Sound City Burning

Still no deep thoughts, but maybe a little more background. School-wise, this time. Obviously, the teeth thing didn't help me during my first trimester and I managed to mess up most of my classes; in fact, I'm still waiting on the results for two things I'm pretty sure I've messed up. At the same time, I've been working hard to get an interview done so I can hopefully get my propedeuse (a document stating I've finished my first year of school) and not get kicked out of school.

That's the past.

The present is GeR or 'nieuwsbedrijf', the school's in-house newsroom where we're supposed to learn the professional ropes before they kick us out for our second year internship. (You can find the site here, if you're Dutch and interested) It means very, very intensive work for ten weeks straight. I'm in the first week right now, which means I have 9-to-5 classes. Next week, the real work begins.

Obviously, this terrifies the shit out of me. I'm just trying not to wet my pants, most of the time.

My student councillor stared at me the other week and said, "You know, in all the time I've known you, I've never seen you to be so insecure," which made me laugh; I'm one of the most insecure fucks you've ever met, and the only reason I fly underneath that radar is that I'm usually better at dodging frightening things without looking like I'm dodging.

So that's what I'll be fighting over the next ten weeks. Honestly, I'll be pleased if I make it through without getting a stress illness and using it to avoid speaking to people for the rest of my natural life.

At least the advantage of RP is that I can repeatedly and futilly tell myself to take after Arthur or Ender or something.

Speaking of which, anyone see any good RP memes lately? I have a hankering.

It's only after an email from bakenius that I realised I haven't actually updated this journal in months. Which is weird, because there's been a lot of stuff going on - and I don't necessarily mean the positive kind.

Over the summer, I took up a job as an evaluator for a local company, interviewing people about their experiences with our work. It did the job - it got me some money and some more confidence in dealing with people - and that was about that. I was - somewhat clumsily - fitting back into school life when in mid-October I made a very unfortunate tumble and landed with my face on a desk, knocking two teeth out of my mouth and one into my jaw, fracturing it.

This was not pleasant.

Neither were the weeks following it, starting with extensive amounts of painkillers and mashed meat for dinner and winding up with me missing at least six weeks of education and papers and whatnot due to a variety of problems, some physical and some psychological. I'm struggling back up right now, but I'm hesitant to say it's going well because usually when I say that I take a nosedive and wind up worse.

I don't have any deep thoughts right now. I might have them at a later date. But updating y'all on what's up might be a good idea.

In the mean time, Colin and Bradley keep me (fannishly) happy.

My life in bullet points!

- Just sent in my assessment file for school. I already have a list of things that I know they'll tell me I have to redo, so I'm already working on that. Not as bad as I thought it'd be a few weeks back, when I was sure I was going to get kicked out, so yay to that.
- Am going to New York from August... 18th, I believe, to 27th. If any of you folks in the region would like to hang out, I'll be staying at rushin_doll's, woo, let me know.
- Star Trek is awesome, even to an old-school Trekkie like myself.
- My life is boring, but at least I've got a pretty skirt.
- I should never try to make gnocchi again in my life.
- Insomnia still sucks, and I need to get into sleeping more rather than trying to tough it out, because emotional spazzfits due to lack of sleep are not fun.

This about shows you how exciting my life has been recently. I wish I had something more extensive than that to write up, but I just wasted most of my 'Len recaps her life' mojo retroactively writing my progress reports for the past seven months. Yay, bullshitting skills!

Oh, y'all should also try watching Being Human. A werewolf, a vampire and a ghost move into a house. It is... not nearly as cracktastic as you'd think.

For I am a meme sheep:

( Character meme! )

Hell, toss in my OCs, too, if anyone wants to know about them. La.

Sooo I haven't been around here in a while. I figured I might as well toss up a meme and maybe some ramble to make up for it.

First, the meme:

Everyone has a character they feel connected to, whether it be in a book, movie, show or video game. But how do others perceive you? Have your f-list tell you a character they see you as, and maybe even explain why.

Secondly, me:

I'm coming up on the end of my second semester at my new school. Our methods are... haphazard to say the least; a lot of the time I feel like I'm lagging behind, except I'm not. It's just that things aren't organized, and nobody ever has any idea of who has what.

