My boyfriend, who likes to drive his bike 80 km/h on small curvy roads with lots of U-turns in the Alps and Pyrenees, used to say that the thought of having several meters of water above your head would be quite terrifying. Fortunately, he did like to come along on the Sundays that the Submarinestars went diving in the Grevelingen. After seeing how much fun I and my friends were having, he quite unexpectedly said that maybe he would like to try it sometimes. My father, being a scuba-instructor, immediately set everything in motion. The result: my boyfriend just passed the theoretical part of the exam and in April is starting with the practical part of becoming a licensed scuba diver. Yay!

So, being able to bring my own buddy on a diving trip to Egypt me, my boyfriend and my parents have made preparations for going to Egypt in november. We already paid the trip and were counting down the days to our departure for Egypt.

About two weeks later the shit hit the fan. Egypt is a mess because of the revolution going on at the moment and my boyfriend failed the medical test he had to pass in order to become a licensed scuba diver. It seems that the pills he’s taking for his heart-condition might stop his heart if the water is too cold. NOT a good thing at all. So, no fit-to-dive certificate. Luckily, there are other pills that could be prescribed which are not such a dangerous combination with scuba diving. The G.P. is, at this moment, trying to figure out which pills he could take instead.

Hopefully my boyfriend will get his fit-to-dive certificate and hopefully the people in Egypt will stop trying to kill and/or damage each other and the foreigners in their country before the second of november. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

Maybe you guys want to know what happened in all those months dat I didn’t blog. It’s been quite a busy time I can tell you. Here’s a short summary:

* Somewhere in 2009 I realised that sometimes the very thing you’re looking for is right under your nose. In this case my boyfriend. I’ve known him for 12 years or so (he’s my best friend’s brother) and since december were finally together. We even moved in together already. Of course this got us a lot of ‘I told you so’s’ and a lot of laughter from friends and family.

* Together with my boyfriend, who also likes to travel, I went on a lot of trips, skiing, riding the motorcycle and diving. All in all we went to England, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg. Lots of fun! A trip a month makes for a good year

* But unfortunately a trip a month doesn’t keep the doctor away. At the moment I’m only allowed to work 20 hours a week due to a minor burn-out. Been too busy doing all sorts of things, I guess. I hate not being able to work half the time, but on the other hand, it leaves me with more than enough time to go to the gym and write entries for my blog.

So, this was just a short update. More posts should be coming up

Since my computer is acting weird again (I can’t put pictures in my blog, I can only link to my picassa web-album) I cannot show you examples. You will need to go my web-album .
I particularly like the butterfly with the ‘eyes’, the toucan, and the starfish. (which I wanted to incorporate in my blog…..)

Maybe later I’ll add some comments to the pictures so it is clear to everyone what’s on the photograph (some don’t need an explanation, but maybe others do). But in the meantime, if you want to know what I photograpehd exactly you’ll know where to find me

Actually, one of my reasons for seeing the movie was Channing Tatum is in it. I liked him in “Step Up” and in “She’s the Man”, and no, not just for his looks. Now I was hoping he had delivered another nice piece of work with “Fighting”. Unfortunately, I got rather disappointed.

I like movies with good dialogue in it. Of course, you can’t expect a movie called “fighting” to have the most wonderful, catchy dialogue ever, but in this case dialogue was nothing short from abhorrent. Nine out of ten sentences couldn’t be understood because of the mumbling. The tenth consisted of incoherent slang. All in all the acting was pretty bad too. (Yes, even Channing’s wasn’t something to write home about (as we Dutch say)). The only actor really visibly making an effort is Terrence Howard, but then again his crazy accent is somewhat ridiculous.

The story itself is nearly non-existent and pretty cliché and has no original plot elements. Actually, I felt like I was watching a modern-day, pimped version of Jean-Claude van Damme’s “Wrong Bet”. But I’m sorry to say, the plotline in that movie was a whole lot better and more original (at the time).

With the dialogue, the acting and the plot-line not making the movie worth my while all my hopes were on the fight sequences. (I know, a girl isn’t supposed to say that, but it’s not for nothing that my friends sometimes jokingly tell me I have half an Y-chromosome hidden somewhere). You would figure a movie called “Fighting” would at least be saved by its fight sequences, but its not. It is as if Montiel tried to make a movie about the background of the fighters, about how people end up in these fights. The fights are only short moments in the movie and most of the time you can’t really see what’s going on. Most of the fights end as abrupt as they began. It is almost as if Montiel felt that too much fight sequences would destroy the movie, as if he was afraid it would become a real action-film instead of, what I guess Montiel intended, a motion picture about the people behind the fights. I wish he had made it an action movie, since now it is neither a drama nor an action movie.

