CAN WE ALL PLEASE JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN?

Ok, this could become a long post, as I haven't updated in about a month. Have been busy as usual, with school, gigs, 'being social' and film club.

I'm starting to feel quite lonely in school, as most my friends have left the school... Ashley is back in Korea, Robert and Richard are both finished with school (still in London though, Robert is working and Richard trying to find a job). In a few weeks all the people I've started with in January will have left.... Seems like I'm the only one who's going to be with Ross in the class for the rest of the year.

Speaking of Ross, last friday we experienced some more of his unconventional teaching methods. He said to us: ok, you're all going to different coffeeshops, you're going to order something, sit down and spy on someone and write down how you think this person lives, who he or she is etc.
It's the weirdest lesson I ever had.
And this week we were discussing language death and the possibility of a universal language, then he said: I'm going to talk to Ilse, she's going along with this and reply in Dutch, and we're going to see if we understand each other. So he started talking to me in something that seemed like a very bad version of Dutch, or some made up language with the occasional Dutch word thrown in... it left me in a state of utter confusion. Afterwards he revealed it was Afrikaans (which in some ways is very close to Dutch), he learned it when he lived in South-Africa for two years, when his father was working there. Funny how you can sometimes find out interesting things about him, as he seems overall a quite closed and reserved person.

Three weeks ago I was suprised by a teacher with the question whether I wanted to take over Film Club for the following two weeks, as he himself would be gone to do some work experience. Ofcourse I said yes, I felt honoured and was excited in the beginning. I felt trusted with a sort of responsibility, as it would entail buying the dvds, making the quiz, picking up the projector/laptop and setting it up. However, it didn't go very well, due to poor attendance (6 in the first week, 2 in the week after), the teacher having failed to tell anyone about me taking over (which means: projector/laptop + room 5 being taken over by a teacher) and technical problems (after room 5 being taken over I was put in a room with a tv which had no remote control, asked the teachers to find me some remote controls, they gave me a couple... without batteries, and in the second week I couldn't log in on the laptop..).

Concertwise I've seen, since I last posted; Surfer Blood, Jon Gomm, Air Waves, Pulled Apart By Horses, Beach House, Midlake, The Drums, The Maccabees, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Big Pink, Japandroids, Los Campesinos! and U.S. Girls.
Especially Los Campesinos! was great again, I saw them for the 4th time and it's still nowhere near boring.

I've missed some good stuff in Holland apparently. 'The Dutch Cabinet fell', due to disagreements concerning the Dutch military in Uruzgan [Afghanistan]. I'm too tired to explain the Dutch political system, so I won't bother.
Unfortunately, I will just about miss the general elections spectacle, as I'm still in London around that time. Victory could become Geert Wilders', the right-wing leader of the 'Party of Freedom', who compares the Qur'an (which he states 'should be burned') to Mein Kampf and wants to introduce a tax on wearing headscarves.

What I did notice in one of the videos concerning this issue I saw (didn't follow the whole thing that well) was the following; the use of the verb 'de zwarte piet krijgen'? What's up with that? Have I lived outside the Netherlands too long to recognize this use of the word zwarte piet? Since when is it a verb? Isn't it a little early on to speak of zwarte pieten anyway? + political journalism via pinning pictures of politicians on a tree is lame.


Another thing going on, in the Dutch music world, was the whole Lowlands hoax around it being sold out within a week (something never happens, always takes a few months), resulting into it actually selling out for real, as everyone starting buying their tickets. We can only assume the hoax was a marketing strategy?
Luckily I bought my ticket the day after it went on sale, and now most of my friends have their tickets as well, so it should be cool. Looking forward to it again! (probably the only thing worth looking forward to when it comes to going back 'home' in Holland)


From next week on, I have a two week holiday. Not sure what I'm going to do, have a couple of gigs planned and initially wanted to go on a trip to Liverpool & Manchester. That's probably not going to happen, as I don't have much money. I'm thinking about doing some daytrips, like Cambridge and/or Brighton and maybe do some photography projects and visit some museums...