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This is an amazing quote by Azar Nafisi: “I wallowed in the afterglow of my irrelevance.” I would tattoo that across my non-existent biceps. I’ve actually been thinking about getting a tattoo in a while (though, not on my non-existent biceps). But should I? In any case, I love that quote. It’s so- I don’t know… fragile? Haunting? At first, I wanted to put it up there underneath my sitename but then it felt a bit too dramatic and, well, sad. So. But I’m sure a day of utter depression is just around the corner (ISN’T IT ALWAYS?), and maybe I’ll change it then.

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I’m going to go see Invictus with Sandra on Thursday because she really wants to see it, and they’re showing it in the artsy foreign language theater here in Maastricht, and I haven’t been to the movies in easily over a year (A YEAR!), so I’m really looking forward to that. But I also want to see these movies:

Date Night, because Tina Fey and Steve Carrell are awesome. Where the Wild Things Are, because I’ve got a feeling that it might cheer me up. Last Song, because I like Miley Cyrus and it looks just sappy enough to be worth the ticket time it takes to download. The Runaways, because Dakota Fanning was a wonderful actress whenever she was only three years old and I want to see if she’s still as impressive now.

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I have another major paper to write that is due on Friday. So I’ll be spending most of tomorrow and Thursday working on that. On Thursday, I’ve also got an appointment with the faculty adviser to talk about all the little complications with my schedule and grades etc. that apparently add up to A Big Problem. So not looking forward to that. But anyhoo. I’ll get to bed. The alarm clock reads 00:21.

Anyway. I’ve got an important paper to finish that is due tomorrow- and all I can say about that, by the way, is: y’all just thank God that you weren’t on Twitter today because I sure spammed that thing with endless whining about how I’m just not getting the paper done, and OMG IMPOSSIBLE, by what curious twist of fate did it not get done even though I was doing other things the entire day? But what I wanted to say is that I’ve only got a minute because now it’s 9pm, and I still haven’t done anything worth speaking of. Welcome to my life. Let me just share something with you real quick:

While I was avoiding to actually get to work, I browsed the website of my university in Sweden and stumbled across a pretty cool subpage dedicated to different webcams of the town! They had pictures and videos and 360 degrees panoramas. And having grown up with Google maps and the likes, I’m obviously obsessed with finding out as much as I can about any location I plan to visit soon, beforehand. So. Webcams are a big part of that. Now. Are you ready for this? Because I don’t think you are; I wasn’t neither. Remember how I told you that the Swedish city is rather smallish but makes up for it by being surrounded by beautiful nature and sitting at Sweden’s largest lake? Well, GUESS WHAT. It also makes up for it by looking absolutely STUNNING (to snow lovers like myself, I should add) in winter, i.e. yesterday!

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: meh. Am I right? But all that white! All that white IS ACTUALLY THE LAKE! THE LAKE! … I KNOW! It’s so cool! (Here’s a tiny picture taken in the summer, for comparison.) I don’t know if this link works for everyone but check out this cool sped up 24-hour video the webcam captured. Is this as beautiful to everyone else, or just me?

Tonight: After my work-out and a nice, long shower, I plan on watching Love Happens (because I love Jennifer Aniston, DO NOT JUDGE) and The Invention of Lying (because Ricky Gervais is a genius, AS EVERYONE KNOWS).
Tomorrow: Grocery shopping, post office and library in the early morning. I’m hoping to take a couple of pictures while I’m out. I need something to prove to people that I occasionally do leave the house.

Mar 8: Review of a book on media history for my Media Theory class is due by 12am.
Mar 12: Essay on the Goldhagen debate re: Nazi-Germany for my Debates Among Historians class is due by 4pm. (This is the repeat from last year, and it bores me to death.)
Mar 13 – 26: I’ll be home at the parents’: cooking, baking, reading uni lit, writing, visiting my grandma, taking pictures, browsing Ikea, getting ready for spring.
Mar 27/28: Parents are taking me back to Maastricht, and will stay for a day or two. They love this city and like to venture around sometimes. Heh.
Mar 29: Last course of the semester begins, Logo & Image. I’m also repeating last year’s course called Style & Modernity. This will be a horrible work load – twice as much as normal people have – but both courses are focused on art and architecture and message and design and marketing and epochs. So. Should be fun.
Apr 2: NOT going home for Easter because of said work load. Gonna be a sad, long weekend.

