It bugs me that I haven't allowed myself to be creative since I was a kid. It's this insecurity thing, I think - I don't want to make anything that might not be good, so I don't make anything at all. I don't know. It's stupid, because now I get these periods where I feel enormously inspired by pretty much everything and I'm aching to just do something with all the beauty I see, make something out of it, but I don't know how and I don't know where to start so again, I don't.

This happens every few months or so and it's happening again now, so because I don't know how to do anything, don't know what else to do, I just start looking for pretty things aimlessly. Photographs, art, books, music, clothes, posters... whatever. Preferably things I can buy, because then at least I'll have something to show for this stupid mania. I don't know, it's weird. Kind of embarrassing to be so out of touch with things I love that the only way for me to feel okay is to buy them. Eh, I don't know. It's a good thing I'm broke, I guess, that way at least I can't buy too many things I have no use for.

I did buy this:



New winter coat! Totally permitted, because I have been wearing the same one for six years now and I was so sick of it, it was driving me nuts. The fake fur collar comes off and has a regular white collar underneath. I spent a month mooning over this coat, saving up until I had the money to get it. Now it's mine!



Bobby poster! I love this image and I love him and it was cheap. Yes!

I was happy with the way my room looked for a while but now I'm not anymore - it's too empty. I'm probably going to be buying more prints and posters over the next few months to fill out my remaining wall space a little more. I still need a bookcase, but I think that will have to wait until I get some birthday money in December.

In more real life news: tomorrow I'm seeing North By Northwest in the theatre with my dad! It's always exciting when old films are shown in the cinema so I'm looking forward to it.

Then Tuesday I'm going to my nan's to hang out and watch more Bollywood films, including Paheli which I can honestly recommend to everyone, even though Shah Rukh Khan sports a terrifying moustache all throughout it. I love this film and Shah Rukh's part in it so much that even despite the olde timey stache and the turbans the size of baby elephants, I would STILL HIT IT. And that's saying something because men I love suddenly sporting unflattering moustaches usually make me despair. And all that is not to mention Rani, who is pretty as ever and who seems to have a thing for films about ladies doing what they want even when it's not generally considered the traditional thing to do. I love her for that. Anyway, yes, Paheli is great and one day I might picspam it, I dunno.

For starters though have the end credits, which involve an awesome song and dance sequence in which all the main characters are string puppets! I love this particularly because the film is a fairy tale from ~olden times~, so the puppet idea feels extra appropriate, besides being hella cute.



And while I'm at it have my jam for the day, because... anything to make this post less uninteresting, lol.



Okay, end of disjointed entry!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD \o/


lol I love that my parents' birthdays are right after each other. Two days of celebration in a row yes please!

So yes today is my dad's turn and I love him too! <3 He is 62 now and still awesome and more knowledgeable than anyone else in the world.




(lol my haaaaair, way too short. Also this is from before I learned that this hairdo needs a blow dryer.)





lolol I look extremely unfortunate in ALL THREE of those photos of us together, but at least I found a few! I'm so camera shy that most pictures of me in company are candids lol, which means most are weird looking. lol my face.

ANYWAY YES HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD ILU. <3

I was still at home for his birthday as well which was nice! We went for a walk together downtown (where I found a DVD of the original version of Hairspray for 3 bucks, yeaaah! ILU JOHN WATERS) and we ate a lot of pie and my brother and I got him a book with Bob Dylan lyrics made into comics/art by a bunch of different people which I HOPE he likes, and we watched a film about the Dorsey brothers.

Tomorrow I don't have any classes so my dad and I are going to Amsterdam! There's a Russian Heritage exhibit there right now which I've heard is really gorgeous so I'm excited! lol I love spending time with my family idgaf. <3

MAMA IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA



YES BITCHES IT IS MY MUM'S BIRTHDAY TODAY AND I LOVE HER. <3 She is still fierce and awesome at 59.