Still, I'm coasting along okay. I'm just a little secluded at this point-- halfway into forging some connections at school, but I've always been an odd duck socially to begin with. I think the certifiable answer here is 'I don't know'-- I've spent some nice train rides with my fellow students, but I'm too private a person to push beyond anything else.

Which is the state of me. I need something fun to do that isn't work or school or RP related, but most of my friends have vacated the country for the next couple of months. I'm trying to do some stuff with the family instead, but schedules are a biatch.

You know, it's utterly sad, but few things make me happier than the ending of Shawshank Redemption.

Except my brother and my mom watching it for the first time, and gleeing in utter surprise at said ending. It is a <3 worthy Christmas, indeed.

So the amazing rushin_doll is doing the 5-questions meme over at his journal, and he asked me some questions. I'd toss up the counter-meme (IE let ME ask you five questions) but I'm afraid I'll have to skip it for now due to the brainpain of doom.

Yes.

( Five questions from Ana! )

1) I absolutely, positively have to own Spore and soon. Even if I have no money. Seriously, it's everything I ever dreamed of in a game. (I have not at all been playing the amoeba-stage only version on my iPod all day. No. *cough*)

2) I have my final evaluation back from my omg VERY FIRST TERM of journalism. Grade is passing, commentary is, 'Len, you're very serious, you know a lot, and you can make that clear in a conversation. Sometimes, you can be a little bit more 'assertive' (using your own words), now you're often the expert in the field and yet don't show it that much in the discussion.'

On the blah side, it's not a 'Good' grade. Anyone who knows me, knows I'd eat my own gramma for a 'good' grade. Maybe next time.

On the good side, at least I'm passing classes again, unlike the past year and a half or so. So all in all, not bad.

3) I have a sausage sandwich, and it rocks.

4) I'm trying to watch that 'True Blood' show everyone keeps talking about, but I can't make it through ten minutes without laughing. It's all just a little bit too laid on thick for me.

On the other hand, How I Met Your Mother is absolutely awesome. It's like Friends, except actually good. I fully encourage people to watch it.

Aaand yet more from the icon meme, this time from damanique and kirke_novak...

( ICONSES AND EXPLANATIONSES! )

In completely unrelated news, I am now heading down to Brussels to hit up woodface for fries. HUZZAH!

In the interest of staying active...

Reply to this post and I will pick six of your icons.
Make a post (including this info) and talk about the icons I chose.
Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
This will create a never ending cycle of icon glee.

Aaaand spoonishly picked these: ( Whee, icons! )

So, I'm told I need to post.

I could say nothing interesting is going on right now, but that would be a ginormous lie. It's that time of the year again: World Cyber Games time. I'm in the press center in Cologne right now, waiting for the first StarCraft matches to finish, while today's band is playing loud music on central stage.

... Yesterday, they had a crappy acoustic band that covered the already-crappy (and infamous to mine ears) WCG theme, 'Beyond The Game'. You might recognize it from many a complaint made by me about how they cannot seem to stop playing that fucking song. Ahem. Yes.

I'm currently trying to determine whether giving up my computer to go watch the band on stage is a good choice. The music is kinda good today.

I'm just glad I missed the opera cover of the theme song. I can only imagine how that must've gone. And yes, I know it's already up on YouTube.

I JUST DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

So, yeah, I'm back from the States, and I'm now a week into my first year of journalism school. It's been both interesting and time-consuming, and I honestly don't have the energy to talk about it a lot right now. It's sufficient to say I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. It's... nice... to actually be learning something you feel you can apply later on in life.

I've also been watching a lot of How I Met Your Mother, which has kept my hormonal ass going over the past few days. That, and yesterday's high tea with maruchina and a couple of old friends, which was also awesome.

HIMYM makes me want to write a paper on the progression of the modern sitcom, though. The show is so late-00s/my-generation in its approach to the sitcom format it makes me happy in a great number of ways. It's filmed in a multiple-camera set-up, same as Friends, but the whole... attitude of the show is different.

If I find the time, I'll ramble on the subject more, but I'll divert your attention to the note above re: my energy levels. Yep.

First things first: I finally saw Wall-E yesterday; my mother and I had been planning to go see that one for a while now. It was probably the first time in a long time I bawled over a movie, and quite possibly the first time I've ever admitted it aloud.