What is everyone else doing?

Let me just repeat this: WEEKEND. TRIP. TO PARIS. Life is good.

Just like yesterday, I woke up in kind of a blah mood. I knew I was going to probably take care of the Paris thing but I spent most of the morning online, fidgeting with the new HBN theme, waiting for Sandra and Josie to confirm they’d come to Paris with me. I really like it now, by the way, this new theme, even though I didn’t make it myself and only adjusted things here and there. (Do you?) Around 11, I walked down to my faculty for the sign-up at the student association’s offices. I got their way early. Like, an hour early. I was so afraid I wouldn’t get one of the fifty open spots because that’s what happened last year with Paris and Brussels. Half an hour before sign-up, no one else was there yet, though. So I left again, and relaxed on a nice wooden bench in the sun for a bit. I think today was the first day that the sun was warm again and not just bright. This was in an inner courtyard at the Arts and Social Sciences faculty where it’s never really busy but someone – usually someone with especially animated hair and funny clothes – is always walking by, muttering to themselves or whistling a jolly little tune which- that is pure peace to me.

So Sandra, Josie and I signed up for the trip, along with a collection of first-year students. It’ll be a weekend in April; the bus there and back, the night at some shabby shack, admission fees for the Musée d’Orsay, the metro tickets, a schmaltzy boat tour on the Seine at night – all for the AMAZING price of only 68 euros ($93). I mean, that’s the type of deal you would have to take even if you hated Paris. (Which is of course a hypothetical scenario because people, by law, cannot hate Paris. Ever.) In any case, I’m psyched that this is going to happen.

Also, I should perhaps consider a career in infomercial sales. That last paragraph definitely had an “And I’ll throw in two steak knives!” sentiment about it. But COME ON. SIXTY-EIGHT EUROS. IMPOSSIBLE.

I went to class today, tired and unmotivated. It’s a class I didn’t pass last year so I’m repeating it which means everything is out of context now. It also means that yet another year of my life is passing in which I have not managed to avoid discussing Nazi-Germany at school in some form. I mean, SERIOUSLY. I know Germany’s history is important and I mean no disrespect to anybody but I have discussed Nazi-Germany and its implications and the debates surrounding it from any perspective there is since 5th grade. From 5th grade all the way through grade 13, they found another angle to it. And it continued here at uni in the NL. It’s the same thing over and over and over again. Germany’s history is obviously interwoven with Europe’s history and with world history and it’s important not to forget how that happened – I understand the reasoning behind focusing on it so much. But what actually happens when all of it is being force-fed to you for your entire educational career, is that you get tired of it. And I think we can all agree that that is the last thing that should happen. It’s actually the opposite of what should be achieved.

But I digress. I went to class at 4pm, unprepared and only thinking of getting out of there as quickly as possible. Half an hour before class was over, Josie – whom I haven’t talked to in forever, we used to ride the bus together to and from Aachen – texted me, asking whether I wanted to meet for coffee with her and Sandra at Selexyz. DID I EVER. So once I got out of class at 6pm, I literally ran over to Selexyz but since that place is actually mainly a book store and not a café, they closed at 6pm as all other stores do during the week. So we wandered around looking for a different place.

And folks. Maastricht is a small, perhaps insignificant town but if they have anything here, it’s cafés and bars. There’s an endless supply of them. Any street you walk down offers ten new options. Josie remembered this tiny bar called Take Five which – like so many other places here – is more or less an insider tip. You don’t see anything from the outside! With all those tiny, narrow streets around, bars and cafés are often also just tiny backrooms with dim lighting. Which I guess people either love or hate. I, for one, absolutely adore it. Josie had heard about Take Five from this one extremely extravagant gay fashion-freak guy V from school so I was honestly a little apprehensive about the kind of crowd the place would attract. I don’t mean this in a mean way at all but so many of those tiny places are seriously hang-outs for just one very specific group of people, and I just don’t like that. I love places where everyone – from hipsters to older couples to families to whatever – can feel welcome and comfortable.

