2008 - 2009

The last minutes of 2008 are ticking away. It has been a year with ups and downs, happiness and joy but also tears and pain. People close to me went to heaven, but also new friends that came into my life.

Let me take a moment to thank people that inspired me the past year:

Mom and dad for feeding me a year long, giving me a bed to sleep in, clothes to wear and books to study. Wouldn't want to trade the two of you for any other parents.

Dear Lolu, I have no idea what I would do without you. You always prevent me from flying too high, and when I do fly high, you put my two feet back on the ground. So thank you for your cruelness and support throughout these past few years. You are much more than a friend, you are like a sister to me. May all your wishes come true sweetie pie.

Chris, it has been a while since we last had a long conversation, but I haven't forgot the good old days we used to share. I'm sure that you will win that state championship next year, or what was the thing you lost in San Fransisco?

Laye, I only recently met you but you have brought me so much laughter with your dance class! From now on when I hear 7 Seconds by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry, I will be thinking about you.

Dieter for all the jokes we shared and for the times he succeeded to pull my legs. Whenever someone mentions New York, I will always think about your funny and funky dreads you work so well. Good luck with your last year Medical School, I know you have the brains to succeed!

Tinashe for being one of my eldest friends and never shouting at me, even though I may have had some annoying moments this past year.

Tim and Henry for keeping me company during those boring classes, I am sure the professors noticed us, whether that be in a positive or negative way. Dimitri for telling me the history of Royal Antwerp Football Club. Amilla for fulling my inbox with questions about class otherwise I wouldn't have opened a book during the year. Uduak for the beautiful blog entries you shared with us, ... And basically everyone who contributed a thing to my life.

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Happy 2009 everyone

Whores, pimps, players and hustlers

This is the last time I am going to the local supermarket on a Saturday morning. From now on I am going to the large megamarket in town. What happened? Well allow me to explain! I was doing the groceries shopping and I was in the fruit department when someone, who I believe was an Italian man or at least mastering the Italian language, came up to me and offered me 5.000 euro to sleep with him. If my hands weren't full with all sorts of vegetables, I would have bitch-slapped his face. I know I shouldn't be insulted by this lame event, but yet it is seriously bugging me. I feel insulted and degraded. If I had been wearing this high heels combined with a deep décolleté and short skirt, fine I might have understood, but I was wearing this old jeans with large sweater and didn't even took the time to brush my hair decently before leaving the house! From now on I rather wait in line to check out than going to a local store filled with grannies and Italian losers. Enough nabbing, forget about it.

Did anyone of you saw The Longest Yard? Do I laugh because it is actually a funny movie or because it is so horrible that it became miserably funny? I must confess, Cornell Haynes still got the body lol!

Xmas/NY survey

I was reading this gossip magazine and found this questionnaire so I was thinking to myself “let my fill it in and post it on my blog”. So here I go:

Who is, to you, the most remarkable person of the year and why?

Barack Obama, no doubt about that. Instead of campaigning against the opponents, something McCain/Palin often did, he campaigned about his own strategies. He will not be able to fulfill all the promises he made because of the crisis and the political games, but he will surely bring much needed change.

What event, positive or negative, has touched you most in 2008?

Negative things are always very easy to find. Near and far but for once I will look at what goes wrong in my own country first. It is über-childish that politicians rather blame each other in time of economical crisis than to put aside all the beefs and work together to find a way out of this mess. Another negative event was Europe refusing to send troops to eastern Congo (because it doesn’t benefit them, just say it Sarkozy!).

What was the best book, best CD and best movie of 2008?

Book? What’s that? All jokes aside, I did not read a book this year, well besides the obligated school stuff. If you want to know what books you should read, or not read, ask my soon to be lawfully wedded husband. He is the bookworm.

Some months ago I posted a blog entry about the best CDs of this year and I haven’t changed my mind. Not a single album that kept me interested for more than 4 tracks except for Love Behind the Melody (Raheem Devaughn) and The Way I See It (Raphael Saadiq).

