Correction

It is a strength, not a weakness to admit you were wrong about something. With that in mind, I want to show my strength and say: the coca cola man is all-right.
On october 1st I wrote:

"The Coke Light man (see picture) doesn't come at 11:30 here either. He just rushed in ten minutes ago. It was a mousy skinny type of cokelightman, with a tattoo (possible redeeming feature, but not in this case). This specimen did not cause me to giggle in elevators or whatever happens in the commercial. I strongly suspected him to be on speed. So there you have it: I start working in the dead of night, and my cokelightman is actually an unattractive drug addict (here he comes again now, btw) who comes prematurely. I shall mail the Coca Cola Company about this later today."

I still suspect him of being on speed, and he hasn't mystically turned into Alan Rickman either (just my luck, btw), but he just brought me coffee. Glorious coffee. Sugar, no milk, no charge. So he has now been upgraded to a plain-but-nice-anyway drug addict who comes right on time. Perhaps I shall go giggle in an elevator just a little bit. After all, tomorrow is my last day on this job, so I might as well start (yes, start) behaving strangely...

P.S.: It has come to my attention that none of you have posted any comments since november the 26th, when I posted the Haveyoureadmyblogyet-whyIdon'tevenfindyouinterestinginperson cartoon. Very funny. But you can stop it now. :-) (I even voted on the last poll trice, 'cause it would look damn pathetic if I didn't... sad, isn't it?)

Pluizig en blauw (Dutch Sesame Street)

Update # 4568412.256

The days are too short, the nights are too long. I've got too much to do, and too little incentive to do it. This light is too bright, the darkness makes it hard to read. I nag too much. I am bored. I have to work. I wish something would happen.

Sooo. How are you guys? Long time no blog. You must have been so worried, not hearing from me for this long. I'm sorry for all the nights I left you crying alone before your screens, but your psychologist said he was confident he'd be able to fix you up for the holidays. What have I been up to?

• I've been to the UK, had fun, games and lots of cider, and came back.
  
• I went to see Apocalyptica in Brussels, the trains were on strike, I left anyway, I saw Lacrimas Profundere (with a very redeeming guitarist) and Apocalyptica (mad as ever), and by a stroke of pure luck, got back home on the same evening.
  
• I decided against doing my Arabic exam in January. I don't like to admit something can't be done. But this just can't be done.
  
• I am trying to get my inert ass to India in february (which is a lot more complicated than it sounds)
• I am (still) trying to make other people believe I am a devcon-India-Arabic-language-specialist, and that they should value my opinion above their own.

So, that's an update for you. I know (and agree) it isn't half as interesting as it should be, but hey, that's as much your fault as it is mine, is it not? I greet you all affectionately and hope your tree shelters everything you've always wanted. And socks.

Run like hell

I might as well admit: I'm getting tired. I dragged myself to work this morning, afterwhich I dragged my self to the library, afterwhich I let public transportation drag me to my lunchdate. After that I dragged myself home, collapsed on the couch and stared at the ceiling for a while. I really must have my blood checked one of these days, I feel Black Death or what not coming on. Ignoring the stabbing pain in various parts of my body, I read something about ancient Rome, and I had some interesting messenger-conversations. Stretching my willpower to the limit, I got up again and dragged myself to the station to procure some traintickets. As I was dying on my way back home, it started to rain.

Most of you think I'm strange anyway, so I might as well confess: I am starch raving mad. I am, as they say, a looney. I put on my oldest sweater-and-pants and I went jogging. Jogging in the rain is an experience that can be situated somewhere in between spiritual and sexual, but most of all, it's just good. So good. What does one run from? From Want. From what everyone else wants from me, from what I want from everybody else, from what I want from me. From every thought that isn't strictly necessary for basic functioning. From the pain in my kidneys and arms, from the painfully swollen glands that have been bothering me the last few days. From Musharafs Emergency, and from neoliberal globalization. So the trick is: when my mind goes blank (after about 17 minutes of moderate jogging), I take off my sweater (it's 5 degrees celsius, as it should be) and in my tank top, I run like hell. How does hell run? Hell runs fast, without looking back or forward, with every muscle tense, while rain pours down on bare skin (arms, shoulders, face, chest), on fallen autumn leaves, and in the river Styx (it's called Coupure, in Ghent, they tell me). After about five minutes of that, I find a front door again, soaked, breathing heavily, trembling but cured. I start making dinner, posting rubbish on blogs, and planning my UK-weekend. (And yes, I am listening to Avril Lavigne, but don't tell anyone. In my defense: it's not my CD.) Sometimes (i.e. a few times a week), You've got to run away, to really come back home.

