Random is as random does
No big story for this entry, just a couple random tidbits.
Fat ducks, fuzzy dogs, apple fritters and cement.
Thanks for tuning in!
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*turns around* Oh, don’t believe me?! That’s not very nice.
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Ok, fine. I do have a bit more substance to share with you all 
So, it’s completely normal to have sprinkle toast here for breakfast. Laura and I had seen the boxes before in the store, but didn’t think about it too hard until we discovered Peter often has sprinkles on some buttered bread in the morning. We tried that today, and it was exactly how I expected. Peter had chocolate and anise sprinkles. I tried the chocolate ones and laura had both.
Also, keeping my consipiracy theory up about Holland not wanting us to have internet access, the market internet we had been using with glee at Peter’s suddenly developed WEP protection. It happened within a 20 minute time span last night. We watched a youtube video on how there can only be 10 dimensions, Laura went to take a shower while I talked with Peter and Mathijs, and then when Laura got out of the shower, she tried to get online and it was locked.
Speaking of 10 dimensions, Mathijs, Peter and I had a great conversation about that theory, and about infinity (Robert: you don’t understand infinity! has to be the motto for For Science I think), and about how we can’t really understand absolute nothing, and what gravity is. It was a lot of fun, and I expected to dream crazy science stuff, but I discovered the internet was locking me out right before bed and ended up dreaming about internet instead. </nerd>
Oh btw, we decided that the most logical answer to gravity is 1 dimensional aliens. They are holding everything down all the time; and we can’t see them because they don’t have any length or width. They are just points in space. Things that seem heavier just have more aliens on them than others. I think when I get home I’ll submit our hypothesis to a journal for publication. Hopefully someone can fund research from there.
Weekend is coming up quickly, but I don’t think Laura and I have any real plans. Going to do some laundry the old fashioned way, and lounge about. I do have a bunch of storyboards for production to draw though, so I’ll prolly do my best to get as much of that done as possible too.
Oh! How could I forget; when I got to work today I naturally checked my email, and had a message from FinAid saying my offer has changed and please go check. I figured maybe they were offering me more loans since they raised tuition, and instead I discovered I’ve been granted a $2500 scholarship! I have no idea where it came from, but I’m super thrilled. I just wish I knew so I could send a thank you letter (and brownies or something).
I had an interview with Rotary before the last semester ended, but it was preliminary and they told me they’d call to set up an interview for a specific scholarship and then never contacted me again. Other than that, I haven’t heard anything from anyone. Bryson pointed out that Clarke may have put my name somewhere, but it’s not a university scholarship; my FinAid says “External Scholarship Agency 1″ O.o
That pretty much covers things for now, Cheers!
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Woke up earlier yesterday than I do for work. “But yesterday was Saturday” you might say to me, and you’d be right. But yesterday was also the day Peter, Mathijs, Laura and I went to Efteling as well. We wanted to get there when the park opened at 10am, and we had to pick Mathijs up from the neighboring city of Rotterdam, and then drive down to the theme park in the south. All of that equals getting up earlier than usual.
Peter let me drive though, which was great. I drove most of the way there at about 120! Which sounds crazy, until you realise it’s in km/h, not mph, so I was really going about 70-75ish. On the way there we saw a car from GB too, which was entertaining. He was driving on the wrong side of his car and everything. I imagine that would be pretty nerve-wracking for him. We got to the park in good time and had just enough time to buy tickets before the park opened.
The park itself was pretty cool. It was like a smaller, dutch-ier disneyland in the forest; the first ride in particular. We got in little boat cart things and it took us through mostly dark rooms with animatronic puppets doing things and there was the faux-danger and “misleading” turn etc… like you’d find on the pirates or pincchio rides etc.
We did a couple mini rollercoasters too, which were all much too short. Just as they were getting started, we were pulling back into the stop. Like this one rollercoaster, we got on, climbed up a bit, dropped into a loop, did a short corkscrew and that was it. Fin. Still fun though, just surprising. The best ride was the Flying Dutchman (yeah, lolzy I know). Waiting in line set a lot of atmosphere, like being in Indiana Jones, and they had all these effects and settings and such, and the ride itself was lots of fun. But again, just as it started, it was done.
Besides the rides, they had this fairytale forest place. It was a maze of Dutch fairytales with animatronic puppets (often in little houses/castles) enacting parts of the story out. My flickr has pictures of most of them, and a picture of the book they had on display giving a bit of a synopsis of the tale.
