Pentecost ( Pinksteren - dutch translation ), usually means festival time. Usually it means Pinkpop, a three day festival in my hometown. But this year due to the early date of Pentecost they changed some things around so instead of doing Pinkpop Classics in August they moved that one to Pentecost monday and Pinkpop to May 30th, 31st and June 1st. That means that they will have bigger bands because they can team up with two other festivals and split the money that the bands cost.

Anyway Pinkpop Classics, of course like every time a concert starts Jan Smeets the person who is organising the festivals does his opening speech and this time he said that the stage that we where looking at was bigger then we where used to. To me it looked pretty much the same but okay if he says so he is probably right. Anyway he said that it was the stage that Metallica owns. And since Metallica performs at the regular Pinkpop, the stage will be in Landgraaf for the next three weeks.

Janse Bagge Bend last year they where also the opening act at Pinkpop Classics. It is a dutch band mostly known for their song ‘Solliciterre’. They mostly sing their songs in a half Limburgs ( that is a Dutch County, that I am originally from )/half Dutch way. So everyone in the Netherlands can understand it but it is not regular Dutch.

The second band was Mothers Finest a band that thanks to Pinkpop 30 years ago had their big break in Europe. I didn’t know the band well that is what I thought as they where playing I recognized some songs. since then I have listened to some of the songs and I really do like the music. It was a good performance, very entertaining.

Y&T, a band that has existed alongside bands like Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Motley Crüe. They make the same kind of music that those bands make, and even still have the same hair styles that Aerosmith had in the ’80s but somehow they never got as popular as those bands.

Last year we had Marillion, this year we had Fish. He is the man who wrote a lot of the Marillion songs including my favorite ‘Kayleigh’. Fish is a man who, unfortunatly for him, writes his best songs whenever he has relationship problems. The man knows his way with words.

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, I really don’t know what to say about this band. I’ve seen them live but it really honestly did nothing for me. I can’t remember any of the songs. I don’t know it just didn’t intrest me at all.

Golden Earring, it was the second time I saw the band perform live. First time was at Pinkpop in 2005. They have been at Pinkpop a lot of times, they are after all a Dutch band.

UB40 was already signed for Pinkpop Classics when in January singer Ali Campbell says that he is leaving the British Reggaeband UB40. In March Michael Virtue ( who plays the keys in the band ) also announces that he is leaving. So with a new singer, Duncan Campbell ( Brother or Ali and Robin Campbell ) they arrived at Pinkpop. There performance was really swinging, a lot of people of course knew their songs and could sing along with them which made them a perfect closure.

The festival was awesome and it was a total succes, next year the festival will be in August 2009. I am already looking forward to it, I am pretty sure that my mom wants to go again also. She had so much fun, it was awesome to see her that way.

On a completely different note!

Guess who is going to be working on the new Beth Hart shirts this week! That’s right! ME!!!!! The order came in this pat week at my email at work, my new job. Awesome ain’t it!!! Every Beth Hart’s fan dream I guess! Well apart from meeting her of course, been there done that although I would like to meet her again of course. I am still squeeing over the fact that we’ll be making Beth Hart shirts! And we are also going to be making some shirts that will be sold at Pinkpop. I am going to try and make pictures when I can.

My Two Cents

Since a couple of weeks I started writing NCIS reviews/recaps. I really like NCIS since I started watching it last year. It has replaced the love that I once had for CSI I guess. To me CSI has lost a lot of it’s appeal. I still watch it but if I have to choose, NCIS goes first. So when I found this webiste TheTwoCents.com, I noticed that there was no one reviewing NCIS and I signed up.

Three weeks ago I wrote my first review ‘Internal Affairs‘, followed by of course ‘In the Zone‘ and ‘Recoil‘. Over the summer I and the other reviewers will be working on different shows, television shows that are no longer on tv. I choose Stargate SG1, I really would have liked to take Stargate Atlantis but since that one is still on I didn’t have that choice.

So I started my new job last week, and wow as bad as I thought my future looked it did a complete 360 on me. I am finally working as a Graphic desktop publisher. And I love it! I really do!

It has been a little over a week, but I have learned so much and I have done so many things. It has been a busy time. That and I have been under the weather for the past week. I somehow picked up a terrible cold, and I felt pretty bad last Saturday and Sunday. Let’s start with the beginning.

Last week Monday I went to my new job to sign the papers, I have a contract till September 1st. A six month contract, that is pretty good for a first contract, most of the time you get first a one month contract which if you both agree to it will be prologued. But I don’t have that, so it is pretty cool.

April 1st

A lot of people made jokes about it because it was April fool’s day, you do not want to know how many times in the previous week I heard ‘are you sure it wasn’t a joke?’. It gets really annoying real quick I can tell you that. Especially because everyone seems to think that they are funny. I mean come on as if I was not nervous enough already without everyone making jokes about it.

Tuesday was April first, the first day of the month and the start of my new job! I was nervous I can tell you that. I never really did much with screen printing, well we did some things when we where in school but they don’t really go into it in detail. So I was wondering how much I really knew about it. Besides that it has been three years no matter how you put it, it’s a long time to be out of this line of work.

The part above was written on the 11th of April, but life has been crazy as has my internet, my computer and my day planner. I didn´t have time to finish the blog and that is why it took me this long to continue working on it so that you know how I am doing.

