Journal

Today was the anniversary of my father's death - well, this all happened on the 22nd, as I was apparently too lazy to submit this here -  on December 22nd, 1999. We left the house around 11 a.m, got in the car and drove to the cemetery, which is located in a small village not too far from where I used to live. It's a nice cemetery, with lots of trees and plants. The way my father liked it.

My family was there... Well, most... Three of my cousins were not there. I don't know why the male one of the three was not, but the other two had taken over from my grandfather, so that he could come and visit his son's grave too.
...My grandmother is... Well... Um... It's old age, you see... Sometimes she barely even remembers who her own husband is, the words she say are nearly incomprehensible and... Let's leave it at that. It's not a very nice subject, and talking about it saddens an already saddened me.

I.... I am... afraid to say that... looking at the stone did not bring back a lot of memories.
I have... very little memories of when I was that little, and... Well... I do not remember much about my father. I loved him an awful lot, and he was a really great man, but...
...Wh...Why am I starting to cry now..? I didn't cry at all when I was there...

...Anyway... Most of the flowers there had frozen, but they were all covered in ice crystals that had taken the shape and formation of flowers. It was... simply... beautiful. Nearly poetic. As if nature wanted to cheer us up. And it worked, at least in my case. I... really feel that way.
I wish I had brought a camera... Though today was in no way a happy day, I saw so much beautiful and wonderful things that I wanted to take a picture of. I had brought a sketchbook, but... Well... I'm... not really good enough to be able to copy such a wonderful thing well enough... And sitting down calmly to draw something when people around you are being sad about your father's death is...

After that we went to my uncle's house. The mood there was a bit more cheerful. My uncle and aunt told me about how they would be going on a holiday to Japan this week. It made me kind of jealous. I want to go to Japan too.
My mother joked about how they should take me as a translator. They overestimate my ability to speak and understand Japanese. It's true that I'm following a course and am able to do a few things pretty well now, but my pronunciation is probably all off, along with the grammar, and I would not be able to understand it very well either.
It is easy to be impressed by someone's knowledge of a language you don't know anything about.
I did give them my e-mail address so they could send me regular updates on how it went, though. ^_^ I am looking forward to that.

On my way back home, I heard the news reader on the radio say there was an 8 kilometer traffic jam because of an accident.
It ended up to be way more than 8 kilometers, and a 1 hour drive became a three hour one. We also passed more than one accident site.
I was... disturbed... when I noticed that an entire highway had been shut off with several ambulances heading for it though. What accident could be bad enough for an entire highway to be shut off..?
Sometimes I wish I was religious. This was one of those times... I really wished I had someone to pray to that whatever had caused it was not too bad.

There was a strike at my school friday... A student strike. They were... complaining... about the government raising the amount of hours a year from 1020 to 1040. Which is actually quite strange, seeing as some while ago they were complaining about there not being enough hours.
So a few thousand students formed a mob and walked to city hall, until policeshowed up and... they started throwing eggs at the police. >_>
Two students from my school were expelled after they wrecked a teacher's car.
And the sad part is that the original goal of the strike had already been accomplished... The government had said they were prepared to negotiate some while ago, if I am correct... ._.
There was actually a nationwide call for a student strike, apparently through MSN - Amsterdam had the same problems, I don't know about the rest of the country.
I... didn't participate, of course...
I doubt most of the participants even knew why they were doing a strike, they just took the opportunity. >_>

Also, um... I got a haircut... for the first time in 8 months. It looks a lot less messy now, which si good. But apparently I have a really annoying type of hair - it's very thick at the base and very thin at the ends. This might mean that long hair would look terrible on me...

...In which case I could get extensions. I am actually considering this. >_>

In less dramatic news, it's almost time for Sinterklaas! the fifth of December. I went sinterklaas-shopping saturday - I bought an Avril Lavigne CD for my stepsister, she wanted it - and there was this huge parade of Petes and a fanfare and of course Sinterklaas himself. it made getting through with my bike a bit hard, but it was still fun to see all the happy kids. ^_^

Since I was there anyway, I also went shopping for some clothes... It's something I have learned to enjoy a bit recently, though... to be honest... I still wouldn't do it alone, and I am still terrified of speaking with the salesmen. >_>
I bought one sweater that looks good with a scarf I already had and another white one.

And last... Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE: Tokyo Revelations OVA 1! it's great! ^_^ I love the opening and ending songs, especially the opening - Makino YUI and Kajiura Yuki are a good combination and the animation with the magic circles is really pretty - and the animation itself was really done well. So much better than Bee Train's version of the anime. >_>
And of course the story is great, though I already know everything that is going to happen. it was fun to see that they added a few scenes, though, and some lines in scenes that already existed. It feels... complete.

