Finally a glimpse of sun...
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: House & Garden Philosophy

At last, a sunny day !! Last two weeks we only saw rain, after a very promising two weeks of spring sun. I love the sight of my garden, growing and blooming. The cherry tree full of blossoms, followed a few days later by the apple tree and finally the non-fruit tree, I don’t know its name, really. The blossoms were washed out though during the rains these last two weeks. But I can already see them; numerous cherries and apples as well. Now the time of the wallflowers and strawberries starts, and the grape plants are spreading their lustrous green ranks on the walls as well. It all gives me a very ambivalent feeling. I love this country during summertime and I wish I could spend the summer in my own garden, watching all the fruits grow and enjoy the result by September. But I also want to go ahead with my brand new start in Malaysia, which is still prevented by my not-sold-yet house… Especially when the mail came this morning; the final confirmation from UM, KL. Which, by the way, makes me wonder what the mailman would be thinking when he looks at the sender address, knowing this house is for sale. I wonder if the mailman puts 2 and 2 together and makes up his own imaginary story behind some of the letters he has to deliver. Or maybe he just thinks – geezz, with this kind of weather I ought to be sitting in my garden as well, enjoying a beer and the newspaper…

Why can't we just let it go ?
Mood:  hug me
Topic: House & Garden Philosophy
I come home from work in the middle of the night. The little green lamp on the answering machine is blinking frantically. When I play the single message that is on it I hear a toddlers voice, starting out with “aduh” followed by calling out “hello – hello” several times. Yeah, we all know who it is, and I wonder if these are his very first words or part of an already larger vocabulary. Being over 1? years already I guess it would be the latter one. It’s all leaving me quite confused, leading me into a restless sleep.

The very next morning I receive a call from the other person who relentlessly influenced the past 5 years of my life. “Hi, it’s me, she says”. I hadn’t heard from her in a week or so. After feeling to have reached some dead alley in December last year, I decided to cut off all contacts. I thought it would be better for everybody involved. But then she started calling again last month. Just like all these times before. Why can’t she just let it go, if she can’t make a right decision anyway ? But then again I also kind of crave for these phone-calls. Silly, isn’t it ? She keeps on pushing me to meet as friends, and so we did some 2 weeks ago. She’s got some weird definition of “friends”…

- What’s up ?, I say a bit grumpy.
- Well, nothing special really, actually I’m not doing so fine…
- Why, what happened ?
- Oh, never mind

One of those conversations again, and I’m really not in the mood. Someone’s leg is being pulled, and I’m afraid it’s mine… She ends the conversation just at the right time though, leaving ample time for speculation and at the same time not giving me an opportunity to verbalize my awkward feelings about the whole situation. I want to say something like “Real friends don’t have a secret agenda” or “Since you want us to be friends I feel I have the right to know what’s going on in your life”… Too late though, it’ll have to wait for next time, if there is one. Actually, I’m gonna confront her with this, since I have nothing to loose anyway.

What is going on in this world ?
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: House & Garden Philosophy
Geezz, what’s wrong with my country ?? One Dutch soldier died in Iraq and the media can’t stop talking about it… Sure, a tragedy for family and friends, but what about all those Iraqi people who died in the past year ? Sometimes my country seems to be so self-focused…

Stuck in Holland
Mood:  not sure
Topic: House & Garden Philosophy
So now our German friends cancelled their plans. No need for me to organise a last-minute farewell party I guess. I cannot leave the country until the house is taken care of - financially that is. It’s hard though to adapt to the thought of having to spend some more time in this country. In my mind I was already letting go of the lousy weather here and looking forward to my brand-new start in KL. Talking about letting go, it’s amazing how difficult it can be to let go of your feelings for that special one. Even when you know that it doesn’t have a future and very well never might have something of a future either, it still keeps your mind occupied on-and-on. Thinking about what if’s and what-when-we-would-have’s doesn‘t change a single thing about the situation though. Haha, if I would have known in advance even the slightest thing about what would all happen, I sure as hell would have handled things differently.

"Friends", the German version...
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
Just met the 4 german students looking for a house to live in. Damn, they all looked so young... or is it that I’m getting old ? Three of them already live in nearby Belgium, telling me the characteristic stories of these student houses; people being evicted for displaying anti-social and mainly too noisy habits. Gathering from their story this is their effort to become the German version of “Friends”. Well, judging the sitcom and the fact that half of my life partly resembles the life of Ross, there seems to be some sense in that. Still, it would be easier to dub, haha… anyway, they remind me of my own university years. I even, just like them, went on the look for an opportunity to rent a house as a whole as well. In all this time apparently nothing much has changed. Just like I’m reluctant right now, other people are as well. I’ll give them credit for that as they deserve my sympathy. But I have to sleep a few nights over it first…

