Looking back: 2013

Okay, don't worry. This won't be a cheesy blog in which I hash up every-fucking-thing that happened this year, because honestly my life isn't even that interesting. However, I happened to stumble upon this questionnaire on tumblr that seemed entertaining enough for me to answer, and hopefully my answers will be entertaining enough to read (I'm sorry in advance).

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting my "propedeuse", in other words succesfully completing my first year at university.

What was the best thing you bought?
My phone. Definitely.

Where did most of your money go?
Clothes, cinema, festivals, books, going out, and tickets for concerts. I'd say money well spent.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going on vacation to Edinburgh, festivals and concerts, and movies. Probably. It takes some effort to get me truly excited/happy.

What song will always remind you of 2013?
Blurred Lines, unfortunately. And probably any track on AM, or anything by Bastille.

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Stressing out about uni and subsequently being an asshole.

What was the best book you read?
Okay so this was probably the first year I actually had to read a lot of books, and I couldn't possibly choose. But some books I definitely enjoyed reading are:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
England, England by Julian Barnes

What was your greatest musical discovery?
Probably Vampire Weekend, Bastille, The 1975, Noah and the Whale, and The Arctic Monkeys (but that was more like a rediscovery). 

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
Whatever I like. Definitely oversized sweaters, Converse, skinny jeans and boots, but also button-ups and skirts so it really depends on the mood I'm in. I think I finally decided to dress for me and not give a shit about what other people think about it.

What political issue stirred you the most?
This was the year I learned some really valuable lessons on social/political problems, and I'm glad of it. Things that annoyed me were most of American politics, 'de zwarte Pieten discussie', and generally people that act like fools. (So yeah I didn't really answer the question)

I guess that this was neither thrilling nor enlightening, but there you have it.

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My thoughts on: The Desolation of Smaug

So I've always been a Lord of the Rings fangirl. It is my weakness and it is the one thing that brings out my inner nerd within five seconds of it being mentioned. My brother introduced me to LOTR. I was reluctant at first, acting as if I was too cool for fantasy films, but in fact I was just trying to hide my inner fangirl, which was of course desperate to show itself.

My brother had mentioned the Hobbit to me several times, back then, in 2003. Frankly, I didn't give a shit about that second best children's book, and if it were turned into a film it could never beat the Lord of the Rings trilogy. However, two summers ago I decided to start reading the Hobbit, as I wanted to be acquainted with the story before the film came out. I read about fifty pages, uni happened, and I never picked up the book again (my brother's e-reader, that is).

I remember how I wasn't really impressed with the first film. I left the cinema with that kind of subdued feeling you get when you just saw a film and aren't quite sure what to make of it yet. The film was okay, it was alright, certainly no Lord of the Rings, but that didn't matter. I watched it again and decided it was slightly better than good: Visually stunning, engaging, and amusing.

Then the second film happened. First impressions after the first half of the film: "wow", "this is fun isn't it?", "spiders...". The second half was slightly disappointing in the sense that I found some elements I did not quite agree with. Now this doesn't mean I don't love the film, because I really really do. However, I don't understand some of Jackson's choices. First of all, I love Tauriel. She kicks ass, literally, and it is refreshing to see a women be a badass in this trilogy that is dominated by men. The thing that bugs me isn't so much the (slightly) weird love triangle Jackson created between her, Kili, and Legolas, but the fact that their 'romance' is literally duct taped to them. What was Kili's ramble about love all about? Too much Peter, too much.

Now I've read the complaints on the addition of Tauriel to the film, and the several subplots Jackson put in there. As I've not read the book I can't really say anything about it, but in general I think it is safe to say that an addition is only a bad one if it doesn't contribute anything to the film, or if it's just generally shit. In my view, the subplots are thrilling, and they certainly add some life to the film. Personally, I'm not sure if the original plot of the Hobbit (I am acquainted with it) could stand for an interesting film, and certainly not three of them.

