sappie's 2007

2008

2008-01-04T15:43:00.000+01:00

I made a new blog for 2008: http://www.sapp2008.blogspot.com/

It's supposed to show when you visit http://www.sapp.nl/

If it doesn't show and you're my mom, ask my dad to fix it. For the rest: try emptying the cache of your browser.

Salutations!

2007-12-31T18:09:00.001+01:00

Lately there seems to be a lot to celebrate: Some friends got married, Jesus had His birthday and now the year 2007 is about to make place for the year 2008. It's pretty cool to be me at the moment, it's fun!

This year I got older, probably not much wiser though: I wouldn't change a thing if I had to do it all again.
Yes, I was often miserable and stressed, I drank too much, I wasted a lot of time. But still I don't regret one single bit of it.
If every single year, untill I die at the age of 82, will be this rich in experiences and events, I will die a happy woman with a lot of friends and family.

I salute you all and wish you the best of luck.
Have fun, be careful with fireworks and make sure to live life to the fullest!

Aggro

2007-12-17T13:58:00.000+01:00

Last night I went to the new Italian take-away to get the pizza that I ordered over the phone. As I left home, on my bike, I saw a big fancy car slowly drive up the road and park on the corner. Some people got out and the car wanted to leave again. Unfortunately though I was just passing him on the left. The driver had not seen me at first, so he hit the breaks in shock when he did. Of course I was a bit startled as well.
The driver rolled down his window and yelled I should turn on the light of my bike. He was right, so I immediately turned it on and yelled thanks. A bit embarrassed I drove on.
The roads at my place are constructed so, that I met the same car again when I tried to cross a road some 100m further. I stopped waiting for him to pass, but then he stopped as well, right in front of me. The guy got out of the car and asked me in a rough tone if I was crazy. My answer was (of course) negative, but he wasn't particularly interested in it. Het started walking around his car, at which point I hastily turned my bike around and took an alternative route to the pizzeria.

There's a lesson to be learned: don't yell anything, not even if it's something polite. And of course: don't forget to turn on the light of your bike when it's dark.

Lovely

2007-12-12T18:44:00.000+01:00

My studies are going great. I'm inspired and enthousiastic. After next week all that remains of this semester is writing a huge paper about a subtopic of philosophy of science, I'm not sure yet what it will be.
There is hardly any stress now, I really feel like I can quietly work. I have plenty of time and meet up with friends a lot. The sewing machine I borrowed from my mother offers a nice diversion from studying as well. I'm planning on going to the market again soon to get some cloth to make myself some jeans.
It's all lovely, I have nothing to complain about.

This year has been a turmoil of emotions for me. I cried my eyes out, screamed, yelled and cursed...
But it's all fine now. The absence of those strong emotions makes me feel a bit numb. I'm sure that's only to be expected.

25 years

2007-12-02T12:48:00.000+01:00

Today it's my birthday, I turn 25. A quarter of an age is a pretty long time, you can really do a lot of different things in such a stretch of time. Make friends and enemies, see family die and be born, move around, travel around, learn a lot, forget even more.
I'm not quite done yet, let's see what happens in the next 25 years of my life!

Curtains [*o]

2007-12-01T20:31:00.001+01:00

My mom let me borrow my sisters sewing machine. I couldn't wait to get started when I got it yesterday, so this morning I went to buy cloth at the market. This is the result!

New curtains!

Artsy Philosophy

2007-11-27T11:12:00.000+01:00

What happens if you put a philosopher in a group of artists and ask them to discuss mental spaces?

Her head explodes.

I should be in The Hague at this moment. Joining a group discussion on the nature of mental spaces. This discussion has been going on for a couple of weeks now. Sadly though the question whether there even is something like a mental space did not seem to occur to anyone.
The assignment is funny: you have to make a simulation of a mental space in which people can navigate.
I expect my fellow students will all come up with magnificent installations, visual effects and illusions. That's what the teachers have been aiming at for weeks now.
I think this approach is rather silly, if there is something like a mental space, it is not perceivable in a conventional way, through our five senses. Noone quite understood my point, or saw the relevance of it. Luckily last week another student gave an example that seemed to explain it a bit.
In the village he grew up they didn't have any of the modern media, but once in a while a story teller would visit and they would all sit and listen and loose themselves in their imagination. He claimed this was the way to view mental space, with our inner eye. The teachers were in awe, they said it had not occurred to them that maybe mental spaces can not be perceived in a conventional way, through the five senses.

Today I didn't go to class. I'll try and come up with something nice for the assignment, I'll work on it at home. I'm a bit sick of the uninformed, vague discussions. Let them have their way, I'll have mine.

M-press new lay-out

2007-11-24T11:40:00.000+01:00

So today I redesigned this website. The old lay-out worked fine, but it was... well... old. My coding skills were a bit off, so I studied the manuals again and even did one of those online courses. (Which entails reading a bit, doing a small assignment, reading a bit more, doing another small assignment, etc.)
After this procedure I decided I want something high-tech. I study at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science so the quality of my website should reflect this. I am very pleased with the result, I find it esthetically pleasing and functional.
Especially the new M-press feature is cool, for only smart people can see it.

I am considering applying it to my room as well, to make the clean room only visible for really smart people. Then at least I wouldn't have to spend half my weekend cleaning uping.
Bah...

Motivation

2007-11-17T13:36:00.001+01:00

For some days now Annabel has been acting a bit strange. She runs around my room sniffing laundry that's on the floor and scratching boxes and papers and bags that are scattered around in our room. She jumps on the table and mews at the stack of mail I keep there.
At first I was rather puzzled by all this. But I think I have figured out what it's all about!
She crumples her nose in distaste over the scattered laundry and scratches the mess in annoyance. She yells at me to open my mail and get rid of the piles of paper. Apparently she doesn't like living in such a messy room.

Maybe my behavior is even more strange: I can't find the motivation to clean up unless there's someone else to do it for. In this case my cat.

Boots

2007-11-10T17:01:00.000+01:00

Sadly Yoko Nono and the Randomettes got canceled, but still I expect FEST [click] to be worth visiting. Especially because it will be a good opportunity to show off my new kick-ass outfit, featuring boots!
Some of you might be able to recall me having some trouble finding shoes. Most shops sell shoes up to size 42, while I need 43. There's an easy solution: I just choose something neutral looking from the men's collection.
Usually when I ask for a size 43 in a shop the salespeople look puzzled and shake their head. This time though, when I walked into the shop and asked for size 43, the lady looked puzzled and asked me what kind of shoes I was looking for. She brought a big stack of boxes from the storage room, all of which contained shoes and boots in my size. It was pretty cool.
The boots were expensive, but I figured money wouldn't buy me happiness anyway. Maybe I'll even post a picture soon of myself looking like a girl with boots.