Take Five is that kind of place, as it turned out. It’s almost dark in there and as small as all the other places around and the music was really good. Which- you never know with the Dutch. It’s the atmosphere that always matters to me – as I’ve said above. And since we’re talking about atmosphere: did you know that Maastricht is to die for at night? DID YOU? Because if you were ever to come to Maastricht, I would advise you to see it by night – it’s quiet and sparkly and beautiful.

I walked home around 8pm. This really wasn’t a night about town at all, in case you were still wondering, more like a nice little gathering for coffee right after uni. Heh. But I love to discover new places, and since there is so. much. to discover here in Maastricht and I never get around to it because of school work, tonight was kind of special.

Picture source: here. Sadly, I didn’t have my camera with me.

I had worked on a new theme last night, and I had already uploaded it – but then decided to take it down again. It was just too bright and boring, somehow. So here’s a premade theme by someone else I liked enough to use for now. (Credit is in the footer if you want to know more.) My internet’s been quitting on me quite regularly over the past few days so I don’t know what’s going on there. Since the internet connection is shared by everyone in the building, it’s not like I can just restart the router or whatever. I don’t even know where the router sits. Probably somewhere downstairs in a hidden broom closet or something. Also, it’s possible that my cord is the problem because I haven’t been treating it very nicely and it’s really old and looks a bit odd. So who knows. It’s part of the reason why I had no patience to start over on a new theme from scratch.

My brother Chris drove down to see me on Sunday. There are two tunnels on the route and they’ve been closed for the longest time (for as long as I’ve lived in the NL, basically) which always meant that anyone from back home who came to see me had to deal with a 60-minute detour. The tunnels are finally open again now so my brother actually managed to get here in exactly three hours. I knew he was going to leave early – around 6am – but I about fell over when he stood on my doormat at 9 o’clock sharp. He brought me a care package from my mom (including all the foods I love and can’t buy here in the NL), my SLR, and most importantly: my indoor fitness bike. Last week, my dad went out and bought a new one for him and my brother so that I could have the old one here in Maastricht. You guys know I’ve been doing step aerobics for exercise every night but that’s not my kinda tea. I’ve been using the fitness bike whenever I was home at the parents’ this year and it just works a lot better for me. It’s from the late 90s and it’s ugly and it doesn’t come with any fancy pre-set programs but it works like a charm.

Chris stayed until the early afternoon. He had work on Monday so he wanted to make sure not to get home too late. We fixed pasta for lunch and just hung out, for the most part. Watched Friends for a bit. Watched National Geographic and discussed whatever science they were blowing our minds with. Walked around the block, fighting DEADLY GUSTS OF WIND AND RAIN, for some fresh air. I hope this weather is here to stay for a while. Sun and blue skies and high temperatures and flowers and smiles and songbirds: EW YUCK. So not ready for that yet. Powerful winds and heavy rain and cold, fresh air and empty streets? BRING IT ON. Love it, and don’t want to let go.

If you got a minute, let me know in the comments what type of images you enjoy on people’s websites, okay? Are you typically bored by pictures of stuff and only want to see pictures of people? Are you interested in seeing bits and pieces of my apartment and my hometown? If you couldn’t care less, tell me that also.

The problem is that I don’t know how to deal with the likely situation that I won’t be able to go back to my beloved America anytime soon. Not this summer, not during the 2010 fall semester abroad, not during the summer of 2011 because I’ll be busy job hunting (my dad is already pressing me about this), and not after that when I’ve hopefully found a job to start paying off my student loan – about 20,000 euros ($27,000) to be paid back starting one year after graduation at the latest – and will no longer enjoy the luxury of three months off in the summer.

I’m back online more often, as you may or may not have noticed, and that only fuels my wanting to get back to the States as soon as I can. It means: original country music radio, US television series, blogs of people living my dream, American news sites, and so on. And it’s hard to escape that loop and avoid that urge. The fact that I can Google everything I miss – read about it, hear it, see it – doesn’t necessarily help either.

