Counting to potatoe in Japanese

It was hot today. Like, really hot. My mom said that it was recommended to stay as much as possible in the shadows and to avoid doing strenuous activities. It was that hot. Didn't stop me from waltzing to the Albert Heijn, our local supermarket, and a post office, though. I desperately needed a pen. I ran out of proper writing materials some days ago and I wanted a notebook for my Japanese studies, so I decided to take a look at this shop that sells office supplies.

First of all, they are really expensive. I wanted to go to a store called the Action, which is like heaven for cheapskates like me, but it's really far away and my steel stag is dead. The back tire is flat with a hole in it with a radius of one centimeter. At least it died quickly without any suffering. Within 10 seconds the tire was completely flat. This happened months ago and I've been to lazy to get it fixed. But to get back on track, the Action was too far away so I decided to take a look in this office supply store. 

After scouting for a good 20 minutes I decided on a simple flat soft cheap soft cover notebook with blocks instead of lines. It helps to keep the characters organized. One character per box. It's a bit tricky to stuff really complex Kanji in one box, but so far so good. I filled a few pages already with information, like the Hiragana chart, Katakana chart, and some Kanji on numerals and how to count. I also bought a black ball pen, which I love. It was 40 cents, I don't know if that is really cheap, but it was cheap enough for me. Desperate times require desperate measures.

I had a breakfast of milk and cookies. After I bought my stuff at the office supply store - I should really take a better look at the name of the store next time - I doubled back and bought milk, chocolate chip cookies and hot pockets from the Albert Heijn. Currently the hot pockets are still laying in the drawer, untouched. I think. The cookies are nearly all gone, only a few survivors are left. That's what happens if I tell my sister that there are milk and cookies. 

My mom got me Fanta and donuts, which I accepted gratefully. I was eating donuts while watching Lost Girl when my mom barged in. She wanted to loan 615 euro's from me to pay for a vacation. It was a bit awkward because my fingers were all sticky from the chocolate donut I was eating and I couldn't touch anything really. This greatly complicated the notion of picking one's laptop up and to pause the video. Me and my first world problems.

So I went downstairs with my mom and we did the transaction. Then I went back to watching Lost Girl. That season finale was tense. I might have cried out during a few particular moments. Later my mom said that she canceled the trip because while it was a vacation, you had to figure out a way to get there yourself. There was no plane included. That's quite inconvenient. She called the enterprise to cancel the vacation, and if all goes well my money should be back tomorrow. I'm probably going to forget to check my bank account tomorrow.

I forgot to wash my work cloths, so now they are still stinky and slightly covered in brushed of flower. Maybe I'm too aggressive with filling the flower shelves, the stuff always goes everywhere, particularly on me. I'll have to spray it with an excessive amount of deodorant to elude my fellow co-workers tomorrow. My 3/4th eaten cake is still laying on my bureau next to the old shoe boxes. I still have two donuts left. I'm going to leave them for tomorrow. Also, I can - in theory -  count to 99 in Japanese now. Go me.
 

Late Night Screenplaying

My sister has been accepted at the Bonifatius College, which my mom so lovely yelled way to early in the morning at around 11. She was calling my name from down the stairs, and first I thought that something was wrong, like a fire. Not such a pleasant way to start the day.

I got dressed, deciding that I was going to work on my Japanese. When I was working on memorizing some more  Hiragana characters my mom got home. Together we took care of some financial business that has everything to do with me turning eighteen in 13 days. We also ordered the school books for next year. Next year  I won't have to borrow the art history book of my teacher anymore.  My mom did most of the stuff, though. The only real thing I did was posting a letter for school.

It was an other hot day today. When I went outside to post that letter I nearly melted. After all that fuss was out of the way I resumed my Japanese. I looked up some Japanese picture books to memorize the characters better and to get a better grip on grammar. I didn't get to the grammar part, but it really helped me with remembering the Hiragana characters and some Katakana characters. There were only a few words on each page, and there weren't that many pages. I loved it. For the rest I watched a few more episodes of Lost Girl which was fun.

