Cogs can think.

I am following courses in translation (en-nl and vice versa), and apparently, I’m an unfriendly and direct translator.

Well, whatever. I just ain’t into the custom of putting ‘please’ and ‘kindly’ before and after every verb.

As I was driving from Zwolle back home today, during Dutch rush hour (which is actually a euphemism since rush hour lasts about three times as long) it struck me how astonishing it actually is that you can have so many deadly projectiles crammed in such a limited set of space without everything ending in chaos, death, and destruction. Apparently all there’s needed to avoid all this are some driving lessons.

Yet we are unable to divide the land properly between Israel and Palestine, preventing chaos, death, and destruction. Intriguing.

What a night. Seriously.

It had it all. Love. Broken hearts. Lost bets. Anger. Sadness. Joy. Money. Polish pubic hair chicks. A bicycle.

Ambivalent feelings. I was only involved in the lost bet part.

I’m in Zwolle right now. On the edge of the Dutch bible belt.

I cuss too much. My friends and I (all from the rich, godless West) turn heads over here.

When I sat down in the train today, back home from university, I noticed a fairly attractive young lady sitting across me. She wasn’t beautiful in a slap-in-the-face kind of way; more in a it-grew-on-me-in-20-minutes kind of way. And when she flashed her public transport pass to the conductor, I saw a pretty photo of her with her hair down and a big white smile. Very nice.

Anyway, I always want to know what people on the train study (if they are students). This lass was obviously a student, judging by the pass and the readers and papers on her lap. I glanced over the papers, and saw a lot of graphs and something called ‘Kichnov’s law’ or something.

The front of her reader said ‘Atmospheric Physics’.

Right. She was way out of my league.

Why can’t things just stay the way they are?

At Sloterdijk Station (Amsterdam-west), where I transfer from the Intercity to Nijmegen to the line 50 Metro to Boelalaan/VU, there is this shop that sells all sorts of sandwiches; from baguettes to paninis to chiabattas. It’s right there en route to my proper platform.

Anyway, they have this sandwich of a certain piece of bread (with a very hard crust) with what we Dutch call ‘old‘ cheese; this type of cheese has a very strong and intense flavour, with a very sharp aftertaste on the tongue (not unlike certain hot spices). The cheese is topped off with (what I believe is) thyme and tauge. This sandwich is a very delicate balance of tastes.

Since it’s quite expensive (3 EUR for crying out loud, that’s Hfl. 6.30! For a sandwich!), I rarely buy it. I really, really, really like it, though.

How surprised I was today to find that the shop had completely fcuked up the recipe by smearing a large blob of French mustard across the cheese. Have they lost their sanity? The delicate balance of flavours is now completely ruined due to the fact that the French mustard now totally dominates each bite you take. I was appalled. Stunned. They ruined the best sandwich in the world [insert sad smiley-face].

Why can’t things just stay the way they are?

Marco, Levi, and I had a presentation today. As always, we did not prepare. An hour before we were scheduled, we quickly read up the material, I made a PowerPoint, and we did the presentation. Even though there was no evaluation done after the presentation, I can summarise it fairly well.

Our humour could not conceal the total lack of a scientific basis for what we were claiming.

Oh well, at least we made everybody laugh. Which is not bad considering our audience had already had two other presentations, on the same boring subject.

The train home entered Zaandam station, and a stream of people left the train, while another stream was bording. Among, one girl caught my eye. She wore a beatiful red coat, chique gloves, and classy boots. Her hair was dark blonde, long, but not too long. She had a round face.

And in that face, to the right of her nose, was a Gorbatsjov-like ‘port wine’ stain.

She had a very attractive and classy appearance, so this stain jumped out and caught attention. Ashamed, I have to admit that my first thought was, they (as in medical people) can probably remove it with today’s advanced laser surgery. And this thought made me ask myself a hypothetical question.

If this girl did not have this vascular malformation, would I have remembered her? I would have noticed her for sure - she’s pretty - but would I have actually remembered her? Would I have blogged about her?

I guess sometimes it takes an imperfection to notice perfection. Which, somehow, I find a very comforting thought.

When I decided to quit Psychology, almost two years ago now, I was in an utter state of panic. My entire lifeplan fell apart, its remains vanishing in puffs of smoke. I had planned to become a psychologist in the doctor-kind-of-way (so not in a researcher-kind-of-way), and I had already found peace with that idea.