One of the stories that I didn’t see a book for, and Mathjis wouldn’t tell me about was the Well Maiden or something like that. There was a well and when you looked down, there was a slideshow type video playing and a woman telling the story in Dutch over some speakers.
Since my Dutch sucks, I had to get the whole story from the illustrations, which went something like this:
Once upon a time, there was a woman. She shook her pillow over a town and it started to snow. She then went to an orchard and was upset/frightened at some ripe peach apple things. Then she returned to town unhappy because the townsfolk poured tar on her (or maybe they tarred her because she was unhappy). After that she ran to cry with the chickens and a rooster crowed. Then they all lived happily ever after. Awesome story, no? The bit about a well was probably in the beginning, I missed the first couple images because the actual well was crowded.
Other fairytales we saw were: The wolf and the 7 kids, indian waterlilies, rapunzel, rumplestiltskin, the red shoes, the giant and the 7 mile shoes, sleeping beauty, the 6 servants, chinese nightingale and the golden tuning fork. Some of them are recognizable and some of them are obviously not.
At the Golden Tuning Fork, Laura tried reading the story in dutch (the books had a column for Dutch, French, German and English). It was quite entertaining. The guy’s favorite part was when she said “ka-boo-ter” which is apparently a very mangled pronunciation of the word kabouter, meaning dwarf. But we continued to talk about “ka-boo-ters” for the rest of the day.
After that we found this bird ride, which is like a mini-rollercoaster in the dark (not unlike space mountain). In the beginning they really kill your nightvision with some strobelights, and then continue to flash lit up birds and such to keep you otherwise in as dark darkness as possible Sneaky bastards. Speaking of being sneaky, like most of the rollercoasters, there was a camera somewhere which took a hilariously great picutre of us, so we bought a couple. One for the office and one Laura and I can take home. We’ll scan it when we can, and share. It’s so great.
By 5, we’d seen most of the park, were pretty worn out, and Peter had to go. So we piled back into his car for the return trip. When we got back to Peter’s, Laura had a bad headache, so I made Mathijs, Laura and I a chicken calzone from scratch to share. Ok, you caught me, I used sauce from a jar. But the dough was from scratch. It was also pretty good (apparently Laura and Mathijs enjoyed it more than I did). It was super easy too and I made it up as I went along. Take that recipes!
Other than that, I’ve been in a fair amount of pain recently. Starting last week my ring finger on my mouse hand started acting up. Thats happened before, so I started mousing differently to try to relive it, and after work it just went away. But then Friday it still lingered after work, which sucked. I spent most of my time trying not to use it, and holding it to my middle finger which relived some of the pain. I was hopeful that after a night of sleep it would be gone and I’d have the weekend to really let it rest. However, it continued to hurt most of yesterday still, despite my using it almost never, since we spent our time walking around and standing in line. It got especially bad at night and I woke up several times because my wrist, elbow and/or finger was hurting. My left wrist also decided to join in on the fun last night, although it seems fine today.
Since I’ve gotten up, my finger and wrist have been aching non-stop, my elbow on and off. I think it’s prolly some kind of referred pain from the lack of comfortable furniture anywhere. The chair I’m in right now isn’t that bad, but my bed and chair at work aren’t that great and the chairs at Angelicas really sucked. I hope I can deal with it until I get home at least, unfortunately, it’s just one more reason I’m antsy to get home. Right now I’m planning on getting off my laptop after I write this and watch something. I have my finger taped (with masking tape) to my middle finger giving me a kind of cartoon/raptor hand. I’ve been on and off wrapping my wrist and I’ma go see if I can wrangle some ice into some kind of pack soonish. FML
Hey Jude, don’t make it bad
Things are getting better again.
Laura and I found a new tram route and made it to work on time, although we took our bikes today and ended up going the long way around (whoops). Work has been pretty uneventful, other than Angelica coming in. She works part time doing administrative stuff and everytime she laughed I wanted to break a neck. Luckily she’s only coming in once more before leaving for Chile.
She did haunt me in my dreams last night though. I can’t remember what was happening in the dream, but she slowly started to flood all my sight/smell/hearing and just as she was fading into focus I woke up all distressed and such. Hopefully that particular gem in my subconscious goes away soon… and then she kicked us out. That’s the new ending to all of my Angelica stories. “This one time, Angelica such and suched… and then she kicked us out.”