And it is really pretty.

(Yes, I do kind of realize that I haven't posted anything about how my trip to Turkey was, nor the moving... I was just, er... Lazy. I might do so later... If I haven't forgotten yet.)

So I had my first day of school today... Well, first day of school - it was really only one hour in which you got to know your schedule and in what class you are.
I was really nervous before, one of the reasons being that I did know when I had to be there, but not where... I also didn't really know where to leave my bike since I hadn't seen any place to in the only time I've been there, so I went by car.
When I got there, the hall was kind of filled with people, all of which looked way older than me... or so I thought. Apparently, I'm both not as tall as I thought - well, I am, but others here are way taller - and older than I thought, because they were actually younger.
I still didn't really know where to go, though... There was a piece of paper on the wall that said something about what classes had to go where, but I didn't know what class I was in - actually, I still don't know the class number. Oh well...
Eventually I overheard two boys talking and found out that I had to wait until they would let us into this huge room where they would divide us into classes, which happened not too long afterwards.
I felt kind of out of place when I sat down, with everyone around me talking with each other and such, and I was shaking quite a lot too...

Since I just moved here, I was registered quite late, and all that needs to happen for things to go wrong is someone forget to turn in one small piece of paper... Apparently this school is not really known for their great administration, so I wasn't surprised when my name wasn't called. I knew one of the teachers, though... Sort of... So when I asked him I was put into a class.

The type of schedule I have is called Cultuur&Maatschappij, translated into Culture and... Um... Something I forgot right now. Anyway, this is not really a very popular one among boys, and girls don't really like it that much either... So my class has only 14 people, 12 of which are girls. I don't really mind, though... I don't really know anyone there to begin with...

The hour itself was filled with introduction of our, er... Well, it would be best translated into homeroom teacher, though she isn't really... Well, that. We also had to talk with the person sitting next to us about ourselves and then tell the teacher what we've learnt, which was really embarrassing, and to be honest... kind of stupid too. I really didn't know what to say, so I ended up sounding like an idiot again... And probably looking like one too.

._.

EDIT: I know now! It was Culture and Society. I think.

I'm leaving for Turkey tomorrow...

Anyway, I'm posting this now and not tomorrow because I don't really know at what time we're leaving... And I'm a procrastinator and forgetful and lazy too, so I thought that if I did it now I at least wouldn't have left without telling anyone. We just finished moving, so packing is quite a pain since I still kind of have to unpack too, and there's no real system in how I packed it so its hard to find what I'm looking for. Not to mention my room only gets messier every time I open another box...

I most probably will not have internet connection there. Not that I know anything about the type of hotel we're staying at - other than that everything is free once we're in - but I doubt I'd be able to get on... I do hope I can, though... Maybe they'd have a few computers in the lobby you can use. Anyway. >_>

I'm... kind of... late, am I not..? Everyone seems to have returned already, and I still have to go...

Um... I woke up today to find my cat died sometime tonight... I had sort of expected it - he started to feel worse and worse, and the medication didn't seem to be helping much at all, and creatures that don't eat for four days... just... But... It's still...

We found him in a rather uncomfortable position on top of the pile of wood in our garden... I wonder how he got up there in that condition.  His eyes were half-open, but unlike with people, it doesn't seem to be possible to close a dead cat's eyes... Different type of eyelids...

We moved him inside after calling my mother. He looks kind of... strange... lying there... His body is very stiff, and...

...I had hoped to take him with me when I moved out of this house...

Miepie apparently has some kind of blood illness. I don't know exactly what it is - the doctor had both a strange accent and I was distracted by the cat himself while he was explaining - but it has something to do with the amount of cells in his blood.
He's doing a lot better now; he's still quite ill, but due to some weird miracle he acts as if he's perfectly okay. He actually seems more energetic than normal, really... I mean, um... There's something wrong with his right hind leg, so he can;t jump that well and had trouble getting on top of the table, but it seems that just disappeared. O_O He jumped out of my arms on top of the table a few hours ago... Though he did sort of fall off again right away, but... yes.

As for the illness, we - well, we... Um... More the doctor and my mother because she paid like 550 euro... - have done everything we can. It's all up to Miepie himself now... Either he recovers by himself, or he doesn't.

He's SO THIN THOUGH! He used to be... er... rather huge... And he had really shiny black fur too. I can feel his ribs now, and the fur lost all its shinyness. ._. I really considered feeding him lots of really fat food from snackbars... Not that I would but... I considered it...

And he smells like hospital! It's such a strange smell.

I'm so happy he's feeling better!