Commuting

2007-11-07T15:53:00.001+01:00

And once again I'm traveling back and forth to Leiden and Den Haag on a daily basis. Yesterday it took me about 3 hours to reach my destination, due to some technical problems of the dutch railways.
I was late for class, but luckily my projectgroup was still there. We worked on our diorama (or something that looks like a diorama...) all afternoon, so my trip had not been completely pointless.

The different courses I'm taking now are a nice blend of frivolous art and hardcore philosophy. While I'm making prototypes of colorfull cardboard for one course, the other requires me to read and think a lot. After getting my fingers stuck togethers with glue, I happily collect my wits and procede polishing my logical arguments.
Somehow graduating doesn't sound very appealing, studying is fun.

Fall

2007-10-24T13:24:00.000+02:00

I have a lot of reading to do. This means no lectures and a lot of homework. It requires a lot of discipline to study like this and you, my dear readers, will not be surprised to find that I'm having trouble with it.
The fall is beautiful this year: yellow, orange, little rain. I feel like going outside every time I look out the window. Reading outside didn't work, I tried it. Walking is nice, but it's too cold to sit still on a bench, which is definitely required for reading.

Besides being beautiful, the fall is also the start of the gloomy period of the year. November is typically the month in which I end relationships. Ever time I had a boyfriend for a period longer than a month I broke up with him in November. I suppose that the winter depression stacked with some existing dissatisfaction is enough to make me feel thoroughly fed up with it all. Hopefully it's the same this year.
I don't have a boyfriend, but I definitely have to break up with my feelings for he-who-wont-have-me. It's driving me crazy...
I imagine some of you will sigh when reading this and shake your head. Out of pity maybe, or out of annoyance over my silliness. But I tell you, I never asked for this and try to deal with it in a sensible way (though sometimes sense seems to have little grip on emotional matters).
November will set me free. And in December I'll celebrate my freedom when I reach the magical age of 25.

Back to reading now... Or no, I think I'll go for a walk first.

Mission accomplished

2007-10-15T15:02:00.000+02:00

The presentation went great. I got some really nice responses. Content was very good, I really hit the core of the argument according to the teacher and my talk was clear and easy to understand.
The external references I used (Freakonomics and some computersimulations I used as examples) were very much appreciated. The teacher even decided to give a lecture about simulations, because he agreed with me that it was a relevant theme in our discussion.
Huzzaa!

Presenting

2007-10-10T10:03:00.000+02:00

The last four or five times I had to give a presentation I was ill prepared and didn't really care. I was stumbling over my words and didn't put any kind of structure in my talk.
There is no excuse: I knew starting my preparations the day before wouldn't be enough and I can't claim to be a bad public speaker, because I'm not. The only reason for my bad performances was laziness and I got away with it.

Next week I have to give a presentation again, for this horribly pretentious master course in philosophy of science that I'm taking. There are only 6 students, every single one of them has a decent background in the matter. The expectations are high...
There is just no way I will get away with anything less than excellent this time!

I did some research in the library yesterday and found a bunch of relevant articles. Reading them will no doubt be incredibly boring. Much less exciting than leveling my mage to 58 so I can go to the Outlands with her. And much less exciting than finding out what this Foundation is all about that Hari Seldon started.

Annabel Day

2007-10-04T08:51:00.000+02:00

Today it's Annabel Day!

And to honor her I refreshed an old cartoon [click].

Calming down

2007-09-29T14:26:00.000+02:00

Sinful but true, after returning my parents car I took a little time off. I have been chilling in my new room most of the time, but also visited an old friend and a party full of nerds.
Annabel is extremely happy to have me around all day, when she's not snoring she is purring. She loves sitting on my desk when I'm playing World of Warcraft, on my lap when I watch a DVD and on my belly when I'm reading a book.
Also I'm finally catching up with my laundry and when the piles of cloths (in different stages of the cleaning process) are gone I might even clean the rest of my messy room.

Besides not studying I also decided to spend money on stuff I didn't need. Next to a couple DVD-'s ('Wildthings', 'Antonia' and 'A Life Less Ordinary') I bought a magazine. In the magazine I saw an advertisement for a new perfume and decided to buy it. Then I figured I could use a new sweater. And voila, I'm broke again! Broke, but happy.

Le Parfum.

Dead tired

2007-09-24T21:03:00.000+02:00

Got up at 7h. Drove to Leiden. Parked. Attended a lecture. Drove to exposition. Took project apart (quite brutally). Filled up the trailer with trash and the car with computers and other stuff. Drove back to Utrecht. Emptied the car and trailer in garden and room (it's a mess). Drove to carpet shop to collect David's carpet. Drove all around Utrecht to find a way to his new room (the obvious route was closed so we were clueless). Threw carpet in garden. Drove to his old room. Drank coffee while car and trailer were being filled. Drove to new room and helped unload. Parked. Home at 21h. Waiting for pizza to be delivered.

Planning

2007-09-21T12:34:00.000+02:00

Sometimes time seems to fly by without a warning. Deadlines you weren't even aware of yet hit you in the face and reading material is piles up in ever growing stacks.
Without a clue of what happened to the time you just try to catch up, studying on automatic pilot.

To prevent this from happening I am going to plan. Today is the day of schedules, reading lists and calenders. I am going to install reading sessions, three times a week, summary writing sessions two times a week.
Anything to keep myself from studying right now.

Grade for Project

2007-09-17T17:24:00.001+02:00

We got a 7.5/10, not a great result, but good enough.

I knew our grade would be something like this, but I'm still rather disappointed. Against my own better judgment I hoped for more.

Invasion

2007-09-16T16:03:00.001+02:00

When I came home this morning, after a sleep-over at Ella's, a strange car was parked in front of my house. The front door was opened and my aunt, uncle and cousin were busy carrying boxes and putting furniture together. I was horrified.
They had allowed me to use my old room as a workplace for my project. After a month it didn't look so clean anymore. Sawdust on the floor, tools, paint buckets and other paraphernalia spread across the room in a random fashion. I planned to clean it, but had not done so yet.
I was expecting a phone-call from my cousin and figured there was no rush, since I had not heard anything. I learned now that my cousin had come to look at his new room last Monday, but I wasn't there and he didn't leave a note. Misunderstandings galore!
I can only imagine how they cursed me when they saw the mess...
They cleaned the hallway, the kitchen, the bathroom and threw all my stuff in my new room. I was rather embarrassed.

