Long road ahead

long road ahead
Originally uploaded by C☮LIE

Beautiful photo! Taken from someone on Flickr.
Feels like that is me in the red jacket...walking on a long and snowy road not knowing where it'll lead me.

Fijne kerst - Happy Xmas!

FunConcertsFutureDownUnder...

Time flies when you're having fun eh?! Well i think that's definitely the case for me lately, not only am i busybusybusy with my job also i have been occupied with going to concerts, a bit of partying, a business trip to Melbourne & making plans for the future .

Future plans are very exciting, but mean i really have to put myself on a budget right now...i spend too much money on stupid things! Future plans are also something i don't want to write too much about yet, if you want to know i'll gladly tell you in person (or e-mail :P) but right now i feel like i'm jinxing my plan/dream if i scream it out too loud.

Concerts...yes lots of them Mêlée, Sneaky Sound System, Saybia, Maria Mena....they were all great! And my new addiction is to film some songs during each song, if you want to have a look just click on my youtube films on the left.

And so i have also been Down Under again, my boss asked me to participate in an Agent Training Week at the Monash University in Melbourne...well you don't say no to your boss in those cases do you?! ;) Will post links to the photos of that trip soon!

Here's just a couple of photos from concerts & the Melbourne trip to end this blog with....


Nighttime in Melbourne


Tine, Nicole & me with Melbourne behind us


With James (from Monash Uni) after the farewell dinner


With Emma on Saturday-Emmaday!


Sneaky Sound System at Paradiso Amsterdam, yes i was front row!


Binkie's still with me too...or is he?!


Saybia was wonderful!


And Maria Mena at Paradiso was magic, goose bumps all night!

Lykke Li live

Wednesday was the night I finally saw Lykke Li live in Paradiso (Amsterdam), after waiting for some months. And it was sooooooo worth the wait, she had everybody dancing from the start and definitely knows how to pull a good show!

She was playing in the small room upstairs in Paradiso & it was sold out! Not that weird considering she's being hyped in some magazines and apparently did a great performance at the Lowlands festival in August. Fun thing was that I had someone asking me how to get a ticket on Facebook and there were people asking us if we had a spare ticket in front of the door...hehe...but she's coming back, on december 6th...doing a concert at 01:00 at night which is actually the 7th then, which makes it my b-day....i should go again!!!




















Tonight it's another gig, Melee! And somehow i managed to win a meet&greet for this one haha! Kinda weird, i'm not calling myself a fan of them & i have actually met them before (at the Rockin'Par festival when they were watching Counting Crows almost next to us after their own show there), but it's gonna be fun!

I'm off to Oslo tomorrow morning, have to do some networking with uni contact's at the KILROY roadshow there. Flying home again Sunday afternoon, am meeting with my friend Jiska before and hopefully we will have some time to visit the new Oslo Opera it looks absolutely fantastic!














Next week we are really going to launch KILROY education Netherlands, the website & brochure will be ready, we're going to send out a newsletter & pressrelease and i have my first fair in Amsterdam! It'll actually be the study abroad fair of the university & college of Amsterdam, a fair that i've been at a couple of times with my old job...it's gonna be nice to be back there!

Busy busy busy....but loving it!

Maria Mena's new album

Maria's new album 'Cause & Effect' is amazing, can't stop listening to it. It's hard to describe but the lyrics are cutting like a knife. They are really honest & fragile and therefore so much better than most of the other crap that young artists like her usually write (if they even write their own stuff).


















Self-fullfilling prophecy
Self-hatred grows in me like cancer
I can't locate it's whereabouts, but it's feasting on its host
I expected him to have the answers
I thought I taught him how to love me now
He fears me like a ghost

Oh self-fullfilling prophecy
You're the only garanteed loyalty
In this town full of violent mothers,
cheating fathers, leaving lovers
I swear to you I'll never love again

...

