I make the same mistake every year: I should NOT wish for snow.
Everything is so slippery, I'm almost terrified to just go outside.

World: heat up please! And do it fast! Within 5 minutes, before I have to go outside and drive a car, would that be possible?

I think the weathergods read this blog, because it is snowing!
;)

I would like to complain about something.
And that is: the cold

I hate that it is so cold. If it is so cold that you can iceskate on a pond or make a giant snowman or have a snowball fight, than there is at least some fun about it. But with this tempertaure around 0° C, it's just really really cold, and that's all. :(

And please people, stop saying: 'we could very well have an Elfstedentocht this year!!!', when it's barely freezing... it's being said every single year and it hardly ever happens. You can always hope, but wait with saying it could very well happen, until it actually could!

Low temperatures makes me grumpy.
BRRGWL.

How long will it take you to see what this is?
A teacher showed this in college, to show that memory, knowledge and experience need to work together to recognize images.
I needed someone to tell me before I recognized it, and I was quite surprised I couldn't see it right away.

I love the atmosphere in this commercial: so dreamy and fun and I-want-to-be-her

Supercool dungarees

I follow a few different blogs. One of those is http://iliketoforkmyself.blogspot.com/, which was written by model Daul Kim. She was a very good writer, her posts were always interesting to read. She was unhappy though, and wrote very freely about that as well.

Today I read the latest post on her blog. It was called 'say hi to forever'. A few minutes later, I went to models.com. There was a message there that read: 'Remembering Daul Kim'. That shocked me, because a title like that can only mean one thing... And it did.
Daul Kim passed away.
She committed suicide.
She was only 20 years old.

And I cried.
Which felt stupid because I don't know her.
But she gave me, and everyone who read her blog, an inside in her life and her feelings.
I knew she was depressed, she wrote it herself. So it was not 100% unexpected... but I am still so shocked
and so sad.

.

I could never understand people who said: 'life is short'. I always thought that a year was so long, and 70 years seemed to be eternity. Now, I know what they mean. I want to do so much, I want to experience many more things in my life. But it will be less than 10 years before I will feel insulted instead of flattered when people think I am older than I am. And right now, it sort of feels like the best part of my life will be over by then (and I do know that's not right... but still).
That is also because my life so far hasn't been very extraordinary. I have done whatever came on my path, and nothing more than that. I have been looking further, but have never taken the action that would bring me away from the path. And I have always been happy with that: so that's not the point.
It is just that I am now no longer satisfied with this. I want to make my life meaningful, either by improving the world, or by just having the most fun possible. And even better would be if I could combine both.
I think I might be too ambitious. But I´m at least making an attempt.

Living your life the way it makes you the most happy is very hard... but I am trying.

I  am rereading this now, a week later, and I don´t like what I wrote anymore haha... Too dramatic. I always get dramatic when I am thinking about life/philosophy... I do. But whatever.

Two weeks ago my father became an orphan, and I lost my last grandmother.
Today we went to her house, to look which furniture we wanted to have. I was happy, because I may have a beautiful couch, two great closets and some more stuff, all for when I move out.
There was also a cookingbook there, the pages were brown because it was so old. It was called: 'elektro cookingbook', and it was about how to use different electric cooking devices. There were a lot of recipes in it, from really simple to difficult to make. It had a bookmark in it, and I became so sad because now she can't make whatever she wanted to make. And also because I will never know which of the puddings that were on that page it is that she wanted to make.
It seems so silly, that out of all the things that were there, this made me the most sad.

I should be studying right now. I really should, since I work in a group for this assignment. But I don´t want to.
I am going to be SO happy when this course is over, because then all the non-interesting courses are finished and I will have some superinteresting courses again. (and an extra long Christmas holiday, yay!)

Last year, in the Netherlands, one million animals were breeded to be used for animal testing. Out of these one million animals, 450.000 died without any tests being performed on them.

The scientist-to-maybe-be in me says there must be a good reason that happened. There is a strict committee that decides if animal testing is really necessary for a study. They would not allow waste of animals.

The animal-lover in me could cry about this.

The animals were either sick and could not be used for the tests, or did not meet the requirements to be included in the tests; wrong gender for example. The first I can understand. Test animals get sick too, you can't help that. They are living creatures after all. Although I do think some researches forget that sometimes.
The second, I can not understand. At all. I think it is absolutely unbelievable that there could not be find any other destiny for those animals than death. If even is was to be used for a different study, that would spare other animals, and in total less animals would be needed. 

It just makes me so sad, and angry that some people use these animals so nonchalant.

I don't believe in life after death.

I believe in life before death.

These are so wrong. I can't help it though: I LOVE them. It's such a great idea!

