Happy Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

The comeback kid

I think two years ago Belgium was mourning because one of our most successful tennis players, Kim Clijsters, decided to quit the game. It was not only her tennis skills that captured the hearts of many people, but it was also her spontaneous character and devotion the less fortuned people. She played games with disabled children, signed tennis balls, visited hospitals, adopted and Australian baby kangaroo, … All those little things made her one of the most loved players in the WTA-circuit. And now she is starting a second career! Yay! Now I have a player to cheer for during the US Open! Call it chauvinistic, but we are a very small country and we should be proud of our players.

Been having few busy days! On Monday I was in the hospital the whole day and then you just can’t get things done. Been watching cartoon network to pass the time, but the paper writing didn’t get along at all. On Tuesday I had to wake up early, had to go to the store to do the groceries and afterwards I had class from 2pm to 6pm. Yesterday I normally had class from 2-4pm, but it was postponed to 5-7pm. I refused to go though! I mean, the schedule is fixed last August, and now it is the end of March already. In the 6 weeks time (from half February when classes started again) until now, that guy has given his course only once on the regular hour! Why does he have to right to put an announcement on the internet (if we are lucky) the night before or if we have bad luck, the same day at the door, that class is postponed, sometimes even postponed for 4 hours! Any working human being knows that when you have a schedule, you have to respect that and not postpone it every time because you want to do other things at the time! Try it yourself, go to your boss and say you don’t agree with the hours and want to adjust them! I am sure that boss will just laugh at you and show you the door! Then why can he?! Today was yet another busy day. Because mom can’t do anything with her arm, I had to wash her hair. I think I ended up just as wet as her hair! Afterwards we went shopping and I bought this cute tunic! The neckline is totally adorable! Can’t wait for the weather to be burning hot!

So tomorrow is my birthday. The first one that dares to wish me happy birthday will be stoned to death! I just can’t help it, but I am feeling the birthday blues already. In 9 years time I’ll be 30 years old and in 29 years time I’ll be 50… A half century… All the wrinkles and gray hair… Wish I could be forever young… Forever young, I want to be forever young…

I’m so looking forward to next week Monday, March 30! I cannot tell why, but I am really excited! I might tell you later why I was this excited, but for now my lips are sealed!

Smashing fashion

Last year I fell in love with this yellow Dolce & Gabbana dress and I have regretted not buying it all summer long. It was a so pretty and girly, yet very expensive, a bit too expensive to be honest, even for a girl like me who can spend a lot of money on quality clothing. I know there will be some stock sales one of the following months, so I really hope I will be able to find that dress. Fingers crossed!

Shoes! I also need new shoes! The last few pairs I bought were so nice and all but my feet are killing me! For real, I can’t even walk on them for 10 minutes without having open flesh wounds all over the place. Whoever said beauty is pain was right…

Jeans, hate the new flared leg trend. See the skinny leg trend didn’t look on me because I am kind of short, the high waist jeans never fit because I have large hips but a small waist so it was either too small on my hips and good in the waist or too large in the waist and perfect on the hips. But now those so-called elephant legs… please no, don’t bring ABBA back!

What I do like this summer are the very female looking tunics. I just love the pretty and girly things. Either a loose one with this large colorful floral print combined with a monotone wooden necklace (you know, the one with the small balls) or a simple plain one combined with colorful and catchy shoes! Summer is so my favorite fashion season!

I do have one summer mission though! No actually two. The first challenge is to loose one more jeans size. The second challenge is to get tanned this summer so I can finally wear white for a change!

News or no news at all, that is the question?

And the answer to that question is huge and shocking news, but it is not yet ready to be posted. Soon though, very soon. I know, showing patience is not the most pleasant thing you can wish for, but I promise you the patience will be worth it. It will be a long, very long story with a huge shock-effect attached to it. Some may already know parts of it, but even for them, there will be many other things left to unveil. I cannot set a fixed date though; it can be tomorrow or in 6 months.

I am currently outside at one of the school’s open spaces and it is lovely. The first day of spring and the sun wants to show what it is worth, or so it seems. Everything is perfect, except for the guy with the cancer stick blowing his smoke in my direction. I don’t want class anymore, it is just too lovely outside to be stuck in some dark room with no natural light.

