what happened?

This month a lot of things were added to the site. The webcam, the guestmap, the forum, the hidden dutch page for my students, and more text and pictures. Then there was the week of absency, because of Ad's holiday to Greece. What impressed me the most though, was the trip to London. How my image of England changed after visiting this wonderful city! I never would have thought that spotting the Big Ben, the Tower Bridge and the Marble Arch for the first time would be such an impressive experience, but it sure was!

Lying on a grass patch, enjoying the sun and looking at the Marble Arch, I suddenly realised for the third time that day that I really enjoyed England. Or London at least. We only went to London and Oxford so I don't really know much about life outside of these towns, but if it's anything like these two, then I'll be there again soon! The English were very friendly too. Always helpful, and looking good, quite contrary to my expectations. Anyway, here follow my comments on this month.

April 2003

2 - Wednesday - 01:35
How busy can a person get? Not that it's any busier than normal, the last couple of days seemed to have gone by so fast, I can't really remember what happened. The webcam's doing good though, I've had a lot of positive reactions, thank you all! I'll try to get more excitement into the the outdoor view, but I don't think the laying bombs idea was a very good one...

2 - Wednesday - 11:45
You see, even when you wake up early in the morning you just keep busy all the time. A lot of people are asking me to put them on the schoolmates page, and I will indeed put Rachelle, Marije, Dean and all the others on there, don't worry about that. It's just that I need to find the time to do it. It's a complicated process you know!! Like they care... (-_-)

2 - Wednesday - 22:41
The Netherlands played a good 2-1 game against Moldavia today. I rediscovered the goodness of a dutch frikadel. Robert and I spent some good time together at school and in a couple of cafes. I played the piano too, not very long, but I played it. School was good, I learned a lot. All in all, it was a fine fine day, just a bit of a pity that the weather was pretty bad...

3 - Thursday - 08:53
Today I might have some time to put new stuff on this site. Classes are from 9 till 11 only, which leaves me with some time again before I have to teach. The weather is again not too good, it seems that our luck has run out again. It's spooky that people are telling me what I'm eating while they're not here. 'Hey, chips!' 'Wow, that's a nice raisin bun!' etc.

4 - Friday - 01:48
Not too much new stuff, but I added a little bit to the Take Five story. I also finished Metroid Prime today. With a full 100% of pickups, I got the best ending, but I also discovered that I failed to scan an Ice Shriekbat , and it won't show up anymore, so I have to go thru the whole thing again, and only for one measly creature! Not that I mind playing that game though.

4 - Friday - 12:53
Today I have the law class by Mr. Verwayen again. We're currently translating a Japanese text about the position of the Emperor after the second world war. It's mightily interesting actually, just a bother that you first have to translate the whole thing before you can understand what it's saying. Ah well. I think I'll stay in Leiden this weekend. Should be fun!

4 - Friday - 21:41
Not too long ago, Ad's girlfriend Nathalie graduated, and today is her graduation party. I'm going over there in just a bit, and if all is well just about a hundred people should be there! So that's going to be quite a party! Not that I want to make it too late today, seeing I have a lot of plans for the weekend so I can't sleep all saturday...

5 - Saturday - 01:55
Schaamteloos - Toch Gewoon Beter. That would be a suitable name for our next party. Today's party was a lot of fun though. Nathalie's house is big to say the least, and while the capacity wasn't used fully, it was pretty cool. I didn't know too much of the people there, so I just hung out with the other Schaamteloos members there. Go Domi, we hope you scooore! :)

6 - Sunday - 02:42
I'ts late, I can't sleep. And the worst thing is, I can't think of anything to write now, so I might as well write about that. Today was a semi-productive day. I got some work done, but not as much I probably should have. Ah well, some work is still better than no work at all, right? I'll put on some nice music now and try to get back to sleep. *yawn*

6 - Sunday - 18:17
Tjitske and I are alone in the house today, so we decided to go out for dinner tonight. Nothing too fancy of course, just a regular restaurant with a french-dutch kitchen probably. The weather's really great outside, so today turned out just to be another fine day, which is always good. I had some pictures developed, and as soon as the scanner works, they'll be online. I just have to get the thing to work!

7 - Monday - 00:07
Well! That was a good dinner. The restaurant was a bit strange, it was like you were sitting in someone's living-room. Although it was kind of cold in there, Tjits and I had a great time. The food was really good too, I ate everything until there was nothing left. I finally got to adding some schoolmates, so I hope they all see that. Now let's hope the nagging stops...

7 - Monday - 12:09
If you sit behind the computer here when the curtain's closed, you can see only a little part of the window which is not covered by the aforementioned curtain. And when I look at that now I see a very blue sky, and the sun is trying really hard to shine through the curtain. All signs that it might just be a very nice day today! Which, of course, would be good!