I'm not even sure why. All I know is I spent most of that movie (and it is a gorgeous movie) with my heart making a big lump in my throat. I've been too out of the movie thing to make for much more of a review than that, but god, that movie got to me.

---

I find it's interesting how patterns keep repeating in my life, and by proxy, this journal. Of course, among the patterns is the constant push towards the future, the little changes I go through and all the stuff I wind up doing wrong and learning from later on.

But my attachment to music has always been so strong I inevitably find myself coming back to the exact same things, and with the current rebirth of my love of Anouk's music, I guess it was just a matter of time before I came back to this song.

'In The Sand'. The version she recorded in her kitchen with only an acoustic guitar for company.

The first time I ever heard it was a very, very long time ago. Back when my childhood friend Renee and I hadn't drifted apart, when she lived only a few streets away from me, before divorces and universities and desperate attempts to become adults. We both loved Anouk dearly-- we used to walk around singing the lyrics of 'The Dark' to each other during lunches and whenever the mood struck. She got a copy of Anouk's 'Lost Tracks' albums; I didn't have the money.

That's where I heard 'In The Sand' for the first time-- or at least, this version of it. The original was part of an album called 'Urban Solitude', which I loved more than life, but this stripped-down acoustic version always struck me the hardest. It was one of those songs that could make me cry, the kind of song I'd play over my headphones and I'd retreat to a corner of the room and sit there in the dark, repeating and repeating the song and singing quietly along.

It still hits me pretty hard. I'm sure at least part of it is familiarity, but there's also something about the song-- something some of the people reading this journal will have heard me wax poetically about in journal entries dating back to the Stone Age.

So some of these things just don't go away. I can't think of anything more comforting, even when they make me weep.

( Anouk - In The Sand. )

And then, of course, there's Nobody's Wife. Which needs no wax poetic, and I've pimped in previous posts, but hell, have another live version. I always pictured that if I ever joined a rock band, the first thing I'd do was put out a cover version of this song. Just-- because.

Ladies and gentlemen, as promised, pictures from my trip to the Azores. Woo! ( 23 pictures in neat lil' thumbnails. )

My good friend Mincho AKA mephiztopheles AKA bob_ofhydra stayed over here for what was planned as a five-day trip and wound up being two weeks-- he had trouble dealing with Germany. This entry isn't about that, as much as I enjoyed his visit; but during the course of it, he bought me a live DVD set of a performance by a Dutch singer called Anouk.

I have a strange relationship with my nationality.

I spend most of my time on the internet. A great deal of my friends and responsibilities are on here; they are my world. I watch American movies, I watch American TV shows, I listen to American music and I talk to my online friends about them. I make jokes about my 'Dutchicity', about orange and hats and pea soup. It's like living in an in-between area, where nothing is quite real: the US is a dream, my own home doesn't quite register.

I've gone to the US a couple of times, and it's bizarre to me. There's such a fundamental disconnect, because it looks just like the movies, because the people talk in ways you thought were only fiction, because there's street signs that look exactly like you watched in Lois & Clark that one time and there actually is a McDonalds on every corner when your own country only has about a dozen.

Nevermind the Denny's and Burger Kings and all the other crap.

There's a virtual image of the States in my mind that I can't quite define. It's Where My Friends Live, but somehow, that gets warped into Dutch day-by-day living for me; it's Where Stuff Happens, but that looks like an American movie. I have trouble adjusting when I'm there. American life feels fake. It feels like it shouldn't be, like it's just some dream that got built up.

And then there's me. And then there's the Dutch. I spend so much of my time online that I feel detached a lot of the time, and then suddenly something triggers it. A TV show that looks the way I know life to be, a movie that doesn't have the same taboos as the American movies I usually watch do, a foreign friend baffling at the fact that the stores are closed on Sundays and I sometimes can't get a pizza during the summer.

It's like getting snapped back towards yourself. The Dutch give themselves a lot of slack about a whole variety of things-- they talk about seperations of culture, or being global, or any number of ways that denies or looks down on a cultural identity. It's an oxymoronic situation, because on the other hand, we're very proud. We have our own ways, and on some level-- although I speak only from my own experience-- every other way gets an eyeroll and a 'Eh, repressed savages'.

