MaCkEnZiE

customer service?

2006-06-04T03:40:00.000-04:00

i've lived in this country for almost five years and i have become pretty much accustomed to dutch culture and dutch life but there is one thing i refuse to accept and that is the inability of the dutch (many but not all btw) to be service oriented in the same way that canadians and even americans are.....two examples....

1) i was at the train station and walked into a grocery store to pick up a few things for the trip....i stand in line and while i'm waiting to pay, the three cashiers that have managed to distribute themselves over two cash registers are arguing about who can go home first....they were so incredibly busy with their own discussion that any kind of 'hello' was impossible for them to offer....i had to interrupt them to pay....and when i left, i was the one who said 'thank you' and 'have a nice day'....

2) i had to change some demographic info somewhere and i came in and the woman who should have helped me was on the phone....not that this is a big deal...i am willing to wait....surely, it would have been nice if she put the call on hold and said 'i'll be right with you' but ok, i can live without that courtesy.....after a full ten minutes, she hangs up and turns to help me....within 30 seconds, the phone rings again and she picks it up!....if we are going to work on a first come first serve basis, the phone would have to wait and i knew this so i kept talking but no, she picked it up anyway....what did i do?....i wrote the info she needed on a piece of paper and walked out the door....my frustration was obvious.....she knew it....

these kind of things irritate me immensely...i know i am occasionally impatient but, most of the time, i am willing to wait and be patient if there is reason to be.....and i think it comes down to a respect issue....when cashiers ignore my presence completely and receptionists give the phone priority, i basically feel dissed and we all know how much i like that.....

so tell me, why are some cultures service-oriented and others not?....is there something in the dutch culture that gives them a sense of entitlement or disregard?....is it the social security that is provided here that creates a situation wherein they simply don't have to be nice?....and why are some less willing to put the effort in?.....these are things i wonders about....

an important caveat: there are numerous companies, restaurants, bars and other service providers here in the netherlands who do put the effort in....not all places are shitty with servicebut, unfortunately, many are and i don't think i will ever get used to it....

that's my story today....

gezocht: stagiarre interieur verzorgster

2006-05-11T07:43:00.000-04:00

first and foremost, i appreciate the discussion and debate about the value of blogging, the role of audiences and the issue of context.....surely, blogging is a kind of self-indulgence for the writer but it is a harmless one at that.....noone is obligated to read or agree.....the issue of audience is an interesting one....not knowing your audience has indeed it's disadvantages and it's advantages....on the one hand, blogging maintains a sense of anonymity and, in many ways, i like that....most of the time, i don't write for an audience....i write mostly for me.....but sometimes, i don't....and why?....because i know who part of my audience is and sometimes there are things that are simply inappropriate....and yes, the chance that my words will be misunderstood is certainly present....it has happened in the past and will sure happen in the future but i have never really had a problem with that....i guess i just blog for me (mostly then)....and i think that the moments in which I have blogged for an audience are the moments in which i have been unsatisfied with this blog so what can i say?....

on to totally different things here.....summer has a arrived...i'm sitting on the balcony with this laptop and i am totally giddy.....it is amazing to see what kind of effect the sun has on me....i swear i'm photosynthetic....i am always a much happier person if the sun is shining and i can be outside....i am not made for winter or rain (except the occasional thunder storm)....and i don't think i am the only one.....people seem much happier in the sun....so why on earth do we have winters?.....to appreciate the sun when comes?....i say skip the winter altogether and move south....but not quite yet....the summer here treats me well....

summer in maastricht has always meant lazy afternoons in the park with a book, some work, some fruit and the elixer of life (long live excessive alcohol consumption!)....this past weekend, i was with the 'dames' playing cards and reading and the most disturbing thing happened....a dirty old man with short shorts and ugly orange sunglasses came, sat on the park bench, looked around, observed the women and (you guessed it...) jerked off....it was absurd....extremely public and basically just gross....the odd thing is that our reaction was equally absurd....mankind has the ability to act very strangely in certain situations and this was one of them....you know how everybody stops and stares when an accident happens?....this guy had the same kind of effect....i couldn't watch him play with his shriveled up dick and i couldn't not watch him....i was so dumbfounded by his incredibly overt and almost shameless indulgence....and let me tell you, watching a sick old man get his rocks off in the park is not really good for your stomach....i felt sick and disgusted but also very sorry for him....it was just weird....

that's it....

under the influence....

2006-04-23T05:15:00.000-04:00

i don't know what it is about idiots who decide to make a ridiculous amount of noise at four in the morning...last night, these losers came into the building laughing and hollering and being ridiculously obnoxious....my assumption was that they were drunk but really that is no excuse for acting like 16 year olds...i was so irritated that i, like some old 80 year old lady, got up and spied on them through my peephole....they took all the garbage and what not here in the hallway and put it in front of the elevator....sure there may be some humour in that but i was just not pleased to have my beauty sleep interrupted...these are the realities of living in a building with losers i suppose and it's not like i can be terribly judgmental....there was a time in the past that bas, myself and others came home significantly under the influence and inconsiderate of the poor people sleeping....so, i crawled back into bed and dreamed out inconsiderate people....funny how that works....

on a totally different note, i have been giving the actual concept of blogging some thought....why do some blog and others do not?....is blogging ego indulgence?....are bloggers people who basically like the sound of their own voice (but then on paper)?....i often wonder about these things because there have been times where i have been an adament blogger and there have been other times where i wonder what the point of a blog is....i know it is functional in keeping the people you know up to date on what you do but my blog was never intended to be a report of what i do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis....i think the intention initially was to convey observations of the my environment....entertainment rather than information....but i think that the quality of my blog has diminished significantly in the past year and that is disconcerting....perhaps i have moved out of phase in which i consciously analyse my environment to autopilot living....or maybe i am just too lazy to sit down and write about things....but i've gone off topic here....the question was why do people blog?....any thoughts?....

bareback mountain...

2006-04-04T10:14:00.000-04:00

good afternoon patient friends and family....as is the norm, i have severely neglected my blogging duties and thus lost some very very nice stories that were in my brain but have now fluttered away....sorry...but i am here now with a quick update....

i don't recall my last blog...it must have been around carnaval so it's probably been a month....so what have i done?...well, i've gotten back into the swing of things here...the weather has improved a wee little bit...at least enough to put the winter coat away and pretend it is spring....some crazy people are already hanging out on the terraces but i think it is ridiculous to sit there in the cold (read 10 degrees) and drink beer...i get disturbing images of people shivering away and doing their utmost best to pretend it is summer...soon...soon enough we have days in park and wine of the patio but not quite yet....

i spent last week in berlin hanging out with the liethoff and indulging in one of my greatest addictions of all time: 24.....what a brilliant show....jack bauer, tony almeida, george mason, ryan chappelle, david palmer, mike novick.... amazing.... brilliant....i love it....so exciting....when i wasn't indluging myself with episodes of 24, i was out and about discovering the city....berlin is not a pretty city but it is incredibly cool....graffiti everywhere and the pre-1989 communism is still very present in the architecture, in the people and the places you see.....i really enjoyed it....

my sister was also here about a month ago and we had a really good time together both in maastricht and in amsterdam....went to museums and saw an incredible exhibition called the amazing rembrants in which mentally disabled (politically correct terminology: differently abled) artists mimicked rembrant's work....it was very cool to see....we also did a city walk in maastricht and i have to admit that it is nice to play tourist in your own city....maastricht has a very rich history and sometimes you forget that when your life is limited to work, thesis and an occasional night out on the town....

other than that, i am not sure what to tell you...i am back in the swing of things with my thesis and hope to be able to get done in the very near future....who knows what will happen after that....

here's one last pretty pic from berlin:

bon bini...hulanda!

2006-02-24T21:17:00.000-04:00

yup, i'm back...and it is uncanny....yesterday i arrived at schiphol and was fully prepared to find a way to carry a ridiculous amount of luggage to the train station and head to maastricht but, lo and behold, i was not entirely alone in my arrival....unexpected but well appreciated, the one i expected least was there to help me out...it's funny how that works...so i spent yesterday and the night and today in amsterdam....it's odd getting reacquainted with the scenery and the way people are....rush, rush, rush....no poko poko poko....and today i caught the train to maastricht and it was absurd...i fell right into carnaval....two days ago i was in the tropics and i show up here to hear weird polka-like music and to see people in red, yellow and green running around with beer....it was nuts...helen met me and helped me unpack a few things and we went off to the only place a girl like me would go to after being away for so many months: the take five...and seriously, it seems as though nothing has changed....the same crowd (with a few new very young additions)...but the guys that work there are still the same and it was fantastic to be see old friends and good people that have been out of my life for the last seven months....so...despite the rotten weather, it is good to be back....i think i will find my place here....finish my research project and move on....and this is all good....but yes, it is fucking cold!....but i will survive....and sure, i will miss things there...my parents, the weather, friends, places, beaches....but i think it is good that i am back here....and let me tell you, it is a wonderfully freeing feeling to be able to walk the streets at night alone and to have all the places where you want to be close by....i have really missed that freedom....so here i am....and things are good....i'm off to bed...x

ballentine's day

2006-02-20T18:08:00.000-04:00

ballentine's day is the alternative name for the utterly commercial wannabe holiday people like to call valentine's day....now i am not a big fan of valentine's day....i have never really been...i tend to think it is a big scam to make people spend ridiculous amounts of money to sit in crowded so-called romantic restaurants....and it sends the message that you only have to be nice to your partner one day a year or that you can make up for bad behaviour and indescretions in one day....total bullshit in my opinion....nonetheless, i was out and about on the dreaded day and it was good fun as you can see here...

but hey, that was a week ago....on to more recent topics....two days from now i leave this tropical paradise and head back to the land of rain and cold....in many senses, i would much rather stay...the weather is fantastic and my parents are here and i just can't imagine sitting in maastricht layered in shirts and sweaters and the works....on the other hand, i have the sense that my time here is finished...since july, i have done a lot, learned a lot, changed a lot....but the island is small, many of the people i know have left and i just have the sense that it is time to start a new phase and that won't be here....so off i go....back to maastricht and we will see how things go....wish me luck...

what country are we in?

2006-01-10T15:07:00.000-04:00

ladies and gents....this will be a short blog because i have to be home in 10 minutes for very nice quiche that my mother has made for me....

so much to tell....so little time....the past month has been a complete blur....

i spent christmas in bonaire with the family....very low key....very quiet....i did plenty of recovering from too much partying prior to christmas....came back on the 26th and flew out 2 days later to st. maarten and there you are, up north in the caribbean with one of your best pals....and he phones and says, how do u feel about spending new years in st. barths (read the monaco of the caribbean)....and i say sure and before you know it, we are on some jacht sailing away to the richest island in the caribbean....we got there and it is gorgeous and yes, before you know it you are drinking cristal champagne at a 1000 dollars a bottle and then one of the guys says, sorry gotta say hello to tiger....yes, tiger woods....it was all very surreal but good fun and new years was fanastic and i couldn't have wished for a better one....

and now i am back on my own island....it is difficult to motivate myself to work but i do it anyhow....and of course, for those of you who know me well, i have created a grand disaster that currently takes up a lot of head space and requires some serious soul-searching and thinking....but now is not the time and here is not the place for the details....

for those of you out there that love me and miss me....xxx

vodka meet cranberry

2005-12-15T14:28:00.000-04:00

good day...it is thursday afternoon and as always i am sitting here waiting on contrasida....i never know when they will show up, i never feel like going and i never want to do any work while i am waiting....i have been lazy this week....i consumed far too much alcohol for tuesday night, slept too little, spent yesterday recovering and today i am just doing nuttin....well, i transferred all my data and music and pics from this computer to my shiney new laptop but that is about it.....so yes, ladies and gentlemen, i am a slacker....haha....

my boyfriend and ahfan princess (as her boyfriend is inclined to call her) are all dolled up and off to jamie cullum tonight...i am jealous....not that they are together but because i would love to be there for jamie and his fancy jumping over the piano moves.....unfortunately, i am here and he is there and we will have to meet some other time....on the upside, i am going to see jack johnson sometime in march and that is going to be some good fun.....

and guess what? in just 63 days i will be back in the land of cold rain, no sun, frites speciaal and trains....it's scary....sure it's still two months away but it is definitely going to be weird....the upside: a beautiful blond man who loves me very much, my dames, my own space, the opportunity to travel more for less, dark cafés with candlelight, more freedom to get where i want to go, jack johnson and a trip to berlin....the downside: no sushi, no parents, no cleaning lady, no sun, no beach, no reunion, cold rain and too many sweaters....but hey, here or there....both are good....both will be fine...and i think i have to go now....be well...-s

living with your parents is like having servants that you don't have to pay...

2005-12-08T15:57:00.000-04:00

the above is a quote from a sex in the city episode in which carrie dates a guy who lives at home....it made me laugh....not that it is entirely truthful in my case but in many ways my life is made easier living here with my parents....my mother makes me food and the cleaning lady tidies up the shit lying around here.....but it is not like i do less than what i do at home....i do all the laundry and that is much more than what i do at home and tidying up all the shit my father leaves around and turning off all the lights and fans he leaves on could technically be someone's full time job but i don't do it full time...i guess we all contribute in our own ways in this so-called community but i really have to admit that my preference is to live alone....that way noone talks to me in the morning and all the mess lying around is always mine so the only one i can be irritated with is myself....but hey, i am indeed spoiled here and that is nice....

it's almost christmas (again) and i don't seem to even notice it....i'm just irritated with the fact that noone seems to have time to do interviews before the new year but i guess that is just part and parcel to the season....it's amazing how quickly this past year has gone....i remember blogging about spending christmas with the dames and then with the liethoffs last year and that was the first in many years that did not generate some kind of disappointment....and now a new one is upon us and i am disliking the whole thing as much as other years but, hey, i just keep trying to ignore it and here that works quite well....with the exception of the occasional christmas tree and the fact that the bakery girls are wearing santa hats, i can pretty much pretend the whole thing doesn't exist.....but indeed it is amazing how quickly the time passes and how last christmas seems like yesterday....

that's it today....

thumb-sucking whores...

