MissLeonie.com

Today was Operation Moving Out. My parents and I planned to move almost all of my stuff out of my uni apartment, leaving behind only those things I desperately needed to survive till Friday. As always, I was astounded by the sheer volume of crap I managed to accumulate. It never looks like much when it all has a home base, but as soon as you start stacking things in boxes, the whole operation turns into a rainbow - no matter how hard you’ll try, you’ll never get to the end.

My parents left at 4:45 pm, leaving me about an hour to get ready for our fancy graduates’ dinner. It would take place in the Burgerzaal of the beautiful Stadhuis in Middelburg. I quickly jumped in the shower, got back out, dried my hair, put on a bit of face paint, and then. Then I tried to get into the new tights I’d bought. Unfortunately, I broke all of them. It was around the same time that I realised I had no underwear, except for the pair of knickers I was wearing, since all of that was in a van with my parents, moving further away from me every second. Oops. I had no jewellery, either.

Half an hour before the dinner was scheduled to begin, I set out on a walk into town. I was wearing immensely high heels, the buckles of which were grinding the bone in my ankle with every step. I made it into a warehouse of sorts, bought tights, earrings and underwear, and then walked to uni with a teacher I’d encountered at the jewellery section. You cannot beat €5 earrings.

I made my way to the ladies, accessorised and got into my recently-purchased formal (under)wear. Then we had a lovely, lovely dinner. The starter was a fantastic tomato soup, the main consisted of all sorts of tapas, and the dessert… oh, the dessert. I had two massive serves. It was ice cream, and cake, and merengue, and lots and lots of sugar. Basically, it’s every girl’s PMS dream in a dessert shaped package.

Despite the pathetic pre-dinner preparations (I may or may not have thrown a few pairs of tights across the (empty) room in frustration), I had a fantastic time catching up with people who’d all done a great job dressing up. I posed for heaps of photos, and some of them didn’t even turn out crap. The above are courtesy of the lovely Carolien, the girl I’m posing with in the bottom image.

My sister is turning 18 today. Being the older sister, I’ve always asserted the right to think she is twelve. And really, I could have sworn she was twelve like… yesterday. Part of the reason I struggle to comprehend that she will be an adult as of somewhere after 11 am is the fact that I can barely fathom the fact that I am. And since I am the older one, she can’t possible be an adult if I’m not.

With birthdays come presents, and herein lies the problem. She is impossible to buy for. My sister has such a precise, generally well-vocalised taste in all matters that it is hard to find her something she will like. Thankfully, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End has come out just this week. It’s become a bit of a tradition for the two of us to see the Pirates movies together. I don’t know why she still wants to, though, because I generally embarrass her by laughing at things no one else finds funny. It must be the whole lack-of-light anonimity that does it.

Anyway, we’ve got tickets, and the whole thing is on me, so I think she’ll have fun. I just hope this one is better than Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

Post Movie Scriptum: I liked it better than the first even. Go see it if you haven’t already! :)

Scratch the previous post. The lovely Liam chased a few things up, a switch was flipped, and http://www.missleonie.com is back on.

I have been AWOL since the 14th of May. If you scroll up from there, you’ll find everything you’ve missed. Alternatively, you could have a look at the archives and pick those posts that sound interesting to you. Be sure not to miss the recent additions to the Flickr!

In other news, even though it’s almost 1 pm, I have only just got up. I’ll write more if more happens.

I have the terrible of habit blowing up at the wrong person when there is something that irks me. It’s not pretty, and I could probably blame PMS, but I wish I could disect my personality like that prawn in high school, and cut out the “lashing out” bit. I don’t think the prawn could have experienced a more unworthy post-death, by the way.

The class were told that if you pulled the right leg, the whole thing would unfold gloriously. No one told our little gamba though: he was completely legless soon after, and we never quite got to have a look at his intestines.

Prawns and I, we never quite made up. Last year, Liam dared me to try one of the dreadful things. It was fresh from the ocean, cooked beautifully - the prawn could not have wanted a better spruiker than Liam. I had thus far entirely managed to avoid eating the things. The look of horror on my face when I felt the rubbery texture of the thing as I tried to bite through him probably still brings a smile to Liam’s face occasionally.