Even though I decided to stop at the end of my second year, I actually already had second thoughts after the first year, in the summer months preceding the second year. I had grown very close with a friend of mine, but I already knew she would quit the study after that first year; during the summer, I was afraid that ‘losing’ her would kind of defeat the point of going to university. This sounds heavy, but with that I mean we did everything together at university; I kind of had the feeling I had to do it alone when she quit. And I didn’t want that.

In any case, now I obviously realise that my doubts then had nothing to do with the feeling of having to do it alone; I had a lot of friends there with whom I could work together without a hitch (and in fact, this is what I did in the second year). I now know I simply was not yet ready to accept I had made the wrong choice with psychology, and constructed this oddball reasoning to be able to vent my worries without having to acknowledge my own mistake. I am like that a lot.

In any case, I was in a state of panic. I needed a vacation, a break away from it all, so I went to Berlin to think about my future. When I returned, I made little progress. It took me months to find a new study, but in the end, I did; and as you all know, I’m very happy with it.

My lifeplan is back now. I will become a professional journalist. I am currently already filling my minor with subjects specifically to be able to enter the Journalism master after I’m done with my bachelor. Luckily, the ladies (Marco, Martin, and Levi) will be doing the same.

I have a plan again. I like it when I know what’s a’cumin’. I fcuking hate uncertainty.

It all started Saturday.

At around 13:00, I got into me mum’s car, picked up a few friends, and off we went to a cheap two star hotel in Breda (without even the basic of elements of civilisation, such as hot water). Sander’s navigation system (“It’s the newest version, seriously.”) misled us big time, but in the end, we used our manly sense of direction, and we found it anyway. Marcel, who organised the weekend, was already waiting in the hotel “lobby”.

The whole reason for this weekend was for Marcel to show us the KMA, the Royal Military Academy in Breda where he lives, studies, and does army stuff. After a first drink in the hotel bar, we were ordered by him to put on old clothes… We kind of knew what was a-cumin’.

We did the storm course. He first explained each of the obstacles, and then it was our turn. Marcel actually holds the record there, so it was kind of cool to see the master at work.

We then went out for dinner at Gauchos, a chain of decent Argentinian restaurants (long live ‘all-you-can-eat’ spareribs!), after which we dove into Breda’s excellent nightlife (very friendly people everywhere). At around 4:45 we got back to our hotel.

The next day we were given a grand tour of the KMA (actually an old castle), including all sort of cool stories and legends regarding the parade square, the entry gates, the bridges; really, really cool. I am a sucker for traditions, so I felt right at home there.

After Marcel’s tour of the Academy we went to the casino; in The Netherlands nobody is allowed to run a casino except the state, and hence the state is owner of the chain of the only 14 casinos in the country. I’ve never been to a casino before, and I can say it was fun. I did not gamble though (matter of principle) but you can still have fun anyway.

I got home at around 17:00.

—

The next day, I met up with Sascha (cliche: long time no see) to go to a dinner party in honour of Renaatje’s birthday (she turned 24), in Amsterdam. I barely knew anyone there, but it did not stop me from having a great time. Renate made a wonderful table full of salads, home-made sauces, whatever; it was there. Met some cool new people, saw some really gruesome videoclips, and got to talk to Sascha again, which is never a problem.

I dropped Sascha off at her place at around 0:45, txt msg’ed Felicia back, and kept on doing that until late at night.

—

Since some of my friends from university will be going abroad for 6 months to study their language of choice there (Barcelona, Malaga, Bologna, etc.), we decided to all meet up in Cafe Weber near the Leidsche Square in Amsterdam to bid them farewell. However, many of the people going away actually left the earliest, so after kisses and farewells (many really cool people are going, like Annemarie, Sarieke, you name it), the usual die-hard group (Levi, Marco, Martin, Lot, Nadia, me, and this time Gemma as well) remained; we decided to go to Noodlanding Classic in pop temple Paradiso; as always, Noodlanding just kicks butt majorly. It’s basically one long mix of all sorts of musical styles; from reggae to hiphop, from alternative rock to techno. It’s awesome, and I can advise anyone to go to Noodlanding at least once in their lives.

After saying goodbye to Nadia (she’s also going broad, sadly) and Lot (she’s not going abroad, luckily), the ladies (that would be Marco, Levi, and Martin), me, and Gemma went to Levi’s place where we were sleeping. After Martin going mental (seriously, that was scary) I slept like a rose on my usual Amsterdam bed of garden furniture pillows and my trusty sleeping bag.

Dropped Gemma off in Zaandam, and went home. The storm today made drivig pretty much a challenge.