So, to compensate you guys for this rather long and existential blogpost: I give you: more chickens:

Self-relativation is the shit...

I laugh in the face of boredom

Sheep tricks

Barnyard animals are not to be trusted. I've got a sheep in my head. It's making gruesome quantities of bleating noises. It is parked right where the left hemisphere of my brain normally lurks. Its little hooves are trampling my thoughts and memories. It got in there by squeezing trough my left ear. It is quite a fluffy specimen. If I look up my nose with my make-up-mirror, I can see some white woolly curly fluff.In other words: someone nicked my disertation-proposal, Musharraf nicked my project, my ear hurts, my head hurts, my head feels fluffy as hell. Not all bad however: Someone just presented me with a rubber duck. I had a good time yesterdaynight.

Meanwhile, in Karachi, the times were changing...

I got up 3 times this morning. Once at 6.20 (which I thought to be 7.20) to decide it was definitely a bit to early to be moving about. Again at 6.40 (which I thought to be 7.40), when I jumped out of bed and into almost all of my clothes, only to realise halfway down the stairs that something was fishy. At 7.40 (which I thought, correctly, to be 7.40) I then rolled out of bed again, to make tea and find those crucial pieces of underwear I missed in my first attempt to get dressed. The core-problem is this: Time changed this weekend. Why? no-one knows. One of the more direct consequences of this charade (besides the multiple getting up):

I lost my cover-of-darkness, under which I usually lurk to work on mondaymornings. I like lurking under cover of darkness. It's what I do. It's been totally ruined by some oil-crisis in the seventies.

But don't let this grumpiness about the absence of lurking-possibilities fool you, I am actually in a rather good mood, all things taken into account. I spent most of my weekend sleeping and eating, with the occasional intermezzo of roleplaying, jogging, and being paid to watch one of the better symphonic orchestras in Belgium perform. Sometimes life isn't so bad... Still, it is mondaymorning (shudder), so everyone who wants to come and console the working classes by giving me coffee, chocolate and/or compliments: please do.

Time is money, or how pretending to live in Kabul influences ones daily life

Most of my fans will have noticed by now that there is something quite fishy about my relationship with time. For example: why do I post things about mondays on sundaynights? and always in the middle of the night? I've decided to try and correct this, by changing my location in my profile from Afghanistan to Belgium. Lets see if it works...

It didn't work... Can one of you guys please tell me what I could try next to correct my time-gap? (And don't even try to suggest I move to Kabul.)

Now imagine the 'boekentoren'...

Sometimes dancing in front of a security camera is the best way to get over a monday-morning-hickup...
(I must, however, apologize for the slightly crappy music.)

PS: For really WRONG lyrics you should you-tube her: cascada - bad boy.

Out and about

I blog to you today with very good news indeed: From november the 30eth to december the 3th I will be out of the country! I am going to London for half a day, and then on to Cambridge! Why? Well... 'tis a secret mission, so don't tell anyone: I'm going to visit Laura (yes, Laura Crafty, see a few blogposts down) who is making her way up the academic ladder over there in the UK. My job is to find the secret documents, and flush them down the second loo on the right at Kings Cross station, so as to send them through the pipes to the top secret archives of the KGB. In this process I will probably be drinking some guinness. If I tell you guys anymore, I shall have to kill you. Or perhaps I could just wipe your memory, with one of those Men-in-Black-thingies... or with a matrix-manoevre.