I spent Friday night at my best friend's house, to hear my cat got accepted into a special hospital when I got back... He had been ill for about a week, refusing to move from his spot on my brother's computer chair - something my brother didn't like - and eating and drinking very little. We actually tried to feed him steak once, something he usually tries to steal from our plates at dinner, but... he didn't even sniff it...
So apparently he had 41 degrees (celcius) fever. That's... kind of... very ill. The doctors didn't know what was wrong yet.
After a day of anxiously waiting, the doctor finally called... Apparently it was indeed an infection, but... Not like an infected wound or anything.
He had 41 degrees fever before, but now he was actually too cold; according the the doctor, this was something serious, and they were going to test him for...
Cat AIDS.
I was like "O_O ...Eh... Wah? But... He's castrated!" when I heard that, but apparently it's possible that he fought with another cat and got it that way. Though i didn't even know it existed.
Another possibility was Leukemia...
Today, we got another phone call from the doctor, who said it's not AIDS, nor Leukemia.
This is rather relieving, as if it were either, it'd be end of story. And that'd be the end of my dreams of taking Miepie with me when I move out of the house...
They're now going to scan his chest and tummy area for tumors and such... If either, at least there is still a chance for survival. The medicine for it works around 60% of the time; in 30% of the cases it works instantly, and another 30% it does work but the illness returns later.

In other words... Um... It's not really going well for him...
I don't want to lose Miepie... &_& He's been with me for over 10 years...

...

When I'm moving to Oegstgeest, which by the way is a town connected to Leiden, one thing I will not miss is the school I currently go to.
...Really... they're so bad at organizing... I missed one day of school because I was ill, and because of that I had no idea at what time I had to be where to turn in my books. I asked a classmate - on MSN, and only after they started a conversation with me, I wouldn't even dare asking them in real life - and they told me it was today, in a part of the school called the yellow room or something like that.
But... I still had no idea at what time. Because I didn't really want to risk missing it - if I miss it, it could mean I fail this year - I woke up at 7 AM today and went to school at 8:something. Turns out I have to turn them in at 12:45... Oh well... So I went back home, and here I am now.

I spent that much time going to school in the rain, gathering enough courage to ask one of the teachers, and going back with an incredibly heavy bag full of books on my back. And all because I wasn't brave enough to ask someone, in class or even on the phone...

...Why am I like this..? I could understand if it was some sort of... compensation... for the good qualities I have, but... I don't really have much.
Maybe this is the reason I'm an agnostic... I can't prove or claim in any way that a higher power does not exist, yet... I can not believe that such a thing would be as... indifferent... as to cause all the things that happen in this world. Still... I'm digressing now, as I strayed from my original subject - I was originally talking about my personality and not little poor starving children in Africa that really need help though I don't have the right to say this as I don't give them money either.

...Okay, now I'm really going to digress...

My father once wrote a poem about this type of shyness. Unfortunately, it's in Dutch; and translating would be a waste, so I'm not going to... Unless you want me to, of course, but...
Anyway, he wrote this poem about himself (using "Jorn" as a name, which is probably derived from his and my family name Jooren), so it's relatively safe to assume he had the same personality trait as I do, or... at least... something similar.
The poem has no name; either the name was lost somewhere, or he didn't like it enough. It's about a 14-year old boy called Jorn who lives about halfway through the 60's.... It tells of how he rode 150 kilometers on his bike, on Saturday, to his friend who had moved a little while before.
About how he passed three small villages, two cities, went through a tunnel and through three more villages, and finally arrived at his friend's house to find out he wasn't home. He went back, regretting having been too shy to call his friend to see if he could come over.

Something like that. I... because I have a really bad memory... don't really remember much about my father... but, when i read a poem made by him, I feel as if I can at least get to know him a bit better.

Anyway... This school is really bad at organizing stuff.

I got my test results today, and... Well...
I was kind of tired at the end of this year, really... not physically tired, but... tired of school, I guess. I started mixing up all kinds of things, until I finally noticed myself writing down things in German on my French test. >_>
So... The results aren't that good. But I didn't fail this year, so I'm glad.
Really... As long as I don't have to redo a year, I don't care about whether I pass with a 6 or an 8. That's what I would like to say, but... Mu mother had promised to get me one of those tablet thingies if I didn't have any grades lower than 6. &_& I have a 5 for French... Oh well.
It's not that bad, really...

I also forgot to study for English, which left me with a 7.3 as a result for the test, and an 8 as a final grade. Both are good enough grades, but... If only I had not forgotten to study, I would have had a 9 as a final grade. For some reason, this... annoys me. I know I could have easily done better, yet I didn't.