So yesterday I begged our International Relations office to reconsider my Sweden placement, and if there was maybe a teeny tiny possibility that I could spend my semester abroad near Columbus, OH instead, I’D TAKE IT. I haven’t even really researched that college yet and I don’t see why Ohio would be more appealing than Sweden. I really don’t. I just want to get back to the States NO MATTER WHAT. And the semester abroad, I thought yesterday, would’ve been the perfect opportunity because it wouldn’t interfere with my studies overall or any of the financial/job stuff coming up soon after that I mentioned above. Plus, tuition would be paid by my uni here. But it wasn’t to be. International Relations emailed back, saying they understood why I asked but couldn’t offer me the position because all six spots had already been taken. I felt absolutely crestfallen for about half an hour because I’d had HOPE, you see, that this could actually still happen.

Then, I realized that at least now I knew. That was a relief in itself, I gotta say. Back to the US for the semester abroad: off the table. It’s sad news but it’s another decision I no longer have to wreck my pretty little head about. I checked out the website of my university in Sweden this morning, and already felt better about going again. It’s fine. It’s a much better match academically and it’s a beautiful uni. It will be cheaper and easier to get there, and I’m lucky to be offered to go at all given my grading average. I think I’m okay with it now. But that doesn’t mean going back to the US is off the table altogether.

I need to figure out a way. And I welcome any ideas you guys might have!

One option would be graduate school. The problem: money. AS FUCKING ALWAYS. I would basically need a full scholarship or something to pay tuition and fees and whatnot in the US and make enough money at an on-campus job (can’t do anything else as a non-citizen with the J1 visa) to start paying back my student loan over here. Only candidate so far is Murray State in Kentucky which Emmy suggested yesterday and Jenny had recommended during my last freak-out. I’m not sure about the course catalog; they offer about anything I could think of but nothing special enough for my dad to approve of. However, if it weren’t for the damn finances, I’d go in a heartbeat. The university in Sweden actually offers an interesting master’s program so if my semester abroad there turned out to be really great, that might be the kind of thing my parents could get on board with. Which brings me to the second issue besides the money: whether I should get my MA in the first place. Which also bring me to the third issue: my parents don’t get the AMERICAN APPEAL. They see the money they’ve already put into my education and the daughter’s degree they get out of it. Emotional considerations have nothing to do with it. It’s BA, MA, real job. No stops, no unnecessary hesitations, no moving back home and wasting time in between. And I get it; it’s their hard-earned money I live on, after all. I shouldn’t go to graduate school just to be in Kentucky. And I don’t even know if I could handle graduate school, I’m stretched to the limit getting my BA.

Another option would be an internship after I graduate here in Maastricht. The problem: I don’t think any KY companies necessary offer paid internships to foreigners that are just as or perhaps even less qualified than Kentucky’s own college graduates. I’ve done some research online and couldn’t find anything. If you got any thoughts on this, let me know!

This leaves the third option, a good old vacation. The main problem here is: time. When can this possibly happen? Two weeks isn’t enough, it isn’t worth buying that expensive plane ticket. So: summers. Not this summer (already got a short family vacation planned right in the middle), so next summer. But my dad is already not happy with my going to Sweden because he thinks I need to be on big girl-job hunt for at least one year prior to graduation. So he’ll probably laugh me right in the face when I suggest to him I’m going to KY for a couple months that summer (2011).

I know the common reaction to all this is: just do it. Go this summer or next and worry about the whole serious side of things (job, finances, yes or no on graduate school) later. JUST GO.

But. HOW? I just hate that it always always always comes back to the money.

That same night, I watched Up In The Air. NEW FAVORITE, hands down. For one thing, George Clooney’s still got it. Obviously. I always feel like he’s truly the only real Hollywood actor that’s left. He looks like old Hollywood (not literally old but not as dolled up as the younger generation), he’s mysterious, he’s an actual actor. He’s, you know, NOT ON TWITTER. Secondly, that movie is funny and serious which I like. Also, it’s such a beautiful movie, cinematography-wise; you know, in terms of production design. The opening credits alone – the fonts, the music, the States from above – made me squeal. Finally, there’s the story itself.