I'll have to get used to sharing my house again.

Grand opening

2007-09-15T11:36:00.000+02:00

When I returned from a lecture about Serendipity by Pek van Andel I found my teammates working on our creation. Both front and back were opened and wires hung loose: our machine was in shambles and it was only one hour before the exhibition would open.
Barely keeping my lunch down and my tears back I walked up to my colleagues asking them what was going on. They were not satisfied yet with the way it worked and were still trying to improve the code. Luckily they soon accepted the fact that their attempt was in vein and that it was too late to make any major changes. We put everything back together again.
This was only one of the thousand moments I almost had a heart attack this week.

In the end the opening went great, we had some very positive feedback and were even asked for another exhibition. I'm not sure if we should do that, it still needs work and it's hard for me not to see the obvious flaws. But being asked was a compliment anyway, so I'm happy.

Me and my team posing.

After a busy summer, studying continues. I just printed two big fat articles and intend to read them both before the lecture on Monday.
No rest for the weary.

Judgementday [o*]

2007-09-13T16:44:00.000+02:00

The exhibition is ready, all projects are there. Yesterday we had to present our creations. Tomorrow the grades will be put online.
It went well, except for when the power went down in our corner of the hall, just before our presentation. We had to move the machine and plug it in somewhere else. After rebooting and jiggling some wires it all worked fine again.
During our presentation I got to show my movie and it was well received. I don't think anyone failed the second semester project this year.

A game with only two buttons. The more random you press the two buttons, the more successful the creature you create will be.

Part of the installation with interactive paintings, inspired by Magritte's work.

Retro is cool, but many people don't know what the historical connotation is of what they wear. This installation informs them. I was quite put off by some quotes from Che Guevara.

Some fellow students checking out one of the two screens from the installation about fish. Is it real or a simulation?

A teacher experiencing free will on a tour through the city.

The team that did the fish-project seemed quite jealous at my beautiful machine.

Movie

2007-09-08T23:04:00.000+02:00

In no way did we manage to get this movie working properly in our game. It is programmed in processing, which isn't quite suitable for showing video. It's slow and choppy when I put it in there.
My second attempt to put it in the game somehow was to turn it into a screensaver. That worked great for my laptop, but the old pc we're using in the installation didn't understand.
Well... at least I can show it here...

Blue Screen of DEATH

2007-09-07T15:00:00.000+02:00

Besides the obvious Deep Pit of Doom and Despair (formerly known as my love-life) there is more to worry about.

My teammates crying over the failure of their n-th attempt to get the code and hardware working.

Progressing Project

2007-09-06T10:11:00.000+02:00

Monday is the final deadline for The Project. We have been working on it all summer and today it will be done. I hope...
Here's a sample from the movie I'm making.

Our machine is green!

Real wise

2007-09-05T18:48:00.000+02:00

I made a decision today. I have to live in the real, present world and let go of some romantic dreams.
I dreamt of sharing my life with my friend, loving him and being happy with him. At one point I thought it would be inevitable and didn't bother worrying about it, because I was so sure it would happen.
Now I am sure again. He will not have me.

I have known this for quite some time, he told me last year already. But every time we met I fed my hope with his kind words and the fun we had. He never tried to fool me, he was just being a friend.
No hard feelings.

My chest feels tight, my limbs are heavy and everything seems bleak. Nothing or noone (besides me and my illusions) are to blame.
Sometimes I wish I had allowed myself to stay in the dream, it was a nice place, pretending it could still happen. But it is fake, it made me more frustrated and desperate every day.

We talked and we will stay good friends, but I need distance first. I need to get my life on track and to get myself some new dreams.
When we're old and grey we'll laugh about how silly I was for wanting him and how silly he was for turning me down.

Light

2007-08-31T17:35:00.000+02:00

My new room is not entirely done yet. I want new curtains, green windowsills and I wasn't too fond of the lamps. Today I took care of the last of these issues, check my new lamps.
Maybe I will add decorations later, but for now I'm quite content.

Simplicity galore.

Check the color of the light and the pattern on the ceiling, I love it.

Tidy

2007-08-27T16:32:00.000+02:00

Cleaned up my room. This is probably as tidy as it's ever going to get with me living here, so I decided to collect proof of it. Here it is:

My cozy white bed in the forest.

My desk in a corner next to my bookcase.

Princess Annabel chilling in her new palace.

I still can't believe this part of my room. It looks so grown-up...

It's just one room. This, plus the garden, is all the space I have. Maybe in a year or two, three, ten I will be able to afford something bigger. Where else am I going to keep my husband and children when I acquire some of those...?

Mess

2007-08-23T16:20:00.000+02:00

I moved to my new room, all my stuff is here now and the old room is empty. I am done with painting walls, taking furniture apart and putting it together again. Sya helped me get rid of my television, Menno helped me getting my old room empty in time for the inspection. The biggest part of the job is done!

Sadly though, my new room is still a big mess, I haven't figured out where to put everything yet. To make things worse I also neglected laundry and dishes for too long: dirty plates and mugs are stacked in the kitchen and a corner of my new room is dedicated to a pile of smelly towels and clothes.

I think I could make everything clean and tidy in a few hours, but it seems like such a tedious and nasty job it's hard to start working.
Writing this post was my last way of postponing it, I'll get to work now!

Financial horrors

2007-08-17T11:34:00.001+02:00

I have a friend, let's call her M., and she is the single most stupid person I know. Last year she got a bill to pay for her driving lessons, she called the driving teachers to tell them they were billing her too much. They agreed and she paid the amount she owed them, at least that is what she thought she was doing.
Sadly though M. is not a very bright person. When filling in the number of the bank account, she used the wrong number (postbus instead of postbank). Convinced she had paid she ignored further reminders and a warning, assuming the driving teachers accidentally sent them to her.
Quite recently she found out about this mistake because a letter came from a bailiff. If she didn't pay the amount she owed plus 100 euro, she was going to be sued. Of course this came as quite a shock, she thought she had dealt with it a year ago and started digging through her administration to find out what had happened.
The money had been returned to her bank account without her noticing.
After driving through the rain to talk with the driving teachers, then further to talk with the bank and then after traveling by train to the bailiff, she found out she had no other choice than to pay the amount they demanded.
Feeling rather stupid and incapable of taking care of her own finances she is going to make a cup of tea now and cuddle up with her cat in her new room. When she grows up she will either have to make enough money to hire an accountant or make so much money that it doesn't matter if she looses some of it once in a while.