ILY MUM <3 even though we both have toe cleavage lol :'(

I spent the day at my parents' celebrating with them - I'll be here tomorrow as well, for my dad's 62nd birthday! So idk, prepare for sparkly font tomorrow as well haha.

The three of us went to the museum together which was fun and omg, remember that time I went to a Christian Schad exhibit? (I should probably warn you that the entry I linked contains a painting of a half naked lady lol.) They had a really big and amazing exhibit catalogue I reaaalllyyy wanted, but it was too expensive for me (40 euros iirc). Today? IT COST 7,50. I snapped that shit up so fast, you don't even know. I AM SO EXCITED \o/

I also found another amazing as hell book that I need in my life:



IT IS SO AMAZING but it was also too expensive. I guess it's on my birthday wishlist now, lol.

I stole some pictures of the content off amazon because it is glorious:











I love this kind of stuff so much SO OF COURSE IT IS ALWAYS TOO EXPENSIVE. Also I'm not LJ cutting this because it's great, you should all see it lol.

I think I was gonna say more but I forgot? I guess this entry is long enough already though, so whatever haha.

lol omg, I love Donovan.

DRIVIN' IN M'CAR CAR, DRIVIN IN MUH CAR
ENGINE GOES BBRRRMM BRRRRM
ENGINE GOES BRRRRM BRRRRM

lol Donovan, you are so lame and yet so amazing.

I'm visiting home right now (which is also why Donovan is playing and not MJ, but I love Donovan so it's all good) and having a really great time! The weather is really amazing, which is doubly convenient at the moment because my parents' house HAS A GARDEN. I love our house in Leiden, but it is sorely lacking in the garden department.







PARADISE.

I took a walk with my dad in the morning (predictably we spent half of the time we were out in a bookstore, lmao) and had a really great lunch in the garden, and I've just been chillin' out here since. IT IS SO GREAT, I'm finally getting into the proper summer spirit now that my exam is over and I don't have to worry about studying anymore.



MY LUNCH INCLUDED A FRUIT TART, DID YOURS? (I hope it did!)

lol I love how my dad spoils me when I come home. ♥ When he knows that I'm coming to visit there's usually a slice of cake or something waiting for me when I arrive, and he'll buy all kinds of amazing stuff like fancy cheese and sliced mortadella and raisin and nut bread from the organic store nearby, and then be like "oh they're yours, don't forget to take them back with you!" And he's always so happy to see me again, it makes me want to visit every other day, lol. Basically I love visiting home! It's a shame my mum isn't here now, but she is chillin with her buddhists so at least she's having a good time too.

I'll be visiting my aunt's later and having dinner with her so all in all today is an A+ summery family day. I APPROVE OF TODAY SO HARD.

Also also random topic change, my dad just showed me this video:



and not only do I LOVE IT FOREVER, I also love how there's a chorus of screaming girls in the background! If it had been the Beatles or whatever there would have been a million close-ups of the screaming crazy girls in the video, but apparently when girls screamed for a girl band the camera people were all "... let's just pretend this never happened. Zoom in on the tame fans, ZOOM IN ON THE TAME FANS!" lmao.

Okay I think that will be all from me for today, lol. I just wanted to be all YAY on the internet for a minute because I've been kind of peeved over having to stay home all summer and now I am no longer peeved! I thought that was worth documenting, haha.

Today is weird! I don't know what to make of it. I feel like I'm having a good day when I shouldn't be?

I took what must have been the most stressful (and important) exam resit of my life on about one hour of sleep at 9 am (which ain't such a hot time for me and my lifelong disordered sleeping), and I have noooo idea whether I passed or failed. I was kinda switching back and forth between being focused and ~in the zone~ and completely out of it, sooo idk. I WANT TO KNOW MY RESULTS AND YET I DON'T, so as a compromise I'm going to hope they take the full three weeks to give us our grades back.