2005-12-03T18:29:00.000-04:00

thursday was world aids day and like any good idealistic health educator/promoter, i was out and about making a contribution....i spent the afternoon handing out condoms with contrasida....we devoted our time to a little place called race cafe....race cafe is bar/strip joint that is just one step up from a shack....it is very very green and made of termite-invested wood....there are tables covered with quaint yellow and green table cloths, layered over each like it were some fancy-dancy restaurant, only these ones were filled with cigarette burns....it seemed to me that the table cloths were some sort of pitiful attempt to mask the fact that this place is a strip joint...and in fact, this place is not only a strip joint, it is a whore house...behind the secret doors, there are roms and beds and when we showed up, some fifteen women came out of the woodwork to listen to lucy give her lecture on how to properly use a condom....the women we work with are interesting....they are over-the-hill, beyond-their-prime, twenty-something latinas from santo domingo and columbia who came to this island in hopes of brighter future and more money for their children back home....most try to work in restaurants or bars....almost all end up having sex for money....it's really quite sad....it's, in my opinion, human trafficking but IOM doesn't seem to see it that way....but anyhow....there we were....lucy, alberto, myself and 15 worn looking illegal latina sex workers....and while they sat and listened to lucy, i observed....there was one girl who came halfway through lucy's lecture...she came in - high heels, long painted nails, tits hanging out (I swear these women wear bras three sizes too small)....anyhow, she plopped down, pulled up her legs and stuck her thumb in her mouth....my jaw nearly hit the ground...this here was a grown woman who had sex for money and she sat there sucking her thumb without any shame whatsoever....i was fascinated and completely dumbfounded so i diverted my eyes elsewhere and saw another girl in the corner doing the exact same thing....now i don't know if a thumb-sucking whore fulfils some kind of pedaphile fantasy but it was weird...and then this kid walks in....this four year old little boy stands there spinning around on the stipper's pole and watches the girls demonstrate their skills in putting on condoms (which by the way were far from good)...now i am all for openness about sex at home but this seemed just a little odd....anyhow, after this kid was done showing off his dance moves, he came over to play with me so we bounced around a balloon and threw coasters at each other and then he came right up to me, looked me straight in the eye and said, "puta"....this four year old kid called me a whore....i didn't know if i should laugh or reprimand him but not one of the fifteen women there felt the need to tell this kid that it was highly inappropriate to call a stranger a whore....but whatever....he then proceeded to mimic my dutch, stick out his tongue, wiggle his ass and run away...it was, uhm, interesting....and kind of sad because obviously no one is teaching this kid the ways of the world....he lives in a whore house, is unregistered, will not go to school and, sadly enough, will probably grow up to be a bad man....it's kind of sad but this stuff is surely a reality here...even if people don't want to see it...a sad cycle of poverty and desperation....

no witty title today...

2005-11-24T21:25:00.000-04:00

i could tell you that i feel guilty about not posting for a ridiculous three weeks but, quite frankly, i don't....i have little to say...life goes on...i get up, i do some work on this joke i call my research, i try to go to the gym, i try to be nice to people, i watch tv and i go to sleep....basically, it's not very interesting....i watch a lot of sex in the city with my mother and i work every now and then....i miss my dames, mijn basje en mijn schatje like hell....i am ridiculously reclusive, only going out for the bare necessities and when i feel like it might be wise to come into contact with the outside world....i can't say it's healthy but it's what i seem to do...what more?....i don't know what to do with myself or with my life....so i just keep working and hope a bright light will go on....james blunt still rocks....will never beat out old school wonders like U2....but he's pretty fucking cool....the pics of last week's flood are on my yahoo site so if you wanna see, email me cuz the link doesn't work....that's all i have to say....i am off to watch reunion....

gotta ask yourself the question, where are you now?

2005-10-31T00:06:00.000-04:00

ok...it's been some time since i last did some serious blogging and i really owe it to a girl across the ocean who checks my blog before she even checks her own mail....

this past month has been a complete blur...i started off working like a mad woman on the scenarios matt gave me, applied for a phd in maastricht not really knowing whether i wanted it and not so nervously got ready for the arrival of the boy that i hadn't seen in two and a half months...it was odd...he arrived late afternoon so i had a whole day to dick around, pretend i do work and contemplate what it would be like to spend three weeks with a boy that i had never spent more than five days in a row with....i wasn't overly concerned (much less than he was) but i was no longer used to sharing my time, my life and my bed with anyone....and then there he was....

the first week had it's glitches....the work lying on my desk was piling and i was unable to turn off my brain, which all kind of led to some silly irritability and wanting to be resentful about things that he wasn't even guilty of....aren't we women such silly bitches sometimes?....i started to wonder if i was cut out for this relationship thing....i thought perhaps i was made to be one of those women that work 60 hours a week and date guys every now and then for the sex but for the rest are completely self-sufficient and independent....it eventually came down to a big blow up with too much alcohol, rotten and mean words, bitterness and separate beds....and i woke up in the morning realizing that i would be an idiot to throw away a man that, although not perfect, is soooo good - much better than most i have known before....more importantly, i would be an idiot to push away a man i love just because he doesn't do exactly what i want when i want...it's sickening how quickly we can become ungrateful and unsatisfied...this is a man that loves me for who i am, who is faithful in a world of unfaithful people, who doesn't play games and who makes me laugh....he is smart and gorgeous and funny and fair....so with that realization, i had a wonderful two weeks until he left....we ate lots of food, drank frozen cappucinos with kahlua, went to bonaire, laughed, played crocodiles, teased each other and just enjoyed being together....and then he left...and it sucked....the mosquitoes that had abandoned me for three full weeks were back to biting at my ankles....my bed that seemed too full everytime he tossed and turned seemed utterly empty....and the smell of boy left my bedroom....so, i walked around like a depressed teenager for a day....how do you deal with that?....i figured distraction and routine....so back to work and the gym and the occasional night out and a sex in the city marathon....but i still miss him....

it's weird.....i am in a really odd place these days....i have no idea where i will be or what i will be doing six months from now and although i have faith that it will all be worked out, it's really kind of freaky....they turned me down for the phd, which is ok....i didn't even really know if i wanted it....i think i really just wanted to know what i would be doing....and now i have this boy and that may mean staying in the land of rain....the realist in me questions the sanity and sensibility of making the choice to stay for him....the idealist in me says that i would be an idiot to let him go if it came down to it....so it comes down to an i-don't-know....i suppose i shouldn't be too premature in my worries....so i have decided to insofar as i can ride this wave through and finish my work here and then see....life can change very quickly in a very short time so who knows....

i also have to mention two new addictions (besides csi and 24 and chocolate): dominoes and james blunt.....the first i learnt this based friday at a birthday party of a girl i hardly know....it's so cool and so antillean....the second is absolutely beautiful....makes me almost cry.....almost....

so that's it....my story today....

oh yes, i have also decided that i am actually going to write the book that has been brewing in my mind for the past three years....not now but when i finish school....

and...our pics from the past month will be up on my yahoo site asap....the link doesn't work but if you want to see them, i will give you passwords and shit to check them out...

ok....i am off to bed....

tears and rain

2005-10-28T14:38:00.000-04:00

Beautiful song of the day:

How I wish I could surrender my soul; Shed the clothes that become my skin; See the liar that burns within my needing. How I wish I'd chosen darkness from cold. How I wish I had screamed out loud, Instead I've found no meaning.

I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain, All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble. Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray. I've heard what they say, but I'm not here for trouble. It's more than just words: it's just tears and rain.

How I wish I could walk through the doors of my mind; Hold memory close at hand, Help me understand the years. How I wish I could choose between Heaven and Hell. How I wish I would save my soul. I'm so cold from fear.

I guess it's time I run far, far away; find comfort in pain, All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble. Hides my true shape, like Dorian Gray. I've heard what they say, but I'm not here for trouble. Far, far away; find comfort in pain. All pleasure's the same: it just keeps me from trouble. It's more than just words: it's just tears and rain.

prostitutie met meloen

2005-10-26T19:21:00.000-04:00

he's been gone for an hour and i miss him already... how pathetic is that? ....i know i have been out of the loop for the past few weeks but i briefly put my life, work - everything on hold to spend some time with the boy....we laughed, he cried, i screamed but most of all, we laughed....i guess i will keep him for just a little while longer....all the details and pics of our time this past month will come to be in the near future....not much time today...however, i do want to thank the people for all the phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. on monday...it's amazing to be called and contacted from all over the world - from holland to montreal to bonaire to edmonton to london to st. maarten to berlin....fantastic....i really do feel loved....birthdays are great....thank you smelly, juud, mien, basje, ronald, leah, robby, oma en opa, oma beppy, lars, ben, don, marie, marija, scott, justin, david, dianne, martijn and anyone else i missed.....that's it for today... x

2005-10-10T21:34:00.001-04:00

while bas was doing this (finally)...

2005-10-10T21:34:00.000-04:00

and this (aww so cute)...

2005-10-10T21:33:00.001-04:00

i was doing this...

2005-10-10T21:33:00.000-04:00

and this...

2005-10-10T21:32:00.000-04:00

with this fine man...

2005-10-10T21:24:00.000-04:00

here...

2005-10-10T21:23:00.002-04:00

and this is me doing what i do best..

2005-10-10T21:23:00.001-04:00

and this one is me doing what i do worst...

2005-10-10T21:23:00.000-04:00

and this one was taken to make you all very very jealous....ya, i know...very cheesy...we are hardcore tourists here....

the ultimate violation

2005-10-07T11:55:00.000-04:00

i was molested by a cockroach in my sleep....yes...it was highly traumatic and required me to brutally turn on the lights, wake up the boyfriend, move the bed and search for the dirty filty rotten monster that thought he could walk on my body in my sleep....it was one the most disturbing moments of my life....

on another note, we got up at 5:30 this morning to drive my father to the airport to meet my mother in dominica....it is now 'when the cat's away, the mice can play' time and arjan and i can try out the domestic life with chores, responsibilities and dogs....so far he is good sport....not that i have seen him much but when i do see him and he is not sleeping, we have good fun together....i am happy he is here....

i am currently teaching for my mom, which is actually quite enjoyable...the kids aren't rotten and they do take me seriously which is pretty cool....and one kid thought i was 19 yesterday....that's almost cooler....it's scary when you reach that point in life where you are no longer insulted but rather flattered when people think you are younger than you actually are......geez....

i should also tell those who don't know that i applied for a phd. position in holland....the more i think about it, the more continuing on with my education sounds like a good idea....why not? they pay me to learn, give me seven weeks vacation a year and provide me with a stable income for the rest of my life.....what's wrong with that?....and i get to do some teaching, which i like....i really enjoyed tutoring and training students at the university...i think it would be very cool to do that more often....

so that's the story so far....i'm a happy girl...my man is on the island....the research is going well....and i may know what i am doing for the next four years....not bad....

oh, and i got a digital camera from arjan as a early birthday gift (yes, i am spoiled) so expect numerous photographs on my blog in the very near future....

pictures do much more than words...

2005-09-28T11:13:00.000-04:00

this here is what made me laugh today....leave it to the liethoffs to pose like this...

muti-function combinative torch mosquito swatter

2005-09-25T20:06:00.000-04:00

yes, the above is a product and no, muti is not a typo....this is the purchase that satisfies the sadist in all of us...this is a mosquito killer that kills with electricity that not only makes noise but also sparks and smells like burning mosquito flesh...it is utterly satisifying and equally funny as the product description is clearly translated into english by fools...let me share with you some tidbits from the packaging....(please note the excessive use of capital letters)

the package says, "The Product Used New Technology To Put Out The Electricity More Fast"...now tell me, why "used"?...are we working with past tense here?....it seems to me to lend the impression that the muti (read multi)-function combinative (whatever combinative means) torch (read flashlight) mosquito swatter (insert mental image here) no longer works....and what is with "put out the electricity"?....this is bad bad english..."more fast"?....even worse....next....the package says,"Muti-Function Combinative torch And Mosquit Swatter"...i say why does 'torch' get screwed with the lower case when even 'and' gets a capital letter?....definitely unfair....and how about this one?....the package says, "Can Zap Mosquito, Fly And Insect"...only one mosquito?....or only one fly?....or only one insect?....i think our translaters need a little lesson in plural wording....another one....the package says, "The Assembled Battery Can Be Recharged And Used Circularly"....now what exactly do they mean with 'circularly'?....i believe they are trying to say that it is rechargable....and since electricity has something to do with cycles, circular may be a feasible translation but very very very bad.....for your pleasure...the package indicates that this product "Has Characters Of Good Effect, Long Lift"....i think'characters' means characteristics, 'good effect' is effective and 'long lift' is long life....but that's just me....ok, one last one....the package says..."Good Looking And Practice"...does this mean 'attractive and practical'?...so that's a bit of the run down on my new method of mass mosquito destruction....very amusing...more importantly, very effective....

and speaking of words, i ran into a very interesting and quite disturbing bumper sticker....this one said "exposure to the son (read 'son of god') may prevent burning (read 'burning in hell')....this bible thumping seriously frightens me....and you see it quite a bit here....very frightening....

ok, well that's it with respect to interesting and weird things i run into....so a quick update on my life is probably also in order....the research project is going very very well....my social life is non-existent...the gym is treating me well and i made shishkabobs tonight....that's it....

i am also enclosing some pictures of my most favourite people...check them out....

these are my ladies ('mijn dames')...these are the best friends a girl like me (who doesn't actually like girls) could have....they make me laugh and they are very forgiving of all my nasty traits....so here you have them, published on my blog....left to right: judith, mina, me, helen and dianne....good stuff eh?....and yes, i too think we look pretty damn good....thanks for the compliment...

here you have one of the most wonderful men on the planet...this here is my basje....what can i say about him?....he plays good music on repeat just like me (today's choice is U2) and, also just like me, doesn't give a shit if other people get irritated with it....we call each other superstar and baby and give each other lots of compliments and we have a tendency to consume too much alcohol when we are together but he is the man with the biggest heart on this planet and he makes me laugh...incredibly witty and sometimes too quick and thus a little offensive but he's cultured and well read and that is always a plus and, most importantly, i love him....as everyone should....he also has an obsession with white shirts (see right), 24 and beautiful women (not bad)....ok...that's bas for you...

last but definitely not least is my wonderful, wonderful man that i get to claim as all mine....this here is the infamous boy/man (we are not quite decided on his status)....this here is the boy/man that loves me even though i am sometimes a monster bitch...and this is the boy/man that will be here in a few days to entertain and distract me....i am very happy about that...he's cute isn't he?....yah, that's what i thought....

ok, i am off to watch the season premiere of desperate housewives....adios....

dirty bitch, nasty whore...

2005-09-14T23:15:00.000-04:00

i just finished watching one of the most hilarious sex and the city episodes ever....i know that sounds all girly but really this one was quite good....samantha gets kicked out her apartment for bringing too many men home, miranda gets chlamydia, carrie meets a guy that won't sleep with her and charlotte dates a guy that calls her dirty bitch, nasty whore everytime he climaxes....very very entertaining....

more entertainment...the ambitious plan of hitting the gym tonight were discarded as a result of car problems....now imagine this....two women who know nothing about cars staling a car in the middle of a very busy road on an hill without working hazard lights...we looked pretty stupid.....what amazes me is that hundreds of cars can drive by and do nothing.....it amazes me even more than people get pissed off that you're in the way when you can't do anything about your freaking car that doesn't work....24-7 car services rescued our asses and towed the piece of shit away to get fixed.....so we ditched the gym (it was too late anyhow) and went for sushi cuz my dad was gone and he, like most men, don't believe that sushi is 'real' food.....so in the end, it was good fun....yummmm.....sushi.....

on another note, i have attained new status in the chain of being....this is a matter of survival of the fittest...those of you who know me well know that i despise two things on this island....rats and roaches....yesterday, i reached a monumental moment in my life....i killed my very own cockroach...two even...my approach up until now has been to call out like a little child to mother and let her kill the beasts....yesterday i did it all on my own...granted i screamed and the dogs came running but i stomped on that mofo like was no tomorrow....wanna know what's really scary?....rather than immediately cleaning that raunchy beast up, i went to the washroom and when i returned, it had pulled itself up from it's roadkill position, and started to walk....let me tell you, this thing was missing half it's guts and half it's legs...how on earth do you come back to life after a serious stomping?....it's like getting up after being run over by a monster truck....it just doesn't seem possible but somehow this monster of a cockroach managed to just come back to life, which kinda frustrates me....so i called the dogs who take great pleasure of catching cockroaches and presenting them for murder to their grand owners...the sickest thing is that these dogs try to lick me after having those rotten insects in their mouth.....so i still think we humans are at the top of the chain....there is no other explanation....

that's it kids....be well...miss ya....x

duets with the god bono....