Which brings me to another complaint that I've read over and over again. The film is 'too long', it is 'boring', 'useless'. Whenever I read comments like that I ask myself if those critics were watching the same film. Yes, the film is very long, and yes it could have been shorter. But does it need to be? Sure, some scenes are a bit dragged out, but I would not want to have missed any of the swag and sass Lee Pace put into his character Thranduil, and those long action scenes did not make me weary: I could watch Orlando Bloom shoot arrows all day every day.

Ofcourse everyone has different preferences when watching a movie, but I think some critics get stuck on one little thing they dislike in a film and whine about it untill it has ruined the entire film for them. As I said I was not particularly happy with the cliché Hollywood romance between Tauriel and Kili, and seriously Peter what was the flashy Sauron thing about? In all seriousness though, the film was, like the first installment, a treat to look at. It has a nice balance between humour and seriousness, action that is neatly tied to the right amount of dialogue, and some sublime acting from the likes of Richard Armitage, Martin Freeman, and definitely Lee Pace. In other words: the big picture is a splendid one. It doesn't reach the level of the Lord of the Rings and it never will. There is no comparison between the two, because the books that lay at the cores of these movies are so very different.

In conclusion, yes there are some things that I wish were different, but it doesn't take of the shine for me, at least not in a major way. My expectations were extra high for this film because I always seem to expect more from Jackson, and I was a bit disappointed he'd reverted to some clichés. However, all is forgiven, certainly when I compare this film to others I've seen in 2013.

If anything, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a great film to end the year with.

Post-exam week update

Exam week was absolute carnage. I don't think I've ever studied this hard for anything, only to do a mediocre job? Ugh.

Now that all the exam fun is over, I can just focus on all the other stuff we need to do for uni, ah well.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I have a Halloween party scheduled next week, and after much debating and zero effort I decided to go as a 1920s flapper, who, unfortunately, is dead. It may seem like a far-fetched idea at first, but considering that I went as a flapper for Carnaval (Thingy we do in the South of the Netherlands which involes dressing up and consuming unnatural amounts of beer) it is probably the most unoriginal idea ever. I have the dress, I have the headband, just need to add some spooky make-up and decide how I've lost my life. It has to be dramatic, yet glamourous, like getting shot while taking a dip in your mansion's swimming pool (ha ha no.). My inspiration for the flapper outfit was Daisy Buchanan though so this could be some kind of payback? Idk if anyone is following. Anyway, I'm very excited to celebrate Halloween as I've never actually properly done that before. I am totally ignoring the fact that Halloween was yesterday so the party is actually just a post-Halloween fancy dress party. I guess Halloween just still isn't such a popular holiday in the Netherlands and it's a shame really, you should never pass an opportunity to have a fancy-dress party and decorate your house with all kinds of cute Autumn-inspired-yet-creepy ornaments.

I also bought tickets to see Bastille in March next year! I'm going with a group of friends and I'm really excited. I saw them at Pinkpop Festival this year, where they replaced a group that cancelled, and they were absolutely amazing live. I love their album Bad Blood and basically every other thing they did so getting tickets wasn't something I had to think twice about. Their songs are just filled with references to history and  literature (or at least that's my interpretation) that as a English Culture student, I can hardly miss. I love when music has an actual meaning and transcends the level of just being catchy or a good tune, the latter probably describing 99.9% of mainstream pop (I used the m-word). Add to that the fact that I am a sucker for Indie bands, or as my brother calls it "that Indie hipster shit you listen to", and the picture is complete. I am not actually sure if it is Indie btw, but I can't be bothered to define it differently. So yes, more concerts, wooo.

Also I'd like to add that there's nothing wrong with listening to mainstream pop and I do it too sometimes, but songs like "Work Bitch" are, to me, the worst things ever and I literally can't stand overproduced, meaningless stuff like that.

I basically just had to work that in just to vent about how much I hate that fucking song.