This exciting prospect however, has completely depleted my capital resources, by which I mean to say: I'm broke. I must therefor ask everyone to refrain from inviting me for activities that cost money. If you are willing to pay in my stead (nice expression, is it not? "If you are willing to pay for me" sounded all wrong...) that's fine, I shall think very fondly of you in my cardboard box under a Parisian/Antwerpian bridge, but paying you back might just have to wait a while...
So well, well so... I'll be of again. I'll report back to you when I've got something to report, or when I'm bored. Give my regards to all your grandparents... Good day.

O yes, about the picture: I typed in KGB in google-picture-search, and this is what I got... No reason in arguing with the internet, is there? It appears to be a man with a fish... a very large fish... and the man doesn't look very happy... Perhaps there's a secret meaning, or perhaps it's some very twisted kind of porn (you never know on the internet)... I haven't figured it out yet. Suggestions always welcome.

boomtown rats - I dont like mondays

I don't think this needs much explanation... It's monday again. I feel the way these guys look (okay, perhaps I'm exagerating a little now).

Welcome to Neverland, may I take your coat?

I'm in doubt... The dilemma is this: There's this party tonight (in 3 hours), and I'm allready tired. Should I try to sleep for an hour or two, or should I just put on loud music, drink coffee (or tao, or burn, or red bull, or nalu), and jump around to get me psyched for tonight? At the moment, I'm postponing the moment of decisionmaking truth, by posting on this blog.

The partyplan for tonight goes as follows: party 'till 1, in bed by 1:30, up again by 7:45. And ONLY COKE!!! (the drink, not the icing-sugar)
The partyproblem for tonight goes as follows: people don't come to parties before 12. So if I stick to the plan, I'll be getting my coat at the moment when everyone else starts dancing. But, if I don't stick to the plan, I won't be able to survive my friday (7 hours of developmentstrategies and projectmanagement, followed by 4 hours of standing in front of a door for money).
The partysolutions for tonight are two-fold: 1. cafeine 2. A united nations resolution that parties should start at 8, and end at midnight... Something tells me I shouldn't put any money on 2...

So, enough of this nagging, or this will be the loneliest blog ever. Wish me luck (ONLY COKE)...

david gray- please forgive me

Cactus 2006 is a long time ago

I can't think of a deep title... just imagine one, okay

It's been almost a week since my last post (trumpets out (or is it horns?)). Some say silence is golden... In my case, silence indicates the fact that I've been extremely busy studying and making money, and subsequently even more busy spending even more money than I've earned in this past week by going to Antwerp and shopping for rubbish big time. But you won't believe what great things I found, hidden away in sleazy, punky and plainly WRONG shops on saturday. Amongst various other priceless objects, I have purchased: Black wings, a very hip hipflask (currently filled with vodka, because I haven't got the money to buy a new bottle of gin), a course in modern persian (farsi), and a playmobile plumber. The WRONG shop spoken about above was the place I found my hipflask: picture in your mind a shadowy, maffia-meets-neoconcowboy-y gunshop. Now picture me and my accomplice for the day ('Aunty' Morgan) in it... yes, I know, I told you it was WRONG. Not convinced? Then you should take into account that the man also sells plastic pidgeons, katana's and model-tanks.. PLASTIC PIDGEONS for Christs sake! Come on, honestly, what's the use of plastic pidgeons? Any suggestions are more than welcome, my current guess is it's got to do something with sick guncowboyporn I know nothing about. Did I mention my new horsey-keychain and my 'great-ass'-mints? You see: I never buy things I don't really REALLY need...

I got trough my courses on wednesday and friday okay, so that's good, although I can't seem to shake off the urge to eat floorcoverings entirely just yet... So if you meet me next week: hide your rugs, that's all I'm saying. It'll be more quiet this week however, seeing that I've almost succeeded in setting my administration right. The only problem now is the fact that I won't be able to pay for my books and courses, since I've bought the above rubbish, and payed for my new laptop...

Soooo, for all my groupies and fans: I'll be working every monday, tuesday and thursday from 8.30 'till 12.30. Visitors are very welcome, especially when carrying food and/or drinks, or when interesting... I'll show you all my mints and flask!
Enough banter, I've got to go and prepare for the fantasy-roleplay-and-pizza-eating-activities of tonight (i.e. in thirty minutes).

Sooooo.....

