Feeling generous, don't have much to do, procrastinating schoolwork, whatever. Under the cut is all the music I have on my computer, alphabetical by artist. Complete albums are listed with title. Genres... vary. Metal, classic rock, folk, pop, etc. Expect the unexpected. Let me know what songs/albums you want and I'll upload. :3 Some are mp3, some m4a.

( Tharrr be the list )

Fuck you all, I'm in Cardiff.

Clearly my girlfriend is too awesome for me.

shanaqui

See that?

She's awesome.

Like, really awesome.

AND TOTALLY BETTER THAN ALL OF YOU, I AM NOT SORRY TO SAY.



Ohgod someone throw me their favourite icon makers I need it and I need it now.

I want to post more often! I really do! No, I mean it this time! Baby, give me one more chance.

Um! Works are tiring. They arrrrre. Like, half my classes are super easy and smooth because they're 1A classes with the sweetest kids. The rest is harder because the kids are rowdier or they're B classes. Argh. x_x But I am having fun! Though not appreciating the coordinator constantly hounding me (including in front of my class) about paperwork. Town hall is barely open outside my hours. How the fuck am I supposed to get there? :| Blarghl. Ohwell.

In an effort to post more regularly, I will do this! Possibly several times over!

Recommend/share:
✖ Day one: a song. Major Parkinson - 197. I forget whether I've shared this before or not, but it doesn't matter. This is an awesome Norwegian band that sounds like a mix of ABBA and System of a Down on crack. It's brilliant.
✖ Day two: a picture.
✖ Day three: a book/ebook/fanfic.
✖ Day four: a site.
✖ Day five: a youtube clip.
✖ Day six: a quote.
✖ Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy.

Because I clearly have NO INTERESTING THINGS TO TALK ABOUT like having been to the awesome Flan in awesome Cardiff for three weeks and having a JOB and having TONS OF WORK every night and my family being MAD and AMAZING and HORRIBLE, have a meme.

So, if you comment to this post and say "triple poo bum wee" (why yes I WILL use an injoke, thank you), I will give you five things that make me think of you. Then you re-post, saying who tagged you, and expanding on them.

The amazing iltaru gave me:
Nikki: she is amazing. She is lovely. She will deny but THIS IS TROOF. She is my amazing fiancee and someday we will have married and have a flat suited for queens while she is forever a student and has three million books and I knit and bake cakes!

Cake: Speaking of which! I LOVE CAKES. I love MAKING cakes. Give me half an excuse and I will do so. One day I hope to bake pretty, booootiful cakes, but right now I am happy with amusing myself and making delicious cakes. :D I don't often make the same cake twice (though Devil's food cake...). It really all slots into my urge to feed people. Which is large. And pushy. And doesn't limit itself to just cakes, but okay.

Knitting: I also love knitting! :D I tend to have a billion projects going at once. :D I mean, I have two scarfs going, my massive cardigan (still on the back panel, but 42cm along now, so ready for the decrease at the hip) and a lace shawl and quite possibly other things and I have a ton of left over yarn. I have a problem. :x but. Funnnnn. :DDD And relaxing. It's gotten to a point where just watching tv is awkward and I get bored because I'm so used to knitting while I watch.

Metal: It is what I listen to! Well. Not the only thing, I also appreciate some folk and awful 80s pop and classic rock (y hi thar SPN) and many other things, but I love metal. :DD I went to Graspop in June and it was awesome. I love rocking out. Headbanging. Moshing. Not so crazy about the whole Wall Of Death thing (does the name not say enough?) but! It's so stress relieving. And in my experience, metal heads are the mellowest concert crowd ever. Don't let the bodyslamming mislead you. Easygoing people. :3

Slash: I have the slashgoggles and I think they've fused onto my face. :x I will do het pairings, really (Pushing Daisies, for once, Ned/Chuck Oh Tee Pee) but mostly slash. A lot of slash. And I'll read it and used to write it and roleplay it ALWAYS. Yay boysex.

