I SWEAR I'LL BE GOOD

It's been a while, yeah I know. Thanks Kate & Wen. for reminding me.

Well ofcourse I have lived in the past weeks of my absence here on LJ. Things have happened, surely. But I want to keep it short for now: there's an 80% chance that I'll be leaving my room in Amsterdam. I've been living like a hermit on all social fronts, including in our Catholic men's community where I currently live in. I'm so done with this place. Not Amsterdam, but this house with it's Catholic shizzle. I've had my share of Catholicism, and maybe faith in general, for the past few and coming years.

This past year has brought many changes to our community. Not only 2 new members, but also in rules. One of the things I certainly can never agree on (but have to in this democratic society) is our sleep-over policy, which currently knows this format: no girls are allowed to stay for a night. Only for high exceptions, read, emergencies. And girlfriends, if there's a reasonable argument. Well I honestly don't think this is reasonable at all. Our Catholic house should be available for anyone, not as hotel, but as a place of men who live by faith. I bet Jesus wouldn't hesitate a single moment to share His hard part of the ground for any guest, male or female.

That's one of the reasons. The main reason though is money, money and money.

Oh well. I'll try to update more often. I should able to more often, now that I've told my roommates what I think and feel about this house.

It's been such a boring week - illness been at me 7 days now. Spent the days half awake, half asleep. Feeling hot, feeling cold. Today's a better day, I hope I feel well tomorrow, have an exam.

A few weeks ago I saw a man who looked really confused to me. I wrote about him in a post titled Sunday, good deeds day. Well guess what: I saw that man again, Thursday. He was in our local supermarket, and he looked fine. Just a few physical tics, that's it. He was buying alcohol. I guess that Sunday when I saw him, he might have been suffering from an alcoholic delirium. But in my mind, his symptoms were different.

Oh well. Glad that he's capable enough to buy something at a store.

Woha, talking about mood swings these past few days! I feel so angry at my body at the moment! I feel tired, feel ill, headache, tummy aches as well. I wish I could concentrate some more on cleaning my room, I'm going way too slow now and I'm losing gusto to do it as well. I finished 1 room though. Just now the other room with my desk and more papers and shizzle - which is ofcourse, alotta more work, seeing as there are lots of desk items and lots of categories in which I should organize the rest. I mean, schoolpapers, insurance papers, two bank accounts papers, personal notes. Books (fiction, non-fiction), cd's, dvd's. Food, drinks. Throw away's like empty bags and boxes and beer screws and bottles I don't like for the looks of them anymore. Lots of stuff to vacuum clean too, I mean, next to the floor I have these bottles and other types of glass which could use some, maybe even a spray thing. So much work, so little time. >.<

I feel like sleeping and throwing up, but I see these Ferrero Rocher Chocolates sitting right next to my laptop. Can you feel the agony? >_> I still have apples but I don't feel like taking them instead as well. Such a bother, this day. Wanted to get to work on some schoolprojects this afternoon, but it looks like I'll be postponing them till this evening somewhere. =(

Anyways, something else. I was admiring my own body today (which ofcourse I scorn at the moment). No I'm not an athlete, oh well, athletically build maybe :p , but I'm kinda slim/fit/or w/e-positive-alternative-word. Just like 1 or 2 kilo's (approx 4 pounds) underneath my ideal weight. Well that's not what I wanted to say actually. Lol. I just wanted to say, when I was taking a shower, I was pondering (yaya I just like to, now shut up! ^_^ ), you know, like my body is just a shell of dead calcified/hornified (mmm hornified? eheheh lol) cells which are holding together these other collections of cells which kinda make the shell moveable and stuff.

I just wonder at this phenomenon, hesitating to call it a miracle actually. I mean, what the hell, am I supposed to consider myself as a pattern of chemicals which seem to 'behave' in a way we have decided to name LIFE? I choose not to think of these chemical processes as a mere result of sheer luck. If I would, then I'd force myself to save my genes, starting by killing other males and reproducing myself (ofcourse, by meanings of intelligence, not some stupid strength or fitness). Cause logic would drive me to do that no? But what makes us humans, is that we can choose not to obey our instincts and such.