Wallpaper [*o]

2007-08-11T15:58:00.000+02:00

This is the wall in its former, ugly state.

I had to stick 8 pieces of poster on there...

TADAAA!!!!

And I learned that sticking wallpaper to the wall is quite difficult, sadly up close there are some blemishes... But if you stand away from it and squint your eyes a bit, you hardly see them! :D

Bummer

2007-08-08T21:42:00.000+02:00

After working my ass off in my new room I decided to treat myself to no less than 3 rented DVD-'s. Huddled up in pillows, a big glass of red wine and a couple pieces of exquisite old cheese within reach, I happily turned on the first movie.
The menu started playing, with a few lags and jolts. Already planning my speech about scratched discs for the guy at the rental store (or whatever such a place is called) I tried selecting the "start movie"-option.
Nothing happened, the screen blinked and then with a 'POFF' it went black. Only a whiny beeping sound came from the speakers and soon a distinct smell of burning plastic reached my pillowy bunker across the room. Wide-eyed I ran to turn it off, for the red stand-by LED was still burning and smoke started billowing out the top.
So... another TV bites the dust! And all I did was watch a movie. I'm done with TV-'s, really I am. It was my most treasured pastime for half my life, but no more.

R.I.P. TV

Now where do I leave this 100 kilo corpse? (It is huge...)

Room

2007-08-07T11:23:00.000+02:00

My new room is finally empty. I walk in and out of it, measuring furniture in my old room and walls in the new.
I chose the other room because it's on the back of the building, I'll have more privacy there and less noise from the street. I will try and make a more tranquil place for myself there, so no more red walls.
Can't wait to put up my swimming pool in the garden out back. Or sit in my room reading, with the door to the garden opened and Annabel walking in and out as she pleases.

Maybe I'll paint a wall green... Or put up one of those giant, wall-sized pictures of a calm forest...

Friends

2007-08-04T10:39:00.000+02:00

Ever since Menno moved back to Utrecht, to a house quite close to mine, we have had dinner together a couple times a week. We go swimming when it's sunny and his balcony turned out to be the perfect place to talk about important ontological, existential stuff and gossip.
He went on vacation today, to the US of A, for 2 weeks. I'll miss him.

Busy Bee

2007-07-25T12:43:00.000+02:00

Soon my neighbor will be moving out. His room is both bigger and cheaper than mine, so as soon as he's gone, I'm dragging my furniture there, leaving my current room free. I already know who will live there, namely my cousin Thijs.
It sounds simple, but to be honest it's a lot of work. The entire house has to be cleaned, painted, both gardens tended and stuff moved from here to there. I have been quite busy and there's a lot more to be done. The bathroom looks nice and tidy again, all white and clean. As soon as my new room is empty, I can start there.

Besides these domestic affairs I'm still working on the Big Project for my study of course. We got some sensors working now and are planning to put some stuff together in 2 weeks, to test it out. We have a month before the deadline, that should be plenty but still feels like a really short time.

Disgusting Dour

2007-07-15T23:33:00.000+02:00

Got pretty nasty sunburn, bought more water than beer, because of the heat. My nostrils are still filled with the smell of pee. The festival was absolutely disgusting.

Some of the music was cool and the company terrific, but right now the horrors of the burning sun and the rivulets of urine on the festival grounds and the lack of toilets at the camping and the half hour walk from and to our tents through mud and debris and puddles and smelliness lingers.

Dour

2007-07-11T15:14:00.000+02:00

Today I leave for festival Dour in Belgium.
See you all after the weekend. :D

Buzzing

2007-06-25T11:21:00.000+02:00

My most beautiful friend, Ella, c/p-ed a link to an article about emancipation to me: Click here (sorry, it's in Dutch). It's really about two books: "Female Chauvinist Pigs" and the dutch book "Stout" (meaning "Naughty" in English). The first is about how emancipation missed the mark and the second apparently confirms this by being a really stupid book.
Intrigued by the subject I bought "Female Chauvinist Pigs" by Ariel Levy. I devoured it, cover to cover and feel horrible now. I discovered I am a chauvinist pig.

The thing I'm doing is called 'Tomming', after "Uncle Tom's Cabin". To make black people look good the writer made them act like white people. At the time this didn't piss anyone off, but later on people realized it and wrote some angry essays. Girls are Tomming in the sense that they act like men, either because they feel that's the way to be strong or because they think "if you can't beat them, join them".
I do degrade other women by calling them girly-girls and I do like to look at sexy girls and act loud and boisterous from time to time. I'm a bad feminist.

That's not all there is to it though. The book covers a lot more and makes a lot of sense from time to time. My mind is still buzzing from the information overload and all the things I knew but forgot or didn't know, but just realized.
I will have to think about it some more and will refrain from using the term 'girly-girl' until I figured it out.

Last meeting

2007-06-13T10:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we had the last official collective meeting for Mediatechnology of this academical year. All project groups had to present what ideas they had come up with for their installation. Ours got two thumbs up, so we're going to proceed on this track and make a test version soon.
The barbeque afterwards was nice and the beer cheap. It's a good feeling to know I have no class anymore for a few months, but there's still a lot to do.
I'll miss my trips to Leiden.

Inspired

2007-06-07T19:37:00.001+02:00

Inspired by something Menno's neighbour, Sya, wrote on her weblog http://www.sya-titia.nl/weblog/ about a documentary (Click for an online version) my mind started buzzing. Self image, made identity, women, how they are, how they should be, how they are different from men are all theme's that interest me tremendously.
Ever since I took a course in women's studies I have been fascinated by gender issues. At first I was mostly shocked by how short-sighted the feministic approach really was, they acted like scientists, but only wanted to study one side of the story, the female side. They tried to teach me scientific research methods, and encourage their students to ask "the other question". My essay regarding white males got the highest possible grade.
At this point in my life, I could look gorgeous, I'm positive about it and confident. If I let my hair grow, lost a few pounds, wore more short skirts and some make-up, I would be a catch to die for. I could have ten admirers on each finger, as the Dutch saying goes. Sadly for all those men, this girl doesn't care enough to make the effort.
But, I was wondering... Maybe I could do scientific research about all the theme's I mentioned, by studying my life. What if I did try to live up to the beauty-standards that the media are feeding me? What exactly would happen? Would I have an easier life and be more succesful professionally? Would I get annoyed by all the men sucking up to me and offering to do my dishes and laundry?
It's just an idea and I can't think of what questions I would really like to answer, or what problem I would like to study with this research.
I will think some more about it.

