and a big fireworks show signals the end. The traditional dishes, for historical reasons, are herring on white bread and “hutspot”, which is a dish made of mashed potatoes, carrots, onions and a sort of beef stew.

A masher; kitchen tool to mash potatoes with.

This year we celebrated by eating hutspot in our new neighborhood. About a dozen volunteers had made their take on the meal and a jury of local restaurant chefs decided which version would take home the golden “masher”. The winner ended up being an adventurous neighbor that decided to flavor the hutspot up with some asian spices.  Yummy!

Besides being a super handsome and historically interesting city, Leiden also has the oldest University of the country, which the city was gifted by Prince William of Orange for the city’s perseverance, suffering and bravery during the Spanish sieges in the 16th century.

For students and outsiders, the 3 October festival is something they love to hate and hate to love. Most straight out hate it and flee the city, as the University closes its doors during these days anyhow.

After having learned the hard way that trying to get from A to B was futile during these two days of local insanity, I embraced the celebration and am now a big fan, which is actually surprising considering I am not a drinker and the whole city is completely WASTEDDDDD for two whole days.

So, I am in doubt if I should recommend coming to Leiden during the beginning of October or not… In the end it’s actually about personal preferences. You have to be able to see and hear the beauty of it all, amidst rowdy crowds, flashing lights, annoyingly repetitive funfair music (and all other types of music) and stale beer. I love it!

Read more about the festival here.

Surprise! I don’t like surprises.

A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend, G, came home after work and told me he had found out about something really cool that I was going to love and that I needed to ask such-and-such Friday off from work.

I asked him what this cool thing was, where it was, why I would love it, if I needed to take my bathing suit with me or hiking shoes, if we were going by train or bus or bike… and guess what; he just smiled and told me “wait and see”.

So I did… and then completely forgot to ask the Friday off. (In my defence; I did tell him he should remind me again; maybe text me or something…) When we woke up on Saturday morning and I told him I needed to work that day, he looked really disappointed.

I realized I had forgotten to not-work on Friday and even added an extra day to the workweek… Wupps…

And then, on Saturday evening his frown (luckily) turned upside down when he found out the super-special-special-mystery-thingamajig-I-shouldn’t-ask-about-but-would-totally-love would also be available for us on Sunday… which was today…

 

I have to admit, I had the hardest time convincing myself to not tie him to a chair and force more information out of him somehow. Admission number two: I was kind of surprised (and taken aback) by my reaction to all of this… and I think G was too…

After a truly lovely day (that I will tell you more about in a blog later in the week) we got home and twisted comfortably back into our evening routines. I was exhausted though, which had very little to do with the actual physical strain of the day.

So yeah, what the hell, right?

G told me he thought this was an important lesson for me and that he would continue to organize little surprise outings for me every now and then until I learnt to deal with them properly…

My first thought:

Pfff… Thanks for making me feel like a five year old, dude….

And immediately after that:

OMFG, why can’t I just be grateful and trust that he knows and loves me enough to only take me to awesome places?!

He said I surprised him with little thoughtful gifts and gestures all the time and that he wanted to be able to return the favor, which… yah… is a sweet thought (all though I don’t recall being such a tease with anything I ever gave him, but hey…).

I told him I would prefer he would just tell me he was taking me somewhere on the day of the actual outing and not leave me in the dark for a whole week first.
He said that this method was necessary so that I could ask a day off from work.

I told him I didn’t get the point of being so secretive about it. If he would tell me he had found out about a super special place and would describe it then and there, I would be super excited to go with him. Why build the anticipation like that?
He said he wanted it to be special. He felt talking about it beforehand would ruin the magic and might even make it disappointing.

I told him keeping expectations low was actually one of my specialties; keeping my cool while handing over all control to someone else was not.
He said “trust me”.

 

 

But I do trust him.

 

Just not as much as I trust myself.

 

 

I’m working on it.

