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zaterdag 27 oktober 2012

This is were the chapter ends.


I discovered this song and video the other day and I really liked it. And I really feel like I finished a chapter of my life recently and started a new one. In some way it's really difficult, but on the other hands it's as easy as turning a page.

That part of my life is my childhood/teens and it goes hand in hand with Harry Potter and since it had ended last year, it felt appropriate to post this video. While I will never truly leave Hogwarts behind, it is in some ways a closed chapter for me. I have such great memories of my childhood/teens (as well as some lesser) and Harry Potter is the one I most treasure. 


vrijdag 26 oktober 2012

Time flies by...

A whole month has passed by so terribly fast. It actually happened before I really noticed it. After two years of doing nothing at all, it feels like a real liberation. I love school. i have never loved school so much as I do now and I am so grateful that i have been given this opportunity.
Going to University is the best decision I have made in my life thus far.

When I was at secondary school I disliked to go to school. I liked learning, but I disliked the people and the environment. I feel so much more confident at Uni. No one gives me strange looks (or a least I don't have that feeling)and everyone is nice. The other day a guy held open a door for me friend and I can't remember anyone doing that for me except my BF. I thought it was really sweet of him.

While I occasionally have a small panic attack when I think about the exams, I feel pretty confident that I would to rather good. I think it mainly is because I have already identified the subjects that I find very hard like English Proficiency and English Grammar.

Proficiency is so difficult because I find it hard to understand and feel how you use your mouth and breath to pronounce words. Also because we have absolutely no way to practise this except reading a sentence a loud once a week during the language labs. And I'm so afraid of this exam, especially because it's oral.

Grammar is difficult because I can't stay awake during class. I don't know why, because the professor is everything but boring.

Time to end this small rant, because I need to get back to checking up some words I did not understand in the 16th century introduction of the Norton Anthology.

zondag 21 oktober 2012

I'm a great planner! Or not.

I am a terrible planner. When the school year started I told myself to keep up with the courses, take enough good notes and study a lot. Well, this failed already. I haven't studied once for any course except the one which has unexpected tests. Nor have I made summaries and some of my notes from classes are really confusing.

Since the work is building up and I don't want to end up doing everything right before the exams, I'll have to make a schedule. Making it would be rather easy, but keeping it will be hard. I always plan stuff to do in my head, but then I end up not doing it anyway.

If someone has some great tips or tricks for studying or schedules, do share them please!


zaterdag 13 oktober 2012

Review: The Casual Vacany

Yesterday night I finished The Casual Vacancy by J.K Rowling.



I bought it on the release day and started to read in it the next day. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it because it wasn't a thriller, nor a detective,  nor Fantasy, nor romance. So I only wanted to read it because it is written by one of my favourite writers and I was curious how she would write adults.

This is the summary of the book:

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.

Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...Pagford is not what it first seems.

And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?


I am not going to give anything away from the plot. I'm just going to write down my personal opinion about it. 

After the first few pages I was immediately drawn into the story. It reads very fluently and the characters are great. There are a lot of descriptions in the book; both about characters and environment but it doesn't get boring at all. The book is clearly character driven and I was really curious what was going to happen with each of the characters. The only thing that bothered me slightly was that there wasn't a normal family in the book. Every family had a secret and their problem. But what is normal? It think it's for a lot of people different.


In an interview I read that Rowling cried during this book. I couldn't understand why until I finished it yesterday. I never thought it would and like that. It was very tragic but in a way also very beautiful. 

 I really enjoyed it and if I could, I would give it 4.5/5 but Goodreads won't let me give a half start. 


 

woensdag 10 oktober 2012

Mysteria

Yesterday the new video clip of The Rasmus' latest single was released on the internet. I had heard the song before and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Now I have to admit that I like it. It's really weird since it's absolutely not my kind of music. If I think about it I like everything The Rasmus makes. In some way I find that very annoying, because I don't believe that there is such a thing as perfect, but it seems that The Rasmus is, for me, perfect (as a band). Ever since I heard In The Shadows for the first time Iv' been a huge fan of them and they have changed so much and I still like them as much, maybe even more. I don't think there is another band of which I like everything they do. I always wait for the moment that The Rasmus is going to disappoint me, but it never seems to happen, for which I'm glad. They always manage to surprise me and I hope they keep doing.  I can't wait to seem them again! It's been almost 5 months since I saw them in Germany, but it feels so much longer.

What do you think of the new song and clip?


vrijdag 5 oktober 2012

Weekend!

Well first two weeks of University are done and I have had all my classes. I like all most all of them (so far) and that's great!

My favourite course right now is Introduction to the Literature in English. It's very interesting but it's also a big pain in the ass. I have to 'prepare' a 21 pages introduction of the Middle Ages and read a part of Beowulf for Monday. With prepare they mean you have to know what's in it, since there might be a test about it. Great. Right now I find it difficult to actually figure out what is important (because there so much background information about it) so i hope we'll get a test on it so that I have an idea on what they ask. Right now I'm using post-its with an extremely brief summary on it and I put them in my book.

So this is what my weekend looks like:



So what are you doing this weekend?

maandag 1 oktober 2012

End of another Era

Just a few minutes ago I read something I am really happy about. I feel a little guilty that I feel happy about it, but whatever!

Now the news: Anette is leaving Nightwish!

I enver hated Anette, but I liked Nightwish less since she was in the band. I listen to both cd's with Anette as vocalist, but honestly, I couldn't listen to them in the same way I listen to the cd's with Tarja. Anette's voice bored me fast. And I'm sure something is wrong... she's leaving after only two albums...

Right now they are finishing their world tour with Floor (ex-After Forver, Revamp). And of course they've already been to Belgium.


Now I'm really curious what kind of voice they are going to take to replace Anette. It can't be worse, or can it?


The official Press statement can be found here.

I just had to share this!