When the sun had set I decided to work on some screenplay for my movie. I was inspired by the song 'Marriage D'amour' by George Davidson, which is actually derived from Chopin's 'Spring Waltz'. They are practically identical. It has a beautiful melodies played by the piano. I also found a violin version but I liked the piano versions better. While listening to the music I sketched a scene of a couple sitting around a campfire, and the guy asks the girl to dance. They then dance under the stars to the Spring Waltz. Probably super clichee, but I really like it so far. It might be that Lost Girl is influencing me with all the romance involved in that show.

Today was quite a productive, if only slightly boring day. Nothing besides studying, writing, drawing, and watching Lost Girl. Of course all with music, save for the series watching. I wanted to watch the newest episode of Naruto Shippuden, but it wasn't there. There's supposed to be a new episode every Thursday, which it is, but nope.

I managed to make scrambled eggs without any burnt pieces today. I'm like super proud because normally I always burn eggs when I try to frie them. Once they go black they never go back, unfortunately. I tried to sell my last piece of cake to my sister, but she didn't want to buy it. Now it's sitting on my bureau next to the shoe boxes that I use as targets during knife throwing and archery. 
I really need to wash my work outfit. I have to work again on Saturday, but if I'm quick I could get it dry before that, hopefully.

It’s Teusday evening. And. I. Passed, jay.

Today I had to turn in my books and I received my rapport. My mentor Mr Lier gave me a big wet kiss - on the cheek - when he handed over my list. First I thought I was late, which I actually was - sort of but not entirely - but luckily half my class was still present along with my super awesome mentors.

It's 10:46 and I'm listening to the amazing cover of "Now we are free" by Taylor Davis. I've been binging on the series "Lost Girl" for the past few days and man, am I hooked on that show. To think that they can stuff so much sass in 45 minutes is beyond me, and I love it. I might take a liking to a certain short bartender in the series - which is by no means entirely romantic - and I'm past the halfway mark on season two.

It's bloody hot today, I thought I would melt. I'm actually still thinking that while I'm sitting like a ... bedpotatoe(?) in my bed right now. I would leave my window open for ventilation, but I'm scared of the insects. Mosquitos in particular, those are nasty.

At 14:30 I hooked up with my friend Katinka to go to the local fair. Unfortunately, she also brought her dad and little brother. It was something I wasn't counting on. The best thing about the fair is by most the churros. By a long shot, really. Those things are divine. I didn't get any today, though. I wanted to go for fries with mayo since it just hit me like 'I want fries with mayo...' that I wanted to march to the local snackbar the moment me and my friend parted ways. Instead I went home, asking if my mom wanted fries too as the good person I can be - my sister wasn't home - but to my great horror she said that all the snack bars are closed today. Later I found out that they aren't but then I had already stuffed my face with lasagna. Not complaining about that, though.

A lot has happened lately, I think. My brains are a bit fuzzy, and I might have found out why that is. The nasty little shit called B12 deficiency. Apparently you can go blind from it get dementia. That might explain my difficulties in remembering past events. Hell, I don't even know what I did last week and I'm mixing things up. Thinking that something that was said today was said yesterday, or a week ago. It's pretty messed up. That is why I'm getting back to writing this little journal. To document my memories so they won't be lost forever.

The whole concern really started when I actually forgot that I had turned in a practical assignment for computer science. I had turned it in, but it was never received by my teacher, so he filled in an F. All this time I had forgotten that I turned it in after all, causing me a great deal of shit. I remembered because of the word 'Struktograaf' while I was taking a shower, completely with the whole widening of the eyes and gaping mouth. It must have looked hilarious. It felt like when Dory in 'Finding Nemo' remembered all her lost memories after she had forgotten about them, completely with the flashbacks and all. Most of all, I felt stupid, and perhaps a bit concerned that I forgot something so important in the first place. It doesn't matter anymore now, though. I passed and even after I told my teacher that I did make it and send the file to him, he wouldn't change the mark because I didn't make the accompanying assignments that went with the end project. Oh well.