Oh well, it's okay. I ended up with lots of 6s and 7s, a 5 for French and an 8 for English. It's good enough to pass, and I don't mind.
At least now I don't have to worry about things like this anymore. ^_^ Well, until next year begins.

It's been a while since I posted my last journal, hasn't it... Oh well, I guess that is okay. I have very little to say anyway.

Anyway, um... A lot of people I know... well, know online... already got out of school. I didn't... Well, not yet, that is. I'm currently in a test week that started last Friday, you see... And I still have to go to school for a week or so after that... But I digress.

I don't have to study that much today. You see, um... Tomorrow... The only two subjects I have are English and Geography. English shouldn't be a problem, really... I mean, um... It's my best subject... Well, apart from Art. Geography shouldn't be that hard either, I guess... I'm not... particularly... good at it, but.. It's never really very hard, and this test is about JAPAN and the United States. So... Yes. I... can't really say I know much about either... But... I am... quite... interested... in Japan. >_> And I know a lot of people in the US too, so that should be okay. It's not that hard to tell apart Los Angeles and Nara Prefecture anyway. >_> Not that I think I'll have to... I mean, that would be... a kind of... stupid... question. Besides, I just picked two random things about the United States and Japan that popped into my head, so.

The day after... The day after tomorrow, that is... I only have one test; Dutch. It... may be my main language... and also my first... But I'm... not really good at it, to be honest. But Dutch tests are never that hard either, and it's only one, so I'll be fine.

This in turn means I'll have a lot of time to prepare for the test on Wednesday; Math. I'm not particularly good or bad at Math itself, but... Um... I'm... I have this thing called Dyscalculia or whatever the name is... Or at least I think I do. I can;t really calculate things without a calculator. >_> But I get to use one, so i'll be fine as long as I study.

The last day is the hardest; French and Chemistry. I've never been that good at french... Well... I could do it easily, I think, but... I just... dislike the language as a whole. >_> I'm sorry.
Chemistry will be fine as long as I study. But... I dislike studying.

I normally have two hours of GYM - or PE, whatever you call it - on Friday, but today... Well, I had them today too! ^_^ I just did something... different... Than usual.
You see, our teacher had arranged for us to be taught self-defense at a local... martial arts... school... thingy. We had to spend a few minutes on our bikes to get there, but that was okay. It was nice weather anyway, so. ^_^

It turned out we were going to be taught by this young man of about 20-23 years old, who told us he had a black belt in karate, and... he had been/is national champion quite a few times. I was all, umm... Well, O___O... when I heard that.

Anyway, as he said, it wouldn't do us much good if he just taught us actual techniques for two hours. We would just forget them and it would have all been for, umm... naught? So... We started by playing a few games that involved lots of running to warm up, and after about 15 minutes - I was already exhausted by then - he said "stop" in what he said was Japanese, but I think was sort of wrong as it, umm... Well, it didn't even... really... sound like it... But I digress (^_^). Our next activity would be what he called "Playing Tekken"; we would make groups of two, and one of us would tap the other on shoulders/legs, while the other kicked or stomped in the air - which I imagine looked kind of stupid - with whichever part of the body he/she was tapped on... It got more complicated after a while, as the "buttons" got all messed up and a tap on the right shoulder meant kicking with your left leg and such. I had stupid fun by tapping my partner on the head and stuff.

After that... Umm, let's see... Oh, yes! ^_^ He gave every group a tennis ball, and one of us was put against the wall. the other would then throw the ball and try to hit the wall-man on the nose with it. The wall-man him/herself would then try to avoid and such... It was kind of scary, actually. ._. I was able to avoid most - my shoulder got hit twice - but I imagine it would have been kind of painful to be hit on the nose...
...Oh, I forgot something. Umm... Well... The wall-man - it sounds stupid, I know, but, err... I don't want to keep repeating "the one f the two that was positioned against the wall" - could also counterattack by tapping the thrower on the stomach after avoiding.

Next, the man - who was really nice, by the way ^_^ - gave every group a huge... Umm... Pillow...y... thing... You know, those things they hold and which you're supposed to hit and kick... Anyway. Instead of kicking it, we were supposed to use it to hit our partners. O_O Not what i had expected... He also told us that instead of just avoiding the huge lump thing by jumping backwards, we could also jump forwards, because, umm... Well, because of physics. The force being the lowest there and stuff... And then you can counterattack, too! ^_^
Actually, he asked one of the boys in my class to try and hit him with it before that. he himself jumped forward, grabbed the arm with which the boy was holding the pillowthing, and tapped him on the head with the other. It was kind of... funny, actually. ^_^ Though i feel sorry for the boy for being humiliated like that... though i guess it couldn't have been avoided, really... I mean, a 14-15-year old against a 23-year old national champion...
So we did that, but it didn't seem to work for me. ._.