I’m probably the only creature on this planet that doesn’t say “Batman” was the best movie of 2008, but still I’m going to say it: I don’t like Batman! Don’t really have a favorite movie this year…

What do you wish for your fellow bloggers in 2009?

Love, peace and happiness. May all your wishes come true.

What do you wish for yourself in 2009?

He knows my wish...

Did you make any good intentions for the New Year?

Yes, not to get agitated by the train delays! And the normal stuff: study harder, complain less, drop some pounds, ...

Season's greetings

Merry Christmas to everyone.
May this day bring you blessings.
May you be able to spend this with the people you love,
Because I know how hard it is,
Not being able to be close to the person you cherish most.

Christmas mood

Imagine this dark grungy place in the open. Face to face with the opponent, your biggest enemy to defend your kingdom. You are standing there, breathing heavily underneath your iron armour. With a loud scream you start running, swaying the long and sharp sword you are torching. Chopping of the arms and legs of everyone who comes near you. Blood gushing everywhere…

Now does this sound like a sequel of Braveheart starring Mel Gibson? Change the armour into shopping bags, the grungy place into a shop and the kingdom to Christmas gift and you know how Christmas shopping looks like. The fun loving Christmas spirit everyone adores so much. I still don’t get the charm of it after all these years…

Monday I had to get to Antwerp town to get some stuff done and I spend more than 3 hours at the MoneyGram office. Seems like everyone wanted to send or receive money to/from relatives. It was bloody hot inside the tiny office that was way too crowded. I had some laughter though! First there was this too cute kid with curly hair that was constantly kicking the door, future topscorer to be no doubt about that. Then there was this guy who thought he was Snoop Doggy Dogg. For real, he was wearing this white fur jacket with a purple suit, crocodile leather shoes and his hair straightened. Ah I love this multicultural town!

Talking about being smart, I don’t understand these writers slash journalists slash professors. We need to read this article for our exam and it is 500 plus pages. Now see I don’t call this an article anymore. This is what I call a big fat m*th*rf*ck*ng book! 500 pages isn’t an article anymore man! Be reasonable.

Anyway, my chocolate pudding is waiting on me in the fridge.

Gnomes are among us

I'm suffering from amnesia I think. I was 100% certain I had 200 euro left and today I have been looking everywhere and I only found 150 euro. I counted it 3 weeks ago before paying my laptop and I am certain it was 200 or even more. I'm starting to believe the gnome stories are real or that the gnome isn't as tiny as the story goes but is around 1m70 and has short spiky hair!

I always hated to be boring and the same as anyone else. A good prove of that is my dear beloved maccie! I customized every single icon and button on the damn thing! Blinged it up because the standard ones looked kind of ... bland. For example, this is how my documents icon looks like (see picture). Cute isn't it? I know it is absolutely girly and all but it's funny to turn something standard into something unique.

Going to bed now. Eyes are getting heavy. Nite nite.

Black pudding

Just got in from the family reunion. Yes the reunion... I know I swore not to go but these were my moms exact words: "either you get your ass to the reunion or you can kiss your laptop and phone bye bye for the next one or two months". That always works on me because she knows my laptop is holy to me! My phone is could have, but my laptop? Hell no! Two months without hubby Sheriff and sweetie pie Lolu (or is it Tolu?) would be unbearable for me! The phone she could have though... I hope she would lay it beside her bed. I would secretly sneak our land line phone to my bedroom and call her all night long on a private number! Payback time!

The family seems to be growing every year. Some had given birth, other ones are pregnant... New girlfriends and fiancées, ... Next year it will be my time to introduce the newest member of the family. No need to have panic attacks just yet hubby... They may look scary but they are nice people once they ate their black pudding! Oh for those who wonder if my stomach survived the pudding, I only ate the warm cherries.

Sometimes you wonder why lawyers always strive to make their texts so non-understandable! When they can choose between two words that mean exactly the same, they choose the difficult one. It is such a torture when you want to read the text in a faster tempo because it results into you understanding nadda about what you just read. Just make the damn text easy to read, that would save me loads of time!

