The story goes...

Those bush fires... oh my God. That's all I can say. I've told people this before, but if any news from Australia makes it onto the Dutch news, it must be pretty big news. Rudd's apology one year ago was one of those things, so were Steve Irwin's and Heath Ledger's death. But if it's the very first item on the news shows or it's on the front page of the newspapers, that's a clear sign the news is really huge. And that's the Victorian bush fires. I can't imagine what it's like for you guys living in Melbourne especially, where you can/could maybe even see the smoke in the distance or smell it, but from where I sit and from what I've seen on the news earlier this week, I can tell you I'm shocked. The scope of the loss and devastation is just incredible!!

But life doesn't stop because of natural disasters, it just keeps going and going. Compared to losing everything to raging bush fires in a matter of minutes, my latest happenings are so meaningless. I'm going to tell you about them anyway :)

First of all, I have officially finished my thesis!! And it's such a big huge relief. The final weeks were just dragging along and my motivation was dropping drastically by the day. Not that I didn't find it interesting, it was the writing all that interesting stuff down in an academically correct way that made it so much less appealing. I locked myself up in my room in Utrecht a lot to get it all done, and when I needed a change of scenery, I went over to my parents' place and locked myself up there instead, haha. And that strategy seems to have worked out well, coz I got it all finished on time. Sort of :)

But don't worry, I haven't turned into a total hermit. I also managed to get in some fun in small doses. Had an Australia Day/Chinese New Year/double b'day/housewarming dinner at Li-Yu's new place with all the past & present housemates. Really lovely night with the girls :) And there were of course the two goodbye parties I told you that were coming up. First was Maaike's (my housemate) goodbye party, which was lots of fun. It was also funny to watch her pack her bags the next day. I don't think she would have coped if she could only have taken 20kg of checked in luggage with her, haha. Which is probably why she ended up taking well over 36kg... Anyway, so Maaike was leaving early on a Saturday morning and I went to the airport with her as well. Very early start (5am!!), but it was good to see her off. Besides, I love airports :) It's just the saying goodbye part that sucked...

That last Saturday of Jan was a bit of a crazy day actually, coz when I got home from the airport I only had about an hour at home before I had to go off to Paul's (my sister's boyfriend) birthday. Stayed there for a little while, caught up with the fam and then back to my place for maybe 15-20 minutes. I speed-packed my bag and had the quickest shower ever to wake myself up, before I was off rail tripping again to my friend Jelmer's place for his goodbye party in yet another city. It was a great party, I just wish I could have enjoyed it more, coz come midnight/1 am I was absolutely done for and very ready for bed and actually not feeling really well. It took another 3-4 hours though before I could roll out my sleeping bag and actually go to sleep. The downside of staying the night at the place of the one who's having the party...

The upside though was that I got to spend some more time with my good friend Maarten, who I hadn't seen in a while, as he and I drove back to Utrecht together the next morning. And once I got home I got to welcome my new housemate Suzanne, who temporarily moved into Maaike's room. I think we're all still getting used to each other, but she seems like a nice girl, so I'm sure it will work out :)

A full week of knuckling down followed, until the weekend came again. My friend Rick celebrated his birthday on the Saturday night, and that was another late night with friends. Good times were had :) Finally completely finished my thesis the next day, brought it to the printer's on Monday and handed it in on Tuesday. Yay!! That called for some celebration, starting with a big huge well-deserved 'sleeping away the morning' kind of sleep-in on Wednesday. Loved it :) And seeing as I hadn't seen my good friend Coen in quite a while, one and one made two and we decided to have dinner together at his place on Wednesday night straight after class. Which is what we did, joined by his bean-eating cats, and later on also joined by Coen's dad and little sister. Very nice, as always :) Unfortunately I lost my student concession card for free public transport somewhere between class, Coen's place and my place that night, so now I'll actually have to pay for pt and pay for a new concession card as well :( As if I'm not already a poor uni student, haha.

It won't stop me from going to the airport again on Monday though to see off Jelmer and Maarten on their extended travels to Panama and surrounds. Other than that, I don't have much planned yet for the coming weeks besides enjoying my relaxed thesis-free time and having some fun before deadlines start looming again :)

Anyway, happy Valentines Day for tomorrow to all you happy couples out there who decide to participate in one of the most commercialised days of the year, haha. And to everyone, I hope you're all well, happy and smiling and that none of you are directly affected by the bushfires. My love to all of you.