Now I finally have that time so lets continue where I stopped last time.

It has now been three weeks, three full work weeks and I love it. Even though I am the Junior DTP-er I have done a lot of things by myself. I am even telling the other DTP-er what he should do and help him out when he is stuck. But I am so happy with my new job, and I am so content with what I am doing at the moment that I am much happier all together. Right now it feels as if my life has a purpose and as if I am fulfilling that purpose.

For the longest time I wondered about what it was that I was supposed to get from this life. It is not easy when you drag yourself through highschool, then two different diploma´s at college and still can´t find a job. When I was fourteen or fifteen I was fed up with school because of the bullying. This last February it had been three years since I finished my college education and in those three years I haven´t been able to find the job that I wanted and that sucks mayorly. So this is a chance that no one can take away from me and I am giving it my all.

Sometimes you have to give yourself a present, it has been a difficult time after I got laid off at my old job. My closest colleagues gave me a present because they really hated to see me going. They gave me a gift certificate, I used it to buy a wireless controller for my Playstation 2. And let me tell you it is so much nicer to use a wireless controler when you play a game. Anyway I have been playing a lot of Need for Speed lately, Underground and Carbon on the playstation and Underground 2 and Most Wanted on the PC. What can I say I love the games!!!

April 16th 2008

My birthday, I celebrated it at my new work. I got some gift certificates for books and for just regular stuff. I so want to get my hands on some new books. I think I already know what I am going to buy.

My sister, who lives right around the corner from me since the beginning of this year. Asked me if I would like to go to the city with her and her boyfriend. I was glad that she asked me to go out because I didn’t really have a plan. And I would have ended up watching television or something like that. We had chinese food, down in the city and then we shoot some biljarts. I had fun, it is nice to have my sister close. I haven’t had that in well over 5 years, since I moved away from home. My sister basically did the same thing a couple of months later, she moved to Maastricht, Leuven and Krakow before she came back to my parents. And like I said right now she lives right around the corner here.

Computer troubles

I had computer troubles for a while. Last week I finally decided to spend some money on my computer and I bought a new external hard drive. I thought that I was going to get one with 120 Gigs, like I have in my computer. But at the store I found out that there are bigger hard drives that hardly cost more. So I ended up with a 500 Gigs hard drive. So now I don’t have to worry about loosing anything. Which is a good thing, because I am not really trusting my computer anymore. I mean it is five years old, but during those five years I have asked pretty much from my computer. If my hard drive crashed I will loose a lot of stuff. So this had to happen anyways. So I connected it to my computer, copied everything and after that I did a complete reinstall of everything that I have.

So now I am working with a faster, more reliable system and even the new Adobe CS3 Suite. I love it I am so happy with my new programms. It is so good to be working with a squeaky clean computer, I hope that it will last me for a while now. I really don’t want to buy a new computer just yet.

My birthday, part 2

Viola invited me to celebrate my brithday at her house, when I arrived there Marla ( an old colleague of mine ) was there as well. We talked for a while before she went home. Viola gave me a ‘Advanced Photoshop’ Magazine. And I made this really cool graphic for one of my new fics with one of the tutorials with it. I love it, there are all kinds of tutorials in the book, and there is a cd with files, textures, brushes, fonts and the images that you need for the tutorials. Really cool!

So little time and so much to tell, the again the above part was written on the 20th of april and again I didn’t have time to post. Horrible I know, but there is nothing I can do about it.

Nomination time

It is nomination time again for the June 2008 NFA Hinky Awards. I have been nominated for Outstanding Author Over 21. I was like what the fuck, where did that come from. I did not see that one coming, I am glad though don’t get me wrong. It just makes me curious who voted for me cause it means that I at least had two people vote for me. And I can’t really say that I have received that many reviews for my fics.

To be quite honest I have been pretty disappointed especially when it comes to fanfiction.net. But a lot of people seem to be struggling with that. For instance my latest fic, ‘Our battles’ ( a story that I am really proud of, and had a lot of fun writing ). The story has six chapters over the last four weeks I have posted them, and though nine people added the story to their favorites list and on one C2 comm. But I only received 5 reviews, twice by the same person. For a fanfiction writer reviews are the payment, is it really too much to let a writer know that you like a story, tell them what they can do better or say thank you. Every story I read I review at least once, if not more times.

My other fic ‘Grenzeloos ( Without Borders )’ is also nominated, but it needs one more nomination to actually count. I hope I get one more, we’ll see.

Work

Okay so I have now reached the end of my first month working as a graphic designer, well DTP-er actually. I loved it, I am really happy with the job and I have been doing lots of different things. In my opinion things are going really well. I am doing a lot of different things it is difficult to explain and it would take me a long time. But I have found a little film on youtube that tells exactly what I do exact the actual printing part that is. Here is the link, Screen printing. Though we use bigger screens, and a bigger and different lightning technique. And we have besides these small handhandled printing mills also two bigger hydraulic printing mills. One is for a maximum of nine colours and the other for six. Which means that we can print nine colours at once. Really cool to watch, if see a blanc tshirt at the start and once it has gone round you all of the sudden have a nine color ( full colour ) tshirt.