2005-09-09T21:26:00.000-04:00

it's friday night and i am hanging out here in front of my computer....does that make me a nerd?....probably but i really don't care....i have sent the parents away for dinner and a hotel for the night and that means that i get to spend some quality time alone....that just means more thesis writing with me screaming along to all my favourite u2 songs...it also means that noone complains about my bad singing.....i love my duets with bono...."the more you see the less you know...the more you find out as you go...i knew much more then than i do now....neon heart, day glow eyes....the city lit by fireflies...they're advertising in the skies for people like us...and I miss you when you're not around...i'm getting ready to leave the ground....oh you look so beautiful tonight"...

the thesis and project are going well...i have an interview planned with minister of health...very cool....i was in the field yesterday talking to men about sex and that went well even though they all want to marry me...haha....this island is soooo good for the ego....but it's all coming along quite nicely which means i may one day finish this degree....yippie....

my mother and i have become ambitious and have joined a gym.....wednesday was our first night and i still hurt....i am sooo out of shape....but soon, very soon, i will be so buff i can beat all the boys up again....i can't wait.....arjan, be prepared...i am gonna kick the shit out of you in october....

we experienced something very traumatic last week....my mother forgot to pay the cable bill and they cut us off....can you believe that?....this is an island where nothing goes as it should and the uts guy that was supposed to take a look at our phone line three weeks ago still hasn't shown up...and they cut us off....the csi withdrawal was heavy and we were obliged to entertain ourselves in other ways....here's a peak....

we have gibby and bella babushka posing in exchange for what we call t-r-e-a-t-s around here...the babushka's went well but the laughs wore off long before the cable was back on so we had to experiment further with cowboy dog and muslim dog....the kids were good sports about it....they make me laugh....

however, all the tea towel modelling was fun but did not last so we were forced to watch the only dvd my mother owns and that is some stuck up english filming of the narnia chronicles....i have to admit, it was quite enjoyable....and i am sad to admit that i forgotten most of favourite childhood book....scary eh?

what more can i tell you?....our cleaning lady makes me laugh....she wipes off all the pictures but never makes the effort to set them straight again so the pictures in this house almost always look like what you see here to the right...i think my mother has given up trying to set them straight....

btw, as you can see i am experimenting with enhancing my blog with visual aids....i wonder if it will go over well....i am also updating my pics site (for the link scroll down and look to the right)....you should be able to peruse the whole archive by tomorrow i think....

alright kids....that's it...be well and yes, yes, i will try to blog more regularly...."i got cctv, pornography, cnbc...i got the nightly news to get to know the enemy".....lalala...meow...meow...meow....

hasta la vista summer...

2005-08-29T10:31:00.000-04:00

today is the 29th...so today is the day before the end of the month....today is then the day before i expected to officially start my research project....of course things never go as expected and i am not ready to start and i am dependent on herman to get back to me so in the meantime i wait and work....i was mildly distraught about the status of my research proposal on friday....found out that herman and myself have some different ideas about what i should be doing....was right pissed actually so my mother suggested some retail therapy.....i bought two pairs of shoes and a bag....three things i don't need but do like having...

so, instead of working on my proposal, i spent the whole weekend doing other things...tapas at tutu with my mom, drinks at de brasserie with alf, brunch at the marriot with my parents and the blue bay for some wine and some sun yesterday....has done me well...even if i didn't get anything done....the worst case scenario with the delays i am having on my research project is that i will have to stay a little longer on this tropical island....that won't kill me....it's might upset my boyfriend and my dames but hey if i do have to stay longer, we will all survive....

saw a wonderful movie on saturday with my mother....it's called a love song for bobby long....and i think it was beautiful...it did very poorly in the box office but i loved it....a little quote for you all....definition of procrastination: to drag one's ass in such a pathetic manner as to ensure one's place in life as a loser.....i laughed....it was very very dry and i really dig that....so go rent it....

i'm back to work....take care....

stichting, onderzoek en experts....

2005-08-26T00:04:00.000-04:00

what's a girl to say?....i am here to blog but not sure what kind of news i am here to convey....i could give you the rundown about working a bar for 5 hours when it should of been 2 for jackshit cash but hey, we all know i am sucker for that sort of stuff....i can tell you about the 30th anniversary party of my parents that went well but that was almost a week ago...it was good nonetheless and i was able to pitch my whole we-need-to-do-something-about-hiv/aids-very-soon speech to the prime minister....maybe that's what i should talk about...my frustration with the people who just don't see this disease as a big issue.....here we are talking about a major disease that is killing the world and that is 100% preventable...granted it is complex....granted most people are idiots....but the further i go in this whole health promotion thing, the more i become disgusted by the fact that hiv/aids is a disease rooted in inequality and injustice....sure, we should all use condoms but it's not really all that simple....we need political will, we need major social change and we need the leaders of this world to take some responsibility....sure europe and america is all big on preventing the disease but there we find so little.....here we are on the verge of a major crisis and nobody wants to talk, nobody wants to do anything....and why?....i think most things in life come down to money....talking about aids is not good for tourism and this part of the world thrives economically on it....but of course, the picture is much bigger....so maybe we should be blaming the imf and the world bank for their structural adjustment programmes...maybe these are the people that promote the spread of the epidemic....it's a big and complicated issue....what i have found here thus far is that the big problem here is silence....nobody knows anything....and it's very sad...but hey, it gives me lots to do and confirms the idea that i didn't just waste the last four years of my life getting a degree in something i don't give a shit about...so that's the upside i suppose...

but hey, getting off the big political rant, what more can i tell you?....the above title is rooted in the grand mockery my mother and i make whenever we watch journaal....they always have some sort of problem that needs investigation or research (onderzoek)....they always have some kind of expert that can talk about the problem and the research....my mom says the best one was the 'twin towers expert' following 9-11.....last but not least, they always have someone from some association or club that can bitch about the problem...sometimes these individuals also play the role of expert....it's quite funny.....test it out...it's true....ladies and gentlemen, the journaal formula....

evidently, i don't do much else than sit in front of this box (read computer) and sit in front of the other box (read tv)....great formula for obesity but fortunately i am not fat yet.....cs-sigh still rocks but grisham is seriously some kind of weird nerdy superhero freak....that one may also become a formula....and all the scenes with warrick are always a bonus....i think i may dump johnny depp for him....does this not sound scary?...i sound like a girl locked up on a rainy weekend...but no, the weather is gorgeous.....i just somehow prefer to stay home than go out...it's probably good for me after however many years of living in places that only acquire dust but rarely dishes....but the staying at home is not entirely true....i do have my ambitious plan with my mother to work out (need to combat the blubber dying to infiltrate while i sit in front of boxes) ....we also do the beach thing and that is a great experiment....i have discovered that no matter how shitty you look, men still want to do you....quite funny actually....kind of sad....but hey, welcome to the island of promiscuity....it seems that as long as you have the equipment, you are suitable....that may be too harsh....but hey, it's been my experience....who knows....

so that's that....dames, plz let me know what u guys are up to...i feel like i am missing out on your lives....mina, waar werk je nu?....juud, hoe bevalt samenwonen?.....smelly, gaat het wat beter met je onderzoek?....mis jullie....x

mi hopi kater...

2005-08-19T13:49:00.000-04:00

hallo...

let me share my frustration with those who read this....i think i got screwed....let me explain...i did this gig for alfred last night....17 women, 90 gulders a pop, plus drinks - expensive wine...the tip was to be good....the word on the street is that it turned out to be 350....i got 90 fucking measely guilders from my columbian ex-colleague that thinks he can screw me...the fact that i got too little money is not really the issue....the issue is the insult...he thinks that he can screw me....come on....i've worked that place at least a hundred nights and his fucking boss is my friend, my PIC, the closest person to me on this island....why screw me?....go rip off someone dumb....even worse is the fact that this is definitely not the first time that he's tried to screw me out of money....i used to call him table hog on this lil blog a year ago....he was always trying to make more than i did....i hate it when people think they can rip me off....ugh....

on another note, my liver has resigned from it's job as alcohol processor....it appears that after working hard and faithfully for me for some ten years, it's decided to give me the middle finger....i don't know if my liver is on strike or fully resigned...i only know that i feel like i drank bottles and bottles of booze but i didn't....and i slept enuf so it can't be that....i think it's time i realize that i am becoming an old woman....wrinkles here we come....

ya....but cinco was fun....and i am such a bitch that i refuse to go home when alfred thinks it's time....haha...i laughed...mr. beek was serving and the mambo boys were around so it was good fun...and yes, i go and use up my freaking millionth prepaid card by calling my boyfriend, mobile to mobile, across the atlantic....i seriously have to stop phoning him when i am out....he's gonna think i am lush and that i only love him when i have da booze in my system...bad bad me....no good....

but hey, today i feel like i have been run over by a trunk, beaten with a two by four and spat on by a dirty whore...haha...not really but it is a kind of malle babbe vergadering day....the kind of afternoon where the only thing you can do is crawl into a dark dark pub, drink coffee, eat uitsmijters and gossip about the happenings of the evening before....de dames understand this concept....alfred does not because he doesn't want to have lunch with me....i'm such a whiner....hehe....

so, i am going to do some work to compensate for my guilt....laters kids...

p.s. funny joke (not that i am any good at telling them)....waarom heet de paus benedictus? vanwege zijn standpunt tov sex voor het huiwlijk....benen-dicht-dus...hihi...flauw eh?...

procrastination 101

2005-08-17T13:06:00.000-04:00

i am supposed to be working and i am but i really don't feel like it...i'm at that point in a day of work that i would put the thinking work aside and do administrative stuff....balance the books or run some errands or water the plants....but no, i am only being paid for my brain these days so the think work it is....i'm not complaining....i just don't feel like editing the site right now and my sweetie is not online to distract me so instead i blog....

ms. neurotic over here has come up with a (no suprise) highly ambitious plan for the next six month which includes my research project at 20 to 30 hours a week, working 6 to 12 hours a week for CHC, tutoring elementary kids two afternoons a week, working out twice, walking with my mother on wednesdays and going to the beach three times a week....and all this in addition to having fun...who knows if it will work but i am such a detail freak that i go and plan this sort of stuff out...i even make myself laugh....not like i could just chill out or something....nah....

not much else to report....i spend a lot of quality time with my mother watching CSI, which is actually pronounced CS-sigh by the little spanish people in the box we call tv.....tv is fantastic here...i get half an hour of journaal, 2 hours of CS-sigh, at least an hour of ER, an hour of sex in the city and an hour of OC almost every night....if i want of course....and since i don't really believe i should be watching that amount of television, i don't....most days....but it's cool to know that there is something on tv whenever i turn it on....unlike monday in holland where the only thing you can watch is extreme makeover and i HATE extreme makeover.....the only bad news is i have no 24 here....basje, what's gonna happen to me?.....

so i'm doing this snobby rich people birthday party stunt for alfred on thursday where i get to play food whore and pretend to like people i probably hate....but hey....i can bitch but i actually like serving somedays especially if it's not even my work....and i need a little coin....the bank account is looking pretty shabby....oh, i dream of the day that i will make real money....hmmm....soon....soon....hopefully june....

the procrastination continues with reading last summer's blog entries....funny to see how things change and how i am back on this island again but my take is a wee bit different this time around...wonder if that will change in the coming months....

ok...that's it folks....i'm back to the grand edits....

cougar pop

2005-08-16T16:05:00.000-04:00

cougar pop aka white zin aka rosé was my sunday and too much at that...and then i get all silly but every once in a while we have to be idiots to realize that we're human....haha....it was very similar to a sunday afternoon i shared with juud in de wolwaag that became the take five and the backstage....something along those lines....afternoon alcohol consumption is usually bad news....oh well....

quote of the day: ..."en dat er een trein is ontspoord in amsterdam, waardoor ik steeds mijn treinkaartjes terug kan vragen: lang leve de ns!!" (from my wonderful juud - bedankt voor je mailtje)....i love the ns...i love the way they can fuck up on the same thing 3 times and still claim it's a coincidence....wonderful....oh, en lang leve bvn want ik kan hier journaal kijken....

things are good here....the grand paper is finished and submitted....i worked my ass off to get it done as quickly as possible only to find out that practically all civil servants (that includes acamedics) in holland are away and that nobody can take a look at it until september but whatever...at least my part is done....i also met with contrasida today...thursday is my first day in the field and i can't wait...i hope men tell me all sorts of wonderful things about their sex lives....yippie.....

not much else to tell....lotsa work and getting this research project together...a little relaxing and i might do a one night stunt at de brasserie thursday evening....who knows....

hope you all are well....

dames, ik mis jullie heel veel....ik vind dat iedereen hier moet komen....juud en mien, er is zoooo veel werk hier...hiv/aids, soas, ontwikkelingswerk, alles....smelly, bedankt voor het regelen van mijn zaken....komt allemaal goed....dikke poen aan je vriendje....

basje, je timing is geweldig....je had niet op een betere moment kunnen bellen...4:30 of niet....geweldig....

liefje, ik denk aan je maar dat weet je al toch?....kan niet wachten tot 29 sept...of 5 okt....

could have i have a finger with my coke?....

2005-08-08T00:24:00.000-04:00

expanding on my previous post, i have two new ones for you guys....

1) japanese body parts....they apparently sell auotmotive parts....it might have been wise to be explicit about it but no....japanese body parts....'hi, i'd like to order new feet, big tits and a new ass please?'
2) avila beach hotel has an answering services that says: 'good afternoon, you have reached the avila beach hotel, if you know the room number of the person you would like to reach, bel it now... If you do not know the number of the person you would like to reach, please stay on the line and an operator will bel it for you'.....now i don't know if they just haven't heard of the word 'dial' or if they really really like the language mixing....hey, why not throw a dutch word in there....

those are my newbies for u....

i am progressively going cross-eyed from staring a the computer screen....i have spent the past four days holed up in an air-conditioned office trying to write this gender paper....blah, blah....men are bad....blah, blah....men are responsible for hiv....blah, blah....men are hard to change....blah, blah....uhm, blah, blah....that's about the gist of it....don't get me wrong, i love writing it....my brain is just a little fried right now....

and....i am seriously missing my dames and my bf....usually when i work from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m. on something important, i reward myself with a whisky in the take with one or all of my ladies....that's no-go here....too bad, so sad....and living so far away from arjan is not that cool either...we do chat a lot but still, it's just not the same....i'm scared i'll forget what he looks like...nah...soon....soon....and i will see him again....

so that's the scoop....oh, and did i tell you that i love my mother for picking sushi tonight....i luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuv sushi and it's soooooo not affordable in holland so i was very happy to be able to indulge this evening.....yum...yum....

alright, i'm off....to my bed....laters....

non-stick works, ass candy and sweatbread...