I am in Cardiff. Things are amazing.

Nikki gave me the perfect pair of earrings. Little balls of yarn with knitting needles through them. So lovely. Where'd I deserve that? :)

I also saw the Joy creature briefly but she is now gone.

Who knows what today will bring?
Well. I do. A new whisk and cider. :3 Possibly also caketins for birthday cakes. :D

Um, um, it is vacation. Very little to talk about.

Visited grandparents, they took me to Sluis (Netherlands) where there are many, many sex shops that we peeked into (my grandparents can be... special XD), there were incidents with expensive handbags (pricetag said 19.90 euro, they would have bought it for me, turned out there was a nine missing and it was 199.90 euro. oops lol) and I bought several nice cheap nailpolish colours (black and dark blue and metallic light blue and purple ohmy) and bubblegum flavoured lipgloss which is just amazing for the wet lips look. Love, love, love.
Grandparents also came over today! There were nommy foods. And they brought jam!

Otherwise, knitting, movies, cooking. I keep busy.

Thinking of taking the teaching job since I should possibly teach for at least a little while? I just suffer from getting bored quickly. I feel like I've seen teaching now. I know how to reasonably well, I know how it works. Something new now plz? I can't deal with ruts. Even little ones. Either way it would only be until September.

Dad gave me a talk about how I can live at home rent free for a year (I would only obviously have to pay for personal expenses like going out and clothes) but if I am still here in September 2010, I will have to pay about 1/4 of house expenses. That is a crazy amount of money I am not sure I could afford. Must move out.

Started a new journal. bazookamirror Obviously not to replace this one, but a nice place to blather, for now, about movies (and I review and talk like I know stuff! Go read! haha) and cooking and possibly soon also knitting or whatever I'm busy with. Hobby journal or something.
It also helps keep track of all the stuff I do for readheightetc which is a lovely absurd challenge comm. I need to watch 120 movies and cook 180 different recipes. Go there! Do something fun!

Other than that there is Nikki who I nom and love on! :D Only 2.5 weeks till I go see her again! Whoo!

Soon I will actually post a graspop review. I swear!

I'm off to Graspop Metal Meeting.
Back on Monday.
omgyayI'mseeingDragonforcelive. x3 <3!

So apparently, someone, somewhere thinks it's a good idea to let me loose on hundreds of poor, defenseless, unsuspecting kids.

In other words?
I graduated.

It's been six long, occasionally gruelling years (though sometimes also total fun), I fucked up a lot, sometimes I came out looking smart, but. I finally, finally did it.

Was going to have ice cream tonight, but no longer allowed.

In other words: brother was sexist (but that's okay because it was funny as well as condescending and offensive) and I took offense. This makes me a BAD child. Yes.

Dear Sarah, don't go out with my brother. He's scum.

Feels like all I do lately is bitch about my family. Probably because it is.
Mum's back on the "what Lisa can and cannot eat" track. Which is always fun.


Went out with some people yesterday. Had fun.
Came home and was asked by one of them, on msn, if I was okay since I'd seemed so cranky today. Told her I was fine, said I had no idea about crankiness.
Was then told I should try to be nicer next time because she felt attacked by me.
Said fine, okay. She annoys me sometimes but I didn't recall really attacking her but fine! Didn't feel like an argument. Just agreed to be nicer.

Now 24 hours later, I still don't know what the fuck I did wrong.
Should ask, sort of hesitant. Don't actually want a fight, just an idea of what the fuck I did. Which should give me an image of whether she's just being her attentionwhore self or if it really was me. Since it could be.

9.45 AM
Mum: Your room is disgusting
Me: Uh. What.
Mum: I'm telling the maid not to clean it. You'll have to do it yourself.
Me: Why? I always make sure all my crap is out of the way so she can do her job!
Mum: It's embarrassing

9.55 AM
Mum: Work on your job applications! Now! Not later! Now!!
Me: Yeah, okay, fine. Can I wake up properly first? And get over my allergies?
Mum: *eyeroll*
Me: *eyeroll back*
Mum: *smacks* Bitch.


