September was great!

September was definitely the best month of the year! While I still had a couple of exams at the beginning of the month and I got my grades back (which weren't what I had hoped to be) the month still turned out to be really awesome!

The major reason why this month is unforgettable, is the fact that for the very first time I went on a real holiday with my boyfriend (read: nothing concerning music and longer than a weekend). After almost ten years of wanting to go there, I finally went to Finland. We rented a studio in Helsinki for seven days. I can safely say that this was, together with two other occasions, the best time of my life. I always had a thing for Scandinavia, especially Finland and I thought I would love it after reading about it a lot and seeing pictures.




Love is just a very mild word to express my feelings for Finland right now. Helsinki is an amazing city and I really feel at home there. Fins are shy, humble introverts which are three words that you could use to describe me as well, I suppose. My BF fell in love with the country/city as well and the topic of moving to Finland in the future has come up several times already. I know I probably should try to see more of the country, perhaps try to stay there for an extended period and go there in winter seeing that winter can be very tough and depressing before taking a 'rash' decision. We'll have to save up and learn at least some basic Finnish anyway. What I miss the most is the sea, nature, the clean air and the lack of traffic and hurried people.

 I'm not going to bore you with a long report about my holiday, instead I'm going to pick out a couple of highlights:
- Seurasaari: this a beautiful island with an open air museum featuring old buildings. The nature is amazing, the squirrels are everything but shy (they come to sniffle at your shoes if you stand still and are quiet) and you have amazing places to sit at the sea-side and look at Helsinki.
- Academic bookshop: Since I'm a bookworm, I'm always in search of bookshops. This bookshop, designed by Alvar Aalto, is very beautiful and has a great collection of English books, both Ficton and Non-fiction. I loved it.
- Evening walks: the evening walks around the city and seeing the sunset! Very simple but breathtaking.




Beside an amazing holiday, September has also expanded my book-collection with 29 books. A couple I bought in Finland and the others I bought yesterday in Hasselt at the Boekenfestijn. This is an event that travels through The Netherlands and Flanders were you can buy very cheap books. If you pay €5 for a fiction book, it's a lot. I think I have about 65-70 unread books on my shelves now. Time to start reading!

And finally, University has started again. This term I have about 13 and a half hour of classes that I will attend. I have to retake a couple of courses which means they are easily to skip so I do not have to go to class. Generally I will be in class for about 7 to 9 and a half hour a week, it depends a bit if I feel like going to the evening course. I have two 'full' days (read: classes are spread over the whole day) and one day of tow hours and a four day weekend, hooray! Downside: second term is probably going to be incredible busy.

Tomorrow my first 'full' week will start. I'm excited! I love going to school and learning things!

My love for words

I love words more than anything else in the world. It doesn't matter if they are spoken, written or sung. Words, or language, is the most powerful weapon we humans have. It can cause love, joy, happiness but also sadness, sorrow and pain. Words can inspire people or destroy them. Words can start a war or end one. People underestimate the power of words constantly. Don't we follow the one who can sell his ideas the best? Hitler manages to sell his terrible ideas by putting them in great words.

It has always amazed me that people can build whole words out of words. How heroes who have inspired so many people are formed just with words. Isn't it funny how easy we can in love with some pages filled with words? It's magic. It's enchanting.
Save for a couple, the people who inspire me did so by using words. When I feel like shit, words can make me feel better again, especially those words that are artfully crafted into an incredulous story or an amazing song.

My favourite author isn't the best one, but she managed to get me into reading (how cliché) and she opened a whole new world to me. She introduced me to the magic of words. Actually the person who's words left the deepest impression, inspired me and shape me to the person I am, is a singer. Well Actually it are four persons, but the singer writes most of the lyrics, but I've always seen them as a whole. No one's words can make me smile as brightly as theirs, no one's words can make me as heartbroken as theirs, no one's words have influenced me as much as theirs. Their words (and their instruments) have found a way into my heart, I think there is nothing on earth that I love more then their songs.

While I respect it, I have trouble understand people who don't like to read. You miss so much if you don't read. Reading can teach you so much about the world and about people. You can find yourself when you are lost in a good book. It will give you a break from this harsh reality. I suppose people who don't read have other ways to escape from this cruel world.