8 - Tuesday - 02:20
Tomorrow, or wait, this morning I'm going to jog with Tjitske for a while. Let's hope it's not too cold out there. And let's hope that I can wake up before then!! The reason I'm up late couldn't be better though, Christina called me and that was once again great. Thanks honey ;). And on that happy note I'll go to sleep, sweet dreams to everyone else too.

8 - Tuesday - 08:10
Yes, right, err, what does one wear when one goes jogging? Really I never do this kind of thing, so I wouldn't know. I do know that it still is too early for me to be waking up, and the unhappy fact is that after I get home, I can't get back to sleep because I have a lot to do today. I have the feeling that today could very well be very loooong.

9 - Wednesday - 00:09
Well, we didn't run after all, seeing Tjits was too late. ;) That's okay though, it was really cold in the morning and I think that we were both a bit happy to cancel the whole thing. I added the Guestmap today, be sure to check that out! For the rest, it's study and work here in Holland. That, and updating this page. There are more Characters now, too.

9 - Wednesday - 09:53
This feels good. I slept for just more than eight hours, so I'm all awake now and ready to do some stuff. And there needs to be done a lot today. Well, actually it's only just about two things, but since one of them is reading about 200 pages, I count it as a time-consuming one. Why don't you follow Christina and Rachelle and sign my Guestmap? I'd appreciate it a lot, and it's fun!

9 - Wednesday - 18:50
I added a counter to this page today, and also of course the Guestmap, which is actually being used. Thank you all for signing already! I got a lot of emails from my Japanese friends today telling me that they saw me on TV, and that the program was very good and funny. I'm glad it all turned out well! Now I hope that Nihon Terebi sends me the tape quickly, I can't wait to see it!

10 - Thursday - 00:54
Pfff, it's getting late, and I have to get up early to be on time for tomorrow's test. I just hope that I prepared enough to actually be able to pass the test. The subject is Japanese religion, so if you have anything you can teach me about that, mail me within the next couple of hours. I'll be asleep though. Hopefully the ol' book under the pillow trick works! We'll see...

10 - Thursday - 13:23
I did the religion test this morning, and I think that it wasn't too big a disaster. I might even have a chance of passing it. But I won't know that for another couple of weeks, so there's no point in worrying about that. In about 16 days, we'll be going to London and Oxford with Tanuki, for study and fun purposes. I'm looking forward to that. Now I'll go clean my room.

11 - Friday - 01:50
Dave Brubeck was on television today, in the Ken Burns produced "Jazz". It's always nice to see Mr. Brubeck on TV and realize that he's one of those rare jazz musicians of the bebop and cool jazz era who's actually still around. Truly, an inspiration to so many people, including me. The part with him in it was short, but great nonetheless. Why do they air the program so late though?

11 - Friday - 11:25
First the plan was to go home for the weekend, but tomorrow there will be a goodbye-for-now party in honor of Mr Komazaki, a very good dutch student of mine. He was called back to Tokyo by his employers, so he'll be leaving soon. We'll miss him, but there is a plan already to go and have a drink with him in Tokyo. Let's just hope that'll happen quickly!

11 - Friday - 22:53
Yay! A 100 people have visited my site since the day before yesterday! I hope you are all enjoying it a lot! I've got very sad news though too. My glasses are no more. And I don't even mean my normal boring glasses. No, my ultra cool got'em in Tokyo black frame yellow lenses glasses are gone! I broke them today. And it doesn't look like I can fix them anymore... :(

12 - Saturday - 04:32
I'm thinking about setting up a page on this site in memory of my glasses. I know I'm weird, but these kind of things really get to me. I have a lot of great memories with these glasses. I've bought them in the Big Mikan, Tokyo, I've worn them all over Japan, in Holland, in Michigan and even Las Vegas. I will go to every single shop over here that might be able to fix it.

12 - Saturday - 14:19
I'll be heading out very soon now, to pick up some enlarged pictures, and I'm wearing my standard Tokyo outfit. Brown shoes, jeans, blue shirt with a white sweater, and the dark-red leather jacket. Normally, the black and yellow glasses would really finish it, and now they're just broken. I have to get them fixed, or get new ones. How can I do without them?

12 - Saturday - 22:26
I just had dinner with Mr Komazaki and the rest of my students. We went to a Taiwanese place, and the food was very good. Saying goodbye was kind of strange, but we will meet up again for sure in Tokyo and have a drink. He also said that he would look for glasses for me, which was really nice. Now I'll continue to put more stuff on the site. Enjoy!

