A new year again

I am now quite sure that Google (/Blogger) is tracking how long I am staying on the blogs that the Random Blog Button sends me to because at least 60 % of the blogs I end up on is about food and cooking. Or does Google read my mind?

People, it's the 31st and it's time to think about resolutions and wishes! My literature teacher in high school used to say that you need to take a tiny piece of paper, write the thing you want on it, hold it above your glass of champagne, burn it, let the ashes fall into your champagne and drink it at midnight. She was mad as a cow, but I did do this once... I don't remember what I wished for or whether it worked out, but it was fun! You can ask Irma if you don't believe me.

I started thinking about resolutions and stuff while reading blogs, and I think I have none. Not because I know they don't mean too much to me, but because I don't think I would change a thing right now. People say they want to lose weight, eat more healthily, quit smoking, focus more on studying, do exercise etc., but I think I am just feeling good the way I am and the way things are around me. I weigh 61-62 kg, I feel reasonably attractive - I bought an extra tight top today and my tummy looks almost flat and I had to make an extra hole on one of my favorite belts, I don't exercise but I dance quite a bit and I eat food that I like. I am paid to study, paid enough in fact to cover my tuition fee, living expenses, travel and I can even save a little money every month and I study something I like. I am glad that I can spend quite some time with my boyfriend even though I am abroad most of the time, and I also like the way we are together when we are physically apart, I love the way he leaves a message on Skype if he gets home later than my bedtime (1.30-2.30-ish) or when he carries around his laptop in the house and I can see him making lecsó or something else in the kitchen. I am super proud of him becoming so good at dancing and skiing. I made a few new friends in Amsterdam and yes, I could have spent more time with them, but I also had my thesis on my mind and my hands, and I think it is absolutely great that I managed to finish it on time. If everything works out fine, I'll spend a lot of time in Utrecht next semester but I still have to figure out a lot of things regarding these plans. And very importantly, I am healthy.

I'm not saying that the whole year has been characterized by this upward trend but I am happy with the present state of affairs and I hope for a year filled with happiness, challenges, excitement and success!

A break without a break

I feel lucky that I managed to get home in time. The girlfriend of a classmate gave me a lift to the airport that Thursday evening, the evening of the first snowstorm I've ever seen in the Netherlands. I was prepared for a late boarding and eventually I arrived to Budapest 2 hours late, but at least I did arrive. Two Bulgarian friends of mine only got home on the 25th and they were supposed to leave on the 20th...

Since the 17th I've been constantly on the move:

18 December: Christmas party at Irma's (and Tibi's) spiced up with a white elephant version of secret Santa and half a dozen of games, including a long and funny round of sextivity. Jani and I collected (or rather stole, which the rules do allow) a bottle of wine and a Durex Play Heat lubricant during secret Santa, both of which we successfully left at the location and which we will hopefully collect later :)

19 December: Kori's surprise birthday party at Zsuzsa's - a night of caviar and shrimp sandwiches, champagne and lots of dancing.

20 December: test run on the slopes (well, the only open slope that was open) of Mátraszentistván in minus 15 degrees, then a great dinner in a small restaurant, the owner of which Jani and I got to know last year. He immediately recognized us and offered me a shot of great home made pálinka to start with. Then we had 2 hot bowls of chicken soup and some "macok" (or "tócsni").

23 December: an evening of cooking and baking and a night out in Szilvuplé.

24 December: the usual Christmas lunch/dinner at my parents' place. The new member of our family, a small black and white female dog, lay her head on my feet below the table, which I take as a sign of affection. I also found out that my parents started taking salsa lessons!

25 December: a day in bed and an evening with two EVIME friends at the "új pulcsis buli" (the idea is that you have to wear something you got the day before, preferably a new pullover that you don't like).

26 December: the afternoon at my grandparents' place and the evening with my father's side of the family, including a hyper little bro.

And the pace is not going to get any slower!