"We should always have a open mind, but not so open that our brain falls out." At first, I took it literal and thought it was rather stupid and childish. But then I understood. And agreed.

Autumn

Cycling in the rain ...with shoes that are only partially watertight ...and soaked jeans that stick to your legs ...and a coat that can't stand much rain ...and that also has no hood ...and you remember your sweater does have one, but only when you're just 200 meters away from home. But afterwards ...a really nice hot shower <3 Sometimes I really love cycling in the pouring rain, when I'm in the mood (but today I was not).

I like clothes. I like wearing nice clothes (although most of the time I dress quite basic because I can't decide what to wear...) but I also like just looking at clothes.

Usually I don't really like high fashion, because it is so rare to see something on the runway that I would actually wear.
But when I saw this, I didn't care it is totally unwearable. This is art. And art doesn't have to make sense.

Viktor & Rolf, Spring/Summer 2010

Only read this when you are really really bored. I wrote it only for myself, to clear my thoughts. There are no pictures in it. And it's long!

What to do after I got my bachelor's degree in a year?

Options are:

1. do the master that belongs to the bachelor
2. do a master that belongs to the bachelor, but on a different university
3. do another bachelor, that has different (as in: more fun) career prospectives

If I will do a master that follows my current bachelor, I will become a researcher. But I don't think it's a fun occupation. Many of the research that is being done, doesn't lead to any actual change. There are absolutely many researchers who do great things, who do something great for many people, change their lives to the better. That takes a lot of work. You have to follow strict rules. Your single research is not enough, it has to be checked by multiple other researchers. I don't think I would like doing that the rest of my life.
There are other jobs I could do. But I am not even considering those, I did not when I chose this study, I still don't. I am not interested in them at all. And that's OK.
That is why I am considering doing another bachelor, that has different career prospectives. I was thinking about a language. That is quite funny because when I had to choose a study at high school, I considered English Language and Culture. I didn't do it because in the end, I was more interested in biology (I still am interested in it, a lot! that's is not the problem). But I also thought: what can you do after that? Translator, interpreter... that's pretty much it, that should be boring after some time. And now I am considering it again, because of the reason I did nót do it back then. But now I know there are more options besides translator and interpreter. Journalist for example, or editor. And I would like to do that.
But that's what I think now, and I do not know if I will think the same in a couple of months. I will have to think about this thoroughly, and I hope writing this down helps me. Especially since it has become such a long long story...

I'm listening a lot to Florence and the Machine at the moment. They have a harp in their band. Amazing. It adds so much to their -already beautiful- music. Also, I love her hair. And the way she can wear crazy clothes and still look good, instead of.. well, crazy.

I like this song because it is just so cute and lovely and simple. Jack Johnson - Belle Oi lienda Bella che fa? Bonita, bonita que tal? But belle Je ne comprend pas francais So you'll have to speak to me Some other way

I never really paid attention to lyrics of songs, but I recently started to appreciate them. Sometimes they are really beautiful. It can make a good song into a great song. I like songs that are not about love, because they are by definition original. I also like original lovesongs. I don't like songs that have just a lot of clichés. There are too much of those kind of songs already.

I hate words/phrases like: like you know kinda Example: "He was like, you know, kinda stupid." So then why do I use the Dutch equivalents of them zo often?

Book tip for Dutch people: 'Taal is zegt maar echt mijn ding' door Paulien Cornelisse.

Very funny. Also confronting since most of it is very recognisable...

Sometimes I think: that's nice to write about on my blog. Sometimes I'm even already writing a piece in my head. But then, when I'm actually on my computer, all I can think is: 'what was it again that I wanted to write about?', and I don't post anything. From now on, I'm going to try to write good ideas down.

This week I saw a woman at work, and I thought she looked funny. I didn´t really know why, but there was just something weird about her. But after a while, I suddenly knew what it was: she looked like Spongebob. She was just as annoying as Spongebob. But not funny annoying like him, just annoying annoying.

This is the last week of my vacation and I hate that I´m spending half of it working. But I want to buy an iPod Touch and a laptop and clothes and I want to move out, live in lodgings (is that the right translation? I googled it, so it probably is. But it sounds wrong.). So at least I have something to work for.

Because

Why did I make a blog?

I like reading other people's blogs. But that's not enough reason to make one of my own. I thought it would be nice to have some things I like put together in one place. And maybe other people will like reading that. Maybe not. I don't really care (Oh well, I do. It would be fun. But it's not really important.).

I am Dutch. I might write in Dutch too, I don't know. I think the English language looks and sounds nicer. And writing in English is a nice challenge.
Maybe it will be a mix of both languages.
Maybe not.

#1

Making a blog was easy. Maintaining it will be a lot harder.