There was this sad Christmas movie on television last night. The tittle was This Christmas Shoes and it was about a boy wanting to buy shoes for his mother who was dying. The tittle song was sung by Newsong and was just as sad as the movie itself. Could not imagine how it must feel to loose your mother as a young child.

The year is almost over again so if any of you have best/worst questions, make sure you post them because it is list time!

Does every post need a tittle?

First we needed more than 140 days to set up a federal government, now it already resigns after the Fortis - Paribas debacle. Yesterday and today, there was secret information leaked about the then upcoming report of Court of Cassation, our highest/supreme Belgian court. One of our ministers tried actively to influence the ruling so this is a serious violation of the separation of powers. So what will happen now? Of course the King has the right to refuse the resign but what is more important is that there will be measurements to overcome the economical recession. I wonder what the foreign press will write about is this time. Most foreign people who I talked to these last year thought there was a huge civil war between the Flanders and Wallonia because that is what the press insinuated. This while most of us, whether we are Dutch, French or German speaking, don't even think in terms of languages or sub-states.

14 years after the Rwandan Genocide, the assumed brain behind the Genocide former colonel Bagosora was sentenced to a life imprisonment by the Rwanda Tribunal, ITCR, in Arusha, Tanzania. It was remarkable that Bagosora was not held responsible for preparing the Genocide due to the lack of evidence. Together with Bagosora, two other former militarians (Ntabakuze and Nsengiyumva) have been sentenced to a lifelong imprisonment. General Kaniligi, who was held responsible for the ground operation, was found innocent. This was also remarkable and very negative because this trial was supposed to held the whole Rwandan army responsible for the slaughter that put an end to the life of more than one million Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Hutu, plus that the Genocide was well orchestrated.

Yesterday, Mark Felt died. Many of you may not know who he is, but he was Deep Throat (Watergate Scandals). It is before my time, but if I remember correctly, it leaded to Nixon resigning after the House of Representatives started the impeachment procedure. This was after key information about the speeches of Munskie were leaked which benefited both the much too radical McGovern and also unpopular president Nixon. Thanks to these leaks, McGovern got the Democrats nomination and Nixon got re-elected. Right? Correct me if I am wrong.

Enough news updates. Today I went to see soccer training with Dimitri. Lord knows what came in my mind, but he was able to convince me to go see this horrible sports! Now he is one of the very few none African people I talk to. Maybe because he clearly knows seducing me won't have any effect one me... Anyway, I had loads of fun! We cracked it up and laughed until our stomachs hurt! He was teasing me every time one of the African players jogged by, nudging me and asking whether I liked the view or not. He is so evil! I must say little Kenmogne looks better each year, but still I wasn't paying too much attention to him because Sheriff was lingering in my mind. It felt good to be outside, away from all the bad thoughts. This evening I felt a strong move in the right direction though. We shall overcome, no doubt about that.

Some pictures from the training

Emmanuel Kenmogne

Coulibaly, Gbarssin, Kenmogne and Van Trier

RAFC training

Bleeding love

I know I have been away from the blogging action a while but I have my reasons. Some of you may know why, while others can't see through this happy faced facade. Because that what it is, a facade. To the outside world I pretend to be fine, but once I am alone, I can throw off the facade and let the tears roll over my eyes and release all the pain I have inside. I've always been a strong caracter, but this is really tearing me apart. I often feel guilty for letting my feelings flow like this, but I cannot help it because the feelings are too deep and strong.

I got my exam schedule last week Friday and this one is the best schedule ever. I hope to pass all my exams without a re-sit in September because that would suck very much so. Not that I am not used to it but for once it would be nice to pass them... Lifting up the moral that is.

Some days I was really into the whole Christmas thing but now it just makes me sick! I just hope these days will be over very soon. And about this Saturday, I am not attending the family reunion and I won't make up any excuse. I don't want to attend and they better live with it. Whether they like it or not!

For those who notice some slight agitation in my tone, yes you are correct. I'm a wounded animal who is hurt and scared. Plus it is the time of the month so better not work against me.