2005-08-03T16:29:00.000-04:00

this island makes me laugh....and let me tell you why?....you walk into any store or restaurant and will be utterly amused by products names, store names and the menus....it is obvious that papiamentu is phonetic language.....spelling is a free for all and the connotations of certain expressions are given absolutely no consideration....a few examples....

1) in costuless assorted candy is labelled ass candy...
2) goisco sells hard-on tea and non-stick works....woks or works....almost the same thing....
3) goisco also sells ice tea with exotic smaak....not exotische smaak...not exotic flavour...but exotic smaak....pick a language!....
4) the menu at the brasserie sells sweatbread instead of sweetbread....and...
5) the menu at heeren sells mace in the canneloni...i think they think that is their translation of mais which is corn in dutch....
6) almost every restaurant sells schrimps....
7) you want shoes, buy them at athletes foot....fungus included?....
8) my mom's favourite cheap store is called rasonable (phonetic reasonable) and you can buy food supplements at nutrishon....oh, and alfred got flowers from a shop addressed to good jaris rather than gutierrez....
9) there are also lots of places that have very vague names like the happy place, minihouse or the welcome shop...these generally are places that sell junk made by poor child slaves in taiwan or some other asian country....they are overwhelming full, smell like weird chemicals and you are lucky if you can move more than an inch without bumping someone or something....
10) we also have stores called feelings or highlights....my favourite of all is a place called good friends....now i don't know what they sell...it could be a department store or one of the weird crowded stores selling asian shit.... but it could also be a youth organization or a church....perhaps a help desk?....a dating service or, even better, a massage parlour, a brothel or a whore house?...or maybe nolly's happy party services covers that end of the market....i don't know....all i know is it is the place to find good friends....
11) there is also a security company with some condemning little bible versus plastered across the front of the building together with some kind of emblem or shield....it makes me think that the security service goes around lynching people like the klux klux clan...looks very bible-belt, white-trash, alabama like.....
12) i would say the best beauty salon to get a bikini wax would be bonkutis....bon-kut-is....bon=good (papiamentu)....kut=cunt (dutch)....a bon kut at a rasonable price....

so here you have it.....my greatest source of amusement on this island....

UTS = utterly terrible service

2005-07-31T14:13:00.000-04:00

i know it's been a week but i have been less than inspired to write and, quite frankly, there is very little to write about....

my mother became an old woman of 50 this week and the extended family came for three days and stayed in this house....and those who know me well know that i don't handle large chaotic groups of people in my house very well....i shut down and get all bitchy....and i had to sleep on the equivalent of a lawn chair outside for two days and that was not the greatest sleeping experience....when i get old and rich, i am gonna put people in hotels when they visit me....

the past few weeks has been a lot of family and lot of let's-do-our-best-to-get-browner-than-brown beaching....i've done nothing for my work and nothing for school....but that will come next week after larissa and kent leave....the difficulty is that the cable internet my father ordered over a month ago still hasn't arrived and UTS sucks for not making it happen and not letting me send text messages to the people i love across the world....but hey that's the way things go here...poko poko....sometimes it drives me bonkers....don't know how i will do my work without it but hey, i'm just crossing my fingers....

i'm off to get some extra sleep....be well all....

the wonderful life of love and marriage...

2005-07-23T20:04:00.000-04:00

ladies and gentlemen....my mina is engaged and i missed it....which kinda sucks but i am very very very happy for her and matthijs and i think it is absolutely wonderful....maybe someday, someone will propose to me....nice and romantic and wonderful....but i think that will take a some time yet.....no marriage proposals in the near future for me....but that's ok...i've had a few but most were not real....time will tell...or maybe i will grow old with cats....but i doubt it....

the world of dushi korsow is treating reasonably well....i spent a very enjoyable day on a far away beach playing asshole with da family....power games are always a wonderful bonding opportunity....haha...my mother is very good at being the asshole....and she does it with a grace that is astounding....tonight: mambo....my first real night out since i have been here....very different than april...things have changed....alfred is sick and the people i knew here have almost entirely disappeared and departed from this beloved island of mine....but hey, there are always new ones....i did have the pleasure of meeting my PIC's newest victim.....he's not too bad....we usually disagree but this one's ok.....not a bad looking victim....

the time with the family is good...it's not without squabbles and irritations but it wouldn't be my family if everything was happy go lucky all the time...we just don't function that way and that's a good thing cuz families like that are totally out to lunch....we have chatted about memories and the past and the future and it's all quite pleasant....and i found out that i was probably a twin...pretty cool, eh?....i thought so too....wondered why i didn't know this stuff before but when u live on opposite ends of the world u miss stories like these....

so, the summary....the conclusion....things are good...i miss my people like crazy but i am doing well here...the panic of all the things i need to do is slowly settling in but i am hoping and praying that it will all come together as it should....cross your fingers for me....

dames, ik mis jullie ontzettend veel en ik ben zooooooooooo blij voor je mientje...wij gaan een schandalig vrijgezellefeest houden...oh baby...u don't know what ur in for!.....

A, mijn liefje, ik denk aan je, ik mis je en ik hou van je....nooit vergeten...

that's that kids....don't do too many fun things without me.....xxx

revenge of the palm tree

2005-07-20T09:51:00.000-04:00

hola chicos y chicas....

this one will be short and just a thank you to my dames for being sweet and all letting me know that they love me....it must be some grand conspiracy....

things are good...the family is hilarious...curaçao is thus far good fun....no grand exciting stories but i'm sure they will come....

love u all...

wehee....de brasserie.....

2005-07-19T00:35:00.000-04:00

yup.....so....hmm....the family arrived and i have just spent the past couple of hours catching up with my brother...chats about love, life, work and whatever....very good....

marten showed up earlier this evening to see if ben was here as he was on his way to visit the don alfredo who has just had his gall bladder removed and is rotting in a hospital (granted a very luxurious one)....so i went along and he was feisty as always so i think he'll be alright....

came home to discover that the idiots that are pouring concrete next door were going to pay for dinner for us at de brasserie....and that, ladies and gentleman, has always been my second home on this island....so i am adjusting....but....i miss my baby and my dames and mijn maatje....will i get used to not seeing them?.....

the wonderful world of mobile phones in dushi korsow...

2005-07-18T18:15:00.000-04:00

so....i'm here...it never seems to be easy....the hassle with paying for my ticket and actually getting on the plane was less than pleasant but i am here.....and was fortunate enough to have a seat next to an acquaintance of mine from here which always makes the trip a little better....much better than the want-to-seduce-you jesus-pushing criminal freak i sat next to the last time....

so....the mobile phone thing is weird....i have prepaid in holland and they claim that i can't roam here but apparently i can....but the credit is finito and so i can't text from my dutch t-mobile number anymore and roaming costs are usually ridiculously high so i went and got my third antillean number (i swear i can win a prize for having the most numbers ever)....for u dutch ppl, 00-5999-529-3065....for u canadians, 1-5999-529-3065....the good news is you text me, the bad news is i can't text you t-mobile ppl....bas and ronald are the lucky ones...the whole thing is quite weird because i roam on the same provider as my new sim and i can text with my dutch number but not my antillean number while it's the same freaking network....it makes no sense....but that should be no surprise....this place rarely makes sense....but hey, text me to death and i will mail you guys....

dames en aanhang, bedankt voor alles...was een super week en jullie zijn ontzettend lief....geweldig dat jullie er allemaal op schiphol aanwezig waren....smelly, bedankt voor je pinpasje....ik heb het al overgemaakt....basje, ik heb hard gelachen met jou.....donderdag, u2, je telefoontje en je voicemail...ik mis je nu al....arjan, xxx....je bent mijn lieverd en ik mis de dagelijks momenten met je.....succes allemaal....blijf me stalken....en ik bel snel....

eleven days and counting...

2005-07-06T04:47:00.000-04:00

today is the 6th of July and the panic is slowly but surely starting to settle in....i have three more days of work (including today), ten million things to do and a flat to pack up and clean....it's mad but i'm sure it'll come together....it's just getting freaky....and what is even freakier is that as the final days draw nearer, i don't really feel like my life here is coming to a close....i know i felt the same way when i came here from canada, when i went to leeds, when i went to curaçao and when i came back from curaçao....it seems like everytime i leave a place, the realization that i am leaving my life as i know it at that moment sinks in only when i am sitting there in the plane....always the moment when it is too late to change my mind....and that is probably good....i wonder why i love walking away from the security and safety of familiar places and routine as much as i do....i'm perhaps an odd one....

i'm sure it will be fine but i am leaving some beautiful people behind and i hope that that knowledge does not fade while i am there....this country has given me wonderful people who care and love unconditionally and that is rare....my dames are a gift i could have never imagined....and the boy....oh, the boy....i don't know how that is going to be without him....without the phone calls about nothing and the msn chats....(he's playing crying face winks as we speak)....and the kisses and the cuddles and the eyes....ok....no need to get all sentimental and depressed now....we still have 11 days....

and then....the big family affair....it's been a year since i've seen the siblings and i think that will be good but i am all too often scared (and with reason) that we will revert back to our old roles.....that would make me uber-bitch and i don't really want to go back to doing that....really hoping that i get to spend some quality time with larissa and with ben....that seems to have been lacking the past few years and that makes me sad....so....it's not all bad that i am leaving....

don't i love rationalizing my life....haha....

on a lighter note, i recently had a nightmare that i was working at the lanteern again and that there were 20 people in hideous blue shirts pushing and pulling away in the two square meters behind the bar and that the old regulars were hanging on me and people were just being assholes in general....can you imagine?.....hell...pure hell....alumni of the lanteern: mina, juud, helen, dianne, ghis...i'm sure you can sympathize....

oh and by the way the weather is shit!....rain, rain, rain, rain....it's july....come on!....

i'm back to work....be well all....

awakenings

2005-07-05T05:25:00.000-04:00

today no words, only images....this was my saturday: http://www.awakenings.nl/index.php?s=1&view=photos&pid=88&aid=&user_id=&page=2

and u can imagine what my sunday was....dead on the couch, pjs and dvds....

be well all...

Kofi Annan's metaphor of the global village

2005-06-29T12:18:00.000-04:00

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, recently described our ‘global village’, which highlights the array of inequalities around the world and illustrates the different levels of development in all fields.

Our village has 1000 individuals, with all the characteristics of today's human race distributed in exactly the same proportions. What would it be like? What would we see as its main challenges?

Some 150 of the inhabitants live in an affluent area of the village, about 780 in poorer districts. Another 70 or so live in a neighbourhood that is in transition. The average income per person
is $6000 a year, and there are more middle-income families than in the past. But just 200 people dispose of 86% of all the wealth, while nearly half of the villagers are eking out an existence on less than $2 a day.

Men outnumber women by a small margin, but women make up a majority of those who live in poverty. Adult literacy has been increasing. Still, some 220 villagers – two-thirds of them women — are illiterate. Of the 390 inhabitants under 20 years of age, threefourths live in the poorer districts and many are looking desperately for jobs that do not exist. Fewer than 60 people own a computer and only 24 have access to the Internet. More than half have never
made or received a phone call.

Life expectancy in the affluent district is nearly 78 years, in the poorer areas 64 years – and in the poorest neighbourhoods a mere 52 years. Each marks an improvement over previous generations, but why do the poorest lag so far behind? Because in their neighbourhoods there is a far higher incidence of infectious diseases and malnutrition, combined with an acute lack of access to safe water, sanitation, health care, adequate housing, education and work.

Source: Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Millennium Report, April 2000.

lighter meets hairspray...

2005-06-27T07:36:00.000-04:00

yup...what can i tell you...it's monday morning...the weekend is over...i have two weeks left of work and three weeks left in this country....in that time, i get to pack up my house, clean it, move my shit, write a major paper (that is coming along much slower than i expected), figure out what the hell i am going to do in curaçao, have a party, go to terschelling, visit a prostitution centre in amsterdam and perhaps spend a day at community health services in rotterdam....so what i am saying is that it's busy....but those who know me well know that secretly i love the stress of it all....

let me tell you about the greatest injustice in the world...last week, the whole freaking week, it was warm, hot, over 30 degrees, lots of sun....wonderful....but i was here, in this boiling office, waiting and waiting for saturday so that i could go to the beach....and what do the weather gods do?....they take my wonderful weather away and fuck up my plan to get some sun and some colour....and now it's warm again and i am back in my office....this is unfair....but hey, i went to the beach anyway....the wind was crazy, the windsurfers and kitesurfers beautiful....and the man i love to see most brought gato de negro (read yucky) rose and snacks....both our bodies, our hair, the wine and the food were covered in a crusty little layer of sand in no time but it was good fun....we saw a band from cameroon and sat around in this hippieish place that reminds me of being 15 and smoking too much dope....a place with indian fabric and big couches where barefoot dreadlocked surfers drink mint tea in front of an open fireplace....i like that stuff....

and let me tell you how (un)cool i have become....it's cool or uncool depending on your perspective of course....i spent saturday evening in café drinking tea and playing mastermind and scrabble with the aforementioned boy....mastermind sucks and i never want to play it again because i lost and i am not good at losing....scrabble was cool cuz i was allowed to make english words and i won....i was even allowed to use the word twat....haha....and then the boy set my hair on fire....not on purpose but when lighter meets hairspray, things go poof!...he felt bad...i laughed....nonetheless, it's good i have an appointment at the hairdressers this week...

that's it for now....laters

flashing news: heat and trains

2005-06-20T13:39:00.000-04:00

as always i overexaggerate, but it seems like the news here in holland is limited to the heat and the trains...very very exciting country i live in....

the heat: 34 degrees and no wind, not even a breeze...the kind of heat where perspiration is unavoidable even if you do nothing....u can sit still and watch the sweat drops fall...it's good fun...and no, there is no airconditioning here cuz this heat is rare....and what do i do?....hang out in my office...yippie....i remember the days of meeting up with school books and a bottle of wine (or two or three or whatever) in the park for a day of skin cancer promotion and study....aww...nostalgia....

the trains: ya, they are bitching and striking and bitching and striking and i don't really get it but i'm not all that upset as i managed to keep my wonderful boy locked up here in the south for almost five days....good stuff eh?....i should keep paying them to keep him here....haha....

alright...the heat is frying my brain....i'm out of here....

pun-shing bags

2005-06-14T11:11:00.000-04:00

yes, sounds like some fen shui kind of interior design object or something with weird herbs that is supposed to make you all relaxed and no longer stressed out in this 9 to 5 postmodern world of alienation and antidepressants....but no....a pun-shing bag is a punching bag....you know that thing you hit when your mad at your spouse/friend/parent/boss/pet...that thing that makes us all sing eye-of-the-tiger....that, ladies and gentlemen, is a pun-shing bag and that can be purchased somewhere in amsterdam....but i don't remember where....i just remember being utterly amused by the spelling.....

i am a very tired girl today....my alarm went off 5:30 this morning and i scrambled to get ready and out the door by 5:55 so that i would be sure to get on a tram that would be on time for my train so that i could actually get to work here by 9:00...understand: alarm, shower, tram, train work.....grand plan....all that scrambling and it turned out that the first tram comes by at ten after six so i stood outside for fifteen minutes and waited and contemplated what i could have done in those fifteen minutes....let's see....blow-dry my hair cuz it looks like shit now, kiss a sleeping man until he gets irritated or turned on, cut my nails, drink some oj, read the paper, shave my legs.....you get the picture....either way, i made it on time and was surprisingly awake so i did some stuff for work in the train...yes, indeed....this is monumental.....my brain functioning at 7 am...i'm sure it was a once in a lifetime experience....because by 8 o'clock, i was ready to snooze....head on window, eyes closed and.....five minutes into dreamworld and this weird bitch with long long long fake nails, fake hair, bad makeup, bling bling jeans and dark sunglasses, taps on my shoulder and tells me to move over so she sit down....now who wakes up a sleeping girl for a seat when there are plenty of other seats free beside conscious alive morning people?.....this bitch....she picks me out of everyone and tears me out of my beautiful world of dreams and drool....i was not pleased....so....now i am here at work keeping my open with toothpicks and copious amounts of caffeine....let's see if i make it through the evening....

till next time....

praise the lord/hallelujah/thank god....i'm free at last...