It is official; I hate men and their behavior. This morning, I was on my way to class and because the weather was already good, I left out my scarf. Now I was wearing this long blue sweater with a soft green with design shirt underneath it that was buttoned till just above “the” area. So it looked like you could see a lot, but in fact you could not see a single thing. Now there was this guy cleaning the street and at the red light, I had to stop and wait. Now the guy came up to me and was flirting, eyes pinned on my breasts. Am I some kind of sexual object?! Don’t think so!

Under the motto “screw your fellow student”, a real life story that happened at my own university last exam period, but that has only come to ears just now. Apparently, there was a student last January that has been cheating and used his phone to receive the answers on his exam. The girl, who was sitting three lines behind him, saw this and informed the professor about this after she had finished her exam. The other student has been called and had to appear in front of a judge. Result: a re-sit of all his exams of that year, even the ones he passed already. Golden rule: if you cheat, always delete the things on your phone as soon as you left the room!

In the mean while, the whole place is totally empty around me is totally empty. The only sounds I hear is the tapping of my keyboard and the ambulance that is driving around town. Only few more minutes and I’ll have to leave for class. Oh what a wonderful world this could be…

On the Pope, domestic violence and many more

I could not believe my ears when the Pope said the following few days ago:

“AIDS is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.”

This reminds me why I voluntarily choose not to believe in any religion whatsoever. Probably just to avoid adoring a “leader” that pronounces dangerous crap like this. Yes, dangerous! As a lawyer-to-be, I support freedom of speech big time, but when I read statements like this, I sometimes think that religious censorship might be introduced again. In law, you have to compare benefits. I rate the benefit of freedom of speech highly, but not high enough to overcome the possible negative/dangerous “benefits” from the statement. In Africa, the church is very important and when the “reincarnation-of-God-on-earth” says you should not use condoms, than that will most likely have a huge effect on people. So this can seriously undermine the work aid workers have been doing for years.

I’ve been keeping quiet about the Rihanna – Chris Brown case but now I think it is time to speak out about my stance on the whole issue. Let me say first that I am against any kind of violence, and especially in a relationship, one of the few places your should feel safe. Men should never lay hands on women, but that rule also counts for women! Violence is never an answer when things don’t seem to go so well in a relationship. Communication or a time apart to think can help, but violence? No, never. If a man ever lays hands on me, I would surely leave him without any hesitation. Should Rihanna leave Chris? Well he has done something he should not have done, but rumor has it she has laid hands on him before too so it goes both ways. Should she set a good example to all her fans that are yet to go through the same stuff they went through and those who are going through the same thing? Well it might already be a little too late for that right now…

If you want beef, you can get one. This goes out to one of my professors. I’m not going to start calling names, but this guy is horrible. Allow me to give some examples: he is forcing us to take a book of statutes with us each time we attend his class. But those books are so heavy that it is a real torture to carry them. Some smarty-pants came up with the idea to set up a turn role so you only have to carry it with you every other week. When he noticed that, he made definitely the quote of the year:

"You do not exchange your husband, neither do you exchange your book of statutes".

Really, if he said that to me, I would have popped out something like “don’t be so old-fashioned and move with your time”. So today some friends and I were sitting in the back because that is the only place to plug in our laptops to the net power supply. Now the guy came up to us and demanded we would go sit on the first row. Really, we have grown this old and now we can’t even choose where we take a seat? I seriously doubt if I should attend his classes any longer if he fucks this a second time. The guy was standing in front of us and he yelled so loud for two hours in a row that my head was almost exploding.

Sometimes I am really scared of getting old. Take for example my granddad. He has always been a strong man who has started working from a very young age. Eight years ago he has suffered from a cardiac arrest. Luckily he pulled through but that was the start from the whole decay. Few years later he was diagnosed cancer, he pulled through. Some thing yet another few years later. But the past years it really went downwards very fast. He has been loosing his memory and can barely remember what has been said only minutes ago. He has also problems reminding people, sometimes I have the feeling he doesn’t even remember his own goddaughter any longer. Today yet another symptom has surfaced, violence. When my father arrived there, my grandmother was crying and granddad was yelling cruel things at her. When my dad came in between, granddad started hitting him. The thing is we all remember what has happened, but granddad himself doesn’t remember it. To him it is like it never has happened. It really hurts to see him like that because he is the only granddad I have left and I used to be with him and grandmother every day when mom and dad were at work. Life can be so cruel to nice people who only deserve the best and not this struggle.

Just to end with a more positive note. I never really liked Brandy, but I am crazy about her new single Right Here (Departed). Enjoy!