Exam week Update

So this is probably going to be the most random blog post in which I discuss 5000 different topics and rant about stupid stuff nobody even cares about anyway. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The first half of the first semester is over, and I'm currently in the middle of the first exam period of my second year. I've been quite disappointed in this year's classes, as most of them are linguistic classes and take a wild guess at what I don't like. Yeah.. The literature classes are also quite shit, as I'm doing 17th Century British Literature, which is a bitch, and an American Novel class, which could've worked out, but sadly didn't. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed reading the required novels, although most of them were really depressing or misogynistic, but the way the course is run is just annoying. We have to have discussions, and the teacher just doesn´t sound like she knows what she´s talking about.

Then there´s exams, which are killing me as usual. Every exam week I get into this rythm of studying all day, looking like a slob and generally being a bitch to everyone I encounter whilst studying (sorryyyyy). The exam I have to take tomorrow is probably going to be the hardest, and I had flashbacks of the management and organisation exams I had to do in secondary school. To illustrate: I was worst in my class, was generally incompetent and always felt like a rabbit trying to open a door.

OKAY so that was the depressing part of this post. The good part of this exam week is that I listened to lots of 90s playlists, and as a result the 'last listened to' section on my Spotify now states: Ginuwine, N Sync, and Eminem, which is pretty embarrassing to say the least. I also watched a shitload of Twin Peaks so I now know who killed Laura Palmer (ohyeaaaah). Let me just say that this series is epically brilliant and disturbing, and everyone should watch it! I might do a Watchlist blog soon, I've been planning on it for such a long time but I just never got to it.

Other good news, and this made me so happy, is that I found out that I can go to both Leeds and Canterbury to study abroad. People that are around me a lot will probably know that I've been talking about studying abroad for years, and this confirmation really means a lot to me. I really can't wait to get it all sorted! I haven't decided yet if I want to study in the North or the South of the UK (although I am kinda inclined to say I favour Leeds), and my choice is probably going to depend on the courses that both universities offer. I'd really like to take a film studies class, and obviously journalism classes are still on my list. I did not get a proper chance to do a journalism minor at my university due to their idiotic conflicting schedules, so it's definitely something to consider.

Other random stuff I forgot to mention:

I saw Gravity and it is really good. It's a film that just swallows you whole with the right amount of action and visual perfection. The oneliners were a bit much though, best leave that out the next time.

Only a few weeks till Vampire Weekend concert and I am really excited!

I'm shit at writing conclusions and introductions...

I still haven't figured out what the lyrics of most VW songs are.

Antwerp

Last weekend was Antwerp weekend! Since my friends and I are all students, and thus broke, we decided that we'd go to Antwerp for a day to do some serious shopping, to kinda get that feeling of being on a holiday (because well, Belgium is another country). Some of my friends didn't get to go on holiday at all this year, or only for a few days like myself, so this was our mini break from work just before school started again. I'm not a fan of Belgium, but I'd never been to Antwerp before and I heard the shopping was great so we just had to give it a try. And the rumours were most definitely true! I can truly say I had a better day shopping there than I had on London's Oxford Street.

We went by train which wasn't that expensive, but it did take forever to get there and back. The day started of great with me and my friend arriving at the station and realising the train we thought was going to go to Maastricht, actually wasn't. So much for planning ahead.. So we waited a bit, took another train, and waited a bit more. The train journey was tolerable, the view was..special, and the airco was killing me. All was forgiven when we finally arrived at Antwerp station, because it is just beautiful. The station is really grand and it reminded me of the Paris Montparnasse railway station from the film Hugo. My friends and I are really into art and pretty things so that was a really great start of our city trip (if I can call it that). Luckily for us, the rest of the city didn't disappoint either. The city just seems to have a really good vibe, Belgians seem to be very fashionable people, and the good weather helped a bit too.

Now for the emberassing bit, we didn't actually do anything but shop. We had a quick bite to eat and after that just went from store to store. My friend introduced us to this really cute store called Brandy Melville, which looked like a cute American boutique. I was impressed by the FOREVER21 store, as I had never been to one before and it was really, really cute. Instead of the conventional large retail store set up with boring grey shelves they had tables filled with bowls with jewellery, jewellery hanging from enframed nooks in the walls, and scarves layed out as if it was some fancy store. I ended up buying more than I had planned, considering I planned to not spend money at all. But this went for all of us, and when we left one of our friends alone with all our bags she claimed people "gave her weird looks". Because shopping a lot is a crime..