Yesterday evening, Laura and I made an “American” dinner for Peter. Laura tried a fried chicken recipe and I made my “famous” garlic mashed potatoes. They was delicious, uh huh. Course I forgot that there was like 3/4 cup milk in the potatoes and ended up a bit sick later in the night, but I’ve overcome dumb physiological disabilities to live another day. *flex*
While eating dinner, Laura and I mentioned how we miss Rockband, and so after we were done eating and doing the dishes, Peter pulled his “Candy Cola” red guitar out and we did some old school rockbanding. That was fun. Not the same, but fun. It was tricky finding songs all three of us knew well enough to play/sing, but when we did it was a lot of fun. Peter listens to more pop stuff, and I guess I listen to music even people in the US aren’t very familar with. Well, and lately I’ve been really into mashups, and it’s super hard to just guitar a dance mashup, even if you do know it well. Hooray for using nouns as verbs.
Even in it’s unfinished state, I’m enjoying Peter’s place. It’s much more what I expected. The door is on the gorund level, but after you walk in, there is just a fairly narrow staircase up to the actual rooms. Livingroom/kitchen on the first floor, and then another staircase up to the two bedrooms and the bathroom/wc. And then a final set of stairs up to an attic/studio type room. There is a bidet in the bathroom too, which Laura and I both lol’d at. It’s the first one I’ve seen here. Laura didn’t even know what it was.
Oh and internet. The market apparently has free wifi, which is ironically better than Angelica’s. Better signal, better speeds, more stable (so far at least). I was super thrilled to find that. Makes Peter’s place *that* much better really.
On a random note, something I’m doing (or not doing) here is making my teeth more sensitive. Laura says it’s a lack of flouride in the water, but I’m still using a floride toothpaste. Whatever it is, foods are starting to hurt my teeth. Not in a I-prolly-have-a-cavity kind of way, but like when biting into ice cream, only it’s all sorts of things that don’t usually bother me; seems to come and go too. I think I have a cleaning appointment with my dentist not long after I get back though, so I’ll get to ask about it asap when I get home. Hopefully it doesn’t get worse before that though, it’s already quite annoying. Maybe it’s the toothpaste I’m using here, or the water. I dunno. Maybe I’ll internet it later.
Google, Away! *zooms out like superman*
Epic shit hit the industrial fan
Here we go folks.
I got up this morning and got ready for work like I always do. I was leaving my room to see if Laura was ready to go, when Angelica ambushed me. She was standing in the “chicken” and I turned to say “we’ll talk after work.” But not before I got through saying “we’ll” she interrupted me saying, again, “After this week, you are done here,” very angrily this time.
Things only snowballed from there.
I decided waiting until after work was not a good plan anymore, and at the climax of our argument Angelica had literally admitted to being a heartless, inhuman bitch who doesn’t care what happens to us. She also told me that we were arrogant and that Laura has no respect for her and that is not ok. I told her I can’t respect anyone who would kick two people out on the street in a foreign country.
Before the drama llama showed up, Angelica had told us that she thought of us as her own kids. My house is your house and if you need anything just ask, etc… Today she said she would kick her own kids out on the street. The only thing we have asked of her is to let us stay all summer, oh and to not unplug the router. Neither of those requests are active, or take ANY effort on her part. We were compeltely autonomous. And it’s only 3 more weeks.
She is also apparently mad at us because she is mad at Robin. She was saying that this is her house and Robin has no business, and he doesn’t want her to find a solution when she already has. I told her that Peter’s house isn’t a solution, it doesn’t have furniture or flooring. There are no beds, she has the only beds available to us, and that we have no where to sleep (and started tearing up a bit). But she didn’t care.
It was, as she said, “not my problem anymore.” She was completely pulling out of any responsibilty at all. I pleaded, I pitied, I tried logic, I tried crying, I tried anger and yelling. She was untouched, compeltely stone-cold. So I left the house furious; I believe my last words to her were something along the lines of “You are without a doubt, the worst person I have ever met. Ever.”
Laura and I rode our bikes to work, where I was still fuming. I announced that we had a row, and Robin came in to talk to us. He left on holiday today, but was in for an hour prior, which I was glad for. We (Robin, Peter, Laura and I) agreed to move, at my request, RIGHTNOW. So Peter took us over to Angelica’s were we packed up and I realised I was missing my wallet. Figuring I left it at work, I wasn’t worried about that. I was more concerned with getting everything and getting out.
We went over to Peter’s new place, which is nice except for the lack of floor and furniture. There is apparently a mattress at the office and we’re going to figure out some makeshift beds and a table after work today. Peter has a tub too, and I was dying for a bath the other night, so I might have to test that out. Unfortunately, one thing Peter doesn’t have yet is internet (I think the country is against my being connected to the outer world… even the internet at work went out while I was writing this ), so if the neighbors all lock their tubes, then Laura and I will be at the office more often I think. Still a bummer though. Moar time for teh traditional artz I guess.