Our comedians are different. Our singers are different. Our writers are different. There's a thousand themes no American writer ever touched that we touch every single day. And sometimes, in these moments, it hits me, and suddenly I'm no longer in-between: I know who I am because I know where I come from, and I know where the people around me come from.

The next day, it'll fade, and I'm back to making silly cracks about oranges. But the core of it remains, and I can get indescribably, not-quite-understandably ecstatic about it. It's like having amnesia and remembering who you are; it's knowing that there's a lot of people who have never experienced life the way you and the people around you do. It's a stupid, silly thing, but it means so much to me that sometimes it makes me cry.

I'm an odd woman. But I know I'm proud that I know a million American (hell, a million foreign) movie gods and rock stars, and still I feel she is the most gorgeous public figure alive.

I'll never have quite the words for it, but that's how it is.

(For the Dutch amongst us: yes, I'm enough of an Anouk fangirl that I own all the live DVDs. If simply for the renditions of 'Nobody's Wife'. *wistful fangirl sigh* I sang that song along like a theme song of my life when I was eleven, and it'll never lose that quality for me)

So. I'm 22 as of today.

I am officially Past My Prime.

Commiserate with me, akiyasan!

I have cook books and a pie and hygiene products, because apparently between this year and the previous one, I have turned into a girl.

One:

4-1. Four to one against the French. And I thought the three - nil against the Italians were insane. Holy crap, we're qualified for the quarter finals! How the fuck did this happen? Next week's going to be fuuuun.

Two:

The Guardian's recap of last night's France - Netherlands game made me laugh out loud. Thus, I must share.

Three:

Am restless as hell again lately. Not completely sure what's up. Oh well, let's just hope this mood goes quickly and stops bothering me. I blame being too sick to go to the gym last week.

And we start the Eurocup on a nice, totally unexpected 3-0 against the Italians. HOLY FUCK.

I have no comment except that we rock hardcore right now. Pretty awesome game, and we showed those fuckers every corner of the field. HUZZAH.

Some Eurocup thoughts:

1) Dear Czechs: You know you guys are my boys.

Well, my second set of boys. Naturally, the Orange must come first, for I am a patriotic little squirrel. But I've been rooting for you guys since Euro '04, and I am not willing to let you go. If simply because you people have the best keeper in the world that isn't Van der Sar.

But! Just because you have Cech DOES NOT MEAN you can simply run about like brainless morons, allowing the enemy to GET ALL THE WAY TO THE GOAL before the poor man deflects the ball. He's not a one-man defense, here.

In other words, dear Czechs:

PLAY BETTER.

I am rooting for you, dammit.

2) I better see at least one team kick the snot out of Portugal. Kind of like we did in that ill-fated game back in '06 that launched a Dutch football hatred to transcend even the one we hold against the Germans.

...Yes, I realise we were mean shits in that one, too, but dear lord, that doesn't mean I don't deserve to see Ronaldo cry again at least once. C'mon.

I might be somewhat of a vindictive person.

3) I'm going to have to upload some Oranje icons again. Right now all I've got is the Van der Sar one, and while I love Van der Sar like pie, the goalie uniform doesn't leave much space for the actual orange.

First game tomorrow. Dammit, van Basten, you better not let us down this time.

4) Yes, friendslist: it's that time of the-- biannual again. Beware the footie talk, and I owe whoever wants to come watch a game with me a beer. (For those of you not around to witness me rave and ramble during World Cup '06? I think all I have to say is that I inspired polls.)

To: Daniel Way
Subject: Re: Deadpool in Wolverine Origins and beyond

Dear mr. Way,

Please just stop.

My sincerest weepings,

A Deadpool fan.

---

To: Duane Somethingorother
Subject: Re: The new Cable series & upcoming Cable solicits

I got nuthin'. Seriously.

Nuthin'.

All my nuthin's,

A Cable fan.

---

To: Flist
Subject: Re: Untitled post

Hey, kids! Guess who just caught up on comics today!

Hint: Follow the sound of headwalling.

So. Yes. I'm going to be trying to be writing a little more frequently, again-- I can make no promises, but hopefully I'll be able to manage something that's got a little more body to it than the past year or so of posts.