Dell

2007-06-07T17:11:00.000+02:00

I have to share this with the world: I called Dell about a problem with my keyboard, and the next day I got a new one, for free. The guy at the phone was very friendly and professional, the keyboard was (as I mentioned) FREE.
Ok, their product was apparently crappy enough to malfunction after one and a half year, but they didn't complain about it and instantly resolved the problem. This is how these things should go, this is how you get good publicity and satisfied customers. Congratulation to Dell for making me happy.

Games

2007-06-01T11:19:00.001+02:00

After last weeks presentations things calmed down considerably. Of course there's still the occasional project meeting and social obligations have to be met, but most of the time I'm contently doing whatever I feel like.

I = teh b1ggest n3rd.

Drawing

2007-05-21T13:08:00.000+02:00

Character under construction.

Final straws

2007-05-16T11:36:00.000+02:00

The installation for hardware didn't work when we presented it. The teacher said he might not let us fail the course because a level of understanding and creativity was shown in our creation.
It's frustrating when you work hard on something and the end-result is not what you hoped for at all. I was happy when the teacher said he might not let us fail, but still I don't think we deserve to pass.
There's a movie of the presentations right here: http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=4664503782210163548 Our embarrassing performance is all the way at the end, at 19:00 in the movie.

Next week another assignment is due, a multi-agent system for the course Embodied Vision. Let's hope I do better on that project.

Writing

2007-05-08T10:02:00.000+02:00

It's getting better. I'm not yet ready to finish redecorating my room (moving around furniture), but at least I went to school again yesterday and this morning the stinging in my back seemed to have lost an edge. To add to the joy and celebrations: one of my deadlines got postponed!

After the 23th of may there will be no more classes untill september. A huge Project is left to finish then, but still I will have a lot of spare time. I'm considering what I want to do, whether I want to go on holiday and if so: where.
I think I might stay at home to write, forcing myself to get some fictional prose on paper. If I get stuck with my writing and The Project allows me some spare time, I can always decide to hop on a train and spend a week or two abroad.

Bad timing

2007-05-06T16:34:00.000+02:00

With two major deadlines coming up the last thing I could use was this...
I pulled a muscle in my back.

When I make a wrong move it hurts, though it's hard to tell which moves exactly trigger the pain. Sometimes there's just no possible position in which I'm comfortable.

I tried to cure it with hot showers, I tried lying in the sun (which resulted in quite an embarrassing situation in which I had to be saved, because my back just cramped up completely and I couldn't even get up anymore) and I tried having Annabel lie on the soar spot, nothing helped so far.

Please let this be over tomorrow, I have to solder and program and present and probably write a paper as well!

Bit sad...

2007-05-01T09:38:00.000+02:00

Sometimes not even the sun can cheer me up.
I know, if I just have the right expectations I won't be dissapointed. But it is hard not to dream and hope for my dreams to come true. Lately I was getting my hopes up, against my own better judgement.
Sulking won't help, actually I don't think anything will help, except for time maybe.

It's just not fair, why is it even possible to be attracted to someone who doesn't feel the same about you?! It should work like magnets, either attraction or repulsion. There's truely no need for grey areas, we live in a digital age!

And please don't start about fish in the sea and life being cruel and stuff like that. I know, I know, I know...
I'll just have my heart coated with titanium, make it bulletproof.

Nesting urges

2007-04-29T18:18:00.000+02:00

Somehow I always seem to be changing my room. I don't think that since I moved in here, the furniture has had the same configuration for more than half a year.
The problem is of course that it's not quite big enough to function as a living room, bedroom and studying office. The solution to get a high bed, under which I could put my desk, turned out to create more problems than it solved. It's dark sitting under the bed, the bed itself is not very stable and of course I have to climb in and out of that stupid thing every day. There's much to be wished for.
So I decided to change it all again.
I am planning on buying a new bed and discarding some of the furniture I'm currently using. I feel silly for being so fickle about my interior. I keep wasting money on it...
Still hopes are high that I will find the perfect configuration and be happy with it for some years.

Wise words

2007-04-24T09:24:00.000+02:00

Almost every day I read my horoscope. Usually it's all nonsense of course. Like yesterday, it said it was a lucky day and I could rest and take it easy, while I had an exam.
The exam was rather depressing, too hard and with mean trick questions, so I didn't enjoy yesterday all that much! Horoscopes are stupid.

But I think it wouldn't harm anyone if horoscopes were more like general wisdom. I would much rather read a clever phrase every day, than have some fortune teller predict my future wrongly. (Like the hint/tip when logging in on WoW, for the nerds.)

Soon my website will be featuring such a device, I think. It would monthly pick some phrases from it's database and assign them to signs, or something. Maybe I wont use horoscope signs though (pisces, ares, etc.) but make up my own system. It will be fun building it and putting wise words in it's database.

Any suggestions for wise words are welcome, preferably in English. I was thinking along the lines of Mark Twain quotes, bathroom tiles, lyrics, small poems, etc...

First BBQ

2007-04-22T21:13:00.000+02:00

Just came home from my first barbecue of the season. I hope many more will follow, especially if the food there is as good as it was today.
In honor of my sister's birthday we gathered at my parents place. Sadly I had a lot of studying to do still, for tomorrow's exam, so I spent half the day upstairs sitting at an old desk reading slides and articles.
Still I can't complain, I had a great day.

Happy birthday, Mzzy [click]!

Exams

2007-04-17T11:44:00.000+02:00

Thursday and Monday I'll have exams again. After I got my bachelor degree I took things easy and allowed myself some rest and peace, but now I have to get back on track.
As always it is hard to set my mind to the task. There's just a lot going on in my life that I would much rather think about. And of course, even though the weather isn't as miraculously wonderful today as it was last week, it would still be nice to go out.
Well, it can't all be fun and games, can it...

Spring euforia

2007-04-13T17:10:00.000+02:00

So far April is turning out quite good. It's sunny outside, making me look less like I've been living in a cave for several years. In Dublin I even got a bit of sunburn!
With weather like this, everything seems more enjoyable. Food tastes better, music is more pleasant to listen to, books are more interesting to read. Risking the danger of sounding fluffy and poetic I'd like to say that life itself is amplified in spring.