2005-06-09T10:03:00.000-04:00

now i could be talking about salvation and born again christians and what not...but no....my praise the lord is the result of finally getting the balls (i unfortunately tend to have a shortage of balls - stupid genetics) to quit 't plenske....now...i have been contemplating when the best time would be and how to do it and how to apologize for being a disappointment and for not following through on my promise to devote my life for brief while to the occupation of food whore....and i have been doing this for what seems like forever....i couldn't quit simply because i had given them my yes....all the while, since september, i haven't had the time, the motivation or the desire to do it....and really, i should be investing in my future....not in a restaurant....so i did it....i quit....next wednesday is my last day....yippie!.....

on another note, i pissed in a cointainer and let the community health services put a hole in my arm this morning....and why?....because in many ways i would like to think of myself as a woman of principles and given my involvement is this abstract and weird world of health education and promotion, i figured the responsible thing to do when starting a new relationship is to have yourself tested for STI's and HIV/AIDS....now...i know all about these things, what the risks are, how do avoid them, the sociocultural factors that impact them, the division between intention and behaviour, blah blah blah....and knowing all this should mean that i would be really cool with all this and i am....but i do admit, it's not that easy and i can really understand why some people have a hard time getting tested....you contemplate any potential risk situation and that is sometimes really frightening....and they ask you stuff like "does he cum in your mouth?"....i wonder do the community health service people really need to know if i spit or swallow?....i guess so....but what i am saying is that i can understand why the layman is not often in a position to pick up the phone and go get tested....conculusion: a good learning experience....i think all health educators that want to work in sexual health promotion should go down and do it....just to know how it feels....an invite to my colleagues worldwide....get a test....and to the rest of you also...get a test...my poor man, who is no big fan of needles, even did it....

so that's my rant today...i'm back to translating scenarios....till next time (no promises on when that will be)....x

mamas gonna buy me a banana...

2005-06-07T06:27:00.000-04:00

i am currently perfecting the art of procrastination and this has been the case for the past few weeks....i do recall being utterly disciplined at some point in time in the past year or four but these past few months have flown by and i don't really know what happened to them...i know that I wrote my last exam in early march and what have i done since then?....i've been to curaçao....i've been to florida....i've fallen head over heels for a boy....i've worked...i guess i have done stuff but just not what i need to be doing and that is this last paper on machismo....silly me...

here are some nice lyrics for all of the people i know in their twenties that really don't what to do with their lives.....

After years of expensive education
A car full of books and anticipation
I'm an expert on Shakespeare and that's a hell of a lot
But the world don't need scholars as much as I thought
Maybe I'll go travelling for a year
Finding myself, or start a career
Could work for the poor, though I'm hungry for fame
We all seem so different but we're just the same
Maybe I'll go to the gym, so I don't get fat
Aren't things more easy, with a tight six pack
Who knows the answers, who do you trust
I can't even seperate love from lust
Maybe I'll move back home and pay off my loans
Working nine to five, answering phones
But don't make me live for Friday nights
Drinking eight pints and getting in fights
Maybe I'll just fall in love
That could solve it all
Philosophers say that that's enough
There surely must be more
Love ain't the answer, nor is work
The truth elludes me so much it hurts
But I'm still having fun and I guess that's the key
I'm a twentysomething and I'll keep being me

this song has made me laugh so much the past few months...i know so many people including myself who have thought the same things and contemplated where life is taking them....i spent yesterday afternoon looking for jobs....no idea where to start....just hope that sort of thing falls out of the sky....who knows....perhaps my karma will allow it...perhaps it won't....maybe i will get married...maybe i won't....maybe i will do a phd....maybe i will become a housewife....(although my mother says i'd make a bad mom and i don't really want kids)....i don't know....

i do know that i am leaving for curaçao in less than six weeks....and i know that i am madly smittin with a very wonderful boy....it has been my policy since i started blogging to leave my entire love and/or sex life out of my rants but i can't really help it now....he's fantastic.....and he makes me laugh....

what else do i know?....the weather is not as good as it should be and in rains more in amsterdam than in maastricht....i know that i get to go see u2 on the 15th of july and i know that bono is brilliant....advice to all: buy and read his book with michka assayas....anyone who care about development and the policy on aid should read it....anyone who digs u2 should read it too....

alright, i am heading back to the paper.....cross your fingers for me....want to start the writing on saturday.....laters...

veel vocht, weinig tanden en vooral niet draaien...

2005-05-05T07:23:00.000-04:00

mientje...voor jou liefje....

the preuverij, bas and beer have nicely provided me with a wonderful little hangover today....cinco de mayo, hemelvaartsdag, bevrijdingsdag and stinky's birthday....i am at work but not working....why?...evil technology....i'm telling you, if we didn't have mobile phones, text messaging and msn, i think we would all be much more productive than we actually are....i have been back in this country for almost three weeks and i have done jack shit....i had a wonderful queen's day in amsterdam....walking around, getting in fights with bitches who think they were first in line for the washrooms, watching kids sell their talents in the park, dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing....you know how it goes....good fun....the week before that bosso estufo, a latin festival with tequila and margeritas, a russian and a liethoff....also good fun....sunday i'm off to miami with my PIC and the marine for ten days....can't wait.....and tomorrow, amsterdam....isn't life wonderful in the spring....everyone goes outside and drinks rose in the park and that makes me happy....yeh for spring....

rain rain go away (don't) come again another day

2005-04-19T07:58:00.000-04:00

what can i say?...i go away for two weeks....have the time of my life....enjoy the weather, my family, my friends, my dushis....and then i come back here to rain and cold and work and papers and life that just isn't very interesting anymore....and it's so hard to find the balance....i have fantastic friends here but somehow i don't really ever see them much and i have a good job and life really is not bad here in maastricht....but....it's just not my thing anymore....people have left and i'm back to the struggle of getting myself out of bed in the morning, of trying to find reasons to get up.....so it's clear that i have got to move on and out of this town....three months and i know it will go by fast....which is good....good....that's it....

bling bling

2005-04-04T09:28:00.000-04:00

ladies and gents....day 4....it's been a wild ride so far but fun nonetheless....the weekend was crazy....so little sleep it is ridiculous.....coming home at six am and hanging out in the brasserie and chatting with friends from last summer....haven't seen mambo yet as saturday, we went out to a bling bling pool party....it was just like a hiphop video and quite funny altogether....judith was there as well so it appears that she has found the same friends i did.....it's a small island....my mom got in yesterday and that was good....way too tired...went to bed at 8 to compensate and today i am meeting with a girl who does research on machismo....tomorrow with the guy from contrasida....so it should come together but i am kinda nervous and i think i do need to keep my partying under tabs....not much to tell....it's good to see old friends...i'm off to shower and hit punda....be well kids....-s

jesus and jails

2005-04-01T16:55:00.000-04:00

Curaçao at last....it’s sooooo good to be back....i can’t even begin to tell you.....start from the beginning then….

i flew out yesterday…having nicely checked in early online with an almost perfect aisle seat right at the back….planned so that i could get off as quickly as possible….but no….some guy checked in too late and couldn’t get two seats together and thus couldn’t sit with his wife and yes, as always, being the idiot that flies alone, I gave up my beautiful aisle seat to sit between two weird men right smack in the middle of the plane….now that in itself is livable…but as it turns out, the guy sitting next to me was a freak….a convicted criminal who got out of jail for a week to fly home for his mother’s funeral…my nine hours consisted of trying to blow him off as he continuously attempted to either convert or seduce me….jailed christians are weird….needless to say, i spent nine hours with my headphones on staring at the screen, watching bad movies and trying to ignore this weirdo….but…no worries….all was forgotten when I got off the plane and my most wonderful partner in crime and sweetheart was there to pick me up….fan-fucking-tastic….we met up with my dad at the brasserie….alfred opened a couple of good good good (a way too expensive) wine and we sat and chatted and laughed and ate and it was very very nice….very funny to be back in the brasserie….after a quick shower, my PIC and me were back in action… we hit a place called cinco and it was a good fun….new stagiarres (new siteseeing material), good g&ts (finally I am back in a place where they but alcohol in your drink) and lots of laughs and chats and it was fun….even ran into Judith petit on my first night….that’s how small this place is….got in a 6 am so I am feeling more than just jetlag today….but hey, I couldn’t be happier….i love this island…alright I am off….miss you all….basje en de dames, dikke zoen…-s

in a time warp...

2005-03-19T13:32:00.000-04:00

my last blog was the 21st of junauary....i am a terrible person....where does the time go to?....let me tell you...i know where my time goes to....work and work and work and work and work....and i think you all get the picture....but hey, what else are you supposed to do with your life around here?....

working in 't plenske is like pretending it's 1975....i swear it...everytime i walk in the door, it's like going through a time warp, like stepping into another world a la narnia chronicles....it's quite absurd....the people who eat there, dined there thirty years ago....and the people i work with have been working there since what seems like the beginning of time.....it's a very very absurd experience....and i am sick of all the clientelle asking if i am a hotel-o....I AM NOT A HOTEL-O!....and i will never be one....i digress....

working at commers is fantastic and exciting and i often feel grown up and that is quite nice...it is wonderful to use my brain and to have people think i am smart and it makes me all responsible and stuff so that is quite nice and i don't get treated like some twit....yippie.....

maastricht is boring and nothing seems to change...the gossip is ridiculous and the selection of eligible bachelors that are not dirty pricks is quite limited....but that's ok cuz in two weeks i will be chillin with my PIC at twototango....and i cannot wait....and better yet, come july, if all goes well, i will be there asking men why they sleep around and don't use condoms....there is nothing better than being able to devote an entire thesis to the topic of men and sex.....haha.....

life is indeed beautiful.....and especially now that winter has left us....and i moving to a warm place and my research proposal is coming together in a very positive way....i have nothing to complain about....just wish i had an extra few hours a day to get my work done and a few hours more sleep.....

be well all....maybe i will keep this blog thing going in the next while....but no promises....

a day in the life...

2005-01-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

the couple living above me enjoy a healthy sex life....it's unfortunate that they share it twice a day with me....like clockwork every morning and every evening i hear the squeak of a bed that should have been replaced long before these two started having sex....what i must say is variation is not really their thing....it starts off pretty slow and builds up and then they stop...and so i think 'yippie....it's over'....but no....they start up again after about twenty seconds....and these minute long sexcapades occur anywhere between three and six times before they are finally done....in the beginning i felt kinda weird about...i would have people over and the neighbours would start and i wouldn't know what to say....now i have it worked out....i can count along and predict this guy's orgasm quite well...it's become amusing....

besides my neighbours' sex life, another daily occurence is my morning wakeup call....my alarm goes off every morning at nine and i tend stay in my bed, enjoying the cool air from outside on my face and the warmth under fantastic satin sheets....i love my bed....i couldn't think of any better place to be and so i tend to linger....until bas calls and tells me to get my sorry ass out of bed....and makes me feel guilty by telling me he gets up at seven am while i laze and snooze until ten...i'd love to claim that i am just not a morning person....and this is true....but i also think that if u fall asleep during law and order, which finishes sometime around midnight, u really don't need to sleep until ten the next morning....but hey....that seems to be what i do....

more daily occurences?....the take five aka the take aka the fake five....we (the girls plus me) tend to spend a fair amount of time there drinking tea or whisky or wine and entertaining the local animals....i'm trying to detach but the withdrawal symptoms hit me hard and sometimes i just need that long dark livingroom with familiar faces and a good selection of music and beverages....

oh yes, i need to inform you of my newest addiction....no, not cigarettes...no, not booze....no, not men....this one is much healthier....this one is a tv series called 24, which i am sure many of you have heard of or been addicted to in the past....i am indeed a latecomer but i do live in this old continent where tv is far too far behind the grand entertainment industry of north america...but it's really cool....jack bauer (sp?) is my hero....and michelle is hot....

...and that's all i have to say today....laters...