This was in on the frontpage of the papers on Thursday here, all the Olympic medal winners visiting the Qeen:

I love the fact that there's about 3/4 guys in this picture & the rest is all women!
Oh and the swimmer dude is so tall he's totally taking the queen's limelight :-P

Meanwhile Binkie is enjoying the box of my new laptop


Oh and today it's Beatstad Festival in the Hague, Live is closing it tonight & the mainreason for going there hehe!

New laptop!

Got myself a new laptop...at last!

Had my good old Asus for nearly 5 years, it was so slow it was killing me. Now i got myself an Acer, supposedly a really good brand & (and as a girl this is important to me:) it looks pretty good too!
















Love the fact that it's white on the inside, so much easier to type, and that it has a built in webcam...well all laptops have nowadays, but my old one didn't of course.
Best thing about it all is that i got a major discount because i got a mobile internet connection contract with it at the same time, something i already wanted to have anyway, yay!

Now it feels i'm really ready for my new job hehe...can't wait to start on monday!

Photos Denmark & some good news

Came back from Denmark Tuesday night, had an awesome week!
Stina & me were totally spoiled by her parents and aunt&uncle, the weather was better than the weatherguy was telling us & i even ran into an ex-colleague in Skagen, it's a small world :-D

For those of you not on facebook, you can see my Denmark photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51600&l=b0a9e&id=527521078
The good thing with facebook photo-albums is that you can just click on the photo to get to the next one.

And then there's also some good news about my favourite 7-year-old, his braintumour turned out to be benign which is of course the best news you can get in these cases.
Right now they're not going to do anything against it actually except checking it regularly of course. Still freaky that he has this thing in his head & you don't know what's going to happen in the future but right now it's such a relief that he can just continue playing football with his friends!

I'm off...

for about a week to Denmark that is!

Will be in Copenhagen first, then somewhere near Skagen, back to Copenhagen some time next weekend & then in Helsingør. Will hopefully come back a bit tanned, very rested & all zen.
My thoughts will be in NL a lot though, especially on Tuesday when it's D-day for a certain family in Gouda...hoping, praying & wishing!!!

My favourite 7-year-old

It's been a long time since i posted here, and lots of stuff happened. Lots of good stuff.
Stina & Ailsa visited me in late April/early May and it was just the best week.
Then there were 2 job applications and 4 job interviews for those, in the end i managed to get both jobs...but i had an absolute favourite so it wasn't a hard choice. Instead of working for the Swedish embassy, which i always thought would be a dream coming true, i chose the job of Study & Marketing Coordinator at Kilroy Education NL. I love the company, i love the job, i love the fact it combines everything i've done before with the fact that it's a Scandinavian company, just perfect for me. Something i can & should do.
And last but not least there's been some great festivals & concerts this summer, i suddenly found myself a fan of Live & Melee.

Last week it felt like i was on top of the world, well kinda...i was happy and good things were happening.
But now everything around me feels different. I feel sad & angry.
And this all because my favourite 7-year-old is sick, very sick. They can't say much yet, after today's operation it's at least a week of waiting before they can say more.
So it will be a week of waiting, hoping & praying for the best outcome possible.

Live - I walk the line, Rockin'Park Nijmegen

Filmed this yesterday, it was an absolute stunning performance!

Robyn - With Every Heartbeat Acoustic, San Francisco W Hotel 2/7/08

This just gave me major gooseflesh...

My oh my...

This blog never gets a proper update anymore!

Have to say i often think about updating it, but then i think there's so much i want to update it with and then it just never happens. Bad, bad, bad i know!!!

Anyways, now i'll just update with some random piccies from the last few months and by writing down that i CAN'T wait 'til Tuesday!
What happens on Tuesday you wonder...? Well, Stina's arriving from Copenhagen that night!!! And on Saturday she's followed by Ailsa all the way from Milton Keys! :-P
Tuesday-night's gonna be a crazy night as it's the night before Queensday here, and that's BIG! And on Saturday we'll have a lil' party at my place with some peeps to celebrate both girls being here, it's gonna be awesome!!!