Before I start this blogpost, I shall pose you the question that struck me on my way here an hour ago:

The city rieks of chickenstock... Why is that?

I'm out and about again. Today started out marvelously foggy and dreary, which is so good, in so many ways... The vending machine gave me 30cts change, just because I smiled at it. Lovely. I spent the last hour computer-bashing, because my internet wouldn't work (yes, I bash computers for money nowadays), and now, I'm waiting for a phone call, with nothing else to do than youtube (yes, it's a verb as well) a bit of rubbish. Life is good, though early...

Work is better than my studies though. I'm still not sure I really want to continue Arabic, or if I want to do Conflict and Development in one year or two. Perhaps I should've started something else, or nothing at all. Or both. Still, the damage has now been done (533.10 euros worth of damage, to be exact), so there is no point in nagging to you guys about it, is there? My first ManaMa lesson was about the worldbanks development schemes. It had a definite 'god I'm stupid'-feel to it, and after two and a half hours, all I wanted to do was lie on the floor and eat carpet (which is not a constructive thing to do). The lesson after that was even worse... Project management... economics...shiver... Everything is very interesting though. I see three possible forecasts:
1. In a year, I'll have learned more than in the past 4 years together
2. In a year, there won't be any carpet left in a wide area 'round Ghent
3. In a year, I'll be working in the supermarket, trying to ignore reality completely as I stack tins of cat food, and think about what lies to tell my psychiatrists on our next consultation.
Let the betting begin...

For those who have noticed that I haven't spoken about my first lessons Modern Arabic: Well done (and let's leave it at that). Tomorrow is my first lesson ever at the department of law studies. That'll be something to write about on Thursday morning, I guess. If I survive... If I don't: My will: all my stuff is to be handed out on a strict first come, first serve-basis. So start running. See ya!

Why oh why?

Some of my closer friends may know about my love for black skirts, strange-patterned panties and black-rimmed glasses. At this precise moment, I am living it: I am a secretary. Why am I a secretary at eight in the morning? That, my dear friends, is a different question. It is, in fact, a question I have been pondering over exceedingly in the past few days. I work for DSA (Student Activities Service)... Which self-respecting student could possibly be awake at this hour of night!? So on my first day as Student Activities Secretary I shall have to conclude: There is no student activity whatsoever at eight in the bleeding fucking morning, if this dark time can in fact be called that.

The Coke Light man (see picture) doesn't come at 11:30 here either. He just rushed in ten minutes ago. It was a mousy skinny type of cokelightman, with a tattoo (possible redeeming feature, but not in this case). This specimen did not cause me to giggle in elevators or whatever happens in the commercial. I strongly suspected him to be on speed. So there you have it: I start working in the dead of night, and my cokelightman is actually an unattractive drug addict (here he comes again now, btw) who comes prematurely. I shall mail the Coca Cola Company about this later today.

This day keeps on getting stranger and stranger: in the last 5 minutes two things happened I did not consider possible before ten o'clock: 1. The bookshop called to inform me that my Egyptian dialect course book has appeared (at 8:30) 2. Cokelightman came to give me his phone number (if ever I run out of cokelight...) (8:32). What's the matter with these people? Shouldn't they be asleep? Perhaps they don't need to sleep... Perhaps the're undead. That would explain a lot.

Allright you lot, I am going to watch the ceiling for a bit (I don't want people to think all I do at work is blog...). I work on Tuesday and Thursday as well, so I'll probably blog more than usual this week... If you behave today, then perhaps tomorrow I'll tell you the exiting tale of my first lessons of the term.

Time, the lack of it, and non-existent blog-posts

No time
lots to tell
read more
probably over the weekend
can't talk now
brain exploding
bye

The Shah of Blah

Salman Rushdie described a storyteller in a land of unhappy people. No matter what wonderful stories he told, the people around him didn't think of him very highly, if they thought about him at all. Harun and the sea of stories is a very good little book. Read it. That said: I'm having a very bad day. No matter what marvellous and heartgripping stories I tell, Reality and its hellish lapdog Indifference seem to catch up with me at a frightening speed today. No matter. It's almost tomorrow anyway... So eh... Blah.

Everything at all

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've got a very valid excuse, so please hear me out.