From now on, I'm going to sleep in October and not waking up untill late March. I just feel so much better...

Tomorrow Annabel will come home from her vacation at my parents place. I can't wait to see her roll around in the sun and hiss at passing dogs.

Dublin

2007-04-10T19:23:00.000+02:00

Sadly there were no leprechauns and fairies, though I can imagin now how ale could have clouded the minds of the Irish so much they were convinced to see magical creatures. Never order 'ale' in a bar in Ireland though, they won't understand. Just ask for Smithwick's (pronounced like: smithiks), that usually worked for us.
Of course some people might prefer Guinness or cider, but they must be out of their mind, with the creamy pure delight of ale among their options.

I had a lot of fun, but now I need a shower and some dinner first.

April fool

2007-04-01T12:06:00.000+02:00

In March I failed an exam, the re-exam in April will make up for that.
In March I went to the beach, but it was still a bit too chilly. In April I will go to Dublin and drink ale.
In March I worked on a secret project with Tex, in April we will give it to Meno for his birthday.
In March I went to the theatre to see the finals of "het Leids Cabaret Festival", I saw the movies Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine, I went to a concert of Plaid. My expectations for the entertainment April will bring are high.

March was only a month to practice for spring.
Huzzaa for April! Huzzaa Huzzaa Huzzaa!

RIP TV

2007-03-25T20:15:00.000+02:00

After ten years of loyal service, my television died on me. The last thing it ever played was "The Straight Story" by David Lynch; typically. That movie is about an old man who makes one last bold statement before he dies, that is actually what my TV did by showing the movie.
My dead TV is still sitting on it's usual spot, next to the disfunctional DVD-player and broken VCR. My mediaset turned into a graveyard for old machines. I mourn in silent contemplation.

When I bought the TV it was brand new and at first I mainly wanted to watch Baywatch, Hercules, Xena and porn on it. Because those things weren't much appreciated in the living room at my parents place.
Of course not, those shows are really crappy, but when I was 14, my cultural preferances weren't that developed yet. Though in another 10 years I'll probably say the same about my current taste.

I already miss my TV, we had such good times together.

Seize the day!

2007-03-19T21:28:00.000+01:00

When I got home today after a long day at school, hungry and tired, I found a little packet in my mailbox. To my surprise it contained a cute little book with encouraging "seize the day" kind of quotes. Only after opening it I saw my mom's name written on the envelope. Thanks mom, you're the sweetest!

I especially liked this quote from Mark Twain:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.
So throw off the bowlines,
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream.
Discover.

Fuzzy concepts

2007-03-17T17:35:00.000+01:00

I really should be writing a paper about genetic algorithms and evolution right now. To explain why we are maiming existing programs, to make something that is not evolving a solution but a bunch of wacky things.
It's an old strategy, to simulate evolution in finding a solution. You just use a fitness function to evaluate your agents, and then breed the best ones from a generation.
Our idea was at first to do it the other way around, breed the worst few and see what happens. But before even testing this we realized it wouldn't be different from regular evolution, just with the fitnessfunction reversed. The aim is to give the individuals in our simulated world the chance to evolve the way they want.
Humans, for example, don't have the problem with survival as much as they used to anymore. At least not in this part of the world. But there are still rules they have to live by, telling them was NOT to do. For the rest they are pretty much free to choose who and what they want to be, usually only limited my their imagination (in my honest opinion).
We are going to try and implement this kind of freedom in an evolutionary algorithm. The concept is still distilling in our brains, but right now we think we might be able to make a program and breed not the top rated individuals, but random ones from the entire population.
If these virtual entities have no raison d'être and are just allowed and even encouraged to do random, innovative things: what will happen?! They will probably be flopping about the place, doing nothing... mmm doing nothing...

So now I have to look up some articles, and whip up a good story of 3 pages. Wish me luck!

Booked Dublin

2007-03-15T21:19:00.000+01:00

Huzzaa, the trip to Dublin is booked and paid for. With my friends Meno and Tex I'm heading for Ireland on the 5th of april, to spend a weekend drinking ale and whatever else is fun over there...

Really looking forward to it! :D

Okokok... [*o]

2007-03-10T18:03:00.000+01:00

Mohawk

2007-03-10T17:00:00.000+01:00

My long hair got boring, so I went to the hairdresser and asked for a hip mohawk. It took some time curving it out, but the result is worth it, totally. I'm too lazy to take a picture right now, so you will all have to meet me in real, or wait a bit.

Eagle Eyes

2007-03-02T20:33:00.000+01:00

I made myself a bit unpopular at the Mac Store today. I spotted dead pixels in the screens of no less than TWO laptops. My buddy, Menno, was buying a nice black MacBook, but only the third one they showed was flawless.
Don't order those MacBooks online people...

Tomorrow I will go back to the Mac Store though and maybe even spend some money. Of course I don't want no fruity computer or ipod!
It's just... My tough, trusty DELL, Bertrand, could use one of those fancy bags to travel in. Right now I stuff the poor machine into the bag I bought for Fred, who was much smaller and way fatter.
I hope Bert will like the striped one I saw.

Contemplations

2007-02-26T19:42:00.000+01:00

Besides being a Bachelor I am also a bachelorette. This makes life a bit complicated sometimes. I'm quite happy with the situation as it is, it has it's perks to be free.
Usually I calmly do what seems like fun at that particular moment: party in a strange city, sleep over at friends, stay up late gaming or immerse completely in a book.

There are also downsides though, besides the obvious loneliness and sexual frustration there's the continuous trouble with feelings, possible partners, misunderstood hints and so on.
Sex, relationships, friends: it's all quite distracting and bothersome. Sometimes I understand why so many people take the safe road of following a fixed set of rules written down in ancient books like the Bible.
I'm still trying to tackle this subject like it were an intricate puzzle, or a really hard monster in WoW. One of the possible solutions will be my chosen path and time will tell if it was the right one. (If there even is a right path, of course.)

If all fails there's always religion to fall back on, I'm sure my sins would be forgiven and my plate whiped clean if I went to confession. The catholic deity is famed for being forgiving and enthousiastic about new followers.

Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Artificial Intelligence

2007-02-21T19:32:00.000+01:00

I am Sappie Bsc.
I have an academical title to add to my name and a fancy document to prove I deserve it!