I know this all sounds too easy deducted, or too nerdy, but I pinched my skin during shower and smiled. ^_^
And I do miss medschool a bit. =(

Ah shyte! I was typing alotta stuff then I clicked a link. All the autosaved draft had was the first word of this post... >.<

But anyways, I'll just end this by saying I feel fine, much better than yesterday. Cause:
- my parents visited me
- my parents brought me goodies ranging from edible to very useable
- I had good fun at work yesterday and today
- I phoned Leon and we'll go out, have some fun soon
- today Mark would've cooked dinner, but he's ill so I made some improvised bolognese with penne, which tasted really nice

yay and happiness for me. ^_^

When I look at the body of Christ, like, the church in all it's entities, whether Protestant or Catholic, I can't help but think how weak it is. How fragile. How helpless. All I see is people hurt by something. I don't mean traumatized, but yes, including that. The church is filled with the elderly and the people who are at the edge of society, outsiders who don't even belong to the outsiders. Filled with blind people, blind in all sorts of ways. Filled with people who are entitled to more justice than they have right now.

It saddens me. Somehow I've got this prejudice about the body of Christ. It should be strong, it should be flourishing, thriving. It should be full of 'normal' people without any social, physical or mental weaknesses. Yet that is all I see. For every one 'healthy' person in the Church, there is at least 5 who belongs to those groups I mark as weak. Maybe more.

It makes me want to disengage of this body. It makes me feel that I don't belong here.

But all I see of the body is the Dutch part of it. Maybe it's just the Dutch church that looks so ill to me. Or even more to the core: maybe the body is meant to be like this. As soft as any physical body is. Because mankind simply isn't perfect. No matter how much I long for better times, I can't do anything but grieve over it and fight. Protect it as it needs protection, just like young children need mothers and fathers.

But it's so hard, when I think about the failing of mankind. When I think of all the hurt all over this world. About how we hurt each other, how we harm each other, how we abuse each other, how we take advantage of each other, how we exploit each other. It's so hard fighting a fight that seems so endless, even though Jesus said Himself He already has been victorious, and that therefore, we shouldn't be afraid and such. And when I think like this, I can't help but think that I fail as well. I fail for not being properly able to defend ourselves from each other. Sometimes I blame God for that, sincerely. While the next day I can't blame Him anyway.

So maybe I am one of the weakest in the body of Christ. Maybe I'm the one in need of protection the most, when I embrace myself with miserable thoughts.

I've had these thoughts for years, I just can't seem to find a way to shake them off. I can't get this reality off my mind. But the fight must goes on, I guess.

I noticed the last couple of weeks that I'm suffering from a new phenomenon which I named 'pre-sleep boredom'. The thing is; I keep trying to jump into bed early cause most mornings require my presence in a state of awakeness.

But I can't get to sleep early. My fingers ache to do something, anything actually. So I play some Dynomite Deluxe, or I start pondering bout a new lay out for LJ or my web-log.nl account. Or I stare at blank forms to type a new entry for both. I start thinking about certain games (like Kotor II), and how I want to build up a new character. I've always wanted to build a blasting Dark Jedi, but I don't feel like playing the game again - which of course, I have to.

So I practically end up doing nothing. I should be javascripting at the moment, if there's anything I should do. But ugh, how I hate javascript.

Cross-posting from my Dutch blog:


1. Papers, mugs: throw/bring away
2. Electronics: put them away nicely, maybe clean them
3. Bags, just plastic throw aways and for school
4. Pile of clothing on my bed: wash them


5. Shoes: put them away nicely
6. Papers, old guitar strings: throw m away
7. Papers, most of them from my bank account and other important stuff: sort and archive


8. Post-its with dates and to-do's
9. 3 wine glasses, 3 mugs, desk items, papers, cd's: bring to kitchen, sort them, clean up etc.
10. Collection of nice bottles and memorable drinks: sort them



That's a few weeks of hard working for school I assembled in my room. Lots of work to do.

Can't remember having done something of importance. Except Saturday, participating in the catholic event called Stille Omgang (English here, 2005 though). It was pretty nice; it was the first time we had a good program for the youth. I did also play four songs for the worship time, me on guitar and Alex on piano. Really scary though cause the second song was a song we chose because nobody in the audience would know, so they'd use it as a song to reflect on. It's a pretty good song, and not really hard to play, so I wasn't concerned about having trouble with it. But the moment we started it, I just realized Alex didn't know the lyrics to it, so I had to sing alone, in front of 315+ people. So ehehe, I knew the first line was coming up and I panicked lol. I felt my voice was going to lock up and stuff. But luckily it didn't, well at least, Eric said I did pretty good with my singer-songwriter voice haha, and Mario was pretty proud of me. So I guess it wasn't really that bad.