On the bright side though the weather was really really wonderful, so I walked most of the way back home. I've been told the weather has been great for a week now, but I wouldn't know lmao. I decided that I deserved comfort food (and I FUCKING DID, omg. Never have I revised as much in one day as I did yesterday. Ten weeks worth of civil law in one day. TEN.), which in a shocking turn of events I COULD ACTUALLY AFFORD. I get my first cheque of the month around the 18th and usually end up with like €10 left to last me at least the entire week before that if not longer, but now I have money left over?! This is literally the first time, lmao. So I stopped off at the supermarket and treated myself to grapes and fresh orange juice and pecan honey pastries. Fuck yes.

AND THEN I CAME HOME AND SWITCHED ON THE TV AND SETTLED DOWN WITH MY AMAZING AS HELL FOOD AND THRILLER STARTED ON MTV RIGHT THEN. lol that made up for a lot, not even gonna lie. It still takes me by surprise every time I see Michael on tv because I'd expected like one day of tributes and then nothing, but they're still playing his videos pretty regularly over here and it makes me




This was like an hour ago, and now half of me is like FUCK YES FREEDOM LET ME GO DO SOMETHING FUN OUTSIDE and the other half of me is like SLEEP. SLEEP AND NEVER WAKE UP. so idk. I'm probably gonna go with sleep, lmao.

Hopefully I'll be awake enough by tomorrow to go visit my dad, because my brother is away on introduction camp with the student society he joined (my bb brother is a UNIVERSITY STUDENT this is making me feel old) and my mum is away doing buddhist things for a week, so my dad is all alonely aw. Also this is the longest I've gone without seeing him since I moved out - not okay! My mum came to visit me last week and my brother crashed at my place a few times during his uni introduction week, so it's really just my dad being ~left out~.

SO APPARENTLY WHEN I DON'T SLEEP ENOUGH I START TO TL;DR ABOUT REAL LIFE STUFF? GOOD TO KNOW!

brb sleeping forever

HELLO THIS IS A SHORT UPDATE BECAUSE IT'S BEEN A WHILE. I keep meaning to post but then... I don't, idk. You guys should probably be relieved though because otherwise I would have made a million posts that all started out pretending to be normal, only to turn into rly long MJ posts. And by a million I MEAN a million.

SO these are the things that have been going on in my life recently (that do not involve Michael Jackson):

- I WENT TO A REGINA SPEKTOR CONCERT \o/. I just got back a few hours ago actually. She was so goooood and also adorbs, ilher so much. I really need to get with the program and buy her new album already, all the songs she played off it were great.

- My mum had a pretty big surgery last Thursday, which I was fretting over a little even though it was a pretty routine and low-risk operation. It all went swimmingly though and she was even allowed home after 2 days instead of 6! She can't stand up/walk much at the moment, and she's not allowed to ride a bike or lift >2 kilos or basically have a life for the next month and a half, so I plan to keep her company with a stack of DVDs as often as I can. WHAT A CHORE, lol.

- I am pretty sure I'm coming down with something >:( I've been feeling generally blarg for a week or so now and my throat has been hurting like mad for the past 3 days as well. BUT my throat glands or whatever the hell you call them (plz correct my foreign ass if I got this wrong) feel completely normal, says my med student friend. AM I HALLUCINATING AN ILLNESS OR SOMETHING, idgi.

Okay I don't even remember where I was going with this post, I recall having actual interesting things to say and then it turned into... this. Idek :') I need to go to bed. I need to make this post a little less lame before I go though and this is how:



Conclusion: if you thought that Mickey Mouse sweaters were only cute on people under the age of 10 you can just THINK AGAIN. Also the adorableness of upside-down Michael is equal to if not greater than that of right side up Michael. LOOK AT HIM fna;sdg.

EDITED TO ADD THIS FOR GREAT JUSTICE, and also to say HELL YES HBP TOMORROW, FUCKING FINALLY. I don't know how I forgot to mention that!