I think I will go insane if I will go deaf or if, for some obscure reason, I won't be able to read any more.

New books!

Yesterday I went to visit one of my best friends who lies in a hospital in Ghent and I've combined it with a visit to Het Boekenfestijn (lots and lots of cheap books.

When I complete my around, I had over 70 Euro of books in my trolley. After mercilessly cutting in the books, I ended up with seven books that costed about 40 euro's
I bought:
 

- The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare, illustrated by Harold Copping
- Wolfbreed by S.A. Swann
- The Legend of Sigurd and Gundrun by J.R.R Tolkien (deluxe edition)
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Garheme

 - Utopia  by Sir Thomas More

- The Last Dickens by Matthew W. Pearl

There are two others I had received last week, after ordering them from The Book Depository:

- Dragon Champion by E.E. Knight

- The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Georgy 

So again I have a lot books to read and unfortunately not enough times, since I have to study for the exams.

Small book update

I really have to read a bit more. I have 16 unread books on my bookshelves and there are 3 more on it's way, so that is 19 books! Well at least I cannot complain that I don't have anything to read!

The last two books I've read are Dracula by Bram Stoker and War Horse by Michael Morpurgo.

I have read Dracula a long time ago and I decided to read it again, in English this time. I really like the journal style and the characters. I love the story, best vampire story ever but what I dislike is that the characters befriend each other so annoyingly quick. In a matter of minutes they become best friends and they will give their life for one another and it is really hard to comprehend that. And more than once it annoyed me. Another thing that I hated was that the men looked at the women as weak and easily scared. I know it's an old story, but still.

I absolutely loved War Horse. It is a very good book. Some of the characters are a bit shallow and the way the horses think is just terrible wrong, but well, old story and I think it will be very hard to write a story from a horse's point of view if you make the horse think like horses actually think. What I enjoyed the most about the books is that you see the war through the eyes of a horse. It's a really entertaining and relaxing story, but there are some emotional moments in it. The funniest thing is that Joey, the horse who tells the story, looks almost exactly as my horse!

Right now I am reading A Clash of Kings, the second book of George R.R. Martins Song of Ice and Fire series. I am really enjoying it book and I'm really curious how it is going to end. 

The material girls in me.

Sometimes I wonder if there are things I can't live without, and I am talking material items, not persons or animals, and I realized that it is a very difficult question. I am used to so much luxury that it is hard to image living without it.

As and example, my computer and internet are part of my daily life. I almost use it daily and it's one of my most use relaxation and time passing method. It is really scary to consider how much time I have spent in front of a computer screen. What will I do if someone just takes it away from me? Well I think I will be utterly bored and get irritated. I know I could live without a computer if needed, but I prefer not to. I love gaming too much and it is a great way to keep in contact with my friends and to meet knew people from all around the world.

Next up, books. I will go crazy if I can't read any books, or am allowed to own books. I love reading so much. Books can take me away from this cruel world and let me experience things I never thought possible. It's also a great source of gaining more knowledge and to extend your vocabulary. Sometimes I think I love books more then anything else in the world. Seems a bit silly, no?

The last one I can think of is my Ipod (or my phone or another mp3 player). Music is such a splendid therapy. If I feel really bad and listen to the right music, it can cheer my up. I just love to lie in bed and listen to music, just enjoying it. Waiting is a lot more bearable when you are listening to music. Time just seems to pass faster when you are trying to decipher the meaning of those lyrics or while screaming as loud as you can with the song (mentally, or vocally). I always get into a bad mood when I have to take the bus or go for a walk and the battery of my Ipod is dead. So yes, my Ipod is pretty important to me.

Besides the basic needs of life (food, clothes, house, …) I cannot thing of any other luxury item that I will miss terribly when it is going to be taken away from me for some silly reason. It's not a lot, but still more then enough. If we ever need to abandon everything to shelter from some disaster, I will take those three things with me, thought I will probably not be able to save all the books I own.

So what of you guys? Is there something material you don't want to miss, whatever happens?