Public transport: $@%*^

I got a new slogan for the Belgian Railways. It goes like this: "Belgian Railways - Always a great adventure and good for your physics, but not for your mood". Story goes like this, this morning I got to the station when the station speaker blasted that the train to Antwerp Central station had a 25 minute delay and that the passengers were advised to take the train to Brussels South and get off in Lier. So I was running from the front of the rails to the back, took the stairs and ran to rail 5. So far so good. Once we arrived in Lier, it became one big catastrophe. The station speakers told that the first departure to Antwerp would be at rail 1. So yet again I ran the lungs out my body. Stairs down, stairs up. 5 minutes later the speaker announced that this train would not arrive at rail 1 but at rail 3. So yet again, from the front all the way back to the stairs and up to rail 3. Finally the train arrived at rail 3. We all got in that train when the train conductor announced that this train would not leave the station because the change of guard was too late and that we had to leave the train. So now everyone got kind of mad. We all got off and heard the next train to Antwerp would be on rail 1 in 5 minutes. So we ran to rail 1 yet again and when the train arrived, we were denied access with the excuse that the train was already full. 10 minutes later, the train I normally take arrived. So basically I better waited in my home town instead of running around in Lier. At the end I arrived in Antwerp with a 45 minutes delay and missed the first 20 minutes of class.

Luckily there were no delays anymore on the way home. But I was still in a fairly bad mood and there was this one guy with his speakers on loud sitting next to me so I'm now having a terrible headache of the punk rock music he was blasting. Then there was sitting this old woman across me who was snoring like she was cutting the Amazon forest. It really got on my nerves. Last but not least was this one person who was farting like shit. It smelled disgusting! Damn you would almost start to believe it is Friday 13th instead of Friday 12th. Or is it Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives (Anything that can go wrong, will — at the worst possible moment)? At one moment in time, I even wanted to take the train or bus, whatever came first, back home. Luckily I didn't because class was extremely interesting.

We had this guest speaker, I believe he was from Serbia or at least from a former country of Yugoslavia. He worked for an United Nations related organization, or so I was told because I missed the introduction part and the person sitting next to me did not master English very well. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was a great class and I had the best time ever listening to what he was telling. Afterwards there was a discussion were he defended his presentation. I kind of envied that guy for having this great profession. I would love to work for the UN too, or work for a NGO doing UN related work. It must be the best job ever!

Terroristic threat

I'm not this type of girl that is worrying for her safety all the time. Last year there have been three bomb threats in Antwerp Central station alone and I never feared it, but today I got kind of worried though. There have been 14 people arrested who are suspected of having links with the terror group al Qaeda. Oh and the good part is that these arrests are the result of last year Christmas! Let's see, that is almost one year ago and now there are caught... Finally! There were clear signs that they would do a suicide attack one of the next days. I'm feeling so releaved that our own police needs 1 year to eliminate a possible terroristic threat. Such a safe feeling. Sigh...

Ever realized how easy it is to spread a rumor and make everyone believe it? Some year spread the gossip that we would not get our exam schedule before Dec. 20th and all of the sudden many students ran to the secretary to file protest. Turns out this was one misunderstanding caused by a I-heard-it-from-this-guy-who-heard-it-from-that-guy-who-heard-it from-that-guy... You know how it goes, a story that gets to live its own life but that is mostly not accurate.

You may not believe it, but I am blogging live from the bathroom. No I am not in bath and I still have all my clothes on, but this is the only room where we have a large heatening element The ones in the living room or kitchen are only small ones that are not enough to warm up your back, but the one from the bathroom is. The warmth on my back feels lovely and relaxing.

It is so obvious that Christmas is nearing because you cannot switch on the television without seeing this advertise for woman's perfume. No wonder most men always give these classic gifts because they are almost slapping your head with it!