 

Blogtober

My mind is cluttered and slow but my motivation is back. The only way to get this blog train going again is by hopping on the Blogtober wagon. So that’s what I’m going to do.

The last time I challenged myself to do a blog a day was August 2015, aka Blogust. It was actually quite challenging and I definitely didn’t manage to write something every day, but it was good practice.

Wish me luck.

 

 

Mind Cleanup – April

All though May has already kicked into gear my April Mind Cleanup was still due. So here it is. The first topic mostly has to do with celebrations that have taken place in May, but the discussion started on April 30th, so I think it does count for this blog…

Epiphanies

All though it is something that is not always apparent (to me) a heated discussion that broke loose nationwide last week has reminded me that Dutch society is broken, or at the very least torn.

The discussion started on twitter, where a young woman posted a picture of herself holding a sign reading “No 4th of May for me”.

Beside being Star Wars day, in the Netherlands the 4th of May is also Remembrance Day. On this day we commemorate all the victims of the Second World War and all wars after that.

The point of this lady’s protest-selfie was not that she thought one day was too short to remember ALL of the victims of ALL wars worldwide. She was upset by the hypocrisy of it all. She felt it was all just a farce; how we all pat ourselves on the back for beating fascism in the second world war on the same public square where days earlier our own homegrown, contemporary far-right groups gathered to promote their racist propaganda.

Her hashtag “geen4meivoormei” exploded on twitter and poured out into all other forms of social media and even into the morning newspapers. Most of the reactions I read did not agree with her and you can imagine how some of the harshness that was slung at her, demonstrated she was on to something.

What saddens me the most is that the 4th of May celebration is precisely the kind of day she should be participating in most actively, as it is perhaps the only day that us Dutchies ever shut up for long enough for someone else to be able to make a point. We shut our mouths for two whole minutes.

How useful would it be if we used those two minutes to analyze our own xenophobia, guided by someone who has perhaps been on the receiving end of it? I hope somehow this outspoken young woman finds her way back into this national day of reflection and helps it be an inclusive one, where everyone feels welcome and represented.

Epic moments

• I spent a couple of days in Prague at the beginning of the month. Verdict:
  • Beautiful, beautiful town.
  • April is a great time to go, as the fruit trees on the hill are in bloom and the weather is very pleasant (or maybe we were just really lucky, not sure)
  • Love the goulash, not so much the dumplings.
  • A lot of booze-related tourism
  • Friendly people despite of this.
  • I had so many really really deep philosophical talks with my bf that we started to believe we were being haunted by all the great thinkers of Bohemia in our sleep!

Self reflection

It’s been two years since my trip across the North Sea in the Yvette II and 73 years since grandparents made their trip in the original Yvette.

Epicureous

I really like sweet potato and especially  when I cut them into fries and bake em in the oven. The only thing I haven’t mastered yet is the right dip to go along with it…

Movies / Series

I finally got around to watching the 2nd season of Fargo and I absolutely loved it! To my own utter surprise, I really appreciated Kirsten Dunst in it and may even forgive her for the horrible job she did in the Spiderman movies. Apparently she is better at playing difficult roles than she is at easy ones.

So yah, totally recommend Fargo season 2, even to people who haven’t seen season 1 (there is very little correlation between the two seasons)

Music

At this point I don’t even know if this has much to do with music anymore, but apparently life gave Beyoncé a big truckload of lemons and she made some serious lemonade. I have only seen snippets of the music video and am not completely sure how I feel about all of that but that it’s one for the history books can hardly be denied.

Cowabunga – funny moments

• Tourists that don’t know we don’t celebrate queen’s day anymore
• I saw this image or R2D2 the other day, and if there are any hispanohablante readers around, I hope you have a giggle over it too:

Bummerama

• Ecuador earthquake. 😦 The Japan one was nasty too, but I have a little Ecuador shaped compartment in my heart and my entire heart goes out to those struggling there to rebuild their homes and lives. If you are wishing to contribute to this process and you want to be sure that the money makes it all the way down to those who need it the most, take a look at Runa Foundation’s Emergency Relief Fund. 