I have been practicing my knife throwing, and now I can hit something from like three meters with the no spin technique. The spin technique isn't something for me. My floor is a mess. There's rubble everywhere and chipped pieces of wood from the wooden board I've been using as a target. Today I sneaked the bow and arrow from behind my mom's television in her room and mended the bend arrow points. I bought that old thing a few years back on Queens day and it had been collecting dust all this time behind my mom's television. She hid it for me, saying it's dangerous. I tried a few shots with it and discovered that my aim is terrible. I accidentally embedded an arrow five centimeters in the wall. And the chair. And other stuff. Besides knife throwing and archery I've also been trying my luck at trying to learn Japanese. The language itself seems easy enough, it's the writing that's been killing me. There are like 2000 Kanji characters. 2000. I think that one of these days I'm going to cry because of that. Luckily I can procrastinate on the Kanji characters for a while. First I'm going to learn Hiragana, which has like 48 characters and Katakana. Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji are the three major writing systems in Japan. I even bought a traditional Japanese book. Backwards and all!

Last Sunday was Braderie. It's like a market day with little shops - mostly commercial - placed along a very long street that begins at the supermarket 30 meters from my house, and ends at around the local theater; the Schouwburg. The night before I had been binging on Lost Girl till four in the morning, so I was practically comatose till around 2 PM. I had totally forgotten there was braderie that day. I got the information from my neighbors when I was overhearing their conversation from below my window. I had opened it for some fresh air. I quickly got dressed and in the process dragged my sister with me to check out the stalls. That's where I got the Japanese book.

There was this old guy who was selling this holy mother load of books. They were all mighty expensive, but I threw in my womanly charms and innocence to sway him in giving us a discount. 17.50 was the price we agreed on for three books. First the guy wanted like 25 Euros. My sister and I were like 'Hell naaaaw'. Luckily we had a win win situation. She bought two books on medical stuff. After that we got a family bag of churros which we ate all by ourselves. I certainly felt slightly vile after that. Worth it, though.

For my scription next year I'm going to make a movie. This is possible because I have the subject Art in my schedule, which is totally awesome. I know that one other kid from my art class is also going to make a movie, so I'll have to talk to him after the holiday is over. To see what he got. I asked him before, but he didn't know what kind of movie he was going to make back then. I, on the other hand, do. I'm going to make a movie about a student who failed her 4th year in high school, and in her exam year she is going to take revenge on everybody who fucked her. That's it in big lines. I was greatly inspired by the movie Kill Bill. Kill Bill is a master piece. I already started on a script and screenplay. It'll be epic. I am concerned though and full of doubts. Sometimes I think that I won't be able to pull it off. That I don't have enough time, or the necessary recourses. I even considered changing to a completely different plan, like studying the Japanese writing arts. For now I am going to go on. I really want to do this thing. If only to prove that I can.

The last couple of days I've found a lot of cool new soundtracks and songs that I have added to my collection. I also found back something that I thought I lost. There was this video of a cover of a Naruto Shippuden soundtrack by the name "Obito Death Theme". It was basically a metal cover of the song with several improvisations and the most beautiful piano opening. One day when I wanted to listen to it again on Youtube, it was gone. The user who uploaded the video had ended his Youtube account. I searched and searched. I even contacted a band that had the same username as the guy on Facebook, but to no success. I made a Twitter account just to stalk the actual guy when I found him, but he hasn't replied back yet, probably never will. When I thought all hope was lost, I found the bloody cover in my play list. Apparently I had saved it to my computer after all, but I had forgotten I had. It was a pleasant surprise. I might upload it myself now. Such a beautiful cover should not be lost to the world. Mr Van der Kamp made me go to the gym, saying that I had to work out for three hours if I wanted to pass. There had to be a photo as proof. I did go to a gym, yes, and I did get a photo. And then I left after 10 minutes. But he doesn't need to know that. Apparently my evil plan worked.

