he waved hello silent like a mime

University wise my life is back on track. After giving me heaps of shite for a good new start, my Uni did pretty much everything to make my life more difficult and make me walk through the anyway rainy streets with a rather depressed attitude, asking myself "Do I really need this right now?!?" I didn't. It was time to get over that and I did eventually.

In fact Hong Kong was once again warmed up in my mind when lovely Adele arrived on a Thursday night and stayed for as long as one week in the place I call my home. A home that dwinldes but still my home. The week was fantastic and Adele a fully integrated member of our 6-headed community. She arrived around 11:00 pm and we started to get warmed up for a long night out when she suddenly pulled something bottle shaped out of her bag - something that would change the outcome of the evening decisively. Talisker. Scotch. 1 liter. MY GOD! "Some Ice, Adele?", "Nah, just straight please!" Said and done we went to "Het Paard", listening to drum 'n' bass, electro and all kinds of alternative tunes. Good fun, good night.

The next morning was fairly miserable, but hey, that's the deal, right?


I haven't made any progress with my dictionnary so far and my time management is really tight at the moment since I am working off my presentations for this semester in the first half. Well, and some courses require simply a lot of reading. My dream is to simply chill in my armchair with some big headphones, listening to all my favorite songs really loudly forgetting about the world and think of the bluest lights that can surround me. This day will come and I don't want to make this sound like I am all so unhappy which is simply not true. Lars has introduced me to "Six Feet Under", a TV show that has already taken its toll on me - a show that displays once more that the life I am leading is pretty damn good!

Now I am for instance taking the time to go down to the pitch to play some of my favorite sport! Season has started and I truly am loving it to play with the team again.

So far for now, and, needless to say that Elliot Smith is sugar sweet melancholie in my ears.

the hague and dictionaries for odd people.

School has started yesterday and everyone has by now acquired the motionless feeling of being back in the daily life of foreign students, living in the Netherlands. Can you blame us? This weekend has been too fantastic to make the coming period seem nearly as sunny as the last couple of days. On the other hand I am quite glad to be back because I will have a fix routine and stuff to do.

I, for the first time in my life, am now owner of a fitness card and therefore pay for fitness. Nobody could have guessed that this day would come (for those who didn't know: I despised fitness and always regarded it as redundant and a sportive activity only business people perform because they don't have the time to do proper sports) but now it is here - I am fitness. Can you actually say this? Consequently, I have a meeting with the - how I shall henceforth name him - GYM MASTER who will show me around the facilities tomorrow at "4 o' clock sharp!". Sir, yes, Sir.

What else?

I am constantly developing the idea of writing a dictionary for neologisms of mine. I am not talking of new word inventions in the funny sense but rather situations, habits, feelings and expressions that have not been named yet.

When I did my civil service in an elementary school, the children sometimes showed a certain kind of enthusiasm I don't have a name for. I think most people have encountered a certain expression of joy but children do it in a very specific way: after the first rush of joy is gone, a certain density of facial expressions commences that will make them aware of the joy they are experiencing and therefore start acting in a more set and down-to-earth kind of manner. What then starts is I think called busy. Business and motivation flood the room and something clicks in the child's mind and the joy cannot forbid it to be all serious so they continue being goofy and childish (well, they are children...) as well as getting back into this down-to-earth mood. It then collapses when realization kicks in. The realization of past acts of joy. And this expression, manner of behavior or whatever you may call it - I simply don't have a word for it. And neither has anyone, do they? That's the reason I want to take up the idea and create a dictionary that emphasizes mainly on such expressions or manners or whatever you may call it.

Oh yes, I will take up Lars' idea of cutting stencils for our hallway.

Bonne nuit. A tout le monde.

will it come back?

The last few days I have been very quiet for the simple reason that my life is mainly dominated by thoughts I keep on squeezing up and up again in my brain - like a tube of toothpaste which is empty but that can still be used to get a little out of. These thoughts I squeeze are beautiful in nature and concern my time in Hong Kong. I am raiding people's Facebook accounts, looking at their pictures, being amazed how much I missed out when being in that exact place. I want the time back and that's why I keep on squeezing and pressing until my head hurts and I find myself in the state of pitty I found myself in a couple of times when being in that exact place. Realizing it's over only came now. It only came now that I realize it's over, that nothing can bring back these times and that I have to accept that fact. I cannot bring all the people and the exact environment together to just live on and on and on. I will meet people again but will it be the same? Won't it be more like: "Oh dear, do you remember that time?", indulging ourselves with what used to be rather than to concern ourselves with what is and what will be? I guess time is and always was my enemy in so far as I would love to put time on stop and experience certain moments or spans of time forever or at least something more imaginable.