So after about five years of going "gosh I really should..." I finally read Coraline! I know I know, not like it's even long or anything but idk I just never got around to it ok! Having done so now though I feel that I should mention how it is BRILLIANT. ~*Special thanks*~ to my housemate Jonathan for letting me borrow his copy, because otherwise it would probably have taken another 5 years. Soo yes if any of you are even slower than me (doubtful!) and have not read Coraline yet, do it! Neil Gaiman is awesome and this book is proof.

I only just realised that I accidentally planned basically my entire week to consist of movie marathons with a bunch of different people, oops? I'm watching Bollywood films with my nan tomorrow, as-yet-undecided films with a friend on Wednesday, and having a Harry Potter marathon with friends on Thursday because they will be in Denmark when the next one comes out so they need to be ~prepared~. I was going to go to Denmark with them but then I was short on cash, plus the timing was bad. Sadface! Anyway I'm pretty okay with the film marathon week because even though the weather has been really really good lately, apparently a NEVERENDING THUNDERSTORM is about to start tomorrow, so I guess I'll be safely inside during that mess. This is good!

Also, I am still hung up on MJ. This is less good because it means I unleash my MJ-related emo on the world all the time because I am apparently incapable of shutting up, and I am probably boring people slowly to death with it. But WTF IT SUCKS SO BAD. This is seriously longer than I have ever been upset about anyone dying, including relatives of mine. That really kind of disturbs me idk but I can't stop being sad about it? fnas'dkg I don't know, have a damn video of him with a llama being cute because that is all I am good for right now


OKAY THE END. Cry.

My brother's graduation was really nice \o/ he was the first person called to the stage by the teachers even, because he did best in some biology competition he never even told us about :') It is clear: my baby brother wins at life.

Also I had never been to his school before and HOLY SHIT, IT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ART DECO SCHOOL BUILDING I HAVE EVER SEEN. I am so jealous. From what I've heard I'm glad I didn't actually go there because apparently it's not particularly full of likeable people, but my own school's building was a hideous 70s (50s apparently, I stand corrected!) monstrosity and just, holy crap, I am so jealous! It's not like I'll ever have reason to be in that building again, so I decided to bust out my camera and take some pictures. I'm glad I did because I just trolled google and flickr to find more pictures of the building and hey guess what: there are like three of them, and they suck.

So yes, look at my baby brother's old school because it is gorge:



( Moar here! )

Okay, thus ends my picspam of envy.

Also yesterday evening I watched part of a BRILLIANT BBC documentary series about the very beginning of film history, called The Last Machine and presented by Terry Gilliam (hell yes!) It was AMAZING - so, so thorough and interesting and really fun to watch! My dad taped it when it aired in the 90s, but accidentally recorded something else over nearly half of the episodes. D: I've been googling for hours because I really want to see the rest of it, but I can't find a single episode available for download ANYWHERE, nor has the series ever been officially released. THIS IS RLY UPSETTING >:( Damn you, BBC. I don't know if anyone with more Google chops than myself can find it, but if you do I will be grateful to you for fucking ever. I am desperate D:

So many awesome things going on! IL my life right now.

Firstly of course MY BROTHER PASSED HIS FINAL EXAMS HELL YEAH \o/ he did so well, I am v. v. proud! I want to buy him a gift since I have money again (I spent the last two weeks basically without it, no lie) but I don't know what he waaaaaants D: Possibly I have located the most difficult person in world history to buy presents for. He never wants anything, HOW CAN HE NEVER WANT ANYTHING? Idk idk. I will find him something though, I am determined!

Besides this I have been doing a tiny bit of studying and a lot of hanging around with friends, which is the way I feel things should be since I am at heart a lazy bum. I went to see my housemate Jonathan play Rosalind in an A+ hilarious version of As You Like It, watched Top Hat and a couple of... um, interesting Jason Isaacs films with electricwitch (man Jason Isaacs you know I love you A LOT but I just, I mean, what the fuck), spent time with my family for father's day, and just got back from inspecting fantoom's new crib which IS AMAZING and which I would basically move into asap if it was... not already someone's crib. Also a friend notified me that Regina Spektor is playing a gig in Amsterdam in July so we will be going to see her play next month!! I AM EXCITED.