Oh yes before I forget to tell you, guess who made the tshirts for Beth Hart’s last tour? Yes, the company I work for right now!!!! Haha how cool is that? We make a lot of band shirts, we printed Madonna’s just last week. And Keith Caputo and well basically a couple of bands each week. Depends on who performs in the Netherlands I guess. Maybe we get some cool orders for Pinkpop or Lowlands.

Queensday

Queensday, the 30th of April. Every year on this day the Netherlands turn orange, it is the day that the queen celebrates her birthday, or rather the people celebrate the birthday of the queen which is actually on a different day. But Eindhoven is next to Amsterdam the city that attracks the most people, from all over the country. This year I was with Viola, Marius, Kobé, Hans and later we where joined by my sister Veronique and Zoltan.

As this day came closer I remembered that it was the last thing that Viola and I did together last year before Kobé was born. It is unbelievable but true, the little guy is almost a year old. I can’t believe it! This year literally flew by. He is such a cutie and I really like seeing him change and develop.

When I saw Viola for my birthday I came into the livingroom and Kobé was sitting upright in his play area, with this grin on his little face as if he was saying ‘look at me’. It was so cute! You should have seen it.

Still if you had told me a year and a half ago that I would be comfortable to handle a baby and used to having one around I would have never believed it. He is a cute little fella, I have to find a nice present for his birthday. Something special, I don’t know what yet.

Shopping

I went shopping yesterday, because I had an extra day off I went to the city and bought some stuff that I needed. And some stuff that I wanted to have. For my birthday my new colleagues gave me book gift certificates and a regular gift certificate. I bought two new books, Terry Goodkind - The Prologue to Wizard’s Rules ( Proloog De aflossing - De wetten van de Magie ) and Wizard’s first rule ( De eerste wet van de Magie ). And soft silicone protection case for my Ipod, in three different colors but not the ones from Apple they are ridiculously expensive these where only ten euros for three.

My birthday, part 3

Tomorrow I celebrate my birthday with my family. Yes, a little late but we haven’t done that yet! Because well basically the same reason why I didn’t have time to do it yet. My parents had their bathroom and toilet redone, right before and during my birtday. So that is why we haven’t celebrated it and because the house that I live in is in no condition to ask anyone over I have my party at my parents place tomorrow.

I’m still trying to comprehand all the things that have happened this past week. It is ridiculous! Crazy and completely wacked! And I guess that it still feels surreal to me. I hope that ‘that’ will change soon.

I am pretty sure that everyone at work knows by now. I send some people a text message and I called one of the other people who got fired. She asked me if I could let her know what happened. I mean it is kind of an bounding experience everyone is talking to each other about what happened and what is going and how they are trying to find a new job. I am just the lucky one. I am the first person who actually found a new job.

So on Tuesday when I am back at work I have a chat with my boss and tell him that I will be leaving at the end of the week and then there are for more days that I have to work and then I am done. Then I can close that chapter of my life up and finally start at the rest of my life. And that may sound dramatic, but it isn’t really.

You have to know that I did two years of Graphic Techniques, four years of Graphic design and one and a half of Multimedia design. All of which I finished with my diploma’s. The last one of my diploma’s I have received in February 2005. Which is three years ago.

It took me three years to find a job that is related to my studies. And I always knew that Neways was just a temp job but still I felt like I was stuck. There was no way that I could go back to school. First of all because I didn’t know what I would want to study unless it is more Graphic design or Multimedia design. Well or something with writing, but that is also the kind of study that you can’t really do anything with unless you are really good that is.

And now that I finally have a job as a Desktop Publisher and a contract I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. I might not have shown it that much but I have always been worried. I studied for eight years and I can’t find a job. Let’s be honest the job that I have been doing for the past three years is something that anyone can do.

Living arrangements

Am I pushing my luck here? Maybe I am …

I have seen an apartment, not too big and not to small your own livingroom/kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Close to where I live now and closer to my new job. It would be perfect but it is available right now. And with my new job I am doubting if I should react to it. Of course I can react, take a look and maybe deny it if it is not what I am looking for. The thing is that I am kind of afraid that it will be a little too much all at the same time. On the other hand if I say that I am moving out of my house to my boss I probably still have to pay rent till the beginning of May. So I would have a month to move out, make arrangements and all and get used to it.

No borders allowed

I have been slacking but I guess that Chantal forgives me. I didn’t write my review for last weeks episode. I am sorry, but I have to say that I hardly found the time to do anything. I barely even found the time to watch the episode. So expect two reviews from me in the next couple of days when it comes to ‘The L Word’. Real life just got in the way with more important things.

By the way since the 5th season is almost over I really have to find some new subjects to write about? So if anyone has any ideas let me know!

This must be some kind of record! I am telling you!!! It must be …

There is no other explanation. Last week they told me that I no longer had a job. They said that I could work till April 14th and that would be my last day after working there for three years straight. It scared me a lot, all of the sudden you have no job, no income. And I am not the kind of person who goes and sits home. I mean I have prove that by working for a job agency for three years hoping that I would be able to find the job that I am looking for.

Then I heard that due to my contract with the job agency I could only work till the fourth, the sixth was my last contract day. So they took away another 10 days from me.

Well have I got news for them!!! I am going to take another four days away. But this time it is on my terms. Cause I got a new job!!! Yes I do! Finally I am getting the break that I needed all of this time finally there is a company who is willing to give me a chance to prove that I am worth of calling myself a designer. I am going to be a Desktop Publisher starting on April first! And no that is no freaking joke! It is the best day in the world to start a new job. My mom started working at her current job on April first!