Cruel intentions

My sense of humor can have a cruel touch.

Besides making jokes on specific people’s expenses I also always enjoyed making offensive jokes about entire groups of people. Literally any group. Men. Women. Chinese. Latinos. Jews. Dutch. Gays. Cripples. The elderly. Hippies. Farmers. Lawyers. You name it and I would make fun of them and enjoy myself shamelessly in the process.

Not only have I enjoyed making these jokes, I have also loved being on the receiving end of them. There are few things that I find more entertaining than being in a humorous battle of wits and being outgunned by someone quicker than me.

And don’t forget dirty jokes! People don’t expect them to come from my corner and the looks on faces when I let one loose is highly addictive; A priceless mix of confusion and shock, topped off with a swirl of delight and disgust. Love that shit.

I speak in the past tense, as if it is something I don’t enjoy in present day. But I do, just not in the same way. I still make the same remarks, just not as loudly. In some cases I may even bite my tongue and chuckle silently as I share my witty remark with just me, myself and I. If I’m lucky there is a kindred spirit present to exchange glances with.

There are times when I really mourn the loss of my snark and want to blame the world for stirring up my conscience to such politically correct levels.

The sentence above is something I wrote weeks ago. Maybe even months. It’s been moved around from one draft to another until last week when I started to doubt it’s meaning.  I was planning on going into my own personal anti-political-correctness-tirade, which would have boiled down to something like this:

The last few days though I have felt the need to do the opposite and come to the defense of political correctness and promote it as the only true and right attitude to have.

Why?

Donald Trump.

Yes, I am really trying to ignore and deny his existence but he’s just so LOUD. The kind of stuff he’s been saying in the last couple of weeks has really truly blown my mind:

In the good old days, they’d rip him out of that seat so fast. But today, everybody’s politically correct. Our country’s going to hell with being politically correct
February 26, Oklahoma

And:

Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court. Don’t worry about it. … We had four guys, they jumped on him, they were swinging and swinging. The next day, we got killed in the press — that we were too rough. Give me a break. You know? Right? We don’t want to be too politically correct anymore. Right, folks?
March 4 in Michigan

These are just two of the many things he said when confronted with protesters at his rallies. I don’t know if I am more angry or sad.

And then yesterday, while campaigning in Tucson, Arizona, he promised the world he would be acting more “presidential” in weeks to come (whatever that means). Not because he wanted to per se, but because his wife and daughter “begged him”. Ah yes, of course the weaker sex would do that… And as a good husband and father he can’t help but give in…

So yes, if opposing political correctness puts me on his team….

….I don’t even know how to finish that sentence but I think you get the point. I’d rather give up humor for a decade than associate myself with this man in any remote way.

No such thing as bad weather

Because my promise to publish five easy-to-digest light topic blogs is proving to be a bigger challenge than I thought, I have resorted to Daily Prompts to find inspiration.

I agree, it’s kind of worrisome that I have very little trouble thinking of half a dozen topics to write about when it comes to my personal annoyances, petty opinions and the state of the world but go completely blank when requested to write about something optimistic.

So, like many people who don’t know what to say, I am going to be talking about the weather.

Soooo, the winter is crazy warm on this side of the globe….. El niño sure was strong this year, huh?!

My dad is actually a big fan of the weather. He would always whisper to me as a kid to be silent for a minute and listen to his friend….

*dramatic pause*

…. the wind, whistling past our house. And the rain; oh how he loves the rain! The rain is a blessing that we must be thankful for. Also, it’s the perfect time for a walk, provided that you have the right coat / a change of clothing with you. Feel its rhythm, smell its earthiness and see how nature reacts to its arrival; you are alive!