But the best part was probably Sunday. Some people were staying over, including this gay friend of mine. He's pretty dear to me. Sunday afternoon he stayed a little longer, and while I jumped back to bed to read HP 6 (the Halfblood Prince) again, he came in after a few hours. We had a good talk about his relationship with one of my other dear gay friends. The difficulty of being gay in a defo catholic family and society (note, he's involved in lots of organisations for catholic events). I had prayed for both of them, earlier, and blessed them as it is permitted to everyone to bless anyone. It meant a lot to him, while actually I felt it was of little significance, since it was one of the few things I could do for them.

So we talked about family, acceptance, and this straight lady friend of ours who thinks she's got the hots for him (oh man, such a bother haha ^_^), about his partner and how I got to know them both, such things. It was a really nice conversation, the best so far this year. We shared opinions about differences between straight and gay relationships, about sex, about reproduction (read: having kids). Coming from a pretty catholic family, he has a different views on things, especially on the teachings of the catholic church. Well maybe not totally different because he's different from his family, but my family never had been into catholic teachings much, just attending mass on Sundays.

There's one thing I have a problem with though. When we talk about their relationship, also when I talk to his 'partner' about it, they consider it a special relationship which is beyond normal friendship. Though he addresses his 'partner' as his boyfriend, they don't really talk about it as a relationship between two lovers. I tend to talk about it that way though. Maybe simply because I don't think there's an 'in-between' form of relationship, but maybe I also hate denying their relationship as a 'legal' relationship between two lovers. I know it's kinda sounds complicated, but it makes me think sometimes I accept their relationship more than they do themselves. :|

I do understand though; they need to be considerably cautious about it cause it's their secret to conceal. Of course I'm secretive about it as well, but still. It's a hard situation I guess. I think I'm having trouble with it as well: I just want them to be happy, I wish they were in a situation in which it'd be no problem to be gay. *middle finger to short-sighted christian society*

Sometimes I feel jealous as well, haha ^_^. I'm not gay, but hey, they found each other and though they have hardships to endure, they have each other. Who do I have? I have but myself to live with.

I'm trying to get the background color in the main column part (this part you're reading) transparent. I have a certain amount of space for CSS-overrides for this type of lay out, I tried a couple of combinations but it isn't working yet.

Edit: I found it. Nevermind.

By the way, check out The Bees -> video -> chicken payback. Sweet. ^_^

So yesterday I went to see Flo in Assen. It's like 3 hours from door to door, but hey, I forgot her b'day, and we have this not-realised-for-years-plan to go out in Groningen. And it doesn't look like we'll be going out real soon.

That's why I decided to surprise her with a visit. It's been fun; I made some appointments with her sister and her b/f. Eric was supposed to come as well but he got caught in this lab-experiment which he and his team have to redo - like, again and again? Anyways, her birthday was 5th of march, and I think I remembered like the 7th. Knowing how dear it is to her that people remember stuff like birthday's and such, I ofcourse felt ashamed. So what to do? That's when I decided to remain silent and surprise her with a visit.

Then like the 9th or so she said to me on MSN: "What's it like to have forgotten my birthday?" - like, big time ouch! Well uhm... Errrm... I mean, I thought I should say something cause I didn't completely forgot about it, but well, that might've given away the surprise eh. I don't know how I got out of this very uncomfortable situation, but I did, bit embarrased but still smiling silently behind my laptop. ^_^

And so... Her sister had picked me up from the station and we snuck in the house silently... Flo was embraced by her b/f who was forcing her to look out the window so she couldn't see me. Her mom was on the phone, but then said out loudly: "I have to go; I've got a visitor, Loeki is here." So Flo turned around and... TADAH! Suddenly I was at her place, flowers for her mom who'd been in the hospital for a couple of days, chocolate gifts for Flo.

She happy, me happy, the family and b/f happy. Had great fun during dinner. Had to leave after that though because today I have enough to do myself today for school and such. It's always fun to visit her place: she got wonderful parents whom I really admire for their strong sense of family-feeling, two younger sisters who can be real (funny) pain in the arses and a brother who is the youngest one, who's really silly (maybe cuz of all the grrrls in the family, I don't know :) ). Also, her father smokes cigars and drinks port, well to me that is -> <3 big time ^_^ . Her b/f, which I got more acquainted with, smokes and drinks his coffee black -> <3 big time ^_^ . All of them make me feel welcome like I was family. Sigh ^_^

I've got some more yada yada to share. Mostly bout travelling by train though. Click.
( Read more... )

Today started with getting up late - before that: 2 evenings till 2/3 AM and getting up early for school. Sigh.
Then when I went for a quick breakfast (this fruity milkshake liquid breakfast replacement stuff) at the local supermarket, there was this old lady in front of me in the queue. She was planning to pay with her bank pass/card, but she had forgotten her pincode. She had a bill to pay which was more than two times the cash she carried: she only brought 10 euro's. So she felt a bit ashamed cause she couldn't remember the number, and I felt uneasy cause I was already late for school. She had to leave some stuff behind, and when the amount dropped to 10.55 I butted in and gave her 1 euro. She was very glad, the woman behind the counter found it pretty sweet to do and all I really wanted was to leave the place, I had a train to catch.
But I did feel some pity for her. I could've dropped in a few more euro's, not that I'm rich but hey, there was a lady (or a fellow human, as you wish) in need. It was just a small gesture - if we don't help eachother out on this world, then... Oh well.