Challenging!

On a completely different note! I won a challenge with one of my stories! I am so thrilled about that. I heard it last weekend but I completely forgot about it due to all the other crappy things. It is an NCIS story, about 15 000 words long and the challenge was to take the NCIS team and let them go abroad for a case. Use of the native language was a pre but not needed. And it had to be a casefile.

Well I started writing and I wrote all the way up until the last day before the deadline. In the end the story had 15 000 words, all the main characters, a casefile, a romantic femmeslash story line ( Ziva/Abby, I couldn’t resist ) and four languages. Of course English, Dutch, German and Hebrew.

I had a lot of fun writing that story, I used some common’ mistakes in the story like if you watch an American tv show you often hear them say that people are Dutch and they speak in clear German, which is of course called Deutsch ( in German ). And a very common mistake in television land is that the two are the same. I also made fun of the fact that Americans in general think that we sell weed all over the place, not to mention other drugs. Anyways I made Ziva point out that we also have ‘coffeeshops’ which actually sell coffee.

And I guess it paid off! I mean I did win after all. So did I spike your interest? If I did you can read the fic here.

Design

In case anyone wonders I am going through designs here, trying to figure out what I like and what I don’t like. Of this very flowery design I like the way it looks, I despise the flowers and I really don’t like the color combo. So I am trying to figure out what I would chance and how I would change it. You might see some German designs as well … I like the general style of them although I would of course have to decode the German and make it English. I don’t need a German blog. But don’t worry I will get it done this is just a phase.

Work/no work

It has been a crazy week. I was so down last Friday when I heard that I could not continue working at NAA. I hate it, I mean I had a good time there, I like it a lot. I met my best friend there, I visited a couple of my colleagues at home, celebrated birthdays together, went out for dinner. The company party and of course some concerts!

I mean even apart from the job we had a wonderful time! Yeah we did, something that I never expected from that job. But it did happen. And you know it might not have been the best job in the world and I have studied to do something else but I know that I will miss the people that I work with. Especially the group of people that I worked with these last couple of months, at the outsourcing department.

I had a rough weekend I won’t deny that, I cried a lot.

Relaxing day afterall… unbelievable but true!

Saturday was supposed to be a fun day, for a while now Viola and I had been planning that I would take her home with Kobé to go and visit my parents. I mean I have seen most of her family except for her father that is. And well my parents of course wanted to meet her as well, they know how important Viola, Marius and Kobé are for me.

And I knew that if I told them this that it would never be the fun day it was supposed to be. My sister also went with us, she wanted to meet Viola and Kobé as well. Marius wasn’t going with us because he already had plans.

So I kept up by brave face, picked up my sister then we went to pick up Viola and Kobé. She asked me if I had a talk with our boss. I told her I didn’t want to talk about it. We drove home ( to my parents, that is ). Kobé in his Maxicosi next to me and my sister and Viola in the back. We had a wonderful afternoon, my parents loved finally meeting Viola and Kobé. Seriously you should have seen it, it was so good to see them that way. And I know that I surprised my parents, I mean they have never seen me around babies or with small children. So they saw a completely new side of me. It was funny … but then again with a cutie like Kobé around the world seems a little bit better then it actually was.

We had dinner with my parents as well, my mom made chicken, two different salads and we picked up fries at the snackbar. Then we went back home and my sister asked me if I could drop her off before I would drop Viola off. Because her boyfriend Zoltan was home alone all day. I agreed, I was glad that she asked that because I had wanted to ask her if I should drop her off. Mostly because I wanted to talk to Viola.

I broke down when Viola asked me. She told me that she had a phone call from our boss and that she could stay. The problem with me is that I am pushing the date that they have to give me a contract. And because of the American economic market that crashed, one of the biggest clients has canceled orders. We don’t have an awful lot to do and to be honest I saw it coming. I knew that I was close to getting a contract or not, but because of the current state that the company is in they can’t offer me a contract and the job agency that I work for can’t either.

I was originally supposed to work till the 14th of April. But due to the end of my contract with the job agency and because they aren’t able to give me a new one my last day will be the 4th of April.

I think that my colleagues where more shocked then me. Don’t get me wrong, I cried a lot and it hurt a lot. But I did see it coming, I already said last week that I wouldn’t be working there long. People told me to have a little faith, to stop acting so negative… I knew! Just believe me for once when I am that convinced of something I already know.

I cried, tried to talk. Cried some more… And ended up staying there till midnight. And then I could finally break down in my own home. Just because it seemed like such a hopeless situation and because I didn’t know what to do or where to start.

Sunday

Sunday was a difficult day, my mom had plans with some friends and I didn’t want to ruin them for her. So I didn’t tell her on Sunday either. That means that my dad was also out of the question. And I didn’t want to tell my sister before I told my parents.

I used Sunday to figure out what the best way to continue would be.

Monday

So I had to wait till Monday afternoon and by that time I had some more bad news. I had heard that I was out of a job, that the job agency couldn’t help me any further and at that moment there was so many negative things coming my way that it was really hard to figure out what I was supposed to do first.