Jingle Be-e-e-e-e-lls

I think for the first time in my 3 year university career, I did not mind I missed my first train home after class because I had the best time ever. I was laughing, joking and having fun with some people I know from class. Well actually it started during class. No one was really paying attention, so we started chit chatting very softly so we would not bug anyone. Damn we talked about some very random stuff but yet it was funny as hell. Some subjects that passed the revue were Christmas trees, vacation plans, exams and loads of other things. I'm sure you may wonder how those subjects can possibly be funny, but believe me, we cracked it up. Then it hit me though. This little feeling coming from deep down inside that makes my mind travel through time and space to a place far away. Not really a place, but a person. I closed down a bit and sunk away in deep thoughts. Don't get me wrong, I like the direction my life is heading to. I got a great education and most of all, I have this wonderful person supporting, respecting and loving me to death. It feels so great to love someone who feels the same way for you as you feel for him. I found this song that matches my feelings right now. Does anyone know of you know the movie An Officer and A Gentleman? There is this song sung by Joe Cocker and I believe Jeniffer Warnes that is called Up Where We Belong. There has been a remake of this song by BeBe and CeCe Winans and I adore it. It goes like this:

Who knows what tomorrow brings
In a world, few hearts survive
All I know, is the way I feel
When it's real, I keep my pray alive

The road is long
There are mountains in our way
But we climb steps every day

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry, on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know
Up where the clear winds blow

Sounds beautiful right? I have another one. Lean on Me, originally from Bill Withers I believe, or was it Al Green? Doesn't matter because the lyrics are great.

Sometimes in our lives we all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can't carry
I'm right up the road
I'll share your load
If you just call me

When I was on the train home, I was staring outside and, because it was already dark, most people had lighted their Christmas decoration. Can't help it but when my car got stuck in traffic, I put on the good old "Jingle bells" song. Christmas is in the air and I adore it. When I got home, I took a quick shower and afterwards I jumped into the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate and my lappie, overlooking our mighty decorated tree with the hundreds of twinkling lights. I confess, it is a fake tree but you don't notice it that much because it is fully loaded. Only it smells like plastic instead of nature. On the other hand, it doesn't drop its needles so that means less cleaning! So looking at the pro and contra indications, plastic is perfectly fine!

I still have one week left to fake this mysterious illness so I can skip Christmas at my grandma. Black pudding ewwww! Flu would be too obvious and would also mean I can't eat muffins for some days otherwise they will notice I faked. Migraine ain't possible neither because I barely have head aches unless I have not slept for days. What else can I fake? I so need to find something otherwise the delicious, cough, black pudding will put an end to my young life before it even started! Whoever invented that food, if it can be categorized as food, must have had the most horrible taste ever. No disrespect to anyone who likes black pudding, but it tastes really pukey (invented a new word just now).

Should be going to bed soon because again, our professor has a meeting at 11h and he is going to start earlier tomorrow. It is really unfair! HE has a meeting during his college hours and WE have to get our asses up earlier. Un-un-unfair!

Nite nite Lolu, you know you are my gurl! Nite nite all my other readers, you guys are great. Happy 60th anniversary UN Declaration of Human Rights! May your next anniversary bring improvement so your words won't only remain words but also hard actions to fight injustice.

iBiatch

A long mouth stretched wide open yawn followed by nudge to keep myself awake. It's winter again and my body is struggling to recharge its batteries. In summer I only need a 5-6 hours sleep a night because the sun keeps my energy level high enough, but during winter, I'm almost sleeping all the time. Struggling to keep yourself warm takes up a lot of energy y'all! But back to yesterday evening. Everyone who knows me knows I am a night owl who hates going to bed early. Well yesterday I went to bed at 9h15! So I slept almost 11 hours last night and still I had to drag myself out of bed this morning. When I got back home, I even postponed decorating the Christmas tree, my favorite part of the whole holidays, just to catch some extra sleep. Stupid cold, stupid lack of sun, stupid snow,... Climate change, right???