So here come the piccies...

First this was in January, went to see Robyn live in Amsterdam, both on stage & backstage! Was a great night, so happy she finally came to perform here and all my friends absolutely loved her show!











































Here's Binkie enjoying the new chair i bought last fall














I think this was girl's night some time in February, don't remember much of that night though...














With my, now former, colleague travelguides in the beautiful city Zwolle on a very cold Saturday in February



















Saskia & me went to Rotterdam in March, these were the highlights

Krezip - Everybody's gotta learn sometimes

Long time no blog

But i had my reasons...
Didn't really feel like updating my blog for some time, as it seemed i had only sad things to say and i prefer to keep my blog a happy one. Things feel much better now and there's enough fun stuff in my life going on right now i could blog about.















my mum & granny a couple of summers ago

This blog is about the sad stuff though; on december 30th my beloved grandmother passed away. She was 87 and had been ill since september. It was a relief to know she wasn't suffering anymore but it was very sad as well.

Saturday january 5th it was her funeral. A weird and tough day which was made more bearable by the fact that my mother, sisters and me were actively involved in the whole thing.
For a start my sisters and me held a speech, about what kind of granny she was for us... about the sleep-overs during which we were allowed to eat sweet stuff on our bread instead of cheese, about the water fights we used to have in granny's garden with her pots and pans which she gave to us, about how she loved to come along with us when we wanted to ring other people's doorbells at night and then run away, about how she knitted clothes for our dolls and stuffed animals, about how she could burp the whole alphabet, about how she couldn't keep up with all the new stuff anymore but still wanted to know all about certain stuff, about how she sang this lovely christian nursery rhyme to us before we went to sleep when we were little...about all the lovely memories we have of here.

Also we (together with my aunt and uncle) carried her coffin, before and after the ceremony and also on the cemetery. It felt so much better to do it ourselved than to walk behind some men in creepy suits with hats who'd do it otherwise.

The rest of the day sort of went by in a haze, we had lunch with the family and other people that stayed. Then drove the 1 1/2 hours back home and had dinner at my mum's place, we stayed there until late at night, talking about granny and how the funeral had been.

A couple of weird things happened the night my granny died by the way, things that make you wonder.
First i woke up at 5:30 on the 30th, not from a dream, not because i had to use the bathroom, not because of some noise...i just woke up and i remember wondering why. Forty-five minutes later my mobile rings and it's my mum telling me granny died...at 5:30.
Also my mum later told us that when she left the room 5 or 10 minutes after my granny had died and grapped her jacket to go for some fresh air (and a smoke) outside there was a ladybug, one with many spots, on it...you never see ladybugs in winter do you?



















my sis & me with granny back in october

Merry Christmas everyone!

More december stuff

Apart from my b-day (see blogpost below) there's been some other things keeping me busy lately.

First i decided to get myself a Christmas tree this year, quite a unique thing i can say. I also bought some extra stuff to put in it and now it's quite a pimpy thing i think.














Binkie in the mean time, seemed to do better & better. At the vet 2 weeks ago his bloodlevels had improved again and therefore i was allowed to stop the medication and cut down on the daily drip. The past 2 weeks he only needed a drip every other day. More to come though...

Winter also kicked in seriously for once...it's been bloody cold this last week and a half! Coldest temperature i've known about was -6C when i was biking home one night, brrr.
Friday morning when i arrived in Amsterdam, this is what it looked like right outside central station:














That's when i decided not to bike to work that morning but to take the tram instead.

During the little walk from the tram-stop to work i took these pictures:














(ugly white building = uni library, where i work)














In Alkmaar we didn't have snow though, but it was just as cold up here. I think all the white frozen trees on this next photo prove that. Taken saturday morning from my bedroom window.
