What. The. Fuck.

Seriously, I can't do shit in the first hour of waking up. I'm fucking sorry, but even with my medication, my eyes are crusty and itchy, my nose is stuffed up and I sneeze so hard I think things might come loose.
And what the hell is up with the constant pressure for job applications? I don't even know if I'm graduating now after the shit with my portfolio. Mum's reasoning is that I should apply anyway since I might still have passed and all the schools will be closed soon.
And here I thought I had made it reasonably clear that I do not actually want to teach*? It's like a backup option. My resume is already in a lot of other places, I want something else. But let's ignore that.

Also, embarrassing room. Yes, a very full desk (paperwork, books and books and books), my tiny ikea table with my TARDIS model, a schoolbag, a laptop bag and three bags of knitting. All of it is in bags. All of it is in the corners of my room.
What my dear mother seems to be forgetting is that I DON'T HAVE SPACE TO PUT ALL THIS CRAP IN. My bookcase? Full. My three drawers? Full. My closet? Full!
Mind, if she'd take HER crap out of MY closet, I'd have space. As it is? Nope.
And you know what's even BETTER? Come September, mum will be SHARING my room. For two weeks! Because they're redecorating hers with all new custom made furniture. I don't want to complain about not getting anything ever (in the end, all I had to do to get a brand new and very comfortable desk chair was ask. For three weeks. Over and over. While using a kitchen chair instead) but. Brand new living room, expensive new lights in hallway, stairwell and living room, completely custom bedroom furniture. But I ask to give me, oh, twenty euro to pay for some food at graspop and I get a no. In the mean time, I have the same crap closet I had twenty three years ago. My stuff is overflowing (and I mean it, I'm stacking on the floor, on the edges of things, anywhere!) and her only answer is "throw some stuff out".

Oh and all my knitting is crap and my baking is bad. Not in that I'm no good at it, but in that they are worthless, bad for your body (that'd be the cakes) and a waste of time. All it does is clutter up her precious house.
You know what? If she thinks her house is so precious, maybe she should spend some time in it. Other than the maid, I pretty much do all the housework. I make dinner. I hang up laundry. Whatever. (Though if you ask her, she'll say she makes dinner. After all, she did put those tomatoes in the oven last night. And she boiled some potatoes. You know, after I peeled the potatoes, prepared the ground beef, emptied tomatoes and stuffed them.)

Lately, I've really been wishing she was the one in Poland and Dad was living here. I can have a civil conversation with him. Even when there's a problem, we can have a civil conversation. Not everything has to be a fight. I'm aware it's my fault too that mum and I clash so horribly, but it'd be very easily solved if she'd just stop treating me like a thirteen year old brat. Of course she'll say she does that because that's how I act, but. I don't need that. I deserve a bit of respect and dignity. And maybe once in a while some thanks for all the shit I do. And honestly, at this point, I could do with more than words. She's got me doing fucking YARDWORK in ALLERGY SEASON.
But whatever, doesn't matter. Apparently, simply because she is my mother, I have to respect her and accept all the stuff she does and the way she treats me. It seems that parenting is the one field where "she means well" is still good enough.
When I do something wrong, but I mean well? I still get my ass kicked.


In conclusion! My mother and I are dysfunctional! I need to move out but I can't afford to! I probably need to get laid!



*Teaching in itself is fine, but the paperwork has driven more than one person to the brink** and I can't stand the current education reforms they're doing here.
** I mean that. Highest burnout rates are in teaching. The first two years of a teaching job are fucked up. And why would I want to do that WHEN I'M ONLY GOING TO LIVE HERE FOR ANOTHER YEAR? Speaking of which, Dad has been going at me about what I will do when I'm in Wales and I want to get a pension plan and health insurance and what will I do if I ever want to move back to Belgium? Parents don't seem to get that this would be a rather permanent thing. Heck, they're treating it like this is something I came up with last month. I have been talking about this for ages now. It's our fourth anni-fucking-versary.