Idk idk I think my point is that life is rly nice right now? Yay \o/

Also I am the laziest person in the world so I have already shooped three whole pictures of my room into something resembling acceptable quality, and this is them:







More to follow when I am not lazy! I love my room so you're gonna have to put up with a big-ass picspam at some point, guys.

It is rly late though so I'm off to bed now, since tomorrow I am to visit my nan and watch Bollywood films with her HELL YES. It's been too long since I've watched any!

See that right there? That is why I love summer. Well also the warm weather and the sunlight and the holidays and all, but mostly I really really really love summer fruit. NOM NOM NOM

So anyway, I was initially going to write an enormous long distraught post about how I must be an insane person because I had somehow managed to completly vanish my only hairbrush, in a room that's not even 20 square meters nor particularly full of storage units, but then it turned out that I was not insane after all and one of my housemates had snuck into my room when I was out and borrowed it. Once more I turn out to be less weird than I thought! (Seriously though, I am chaotic and disorganised in every other way imaginable, but I NEVER lose stuff. I was distraught. IT TOTALLY MERITED A POST OKAY.)

I concede, though, that there is also stuff going on that might be slightly more interesting than a lost hairbrush: my brother gets his final exam results tomorrow! I'm pretty convinced that he's passed and will thus be graduating high school in two weeks (fna'sdlg augh how is my baby brother suddenly this oooold!), but it's still one of those nervous moments that has the entire family on edge, because they're his final exam results and HE IS ALL GROWED UP. :'( The good news, though, is that he'll be going to Leiden for his university studies just like me, so I will be able to occasionally knock on his door and sternly inquire if he's had anything to eat besides pizza in the past month.

Also, I uploaded a bunch of music for jahrhundert and I figured some of you guys might be interested too! They're all songs by Kurt Weill, many of which I may have posted before at some point, but since I love them an unreasonable amount and Kurt Weill is amazing and also my hero, I am posting them again anyway and you will just have to deal. They are all sung by Lotte Lenya because she is the only one who gets to sing Kurt Weill songs in my opinion. Also I want to be her when I grow up, and I'm only okay with not marrying her because a) she is dead and b) she and Kurt Weill were married and it was adorable and they are my historical OTP forever.


LOOK AT THESE AWESOME BITCHES, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO BE THEM.

So yes, the songs:

Threepenny Opera
Die Moritat von Mackie Messer
Barbara-Song
Seeräuber-Jenny

Happy End
Introduction (Hosiannah)
Bilbao-Song
Matrosen-Tango
Der Song von Mandelay
Das Lied von der harten Nuss
Die Ballade von der Höllenlili

I hope some of you will take (and hopefully also like) them so I can feel like I am doing right by my OTP :') And also seriously, if you do not like Lotte Lenya I may have to stop considering you a person. BEST LADY EVER.

Hokay, back to my cherries and civil law summaries I go!

Renée and I have been watching lots of film series lately - I'm not sure what prompted that, but it's kind of fun. So far we've finished all of the Harry Potter films, the Mummy series (OHAI 1930s BRENDAN FRASER I DIG YR SUSPENDERS) and, most recently, the LOTR trilogy (the extended versions, obviously), which made me distressingly aware that even though I've seen them all a ton of times I still managed to forget that half of the scenes even existed, and also that my lame crush on Haldir from three years ago is still firmly in place. (DO YOU SEE HOW I WAS LAME AND COMMENTED IN TINY FONT THREE YEARS AGO? DO YOU SEE IT??? Ohh younger self.) Also, it made me really really want to change my LJ tag for whiny emo posts (currently "cheer up emo kid") to "why does it cry sméagol?". I may still do this, as I secretly love it. Not-so-secretly now, I guess.