13 - Sunday - 10:48
My throat hurts, how about that. It's not bad though, so I guess if I just take it easy and not go dancing naked in the snow, which isn't here by the way, I should be fine. My room is getting cleaner and cleaner, which is a very good thing. I don't think it's the weather today to sit outside, so I'll be a nerd and update my website or something. Or study.

13 - Sunday - 18:02
After the throat came the nose and other sinuses, and now I have a cold. Fortunately it's not too bad so I'll be fine. I'm listening to some fine music Tim put on cd for me. After this, I'll cook dinner for Tjits and me, hope that'll work out ok. I was wrong about the weather, it turned out to be really good, so I spent some time on our balcony today, which was very relaxing.

13 - Sunday - 22:42
Well! Dinner was nice to say the least. And after that, there was a very amusing program on TV from the BBC, in which two women switched families for one week. Anyway, I'm building a page on my site now for the students of my dutch class, so that they can keep up with the latest things happening in class, even at home! I'm thinking of building a forum too, I just have to figure out how!

14 - Monday - 12:01
With a bit of luck the forum for the dutch page will be up and running today, which is of course very cool. I hope that my students and me will use it a lot, so that we can learn, even when we're not at the Go-Centre. My cold has gotten worse, but I'm still pretty good under circumstances. As long as I have enough tissue paper I'll be allright! Now I'm gonna take a lot of vitamins! ;)

14 - Monday - 23:17
Guess what I did? Not only did I put up a forum on the site, it's also available in three languages! I hope that everybody will make use of the forum to discuss all sorts of things. You just have to register and then you can read all the topics, add your remarks, create new topics and polls, everything's possible! If you have any questions on how to use it please mail me and I'll explain everything!

15 - Tuesday - 10:21
As the good weather continues in holland, I still have a cold. It's really stupid. It's spring here, the temperature's perfect, everybody's happy that it's so warm, and Bert has a cold. I'm glad to say that people are posting messages on the forum though, that's very good! I hope that even more people will register, so that we can have interesting conversations. And just plain stupid conversations of course! ;)

16 - Wednesday - 11:48
No nightly update means Bert has been drinking in Leiden. Gee, we had so much fun though. After the students forum, we went out with a pretty large group, including Frans of course, to the Big Bear, where we sat outside, enjoying the sun, having dinner and drinks. After that, a couple of us, still including Frans, went to the Burcht, an old fortress in Leiden and there we drank until it was way too late.

17 - Thursday - 13:12
No nightly update means Bert has been drinking in Leiden. For the second night in a row! If I keep this up, there will be serious health problems in store for me. The World-Party was very successful though, we had a great time. The weather in holland is just not getting worse yet. It's beach going weather again, but I can't go since I have to teach. Which is fun in itself, but still... Sand, sea, sun...

25 - Friday - 11:31
Yes yes yes! I'm back online! Good old Ad came back from Greece, and after tinkering with his pc for a bit, my site was online again! So much has happened, but I'll just continue with the site as I would normally, meaning this daily post will be refreshed about 2 times a day. Also, I hope that people will visit the forum again, and that I can get the site running full speed again!

26 - Saturday - 00:38
Tomorrow, or today rather, we're off to good ol' England. London, to be precise. The plan is to meet at Leiden Central Station at 5:50 am, and seeing I still have to pack my bags, I really wonder if that's going to work out. I just came back from Domi's house warming party, which was great. I'm soaked to the bone from the rain and Domi will probably not survive the amounts of alcohol that are in his body right now.

26 - Saturday - 05:12
Okay I did manage to get up! Now I have to be quick and get showered and dressed before rushing out to the station, where we will make for Hoek van Holland, and from there we will take the boat to England. Takes about 4 hours I'm told. And then it'll be three days of fun and learning in London! The site won't be updated during this time, I'm sorry about that. Ah, it'll be okay though. I have to hurry now. Later!

30 - Wednesday - 02:48
London is one of the coolest towns. Always judge a town or country by the first visit to a local toilet, I always say. And boy, London was even better than the toilet at Liverpool Street. I'm thinking about writing something about London on the site, but that idea is still very theoretical. Ever felt the wind blowing in your face while you're hanging out of a London bus, almost being thrown out by the sharp right? Great!

30 - Wednesday - 23:00
It comes a bit late, but a warm congratulations to the queen and her mother, whose birthday it is today. Sadly the queen mother will not be very aware of this herself. It's been a quiet day. I've been mostly recovering from the hectic schedule I had in London. With a little bit of luck, my room will be all clean again within a couple of hours too. I left it in kind of a mess when I went out the door. I miss London a little bit though...