2005-01-02T12:38:00.000-04:00

All I know
Is everything is not as it's sold
but the more I grow the less I know
And I have lived so many lives
Though I'm not old
And the more I see, the less I grow
The fewer the seeds the more I sow

Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try

I wish I hadn't seen all of the realness
And all the real people are really not real at all
The more I learn, the more I learn
The more I cry, the more I cry
As I say goodbye to the way of life
I thought I had designed for me

Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Then I see you standing there
I'm all I'll ever be
But all I can do is try
Try

All of the moments that already passed
We'll try to go back and make them last
All of the things we want each other to be
We never will be
And that's wonderful, and that's life
And that's you, baby
This is me, baby
And we are, we are, we are, we are
Free
In our love
We are free in our love

my dick is a fundamentalist

2004-12-27T18:22:00.000-04:00

the above is beyond explaining but it was indeed a funny joke at the time....voor jou basje...

so, ladies and gents, christmas has come and gone and this year was one of the best yet....for the girl who hates christmas, i did a pretty good job of getting into the spirit....despite the mockery of my friends, i even had a make-shift christmas tree....and i don't care how pathetic it looked....brunch with the girls was, despite its cheesey-ness, really fun and my days in the misty east were incredibly quiet and fulfilling...it's nice to be adopted for a day or two....

christmas this year seemed to be some sort of symbolic thing for me....it was the halfway point in the completion of my courses....yes i have only three more months to go....and it's a point that i arbitrarily chose and a point of reevaluation in my life....a point at which i would measure how much things have changed for me since curaçao and a point where i could establish the changes as permanent...now surely not everything is permanent but i do feel good about things...i don't think i have been this content for this long in years....so what can i say?....not much to bitch about...and that is a good feeling...

i'm off to the take...of course...tomorrow back to work....feel like a vacation...a weekend in paris or berlin or something but that will have to wait for now...take care all....xxx

morning wake ups

2004-12-18T11:34:00.000-04:00

morning wake ups….i’ve come to realize that are numerous ways to wake in the morning….numerous moods….numerous forms of grogginess….recently, my wake ups are hellish….i either wake up abruptly to some weird nightmare or too groggily when my mobile phone alarm goes off….these are the mornings where i seem to think at every extra minute i can snooze will gain me some extra energy for the tasks of the day but i don’t really think this is the case....these dreadful snooze minutes are far from pleasant...they are minutes in which i dread the events of the coming day, observe the grayness that looms outside and feel the chill creepy in through the single-paned windows next to my bed....summers are much better....every summer morning, the sun greets me with her full warmth...at eleven am, i can pull the sheets back and sunbathe naked in my own bed....how fantastic is that....i used to live in a house with huge windows beside my bed....my boyfriend then was both concerned and teasing when he asked if cared that perhaps a neighbour would see me naked....but i didn’t care and i’ll tell you why....because the sun woke me up every morning and that made my day....fuck the neighbours....so a sunny day is a good wake up....but in the event you live in a place like i do, where the sun never shines in the winter, there are replacements....one of the most wonderful ways to wake up includes rolling over and seeing a sleeping beauty beside you snoozing away....it is amazing how peaceful people look when they sleep....and in the event that you love said person in your bed, this wake up beats even the sunny wake up.....because if you’re lucky, said person will wake up, stare groggily at you for a second and then smile.....the ultimate confirmation that what you’ve got is good....however, the someone-in-your-bed wake up is not always as enjoyable as the above mentioned one....i am sure most of us have had the kind of wake up where the roll over is accompanied by a pounding head and a parched throat...these are the wake ups where you have to give the events of the previous evening/night serious consideration before rolling over to confirm that yes indeed there is someone in your bed....this is the kind of wake up where you roll over, stare all confused, realize what you’ve done and consequently sneak out of bed, get dressed ever so quietly and write a note saying, ‘hey you...had to go to work/school/a meeting/the library/whatever...see ya around’....i think this kind of wake up is worse than the groggy grey day wake up.....but i am telling you, the ultimate for me would be a Sunday morning with a beautiful bedmate in the summer....that is what i am going for and the first step has already been taken....in july i will move to a place where it will always be summer....now i just have to make everyday Sunday and fall madly in love....think it will work?...

yehhh for logistic regression

2004-12-15T05:53:00.000-04:00

ladies and gents...i think i might understand statistics....perhaps a little....not all too much but a tiny little dim lightbulb has gone on up in my brain....i think it will work...i hope so....there's no way i am not completing the degree because of fucking statistics....

last night i dreamt about pheobe, piper and paige from charmed...how sad is that?....tv is infiltrating my dreams....so not cool....

my head feels like a ton of bricks...my immune system has told me to fuck off and not pollute my body anymore and i am tired....story of my life.....but hey...

sweet thomas....it's unlikely that i will be here in august.....i think i am moving to curaçao.....but have been considering a trip back to deadmonton....pregnant friends and stuff like that....either way, if ur here in july, i will likely be packing up....if ur here after i leave, i can make sure ur entertained....although it would be grand to see u again....email me...

alright...that's it for now...i am off to work....xxx

she lives...

2004-12-14T10:47:00.000-04:00

yes indeed...somedays barely....but yes....still alive and kicking....

just wanted to say hello to leon....

and tell the rest of the world that i love them even when i don't seem to have time for anything but work, school and sleeping...

christmas is almost upon us and winter is truly here....i hate winter....

curaçao is a-go.....july.....yippie....

that's it....

the mamas and the papas

2004-11-15T08:31:00.000-04:00

monday...monday....

so i survived both the cold and the drunks....it was a disaster....rather than returning their beer glasses, these idiots just ditched them like the greeks....glass was everywhere and noone got the beer they wanted because we didn't have the glasses needed to serve it in....was quite funny....people get really cranky when they don't get their beer....

my heating isn't working as it should be and i was getting tired of my 20 square metres of living space last night so wandered down to this fabolous harbour i live on top of but never see....the bateau mouche has been renovated and renamed casa bassin....it's a tapas bar now but the sunday night jazz remains....so i sat in the back with the literature i needed to read and listened to the boys do their thing....was quite nice....and my parents called and i got an unexpected phone call from a very nice someone that i hadn't heard from in months....my PIC and his disciples also gave me a ring but that was 4:30 in the morning and i didn't quite manage to pick up.....so i felt popular and everybody loves feeling popular....

i'm off to do something....work or something like that....be well all...-s

culture schmulture...

2004-11-10T11:02:00.000-04:00

yeh for me....i am blogging twice in a week....just to inform you all of how much i hate the cold....how much i hate wearing layers and layers of shirts and turtlenecks and fleece sweaters and scarves....how i would much rather be prancing about in a tanktop and miniskirt in the tropics.....how i am dreading tomorrow - the 11th of november - the start of carnival season - as i have to stand outside and pour beer for drunken idiots all day long....i have my outfit planned - tights, jeans, wool socks, legwarmers, winter boots, shirt, turtleneck, hoodie, fleece sweater, winter jacket, toque (to refer to my old canadian english), and big wool scarf....do u think i will survive?....i can't really complain....it was my own choice but when i got the phone call to come work the day at de lanteern, it was almost 20 degrees outside and somehow i didn't really consider the fact that it is november and thus cold....not cold in the canadian sense....cold in the it-is-so-wet-your-bones-are-cold sense....no shower, no heater, no bed can take the chill-to-the-bones feeling go away....i now i remember why i liked boys so much in the winter....haha....

on a completely different note....it looks like i will spending the days following the worst day of the year (read christmas) in berlin with the ladies and, despite my protests stemming from a ridiculous fear of exclusion, the boyfriends.....should be fun....at least i hope.....it might just be smelly and me hanging out but hey that happens a lot these days and i haven't tired of her company yet.....good thing....

so that's the rundown....i'm off to learn about culture, whatever that means.....be well kids....

welcome to rush hour....this is your life

2004-11-08T11:18:00.000-04:00

i admit it....i am a terrible blogger....i am neglegent, forgetful and never around on this big grand life of the world wide web....my birthday and alfredo's favourite holiday of the year just passed us on by and my blog remained silent....terrible terrible blogger me....but i have an excuse....and i really have so much to tell but i don't really know how inspired i am or how much time i have....

excuse no. 1: i work too much
excuse no. 2: i have no computer at home that i can sit behind at 1 am and rant
excuse no. 3: the computers in the library are always occupied
excuse no. 4: i don't think my boss would really dig it if i spent my work time blogging

but hey, here i am....at work in fact but everyone is gone for the day and i don't have to start at 't Plenske until seven....

my life consists of work, school and take-out.....the ladies at the indonesian take-out down the street know me too well and it's kind of sad...i can't recall the last time i went grocery shopping....and that is very very sad.....

The latest news:
-my birthday came and went with decent friends but unfortuntely was shadowed by a big scary looming exam that in the end went quite well....
-i was recently approached on my own street and offered sex for money...when i refused, the creep offered me more....and when i once again refused, he told me it was my loss....
-i am taking a course called cultural diversity in global perspectives and there is an irritating fuck in my group that i am tempted to lock up somewhere and throw away the key so that i would never have to hear his voice again....
-i have realized that i really have become less patient with the world (see above)....potential explanation: see below
-i worked 44 hours last week which isn't exactly the kind of hours a student would be working....and i can't really explain why i am compelled to work like a fucking maniac....it's not that i want money (see below) but i feel compelled to have some structure in my life and to cover myself financially....
-i hate capitalism, consumerism and dominance of 'the rest' by the West....
-i don't know what to do with my life after march....

that's that....the details would be nice and i could make fantastic blogs of the above but that would only be possible if i did this on a fairly regular (read daily) basis and that doesn't seem to be possible right now....so this will have to do...

gnomes, mermaids and bigfoots

2004-10-12T11:55:00.000-04:00

i have less than ten minutes in this cafe so this will be quick...i know that my writing has been overly sporadic but it seems that this blog seems to fail to serve its purpose....i am supposed to be able to rant and what not but given a) a lack of time; and b) no computer at home, i don't seem to be able to get my rants down when they pop up in my mind and when i sit in front of the computer i feel less than inspired or rushed....and what i end up doing is giving an update on my life happenings and that, ladies and gentleman, is not really what this blog is about....so i am turning over a new leaf and making it a point of no longer telling you guys about my daily happenings unless they are part and parcel to a rant....ok?...ok....so that is my rant...my time is up and i am off to read about something called outsourcing....whatever that may be....xxx

a day in the life...

2004-10-06T05:39:00.000-04:00

today seems like a leeds day....i know it sounds odd but it's overcast, not quite raining, i smoked very little yesterday, didn't go out to drink anything, stayed in the library until late and got up reasonably early to work on this paper....so yah, it seems like leeds....and this morning i wanted to find me a neros to work out part of this paper in my head with a ciggy and a soya mochacinno.....but no....there are no neros and no soya mochacinnos in this country.....so i'm here in the library, writing this blog and basically avoiding my big start on this aids prevention project proposal.....figured that's basically what i would do there....unfortunately, there is no msn here.....probably better....alright...i'm back to work....

tiiiiiiiime is on my side....yes it is

2004-09-30T06:15:00.000-04:00

makes me think of a fantastic movie called 'fallen'....if you haven't seen it, rent it....

but no....time is not really on my side and, yes, i am here writing for the second day in a row but that's not because i don't have anything to do...in fact, i have a million things i need to get done in the next hour....but...i am waiting on a file from a fellow student on the paper we have to submit tomorrow....and why?...because i am a very bad person and i am totally unprepared for this debate we are having this afternoon on china and the EU and i figure if i get to read this paper i will at least be able to mumble five words out and not look like a complete fucking idiot....

hung out with smelly and mina and juud and carinne and matthijs in the take last night for a bit...was chill but i was tiiiiiirrrrreeeedddd.......

my file is still not in....hmmm.....

today i need to work out some details with respect to work and finances and getting paid...this country screws you majorly over if you have more than one job....it's ridiculous....

and some kind soul put my garbage out when i forgot...my karma must be good...yippie....

so....that's it for now kids.....be well....

and she will be loved...

2004-09-29T13:06:00.000-04:00

sorry sorry sorry....it has been far too long and far too sporadic....but here is a little update....it's crazy busy...nutso....

i have just spent three days being bas' slave....cleaning, packing, moving, drinking beer and just basically having a whole lot of fun.....i have never seen so much dust in my whole entire life....i won't go into details but just imagine what you find under a carpet that has been there thru five years of having your living room function as everyone's living room....we laughed and played music so loud that everyone in the building and on the terraces below had no choice but to listen to maroon 5 on repeat.....was a really good time and i am really gonna miss having him in my building....on the upside i inherited the content of his kitchen cupboard and all sorts of miscellaneous junk....from laundry detergent to massage oil to stamppot groenten mix......

i've also landed a real job!....it does not include serving coffee or clearing tables or anything to do with food for that matter....it's with a health consulting company and i have been hired to complete a contract with zorgonderzoek nederland....i basically get to find important people who influence social and physical environmental factors that can impact health.....so it entails a lot of interviewing.....and we have people like davey-smith and marmot and kingdon and all these profs that published amazing stuff that i have had to read in the course of the last few years....very cool....this makes me a real researcher....crazy shit....but really cool....

in the meantime, i still have my gig at plenske...gonna try to cut my hours but right now i am working too much at both....six days this week.....busy busy busy....

my fantastic PIC called me on Sunday to inform me that it's 34 degrees in curaçao and that he has bought a red convertible jaguar.....nice wheels....

and my parents called which was fantastic as well....i miss them tons....soon soon soon.....

that's it for now....i will try to be a little more regular with this....xxx

this love has taken its toll....

2004-09-18T13:16:00.000-04:00

yup....no...not really....maroon 5 is in the cd player and i like it....a lot....feel kinda guilty cuz it's the best selling cd these days and my alto-roots disallow me from admitting that i think it's super fantastic....

today is a delerious day....i have slept very very very little the last week and i've reached the point that i just feel kinda drunk in my fatigue....but it's been a really good week....really good....

working at plenske is alright....they still think i am a twit cuz i broke a cork...how was i to know that the cork was really ridiculously long.....logical....but the assumption they make is that i don't know how to open a bottle of wine....if only they knew of my not so private alcoholism....whatever...i am sure they will come to see that i am not some stupid little girl who doesn't know how it works...i hope the patronizing smiles fade soon....

was off at eleven last night and went for a few drinks with ronald....good chat....as always....went to some fetish party in the loss theatre but i didn't see anything fetish about it....was fun....saw a lot of people...and most importantly, i saw kimmie...and her new beau....said gave me some of the artwork that was on the wall there so now i have something new to hang up....yippie!...

weather was fantastic today...i sat in my bay window this morning with my fruit and my tea and my ciggy....25 degrees....sun makes me soooo happy.....so...i went to the park with the ladies and we acted very silly....and laughed....so yes what am i saying in all this?.....life is good....i may miss wonderful people in far away lands but life is good....yeah for happy sarah today....

keeping my eyes open with tootchpicks

2004-09-17T17:27:00.000-04:00

sorry kids....it's been too long and so much is happening and i have failed to post my daily happenings on the big beautiful world wide web....so here i am....it will be short but sweet....of course...

i have been scambling all week working on an interesting but time-consuming paper on the political, economic, social and cultural effects of colonialism and the regimes that followed in Zambia....it's done and submitted now....

i also started working at Plenske....my food-whoredness has gone up a notch....the place is a little stuffy but the staff seems good and they still think i'm a twit but hey these are the joys of being a newby....i'm riding it out....

i also got a call from matt commers, a professor of mine from last year and he wants me to come in for an interview again....it was supposed to be today but he phoned and rescheduled for next week....don't know what the expectations are but i suppose it will be good for the cv....

and...i'm such a wimp....i haven't the heart to tell eppo that my lanteern days are over.....breaking the tie with eetcafe de kut tent seems so final....i'm such a loser...

oh...and yes...i went up to arnhem last week....met up with basje....drank beer and wine and beer and wine and showed up a little drunk to the party i was supposed to be at way earlier to the displeasure of the host...but hey, i had a fantastic time with bas in little old arnhem....

also visiting my grandfather who was in wageningen with a broken hip....poor man...

so that's my post for today....will do my best to be a little more regular in my blogging....anonymous, thanks for reminding me.....laters....

this is your life....

2004-09-09T13:29:00.000-04:00

...and it's disappearing one moment at a time (t. durden)

and so here i am....ten days after getting on a plane to come back to what i should consider home....and it's in so many senses back to reality....i've spent a good week sorting out school issues, going to the bank, finding out if i owe money to anyone, buying stuff i seem to have lost in the last few months of travelling, and the list goes on....school is crazy busy and very very interesting....i am happy to be back into the whole thing...keeping busy but it does take a little getting used to....lots of reading and lots of papers....back to food-whoring at the lanteern but i'm gonna work a shift at a restaurant here and see if i fit them and they fit me....let's hope so....so that is the quick update....

this is your life....