Another fun thing I did: I went to a museum on Sunday! I went with my mum, it being Mother's Day and all, and it was REALLY AWESOME. Actually I have been going to museums frequently-ish lately (which, yay, I don't do that nearly enough so go me) - I've even been to the Waterhouse retrospective in Groningen twice now, which is quite a feat considering that Groningen is ~3 hours away and I normally can't even bring myself to visit the museums around the corner from my house. Anyway, the Waterhouse retrospective was awesome, but the Gemeentemuseum around the corner from my parents' house had a really brilliant exhibit, so that is the one I'm going to be fapping about in this post. Actually they had two brilliant exhibits: the first one we saw was the Christian Schad retrospective, which wasn't as big as I had hoped but still awesome, despite the fact that they didn't have one of my favourites of his:


(Lotte, 1927/'28)

Anyway it was still awesome and they did have ( another favourite of mine (cut for boobz). ) So yes, go go Christian Schad!

AND THEN there was the exhibit that I loved x a million, which was about artist couples and their work! The official exhibit name (in Dutch) translates to "Love! Art! Passion! Artist Spouses," which ain't right because a lot of the couples weren't actually married (and a bunch of them split up due to the relationship being really depressingly awful, like Claudel/Rodin and Höch/Hausmann) but nonetheless, it was a pretty fucking brilliant exhibit. For one thing, I'm willing to bet that it's the only (non-monograph) exhibit I've ever seen where at least 50% of the art was by female artists, and even besides that, most of the artists featured were pretty fucking awesome. Every room was dedicated to either one couple or two of them, and for every couple there was a pretty lengthy blurb about their art and their relationship on the wall, which was really nice. The relationships themselves really ran the gamut from crappy and abusive and sexist and short to adorable and emancipated and fair and lifelong, and most of the art was wonderful. I also bought the exhibit poster, with this painting on it:


(Alexej von Jawlensky - Girl with peonies, 1909)

Yay! I bought a little catalogue/program type book (which of those is (more) correct to use here? HELP ME OUT YOU GUYS) of the exhibit as well, so I may post an art spam based on that soonish, possibly focused on the art by the ladiez, because I like to do my bit for feminism. Would you guys be interested in that possible post I might possibly post y/n?

Today is my little brother's birthday!! Well ok technically it was yesterday as of 1 hour and 42 minutes, but whatever, we can roll with it I am sure. He is now 19!! I AM A LITTLE CONFUSED. It seems to me that I should be the one who is 19, but ~time flies~ and all of that nonsense. Anyway yes, happy birthday little brother who does not read my LJ!


Ilu baby brother, even though you always flash the same fake smile in pictures. <3

Actually, looking for this photo of us reminded me of the A Day In My Life post it came from, which made me realise that today being my brother's birthday also means that this is the anniversary of my first ever ADIML! Which, uh, was also the second to last one I did because I did two in March of last year and then forgot about the whole thing, hahaha. Maybe I should do one again sometime soon, they were fun to do.

Anyway yes, my point is that it is my little brother's birthday and that he is awesome. And that I am visiting home! Which is a very weird concept in and of itself, but I am dealing with it.

Okay back to studying, EXAM ON MONDAY BRAIN IS FRIED OH GOD WHY

Dear baby brother:

BITCH WHY YOU GOTTA GET ME HOOKED ON TRUE BLOOD?

I mean it's not like I have a metric ton of work to do rn or anything. AGH.

Also I am seeing real creepy stalker potential in the way vampires in the series can track people who have drunk their (the vampires') blood? Like, all you have to do is mix some of your blood into your girlfriend's drink once and voila, stalkervision switched on! That's kinda creepy. Luckily and by great coincidence, Love Interest Vampire is just not that kinda guy! And I still want to watch this despite rolling my eyes at that and not even being that into vampires. Like, at all. Idek you guys. Whyyyyyyy

Also guess what else I got for my birthday!



HELL YES

Omg you guys, people have been so nice to me this weeeeek

Well okay this week = yesterday and today, but whatever, it still counts.