1. I've been studying for my exams Arabic. I think I passed them both relatively okay, especially since I missed every single lesson this semester. A strange thing happened though: for the first time in my prolonged (i.e. four years) academic carrier I returned an exam with an entire page blank. While my classmates' minds were busy with the question: 'What are some of the major differences in vowelpronounciation between Egyptian dialect and Modern standard Arabic (MSA)?' my mind was busying itself with a much simpler and more basic question: 'When the hell did we see Egyptian dialect?’ Hopefully the other 5 pages make up for this little hiccup...
2. Just before my oral examination I went for my dissertation feedback... My knees felt like they were going to vanish altogether, I have not been that nervous since my first date (and this time, I didn't even have alcohol to numb my nerves). But: all well there too. Friday my knees will have a though day again however, as I will know my final grades then, and if all goes according to my master plan (muhaha) I shall graduate... yuck.
3. The evening after my oral exam and dissertation feedback I had to work... yes yes, work. My job consisted of standing in front of a door, smiling frantically at people, and so scaring them. Boring as it was, my colleagues were nice, and I got paid about 30-40 euros for standing in front of a door.
4. To continue along the job-line: As the people employing me that evening also noticed they are paying people to do completely nothing, the days you can do this job a month are limited to 3 or 4, so I won't be able to buy my ticket to India just standing in front of doors. After brief hopes about a part-time in a university library (which failed because I cannot read Tibetan (apparently Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Farsi and Arabic are of inferior importance) and because some people think librarians should be at least 45.) I am now waiting for a phone call about a desk job for two or three mornings a week. Wish me luck... I'll need it, since I don't know any Tibetan. I am not bitter, by the way ;-)
5. The last part of this excuse-post handles tourism-light-lemon activities. I spent a day touring Ghent with an ex-university-colleague and friend of mine, who will be studying creative therapy in Maastricht for the next three years. We spent most of the day just talking, eating and drinking (no news there). Last weekend was spent in Antwerp, my beloved town of origin, and second only to my current home town, Ghent. We stayed in a wonderful Indian-Eastern B&B 'Siddhartha', and went to eat superb Indian food in 'Safraan'. The room completely ruled: I came home all into Indian-style-tables, and knocked the legs from under my desk and will study sitting comfy on cushions on the floor from now on. It was brilliant. When in Antwerp, one should also drink a few 'jeneverkes' in the best and most sense-soothing bar in the world: 'de Vagant'. Too bad I could not get my partner-in-tourism to go to the zoo on Sunday... I should work on my convincingness (is this a word?).

So you see: I've been busy. I've also bought a hat. More later...

Empress Nemo in our nation's capital

An itch behind my right ear told me to get on a train to somewhere. So yesterday I found myself sipping my coca cola light lemon and listening to mp3-bollywoodmusic en route for our nation's capital: Brussels. The destination of the train read: 'Eupen', which brought me to the following question: Where the **** is Eupen? My trusty travel guide has since then taught me that this town, once a part of Prussia, has a distinctive Teutonic feel, but is very unexceptional. Interesting.

My fellow-travellers were late in Brussels' central station. So I spent the first hour of my trip drinking coffee in the galeries St. Hubert and roaming the Brusselian Games Workshop. I also went to visit the King (Albert II, not Elvis), but he wasn't at home. One of the guards told me he had gone to Jordan to persuade King Abdullah II to swap countries. My fellow-explorers, aka the Pink Peacock and Laura Crafty, finally got to the station by 2 p.m., and we went for a drink. It is a much debated dilemma whether one should speak French or Dutch in Brussels. Officially, the city is bilingual, and, truth be told, lots of shopkeepers, waiters, ticket sellers,... speak both French and Dutch. But, truth be told again, almost everyone's first language appears to be French. I know people who categorically refuse to speak French in Brussels. We, on the other hand, had a go at French... It went, well,.. okay I suppose.