Now the follow up on Binkie:
In the days just before this weekend i noticed he was trying to vomit sometimes but nothing came out. Then on friday night i noticed he hadn't really eaten any food.
On saturday he was doing that vomitting thing again, this time with a lot of noice...the poor boy was definitely in pain. I called the vet who was on duty this weekend and she concluded his phosphate level had probably gone up again. Unfortunately she didn't have the medication for this available in the weekend...nice one!
Binkie was definitely feeling quite sick and he was crawling away in all the different corners at home all the time...felt so sorry for him and was so scared the whole weekend.

Luckily i already had an appointment at the vet for today. I didn't really sleep well last night and was almost convinced i'd come home again without him.

Things turned out much better than i thought though; it seems he has some sort of infection in his throat/face (noticed his right eye was a bit weird this morning and the vet felt he was swollen on that side of his face right away)...anti-biotics should hopefully do the trick for that.

His bloodlevels, including his phosphate, have improved again actually which means that his kidneys are still improving!

Still feel sorry for Binkie that he's feeling bad of course, but WHAT A RELIEF!!! Hopefully the anti-biotics will kick in fast, in that case i only have to take him back to the vet in 3 weeks! Oh and i can cut down on the drip again, to once every 3 days now.

Immidiately took some Christmassy photos this afternoon, here's Binkie enjoying the Christmas tree :)

B-day

Better late than never i think, so tonight i'm finally updating this blog again. First with pictures of my b-day party back on the 8th :-P

My big love Mr. Gijs was one of the earlier guests, he kind of hooked up with Binkie first and then ended on the couch with Minko, which makes you think...





























Later that night some very spontaneous people became a victim of my camera hehe.












































































All in all it was a great party which ended some time around 4 am sunday morning, thanks everyone for coming!!!

Binkie 2

finally an update on my binkie again. it's been almost 2 weeks since i first took him to the vet & thank god he's improved quite a bit.
yesterday it was time for bloodtest nr3 & his levels have gone down again, but one went up a slight bit and he has also lost a tiny bit of weight again since last week. so it's still not great yet, but good enough to continue with the treatment.
and that treatment is still a daily drip of about 250-300 ml of fluid and a pill for his mouth & stomach. last week i've learned how to give him the drip myself and i'm now doing it at home, which is great of course because it causes so much stress for binkie and so much time as well everytime i have to take him to the vet.
i do need someone to help me everytime though, someone to start the drip, while i put the needle in binkie's back and hold him, and keep an eye on when to stop.

just to give you an idea, here's the results of all the 3 bloodtests so far (and the levels as they should be between brackets):
UREA (5.7-12.9):
22/11: 46.4 (probably higher, but this is the max they can measure)
26/11: 40.3
03/12: 24.6
CREA (71-212):
22/11: 884
26/11: 586
03/12: 453
PHOS (1.00-2.42):
22/11: 5.19
26/11: 3.29
03/12: 3.33

here's some pix from this weekend, first me giving binkie his drip:

and binkie sound asleep under his blanket after his drip.he's always a bit cold because of the drip, so i tucked him in :)

Binkie

binkie's not been himself ever since i came back from down under.

i thought he was angry at me, for travelling so much, or that he was simply getting older and getting into other diet habits.

but as he continued to eat less and less until he just stopped eating this week i finally took him to the vet tonight....wish i'd done it before.

it turns out he has serious kidney failure (that's what it's called in english i think) and it doesn't look good at all. his blood levels are extremely high (one thing is 43 for example but it's only supposed to be 12 max, another is 880 and that's only supposed to be 200 max) and need to go down...quick.

so tonight he immediately got his first drip, a shot of anti-biotics and a pill to get rid of something that's causing blisters in his mouth. for the next 3 days i need to go back with him every day for more drips. and then on monday night they'll do another blood test to see if his blood levels have gone down enough. my vet's already happy if they went down by 50% she said...