So I went to a job agency and I asked them if I could make an appointment. They asked me if I could come back on Tuesday and I did. The talk I had on Tuesday was

Even knowing that you are about to loose your job doesn’t soften the blow. Not at all, not even a little bit. It hit me hard I can tell you that.

Tuesday

The conversation that I had with the manager of the job agency went well, really positive. And they are looking for me to find a job as a graphic and/or multimedia designer. If that doesn’t work they said that they will be able to find me a different job. So that is a good thing, I was able to see the future a little brighter when I heard that.

Especially when she was so convinced that they would find me a job nevertheless. Although I have to wait and see what kind of a job it will be it is good to know that I can work for them.

Wednesday

Then on Wednesday, I asked the day off for Thursday so that I could go to the agency that is supposed to help you when you can’t find a job. No to be honest I didn’t ask, I told them that I wouldn’t be there. In my opinion I have the right to tell them whether I will be there or not without asking if I can have the day off. Anyway you always have to go there when you loose your job, even if it is not at all your fault. It is to make sure that you can receive help when you need it from the state.

When I was done, I walked to the job agency and I had a talk with the manager for an hour. And it was good to talk to someone about what happened, someone who understands. She also told me that it has nothing to do with me, or the way that I work. That it is purely based on the financial state and the uncertainties of the American market. And that is good to hear, my boss also said that yesterday. I was glad that he did. I guess I need that confirmation.

I came home, checked my email and saw that I had a reaction on my Curriculum vitae which was stored on a website for people who seek a job. And they said that they are looking for a Junior Desktop Publisher and that if i was interested that I should send them an email back.

So with a lot of help from my sister I wrote that email and today I received a call. So tomorrow I have a job interview!!! Please think of me tomorrow, this is the break that I need. This job, if I can’t get this job then I don’t know what kind of a job I can get … I mean a Junior DTP job means that you get further education in the company. ** fingers crossed ** I need this so much!

Living arrangements

So Friday night as if faith wanted to kick me down some more I received a call from a man who was renting an apartment. He told me that I was one of the people that he had selected to come and see the apartment. So I made an appointment for Monday night. Even though I know that I can never afford it when I am not working.

But I went to the apartment anyway, in the end I unfortunately didn’t get it but still it was good to do something that was pointed towards the future even though it is very uncertain what will happen.

So I still don’t have an apartment … and the search continues!

This is just fucking unbelievable!!!! Seriously.

I am totally devastated and broken. Is there someone else out there who wants to kick me to the curb some more? Please do it now … cause I don’t know how much more I can take. So can we please do it now and get it over with?

First of all this week at work we got to hear that things weren’t looking good at all. Then there was a gathering in the break room and the highest boss told us that there was no reason to panic … that was yesterday.

Today my own boss told me that in four weeks they end my contract. Because the company is in serious trouble and due to the American economy problems ASML has canceled a lot of orders and is holding back. The company is over complete and are downsizing. I have worked there for nearly 3 years, and because of that in June they would be required to give me a contract. Since there has been a downfall they are not handing out any contract so I have to go.

And here comes the second kick in one day, I just got a phone call from a man who is renting out apartments. I can come and take a look at one on Monday. Ain’t that great, just the kind of luck I have. Finally I find an apartment and loose my job which means that the most sensible thing will be not to accept the apartment.

I just love my life … and then people tell me not to be so pessimistic!
Right cause there is absolutely NO REASON to be fucking pessimistic is there?

I just lost my job.
April 14th will be my last day …

That’s what friends are for …

So last week Friday I was supposed to go to Viola, well she works only three days a week since she had Kobé. So the plan was that I was going there after work. She lives close to my work and I would stay there for dinner. Well things changed drastically when she called me at work that morning. My first reaction was to disconnect the call cause we are not allowed to use ( or even have ) a cellphone at our department.

A couple of minutes later she send me an email saying that I should call her back and that it was important. Of course at first I worried about Kobé, I mean important … he was in the hospital in December with the RS virus. So I called back as fast as I could, her cellphone went to the answering machine immediately and the same happened with her home phone. It freaked me out … 30 minutes later I was finally able to reach her. She told me that she had some problems and that it would not be a good idea if I came after work. Of course I understand that! I mean she is my best friend, I was worried cause at that moment she couldn’t tell me what exactly was going on, she promised that she would explain it all to me and told me not to worry.

That afternoon I barely made it home when she called me, okay to be honest I was driving home. Now since I don’t answer my phone in the car I had to disconnect again. And I had to go to the store before I actually went home so it took me some time to get back to her but finally I reached her and we talked for a while. She told me what was going on and told me that whatever happened she would keep me in the loop. And asked if Monday after work we could go somewhere to get a drink and chat for a while.

At that point things where pretty bad, but after a long talk that night with her hubby she sent me an text message that things where good, well as good as could be. And that she would see me on Monday.

So Monday at work we didn’t talk about what had happened because people really like to talk at work and if they catch two words of what we are saying they make the rest of the story up. After work we went down town to the city and thanks to the good weather we could sit down on a terrace. In our winter coats but still it was nice enough to sit there, have a drink and chat. We talked for and hour and a half about what had happened and more. And well in the end things got resolved and even though Viola has hit a rough patch in her relationship she is doing fine.

She amazes me, she is going through this rough patch she should be worrying about herself and her marriage and her son. And in the midst of it all she finds time to worry about me. And even though we have talked a lot about her we have also talked a lot about me.