Hello, hello

I've been starting quite a couple of posts that I haven't finished in the past couple of weeks. Since I don't feel too creative today, I'll just pick one and finish it up. (Btw, I arrived home safely, it's -14 degrees here, everything is covered in snow, in the past 3 days I saw all the people I wanted to see, Jani is playing music and I'm drinking a mug of gluhwine; I'm happy.) Here we go.

The other day in Amersfoort, Joram came up as a topic. "Do you remember Joram's girlfriend?" Fede asked. (I guess he meant that more like an introduction, I don't think anyone could assume that I could really forget her.) "Yes, I do," I answered. "She was writing this blog and .... blah-blah-blah." Oh, interesting... She was a blogger, too.

The next day, I was in the midst of a serious procrastination session (Californication, last 2 episodes of series 3, feeding my virtual fish on facebook, writing random e-mails) and Fede's words jumped into mind. Should I? Should I not? I used to have a lot of aggressive thoughts against Francesca. At the time, I felt that if she was "given" to me, I could have torn her into pieces with my bare hands. Clearly, my aggression was not channeled towards the right person - why would you go for the girl? it's not like she has some magical powers to cast a spell on someone and force them to act against their will - but that's how I felt. I guess feelings are feelings because you can't control them; otherwise they would be arguments or something else.

So, there I was, contemplating whether I should search for her blog. It shouldn't be too hard to find it. But how would it make me feel to hear her "voice"? Would I be angry again? Would it help me understand things? There was one clear motive that made me decide to find her blog: that she is reading mine. It somehow felt justifiable that if she is reading my thoughts, I should be able to read hers if she is making them public. Nevertheless, I did feel a bit as if I was doing something wrong while I entered the search terms: Francesca, Joram, blog, Bologna, Oxford.

The blog was very easy to find and as soon as I was on it, it was evident that this was the one I was looking for. I looked through some posts to see the general thread of developments before starting to work my way through from the bottom of the archives to the very top. It took some time, but I had all the time in the world.

If you are now expecting some nasty comments on her, you're at the wrong place. I wouldn't take advantage of someone who strips naked - obviously, not literally - in her blog. She comes across as a nice person - which I suspected she was - with quite some frustrations about living in Oxford. I think I can emphasize with a lot of things that she's been going through, well, as far as I can deduce the plot. It is not easy to be in a place where people are different and expect things to be done differently. British also seem to have a different affective setting; no wonder I had very few British friends during the two years I had spent there. It's almost as if Oxford sucked out some of her life energy. (That's a bald statement not knowing anything about what she was like before Oxford, but she seems happier in Italy, and maybe recently she seems happier in Oxford too.) Lots and lots of depressed and self-destructive thoughts. It's interesting to see how she writes about men. Whenever she wrote about Joram, it was about him doing different things from her, quite data-like, just sharing information, and a lot more feelings filled the text when Kei entered the picture, at least in comparison.

I think we have a couple of things in common. Obviously, a lot of differences too, but some things we share, such as cherishing the idea of "strong women", a great disbelief in god, having a hard time imagining having children (although recently she has been writing quite a bit about them), liking having tea and coffee with people, dancing, being a bit self-conscious of our weight at times, even having the same skin disease.

How did I feel? Mostly neutral, I think. Sometimes a bit surprised, almost scared - she really does have very depressed thoughts at times. Her words most certainly couldn't be mine. With all my flaws, I love myself deeply. I do think you have to be friends with yourself to be happy. I hope she'll manage to master that. Was it gratifying to read about her pain? No, it wasn't. Humans are meaning-seeking creatures and I guess the meaning I attached to Joram and Francesca was that if she was "the one", he should be with her for ever and ever. It gave meaning to our breakup. At one point she wrote that she knew all the way that he wasn't the right guy for her. I think that was the hardest thing to read. (And a paragraph about how sometimes you would want to know in advance when your kiss with someone will be the last one, so that you could remember it later. It made me think about me having known which one was going to be the last one all too well, and I could assure her it was not any good.)