On July 12 I witnessed the super moon. I saw it from my window late in the evening, noticing it was slightly bigger than normal. Then I remembered there was supposed to be a super moon that very night. I thought about getting my telescope but I was afraid that bugs would fly in if I would leave my window wide open for too long. According to Wikipedia there is an other super moon this year on August 10. I think it's pretty cool, just like a red moon, or a blue moon. Shit's so fancy I'd need a second monocle.

I've been collecting quotes and other little somethings on my phone and a bit on my computer from Facebook. Right now I've got around 350 pictures of stuff. You know what they say; educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. Today the summer vacation officially started. 

Let's make the best of it.

Dodge Ball

I missed the first two hours of school because I was late. I woke up feeling like I had been run over my Thomas the locomotif. I got a 'late' note just in case Dirkx demanded one. The classroom where I had to go was four stairs up, not something I want to have to clime twice. Once is more than enough. I arrived at biology five minutes before the bell announced it was time to get my arse on the bike again to go to PE.

I had nearly had to stop a few times while cycling, I felt so tired. This week was Marc and Yarnie's turn to give a PE lesson. They did dodgeball. It was pretty fun if it wasn't for the occasional confusion here and there. They wanted to do a very complicated warming up and no one knew what they actually had to do.

I realised that when I get hit and end up in the field at the back, I won't get out again until someone wins. I'm rather terrible at throwing stuff, let alone in a straight line, and no one wants to give me the ball. It's frustrating beyond belief and quite depressing, but I guess if it is good for the team it must be alright. It just saddens me that people never pass me a ball or anything.

I forgot to bring my computer science books because I thought the classes got dropped because the essay that was set for today got dropped as well. No such luck, though. Fortunately we didn't need our books, we were set to work on the computers again like last week. And also just like last week, eighth period got moved to seventh period so we would be free to go earlier.

Appearantly there was decor building this day too. I can understand, though. The show is on Monday and we still have to do a couple of things till then. I walked down to meet up with everybody and they were grouped together in front of the door of our head quarters. Mr Heideman hadn't showed up yet, so we went out to find him. First we asked at the reception, and then we walked up to the second floor to see if he was in his class room. We found him a few doors down from it, talking to someone about his mentor class.

A few minutes later he emerged from the room he was in and we walked back to the head quarters that lay in the 'cellar of lockers'. Very mysterious name. We worked on some stuff, and because we were with so many I decided to leave early to go to the Plus to pick a certain something up for consumption.

I visited the Plus three times today to buy those delicious hot pockets. They are appearantly not actually called that but they're called Pigs in a Blanket. Either way, fine with me. They were sold out twice. After that I specially came back a third time to buy them because I was sure that they had them again at that moment. I bought three boxes, one for my mom and two for myself. The reason I always buy them on Thursday because they're 'day deals'. Two go for an Euro, which is like super cheap. I amanged to eat all four and a half from my mom because she was full.

 

My Minecraft server is coming along nicely if it wasn't for the fact that people can't connect to it anymore because Hamachi is being retarded. It worked fine before, but now I'm the only one that can connect. It might be my bad connection that is causing it, though. That problem will be solved when I lease a server to host it from there.

I drank some tea and ate fudge waffles while making mathematics homework. It was relatively easy to do, it just required a lot of time. I managed to get one paragraph done and half of the 'Test yourself'. My desk was just a complete mess.

My Linux laptop now had my Windows 8 laptop ontop of it, and that in turn was covered with sheets and my mathematics book. In front of that was my notebook where I wrote all the excersises in. And then I haven't even started on everything unrelated was laying around. Just to name a few things: A book; I Am Number Four, Rasphberry Pi, ton of sticky notes, notes on CSS coding, tea mug, agenda, and my bank card reader.

Because someone stole my coat yesterday I'm now wearing my brown one. It looks very fancy. It's very long and has those deep pockets. Reminds me detectives for some reason. Trenchcoats.

Well, that was my day. How was yours?

- knetterzak

Religious Essay

It's currently 11:41 as I'm writing this. I'm feeling rather tired. That Gregorius letter is laying next to me, opened. As I predicted it contains the program of the show on next Monday and Tues along with four consumption tickets to get drinks over there. Very fancy. I'll probably use only one because I'm too awkward to drink anything in public most of the time. The canteen is always pretty packed, you see.