Yesterday was the Day After Nano obviously, and since my parents are always long asleep by midnight I had sent them an email to tell them that I'd won. Then yesterday morning when I woke up, my dad had bought flowers and cake and left them outside my door for me! I melted basically. And then today I was coming home from my student society, and I left early on purpose because my bike is in shambles and I needed to make it back to The Hague in time to catch the last tram. I just missed it and I was all pissed off, because public transport doesn't cost me anything but walking was not an option (hello one hour of walking through creepy streets alone) and taxis are EXPENSIVE. I took a taxi anyway and was all pissy walking up to it because I was thinking "grmbl coming out of my savings harumph," but the cab driver was really nice and chatted with me and then he gave me a discount on the cab fare! The meter said €11, and I gave him a 20 and told him to make it €12,50, but then he gave me a tenner back and was all "No no don't worry, it's ttly fine, just promise me you'll get home safely and don't slip, there's ice on the road!"

PEOPLE ARE SO NICE TO ME INTERNETS


Also I am a little drunk, but only a little. Not so's you'd notice! Except the maudlin post about how people are nice to me, but whatever, IT NEEDED TO BE SAID.

I'm back from Antwerp! Hi! Pictures will follow soonish.

Okay, now I've gotten that out of the way I am going to be really lame and make a post about how I love my mum.

I'm having one of those wanky bad days today, because my sleeping has been a million kinds of fucked lately. So instead of going to a gallery and hanging out downtown with my mum like we'd agreed, I went NO I DON'T WANT TO BLARGH at the last minute and have instead been spending my day in my pyjamas, not doing much of anything and being all harrumphy and stupid when I have to talk to anyone.

My mum's response to this apparent regression to puberty? Stopping in at the Italian ice cream parlour after her grocery shopping and bringing me back an ice cream. Now I just want to hug her all day aaaaah.

In conclusion: I LOVE MY MUM and she is way too nice to me. And I'm feeling a little better, if obviously rather maudlin.

Well. Gotta say I'm glad I went to the beach on Tuesday, because it's been pissing down with rain for two days now >:( what the hell, weather gods?

I spent Friday, the last mostly rainfree day, with Jirina (my nan), which was great as usual. We went to a flea/antiques market here in Den Haag, which turned out to be about five times smaller than advertised and also full of rubbish. I did find one thing worth buying though, and I kind of want to marry it because it is amazing. It's an old notebook, which someone used as a Marlene Dietrich scrapbook, probably from about the 60s onwards. The last clippings are from the mid-seventies, but the notebook itself looks like it's older than that. It smells heavily of pipe tobacco and is full from cover to cover, with not only press clippings but also actual photos. It is, in short, the coolest thing in the WORLD.

So, have some photos of it!


The cover.

( And some of the rest! )

After the flea market, we had lunch on a garden terrace somewhere and went to see the The Hague Sculpture outdoors exhibit thing, which had some nice things but was mostly kind of boring. After that, we had dinner somewhere nice and went back home. All in all, I think we spent more time sitting around chatting at the restaurant and on the terrace than we spent walking around! Either way, it was awesome.

Also, I'd promised to post the recipe for the strawberry crumble I made a few days ago, so here you go:

( OM NOM NOM )

Noooooo we're out of the running! Well damn. Russians played well though, tbh.

Anyway, I am done with my exams! This is pretty awesome. I was going to make a srsly festive post about it today but then I came down with an enormous headache so I didn't. Also I think I kinda hardcore failed yesterday's exam, but ah well.

Finally got a chance to see my nan again yesterday, after my exam. She'd been traveling for a month and then when she got back I had my exams, so I'd missed her a lot! I brought a bunch of films with me that she could choose from, we ended up watching M and Pleasantville (shut up okay I like it!) Srsly, I already liked M a lot but it was 100x better without my dad next to me going "JESUS CHRIST IS THIS EVER GOING TO END I WANT TO GO TO BED FFS."

Eerm end of disjointed post I think? I should probably grab an aspirin and go to sleep or something, lol.