Anyways. I brought an apple as well for breakfast. At Utrecht, I decided to go the AH-to-go (funny website for a Dutch supermarket), and I got some wraps there too: wraps with Nordic salmon and wraps with turkey. Pretty good stuff. And costly. Actually, I wanted some smokes - which I got too, but well... My stomach was still yearning for content.

Then just before school, work phoned me if I wanted to work for the Hilton again tonight. It was an urgent request which arrived at the office this morning. I told them ok.

So I had to rush from school to home, I had to leave earlier, leaving one of my classmates working on our project. Then, finally home, I ironed my shirt - with a nice result ^_^ ; changed clothes, went off to the local snackbar for some fatty fastfood. Then arrived at 18:00 at Hilton.

We finished 24:00. That did surprise me, but fine, I felt shitty anyways. Turned out that last few days Hilton employees banqueting had little sleep as well, so they wanted help.

I got a cup of cup-a-soup (nomination for most retarded joke on their homepage coming up) and left.

And the only things I'm thinking about, sitting here, is "what do I have to do for my projects?" and "would my food balance for today be either healthy or unhealthy? and "I should try buying less fastfood, how healthy it may be - I can hardly justify it based on my bank account and "I want a smoke".

Silly me. ^_^

It's just a couple of days since I changed my LJ layout, but I already feel like having made a big mistake. So maybe in a few days I'll be messing around again.

All of the people in my project group for school are procrastinators. Including me. It's fine, but it's not fine at all. We've been working our ass off the last few days, and I feel really broken. My back hurts, think I need a new chair AND I should spend less time in the same position (somehow that doesn't sound really... oh well).

I've put a lot of energy in pushing these kids as well. I don't like to push, but we have to do lots, and probably they won't do it so I have to.

I proposed to gather at one of our places today. At first they accepted, but later today they declined and we all went home alone. Somehow they don't seem to think that MSN really lacks some things when it comes to working together. They're funny though, making me laugh every now and then. But still, I'd rather work in the same space. Hit some faces if I don't agree on something, that kinda stuff. ^_^

Props to Flo for sending me this:


(read my prev post, if you don't get it)

I got lots to do for school, especially since me and my group have been procrastinating a bit, but most important, we have to write a new communication plan for intern communications (the first one sucked, according to our teach). Next to that, will have to present(erm, alternative word?) it as well in front of the class. This term is full of writing reports and doing presentations. Not that I mind, I like to do a bit of research and analysing and stuff. But the three others in my group don't like even one bit of it - which defo demotivates them to work according to schedule - which defo doesn't make me feel like working to schedule as well. Sigh-vicious-sigh-cycle-sigh. :(

When I left for school today, I was sitting opposite a tall thin Caucasian male, prolly my age, and he had this very much older visitor from India coming over, and he was sitting next to me. The old man did alotta talking with the dude, and he just smiled all the time. All the time. So much, it couldn't be healthy. He might have been trying to acting respectful towards the old man, but if so, it was a pretty poor attempt. But what really caught my attention was the young dude's voice, his stance (uhm, he was sitting, mind you), his body language. He had this stereotypical gay impression/feeling about him.

It's not that I have a negative attitude towards gays, but I do have something against certain gays. I mean, uhm, well in gay relationships there's a male acting gay and a feminine acting gay. You know, like in Will & Grace, there's a Will and a Jack. It's not that I hate Jack, but I'd defo try to avoid him, if he somehow was close in my friends-circle.

Well I found the young man in the train really repulsive. I wish I didn't felt like that, but somehow that feeling of disgust was there and it didn't want to leave me alone.

One of my best friends is gay/bisexual orientated, and he's like one helluva hero to me. He's one of the best friends you could wish for. Anyways, I really have no problems with him or whatsoever - I do try to avoid being too touchy though. And that got me thinking this morning: why do I have these feelings of repulsiveness towards certain people? Why do I, instinctively, have prejudices?