My proud parents, holding The Document. Yay!!!

Vanity [*o]

2007-02-21T12:46:00.000+01:00

It cost over an hour to create and over 30 pins and clips, but I'm quite pleased with the result. In case it doesn't hold, here's a picture in advance.

I hope my mohawk-like construction holds during the graduation-ceremony this afternoon.

Artistic Robots

2007-02-19T17:38:00.000+01:00

Actually the course I'm taking is called "Autonomous Robots", but in my honest opinion the first lesson didn't quite reflect this. We are going to build an autonomous robot, so that's at least what I expected, but next to that there's a lot of discussion about art.

The fluffiness and arrogance of the whole situation is revolting. During today's meeting I felt like fleeing. The teacher once explained how scientists use one brainhalf and artists the other, how there are 'alpha' and 'beta' people, but I have come to realize this is not true. There are sain people who use their whole brain, and insane people who use only one half of their brain.
The tragic view he has of the world (where artists are gifted and scientists are boring, narrowminded people) pisses me off. He claims the term creativity as defining for artists and the thing scientists lack. There's no way this is true of course, for science can only exist because people get new ideas and try crazy stuff sometimes.

Artists... tsk... tree-hugging hippie-scum!

Masked Ball [*o]

2007-02-16T22:33:00.000+01:00

Masked Ball

2007-02-16T14:00:00.000+01:00

USCKI Incognito, my old study-association, held a masked ball yesterday. It was located in the monumental church tower, the Dom, which is right smack in the centre of the city and probably the most famous building of Utrecht. This made the party very special indeed.
Somehow dancing on the music that's usually played on party's, but then in a special dress doesn't really appeal to me. But when Ella released her hair from a bun or tail (I can't remember which) and danced around looking like a fury, I couldn't resist and joined in.
It was a blast, I'm really looking forward to the pictures.

Insights with Global impact

2007-02-12T19:31:00.000+01:00

The world is a mess, and to give you all a taste of what it will be like when I'm Boss of the World, here's some of my ideas.

There is a lot of fighting in Israel, over territory as far as I can understand. The whole "promised land"-story and the "but we already live here, leave us alone"-business is getting old and I think it should stop.
Therefore I designed a full-proof plan: reclaim the Mediterranean Sea, turn it into a polder.
Plenty of room for everyone, dig a second river Jordan for all I care. Problem solved!

And another thing: if it is true that Atlantis is located under the thick layers of ice on the South Pole, maybe global warming isn't so bad after all! Seeing Atlantis would be very cool indeed.
There are a lot of species that wouldn't survive the heat, but eventually evolution will produce the diversity we so desperately want to preserve all over again. It's quite a robust system, you know.

It's all so simple. Just wait untill I'm done building my robot army: I will save the world.

Music

2007-02-11T00:47:00.000+01:00

Sometimes a song surprises me. The lyrics are cooler than expected or the general melody makes me feel good. Recently I've been more receptive for this, I think, because several songs struck me. It's not really my style for this weblog, but these are just some songs I've been listening to lately:

Intermission - Scissor Sisters
I can't decide - Scissor Sisters
Time of your life - Macy gray
Day is done - Johan
Happy Phantom - Tori Amos
Will to Love - London Elektricity
Watch T.V. - Rasputina
Ghostwriter - RJD2 (I think I have a remix of this one...)

Crash Burn

2007-02-09T10:07:00.000+01:00

While my partner in crime is enjoying a roadtrip to Germany, I have to finish our project for Sound Systems on my own. Max/MSP is not very hard to use and I think I got quite a good grip on it's functionality, sadly though, it's not very stable. For no reason whatsoever it quits, once in a while.
I just save my work a lot and keep on going, there's no other option I'm affraid. I'll just buffer my rage and release it in WoW this evening.
Blasting monsters will be fun: chopping off heads, ripping out eyeballs, making them SUFFER!!! [insert evil laughter here]

Fitness-function = 1

2007-02-07T13:59:00.000+01:00

The required forms are being processed and at wednesday 21st of februari I will participate in the graduation ceremony. I'm not sure if that's the right word in english, but I will get my degree and people will applaud.

I felt very fit today, so I even went to the bloodbank to donate half a litre. B-positive is quite rare and not as usefull as O-negative, but my effort was greatly appreciated. The free sandwiches and coffee were a nice treat as well.
To encourage my body to make new blood for me I went to the supermarket for something to munch. At the register I noticed I bought only red stuff: tomato juice, red wine, red meat, red cabbage and tomato soup.
If that won't help me regenerate, I don't know what will!

Sappie Bsc

2007-02-05T02:32:00.000+01:00

The result of the exam is announced I got 5.5/10 which means:

I PASSED!

Now I still have to get some documents approved and then.... I'll be a bachelor at last!

HURRAY!!

I still can't really believe it...

Gloomy

2007-02-01T18:23:00.000+01:00

Over a week has passed since the exam-that-didn't-go-so-well, but still my gut is churning from fear. I guess it will not pass untill I know for sure what grade I got. In times like these I like to add up everything that's not right in my life, drink some wine and cry out my misery at the world.
This didn't seem like the right moment to present myself as potential roommate (I am not my sparkling, jolly self) so I skipped todays room-acquiring-activities.

The drama of being gloomy suits me, I think. Bitterness is written in my eyes and sorrow on my brow. I feel like wearing black and writing emo poems about "black, thorny roses" and "red, silky blood".
Ok, well, I'm not terribly good at it, but I'm learning!

I wonder how long I can keep it up though. Spring will probably force me to cheer up and go looking for someone with broad shoulders again. I know me, sulking is just not my style.

Housing and Headache

2007-01-26T13:25:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to have a look at a vacant room in Leiden. The housing corporation told me it would be 25 m2 for 340 euro a month, which sounded like a sweet deal to me. In my mind I was already moving around furniture in my "new" room.

Ever since the exam on wednesday I've been ill, my head hurts, my shoulders hurt, my ribs hurt, my stomach and belly are upset, my legs are tired and in general there is pain everywhere. Still I hoped this room would make my life a better place so I went anyway.