I won’t recount the whole plot here – watch the trailer, if you haven’t seen it yet. I loved how the movie is built around the topical issue of unemployment, and how Clooney’s character should be an asshole but somehow that girl Natalie turns out to be even more of an asshole. Clooney’s character is just very… well rounded. And then- See, I have a thing for airports. I’d pay to live in one. And as I watched the movie – the actual storyline aside – I just kept thinking about how much I agreed with Clooney’s character. How much I wish I had a job that would require me to fly to a different city or country every few days. That would be a dream.

So, in conclusion- I mean, this is not a real review, I’m not good at these things. But I very, very much recommend Up In The Air to anyone who hasn’t gotten around to seeing it yet. I don’t know that it deserves six Academy Awards nominations because at first glance it’s such a simple movie. On the other hand, I’m glad that for once some movies are being recognized that aren’t some ridiculous, over-hyped, epic fantasy crap. Heh. Anyway. GO SEE IT.

(If you have seen it already, what did you think?)

I liked Sims fine. I didn’t necessarily really enjoy playing it but I could definitely see the addiction potential in it. Heh. I just- am not passionate about this kind of stuff. Playing the game is like doing home work. I also have a shit ton of other uni related things going on so I decided to opt out and try again next year. This class just sucked BALLS, after four weeks I still couldn’t see what it had to do with my major. So I’ll be focusing on my other classes – media culture theory and Image & Logo and a history repeat from last year, basically – until the summer.

I bought some cookie dough Ben and Jerry’s this morning to ease the feeling of guilt over this decision. Which naturally didn’t help at all, and made me feel guilty about all those unnecessary calories on top of everything else.

GOODBYE GAMES CLASS. YOU FAIL ON ALL LEVELS. (No pun intended.)

In other news, I have internet again at my place. We don’t have wireless in the building so I brought this really short network cable from my parents’ with me which means I have to sit in an awkward position at the top left corner of my bed to get online. Hopefully, this will keep me from wasting hour after hour on the web. I hope I won’t fall prey to my stupid addiction again. I just want to be able to access Google, send emails, Skype the family, and post and read blog entries in my own home. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK. I think, no. I need to make this work. I shouldn’t always have to quit cold turkey to make things work. Ugh.

PS – Thank you so much for all the lovely comments about my dad here and on Facebook. He’s in perfect condition – awake, in no notable pain, his usual self – and will be released early from the hospital, probably tonight or tomorrow. SENDING GOOD THOUGHTS DOES WORK. Ha. Thank you!

PPS – My dad just called. From home. They sent him home today, Monday, at noon. So technically the surgery happened over the weekend and he didn’t even have to miss a day of work. Medicine just amazes me sometimes.

The surgery was scheduled to last 70 minutes. They needed to remove a – supposedly benign – knot from my dad’s thyroid glands. Which basically means that they slice open his throat and cut things out of an area that not only takes care of the body’s hormone balances but also contains important things such as PIPES THAT KEEP HUMANS ALIVE. Also, vocal cords – and my dad is most worried about them being damaged in the process because for one thing, the doctor said that might actually be a possibility and secondly, no vocal cords means BYE BYE LIVELIHOOD. So I don’t know. It’s not an uncommon procedure at all and my dad was actually in a position where he could afford to pay extra for a single room and the best surgeon available (best, in my dad’s world, is measured in professor and doctor titles). It should be fine.

My mom finally called a couple minutes ago but she hadn’t talked to the hospital yet. I don’t think they call relatives just to say, Surgery’s done, in case you were wondering. I don’t like that he’s waking up alone and that my mom is only going in after work this afternoon to see how it went but at the same time, my dad can be an absolute PAIN IN THE ASS about the smallest things (yes, I got that from him) so it would likely just be a terror for everyone involved to hang around there now. Plus, he’s at the university hospital in The Big City and I don’t know that I’m able to drive that far on these icy roads.

I’ll go see him tomorrow morning. Either it went fine or it didn’t. We (that is, everyone besides the god-like triple-title superhuman doctor) have no influence over these things. We’ll just deal with either outcome, I suppose.

Hoping for the best, though. Heh.