Allthogether it was a great day shared with great people. I'd definitely go back there again to do some more shopping and to check out more of the city centre, as we didn't really get time to do that. 

As of this week uni has started again and money is disappearing from my bank account again, so a new shopping trip is not my first priority. I stumbled upon some unexpected expenses this week, one of them being a Vampire Weekend concert me and my friends from uni are going to go to, which I am very excited for! And damn it feels good to be doing stuff again. I am really looking forward to planning my trip abroad next summer which I have been looking forward to for a very long time now. 

Let's hope I can keep this blogging thing up during the upcoming weeks.

Edinburgh

Sooooo as expected I failed miserably at keeping my blog up to date. Anyways, I have been on a magnificent holiday I really feel I should write about.

A week or so ago I went to Edinburgh (Capital of the beautiful Scotland for anyone who is oblivious of the existence of this city). I went with three of my lovely friends from university and it was really nice to be in this amazing place with people who cared about it as much as I do. August is festival month in Edinburgh, because this is the month the Fringe Festival takes over the city. The Fringe festival is an art festival and there are venues throughout Edinburgh. Most of the shows taking place are comedy shows, or at least this seemed to be the case because the only flyers we got were for comedy shows. I really loved how all the dudes passing out the flyers were incredibly handsome, I see what you did there, really clever. However, this did make it slightly difficult to decline (so yeah it might've worked?).

So what have we been up to in Edinburgh? Basically everything a tourist does when on a city trip. The first day we went to see the castle, which was pretty. We made some nice pictures, almost got locked up in a section of the castle, and looked at all the other tourists wondering about (SO MANY AMERICANS). We had lunch in one of the Princess street gardens and looked at some art at the National Gallery of Scotland, which was free (yay). The second day we went on a quest to see Hume's grave, because why the hell not. After going up a hill, some stairs, enjoying a beautiful view of the city and the sea,  and heading down the stairs again we finally found it. There were some Dutchies around who thought the Lincoln memorial at the graveyard was a statue of Obama.. Good job keeping up our reputation guys. After escaping the horror that is meeting fellow Dutchies on holiday we enjoyed a nice downpour (the only one in the 4 days we spent in Edinburgh), and enjoyed the rest of our day getting some dinner and a few drinks.

The Military Tattoo was also on when we were there, and will be for the most of August. It's basically a sort of music/dance event with military bands and such performing. For further reference: http://www.edintattoo.co.uk/. When we first saw the stadium they built next to the Castle we thought there was a Quidditch game going on, because that's what it looked and sounded like. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, but we did get to enjoy fireworks every night.

The third day we ventured to the Botanic Gardens on foot, which was kind of a mistake. We had had reasonably warm weather the two days before but that morning it was really chilly and our feet weren't so happy from all the climbing we did the day before. After a tour of New Town we finally arrived, only to be thrown into a friendly pit of mums with children, and plants.. As I don't really care much about plants, I just tried to enjoy watching the few animals that were walking around, and ate cookies. We left a nice message in the guest book that certainly was not anything along the lines of #plantswaggie, and took the bus back to Old Town.

Things worth noting?
Edinburgh is beautiful and old and ugh, I love it.
You won't hear much Scottish if you go during Fringe Festival, as there are lots of tourists around that are mainly from America/Asia.
Finding a place to eat dinner is kinda impossible during Fringe, but if you're okay with waiting you'll have no worries.
Beautiful men.
The ghost tours are scary if you are very gullible.
We failed at finding Scottish beer to drink
The city is built on 7 hills, prepare to walk a lot.
GO HERE IF YOU CAN IT IS AMAZING

So yeah that was probably all. Beware of agressive Italians shouting "What is you? What happened??" at cabbies. Check if TGI Fridays hasn't burned down before heading over there, and don't be shocked when you enter one of the chillest PRIMARKS ever (I've never been to a PRIMARK that was as quiet as the one in Edinburgh).