We made our way trough the Zavel's African Art boutiques and the Marolles' second hand shops in pragmatic French (i.e. avoiding verb forms at all costs). When we settled down for a late lunch however, our menu was in English... we ordered in French (since the waiter addressed us in french), and got our cider poured in Dutch. This was all in all very confusing, but the food was delicious. With a final 'can we recevoir le rekening' we were off again. For the first time in my life I saw Manneke Pis. I don't see what all the fuss is about, but the Japanese tourists were brilliant. We set out to buy some real Belgian pralines (white with champagne-filling and chocolate truffles), since that is apparently what one should do when touristing Brussels. In the pralines shop the shop lady listened to our not-so-impeccable French, laughed loudly, and continued in Dutch. Sigh. Leterme said some time ago that the Walloons are to stupid to learn Dutch... I wouldn't see that as a one way phenomenon though, Yves. Sipping coffee and munching pralines, we sang our way loudly to Brussels' Warandepark. The day ended there, with us working out our superhero characters: Turbotiny, the Pink Peacock and Laura Crafty, in a Manetesque sangria-sur-l'herbe setting (though not in the nude).

Final conclusion: Brussels is a fun city to visit, and it is one of few cities in the world that will give you a chance to practice all your language skills (verbal and non-verbal) at once.

You are not as fat as you imagine

I'll keep it short today. I love it when music you haven't heard for years suddenly sneaks up on you and results in you crying and/or laughing in the middle of the supermarket (isle four, cereal). Yesterday it wasn't the supermarket taking me by suprise, but a mail-cum-youtube-forward dragging me back about 5-6 years. Don't laugh: Everybody's free to wear sunscreen , Baz Luhrman. Brilliant. I printed the lyrics instantly, and glued them in my agenda. Again, don't laugh. You should look it up. You'll probably think it boring, however. Maybe I just like it out of nostalgia. Maybe it's just brilliant. Maybe this is not important. Maybe you should go and read another blog. I promise you something more relevant tomorrow.

"Dance...even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly."

Ostend, Panamarenko and Stormy Seas

Tourism Light (i.e. getting on a train to somewhere else in the country to waste the day away eating, drinking and wandering around the occasional museum) is a wonderful way to pass time better spent studying Arabic. So, although I strongly favour trains above turbo-speeding, airconditioned cars, it was with some delight I found myself racing towards Ostend yesterday morning. After lunch in a café that can only be described as seedy-with-a-hint-of-glorious-past with a 90 degrees turn (you know the kind: carpets on the walls, but stone floors, Corinthian columns, old waitresses on slippers and a hells-angels-look-a-like doing the washing up), we went to see some Panamarenko-installations in de PMMK, which also boasts a few works from Jan Fabre, including an extremely wonderful duo of blue drawings, of which I have forgotten the title. So sue me.

Panamarenko kind of rules. Whether or not his installations, like those of Fabre, can really labelled 'art', is an entirely different question. I will not enter into this here, since I don't feel like it, and since I haven't made up my mind about it myself. Together with surrealists like Magritte, Dali and Delvaux, Panamarenko and Fabre are two of my favourite artists (although I must admit to secretly liking impressionism as well, don't tell anyone). In this brand of art (or unart, whatever) fantasy ultimately overrules both the eye and the rationale, bursts out, and manifests itself as a new, independent, reality. I believe everyone should look at installations like that at least once a year, as a kind of therapy for putting reality into perspective.

That said, there was one thing missing yesterday: It didn't storm... It didn't even really rain. I was in Ostend, and it didn't storm... This added to the sense of surrealism built up by Fabre and Panamarenko at the museum. I have honestly never been in Ostend for longer than an hour or two, without rain, thunder and storm winds messing up my hair. The hair-messing aside, I love storms, especially by the sea, and Ostend happens to be one of the prime places to experience one. For more practical information about storm-watching in Ostend, read the inset on the right. Standing by a stormy sea, watching the sheer force of it, hearing nothing but howling wind and feeling raindrops and salt water hit your face is also one of those things everyone should do at least once a year, as therapy. I do not recommend people getting themselves killed, however. So do NOT take your umbrella storm-watching, and if there are half-naked singing ladies in the water you might want to ignore them. (If the previous remark causes the death of Celine Dion, Britney Spears,... it was unintentional (but quite funny anyway)). So on this lighter note of drowning celebrities, I leave you all, for now...