It's funny, in the last couple of days she made an object in her sidebar that is very similar to the one I have, describing important people and places in her life. That wasn't there just a couple of days ago. Seems very much like a Dia-influence :)

Take care, sweeties, I don't think I'll write much during Christmas! Happy holidays!

Finally!

I am going home tonight. Finally! After one and a half month of cooking my brain in front of my computer, biking in the cold, and being stripped of the pleasures of intimacy, I'll be at home. Hopefully, by this time tomorrow, I will be sound asleep in Jani's arms. I still have to pack most of my things and I wonder how all my Christmas presents and clothes will fit, but they'll have to. I've spent a third of the day getting myself ready (that pretty much means that I was trying to wax myself from a yeti into a human), then printing, photocopying and binding things at uni (yes, now I have a printed version of my thesis, and another 400 pages to take home to read - but at least neatly binded) and then I had dinner with an Italian friend whom I haven't seen for 2 years. Tomorrow, I'll finish packing, attend my last class, do the dishes and leave. Budapest, here I come!

Mission accomplished

I handed in my thesis on Friday. The last two weeks before the deadline were quite insane; I didn't do much else apart from writing and doing the most necessary things, such as eating, sleeping, showering, going to my classes and talking to Jani every day (the only really pleasant thing in the list). Clicking the "send" button wasn't as dramatic as placing the printed and binded 80 pages on my supervisor's desk would have been, but the relief I felt was probably comparable. And since it was clear that I had to celebrate this wonderful day, I made plans for the whole weekend.

Man, what a marvellous weekend! I started it off by taking a nap during the afternoon (Friday), which I very much needed and which served as a preparation for the night. I arranged that one of the salsa teachers of Cubadores, Maikel, would pick me up at Amsterdam RAI - for those from distant countries, that is a train station - and take me to their party in Medemblik. It was such a great night! I danced the whole night and by that I really mean the whole night because I got home around 5-ish. I think I danced with 8 guys, all of them really good dancers, one dancing L.A. (the only white guy in the group) and the others dancing Cuban salsa, and I also danced with a girl, which set off a wave of girls dancing with each other. I talked to a couple of people, had some of the usual Dutch snacks because this was a Christmas edition, and really, the atmosphere was just very gezellig. I really like how much these people like each other - it's heartwarming to see everybody giving kisses to each other before leaving and it's also nice to take part in that. I got a ride back home from the other teacher, Chris, alongside some others, and had the funniest conversation. You know, the type you have when you are extremely tired and everything seems just funny. We were high on exhaustion.

I think I got up at 2 the next day and did some cleaning, which my place very much deserved. In AC, my Mexican roommate at one point said that she was not going to shave her leg till she finishes all her IB exams, and the past month I had something similar going on with my apartment. Not so consciously, but whenever I stated the need to clean the place, I always figured that I would do it once I'm done with my thesis... It felt good to sort out the massive amounts of paper on my desk and to throw out all my thesis related notes and to do lists (6 of them). I also took part in the national Saturday-afternoon-Albert Hein-rush to stack up on food and to get a cake and a bottle of wine for the evening. Whenever I go to a place where too many Dutch people are confined to too little space (e.g. public transport, Albert Hein etc.), I realize how rude they are, but nothing could ruin this weekend, so I had a very "whatever" attitude towards all the people who tried to knock me over.

I believe that no one should ever go to a party when it starts, so I took an extra 3/4 of an hour to do stuff at home before I went to Kristina's (and her brother's) birthday party, but I was still early. There was a totally Eastern European feeling to it. Instead of wine, they had spirits, all kinds of Slavic languages were mixing in the soundscape and, of course, people were dancing on the table. (Did I say that I went to the Eastern European party at UC a couple of weeks ago? Ah, that was great too.) To be fair, that was quite an accomplishment in itself because all kinds of drinks were spilt on the table, making it a not so safe skating rink. I can't conceive how no one managed to fall... Well, we did catch each other sometimes. Anyway, time flew by and I left when I thought it was around 2 to find out that it was actually 4 in the morning. I think you know that you're drunk when in -1 degrees you get the idea that you should take off your shoes because it's too much of a hassle to walk home in high heels...