IN TOTALLY OTHER NEWS
I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT GOTHIC MUSIC ANYMORE. THIS IS WEIRD.
Graspop has Nightwish and Epica and I'm. Not even gonna go see them. This is weird to me! Oh well. Whatever. DRAGONFORCE! <333333
Only thing that kinda bothers me is the group we're going with. Kinda consists of three people around my age. Well. Me. A good friend from high school. And my ex. And then a whole bunch of, oh yes, nineteen year olds. This should be fun.
Yes, I'm aware my girlfriend is that age too, but you have to know. She's cool. They're. Not.

01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LiveJournal.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

( screenshot! )

So, life.
Uh. I wrote a portfolio and had to go defend it. The defending went really well, but apparently my portfolio was crap since I FAILED.
Might not graduate, now. I have to wait and see. So fucking pissed off.

Growing steadily more frustrated with my mother's behaviour.
Everything I do is bad and I never do enough. The amount of housework she has me doing is steadily climbing and it all has to be now and immediate and perfect no matter what I'm doing. When even my brother agrees with me that it's getting somewhat ridiculous and neither of us can remember the last time she really lifted a finger... Yeah.
Thank god they're taking off to spend the weekend in Toulouse to go to a friend's daughter's confirmation. Don't have to deal with this shit again till Monday evening.

Someone remind me why I was so homesick?

Yesterday, I went to Mr. Minit to drop off some shoes to be fixed. I cam home feeling rather ticked off because the guy behind the counter didn't speak Dutch.
Belgium might be a trilingual country, but this is Flanders and therefore he should speak Dutch. This makes sense.
But okay, I believe this is largely a political problem and not solved by bitching at poor people who are just trying to run their dinky little franchises.

Today, I went to pick up the shoes and it was worse.
Oh not the shopkeeper. He did a great job with the shoes and was nice. It was the other customers.
Some old guy came in after me and said he'd gotten the wrong shoes. The shopkeeper gave him a confused look. The guy repeated himself. The shopkeeper asked if the guy spoke French.
The guy refused. Said he didn't want to speak French. Note that. It's not that he couldn't. He didn't want to.
What do you achieve by refusing to communicate? Yes, the shopkeeper should learn Dutch. But does refusing to speak French teach him? Does it help anyone? No, it gets everybody frustrated.
So I stopped packing my bags (a pair of boots, two pairs of shoes and a bag of groceries on a bike is not a laughing matter) and piped up with a quick explanation in French.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. I am never helping anyone again.

The old dude fucking exploded at me. Said I shouldn't be speaking French to this guy, that he should speak Dutch, etc, etc, etc!
I offered that it wouldn't hurt him to just speak French for a couple minutes.
He raged at me some more, insisting that it was none of my business, to which I replied that I live here too and that sort of makes the issue my business, but he just kept repeating himself and so I left. Whatever, I don't deal with fuckheads.

This all isn't so bad. I can deal real easy with old bastards being pissed at me. What gets me fucking angry though is that he kept shoving his hand at me. Palm out. Right in my goddamned face. Over and over again. It's rude and condescending. I told him so. But he just called me something that basically translates to whippersnapper (yeah I know lol) and kept shoving his hand at me. I gave him the finger and left.


Hate people. So much. Argh.



Also. 30 euro (on top of taxes) so they'll pick up our organic trash? Which they only do every other week? When the weather is forcing us to mow the lawn weekly? wtf.


I need to knit more. I have so many projects going but one is getting a bit urgent (about a week left to knit and block it). :/ But I should also work on my portfolio for school. Sigh.

Going to see Star Trek with Sheila tomorrow. Whoo.

I LIVE.