Peter’s place is 3 blocks from the saturday market though, which is neat. It also means we’re not completely lost again. I don’t know the neighborhood as well as Angelica’s, but I’m not on a disconnected island in the middle of the city at least.
Back to the wallet story though, we got back to the office and it wasn’t there. So I hopped on a bike and retraced my steps back to the bike storage unit Angelica has. Nothing. Ride back to the office. Still nothing. Check Peter’s car. Nothing. Panicking? Almost. I need my ID to get back into the country. Rechecked my bag…
found it. Thank God. I just put money in it too. I would have been out nearly 100€ and my CA ID, International Student/Health Insurance ID, my Blue Cross card (or whatever they are calling themselves.. Anthem?), car insurance and Wamu card. It would have sucked. Not something I need to deal with today (or any day).
All this by 11am.
However, this should be the final chapter in the Dutch-Housing Crisis of ‘09. Peter isn’t going to go ballistic and kick us out before we volunarily leave (I think), and we don’t have to acknowledge Angelica. Ever Again.
Fucking bitch is a fucking bitch
So the housing situation is NOT settled apparently. Angelica will not be budged. She’s dead set on kicking us out of her house by next week. Laura and I went to see Harry Potter HBP and got home just a minute ago. Angelica leapt on me saying we need to talk and I told her no, I’m going to bed, we’ll talk later. She was all “Next week, you are done here.” And I said “We’ll talk tomorrow” and went into my room.
Tomorrow I’m going to try to give the performance of my life. Hopefully with tears and irresistible emotion. At the very least I’ll get angry, but if I can get pitiful, I think we have a better chance. Anger isn’t really going to work (Robin already got angry) but Angelica pulls the pity-me, watch-me-cry BS all the time, so we’ll see how she takes it. Serious Lauren is Serious.
Fail this, which honestly, I’ma give it my best but if Robin can’t slap some sense into her I doubt I can, we’re sleeping in Peter’s unfinished house for the remainder of our time here. Sucks really, but I appreciate Peter offering it to us. So, parents, no worries, we won’t be sleeping in the park, but I’d rather sleep in the room that was promised to me/us for the COMPLETE TRIP which we’re paying 1500 EUROS for. You don’t rent to someone for the summer and then surprise! get up and leave and kick them out of your house all of a sudden.
Today Robin and Peter tried to talk some logic and sensibility into Angelica. They got into quite a row at work. Angelica was pissed. This afternoon I was torn between having sympathy because her father is dying of cancer, and anger at what she’s doing to us. Tonight the sympathy has vanished. I feel nothing for her. She brought this situation upon herself and she needs to take some responsibilty for the things she signed on for this summer. She begged Robin to let us stay here to help her pay rent. She WANTED us here, and how she wants to kick us out. Ugh I’m so angry just thinking about it. I might have to put some pants on and go out there right now. I know it’s going to be long winded though and I am tired, so I need sleep first. Working tomorrow will be hell if I don’t.
This post should have been about happiness and Harry Potter, but as we neared the apartment building my anger at this whole mess faded back into focus. At the very least I’ll feel better after I yell at Angelica, even if tears and sob stories do no good. No one fucks with a redhead without getting a face full (see Aunt Sue).
*deep breath* But for now, I sleep. Expect quite a tale tomorrow.
Simply House
(Sadly no Hugh Laurie in this one though ;-;)
So I thought I’d give a proper run down about the drama that was our housing situation since my last couple updates were spotty and sudden.
Thursday Night: I’ve gone to bed. Angelica comes into Laura’s room around 1am, who is also getting ready for bed. Angelica continues to talk at Laura for an hour an a half, sometimes crying, about her sick father, going to Chile, how she doesn’t trust anyone in Chile, and appreciates that we’re here; but she wants to take “all the responsibility onto herself” and she wants to “close down the house.” She said she wanted us to live with Robin or Peter, which is absurd for several reasons. 1) Robin has a family, including an apparently insanely jealous wife (which Angelica knows), and Peter has a girlfriend. 2) Peter’s house is unfinished. 3) She agreed to let us stay here all summer. 4) She didn’t talk to Peter or Robin about it, just assumed. 5) We don’t want to impose on anyone else, we’re paying Angelica, she can’t just kick us out and assume someone else will house us. If there was a better alternative, WE’D BE THERE ALREADY.