I was woken up by the call of a classmate of mine who wanted to thank me for the feedback I provided on his paper. That was actually quite lucky because I apparently slept through my alarm clock and I had lunch plans with Rosemary in Amersfoort. The hangover wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, the sun was shining and I took a spot in the train where I could enjoy the sun and the usual view of Dutch countryside: grazing sheep - water - grazing sheep - water. I had a lovely day with Rosemary, her family (2 funky kids), Fede and Phil, eating good food (Rosemary used to be a chef), drinking tea, walking Puppy in the woods, talking about our lives and some people we all knew. It was very cosy; there was no rush like last time when I saw Rosemary at the open day. I kind of consider her my family here. I was the last one to leave. I almost fell asleep on the train on the way back home but I managed to resist the temptation to close my eyes, which I'm not sure I can do any longer, so I'm just going to quit blabbering now and I'll go to bed.

Mission accomplished: thesis handed in + a festive weekend to celebrate it.

Thesis, krampi and parrots

My circadian rhythm is screwed up. Not that it's surprising; just stating the obvious. I've been almost continuously writing my thesis during the past couple of weeks and I've just had enough. (I've been collecting ridiculous pieces of e-mail correspondence to be posted here - once I got my degree.) Yesterday, I finished my first draft and I took today off. I haven't even opened the file the whole day. No text, tables, flowcharts, Gantt diagrams etc. It's refreshing.

I can't afford to properly take days off, so I read about a hundred pages for my thesis consultation (regarding the next thesis I'm going to write next semester), drank a liter of green tea and biked to uni to photocopy a couple of things. The way back I bought some lemon flavored kwark (krémtúró) - kwark, my ass! At least the apple pie and lemon cake flavored yoghurts I bought yesterday were fantastic... Tomorrow the country is going to celebrate Sinterklaas and the day after people are going to celebrate the arrival of Mikulás is Hungary. Yeah, I guess he needs a day to get from one place to the other and to swap his Zwarte Piets to "krampusz"-es. Hm, is "krampi" the plural of "krampusz"? :) Had I not eaten so much chocolate this week I'd say that I deserve some gevulde speculaas on this special occasion and some pepernoten with hot chocolate. 

By the way, I found out that the green parrot is actually at least 3 green parrots... One was sitting on the branch of a tree in front of the building I live in and I only noticed another one sitting on another branch when I wanted to take a picture. And a third one just took off the very same moment. I must be living in a tropical country and the cold must be an illusion. 

It's 2 am. and I'm really not even close to being sleepy. 

I'm so tempted to write a case study of a friend's dishonesty with his girlfriend. I mean she's not reading my blog and I obviously wouldn't use their real names. But I know I shouldn't. Who knows who finds these pages one day... even with the fake names... "Honesty is overrated," said Nelson once. I say that living a lie fucking sucks and that apparent happiness is not happiness. If somebody decided for me what I wanted to know, I would shove a coke bottle up his ass. Well, yay for self-censorship and decency.  

Alive and kicking

There's nothing to write. Really. I'm seeing the tiniest raindrops ever: they make the view pretty much gray. I've been writing my thesis almost full time and I have 10 days to hand it in. It seems that I'll make it. Whoa. I wish you could see this. It's like a sandstorm but with minute particles of water. I went to UC's Open Day to do undercover research last week. I did get busted, of course, but it did turn out to be a good idea to go because I got a chance to talk to the Dean about the research I am planning. The rain stopped. Whatever, there are still seagulls flying in front of my window.