2004-09-08T13:25:00.000-04:00

and it's disappearing one minute at a time.....-tyler durden (fight club)

i've been home a little more than a week and all i seem to be doing is organizing my life...looking for work, making some coin at de lanteern in the meantime, going to the bank, sorting out school issues, paying bills, buying stuff i somehow have lost the last few months....and the list goes on....and i tell ya i sure do miss curaçao....my mother and chauffeur, the cleaning lady, working (but never too hard) and the beach...and this is reality....living from my agenda.....and being rushed....i normally enjoy it but it is taking some getting used to and now i understand why people become nomads, hippies or rich....to get away from it or to pay ppl to do ur dirty work.....someday.....someday....

gotta run (ever so fitting) and get me some pizza before it's too late....xxx

home?

2004-08-31T13:57:00.000-04:00

alright....where to begin?....last wednesday was my last night at passeniers and it was good fun with everyone coming by and saying goodbye....i spent my last three days doing the things that i wanted to do but hadn't had the time or the energy for....eating out....chilling on the beach...and, of course, tutu tango and mambo with the most fantastic PIC i know....and then sunday came and i had to pack up and leave my beloved curaçao for rainy here....my mom and alfred came to see me off but there was a possibility that the flight was overbooked and they would need people to volunteer to stay an extra day....line up after line up i got through customs convinced that i would be on the island for another day but, in the end, that wasn't the case and i flew to what i consider home....after two hours of security checks, i was out and ronald was there to pick me up...we drove home and i walked in the door and everything seemed so foreign....it's been eight months since i last slept in my own bed and you would think that sleeping in your own bed would be a safe and comforting feeling but it wasn't....so i dropped my stuff and walked right back out the door.....went over to helen's place and we went for a couple of drinks and dinner and by the time i ventured home it was two am and i felt rotten....i sat on the floor, surrounded by my stuff and didn't know what to do....and i woke up this morning and tried to unpack but i can't do it...not yet...i have to get all my stuff up out of the basement and make my place my place again but for some reason i just can't....so tomorrow de dames are coming over to help me and hopefully i will feel settled and fine within a few days....but at this point in time i just feel a little overwhelmed and sad to have left curaçao....to have left my parents and alfred and passeniers and everything else i had there....peace and quiet....

unsolicited visitors

2004-08-27T10:00:00.000-04:00

last night i came home and was greeted by a big family of cockroaches in my bathroom....now i've gotten used to the occasional roach but last night i found not just one roach, not two, but six babies, one teenager and one big fat mother....i killed the shit of the one's i could catch but there were still a few scurrying around and no, i cannot sleep with the knowledge that there are live roaches in my bathroom which, may i point out, is very close to my bed...so i sprayed the shit out of my bathroom with heavy duty bug killer until i couldn't even breath anymore.....and this morning, there they were, belly up and, most importantly, dead.....ten of them....dirty dirty ugly disease-filled creatures....i hate them....you know what else i hate?....rats.....last week, i was lying in bed and i heard very weird sounds above me....went kind of like this: tick, tick, tick, tick, crash, boom, bang.....gibby stood right up and looked at the ceiling....yes, there was a rat living between my ceiling and the roof of the house and he didn't quite make the jump from one beam to the other and fell onto what i consider not very strong drywall right above my head....try to sleep after that...i have dreams of waking up and finding my ears half-chewed off....and alfred told me it really can happen....he told me a story of soldiers that had their ear nibbled off by those sneaky beasts.....fortunately, my dear sweet mother knows all about the rats and threw a rat block up onto the roof which is this poison that dehydrates them and makes them go search for water but also makes them very very slow....next day....bella found my little rat and killed it....hurrah for nature....and a little help from the pest control people....conclusion: i hate two things on this island: a) roaches and b) rats.

mambo number five

2004-08-24T14:09:00.000-04:00

five days....FIVE DAYS!!!!.....i can't believe this is almost over....last night i worked the restaurant alone....juan was not doing well and didn't work cuz his ex-gf drove drunk, got into an accident, didn't have a valid driver's license, didn't have a resident's permit and is being deported back to columbia....so....like i was saying, i worked alone....first my parents came in, then jan willem, then donny, then karen, then emil, then bob, then amsterdam, then leo....and you get the picture...all people i have come to know in my short time here....and it kinda saddens me to leave this behind....on the other hand, i've the new globalisation course with mina and i talked to my basje today whom i miss terribly as well and i do really want to go back to that....but i also want to stay here....and yes, i have done this so many times....leaving edmonton for maastricht, leaving maastricht for leeds, leaving leeds for maastricht, leaving maastricht again for curaçao, and now leaving curaçao....i've said it before and i will say it again...i want a big island where i can put all my important people together....but i can't and the reality is that no matter where you go, there will always be people you like and you will always leave people behind...and that kinda sucks....

as good as it gets

2004-08-23T13:30:00.000-04:00

monday....monday....this is my last week and my insides are starting to turn at every thought of getting on a plane for a dreadful nine hours and ending up in holland exhausted and coming back to an apartment i haven't seen in seven months....back to my real world and my real life where i have to do dishes and laundry and study and tidy....my life here is far too cushy and far too easy and, although i don't really mind going back, my life in maastricht seems so foreign these days....i'm sure it will only take a matter of hours to get right back to where i was before....so no concerns....and i just got a text that i will be picked up at schipol so that is pretty cool....

tonight will be my third last night at passeniers....it's been good fun but i know now that working six nights a week with no option of getting an extra night off every now and then is not too terribly cool....the hours are perfect...you just can't go for dinner ever.....so thursday night i'm off to kura hulanda for an asian buffet with da parents....

the past week has been late late nights, too little sleep and too little sun...i will surely return to holland all pastey and white if i don't get my ass out of bed at a reasonable hour this week.....my partner in crime is back from aruba and over the flu which explains the late nights....we take on the town so well together....i've come to meet quite a few people here...it happens quite fast on an island like this where everyone knows everyone....kinda nice but kind of freaky....

so the countdown is on....six days....tick....tick...tick......

it's getting hot in here....

2004-08-17T14:49:00.000-04:00

yes, it's hot...really hot....it's august...and hot....hot...hot....hot....ok....understand?....

i woke up at an incredibly reasonably hour this morning (yeh! 9:30) and walked down to bloempot to do a couple of things....i went to the cd store to find orisha which is a cuban band that combines traditional cuban music with hiphop and it's really quite cool...i played it nonstop in jose's car when we were in portugal and he was supposed to burn it for me but i guess he decided not to and i never got it....i suppose i can understand...i was after all quite bitchy that weekend and wouldn't have done it either if i were him....but hey, the dumbo in store apparently had it in stock but of course could not find it....welcome to curaçao....so they ordered it in for me and say it will be here this saturday...that is likely to be next wednesday or the week after and by that time i will be gone....but...if i am lucky it'll come in this week and i can pick it up....yippie....

i also spent two hours in the bead store being all creative and making jewellery....it's good fun and the women who run the place are really cool....they know me from the last time and they share my excitement when i put together something i think is really cool....and they say i'm unique which admittedly gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.....

and....i was supposed to go to the bank....but i didn't.....i hate banks...i hate money and i hate waiting....two things that innately part of the bank experience....so i skipped it....and had lunch with my dad at de heeren instead....and now i am stuffed....

spent a really quiet weekend here....did a lot of chatting with the parents about love, life and the future and it has (i think...and, more importantly, i hope) been really enlightening and beneficial....we discussed barriers and things that disturb my functioning and it all got pretty heavy but i feel really good about it....like i can live my life differently....you know how some conversations have the ability to change your course....i think this was one of them....and i really hope so too.....

so that's my scoop for today....PIC is still away....and juan is sick....laters

R - heya....kom 30 aug aan op schipol....10 uur 'sochtends...best vroeg dus....zal ook heel erg moe zijn....waarschijnlijk ongezellig en slaaperig maar als je wilt....zal ik natuurlijk nooit klagen...

the count-down

2004-08-15T12:08:00.000-04:00

good afternoon....today is sunday....surprise....i tried to update earlier this week but i couldn't log in....which really sucks cuz i felt quite inspired....and now i do not....but hey....the update....

14 days to go....mixed feelings about where i feel better....but i honestly think that maastricht and curaçao work well as homes....maybe i should do both.....my grand partner in crime (alfredo) is off in aruba this weekend so i am just laying low and catching up on some sleep....a week and a half of work to go and, although it is sometimes a whole lot of fun, on the whole, i am little tired of working six days a week.....but hey, it's easy and the boys are fun and peter is back from columbia and stock is in again so maybe things are looking up for the brasserie....who knows....as long as they pay me!....tips have been alright but not fantastic....the odd american with their 20% is always encouraging.....but the sit-around-all-night-drinking-difficult-to-make-cocktails-and-leaving-seven-guilders has kinda been the norm the last while.....too too too bad....my father says that tips stands for 'to insure proper service' and i agree....i am much more willing to do a little extra if i know said client is a good tipper....how awful is that?....the epidomy of food whore....haha....

...

2004-08-10T13:11:00.000-04:00

slow night at work last night and whoever set the mix last night must have been in a slit-my-wrist mood as it was depressing and sad and all about lost love and lost family and what not....i've gotten quite used to it but it is usually interspersed with a little bueno vista social club and latin american stuff....not yesterday....none the less, at the end of the night i sat with my glass of wine while waiting for juan to finish up and got thinking....thinking about what brought me here....what life has been like since i first left maastricht in february....about my travels and about what the last two months on paradise island has done for me and meant for me....today, i am all alone at the house with a little sarah slean....hanging in the yard with a book and my thoughts flow again....i am much better than when i came here....a lot more chill....a lot happier....a lot less stress....the money hassles are pretty much resolved....or at least overseeable now....but i wonder what things will be like when this vacation ends and i am back at home....being away so much has given me a lot of time to put perspective on things......and to realize that the recurring theme for me this past year has been disappointment....and this makes me wonder if disappointment is self-created or something that happens to us....it also makes me wonder if disappointment is linked to high expectations or whether the disappointment in my life is a result of a self-fulfilling prophesy....an expectation to be disappointed....u know the realism idea when you conclude that you can't really count on people....and i really don't know actually so you tell me....where does disappointment come from?.....

on another note, peter, one of my bosses that deals with all of the financial stuff, decided not to come back from columbia as he was planning too....this leaves us severely in the shit....we're running out of stuff and there is no money.....and i can't help to wonder where the money is disappearing to.....shadey businesss......i hope i get paid out this month...and i hope i still get the remainder of my july salary.....who knows.....

lose yourself

2004-08-08T23:10:00.000-04:00

good evening....i know....it's been a week....probably longer....and i know it's not like me not to write....but in all honesty, i don't know what to write on this blog anymore....all too often i feel censored....my own issue of course....

the last week has been a week of grand insecurity....my work didn't pay me out on the first as they should have and five days later i got a cheque that wouldn't cash.....fortunately no nsf cheque cuz my mom went in person to the bank....but the fact of the matter is that i worked the last week not knowing if and when i would get paid out....which has done absolute wonders for my diminishing work morale and has made me less than kind to the boys i work with....it's like a pool of sharks....everyone just trying to get what they are entitled to have....i got the greater majority of my money last night....cash....the whole thing is sketchy....the one who takes care of the money is in columbia and we all wonder if he'll be back....either way, i better get paid this month as well....cuz this screwing around with your employees' money/writing bad cheques thing is not so cool....

moving on...

the last week has also been a great deal of fun....i've been spending some good time with alfredo....who is good and kind and (as mentioned prior) lots of fun....and hanging out with someone you feel that comfortable with makes you realize that you can leave the country, move away, take on a new life, and still you remain the same....you never lose yourself....so what this means is i am back to late nights and g&t......i don't mind because in the end it's not about partying....it about people and relationships and good friendships and i am happy to know the people i have met here.....even if it means i have crawl in the door at seven am....tonight was my night off and we went down to the coast, sat on the water and ate fantastic italian.....and why?....because i said that i really missed that sort of thing given that i work six nights a week...so yes, things are good here and i think i will miss some people....and i have built some memories....things to look back on and smile about....my own little film.....and that's a good thing....

in addition, larissa and my mother left for miami this morning.....i hope they have a fantastic time and it's all too bad that i saw so little of larissa while we were both here but work and dengae (sp?) fever seemed to get in the way.....sucks eh?.....

alright, i'm off to smoke a ciggy.....find my dog (wonderful loyal beast that he is) and go to bed.....ciao

grand moments of stupidity

2004-08-01T11:42:00.000-04:00

good morning...i have been up for about fifteen minutes and have had two grand moments of stupidity....first of all, i got up and walked around the house looking for my mother, my sister, my father....anyone....nobody is here....nada....and i thought "that's weird".....and then i realized it's sunday....of course they are not here....they're at church.....secondly, i woke up thinking i forgot the two bottles of wine i bought at work last night in alfredo's car.....but they were nicely on the kitchen counter....how can i simply forget that?.....the answer....gin and tonic....i think....so....i've been out two nights in a row with alfredo who is one of my bosses and a good friend of ben.....and it's fun....alfredo is kind, funny, generous and ridiculously dirty-minded.....and he has rob dokter syndrome....he gives everyone the impression that they are, at that moment, the most important person in his life....good stuff eh?....we went out to tutu tango on friday and he took good care of me....shooed the yucky men away and observed the cute ones with me.....last night we were at mambo....saw a lot of the same faces we saw at tutu and ran into a couple (dick and petra) we had seen the night before....so the four of us had a good time, good conversation, good fun....i enjoyed myself....

this evening the boys i work with (juan and rugerio) are coming over to eat....i hope my head can handle it today....

uhm....

dames, ik bel jullie over een uurtje....1 uur hier, 7 uur daar...dan is juudje klaar met werken.....

r, bedankt voor je sms....ik ben precies hetzelfde....maak je geen zorg....bbq klinkt leuk....had er bij willen zijn....doe de jongens de groeten van me....

instant ego-boost

2004-07-30T01:16:00.000-04:00

it's like instant coffee....like quick fixes...like....i don't know....but i'm telling ya....girls, if you are ever feeling ugly, insecure or gross, book a ticket to this island where every man looks at you like your the only woman on the planet (though we all know they have by-sides)...they call you sweetheart, lieverd, schatje, dushi.....and they are, like all latinos, instantly in love....whether they mean it or not is irrelevant...i'm not saying come here so that you can fall madly in love...i'm also not saying come here to get some 'action'....i'm just saying that if you ever feel ugly, this is the place to be....the amount of attention you get is enough to sustain you....you don't even have to indulge them to feel beautiful.....cold shoulder works just fine....

moving on....

i made wicked money at work to night....me and the regs are tight and this brings me more and more coin....speedy tried to hold my hand and that's just...gross....yes...yuck...ugh....beach is the same as always....what an exciting life.....

oh and crazy fires are burning in spain and portugal....heading to sevilla....makes me worry about a certain someone with a brand new house.....i hope things are ok....

and.....dca still sucks ass....i will tell you the dca/ssna story later....

i'm off to msn with ms. kristy....check her out...she's cute.....[see blog listing right]

big kisses to all this evening.....

and life goes on....