This defo disturbs me a bit. For a few minutes though - I tend to wander of easily from my own thoughts.

By the way, if you have difficulties finding the reply button, it's the "swear it" text that is the button. Read replies: "# oaths".

By the way 2, winter tries to dismember my lips - my upper lip has a bleeding wound in the right corner. I say death to cold weather!

*me gives winter the middle finger* --"

It got pretty late this morning. Me and Eric got home like 5AM. I got out of bed like 2PM. There was this Aperitivo party going on, which looked pretty decent but visited by ill-mannered rich people. The shakers brought a cocktail menu which our own MEP shakers could do themselves easily, but well, our shakers don't bring a full show and they don't stare at the mirror for hours, fixing their faces.

But we received some decent goodies for staying till late.

Like this leftovers from Aperitivo in this bag, with these papers: Apple Martini flyer with mixing instructions; Cointreau Caïpirinha flyer; Sabon flyer; Heather Blanton (art/photography) flyer; n-my jewelry flyer/postcard; studio 91 flyer; Sabon 10 euro gift certificate.
And these cosmetics: Koh calcium nail whitener, Caviar hair spray, Caviar anti-aging shampoo. Next to the fact that I'll never use these, they probably are tested on animals as well (Wen., your field of research?).
Now this is definitely welcome in my house: Cointreau cocktail/longdrink/waterglass with a little bottle of Cointreau. ^_^
Oh and me and Eric got a bottle of wine from Hilton as well. I chose this white wine, which probably is a cheap/mediocre house wine which they serve for a lotta euro's.

Not too shabby eh. I asked for an applic form, I'm seriously thinking bout working for Hilton.

I'm on this 3 column skin at the moment. It suits pretty good.

This premade skin I'm customizing collides with my ideas (skin's name: smooth sailing - yeah right). Sigh. I'll keep it like this for the moment.

Somehow my lighters all end up in my laundry - and dead. Somehow my socks dissappear after doing my laundry. And somehow my ingenious conclusion - which is: our laundry machine eats toast socks for breakfast - doesn't sound right.

Bad joke, ya so what.

Edit: after ironing Eric's shirt (cause he's in a hurry), I'm pretty much sure that he'll never let me touch a shirt again. I hate ironing, and my results look like... Well. Bad origami? ^_^

Might be switching lay-outs for a while. Hit refresh/F5 if you haven't noticed anything yet.

Well not that I was really dreaming of seeing Death Cab For Cutie live in concert, but I did get to see their show in Amsterdam yesterday evening! :D

S-Peter phoned me last minute, telling me to hurry mah ass up to get there - I could take place on the guest list as "Tom van der Beek". I was so excited, I really raced my bike to the Paradiso, or my bike raced me, can't be arsed actually; then the lady with the guest list said I wasn't on it.

Panic strikes.

So I phoned S-Peter, and then the thought occured to me - isn't their concert at the Melkweg (Milkyway, as DCFC said)? The guest list lady at the Melkweg was kind enough to forgive me my mistake - I think my face never has been as red as yesterday eve.

But how I glad I was to get inside! I felt like a child, getting this big sugar candy cane for the very first time. And their show was awesome. So awesome. *sigh* ^_^ The kid in me is satisfied for a while. Thanks a lot Peter! :)

Mmm, reacting to a subject which katemacaroni talked about in my prev post: So they say, women can do two or more things at the same time, as where men cannot - like multi-tasking yada yada. I don't believe any of it. Kate said she finds her mom calling her by her sister's name, when her mom wants to ask her about her sister. Well, have it, argument number one: IF women are capable of doing multiple things at the same time, they tend to mix up things anyways, making me believe they SHOULDN'T be capable of multitasking.

Argument number two. When Eric asked his g/f if women really are capable of multi-tasking, or if they just jump easily from one thought to another (which don't have to be connected in any way), she said it was the latter.

There ladies. Have it.

Btw, I have 5 reasons to buy a good camera.
( Read more... )

I was having this little clean-up-attack while this thought suddenly snuck up in my brains: "Why is it that some people call other people with wrong names? As example: I have two younger brothers. My mom occassionally mixes up our names - like when she addresses me, she names me either Kevin or René or both first, before remembering my name. Other example: the (second-in-command-)bishop from our diocese often mixes up our names. Eric is supposed to be Peter sometimes, while Peter has been called Phelippe and Pietro. We don't even know a Phellipe or Pietro. He also mixed up my name with Hung's name (Vietnamese roommate of ours).

I think I know more people having this problem than I know people who just forget names, which is a more logic thing to occur.

I know it's a silly thing to ponder about, but still I do wonder.