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!
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!
RSS Feed (xml)
No comments:
Post a Comment