It sounds quite romantic and idyllic now but you can imagine I wasn’t quite as charmed by his eccentric ideas as a teenager. Imagine being dragged away from your favorite TV show to go walk around in the mud during an autumn storm… Not so amusing, daddyo.

But yah, I actually love it nowadays, all though I still get a little cranky when the cold gets into my bones and the skies are grey for weeks on end.

When I hear people complain about the weather though, I usually can’t help but remind them that there is no such thing as “bad” or “ugly” weather. All you need is the right clothing and a bright attitude.

Oh and maybe some hot chocolate.

And a fireplace

Oh yeah.

Guilty pleasures

We all have them, those songs and artists that we hate to love and love to hate; they’re our guilty pleasures.

Sobby latino songs, Miley sing-a-longs, Rihanna rebel songs, Christina bootyshakers, Nickelback nanana-rock, Gaga-marches; ah yes, there is a time and place for all of these (which is usually around midnight and behind closed doors, curtains and windows :p )

So which songs would make me blush the hardest getting caught singing and dancing along to? I can feel it coming in the air tonight: it’s a list!

1.

This perfectly dramatic song can get terribly on my nerves when played on the wrong moment but when it hits me right, oh my poor neighbors!  Ahora quiiieeeeeeeeeeeeen?

2.

Like many of the fans that were with her from the very start, I was disappointed at first when Shakira started selling more sex than music. When she sings in Spanish, she still wins me over every time though and this song in particular… OK, I’ll say it: I Love it!

3.

Despite finding this guy kind of gross and the fact that I have no clue what he’s singing, my knees and shoulders can’t help but twitch, bob and rock when this songs comes on.

4.

My love for this song brings me back to high school angstiness, which pretty much gives away my approximate age, doesn’t it? Anyhoo, turn it up, here are the Guano Apes!

5.

I never really made up my mind about what I really think of Eminem. I’m always excited to hear new songs of his but don’t really listen to him much all in all. His apparent anger and ultra-specific lyrics always make me feel a strange mix of sympathy and pity. This one song however, is just really kind of cool and encouraging and great to scream along to in the car!

6.

This videoclip always mesmerizes me. It makes me feel like such a terribly arythmic, unflexible, good-for-nothing white girl… which is actually pretty accurate… My goodness, look at what those hips can do! And not just that, it all moves independently of each other O.o ! Amazing… and the song is so catchy too!

7.

The next one I have trouble admitting even to myself. It’s a song by a Dutch folk singer, now deceased, but legendary for the tears he forces down grown men’s cheeks, especially after a couple of beers. It’s one of those songs that the whole pub sings along to whenever it’s played. The song’s title means “Blood, sweat and tears”, which pretty much says it all. Also, it’s the title of the bio pic about Andre’s life.
I am most definitely not a fan, but yes I know it by heart and will channel all the inner pain I have in me to sing it the way its s’posed to.

A top 7…. That’s kind of meager, no? Not a top 5, not a top 10… I guess it kind of fits for a kind of wrong list for kind of wrong music… right?

Have a good Friday!

November rain

The time of the year has come that Guns n Roses legendary song is played on the radio more frequently. It killed me when I heard some channels choose to stop the song before its climactic second part (let’s call it the funeral part). That’s usually the part where I crank up the volume just a tad more, for that final climax!

Anyhow, I realized that this is a song that is very rarely covered, even in these cover-crazy times… I looked it up to see if perhaps I had missed some talented garage band giving it an honest try, but there was really nothing noteworthy. I did see a bossa nova re-do which should never have happened and some guitarists giving it their all, but with no vocals.

I know this song may be most loved for its guitar solos but come on! The background vocals in the beginning, the heart wrenching guitar-vocal team up at the end. Isn’t there anyone who dares give it a go? Is it that holy? Or is it that hard? Or has it become that uninteresting….?

I guess I’m just as melancholic as the weather and want me some weeping guitars…