Of course, there are some genuine attempts at emotion, but actually they just made me laugh when I wasn’t supposed to. Especially the speech made right before the last fight is hilarious. If you hadn’t yet made the link to Van Damme’s “Wrong Bet”, you must have after the last fight and the scene following that. I won’t tell you who wins in this new version, but I can tell you, the ending isn’t original either. (I’m not going to spoil it for those of you who still feel like seeing the movie after reading this by telling you what the similarities are precisely). Overall it is a terribly acted movie with an even worst script.

When I walked into the cinema I hoped that the movie wasn’t as bad as some people said it was, but now I realise that was just a wrong bet.

After the warming-up (very much like yoga) and some strength and technique-exercises which I could follow because of their resemblance to some aerobics-exercises, the Tribal-stuff started. For me that was the point at which the what, where and how questions started popping up in my mind. I had always believed I knew my body quite well and thought I could control it pretty much too, but now I stand corrected.

I could sort of tighten my glutes without using the muscles in my legs (don’t even ask), but when it came to undulations I realised I had been deceiving myself all along. In undulations you first tighten your lower abs, followed by your upper abs (while relaxing your lower abs again) and next lifting your chest. Then you relax, lift your chest, tighten your upper abs followed by your lower abs. Then you relax and start over with the lower abs again. If done correctly the effect looks somewhat like a wave washing over your torso/upper body. After the undulations we had to lift our hip by tightening part of our abs and not by using the muscles in your legs.

I do what? How? And where exactly is that muscle?

I knew that you could train your lower abs and your upper abs, but I never knew you could tighten them separately. With me its tightening or relaxing my abs. There’s nothing in between. It must have looked very silly and amateurish but I still had so much fun and really worked on my posture too. (advise from my physiotherapist was to work on my posture). So, even though I realise I’m a hopeless case and will probably never look anywhere near what it should look like, I decided to take the course anyway. I like the work-out, the work on my posture benefits my back and the group is so much fun. I just accept that I will never be anyway near as good as my already bellydancing friends, let alone The Uzumé.

So, since you will never see me dance (not if I can help it), here’s a clip showing how it should be done:

The movie reminded me of Babel, which is not that crazy since Arriaga wrote and directed Babel together with Alejandro González Iñárritu. (I only found this out after I saw The Burning Plain). Whereas I thought Babel was good but not superb, I absolutely loved The Burning Plain.

Just like Babel, The Burning Plain, is much like a triptych. It shows multiple, at first sight non-connected, stories at the same time. In this case four:
* There is Sylvia in Portland who leads an empty life filled with one-night-stands. Obviously there is something from her past which troubles her still.
* There’s Mariana and Santiago, whose parents (Mariana’s mother and Santiago’s father) had an affair and got killed when their secret love-shack exploded with them in it. Together Mariana and Santiago try to deal with the loss of their parents and the fact that they had an affair. Their families don’t want them to have any kind of contact and they especially don’t want, or expect, them to fall in love.
* Gina and Nick are having a clandestine affair and are struggling to keep this a secret from their families, while at the same time they, especially Gina, are consumed by guilt.
* Maria, a young girl, sees her father’s plane crash. While he is in the hospital fighting for his life, he sends Carlos, his best friend, and Maria on a quest to find Maria’s mother, whom Maria never met.

Just like Babel, The Burning Plain doesn’t do chronology and I love the way Arriaga uses the lack of a chonological timeline to put you on a sidetrack time and time again. Of course I suspected things but I completely missed one of the biggest twists. Past and present are so mixed up that it isn’t until quite far into the movie that you realise how all the characters are connected. And in this connection you’ll find the big difference between the two movies. Whereas Babel shows the stories of people that are only connected by coincidence, The Burning Plain goes much further than that. When, almost in the end, you find out what really happened you cannot but aknowlegde the genius of the person who wrote the story and the stylish way the movie was directed.

Once the ‘big twist’ is revealed it was like an ‘aha-Erlebnis’. From beginning until ending you are wondering about the connections between the characters. “What does Sylvia have to do with Mariana and Santiago, or with Gina and Nick”? When eventually you find out, it is like a puzzle with the last piece falling in place. The result is a beautiful picture with a sad undertone, but not one I would have wanted to miss.

Yes, this movie may occupy your thoughts for some time, but yes, you should go and see it. (Just my humble opinion )

As some of you know, things tend to go to the extremes with me. So, instead of leaving it at that short run I also went to my first poweryoga class yesterday. Some friends of mine recommended it and my psysiotherapist told me that my back would definitely benefit from practising yoga. It was really intense and yet I have no really sore muscles (which I expected). I liked it a lot and decided to take at least one class every week. For now I’m still doing the beginner’s course, but soon I hope to have done with the introduction and be able to join the ‘regular’ classes…

Because I just couldn’t stop moving I went to the gym today to work out. It just seems I have too much energy for my body to contain. Tomorrow I’ll go swimming before work and in the evening I will again try something new. The same friends who advised me to take up yoga have tried to get me interested in Tribal Fusion Bellydance for quite some time. From their stories and demonstrations I gather that it is lots of fun and a good work-out too. (Classes by a particular teacher are referred to as bootcamp.) I finally gave in. Tomorrow will be my first class and I hope that I will be able to walk like normal human being for the next couple of days after that.