Anyway, this post wasn’t about prawns, necessarily. Today, I went to the supermarket I worked at before I was off to uni and asked for a job. They were advertising one, but that was more of a fulltime position. I was introduced to the (new) manager though, we had a chat, and I think I made a decent impression. He told me that they have more or less found someone for the job they were advertising, but that there were a few other things going around, depending on how things played out. We’ll see.

For now, I’m just proud that I found the courage to go in there and ask for my old job back. It’s close to home, it’s easy enough and I always got along with everyone, so I hope it works out. In the mean time, I would like to request the sun work its way out of the clouds - today was like living in a sauna.

This is to let the few of you who know that you can still reach this website know that I know that the normal address, http://www.missleonie.com, is still broken. I think I should win an award for using the same verb three times in one sentence. Anyway - it’s broken. We’re working on fixing it (in fact, it should have been fixed this week, but something is obviously still not working). For now, please change your bookmarks to http://www.achtungspitfire.com/missleonie. Thanks for bearing with me!

Yesterday was the second day in a row I started sneezing uncontrollably after about 6 pm. I don’t know why the hay fever doesn’t really kick in until then - perhaps it’s the accumulation of pollen that gets to me; perhaps it’s the lack of wind in the evening. Either way, I’m fine during the day, but at night, it’s a different story.

Last night in particular, I found myself rubbing my eye so vigourously that I had to go digging around my eye socket for the contact lens I had somehow managed to fold and scrunch up in a distant corner. By 10 pm it gets so bad that there is no other option but to get rid of all the pollen by taking a shower or dunking myself in the tub.

At the local chemist, I found miniature bottles of all sorts of Weleda stuff. Years ago, in high school, I was having a rough time at some stage. I wasn’t sleeping well, didn’t feel great. One day, a friend of mine brought me a little bottle of Weleda’s lavender bath milk. It was such a sweet gesture. The lavender is supposed to relax you and slow your brain down so it doesn’t worry so much. I happen to love the smell of fresh lavender too. Much like Lush, Weleda use natural ingredients, not substitutes or synthetic copies, and I think you can smell the difference. The bathmilk smells like a field of freshly harvested lavender in the Provence. I’ve taken a bath two nights in a row now, and both times I slept like a baby.

Apparently last night had feisty weather: stormy winds, lots of rain, a bit of thunder. I didn’t notice. I woke up at 10 am, on my own, and I felt well-rested. I know I’m a bit of a nature nut - I like to believe in the power of natural remedies. Will they cure cancer? Probably not. Can they ease your mind? Definitely. I like our vegetable garden, I like the idea that the lettuce I eat has not been sprayed with chemicals, or harvested prematurely and then sent halfway across the world in an icy plane. That can’t be healthy.

I like to believe that living with nature is much healthier than fighting against it. I believe in lavender baths.

I’m in the back garden, sitting under a pair of mulberry trees. I am very comfortable in my garden chair with my feet up another one. The only thing I hear is the wind tickling leaves and birds singing a duet. It is beautifully sunny - warm and comforting.

I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to enjoy sitting outside, because it depends on two things. There is the battery life of my laptop, which is pretty good and should give me ample time to finish this blog post. The second part I have even less control over: hay fever. Over the last three years, I became more and more convinced that I had somehow grown out of my allergies. What I forgot was that I was living near the sea in a city where grass was as rare as cows. There are plenty of both here. Yesterday I did a bit of babysitting (though I once wiped this baby’s arse, he is now nine, but for want of a better word, I’ll stick to babysitting), and there was some of the most impressive serial sneezing in years.

The babysitting was great fun. I’ve basically watched this kid grow up, and I get along with his parents very well too. His mum had cooked him food that we could heat up, but he was also free to join in the dinner my parents and I woul d have. We showed him the picture on the burrito mix box, and that looked pretty good. He opted for Mexican burritos over the maccaroni his mum said she’d cook. A while later, we went to his house, because he wanted to show me his lego imperium. Turns out his mum didn’t cook macaroni. He had a choice between Mexican burritos and… Mexican burritos. Heh.

Mum mowed the lawn last night, just like everyone else in the neighbourhood, and the smell today is of this wonderfully herby cut grass. It is probably my favourite smell in the whole world, and if they could bottle it, I reckon the whole world would be a happier place.

After playing games with and chasing after kids yesterday, I figured I had had enough exercise. The muscle ache I’ve got today agrees with me completely. The camera could use a bit of exercise, however. Have a look at the Flickr for the result.