And I am home again. So happy about that.

Finland sucked. Sucked. SUCKED.
Was miserable, was lonely, was utterly lacking in motivation.
We'll see how that's affected my schoolwork. I have to go for a talk tomorrow.
Visiting St. Petersburg was nice.
Three days in Helsinki with my parents was great.
Don't think I want to talk about it more than that. I just want to have done with it.

I have tons of work to do right now.
HAET. Blah.
Still, not working today. I need one day off. :/

So this is more or less just a sign of life.
I might start doing a movie review thing, if I can think of a name for the journal I'd make for it.
It'll give me something to do, maybe help me look at things more critically. We'll see.

Skiing sucks.
I am covered in allergies.
Also feeling nauseated.
Going to St Petersburg might not happen because I don't have any separate passport pictures. Also, it's going to cost me a fortune. Fifty fucking euro to visit a country? I mean, just to get in? Really?
Want to crawl into bed and not come out for a couple days.
Was hoping to have next week off, but instead it's extra busy (visiting a montessori preschool? seriously?) and it's going to cost me a fortune in bus fares (eight euro back and forth every day. :/)
I just wish Riitta would be less pushy.
I wish I could say no to her.
Sigh.
I wish I wasn't living with bitches who ignore my very existence and give me weird looks for what I eat (I just really like thousand island dressing, okay?).
I wish, I wish.
I wish I was back home already.
45 more days.
SAVE ME.

It's 8.47 AM, I'm in school and I have nothing to do till the 3rd grade English club starts. AT 12.30!
The reasoning behind this is that my supervisor is in France for the week and the lady substituting for her (not me since I was in Oulu till yesterday) says she doesn't particularly need or want any assistance. Nice. :/
So it's just English club and one class with the 6th grade, for me. Nice and lazy but also nice and boring. Why is there no fucking way to get to this school by bus? D:

Aaaaaah there's a 2nd grader sitting next to me. Abort, abort.

So, um, Oulu. It is both a state of mind and a wonderful place to be, but explaining that requires some flashbacking to early February, right after I got here.

( Cut for length because I have nothing better to do than to talk at you people! Contains swearing, babbling, amazement, whining, bitching and some awesome stuff )

So I totally just had four cute girls draped all over me.

Okay yeah, they were nine years old.

Once they get over their shyness, these Finnish kids are the damn cutest things ever.

Now hanging out in the back of the 3rd/4th/5th/6th grade classroom at Saaren koulu till I can have lunch (at 10.30 oh god my metabolism will be so out of whack when I get home) and then it's off to the secondary school to be shown around/observe a lesson and give a presentation on teacher's college and education in Belgium.



Things may or may not have gotten to the point where Nikki and I are seriously planning our wedding. Not so much in the "one day..." sense, since that describes the last two years, but in the "okay, let's talk ceremony and guest list" kind of way. It's still at least 1,5 years off due to issues with parents and money and visas and such, but. Yeah. One cheapish lesbian paganish wedding coming up.

Yesterday, when I got home from the shop, the fire alarm went off. Maintenance people came and turned it off since THERE WAS NO FIRE. Hell, up to when I got back, there wasn't even anyone home.
Oh well, one of those days, you know? You chalk it up to bad luck that it had to be you and you move the fuck on.

I woke up at 8.30 this morning from what? Oh yes, FIRE ALARM. dfqlskjfqlmskjf I hate. So much.
But maintenance people came yet again and they turned it off again. Goody. I tried to get back to sleep.
8.45: MORE FIRE ALARM. Maintenance again.
9.00: MORE FIRE ALARM.

SDEjfisfjqslkjdfTHERE IS NO FIRE WTF GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY.

ETA: At 10.39 it has gone off four more times. If I get there fast and wave a piece of paper at the sensor for a second, it stops, no sirens. Getting tired of that, though. Can't do that all day. Besides, I'm going out soon. I'd call maintenance but they don't speak a word of English.