Finally!

It's over!

Today was my last final, English Proficiency. My LAST final. Which means I can really enjoy my holiday now, and not suffer painful guilt when I know I should be studying.

So, this is the end of my first year of uni, and I have to say, I never expected it to be like this. There were WAY less contact hours, which meant I had to ride 2 hours in the bus for 1 hour of lectures some days, but somehow it all seemes more stressful. Of course, I actually had to complete my homework, which is something I never bothered with in the past, um, 18 years. Which brought me a great deal of stress.

Also, because I had so few actual seminars/lectures everyone seemed to think that I had a lot of free time on my hands. NOT. Sheesh. Try writing 3 essays in a row yourself, thankyouverymuch.

By the way, since school is over I have no official excuse for me to look for a job, since I apparently need one. Deep down, I guess I know it's true. Anyway, being pressured about it is annoying.

If anyone has some nice job ideas or some awesome things to do in the holidays, feel free to leave 'em in the comments! And now I'm off for athletics practise. I've been skipping the last 3 times.

Quote: "So you know pineapples, of course. They're really delicious. First sweet, then sour. So Danielle and I ate two of them. Now my mouth hurts because of the sourness. But we kept on eating because of the sweetness. You'd do the same, right?" -Lisette, on pineapples.

Erik Procrastinates - Take Two

"What the- Erik, you've got an exam comprising 3 essay questions coming up! About flippin' LITERATURE! You don't have time for this!"

After reading Heart of Darkness I decided it was time for some counterproductive action... Although it produced something nice after all. This is not a specific character I designed, I just felt like drawing. Of course, your opinions are highly appreciated. Also, I suck at drawing hands.

Now, I don't want to turn this into an artistic blog, so lemme talk about something else:

I recently rediscovered the joy that is Magic: The Gathering. Nothing's more awesome than taking your specifically selected pile of cards and pitch them against someone else's. Really, it's better than it sounds. Every Tuesday, a group gatheres at the toy store for some games... unfortunately, it's at the same time as my athletics practise. Oh well, I'll figure something out. Go, future me!

...so, yeah.

Quote of the week: "You played 3 against 1 and LOST? Did he use an infinite life cheat or something?" -Joris, on Magic.

Wait, what?

'Huh? Erik? What's this? Don't you have something more important to do?'

Yeah, in a gust of inspiration I decided to portray the character I invented on behalf of Amarantha's Clairvoyant Council, Talwin Ellian. However, as I mentioned there, I um, really don't know anything about drawing. But since I rock at doodling in my notes, I decided to draw the entire character... with only one €0,20 ballpoint pen. So, no erasing.

So, any thoughts? Personally, I think it's a case of something nice from far, but actually far from nice. Heh.

Quote of the day: "Someday someone will best me, but it won't be today, and it won't be you." -Magic the Gathering, Last Word. Yes, I quote trading cards.

It's that time of the year again.

Ah, the 2010 Football World Championship. A month long of orange, orange and even more orange. You might have guessed by now that orange is the Netherlands' national color. Do the USA have a national color?

Anyway, this Very Important Event has caused trouble, trouble and even more trouble throughout the country. Dinner tables are left unattended, because everyone wants to eat close to the TV, no matter how inconvenient. As a matter of fact, everything has to be done within range of a working TV, which means people are home-bound. Really, the streets are empty, aside from dog-owners who give their furry friends their obligatory walk inbetween matches, with a disgruntled face because they aren't able to watch the the match analyses.

Meanwhile, schools are criticized for not letting have children a day off when the national team plays. Even the parents Kan, who both are teachers, assume it logical that a game of soccer is way more important than education. The school my brothers go to (and my dad teaches math) refused to let the students go, which is completely logical if you'd ask me. This action has made the news. The fact that a school wouldn't acknowledge the importance of a ball game has made the news. Apparently, it "ruined the school's reputation." Seriously.

Also, supermarkets eagerly jump on the bandwagon by introducing cheap, made-in-china thingies without any relation of any kind to football, and relate them to football anyway. (See pic.) While this was kind of fun at first, there currently are 7 different supermarkets with 7 different animal-ish collectibles. You can spy one in my profile pic, too! I believe there's a marketing conspiracy going on. I wanna move somewhere where the worldcup-hype has not yet arrived, although I doubt such a place exists.

To end this post and celebrate this Event, I have gathered several inspiring quotes; All of them match the current image I have about people affilated with football:

"For those of you watching in black and white, Spurs are in the all-yellow strip!"
"The game is balanced in Arsenal's favour."
"The World Cup is a truly International event."
-John Motson, commentator.

"Rosenborg have won 66 games, and they've scored in all of them!"
"Newcastle, of course, unbeaten in their last five wins."
-Brian Moore, commentator.

"The Dutch look like a huge jar of marmalade!"
-Barry Davies, commentator. ...I've no comments.

"Sometimes in football you have to score goals."
-Thierry Henry, footballer.

Yeah, I knew they were smart.

Erik the Very Important gives His Opinion on the news!