ETA: No actually, I have to add this:

SUMMER HOLIDAYS FUCK YES!

Because I keep forgetting that "done with exams" actually means "summer holidays" this time. Lol self.

Lolol we beat France 4-1, what the hell?

Things are pretty good right now. I found out on Thursday evening at 11 PM that a certain airline had a discount action going until midnight, where tickets to London or Stockholm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from October through January were tax-free and cost all of two cents. Naturally, I freaked out because I never have money and I didn't think anyone would want to go with me. Then I found out that my boyfriend did. So now we are going to Stockholm for the first three days of December. I AM GOING TO STOCKHOLM FOR THREE DAYS FOR LIKE €45. That's accomodation included, dudes. Fgdhskfhasghgdsg yes!


ILU STOCKHOLM.

Then yesterday I went to have dinner and watch the Holland-France match (lolol 4-1, still do not believe it) with friends in Utrecht, and then off to a Jason Webley gig, which was intensely awesome.

Now I'm at my cousin's, where I will be lazying around for the rest of the weekend. Because it's totally not like I have an exam on Friday or anything.

Remember how a few hours ago I was all "well the world sucks, but at least the weather is nice"?

HELLO DOWNPOUR

Anyway, the world isn't so bad anymore. I'm mostly done being angry at twatface in my essay group, though she did have the nerve to get angry with me for telling her that failing to show up three times and not communicating at all were Not On, and apparently since I have also been absent a shocking total of, um, once, I have no right to judge. Except I totally do, there being the small matter of me being group leader and it being my responsibility that things get done on time. Still, I'll be rid of her in three weeks so I'm not going to waste any more energy on her.

I have in fact been up to fun things in my short LJ absence, which, you know, explains the absence. Amongst other, mostly family-related things (I'm seeing a lot of them lately!) I went to the beach twice. In a row! I am still recovering from the shock. In my teens (haha oh god) I was never much of a beach person, so going to the beach twice would happen across the span of roughly three years. When I finally decided last year to give beach-personhood a go, there was a distinct lack of beach weather. So of course, when it got all hot and, you know, hot, this year, I got kind of carried away and went twice in two days. I am now (somewhat) tanned! It's weird. I never tan, and I kind of like that. Ah well, people are saying it looks all right so I guess it must.

Random topic switch: boyfriend just told me there is going to be a Donnie Darko sequel. Um, why? When have any sequels lately actually been good? Have there been any that were not awful? (If so, tell me! Maybe it will make me less depressed about this lame Darko sequel somehow!)

So anyway, I'm talking nonsense. I should be writing essays right now, which means that talking sense is out of the question. So now I'm going to distract you with the picture that is currently my desktop wallpaper and which brings me great joy, and then go back to wishing my papers would write themselves.



TOTALLY CUTE AMIRITE

Classes have started again, boo. Just started my last new course for the year, Criminology, which is interesting if INTENSELY depressing. This week's theme was honour killings, next week's will be sexual violence. And of course everyone in the group keeps casually shifting just a liiittle bit more blame onto the female victims. Fun!

Anyway, I still had a good week. I went to the huge monthly flea market in Amsterdam with Jirina, who bought me two dresses and this lovely print:



It's so cute!

Mum and Ruben got back from Crete yesterday, where they had an amazing time of which I am jealous. We're going out to a Greek restaurant tonight to celebrate mum and dad's wedding anniversary, which happened somewhere during Crete. I.. don't even know what Greek food is like actually. I've heard it is very much with the slabs of meat, which I'm not the biggest fan of. I hope they have something I like!

OH AND, the weather has been amazing. Amazing! I've been out and about in a short-sleeved top without a coat for two days now! This is exceptional in NL, where last summer we had.. two days total, I think, of warm weather.

I don't think this post makes any sense, but I'm so tired! I'm really not used to getting up early anymore because most of my classes this year have been at 1pm or 3pm, so I've been getting used to falling asleep very late and waking up late. Having to drag myself out of bed at nine this morning was depressing. My life, so hard!