So today I bumped into an old classmate from back in high school. Great to see she is still this small minded trashy whore she always used to be. Yeah I never been really best buddies with her and other classmates for various reasons. Reason one was because she was this crazy Hitler fan. Can you imagine those people still exist? Sigh! Reason two goes way back until the 5th grade, one year before graduating... This was my first year at that school because I studied in another school the past 4 years. I don't know why, but from day one they have been hating on me for standing up for a black girl, who barely spoke one word of Dutch, when she being threatened my her gang of racists. So this was the start of the whole beef. It got even worse. I'm this type of student who does what she is supposed to do, nothing more, nothing less. So this means that when we have to write a paper, will hand it in on time. But it seems that there was some secret ode among the other students not to obey the deadline. It seemed to be an obligation to hand in the paper one week later than you were supposed to hand it in. I broke this ode and always handed it in on time, while they refused to do so. Every time, they got a zero and who was to blame? Right, I was. It was all my fault that they had a zero. If I did not hand in my paper on time, they would never received that zero. I never payed much attention to what they said until one day I ended up having chewing gum in my hair. Now this was the turning point. I was so angry that I just told them, straight in the face, that if they wanted to act like a "grown up" (read: rebellious teenager) and disobey the deadline on the paper, they should just go ahead but they had to face the consequences like a grown up and not blame someone else. It probably not may be a surprise, but I was also blamed for the fact that more than the class failed that year and that I graduated first of the whole school that next year. But heck now it's my fault that students who lived weekend to weekend failed their exams. You would be surprised how many of them had to skip Monday classes because they still had a hangover from Saturdays.

Tomorrow it's the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 60 years have passed, many good things have happened since, but yet there is still a very long way to go.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

It sounds so nice when you read it. One peaceful world were everyone can live life to the fullest. But words are only words. Examples of violations are very easy to find, even over here in Belgium.

I'm in a fairly bad mood right now. Today I had this discussion with a guy I know superficially and he was like "women need to know there place in society". Now this pisses me off! Women work hard to earn there place in society and men like that tell us that our place is at the bottom? Cleaning and cooking, nursing the kids and being uneducated? To hell with that. Women are equal to men and damn miss judge is present!

The holy day

December 6th, the magical day. At least magical if you are this little kid, anxiously waiting for the sun to arise so you could run to the living room and play with all the toys Saint Nicholas left you the past night. For those who are now frowning the eyebrows, Saint Nicholas is the European variant of Santa Claus. He comes every year on December 6th and brings gifts to the children who have been good the past year. And for those who have not been so good, there is always Black Pete and his huge bag... Damn it is such a bad story once you are all grown up, but as a kid we all believed in it. I remember I was even mad at my mom when I found out it was just a tale because she has been lying all these years, saying Saint Nicholas did exist. Thinking back about this, I should have known though! One example: it is common to leave a carrot at the chimney for the horse of Saint Nicholas, but every year on December 7th, we ate carrot mixed with mushed potatoes! Guess I now know who the horse was... Hehe! Luckily it was not a tradition to leave grass or straw because that wouldn't have tasted as good as carrots.

The tale of Saint Nicholas is already old and goes around for generations already, but yet it is very stereotypic and maybe even somewhat discriminating. Let me explain myself better. The story is about this old man that is surrounded by helpers, Black Pete's. This is already one of the stereotypes. The white man is the good old man while the black person is the helper. The higher rank becomes even more clear when Black Pete has to help Saint Nicholas on his horse. Sitting on a horse means you have a higher rank, just compare it with the Middle Ages when the officers and lords were sitting on their horses and the normal people had to fight by foot. Another example is that the white man gives the toys, while the black man carries the bag to put in the bad children. It's probably not meant this way, but the story needs a serious upgrade!

Am I a chatterbox who can't keep her mouth shut? I know I can talk quite much from time to time, but can I really chit chat so much that I can make someone fall asleep?

Do you remember when I told you some weeks ago about the blister I had from my new Guess shoes? It is still not healed and from time to time the wound even starts bleeding or loosing fluids. So whenever I wear shoes, I put on a bandage. Some days ago I started to show allergic reactions from those bandages. My skin was all swollen and itchy underneath the area where the sticky glue is. Now I'm really screwed. Either I have to wear a bandage and protect the wound, but then the reaction will even gets worse, or I will have to remove the bandage so the allergy can heal, but then the wound wont heal... It ain't fun to suffer for looking banging. Heck sneakers can look cute too and if there is someone who doesn't agree, I invite that person to try my blister and swollen/itchy skin!