losing time over kissing ass...
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
I took the ultrasound course last week. Didn’t learn heaps of new stuff, but it was fun anyway. In general reactions from other M.O.’s were quite positive. Except for one girl, who started fussing about how I could be sure about the quality of the program and how on earth could one become a good gynaecologist in only 4 years. I said something like, well, your education is as good as the effort you put in - and also secretly thought that if narrow-minded people like her could take a lifetime to get a more positive attitude towards other people I could certainly try to become a good gynaecologist in four years. After all, I won’t lose any time by having to kiss everybody’s ass, haha. Well, she gave me the cold shoulder anyway which is not that bad as I don’t feel the need to get to know her kind of people.
Trying to get my mind of the worries about selling my house. Been busy trying to sell some stuff like my pc, fridge, some furniture, to raise some extra money. I hope I can find a nice place to live in KL, not too expensive but also not like some freaky student house (student houses can be a disaster in the Netherlands)

losing time over kissing ass...
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
I took the ultrasound course last week. Didn’t learn heaps of new stuff, but it was fun anyway. In general reactions from other M.O.’s were quite positive. Except for one girl, who started fussing about how I could be sure about the quality of the program and how on earth could one become a good gynaecologist in only 4 years. I said something like, well, your education is as good as the effort you put in - and also secretly thought that if narrow-minded people like her could take a lifetime to get a more positive attitude towards other people I could certainly try to become a good gynaecologist in four years. After all, I won’t lose any time by having to kiss everybody’s ass, haha. Well, she gave me the cold shoulder anyway which is not that bad as I don’t feel the need to get to know her kind of people.
Trying to get my mind of the worries about selling my house. Been busy trying to sell some stuff like my pc, fridge, some furniture, to raise some extra money. I hope I can find a nice place to live in KL, not too expensive but also not like some freaky student house (student houses can be a disaster in the Netherlands)

IFFR 2004
Mood:  suave
Topic: Night life & other action
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2004; normally I’d go to the big city to see as many movies as possible. Having just returned from a snowboarding trip in France though, it was rather impossible to move on to Rotterdam right away, so I had to stay in my own little city and feed on the small selection in the recently renovated “Art-movie house”. Though I always preferred the big city because of a wider selection in movies and the very special atmosphere, I must say that for the latter one it was really ok this time in Maastricht. The crowd, consisting of all kinds of people suffering Cinemania; young and old, alternative and traditional, students and “working class”, white and coloured... there sure was a good vibe. However, having seen the first film after an already exhausting day I felt so sleepy I couldn’t stay to enjoy the atmosphere. I saw “The Python” from Letland, a movie that in it self had some funny scenes that didn’t have enough impact though to carry the burden of a movie which on itself rather lacked a storyline.

Today was better; starting out with the Japanese “Ramblers” was good enough because even being quite a slow movie with not much of a story as well it was actually amusing enough to be entertained at 10 in the morning. But for me the jewel of the IFFR was definitely the Korean “Resurrection of the little match girl” from Jang Sun-Woo. Rarely I’ve seen a movie with a story of such originality with virtual reality as a main theme. Please stop talking about a movie like the “Matrix”; it doesn’t even come close ! Only “Strange days” (1995) had a story as good as this one.

Flaine 2004; great boarding & broken legs...
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Night life & other action
Still waiting for government approval from Malaysia, but already took some steps in selling my house. Last weekend we came back from a skiing trip to France. Well skiing; that is: all the woossies went for skiing, but the real men of course took their snowboard for some real action. That this was not the perfect idea for everybody turned out to be very true when one of us made a wrong move when getting out of the ski lift. Even though not taking a very hard fall, he had to be taken to the local hospital with what turned out to be a fracture of the lower leg. Paul and I accompanied him to the doctor’s office. Finally the doctor turned up with the photo’s and put them on the wall. We didn’t even give him a chance tot talk; a glance at the pictures was enough for us to say instantaneously something like "Yep, a tibial fracture; let’s get him to the hospital". The poor guy could do nothing but confirm it and arranged for transport. The days after that we had some really great snow and in between the visits to the hospital we took our advantage of that and did some pretty extensive boarding. I guess it’ll be the last time for me to go out snowboarding with the guys...

Back again... Troubles in Paradise; Zaventem Airport
Mood:  cool
Topic: Everyday life (weirdness)
My flight back to Brussels went quite OK. On arrival, the only awkward thing was the intense cold again. My car was still right where I left it and seemed to be just fine, it even started right away. But when I wanted to drive away and hit the accelerator pedal I found out that it was totally paretic on the bottom of the floor ?!!! Turned out the cable connecting it with the engine had broken. I had to get to a garage to get it fixed. By then, my carefully arranged itinerary was already messed up and I arrived 3 hours late at work.

The test in Malaysia went quite good, as well as the interview. As the matter of fact, they already decided to take me, so it’s just waiting for government approval now. The only other thing still bugging, besides the fact I won’t be paid there, is that apparently I won’t be allowed to work after finishing the masters program because my degree is not recognized ??!! That’s really silly ! I have to find some things out about degree recognition and stuff, and also about possibilities to work in Indonesia afterwards and the procedures for that. After all, in the end my exams will all be British based, so that should be good for something. I still think I’m gonna go through with all this; I’ve really had it with a lot of things over here.