Today was a long day. It started with biology first thing in the morning, and then Dutch class. Because I hadn't finished reading my book for a test I had to write a little something of +/- 300 words about 'the joys of forgetting' or the opposite of that. I went with the first one. It was actually pretty fun to do. I was a bit worried about the amount of words I had at the end, but luckily I had more than enough words written down.

After Dutch class it were three hours and two breaks of freedom. religion got dropped so that added up to the two standard free hours we have on every Wednesday. I stuffed my backpack in my locker and went home to work on my Minecraft server. Everything is coming along nicely and I'm certain about leasing that server now. I looked up the difference between HDD and SSD, and I'm going with HDD. My server isn't that big so it wouldn't really matter, and HDD is cheaper than SSD. I like cheaper.

I traveled back to school for an hour of chemistry with Mr Van Well and then watching a movie called Thirza, which sucks, really, at Dutch class. I've got two Dutch classes on Wednesday. How hateful. The movie sucked really hard and I'm wondering why they were even showing this to us. I wasn't even watching most of the time. My attention was on my religion study book, studying stuff for the essay that came the hour after.

The organization for the essay was a mess. They had us grouped using surnames. The whole thing of finding where we had to go took fifteen minutes of our test taking time. It was frustrating beyond belief. The test itself was rather easy. You had to give a lot of opinions, which I hate to give. I don't like people prying in my personal life. Especially not some teacher who teaches things I do not personally belief in.

Because I had an appointment with Merel at 16:00, and the essay ended at 15:55 I left in kind of a hurry. Unfortunately someone had taken or moved my jacket so I couldn't put it on during the ride. It was pretty cold. Here I was cycling in nothing but a beanie, bright pink snowboard gloves and a checkered blouse. I must have been quite a sight to behold. Mostly because my head must have been pretty red, I was breathing like I had run a marathon and my nose had opened the drains.

I arrived ten minutes late at the location. I dragged myself in and Merel and I started our little session. She gave me some assignments about social situations. At the end I told her that she was too 'text book'. She seemed to do everything by the book, nothing original. I've been feeling like an object being processed through a factory to get better or something. That's something I told her as well. Maybe it's because of my general dislike to psychologists. I'm still going to the next appointment, though. 

Well, that was my day. How was yours?

- knetterzak

Starting up a Minecraft server

I was hiding behind my door as my mom entered my room. When she saw me we both sort of had a grinning match, it was a pretty funny situation. The reason to the situation however, wasn't that funny. I slept through most of school today, again. At some point I thought about hiding in the closet, but I didn't have time to make it. I sort of froze like a deer in headlights when I heard those footsteps growing closer, and closer.

I spend the day working on setting up a Minecraft server. It's mostly up and running now and I'm thinking about hiring a dedicated server. The Minecraft server I play on now is closing in two months, so the community will be migrating to an other server. I'm using the map I used a year ago for a server I had with four other people. Unfortunately we had to close down after a few months, but I still had the map.

I got my letter today about the Gregorius Show. I haven't opened it yet but I know it contains a ticket for the show and an agenda of what's going to happen. As a member of the decor building team I always get free tickets for the first night. On the second night we are back stage loading everything into a truck right after an act is performed on stage. We also perform small on site reparations.

The show is next Monday. I won't be following classes then as we meet up at the other location to load stuff into the truck to move it to the theater building across the street. It's always a lot of stuff. Once we're done with that we get everything done in the theater, like getting everything in place and such. Now I think about it, I'm getting nervous about remembering how to everything again. I don't want to look stupid after four years of service.

I watched Hunger Games Catching Fire with my mom this evening while eating noodles. I was constantly holding back information about what they didn't show in the movie but what was in the book, which was hard. It was disappointing to see that they left some stuff out I was looking forward to seeing on screen. I also imagined the characters quite differently than how they were portrayed in the movie.