"What? Did I hear that right? I thought Erik was too lazy to be concerned with uninteresting stuff like that!"

Well, yeah. Maybe a few years ago, I was. But there's so much things happening right now, and you know where I get things off my mind: Here!

First you gotta know that the elections were yesterday. Since you, my foolish friend, presumably don't know squat about Dutch politics, allow me to fill you in:

Dutch Politics in Thirty Seconds
There are around ten parties with a realistic chance of actually getting any seats in parliament. They are, more or less from left-wing to right-wing, the socialist party (SP), the green party (GroenLinks), the social democratic party (PvdA), a social liberal party (D66), the Christian democratic party (CDA), the conservative party (VVD) and the Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV). The PVV is led by anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders.
Two small Christian parties, the ChristenUnie and SGP, are more difficult to place on a left-to-right scale. The former is somewhat more progressive, the latter is considered slightly more conservative. Both parties take a firmly conservative stance with regard to ethical questions such as abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia.

As you can see, there's a lot more than just being Democratic or Republican (At least, that is how I perceive American politics, correct me if I'm wrong). Since no single party ever gets more than 50% of the total votes, there's always the need for a coalition. This system has worked out pretty good in the past, as long as there are parties with similar conceptions. This time, however, the parties are about as similar as a Greek epic and a sitcom, and this has been going on for the past few years. The result is that the government has collapsed 4 times already.

So why is this time special? It's about the PVV, the Partij voor de Vrijheid (Freedom Party), who somehow managed to obtain 20% of the votes. The PVV is special in a way, and I'll explain this by comparing it to your favorite villain: You-Know-Who!

So I guess Geert Wilders, its leader, can be compared to the Dark Lord himself. Everyone says they don't like him, because of his ridiculous ideas. Which include "throwing all Muslims out of the country to purify it." The Muslims can be compared to people who aren't pure-blooded, of course! The reason why he got so many votes is thus unclear to me, since I don't accept inhuman behaviour, thankyouverymuch. So my guess is that he put about 20% of all Dutch people under the Imperius Curse. Scary!

Anyway, I'd like to see the outcome of this, because a coalition has yet to be formed. I personally don't think it's possible, but well, you never know how a cow'll catch a hare! Yeah, I just used a Dutch idiom.

Yesterday's quote: "I read you blog, Erik!" -Dad
The day before yesterday's quote: "I read your blog today, Erik!" -Dad
The day before the beforementioned day: "Did I mention I read your blog today, Erik?" -Dad
Etcetera: "I read your blog too, Erik!" -Dad

Someone's obsessed!

Book Review: The Eight by Katherine Neville

Remember when I blogged my schedule? No? Never mind that.
I said that I was reading The Eight by Katherine Neville, and now I’ve finally finished it. So it’s time to let the world know my opinion!

First of all, I’d like to state that I normally don’t take this much time reading a book. But this is just… well…

The Eight has a curious structure: It’s basically two books in one. Authorities have described it as a “great intertwining of two seemingly unrelated stories.” I only halfway agree with this: The two stories are indeed almost unrelated, save near the end, and thus are not intertwined at all! I WAS DECEIVED! (I won’t spoil)

Then there’s the plot. I had to read carefully; otherwise my common sense would have trampled over it like it was a fragile flower in the middle of a highway. To give an example: First, two girls are warned by everyone that this guy (actually a main character) is a despicable villain, and that they should not get involved with him. The next thing I knew is that one of the girls had sex with him. I DON’T GET IT! Any further mentions of him being evil are missing, too. It’s like he was suddenly replaced with his not-so-evil twin brother.

Then, there’s the cheesy jokes. One person says something like this: “Stalin reigned, as his name implied, with a steel fist.” I don’t know whether the translator came up with this (I read the Dutch version) or if it was included by Neville, but it’s just not fitting.

People have compared this to The Da Vinci Code, which I thought was amazing, but frankly, I don’t know why they did so.

Now to read its sequel, The Fire. People say it's good as well, but hey.

Quote of the day: “Decorations? When the guests come I’ll hang them.” -MLIA

Sarcasm mode, activate!

It's ranting time!

Ah, Sunday evenings. The time where the entire family eats a dinner-like meal while watching TV. Yeah, that's our Sunday. Sometimes it's quite nice, but lately the only programs on were... um... "Selling houses with Phil and Kirstie" or something like that and Hell's Kitchen. Seriously, that's NOT the kind of stuff I prefer watching at weekend's end.

Then, in one of the many commercial breaks (Although apparently not as many as in the USA) it said that Forrest Gump would be on tomorrow. When I suggested that we'd watch it, the events that happened could be best described as "flame-war." My ENTIRE family has never even heard of Forrest Gump, and they all said it was s stupid movie. Oh joy.

Quote of the week: "Everyone was supposed to make 50. I did 70, just in case. My other team members did 15, 17 and 20 respectively." -Peter, on his assignment.

Clarification: Peter studies something mathy. They had to look up houses for sale on the internet, and list helluva lot of details about them. Just looking up one takes about 15 minutes. If I were him, I'd ditch the group. Seriously.