I went out to look for a job today, armed with a pretty impressive CV, if I may be so bold. It didn’t help, of course. I went to a job agency first, and rarely have I seen less enthusiastic people. There isn’t much work in the area I’d like to work in. There is production work I could do, but then they mostly need guys for that.

Afterwards, I met up with my mum, and we went past a few shops and the library to ask if they needed anyone. I have a shot at a few things there, but most of them completely trash my hopes of going to Australia for a month this summer. Not that they weren’t severely damaged already. And I will go crazy if I don’t go.

When I get home, I found out that I no longer had my phone with me. We went back into town and retraced all our steps, and added some on the path to the police station, but no luck. My Aussie phone is gone.

The MA I will be doing is a 51 week course, starting in September of this year. I am terrified of going to the UK on my own, to a place I’ve never seen before. I am frightened of the large numbers behind the British pound sterling signs I see. I am scared I’ll be eating baked beans all year. I’m not even sure the MA is what I want to do with my life anymore. I don’t know if I have what it takes to do the MA successfully.

A forum I visit had a topic about dreams and wishes. I tried to write a reply and realised that I don’t have any dreams left. I don’t dare to anymore. I know that sounds all emo, but I just don’t. I don’t even feel hurt anymore - I now just lie in bed and stare or sleep for hours. It’s numb. It’s like I’ve been on the edge of a dark blue tunnel to the centre of the earth for so long, balancing on one leg; and this silly phone and job business has just tipped the balance. I was falling down, but I’ve found a little ledge to crash on. No burning hot lava or anything, but I can’t reach the edge and climb out either. I’m just empty, sitting on my little ledge, hoping it doesn’t crumble any further.

I have no idea how to get out of this mess.

“What do you reckon she’s doing with that black clicky thing?”

Mum and I went for another one of our walks today. I didn’t bring my camera yesterday, so I didn’t get to take a photo of the most adorable young calf. He was snoozing in tall grass, all rolled up into a little white ball of cow. I couldn’t even spot its head. We stood there ages, trying to persuade him to stand up. He did eventually, and it was immediately clear that the miniature cow hadn’t quite worked out the whole four legs thing yet. Awww.

We went on another walk today, in a completely different direction, and still ran into a bunch of cows. Two bunches, to be precise. I love cows, because they are the most inquisitive and skittish animals alive, generally simultaneously. And I don’t think you’ve lived until you’ve seen a cow gallop. We live on the edge of town, and there’s not much point in going for a walk to shops that aren’t open on a Sunday, so we tend to venture out into the land of meadows, cows, farm dogs and ponies. It was mostly cows today.

More photos on the Flickr. I like this one. It’s all about the tail action.

Last night was my final university party. The party committee rented a nice venue and a shit DJ, for old time’s sake. The theme was “fluo” and everyone was asked to dress in white. There was a little unnerving note on the posters that said that the party committee could not be held responsible for marker pen streaks on shirts. Now, I have two white shirts: a brand new tank top and an Esprit T-Shirt. I don’t want writing on either.

I ended up dressing in a beautiful but rather low-cut grey top I bought in Australia, with the white tank top underneath, and grey jeans. A bunch of friends and I played some inebriated Trivial Pursuit before heading down to the party. My arms copped the fluo (and permanent!) marker writing - I have a chicken on my left shoulder, a random illegible message on my lower arm, “Wish I had an Aussie phrase to share…” from another friend, and a little heart on my right wrist. Those are just the things in marker pen. My right arm said “I <3 Liam & chocolate” in bright yellow, for example. There was a mention of “sexy,” and smilies and stars.

The party committee had distributed these fluo sticks with connectors. Everyone wore armbands and necklaces that lit up in the dark (seriously - when I got home, I didn’t need light to unlock the door, the armband was giving me plenty). I took a photo of them last night and thought they’d make a bright header for this post.

I had a fantastic time, but by 2:30, my friend and I decided people were getting a bit too drunk for our liking. In addition, the music got progressively terrible. I showered before going to bed, trying to get the ink and the smell of smoke and sweat (neither of which was mine) off me. I went to bed at 3am with a crackly voice, and woke up with a Scarlett Johansson version of my own voice.

It was a pretty good party - it’s just a strange idea to think it will be my last out here.