2004-07-29T00:51:00.000-04:00

wednesday....just finished yet another night of wine and happas....today was south africa....nothing exciting....food was greasy.....wine was good....clientele the same as always....pretentious and wealthy with a sense of entitlement that i am beginning to have less and less tolerance for....speedy gonzales (my nickname for the little columbian chef that's sweet on me) continues to woe me with extra vegetables on staff meals and "oohs" and "aahs" when i enter the kitchen with dirty coffee cups.....i don't understand what's so appealing about dirty dishes....juan, one of the guys i serve with, witnessed speedy's efforts by spying through the window and he seems to find it equally as creepy as i do....i try to not look at him (easy as he is at least a foot shorter than i am), make sure i don't come within a whole metre of his person, and say i am busy anytime he calls my name.....but after a month of giving him the cold shoulder, he perseveres.....maybe i should try this uber-bitch method on boys i really like....maybe there is some truth in the whole playing-hard-to-get thing....either way, it is progressively getting more and more creepy and i think i need to either have a good face-to-face with little speedy or have management talk to him...it's riding my nerves....

my boss also said that i induce a sense of guilt in him when i look at him....like i am accusing him of something....like he's done something wrong.....i couldn't possibly tell you what he's done wrong...i don't really care for that matter but it is an interesting comment....he's not the first to comment on my way of looking.....my old boss found it seductive and this new one finds it guilt-inducing.....some say it's just intense....what can i say?.....i just look....directly....maybe that freaks people out....

for the rest, i haven't much to say....my days consist of beach and work....my nights of sleep and disturbing dreams...i wake up more tired that before i sleep....but for the rest, i'm ok....i eat well....i rest (i think)....i've lost 4 kilos....and the family is alright....they don't drive me crazy....the maid cleans my room....my mother makes me breakfast and lunch....how will i ever survive back in holland with no maid and no mother?.....haha....i'm sure i'll be fine....at this point, i still see it as a luxury....the minute i see it as normal, i'm likely a lost cause.....

so here i am, at one o'clock in the morning, behind this screen....cognac....and no desire to sleep.....missing all of you who read this blog....

dames, bedankt voor je berichten....jammer dat ik niks terug kan sturen....hoop dat alles goed is in maastricht zonder mij.....juud, laat me ff weten als je mijn sleutel al hebt....moet namelijk iemand hebben die me post uit de bus kan halen en mijn inschrijving voor de uni opsturen....mina, hoe ging het bij vodafone???....heb je nu werk?....smelly, hoe was barcelona?....

R, dank je voor je berechten...je zorgt dat ik me altijd populaire voelt.....hoeft niet maar als je iets wilt sturen, woon ik op cas coraweg 41, willemstad, curaçao, NA....

superstar, was leuk om met je chatten.....1...2...3....4....ja....uhunh....maar ff iets anders....persevere!.....het gaat je allemaal lukken....een veel plezier met je tractors en koeien (sp?)....mis je....

by-sides

2004-07-26T09:22:00.000-04:00

diane ackerman, in her book the natural history of love, claims that 74% of married american men cheat....i wonder if european men cheat more than americans or less?.....and what about antilleans?.....i'm not sure if culture and socialization influence the percentage of cheaters but i am sure that socialization and culture do influence the expression and form of cheating....cheating is a broad term.....it could be anything from one night stand to a short fling to a long-term mistress....what has surpised me here in curaçao is the openness with which it happens...i often serve a regular and his wife on an evening that entails only an entree and house wine....and three days later, the same regular is back in doing the app, entree, dessert thing with expensive wine but the woman with him is not the wife.....she is usually young and spanish speaking here.....maybe gold-digging....maybe not....another guy came in alone and waited for his girlfriend...they chatted, drank, cuddled, kissed for an hour and then she left....ten minutes later, his wife came in....they chatted, drank, cuddled, kissed for an hour and left together....i'm not really surprised by this all.....but what surprises me is the openness.....do these guy know others won't tell their wives or do they not care if their wives know?...that's my thought for today....

tapas

2004-07-22T10:21:00.000-04:00

every wednesday passeniers does a wine and happas menu...they pick a country and then build the wine menu and apps accordingly....last night was spain....and they turned it into a a big tapas buffet.....tortilla, abigodias, oyster pasties, huevos atun.....good food.....but it was crazy crazy busy....normally we close up at around 2330 but last night the place was still full at midnight and before we got everything done (and we didn't actually get everything done) it was twoish.....but what's nice about working on nights like yesterday is that the sense of teamwork is much greater than when everything is manageable....and, at the end of the night, we sat down for a few drinks and chatted....we ended up going to tmf for a few drinks and today i am tired as hell....woke up too early....so...passeniers is getting less boring with one less person on staff and nights like last night....i know the regulars and they know me which makes it more fun....and, since i am the only girl working evenings, i get all the leftover chocolate mousse as peter says that girls get cranky if they don't get chocolate....so it's good....can't compain....i've been here and a month and i haven't really wanted to go home yet which is a positive thing....i could probably live here....the mix of dutch people and antilleans and columbians and americans and tourists is appealing....u can speak dutch, english, spanish and papiomentu....would be good for my spanish....curaçao is like a developing country in a lot of ways but, then again, fairly westernized.....who knows....maybe in time i will live here....s

R - bedankt voor je smsje....was heel fijn om een berichtje te krijgen naar een maand withdrawal...hoop dat alles binnenkort wat beter gaat....mis je....

mobile me

2004-07-21T11:45:00.000-04:00

hi....i have a mobile....+59995210288....can't seem to send texts but maybe i can receive them...who knows....someone give it a try....

keys and money

2004-07-18T11:01:00.000-04:00

keys and money.....two things i hate....two things we would not need if people were innately good, honest and fair....but hey, what can you do.....my family locked me out of the house this morning and while most houses are easy to break into this one is not....stupid bars.....

it's sunday morning...my day off....yippie.....the rest are at church and i am here.....ben leaves tomorrow so we have to do a lot of packing but he is quite ill....i hope he will be able to get it done and be able to leave tomorrow....would suck for him if it didn't work out....we didn't manage to go out before he left.....probably better....mambo sucks anyway...it's like holland on the beach....the only good thing is that they play 50 cent everytime and that makes me think of robby and trying to learn the lyrics under the influence...and that makes me laugh....but it's not really worth going....not for one song.....

wondering how things are in maastricht....dames....geef me de roddels....

i'm off to make some breaky....take care....

people fade as people always do...

2004-07-17T01:47:00.000-04:00

last may the place i was living in was broken into while i was here in curaçao....one of the things that was taken was my stereo...what i had been listening to the night before i left was david usher and the cd was still in the player so, when they took my stereo, they also took my david usher...which i haven't been able to replace...until today....my brother had burned a copy from my sister last year so i burned it and listened....and almost cried.....david usher is many things to me....it reminds me of a time that in many ways doesn't seem that long ago and in other ways seems like a whole other life....it reminds me of late nights and port and love and an intimacy i will never be able to replace....it also reminds me of grief and the pain of knowing that you can't be with the most important person in your life....there were months that i couldn't listen....and i have to admit, it's never become easy to listen to....david usher was a part of my life before certain doors closed in my mind and in my heart....and in that sense, it symbolizes my greatest loss....sure that sounds really dramatic but it's not....

on a related but less tragic note, ben also had a copy of my howie day cd, which i no longer have due to a certain cat pissing on it....that too makes me happy.....hurrah for muzik!

and donny.....xxx

turtles

2004-07-16T12:31:00.000-04:00

hola....friday afternoon....ben leaves on monday....scary....we're going out tonight with ben and his friends and the boys from de tropen have invited me to go out as well which will be good.....good fun....talked to mina today....was good but i got a half-story on the george thing and it all seems so weird....can't wait for the details cuz apparently he seems to think differently than i do about his abrupt disappearance from my life....what's a girl to do?....boyz....boyz....in the end we have noone but ourselves (thx R).....and that's just fine....work is still work and not very interesting...it was dead last night and i have concluded that we have approximately 30 regulars that seem to think they own the place....you know the kind that demand crushed ice when they know you have no ice crusher....the kind that order stuff that's not on the menu cuz they know they will be accomodated and the kind that refuse to move when you say "excuse me....can i sneak by you"......they are also the type of people that walk into the kitchen and holler in dutch at the poor columbian kitchen staff and, upon being met with blank baffled faces, simply repeat the same words but in a much louder voice as if volume increases understanding of a foreign language.....they are also the type of people that feel entitled to touch you wherever whenever cuz they are paying....this is obviously the epidomy of food whoreness.....not that i am totally bothered....i can put up with a fair amount of arrogance....but i must admit that my meekness is not innate and is more a matter of just holding my tongue while my insides scream.....the joys of dealing with the rich and pretentious who fail to understand that i take shit for nine nag an hour.....

home?

2004-07-14T12:33:00.000-04:00

been thinking a lot about the concept of home....what makes a place home?.....and more specifically, where is my home?.....being here and living in a house with the same people as when i was growing up and the same furniture and the same paintings on the walls seems kind of like home....hanging out in the garden while my brother's friend, patrick, plays beuatiful songs on the very same guitar that the first boy who broke my heart played seems like home....so maybe curaçao is home?....but then again, an afternoon in the take with de dames also seems like home....as does a little indonesian dinner at my apartment.....as does my afternoon cup a coffee with basje....so maybe maastricht is home?.....but....sunday afternoons in don's basement with a cosmo and a maxim and spinach dip and croissants and red chillie jelly is also home....as is sunday night dinners at the ames-hodgson-christiansen residence....all these things give me a sense of home....but they are never all in the same place....i guess home is not a place....not here, not maastricht, not edmonton but rather home is sense of familiarity and belonging.....if i had my way, i would put all these things that make me feel at home on one nice little warm island and i would have my ladies from maastricht and my family and my scandanavians and donny and linds & co. and basje and the rest all in one place....wouldn't that be nice?....yup....

on a totally different note, my little brother is leaving in five days and this makes me kind of sad.....it's good to hang out with him and he's kind of all grown up and knows so many people and is so well-established here and i really really like spending time with him and actually learning about his life and his thoughts and his feelings cuz i really don't know him when i am there and he is here and we chat or talk on the phone....everything is always so censored....hopefully when he's in canada we can keep in better contact and,who knows, maybe i can go visit him and leah and donny and linds and kristy and adam and rob and rory and all the rest in december.....maybe....

ben and this guy lars came to pick me up from work last night and the place was pretty full with industry people, all of which ben seems to know...we ended up leaving passeniers quite late and went to my boss, alfredo's place....it is a gorgeous place...roomy, open, balcony, garden....nice....very nice....we hung out while alfredo looked at porn and the rest of us watched nip tuck...not very interesting but fun none the less.....

oh...and i lied about the picks being on the site....i'm having problems uploading them which is not surprising given the 56k modem....yes....ancient......i'll try to burn them to disc and upload somewhere via cable....cool?....

alright...i'm off....be well all....en tot snel...-s

kooie kapper

2004-07-13T12:15:00.000-04:00

hi....pics are on my yahoo....click on the link to the left and you'll get to see them....

alright....an update....

came home saturday night right pissed about this guy that i work with that like to be a table hog.....and ends up screwing me out of the money i am supposed to be making.....i was livid....so....we went to mambo but it wasn't really my thing that night....and when we were done there we went to denny's.....yeh for denny's.....yippie for american greasy spoon....i even ate bacon.....scary eh?.....

i spent my day off doing practically nothing....watching shit hbo movies and reading.....nothing exciting....

yesterday i was back at work all pumped up to talk my manager about the unfairness and the table hogging only to find out that martin, my sweet manager and favourite person to work with, had quit....i guess he was fed up....one of the owners is his ex and he basically gets treated like shit and i think i would have quit too.....but it kinda sucks for me cuz work has gone back to being boring and now table-hogger is going to play mr. manager....

last night patrick and his little sister came over and sat around way at the back of the yard with a bottle of wine, a guitar and ton of bats that were flying all over the place....it seemed kind of reminiscient of the campfires we had when i was a jaded angst-ridden teenager....it was good fun....

today i am off to the beach with da girls....and then off to boring old passeniers....yippie....miss you all....xxx

a(x) - b(y) = ?

2004-07-09T12:13:00.000-04:00

larissa said that it was probably a good thing that i'm not working at de heeren....and when i asked her why she said "because there are a lot of eligible bachelors there"....such a comment seems ironic.....if they are bachelors and if they are eligible, why is it better that i don't meet them?.....not that i am out looking but it seems absurd that one would think that eligible bachelors are an innately negative phenomenon....just a thought....

tmf

2004-07-09T01:14:00.000-04:00

so...this morning i woke up with the my first curaçao hangover....hell....i went to de heeren after work yesterday for ben's goodbye party and we headed out to tmf with patrick, raphael, martin (my manager) and couple of others....tmf is like stagaire heaven....holland in the caribbean...just like mambo...i drank no more than i would normally drink....however, making a highball in holland consists of a single shot of your favourite distilled liquor plus a whole lot of your chosen mix....the way it works here is a) lots of ice; b) lots (and i mean lots) of, in my case, gin; and c) a wee teeny tiny little bit of tonic....so it hit me hard and the world was spinning and it was rather unpleasant but...i had fun being out....martin is a cool guy and working has become substantially less boring since he's been back to work....but the restaurant is still slow and the men are still creepy and pretentious.....oh and i have a rant....let me start by saying that a server is not a slave....people with money tend to forget this....and i hate that....i served these people yesterday....young...new money...no class....they were complete assholes....they treated me like i was dumb, incompetent and a piece of meat....not cool at all....i was told to treat them well because they tend to tip well but i don't give a shit....my pride dictates that i am not putting up with demeaning, snide and sexually inappropriate comments for a couple of extra bucks....no thank you....so they got the bare minimum....enough that they wouldn't complain about me but much less than what i normally do....and i hate that....learn some decency....learn to treat all people, and especially those who work in service industries (servers, teachers, social workers, call centres), like actual people with personalities and feelings and lives....these assholes have probably never worked in such industries so perhaps they are ignorant (they were after all americans) and can be forgiven....or perhaps they have worked in services industries and somehow money has made them forget which would be totally uncool....yes....the joys of being a food whore....someday this will have to end and i will become a real person and people will stop talking at me like i am a retard....i cannot wait....

vive la blond

2004-07-07T12:37:00.000-04:00

yesterday morning my mother woke me up and informed me that i had fifteen minutes to dress, eat and get to the hairdresser, who was going to do her best to get this red out of my hair....after a failed dye, highlights and two and a half hours, i walked out not quite a blond but close....so yes, ladies and gentleman, i am on my way back to my real hair colour....right now it's pretty funky...it's red and it's blond and it's just about a little bit of everything and the minute i find my dad's camera, i'll snap some pics and post them....

i worked last night (big suprise)....made some decent money in tips and sat around on the porch with ben and a bottle of wine....was good to chat....i think late at night is the only time i will really get to see him before he leaves....tonight is his goodbye party and i will be heading over to de heeren as soon as i am done work....it's the first time i will have been in there since i gave marc the bad news and i don't think marc is really mad at me....i hope not at least....

i'm off to wake up ben and get my stuff together for the beach.....i hope the rest of you are doing well and i promise the pics will be along shortly.....xxx

blogspot - here i am

2004-07-06T00:55:00.000-04:00

ladies and gents....welcome to the new blog...it's much pretty, much quicker and much friendlier to the english speaking folk in my world....enjoy....xxx....s