Whereabouts

It has been a while since I last posted something in here. I know I should be punished for that. It would be easy to blame a busy class schedule for it, but the fact is that I had more of a writer’s block than a lack of time. But now I am back and I’ll give a short update about my whereabouts.

Today is Friday the 13th and some scriptwriter came up with the idea to portray a death sparrow on one of the busiest shopping streets in Antwerp. It was a funny sight though. A very large, yet fake sparrow was lying on the floor, covered up in a white sheet but you would see blood everywhere. Fake blood of course… And to make the whole scenery complete, the artist has those “do not cross” police palisade and fake police agents walking around the “crime scene”. It was a funny sight and the goal was to make people understand that, in modern day society, people get scared for the smallest things, even when they are not (completely) aware of what is going on.

Yesterday I started writing my paper, yes that one assignment I have gotten way back in November but that I had hidden far far away… I think I was suffering from cold sweat when I realized it had to be finished in three weeks! So much work to do and so little time… So I’ll be spending all my free time working on that one, hoping it will be done before my birthday, which one is in two weeks from now.

I must admit, with the cheeks red of shame, that I have done a lot of shopping the past weeks. It has to be done too, non? Ha, I know, the “it has to be done too” has a whole different meaning for us women. I bought a new jeans because all my old ones are a whole size too big, a new super cute pajamas and new shoes. It is getting warmer so the shopping bug inside me has woken up! Now I only need a new summer jacket because the old one I have is, yes you guessed it correctly, too large and too old.

Last Monday I went to the dentist and she wanted to put me under anesthesia. She saw my “stay away with the needle” face and asked me if I wanted to do it without the anesthesia. I agreed but boy did it hurt; yet I refused and kept refusing the needle. Yes, I am crazy, but it is just the fact that I am scared to death when it comes to those shiny little things that go inside my skin… Ahgr, I am getting Goosebumps when I think about it. So be it, the whole procedure without anesthesia and I must say that my dinner consisted of ice cream that evening…

Men, they will always be a species of its own. Sigh… When I arrived at school on Wednesday, my feet killing me because of my trendy yet painful shoes, s guy asked me why I even wore them when I knew they would hurt. Is it that hard to get for the opposite species that it is all about fashion? Do men really think we were those things for pleasure? No, it is all about looking stunning, seductive and pulling attention. Pain? It is all relative and a state of mind…

Zumba!

I always hated workouts; nothing seemed more horrible than sweating in the gym working your butt of at some fitness device. But now I have found my alpha and omega for sure and my booty will rock this summer. My secret? I found this workout course that is a hype in the United States (especially Miami area) and it is called Zumba. It is a workout inspired by the Latin dance. So you are basically working your butt off but having great fun at the same time (so you don’t realize how intense it truly is). I hope this can bring back my great muscular legs and derrière I used to have back in the days when I practiced horseback riding. You should have seen them back then, strong as granite! The waist can be a bit more tight too if I want to rock some high waisted jeans this summer. I don’t want to have people calling me too fat like they did with Jessica Simpson (and she isn’t even fat, she is a normal sized woman!).

We need to hand in our paper at the end of this month and when I started collecting and copying the information and sources I need, I felt warm and cold at the same time! That was a lot of reading to do. Around 200 pages in total I think. And that just for writing a damn paper. Plus what bothers me is that the paper was meant as a 2-semester subject and we only received our judgment half November and it has to be finished end March… That is not a 2-semester subject! The first semester starts in September and the second one ends end of June… And us poor students just have to accept it, like we have no social life at all! I know, I am nagging again, probably because I had to wake up at 6am.

Had to go to the dentist today for a check-up that I have been postponing for 5 months already. I hate demists for real! I was so happy and glad when the dentist said my teeth looked fine. Yet she wanted to take an x-ray just to be sure she didn’t miss anything and she would call me that evening if I needed to come back… 8pm and no call so I was already smiling and all until some moments the creepy call came that she found some very small holes. It was a real “nah fuck” thought that popped into mind. I so hate needles and her drilling my teeth with one for at least 30 straight minutes isn’t a very attractive expectancy. Call me a cry-cry if you want, but I suffer from a severe form of Trypanophobia (needle phobia). Seeing a needle, even when that needle isn’t going in my own skin, causes nauseas and me to go all pale.

I just received a call from my niece saying she has found my perfume! I finally have a new bottle of White Patchouli by Tom Ford. I can’t help it but I love both his fragrances (maybe Black Orchid even more than White Patchouli). It is those fragrances you either love or hate. They are both very strong ones and smell different on each skin.