When I got there, heavily drugged with painkillers, it turned out to be a bit smaller than expected, there was no way my bookcase would fit in there. That was of course a dealbreaker for me, so I lost interest as soon as I entered the room.
Unfortunately I couldn't just leave, because someone poored me tea and asked me to sit down in a circle with a dozen insippid, clueless, giggling girls. Most of them were there, because they were interested in the room, the rest already lived in the ramshackle house. They all loved baking pies, shopping and doing "fun stuff".
We were told that the landlord was a bit "weird" and the facilities quite poor. The "view on the ancient keep" turned out to be a view on an ancient wall right in front of the window, blocking out all light. Still most of the visiting girls kept smiling, convinced it would be a brilliant place to live.
When I pointed out that the room was not 25 m2, something blonde argued that a friend of hers had a room of 25 m2 too, and that one was even smaller than this one. I decided to just shut up...

That worked only for a small measure of time though, for I was soon asked to tell something about myself. I would rather have left the building, but it didn't seem like the right time to walk out, what with them all staring at me expectantly, so I just gave them a small description of myself.
It all went wrong when something curly made the clever remark: "So you must be really good with computers". To give her a fair indication I replied with: "At least more than you".
I quietly left when the visitors got a tour through the house. I would rather travel 4 hours a day, than live in that room.

My first conclusion was that if that is what girls are like (giggling, soulless creatures) I would rather not be one! But then I realized that if I were a man, I would have to marry a girl, which made me appreciate my gender all over again.
Another thing I appreciate more now, are the few clever girls I know. They are a rare treasure.

(In general people seem more stupid when I'm suffering. I guess I'm just a spiteful person.)

Exam

2007-01-25T22:39:00.000+01:00

It didn't go so well. I might have a 6/10 though.

Insomnia

2007-01-24T05:05:00.000+01:00

Less than 4 hours left.
Can't sleep so I'm just studying.

Bubbles

2007-01-23T19:19:00.000+01:00

Roughly 13 hours untill the exam... The moment of truth...

Set me free!

Preparing

2007-01-22T00:16:00.000+01:00

All week last week I studied for databases as much as possible. As a reward I took the weekend off. I went to visit friends, relaxed in front of the tv, walked along the beach and watched a movie.
Monday and Tuesday will be spent reading books and doing assignments again, but for now everything is perfectly fluffy and comfortable...
Blue, brown and dark orange, with warm purple linings...
Soothing low sounds, like purring, but with little sparkles of highpitched melodies...
(If you don't understand these interpretations, there's a fun course in Sense Interference I can recommend.)

Spending some time away from the books really worked against the stress.

IP grade!

2007-01-15T14:11:00.000+01:00

Hurray!!!!
I passed Introduction to Programming with a whooping 8.5 as final grade!
Take out your cymbals and flutes, and celebrate! For Sappie has (single-handedly) passed a programming course!

Hah! I pwn!

Yes this post does need this many exclamation marks!!!!

Stress-zone

2007-01-15T12:43:00.000+01:00

Commence countdown, in 10 days I will have to make an exam in Databases. It is of the utmost importance that I pass it, else I don't get my Bachelor, I don't pass Start and I don't get 200 guilders. Such a momentous event usually makes me sick with stress, I want to pass so badly...

I try to keep the overall stresslevel down by studying a few hours every day, and relaxing in the evening. Fortunately I'm sleeping well and my stomach has not complained about anything as of yet, I sure hope it will stay that way.

Also a constant vexation is tying together loose ends of the course Human Computer Interaction. The project is still not finished, the final paper was not approved and apparently some documents are missing. I've lost all hope of passing this course this year.

Back to the books: it's crunch-time.

D.A.R.Y.L.

2007-01-14T16:41:00.000+01:00

Recently, during an introductory course in AI, I was reminded of a movie I saw many times when I was a kid. It's about a little boy with amnesia who turns out to be a robot! All I could remember was the name of his little friend: Turtle. I couldn't think of the title or any other usefull information on the subject so I forgot about it.
In my study-break this afternoon, I turned on the TV out of boredom. Immediately I recognized the movie and it turned out to be called "D.A.R.Y.L." which stands for Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform.
Lovely how "a machine becomes human when you can't tell the difference anymore" refers to the well-known Turingtest. Inspiring how one of the scientists sais they built a human-like robot because the five senses and a human body are much better input and output devices than those of any computer.
How wonderful the eighties must have been, when people still believed this kind of technology was within reach.

RTL7, the channel which broadcasted the movie has "If you don't want to miss anything" as their motto. They chopped off the end of the movie though. Daryl and his friend Turtle were reunited and started running towards eachother, but RTL7 skipped to the commercials before they got the chance to hug.
RTL7: "If you want to miss the happy endings".

Library

2007-01-12T16:53:00.000+01:00

Databases is a really hard course. To force myself to study the theory I went to the library today. The coffee-corner there is a nice quiet place, where different kinds of coffee are served. It is also happily void of distractions for my already fluttery mind.

The library is not what it used to be.
I had been studying relational algebra for an hour, finding it hard to get a grip on the boring subject, when the coffee-bartender approached me with a double latte saying: "From the gentleman over there." A strange chap in the corner of the room smiled at me, showing a wobbly row of brown teeth.
Do I have a sign saying "single" or "wanting" on my forehead? Do I maybe look just pretty enough to approach yet not too pretty to seem out of reach? It should be flattering maybe, to get attention like this from men, but to be quite frank it pisses me off, tremendously!
Men... bah!

And now I still didn't study enough.

Sophie

2007-01-08T21:35:00.000+01:00

Yesterday Sophie was born, the daughter of my elder sister. I'm short on words, she's just so tiny and cute... :'D

My first meet and greet with Sophie.

Back to school

2007-01-07T19:20:00.000+01:00

Even though I had a lecture on thursday already it still felt like vacation, this week. Sadly I have to report that I did not do anything usefull. I had a terrible cold at first, but also when that cleared up I couldn't motivate myself to study.
Right now I feel exceedingly guilty for my laziness, especially because there's so much I should have done, so the next few hours will be dedicated solely to Databases!
Fear strikes me that a slip up like this could cost me another year.

Happy New Year

2007-01-05T23:00:00.000+01:00

Finally it is clear to me what my resolutions for 2007 should be. No new clothing, no new hobbies, not even a new place to live. Those things are just not important. It all boils down to one simple plan: to be the best possible version of myself.
This includes studying and being social, but also drinking wine, reading books and playing games. Of course there's always room for improvement, but I decided to accept some of my intrinsic qualities instead of putting effort in changing them.

Back to work now, I'm cleaning my room because I'm changing the configuration of my furniture. It's important that I do this once in a while, because next to having people visit me, it's the only thing that motivates me enough to clean up.