For the evening I derped on my Minecraft server with some friends, adding shop signs and generating some terrain. Because my map was from 1.6.4 it had a defined border where the new chunks began. First I thought it was the world going corrupted again, but it was just the new terrain from the newer version; 1.7.2.

Well, that was my day. How was yours?

- knetterzak

Today is Monday?

I was almost late. Hence the word almost, though. I woke up at 7:28 by a door slamming close downstairs. It it wasn't for someone's violent act I would have missed mathematics. I got dressed really quickly and managed to get there in time. To top off my initial lateness; I spend twenty minutes talking to someone from Australia over Skype while putting on my trousers and throwing books in my backpack.

You remember how I said I had so much free time last night? I had all the time in the world, really. Apparently not enough time to read two page numbers properly. this particular turn of events rewarded me a two in mathematics by Mr Moelker himself. I read the page numbers wrong, causing me to make the wrong homework. I felt so screwed over, I just wanted to throw a tantrum right there, flipping all the sheets and stuff into the air like a fuming toddler. Luckily for my suppressed indignity I avoided such situations. Barely.

During biology Dirkx was talking about something, but I wasn't really paying attention to it because I missed the first part. I was just casually reading my book when all heads turned to me. Dirkx kind of swooped over to be able to see my face, looking expectant of me. Most awkward moment of the day, that was. He had asked me a question about meioses, but I didn't know that. I said I had only heard the ending, and then everybody made dramatic sounds like it was I just revealed the ending of an epic tale to a very dramatic love story or something. Genius.

Art class was boring apart from the fact that Birgit and I went on an adventure of epic proportions. What we actually did was taking photographs of cracks in the pavement and stains. It wasn't much of an adventure until I decided to make a mad dash out of an ally like a fool. That was fun. I should almost have enough material to finish that project for next Monday. I only need to do a few more things until everything is done.

Surprisingly enough did Mr Lier not talk about any of his 'dates'. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention, though. I did catch him insulting us in English, saying he could just call us whatever he wants because we wouldn't understand shit anyway. He's mostly right about that, though. I 'Oi'd!' him on multiple occasions because of this.

I fought with Marc over a pencil because he stole it from me. It escalated quickly and he nearly toppled me over my table, my chair along side me. I pushed him in the face because he scratched my hand. Now I have a little scratch on my right hand. He stole it because he didn't have a pencil, so I let him borrow it for the next hour.

We didn't do anything, like literally nothing during social studies. It was boring beyond anything. Mrs Twilhaar looked like shit, too. I shouldn't be saying that but she really looked like she had known better days. Maybe it's because of her pregnancy, I don't know. she looked really tired and pale. We spend the hour talking in amongst our democratic group; the NNP. We have three members: Marc, Yarni and me.

Because physics got dropped no one went. No one but me. I scored very low for my last test so I went to Mr Endert to ask for help. He explained everything to me and as he was looking at my answers again he actually added a few extra points because I was right on the last questions, but in a different context. My mark went from a 3.3 to a 5, something I think is quite a feat for just dropping by to ask for help. I think he partly did it because I seem to be the only one dedicated enough to actually show up to ask questions and I'm one of the few people who do homework, but that could just be me. 

I couldn't stop grinning like an idiot on my way home. I thought he would think me a fool, which he probably did, but it wasn't awkward at all. It actually got me 1.7 extra points on my mark, making me a very happy person.

My friend Birgit is writing this awesome story called The Specials and I've read the first chapter, and I'm loving it. I also finished reading this Doctor Who fan fiction, which was very funny to read through. It's called Keeping The Stars Apart and I highly recommend it. It's the sequel to Starlight, so I suggest you read that first if you want to know what is actually going on all the time. It's filled with a lot of humor and I absolutely loved reading both stories.

There was this moment when I felt really weird. It was Monday. I felt so weird because I thought it was anything but Monday. And then there it is: Monday. I also heard that today was Blue Monday, which I can relate to. Ugh, mathematics. Is it that I hate myself that I do this sort of stuff, or is someone sabotaging my life?

I've had my cup of tea and my daily dose of literature. Time to face plant my bed.

Well, that was my day. How was yours?

- knetterzak