I guess I showed her my pretty well hidden fears, and a very vulnerable side of me that I don’t show often. But this is Viola and I trust her 100%, I know that she won’t betray me.

I am glad that Viola talked to me about what was going on, I mean I am myself and being me means that I basically have zero experience when it comes to relationships, so truthfully I wasn’t sure if there even was something which I could tell, do or say to help her. She says I did, she was glad that she had me listening to her without being judgmental, giving her a point of view that was disconnected from the direct situation but knowing the situation at the same time. Kind of hard to explain, I knew what she meant when she said it. Anyway it helped her and that is what is important.

I don’t want to end the year with a post that has been written a month and a half ago. But it has been a month and a half since I wrote anything, and if you are going to read this then I want to say this. Expect this to be a really long long post because so much has happened and I have a lot of things that I need to say and explain.

Dublin

I went to Dublin with my mom, it was awesome we have seen so many things in five days. Dublin is a beautiful city with extremely sweet people who try to help you whenever they can. If you are looking a little lost with a map in your hand they immediately ask you if they can help you out. In Dublin you can also find a lot of street artist some of them are really awesome. Beautiful old buildings with lots of history and of course a lot of pubs with live bands playing traditional Irish music. Which I love!!! It was awesome I should get some of the pictures we made and make a good post on Dublin show you what I have seen. Maybe I will do that in the next couple of weeks, maybe I won’t it depends.

Aachen

With some of my colleagues I went to Aachen on a Saturday. Just for fun, so we could go to the Christmas Market. It was beautiful and we had a really fun day. We did a lot of fun things, mostly involving food. But what the heck you should be able to do those kind of things every once in a while. And because Aachen is so close to where my parents live and it was the weekend. My colleagues dropped me off at a place close to my parents house where my dad picked me up. He picked me up there because then they could just go and drive on without having to drive far out of the way for me.

An Award

People who know me, well that is not exactly true people who know me online, know that I love fanfiction. And well that I love writing otherwise, I would not be writing this blog or the NBA blog. Anyway for the first time my writing has paid off in the form of a nice award. I joined NFA - NCIS: Fanfiction Addiction in September after I finally started watching NCIS. Yes, I am sorry it took me ehm … five years to finally watch this show and when you know how much I love it now you will probably call me a fool.

Anyway they have these Fanfiction Awards called ‘The Hinky’s’ after of course Abby Sciuto’s very well known expression that ‘things seem hinky.’ Which mean as much as something isn’t right. But that is besides the point, I got nominated for two stories. Which already surprised me to say the least. I was ecstatic about the nominations, and completly surprised. Well I have been nominated before, four or five times over the last three years for CSI fics. But I never won anything!

So these Hinky nominations already meant a lot to me especially because I just joined around September and that is also when I started watching the show. So go figure how cool that is.

On December 15th the Award winners would be announced in the chat room. And much to my surprise I won one! I was so surprised I almost couldn’t believe it. I have been writing for 5 years now. I crossover to a new fandom and barely four months later I win a second price for a story. I was nominated for two stories, ‘What happens in Vegas … stays in Vegas’ and ‘We’ll always have Paris’.

Thank you to everyone who nominated and voted for me!

Being sick

A couple of weeks ago, about three weeks ago, I stayed home a couple of days. I was sick, flue-ish but not feverish. I was mostly nauseous and dizzy and had an upset stomach. Normally I wouldn’t go to much into detail about this but … it’s important. So I was down for two days before I went back to work. I had hardly eaten anything in those two days, and to be honest since that day.

I never imagined me saying this especially not about myself but the way that I am eating is horrible. I eat because I know I have to but to be honest it is just a little bit. If I look at this past week for instance. I barely ate a sandwich in the morning, nothing in the afternoon and a little bit of dinner. Even though it is Christmas and we had all these usually delicious things. I just can’t eat … Right now it is already taken me more then 30 minutes to eat a little bit of chicken and some salad, I have not even touched the sandwich that is lying here. Half of what I put on my plate is still here. I have not felt hungry once in these past three weeks.

And I am still nauseous from time to time, not all the time but the smell of food can make me nauseous. And please don’t give me a smart ass reply stating the first thing that comes to mind because I can tell you right now it is impossible.

So what I am doing right now is try to eat as many healthy things as I can, lots of fruit and more. But also things that I like because if the smell doesn’t sit right with me I can’t eat it. If it is too much I am already done with it before I even start it and if I made it myself, I can’t eat to much either. It is strange, weird and confusing … and I really hope that I get past this soon. Cause this is not good at all, I am loosing weight. And yes I know that it doesn’t hurt me to loose some weight but this is not the right way.

Maybe it is partly because I was sick and maybe it is partly due to this holiday time. I was doing fine but this time of the year you can’t help but realize how much you would like to have someone around. And when you are not feeling fine in the first place something like that can make you feel pretty down. I mean I hate being alone any time of the year but during the holidays that is even more difficult. This is the time of the year where people just keep on asking what are you going to do with Christmas or New Year. Luckily I already had plans for New Year because Viola invited me months ago. But with Christmas I could only say home to my parents, there is no other place I can go. And I know that I am lucky cause I have my parents but still … it makes it that much more obvious. Don’t get me wrong my parents are awesome people, I love them but there is a hole in heart. That just doesn’t get filled ever … but then again if this is a depression then I have an even bigger problem because usually I react to depression by eating not by not eating.

