Back from nowhere into nothingness

I just got back from Amsterdam yesterday, and as usual the space in between being somewhere and coming back has left me stranded with multiple confusing thoughts and feelings and a crapload of things to do. I’ll try to break this down for you.

1 – WordPress has changed it’s theme, which confused me at first and will need some getting used to. Then I thought: some change can do good, and since I’m in a place right now where everything seems cluttered, I wanted to clean up the theme of my blog. Since I don’t have time to sort out the ever fleeting space in my apartment, I can at least simplify my space on line. Sadly, I can’t influence the widgets at the bottom, otherwise I would have picked other ones. But I do like the neat one column appearance.

2 – I haven’t written a post in over a week, that has never happened before. But I must say, spending those days abroad with no internet whatsoever was actually kind of nice. Because even though the weather was harsh (I’ll write about my trip with more details shortly), we went out and experienced the world around us rather than living virtually. I also turned of my phone and only watched very little television in the evening, when we were to exhausted to do anything else. And that goes a long way coming from me.

3 – Culture shock. It’s for one the name of a book I bought for my mom for Christmas (psst!) and also the experience I had – not in Holland, but coming back. The deal is this: my mom might be moving to Germany, so I bought her this guide to the German way of life. It describes how the Germans and the country runs, what’s important, etc. Being a sort of foreigner myself, I was always torn between trying to fit in and prove that I was a “real German” and keeping the parts of me that were different. Since The BF is also trying to connect with his other nationality, this lead to many discussions about the different cultures and people. What I learned is this: I had never stopped and looked at Germany to see if it would suit me. I just wanted to get out of France, because I knew I didn’t feel at home there. But reading about the people here and experiencing the Dutch, I’m starting to wonder if this environment is really where I should be settling in. And I know we were only there for five days, and you can’t compare a vacation with actually living in a country, but it has definitely got me noticing and thinking about things.

4 – This is a huge sum up of what’s going on. I could go much more in detail and I’m leaving many things out, but I just don’t have the time. Have to get back to work now (which also includes such mundane things as unpacking and buying food) - learn for exams, clear up things concerning my diploma thesis (yes, that’s still running), catch up with friends, get the last Christmas presents before I go home next Monday, and other miscellaneous stuff - so see you soon.

For my fashionista friends

Personally, I have a very functional relationship with clothes. I wear them to be covered. I was never interested in handbags, shoes, accessories, colors, shapes and whatnot. I definitely have no knack of putting stuff together to make fashion, which should be a crime – I know – since I lived 10 years in Paris. Slowly over the years I have been more and more aware, though, that it might not be such a bad idea to find clothes that actually look good, even though I still think I look best naked. But that’s just because I don’t know how to shop for flattering things. Or, since she wrote it so well, the way Dooce puts it:

I’ve never been a big clothes shopper, and I find it supremely hard to justify buying a pair of pants that I will only be able to wear for two months when the average life span of a pair of pants in my wardrobe is longer than the series run of “Law and Order.” I’d much rather spend $50 on a really good dinner at a Thai restaurant than on a sturdy, name-brand pair of pants, even though I know the pair of pants will last 700,000 times longer than a serving of massaman curry. I know it makes no sense, but food tastes better than clothing, and that’s where my priorities are.

None the less, I do have friends that are very into fashion, I guess as most women are, and I am trying to learn from them. In the mean time, I’d like to post something that might be of use / entertaining / interesting for you guys – a quote from feministing.com about street fashion blogs. Feel free to check out the links and be inspired:

Most of the time when we write about photographing people on the street, we’re talking about dudes who are cat-callers and harassers. But part of my daily internet consumption — in between the New York Times and feminist blogs and everything I read for my job — is a healthy dose of street fashion blogs. From Monterey to Minneapolis, Tokyo to Helsinki, many major cities (and some smaller towns) have a dedicated street photographer who sets out every day to document the local style. (Perhaps the most well-known street-fashion blog is the Sartorialist — not my personal fave, but a classic. For an overview of lots of cities, check out Street Peeper.)

News Flashes

Things I heard this morning:

•  Johnny Depp will be playing in a fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, the “Mad Hatter” in a Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland, and the movie version of the wonderful book “Shantaram” (by Gregory David Roberts). Can’t wait.
• John McCain crashed and said he will be “postponing” the presidential campaign until the financial crisis is solved and asked that Obama do the same. Barack said he would not, because it is important for the people to know about how the person who will be in charge of the mess is handling it. Besides, isn’t kind of a necessary qualification for a president to be able to handle several things at once?
• George Dubya Bush invited both presidential candidates to debate about the 700 billion $ “save the banks” plan at the white house. It ended in chaos because the reps couldn’t unify their opinion. The discussion is currently “on a break”. Yeah, they’re ready to lead a country.

Last but not least, some german headlines:

New York (dpa) – Die US-Finanzmarktkrise hat einen neuen dramatischen Höhepunkt erreicht. Jetzt ist die einst führende amerikanische Sparkasse Washington Mutual zusammengebrochen. In einem Notverkauf wird sie zu weiten Teilen vom Finanzkonzern J.P. Morgan Chase übernommen. Das teilte die US-Sparkassenaufsicht in New York mit. Die Sparkasse hatte in der Kreditkrise Milliardenverluste erlitten und mehr als 90 Prozent ihres Börsenwerts eingebüßt.

Berlin (dpa) – Der Bundestag will heute das Gesetz zum Ausbau der Kleinkinderbetreuung verabschieden. Die Zahl der Krippenplätze soll damit bis 2013 verdreifacht werden. Familienministerin Ursula von der Leyen sprach von einem “gewaltigen Schritt vorwärts” für die Kinderbetreuung in Deutschland. In kaum mehr als eineinhalb Jahren sei es gelungen, gesetzliche Grundlage und Finanzierungsrahmen für 750 000 Kitaplätze zu schaffen. Das Gesetz regelt auch einen Rechtsanspruch auf einen Kitaplatz vom Jahr 2013 an.

Yay!