Yeey for taking up sports again and trying new things

No work for me on thursday. Instead I called the doctor’s office, which led me right into another ordeal:

Me: “I have an appointment scheduled for coming monday, but yesterday something went wrong with my back so I would like to reschedule. I would like to see a doctor today, please. Is that possible?
The doctor’s assistant: “If I were you I’d call the doctor and have a tele-consult. You could also go straight to see a physiotherapist”
Me: “I don’t want that. Since I also have a strange rash on my arm I really would like to see a doctor”.
her: “does the rash itch?”
Me: “Yes, why?”
her: “just a moment please……no, you really should call the doctor for a tele-consult and go and see a physiotherapist”.
Me (realizing that this was not open to debate): “well, ok”.

So, of course I did try and call the doctor. But guess what…he didn’t have time since he was talking to another patient…(during the entire hour the lines are opened for tele-consults). Eventually I ended up being frustrated and stumbled my way to the GP’s practice. Within 10 minutes I was talking to a GP. Diagnosis: Lumbago. I used to think that this was an illness which only befell elderly people. But there I was, 26 years old, being diagnosed with lumbago You can imagine just how old I felt.

Oh, and by the way, my GP strictly ordered me not to see a physiotherapist until I was pain-free. Otherwise, the problem might get worse. So much for assistants who think they have a medical degree and treat you as if they were an actual GP :S

My GP prescribed some ointments for my rash and diazepam to help me relax my lower back muscles. It works just perfectly relaxing my back muscles but when I read the insert with all the side-effects I got a little bit scared:
* Impaired motor function (so, I can’t drive my car)
o Impaired coordination
o Impaired balance
o Dizziness and nausea
* Depression (which hangs around in the family and ‘victimizes’ me from time to time already)
* Impaired learning
* Anterograde amnesia
* Cognitive deficits
* Reflex tachycardia
* Gaining of weight (hadn’t the GP just told me that I needed to lose weight? :S)

Reading all about all these possible side-effects, I immediately decided that I would only use the diazepam in case of emergency (read: extreme pain). Unfortunately, I was in extreme pain all through thursday and friday and most of today so I downed some pills. It was then that I found out about one of the other uses for diazepam: it is also used to treat sleeping disorders such as insomnia. Even though the pain was killing me during the daytime, at night I slept like a baby. (I hardly ever sleep well, if I sleep at all). In spite of all the possible side-effects of the medicine I was grateful to my doctor for prescribing them.

It seems I’m finally ‘cured’ from my insomnia. But then again, I read that diazepam can only be used as a short-term treatment for insomnia. And it is addictive. So, when the pain is gone I will stop using the diazepam. I can’t keep popping those pills forever since I don’t want to get addicted. But will the insomnia return? For now I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

fyi: I was still under the influence of the diazepam while writing this, so please forgive me for all the grammatical errors, typo’s and spelling mistakes?

Since the beginning of the season I have known that today we would go to Scharendijke. From what I had heard about it I figured this would be a good place to make the ‘marine biology submersion’. Of course I wanted to show other people what I had seen below the surface. Therefore I asked an instructor whose hobby is underwater photography to accompany me during my dive, i.e. to be my buddy. Thanks to his courtesy I can show you some pictures of what things look like down below.

Since this dive was made for training purposes I, of course, had to do some homework. So, thanks to my buddy’s assignment, when you click the picture to watch it in full size you’ll get some information (both English and Dutch) about what’s in the picture. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Any questions about what you see? You know where to find me

Thanks buddy, for the nice, relaxed dive and the wonderful pictures!

So, last time we spoke we set a date to finally go hiking again. Today was that lucky day. We couldn’t have picked a better moment. The temperature was nice, the sun was shining, the flowers in the fields were still in bloom and the trees are still getting greener every day.

My friend had already made a plan as to where we would go. He had decided on the ‘Westerpark’ in Zoetermeer. At first I was a little sceptical. All I knew about Zoetermeer was that it had dozens of tower-block flats and quite a large, but uninteresting shopping mall. It didn’t seem like such a great place to go hiking, but I was wrong.

After a 45 minute walk from my friend’s house we ended up in the Westerpark. It was quiet, secluded and didn’t feel like you were in a city at all. I actually found it very hard to believe that the ‘real world’ was only a couple of hundred meters away. I loved it. Who needs to go abroad for the sights when you can take pictures like this :

Of course I’m still planning to go hiking in Norway next year Some sights are just not available in the Netherlands. But still, we do have some

Going for a four hour walk on a nice sunny day makes me feel like I’m on vacation already. I’m starting to wonder what 3,5 weeks of camping in England (this summer) will feel like