The reasons for my absence have been pretty obvious, I think-- fandomhigh's been eating up most of my internet time, and it's been both fun and utterly, utterly terrifying. I'm a perfectionist at heart, and while I've done OC RP in the past, once it's characters with an established canon, things get a little... tricky. I've talked about this before, so I won't go into it much more, except to note that it is a really bad idea to read the RP journals of other people playing the same characters as you.

Bad Len. No biscuit.

Really, as far as neurosis goes, I'm probably a very lucky woman for mostly playing characters just obscure enough that they don't come up much.

The amount of comics I read has gone down over the past year or so, too, to the point where right now, I'm not picking up anything except the increasingly painful new Cable series, and Deadpool's equally painful stint on Wolverine Origins-- and I think I do that mostly so I can hide and pretend half of the year's canon never really happened (although I have been slowly making my way through some of the old stuff-- oh, Age of Apocalypse).

For one thing, they appear to have removed about 75% of Cable's brain mass and 95% of Deadpool's character development right there.

Interjecting randomly: This is the best picture ever made of me. Swears. Thank you, maruchina.

Then, there's the matter of school, which I'm simply not feeling anymore. I've been struggling with it since the issues at home started, and I'm about ready to throw in the towel on my major. I had the first actually engaging class in over a year yesterday, and that's simply not enough to tide me over to stay-- so I'm starting to look into new majors, new schools, and possibly new experiences.

That doesn't mean I want to run from the path I've had in mind-- it just means I'm going to have to take some time to think about how to get there.

Finally, this one class I have that is engaging is taught by an MIT professor who geeked out at me when he caught me reading my Cable & Deadpool trades and then encouraged me to keep up the analysis, so I may or may not be spamming you all with meta in the near future.

Mmm, meta.

So, flist. Iron Man: awesome comic book movie, or awesomest comic book movie?

I think I have some vague memories of hating Tony Stark's guts before, but they all seem to have been BLOWN OUT OF MY MIND (at least until I actually start buying 616 comics again, no doubt).

Seriously. Any of you Dutchies want to watch this movie? I VOLUNTEER TO COME ALONG EVEN IF I ALREADY HAVE SEEN IT TWICE.

I also appear to be booking way too many vacations this summer (ZOMG CHICAGO/MICHIGAN AUGUST 2008, PEOPLE!) and I think that with the weather right now, Len is going to have to head back to the 'sit around in tubs of cold water' approach to studying for my exams.

Yes, this is seriously all I have to report of the past few weeks.

Except that my brother bought a drumset. When he's never drummed in his life. Or knows how expensive a cymbal is. He's very special.

Okay, so cantralian is doing this week-in-the-life meme (which I believe was previously stolen from anomilygrace and no doubt goes down the internet genealogy). Six to eight pictures of your life with just titles and time stamps.

I'm not much for a rule book, so I'm just going to go with the two mentioned above and forget abou the rest, la la.

( Monday in Pictures. )

Lah dee dah.

Just a quick summation:

- Met up with my dad. Talked. Hung. It was oddly normal and oddly weird at the same time. Not entirely sure what to think. On the other hand? Bars and Guinness. May be upsides to this whole 'talking to dad' thing.

-lainey_chan hasn't been online in 24 hours. We worry.

-Still have diraskyria, though.

-Am planning to go to Maine for a week for summer school (screenwriting masterclass). Might end up sticking to Michigan/Illinois for a week afterwards if at all possible. Eep, States.

-Torchwood is on tonight. Last episode, but still.

-Bad: Am retreading old patterns of insecurity. Good: Am retreading old patterns of writing by following the writing tag on my journal.

-Popcorn with garlic and olive oil is cool.

-Am star at Guitar Hero. Except for those stupid damn metal songs on Expert. I hate them. Less of a star at: actual guitar.

-Also good? Coffee. And Utrecht sandwich bars, which serve good coffee AND sandwiches. Nom nom.

-Think gym instructor hit me with sticks yesterday. She didn't, to my eyes and ears and general memory, but my body claims otherwise.

-Still ship Cable/Deadpool. Possibly need shrink.

-Still love this icon. Miss the days that DMZ showed promise.

Arthur C. Clarke's dead.

I usually don't pay a lot of attention to the deaths of celebrities, but that one? Yeah. I've been a sci-fi geek since I've been able to read-- Dutch, at first, then English. And Arthur C. Clarke has always been the one name I remembered.