I was not the only one who was sick

It is that time of the year again, the flu. A lot of people around me including me have been sick. But the thing that scared me the most was when one of my colleagues who I talked about before this post and who is also a friend of Viola said to me that she needed my help. I walked up to her and she told me that Viola had just called her and told her that she was in the hospital with Kobé. It scared me, I won’t deny that and all the happiness of that afternoon cause we had a lot of fun at work drained from me. It was as if someone had hit me, that couldn’t have hurt me more hearing that the little guy was at the hospital. So I rushed home at 3.30 PM and called her up. By that time Viola had already send me the phone number for their room at the hospital.

She told me that the night before on Wednesday, Kobé started vomiting really badly. And that they rushed him to the doctor and they gave him medication to stop the vomiting. He was doing a little better that morning but still bad and the problem with babies is that if they loose to much fluids they can really get in trouble. On Thursday they had an appointment to check some things, which he has every couple of weeks because of the intestinal problem that he has. And when the doctor heard what had happened the night before he immediately decided that Kobé had to stay there. No questions asked. The problem is that if he vomits he doesn’t hold down the medicine that he needs. And a sign of too little medicine in his system amongst other things is fever and vomiting. Which he both had!

With Kobé too little of his medicine could end up in a lot of problems, worst case scenario in brain damage. So that is why I was so freaked out when I heard about him being in the hospital. But on the other hand there they can monitor him and keep track on his vitals. Viola told me that I could come by the next day at the hospital if I wanted to. Which I of course wanted to do, he’s my little ‘nephew’ I needed to see him.

The next morning I got another call from Viola telling me that Kobé had gotten sicker, he had 40 degrees fever and to relieve him they gave him oxygen through a tube in his nose as well as food. Because he wasn’t able to keep anything down. So I asked Viola if it was still okay if I came by. She told me that she would really like that a lot if I did that. So after work that afternoon I got there and to be honest I was surprised.

Instead of seeing a sick baby I saw this happy content little guy lying in the crib laughing at everyone, smiling and making these talking kind of noises. Not at all what I had expected, especially not after talking to Viola the day before and her message that morning. So over the next couple of days I called Viola and she called me. I never had a friendship like this one before and it feels good to know that I have her in my life. And that she wants me to be there for those important moments.

Christmas and presents

I spend a lot of money on presents this year but I gave everyone presents that they could really use so I didn’t really mind spending the money for it. I bought some new clothes for myself.

I also received some cool presents! First of all a ZivaForever over at NFA - NCIS: Fanfiction Addiction wrote me a story. We did this Secret Santa challenge, where you got a name and specifications for that person and you had to write something for them. Well she got me and she wrote her first femmeslash story ever for me, and it it an awesome story!!! I love it, every word of it. I have to put a link up here so you can all read it because it is cool! The story is called ‘Ani Ohevet Otach’ which means ‘I love you’ in Hebrew. Anyway if you read it don’t be confused because it was posted by Cassy which was the mod of the challenge to keep it all a secret a little longer. We didn’t find out who wrote the story until three days after they where posted. Read it, it is awesome definitely worth the time. So again a thank you to Emma, from this place.

I got a really pretty necklace form my parents, and the Season 3 DVD from The L Word! I have the coolest parents ever, really I do!!! Plus my mom also bought me a bottle of Naomi Campbell’s shower gel. Paradise Passion and a birthday calendar. From my sister I got a book, and also Nivea Shower gel and Body lotion ( lotus flower, I love that smell ). From my grandmother I got 2 beads for my Pandora bracelet ( that thing must cost a small fortune by now ). From one aunt and uncle I got another bottle of shower gel Dove. And my other uncle and aunt gave me a gift certificate which is good for a meal of pancakes and a movie.

But the biggest unexpected surprise was from my work, we always get a box filled with goodies from them each year. It can be anything but it always has something to do with food. Usually a bottle of wine and some other things. Most companies in the Netherlands do that for their employees around Christmas, kind of as a thank you for the past year. But this year as an extra big surprise when they said that everyone who has worked their longer then three months got an extra present, because we earned a lot more money then they had expected we would at the beginning of the year. We all got an 4GB Ipod Nano, the newest version! 150 Euro’s a piece!!! Damn seriously if people dare to complain now they really should be smacked!

Friends

Some people confuse me, they say they want to be friends. And they hang on to you for dear life, that is too much and I can’t deal with that it suffocates me. It pushes me away … I don’t want that. I don’t need to get 7 text messages explaining to me why you are not online early. I’ll see you whenever you get on. I don’t mind getting a message every once in a while, but you don’t have to explain everything to me. There is no need, I am not your girlfriend I do not need to know those kind of things. So I write something in my blog about that, about me feeling suffocated and closed up. And promptly I do not hear from that person in well a month until this afternoon to be exact.

There is a way between too much and too little, find that way and we’ll be fine. That is all I have to say about that.

New Years eve

I have been invited to celebrate New Years eve with Viola, Marius and Kobé and probably some other people don’t know yet. I have to be there at three in the afternoon, I have no idea what we are going to do.

I am so glad that I am going to see them again. I have this really really really cute Christmas card that they made with a cute picture of Kobé on it. I could try to explain it but it would not do the cuteness justice. Seriously if you have a bad day just take a look at that image and you really only can smile.