At the same time I should be so grateful being as privileged as I am to have had the experiences and to change with them. And here I am, seeming to fail but still not giving up hope to bring it back to something I cannot bring back. I am overly melancholic as well. I think most people are when they think of times that were lifechangingly good. They (including myself here) seem to oversee negative experiences that used to be part of the positive whole which again makes them seem positive.

Just thoughts. Nothing more.

of flies and men.

I'm lately beset by thoughts of how men differ from animals. They don't. Well, let's say men are complicated animals - at least I do think that.

I am basically talking about myself here, since this is the only reference I have. You see, I have not yet discussed this topic so I'd like to know if you, dear reader, would agree or disagree with my point of view.

Now, the basic argument to defend my thesis is a trivialization. That's why I took one of the, in my eyes purest of mother nature's animals - the fly. Pure, because their life is very short and only serves the purpose of surviving to give birth to small flies within a couple of days after their birth. Is already this a similarity?

The fly sat down and started cleaning itself on my arm. It simply strapped off the ballast that clung to its legs and flew again. I watched it flying abrupt turns with a system that could not have been any more unclear to me. I drank my coffee, feeling for this small insect that obviously was as confused as me when I am walking in a supermarket, trying to figure out what to eat. Similarity number two. At a certain point this confusion had passed as the fly began to fly towards a small girl sitting next to my table. It sat down on her neck, obviously attracted by the moisture human skin produces in small quantities. It started cleaning its legs again and eventually started to suck up the thin layer of moist.

And so do we. We are no different than flies or any other being. The only thing that distinguishes us from them is triviality. Our problems seem to be so complex for we don't see that they consist of several small attributes - small pieces that are problems themselves, be it laziness, unwillingness or just fear. Whereas the fly straps off all its ballast that hinders it from tasting, flying straight or eating properly, we push problems. Everyone does. I believe there is no one that gets rid of all problems that may hinder the way. The fly does. It simply cleans itself. And that's what makes us complicated. The bigger the problem, the more numerous are the attributes from which it evolves and the more people it involves, either directly or indirectly connected.

Our life basically consists of small problems, just like the fly's life exists of an urge to find new food, or just to survive as long as it can to give birth to as many flies as it can (which can be a problem because they are so annoying to us). These problems give that fly a reason to exist. It knows (or maybe not): "I don't know much but I have to give birth to some other flies in order for us to survive. And I am hungry. What's that long thing in my face called again?!? Damn it....my brain's simply too small. Flag it!"

We should just do it like the fly and confront our problems right away in order to keep them fairly small. I think that humans develop more and more towards being so complicated that a distortion or even an abstraction of mind sets or the being itself takes place. Is there a human being that is just as trivial as a fly? Is this even desirable? Do we want to get rid of our problems straight away or do we have to keep them within us because we exist to be thrilled by something?

Well, I am back. Back in the country that should've served as my transition before coming to Germany. But here I am after all. The reality slowly catches up with me as my mind slowly focuses on matters that do matter. Studying obviously for the moment, internship applications later. I am excited to see where the world will put me but at the same time I feel the solitude of a student who has only 4 months at his University. Such a short time and still so many things to accomplish. I am sitting in my newly decorated room, trying not to think too much about what is going to come. Fukuyama does not really help me to get on with this thought but at least it's some kind of distraction.

The end of history? Certainly not.

of blue lights.

Hamburg is a city that has its very own, unique charm. It is after long nights out that I enjoy sitting by the harbour most, looking out for the sunrise and ships moving back and forth, forth and back. Sunrise and sunset alike fill the scenery with golden colors and warmth. That is the time when I close my eyes and see the blood red of my eye lids becoming more and more intense, listening to the ships moving back and forth, forth and back.

Yesterday, I went to the harbour and felt the solitude surrounding me as I swept away in the long views of lost lights. The blue was cold, yet warm as I felt the calm melody of our song dripping softly into my ears filling it with red waves of blue light. Nothing matters in times like these. No future, no past, not even the present and the thought itself. Only the ships move back and forth. Back and forth.

belated picture update - pt 2

The ornamentic and carvings in the temples of Angkor. It is stunning.

Sunrise, sunrise,... At the temple on top of the hill in Angkor.

On the Meking, waiting for the fresh water dolphins. If you read Lars' blog you can read the story of the "Papagaienduijkers" and you'll know what I felt like.

In the Ratanakiri province in Cambodia.

Being lazy on the lake I was musing about in an earlier post. It was so beautiful.