We did a few other stuff too - like sitting back to back - sort of - against the same pillow, and when he said "start" in his "Japanese" we turned around quickly and tried to put our stomach against it before th other could... The other then had a minute to try and get you off and get on top himself. I won both times I did that, the first because I was faster and the second because I turned the pillow upside-down and then threw myself on top of it... Well, sort of, I was trying not to hurt my friend too. ._.

The last exercise was awful. ._. The entire group was told to lie flat on our stomach with our arms stretched, and then when the teacher said something, we had to stand up, jump, clap, and lie down again quickly... ten times in a row. It's harder than it sounds. ._.
And whenever one of us stopped or didn't go along, we had to start all over again. We ended up having to do it was more often than ten times, and I was already exhausted before... After a while, I just stood up and walked - or rather crawled - to the side. Nobody blamed me, luckily... I mean, umm... They all know I'm the weakest - though... oldest by at least a year, and... one of the tallest - of the class, and... Really... I just... couldn't go on.

Overall, it wasn't really anything special, just... very... tiring. ._.

So, umm... I had this field trip thingy today... Where to start, err...

Well, so my class... was divided in six. The first group left... well, first... The second second, and so on. I wanted to be in the first group as they arrived back home early, but... Alas... I was in the last. The others in my group seemed kind of... happy... I suppose it's because they got to sleep more, but... I tend to dislike sleeping until late morning, really... I prefer having more time for myself.
Err... I had set my alarm to seven AM as usual... forgetting that it's an hour ahead, so I woke up at 6. Not being able to go back to sleep, I went downstairs.
As the last group, I was supposed to be at school at around 9:30... But... because I had - and have, I guess - no idea how long it takes me to go there, and I wanted to be on the safe side of things anyway, I... arrived at 9:10.
...But it wasn't that bad, I didn't have to wait. The others of my group arrived soon after, and it turned out group 5 was missing one of theirs so we could go in their place, saving us at least... let's see... 15 minutes, I think... of waiting.

So the rest of the trip went okay, until... Wait, I haven't said where we were going to yet... Umm, what was it again...

Well, the Netherlands is a country of rivers, made of sediments deposited by those very same rivers.... I live in... well, the center of it, really, close to the rivers. This was a Geography field trip, and we were supposed to investigate the rivers and the soil near it. And... that's what we did. Well, we... I sort of did nothing but bake in the heat, really... The others of my group did everything and seemingly didn't even want me to do anything. I don't think it's because they think i would do it wrong, really... I wonder why... Oh well.

So after leaving we went to the first... dot... on the map. it turned out to be some sort of nature... park thingy... and a teacher was waiting at the entrance. Turned out we had to enter it and take soil samples and stuff. Yay...
Because of the wild horses that inhabit that park thingy, the ground was... well, littered wouldn't really be the correct word, but... with... smelly stuff. >_> And there were a lot of flies and stuff, too... That really wasn't fun. ._.
I was asked to get some water from a lake in there by one of my classmates once - one of the only times I did anything, really - and when I got near the water this huge... fish, I don't remember the species, I think... jumped out...
We also encountered another group - group 4 - a bit later, who said that they had seen a baby horse being born. I quickly found an excuse to go somewhere out of earshot when she started to explain how, but... I still think it must've been... Well... An experience? Never mind.
I saw what I think was the very same baby horse or whatever the name is a bit later, and it was still struggling to stand. The teacher told us to stay away because the mother would attack us otherwise.

Then we left again, and the rest of the trip was kind of boring, really - though... gross, the park part was not - we crossed a river in a boat twice, and did some stuff on the other side, and that was it. Unless you count that event in which we were sitting on the boat, and my bike was about to fall down... So... I tried to keep it from falling, but at that moment the boat made some kind of sharp turn - either that or a wave hit us - and it fell on top of me... >_>

Oh, umm... Hi there, my name is Aitze.... As you probably already know, really... I mean, you wouldn't visit this page unless you knew me, right..?
Umm, anyway, I... I can't really think of anything to talk about, so... I guess I'll just make this some kind of welcome thingy...

I... I joined this place because I was bored. Well, that and because I was scrolling along a FE forum I frequently visit, and stumbled upon the admin's LJ page... But I digress. I don't post in this kind of thing that often... In fact, the last journal entry I've made on my DeviantArt page was somewhere in March, but... I'll try to do it more often now. It probably won't work, but... Still. ._.

And, umm... Well, bye for now... I guess...