I have to go and get a present for the little guy tomorrow morning before I go there. He deserves it and besides it has been Christmas and well it is my duty as an ‘aunty’ to spoil him.

New Years day

Once I manage to get out of my bed, I better get my act together and go home. To my parents I mean, that is my other home. And when I get there it is probably on to Grandma’s. That is tradition in our family, January 1st is at my Grandmother’s house. Everyone will be there, and I am going too even though I have to come back relatively early because January 2nd will be a regular work day for me and seeing how in the team of 5 I am the only one who will be there I have more then enough to do.

Anyway I hope to see you all on the other side of the New Year, for another year filled with surprises and hopefully a lot of good moments. And who knows maybe this will be my year! You never know …

This is an exact copy of the post that I wrote for No Borders Allow.

I decided to post this here also because it is an concert review and in the past I have always posted my concert reviews in my blogs. Don’t worry I am not going to post everything I write in my own blog and in NBA. If I write it for NBA it will go there, but I will mention it here. Unless it is a concert again, then you will get a double post.

I need to post some other things on here too, but first there are some other things that I need to write so I guess it is going to have to wait.

So without further interruptions I present to you my review:

Beth Hart, every time I see that woman she knows how to amaze me. And believe me when I say that I have seen her in many different circumstances; fourteen or fifteen concerts from small venues to a festival. Yes, I am one of those people who is proud to say that I am a ‘Die Hart Fan’. This time I did not bring my camera; I just wanted to be there enjoy her music and see the show. And what a show it was!

She is gifted with a huge voice, an amazing talent for putting words on a paper and she is funny; she always says that she talks too much during the shows, but that is one of the things I love about her and I hope she never stops doing that. She is a funny lady, and I love the way that she talks about her songs and her husband Scott, who is at some part of the show, always the center of attention. She can’t stop telling us how sweet and romantic he is, and then always ending that story with telling us how she likes it rough. Thank you for the mental images.

I have to say that Beth looked awesome; she looked really healthy. Even though she was still having some voice problems. But it is Beth we are talking about, the woman who will always give more then 100% at a show. Unfortunately the voice problems are worse then she probably thought and wanted us to hear; she canceled three shows: one last week and two other shows.

Beth Hart pulled a ‘Dixie Chick’, for all of you music lovers out there I am pretty sure that you know what I mean by that. Let’s put it like this, I won’t say what she said exactly but she told us what her opinion was on a certain subject. It surely got a good response from the crowd.

The songs

The show was a good mix between old and new songs, which also showed who where the new fans and who where the fans from the first hour. The only songs I didn’t know where ‘Sauce’ and ‘Catalina’, which have never been recorded before.

Set list:
Face Forward Son
Easy
Lifts You Up
Bottle Of Jesus
Learning To Live
G.O.P.
Say My Name
L.A. Song
Jealousy
Monkey Back
Sick
Sauce
One Eyed Chicken
Leave The Light On
Good As It Gets

Encore:
Stinky Feet
By Her
Soulshine
Broken & Ugly
Catalina

Well of course she did my favorite songs, okay I know that I love most of her songs. But my absolute favorites where on that set list. She did ‘Easy’ as the second song that evening, I love that song.

She told the story behind ‘Jealousy’; saying that she wrote it because she is jealous when Scott looks at other women. She told a story about a park, where she and Scott were and where she got so frantic when she saw him look in a different direction and asked him who he was looking at. Later that day she went back and drove around the park for hours to see who he could have been checking out. She wrote that song a couple of years ago when she was just married. It is about her own insecurities and how they make her jealous.

‘Stinky feet’ that is the song that she always uses to tell people that she loves her husband but that he should really wash his feet. She kind of asked him if it was okay for her to tell the story, he stepped up to the mic and asked the audio people kindly to kill her mic. Which they didn’t and Beth told the story and played the song. At the end of the song Scott came back onto the stage minus one of his shoes and held his sock up to her face. Which was pretty funny of course, right back at ya Beth.

She broke a guitar string during ‘By her’, she finished the song with one less guitar string and then they ran off with the guitar to fix it for her. They brought it back onto the stage fixed and all.

She added ‘Soulshine’ in the encore, which made me really happy; that is also one of my favorites from the ‘37 days’ album.

And of course she did an old favorite of the crowd, ‘Broken and Ugly’, everyone always loves that song. The crowd goes crazy every time she plays it.

Although I would have loved to hear every song of the ‘37 days’ album, I personally was glad to see a mix between new and old songs and even some songs that have never been recorded. Beth was awesome, what more can a fan ask for.

Support act

Normally I don’t tell much about the support acts, truth be told usually I don’t even know who the hell was on the stage before Beth. But this girl has to be mentioned.

Her name is Wies, she is a Dutch girl, and check out her website if you would like to know more about her you can also listen to some of her songs on her MySpace. Her first CD comes out in January 2008 and I definitely interested to hear more of her songs.

There has never been a support act that I loved as much as this woman; she is talented, cute and well beautiful. And yes I am aware that you probably expected that comment from me seeing how she looks kind of like a mix between Maria Mena, Katie Melua and Norah Jones and has an awesome voice.

Source:
BethHart.com
BethHartMusic.com
Beth Hart’s MySpace
Wies