Friday Morning: Laura relates the conversation to me. I unknowingly go into shock.
Later Friday Morning: Reality slaps me in the face while talking to Scott (Washington, not my Dad). I try not to break down in the office. Laura and I discuss possibilities while working over gtalk. Eventually we vent to a couple of the guys about it. They find it as ridiculous as we do.
Friday Afternoon: Robin comes back to the office. I tell him what Laura told me Angelica said. Woot 4th person! He just denies it. He won’t accept it from her. He also didn’t know she was leaving. She works for Mirage 3D part time as a kind of administrative helper. Leaving the country for extended periods of time is something to tell your boss ASAP I think. Anyway… Robin says he’ll talk her into letting us stay because anything else is unacceptable.
This Weekend: We barely see Angelica and we ignore each other anyway.
Today: Laura talked to Robin about the situation again. He said he talked to her and told her that this was unacceptable. So it looks like we’re staying here. Which is good, because I wasn’t about to hand over my set of keys anyway. It’s looking like the last weeks we have here are going to be foot-loose and Angelica-free. Although to be honest, since she’s completely ignoring us, I’ve been more relaxed about walking around the apartment and getting food from the kitchen. Don’t have to worry about her ambushing me while getting some water or brushing my teeth.
There you have it folks. The full story straight from the horse’s friend’s mouth (I say that because Laura ended up being the face for most of this craziness. Also, I don’t at all think she’s a horse, sayings are just silly like that :-p )
From what I can see, everyone’s at it
So with the housing drama on Friday, Laura and I decided to go to Efteling next weekend, which means there isn’t a lot to update with. We’ve been relaxing with movies and traditional artz. Laura has been drawing comics of things inspired by our time here, and I’ve been inking and coloring them. As they get done, I’ve been posting them up to my deviant art page. They are quite entertaining if I do say so myself. I wish we could keep them up, but with the semester coming I don’t know how likely that is. Although they are a good way to put the computer screen down and relax, so maybe. Gotta talk to Laura about it.
In other news, Angelica is still ignoring us. I don’t know if Robin has talked to her or not. Guess we’ll find out soon though haha
Update to my improper update
Talked to Robin today just after work. Told him what we knew and he just wouldn’t accept it. It seems he won’t let Angelica kick us out. So he said he’d try to talk some sense into her and let us stay.
I was never worried about ending up on the street, I’m more resourceful than that. But comfort was a worry. I didn’t want to have to stay on someone’s floor, or in a cheap roach motel, or go broke staying in a nicer hotel. I want to stay here, where we agreed we’d be staying for the summer.
I have pretty good faith in Robin’s ability to convince Angelica to let Laura and I stay here. It’s only 4 weeks after all.
Don’t have time for a proper update
But Laura informed me this morning that Angelica told her she is leaving for Chile soon, and wants to “take full responsibility for everything.” Which translates to “I want to kick you out of my house for the last four weeks you’re here.”
This is a bittersweet occurance. On the one hand, we won’t have to deal with Angelica and her passive-agressive notes and badgerings. On the other hand, we don’t really have anywhere else to sleep D:
We’re going to ask Robin to try to talk her into letting us stay the remainder of our internship, and just give Robin our set of keys when we leave. Here’s to hoping!
Why can’t we all, all just be honest?
Photo update!
I realised it had been quite a while since I uploaded anything to Flickr, and the queue was getting quite long, so I hunkered down, batch-actioned some things (<3 photoshop for that feature!) and uploaded nearly 50 new pictures to Flickr, dating back to Roze Zaterdag (eep!) I may go back and add links to the last couple of blogs… or I might go play some WoW haha, we’ll see how I’m feeling after I’m finished with the update today.
Not much else to say though. Work is work. I’m still chugging along with Darwin’s fireplace. I’ve got 12+ objects to do still, not counting the two which are still in progress. And about 4 more weeks here. I’ll be cutting it close I think. I’ve completely finished 9 objects and 3 completely tilable textures (my first three, thank you very much!). Of course I did a bunch of the easy objects first, like the portraits and the candle. Learning a lot about texturing and some of the maya shaders (like mirrors), which is nice. Before coming here I’d only hand UV’d my Raptor (Baby Cthulhu was an auto-map) and procedurally textured anything else. Coulda fooled the guys I think, but having pre-existing Photoshop powers is really the secret there.
Laura and I may be going to Efteling in Tilburg this weekend, weather permitting. Could potentially be SUPERAWESOME. But the weather says thunderstorms Friday, and more rain on Saturday. Sunday perhaps… We’ll see.