Oh I went shopping today with my cousin. Mom ordered to find me some shoes for inside the house. You know, some slippers made of soft tissue. Not that I will often wear them because we have underfloor heating, so the floors are always warm and that means there is no need to wear the slippers. But I always listen to mommie so I bought these funny, yet soft slippers looking like bears. Dad seemed to find them kind of amusing because he tried them on himself. Some funny anecdote, does anyone have an idea of how old the underfloor heating is? No? Well they already had in the Roman Empire when slaves had to throw coal in large ovens under the house to keep the floor warm.

It's only 22h18 but yet I am already exhausted. I really need to catch some lost sleep because if I am completely honest, I have barely slept the last few days. All I could do was cry and stare in front of me. Even speaking was very hard. I was really in some kind of shock. My body was uncontrollably shaking, I could barely keep fluids inside and food made me run to the bathroom. I was really making myself ill with all the worrying and miserable feelings I had. But I am fine now. I'm still not fully done worrying, but I know that everything will get better soon. We will overcome.

I don't know how I got to think about this, but I just remember something one of our professors told us last year. He once was joking about what he does in his free time. It went like this: "What do you think us professors do after our working hours? Study and read publications? Not really... Some days ago I was on YouTube searching if I could find something about our University of Antwerp and guess what I found! One of my colleagues. Now I won't tell who it was so you will have to look for yourself." That is really tempting someone. I had my notebook with me so of course I logged on to YouTube to see who it was! This are the answers: prof. Velaers and prof. Vansweevelt. Ah good old cellphones with camera! Not even professors are safe in their own classrooms. Let them be warned when they try to fail us during oral exams!

There is a solution to any problem

Maccie - External Hard Drive: 1-1! I don't know who said it, but it seems to be true that there is a solution to any problem. Yesterday I wanted to back-up my notes from class and I had this not so pleasant experience. I could only read the drive but not write to it. After some googling, I came to understand that this was due to the fact that my External Hard Drive was coded NTFS. But as I pointed, there is a solution to almost any problem. There is this program called Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X that allows you to both read from and write to a disk without having to reformat it to FAT32 (which has a 4GB copy limit). So now I am able to tranfer files from Maccie to the HD, be it with a slow speed. That is least of my worries though. So are there any other problems that I need to be aware of?

I'm in a not so good mood right now. When I and a classmate left university around 12h45 were on our way to respectively the station and the bus stop, we were held by two older women, preaching us that we needed to be in class instead of skipping it. Saying we are wasting our future and that we will end up in jail or being junkies. We were both astonished that someone we don't know dares to say something like that. After her preaching, I served her this answer: "First, we are already 20 so don't treat us like children. Second, we are already in university so no one could care less if we attend class or not. Last but not least, class is already done for today and even if we had class later during the day, it wouldn't be before 14h00 so this means we would be enjoying our break and not skipping class". At that point we both turned our backs to the two noisy women, who obviously don't have anything better to do, and continued our voyage. I know I should just have nodded to their allegations and continued to the train station, but I felt completely insulted! Sometimes you wonder why people can't mind their own business...