I won't say I'm going to 'miss' him, because in a way, he might as well have been dead since the last book he wrote. But I am going to say his passing saddens me, because what he did write has meant a great lot to me.

I also have to write today because I spent a lot of time talking to my mother - and to rushin_doll - today. And I have to say-- for the world at large, at least--

I'm an ambitious motherfucker.

I'm an absolutely terrified ambitious motherfucker.

But I'll never quite be happy like this.

This summer, for better or for worse, I'm going to do something new.

anomilygrace asks for 'something that makes me happy'.

That's a loaded one, right there.

I'll disregard the implication - if there is any at all, and it's not in my head - that I don't already write about these things.

Does that mean I should pick something? I've had numerous prompts to write about things that engage me. But 'something that makes me happy' is broad.

So what makes me happy, then? What makes me happy is the idea of tectonic plates, shifting across, eternal layers always in flux. What makes me happy is a basket of garlic bread after three pints of Guinness in a pub. What makes me happy is the first time my film team reads over my script and babbles about all the things in it they like.

What makes me happy is making a joke and causing people to laugh. What makes me happy is getting in a car and driving for miles just to see Marijn and Payway, because I love to drive and because I've loved those two guys since Pay and I screamed 'SHEEP!' at the hordes standing outside the 013 concert place years ago.

What made me happy six years ago was coming to school to start an argument with one particular boy every day. What made me happy four years ago was going to see the Dubliners with my dad. What made me happy two years ago was seeing one particular girl light a borrowed cigarette in a shitty pub.

What makes me happy is small moments, like stepping outside in the morning and smelling the rain, or sitting on my own by the side of the river, or having a cup of tea in the morning. What makes me happy is writing something in perfect rhythm, character beats in a stream of well-paced staccato images. Of reading, or watching, anything that does this, but better, well-timed, one character moment flowing out of another, organic dynamics that evolve and spark off each other like fireworks.

Sailing. Listening to 'Venus in Furs' over and over with a couple of whiskeys in me and my head full of rhythm. A good insalata caprese with a spaghetti carbonara come attached. Being so angry it fills every fibre of my being, only to see it crash against the rocks in fever-pitch and rain down around me. Fighting, moving, breathing, throwing my ass to the wind.

A lot of things make me happy.

I just know I always have to take it with the sad, too; and I'd rather be that than content.

rushin_doll asked that I blog about my future ambitions.

So. ( Cut for lotta babble. )

So arnoudens asked for a blog on the following subjects. I'm afraid I'm going to end up disappointing you horribly, Arnoud...

I'm not in love with anyone. Haven't been for a long while now. I ogle girl's behinds in the gym. I had a hot German guy for a professor a while back and enjoyed watching him teach. But that is, for all intents and purposes, the extent of my 'romantic' life.

When I fall for someone, I fall pretty hard-- have to argue with them every day, or it's not a fun day. Call them in the middle of the night like an idiot because I need to hear their voice. It lasts for long stretches of time, and then when it's over-- bam. It's over.

And it takes a while, if it does at all, to happen again. Some people are barely over one person or the next week they've got another; my brain doesn't function that way. It's usually years.

As for Fitna-- I have to say I'm a little out of the loop on the entire subject (I've certainly not seen it, if it's out yet at all), but the one thing I can make mention of is that I find it the most over-the-top case of attention mongering I've seen in... ever.

You've got three quarters of the world waiting with bated breath to see if someone gets killed over this one, at this point-- Wilders has gotten all the attention that he wanted, and he's gotten it by being a complete idiot and repeatedly jumping up and down on a hot button. I suppose time will tell if there's a bomb attached.

Which is all I can really say on the matter-- I grew up going to school in a Morrocan neighbourhood, and I've never found it easy to reconcile my various contradictory images and notions of Muslim people in a way that made sense-- as a 'standpoint'. All I can see is that I've seen the ways in which that culture meshes with the Dutch, and the ways it really doesn't-- I've seen how Muslim boys can easily jump to threatening and violence at the drop of a hat, and I've eaten bread and jumped rope with one at his house just behind my school.

It's a severely complex issue, and really, Wilders isn't doing us any favours by reducing it to such an idiotic black/white question.