Latest ramblings

A McDonald's Happy Meal can be preserved for a year without the food going off. Apparently there's so many preservatives and artificial crap in the fries and hamburger that it just doesn't go off. I read it in the newspaper the other day and thought it was a fun fact to begin this blog with. Starting a blog is always harder when it's been a while since the last one. And I'm very aware it's been a while again, but as always, that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you all. It just means that I'm getting too slack with writing you all in whatever form to keep in touch. This website actually sent me an e-mail the other day asking if I was climbing K2 in the Himalayas because of the lack of blogs. When a website starts asking you that, you definitely know it's been too long, haha.

Well, I can start by assuring you I haven’t been climbing the second-highest mountain on earth this past month and a half. I’m pretty sure I would not live to tell you all about it if I had considering my lack of motivation to climb or, more importantly, my general lack of fitness, haha. What I have been doing though is struggling to get my thesis started, mixed up with some fun and distractions. After I finished the last assignments of the first semester, I figured I deserved a week off before really starting working on my thesis. So for that one week in early Feb I went into full relaxed mode and planned some fun things, like celebrating my housemates Loes & Lydia’s birthdays, have dinner & TimTams with my friend Coen and a lovely and very long overdue lunch with my friend Roselyn. My Melbourne friend Jess also happened to be passing through Amsterdam that week on her contiki tour travels, so I went to Amsterdam for an afternoon as well to catch up with her. It was so good to see her again after more than a year, and on my side of the world for a change :) We went to the Anne Frank House together, which was an impressive place. You can just feel the history there, because Anne Frank’s story is the embodiment of such a big part of Dutch history. And to end my week I celebrated my friend Rick’s birthday, which was also good times :) Unfortunately with the week ending, the time to legitimately relax full time also came to an end and I had to start getting my thesis off the ground. I can’t say it’s been a smooth ride so far, but slowly it’s taking more and more shape. In my head at least :) To remind you all, it’s on women soldiers and their motivations for joining the army as well as how they identify with such a masculine profession and deal with negative attitudes some have towards women in the army. The army as an institution that can use ‘legitimate violence’ (if there really is such a thing) has always fascinated me, and with the Women Studies subjects I did at Flinders uni I realised the concept of gender and gender relations and how they shape identities really interests me as well, so I’m excited about the topic. Just need to get a bit more excited about the whole process of thesis-writing I guess, let’s put it that way… Additional motivational speeches to get me into the proper thesis-writing mood are always welcome, haha.

Of course it hasn’t been all thesis-writing since that one relaxing week. Last week was an interesting week for example. On the weekend I was in the driver’s seat of a car for the first time in a long time again when I went to celebrate my sister’s birthday. First 10 minutes were a bit shaky, but then I got the hang of it again :) And Renske’s birthday celebrations were nice! On the Wednesday it was St. Patrick’s Day, which of course had to be celebrated too. There’s only one Irish Pub in the centre of Utrecht which was absolutely packed! I went there with some of my housemates plus two other friends, and it was good fun :) Had a bit too much wine though, which made the next day a bit interesting, haha. That Thursday was interesting for another reason too though, because I ended up performing at an open mic night that night! My housemates and I had already planned to have dinner with a few friends in Rotterdam and see one of them perform at an open mic night of the local uni. And then when we got to the café I eventually got talked into performing as well! So I borrowed a guitar and played two songs on stage, which was actually quite fun to do. At least, these things are always fun afterwards, when all the nervousness is gone. And it didn’t go too bad I think, though a combination of not being used to singing into a microphone, nervousness and the St. Paddy’s celebrations of the night before did make my voice a bit shaky… Maybe I just need practice :)

Jelmer, Rick and I have also been doing a bit more planning for our American Adventures since booking our flights. To update you on this summer’s big trip, we now also booked our RV! And it is massive… We’re going to be travelling in a 7.6m beast for 23 days, starting in LA and go east towards Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley… some other national parks I can’t remember the names of that are around that area. Then go up through Death Valley towards Yosemite Park, continue all the way up towards San Francisco and then from San Francisco down the coast back to LA. So that’s more or less our current plan, but who knows what will happen between now and when we’re actually there :) I personally think it’s a little scary to be travelling in such a massive vehicle (I think I’ll let the boys do the reverse parking, haha) but I’m still very excited about all the places we’ll see and all the memories we’ll make together during our road trip!

Anyway, that’s it for now! I’ll let you all get back to whatever you were doing before you started reading my latest ramblings :) I really appreciate you taking the time though, and I would love to hear your stories some as well. Hope they are filled with good times, and that you’re all well :) My love to all of you!
xx Carine