So while I was having this problem with the HD, I started browsing through it and bumped on this documentary I thought I had lost years ago. But it wasn't lost, it was just greatly hidden in one of my 100 "new folders". I should really spend some time arranging and renaming the folders. Back to the documentary... The tittle of this documentary was Ghosts of Rwanda. It is about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the actions, or rather the lack of actions from the international community. It is really heartbreaking to see people testify and see the pain in their eyes. And then the lame excuses from the international community. The worst thing is that this is now going on in Congo. Deny it as much as you want, but the same thing is happening there. People are being slaughtered while the international community "negotiates". The word alone is giving me the creeps. It is strange that wars in Europe are always considered "great" wars or even "world" wars, while huge wars in Africa are "just" wars. I do recognize the differences between the Rwanda and Congo situations. While Rwanda 1994 was more a ideological war, this is all about the money. Is there anyone who still believes this is about ideals? Well it is not! It is all about the wealthy soil. Money. That is what this is about. The soil was also the reason why Belgium wanted to keep, I believe, the Katanga region. Soil was also the only reason why China was investing in Eastern Congo. It ain't about ideals, it is about profit. Last Saturday I found this interview with Nkunda in the newspaper. The tittle was something like "I am general De Gaulle of Congo". I have not yet read the whole article, but the tittle alone makes me feel nauseas. It is truly unbelievable what is happening over there and Belgium is prepared to send some military convoys to the region to do... humanitarian work! Can you f*cking believe that? The MONUC can't even handle the situation and we are only prepared the do some nursing and feeding because "we are suitable for it". Let's just forget the past, the slavery and the robbing we once did over there and go to bed with a reassured conscience because we are doing humanitarian work (mind the sarcasm).

Some posts ago I talked about the new exam schedule system they wanted to try out. Seems like I was not the only one who had some thoughts and remarks on it because we were asked to sign a petition and now we received the announcement that the try-out will be postponed and the old method will be used. Hopefully I have a good one this year and not a crappy one like the last 2 years.

My back hurts and I don't know how that could happen. It's right on spine, somewhere in the middle under my shoulder blades. Probably a wrong way of sleeping, walking or air conditioning. Or a combination of all the above. Mom advised me to use this Chinese Tiger Balsam she has for sore muscles. I used it once when I twisted my ankle and it makes your skin burn. That's how warm it gets. Plus it has this really heavy and intriguing smell you can't get rid off... What could help is a warm bubble bath followed by a long massage. S, would you like to volunteer?

There is this one girl from class that is really bugging me. She thinks she knows everything and only her way is the correct way. When I was discussing something with a girl we both know, I think it was about French constitutional law, she made this really stupid remark that showed how stupid she was, but at the same time she was offending me in public. This one girl asked if I noticed that the prof skipped a part in the time line. I responded that I did not yet study the subject so I had to check my notes first to give an accurate answer to her question. All of the sudden this other girl was like "Oh but you always claim to have this great notes so even if he didn't see it this year, you could always pass the notes from last year". I tried to explain her that last year, we had a different professor for that subject and that he had a different angle on the constitution. You know what her answer was? "Oh so now you are claiming that the history has changed?" in a loud voice so half the town could hear it. How ignorant can you be? I mean the history remains the same, but two people can give a totally different angle on the same event. It's not a French example but lets go back to Congo during the colonization. What did they teach is back in school: Belgium was this messiahs who brought civilization into the country. This is one point of view and the second one can be considered the total opposite: slavery, torture, ... But now back to the French constitution, as politician and lawyer you know you can read the same text in many different ways according to the time, event or the most favorable reading. This professor has a different point of view than the one from last year and if that is so hard to understand, maybe there is something wrong with her and not with me?

Going to install this AirPort update and afterwards having dinner. Tagliatelle with mushrooms and a soft creamy sauce. Peace.

First day of the last month of 2008

I love Maccie! Today I got PhotoShop, Illustrator and InDesign up and running! I'm now doing this little Indian type of dance around the table. Ha! Charlotte - Maccie: 1-0! Bite that bitches! Only still a bit annoyed about Windows Live Messenger for Mac, who refuses to broadcast webcam nor does it send nudges. Luckily Skype still works!

Update: Maccie - External Hard Disk 1-0

Another day full of riots in Jos, Nigeria. For some days now, Christians and Muslims are fighting each other. I'm not religious at all so correct me if I am wrong, but isn't religion ment to be peaceful? Respecting people, no matter what believe they have? Treating him just as you want to be treated? Forgive my ignorence if I just insulted someone! If it may be a comfort to you, I will probably end up in hell anyway...

From I Refuse to be Conventional

Today marks another milestone in the search for a cure against HIV/AIDS. It's the world Aids Day. We cannot pray enough or cry enough. Tears can no longer wash away the anguish we face from this disease. In the name of God; In the name of all that's good and just;

PLEASE FIND THE CURE!