Monday blues

Hi everyone, I'm back. Sorry for the lack of posting, but I was enjoying my well earned long weekend. First one since I started working, and it felt good. The hardest thing to get used to when you start working permanently after college is the lack of holidays. School and college provide so much time off, that 20 days vacation time in a whole year when working really sucks. All you have is weekends! And they pass insanely quickly. 20 is not a lot. City jobs give a lot more holidays, my dad works for the railway and he has like 45 days off(or more), lucky bastard. My mom has like 40 too cause she works for the commune. Embassies are not the city :(, so although I really like this job it does have downsides. These are: too damn far away, too few vacation days, only half of my train subscription is paid (which sucks cause it's a whopping 293 euro a month) - city jobs pay the entire thing- and too few co-works + nobody my age. Those are the downsides.
So I wouldn't mind a city job one day! But you need to do an exam to get it nowadays, and they are hard, and you need to be lucky to be to one to get it. I didn't need to do an exam for the embassy, just a job interview, although a difficult one, mad situational questions, hate those!


Anyway back to work today :( not another long weekend till end of April for Easter. Had another stressed morning due to the train being late again, 20 min! It really is starting to get on my nerves, Belgian trains suck, they are barely ever perfectly on time. And if you already have a four hour commute a day, those extra minutes really make you want to punch a trainperson in the face. Beware dad.
Last week was the same thing, some crane fell right on the tracks of a often travelled section, completely destroying all the cables and blocking everything. All the trains going to and from Brussels had to take a giant detour causing every train to be massively delayed. Gah! I was muttering swears on the train a lot last week, I am not a patient person when it comes to waiting on public transport. Also I hate slow drivers, when I finally reach the station at night, I hop in my car and want to race home, so when this old or talkative person drives 45 km/h in front of me I get really really annoyed. You dont want to be in my car then :p MOOOOOOOOOVE YOU
Commutes are not got for my stress level :D

Oh Saint Patrick's day was alright, bit hectic! Didn't enjoy the festivities organised by work much, as I was set in the cloak room with someone from the Permanent Represtation of Ireland to the EU, for three hours. So saw lots of people, but not much fun was had! Nobody even brough us a drink! That kinda sucked, it was insanely busy and not at all like the First Secretary had said that once everyone was there we could enjoy the celebrations and someone else would take over. We were stuck there and nobody came to take over! Stupid recession, they can't even get someone else to do the cloak room. There were plenty of students carrying drinks and so, why couldn't they do it! Ok, it wasn't really tiring, and I mostly chatted away, but I had expected to get some drinks in me to celebrate Paddy Day! Very dissapointing! They got me all the way to Leuven on a holiday for three hours of standing in a cloak room and no perks? Me no likey!
Everyone travel to Ireland and spend lots of money so I don't have to be cloakroom lady next year!

Hope some of you got to be drunk in honor of St Paddy at least :D

Hulkshare.com Game - All Doggs Go To Heaven (R.I.P. Nate Dogg)_DigitalDripped.com.mp3

Hulkshare.com Game - All Doggs Go To Heaven (R.I.P. Nate Dogg)_DigitalDripped.com.mp3

8 million Beliebers are heartbroken

It's official... Justin Bieber is off the market, and Justin Timberlake is back ON. Good for people my age, bad for tweens all around the world. Selena Gomez tells E! News yesterday that she is "hurt" from all of the backlash she is getting from hardcore Bieber fans. I would be scared for my life if I was her. His fans are INTENSE. Selena, 18, and Justin, 17, are arguably the most famous teens in the world. The fact that they are together is not surprising and almost generic, however, if you're "in love," you're in love. Beiber subtweeted recently "I love you sooo much," which clearly put his fans into a frenzy. Even though he does not clearly state who he is writing to, one can only assume that he is writing to Miss Gomez. Could they be the next Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens? Hopefully without the naked pictures (Vanessa). Let's hope that Gomez keeps her clean image, I personally think she's adorable. She speaks well and she always looks classy. I give it.......... one year. I know that's a lifetime in Hollywood, but I have a little bit of faith in these two.

Hulkshare.com Lupe Fiasco ft Eric Turner - Stereo Sun (Full)_DigitalDripped.com.mp3

Hulkshare.com Lupe Fiasco ft Eric Turner - Stereo Sun (Full)_DigitalDripped.com.mp3

Lá Fhéile Pádraig (St paddy's!)

Thursday is St Patrick's day, the national holiday of Ireland. Now that I work for the Irish Embassy, the day is more significant now. Having always been a big fan of the green isle, I usually tried to celebrate a bit by joining in the fun atmosphere in the Irish pub, but nobody celebrates st Paddy's like the Irish! This year I will get to experience just that. The Embassy is organising a big celebration in Leuven (big college city in Belgium) in an old building called 'The Irish college', and 600 people are likely to attend! That's a lot of people, and most of them will be Irish! I get to go too, at first mostly to show people where to be, but once everyone has arrived, I get to join in the festivities and have drinks and nibbles and mingle!
Everything will be in the spirit of Ireland, the drinks, the food and the musical performances. I'm very excited about it, I can't wait! Most of the people will probably be older, fancy goverment, EU and other high-up staff, but I hope there will be some people around my age to talk to!


Why am I so fond of Ireland you ask? Well to start with it's a beautiful country (been there 8 times now, first time when I was sixteen, on a holiday with the parents), there really are a hundred shades of green. When landing you already notice the beauty, you see all the little different patches of green that is the fields, mountains in the distance, rivers.. It really is something. Dublin is bustling just like any city, but it's great shopping and Temple Bar (the popular old outgoing part of the city) is great fun for a night out! Galway is calmer, a student city, and has the air of a seaside town, there's street musicians in the shopping street, the houses are colourful, it's my favourite Irish city. Had some great times there! Now the countryside is really something you must see when visiting Ireland. Especially the Connemara, one of my favourite places, it still has the air of calmness real country living about it, something that is hard to find nowadays. There's tiny little towns, with always at least one pub (of course :p) and a church. You need to beware of sheep, cows and even donkeys occasionally when driving on the road, because they roam all over the place. There's gorgeous mountains, and fields of heather, and sparkling lakes. I really do love it very much, and I will continue to go there.

The people are great (most of them anyway, you can find a grouch anywhere), they have a great sense of humour, they're fun-loving, easy-going and very social. Now, I may be biased, because I dated an Irish guy back in the day, but through him I met a lot of other Irish people, and all of them really fit the traits I just mentioned.

If you're a history buff, Ireland has a rich history, with lots of mythology from the days of the Celts, and a violent and interesting history from the days when the English decided to conquer Ireland and take over the land. I actually wrote my thesis about Ireland (mainly a comparative study of the view on Northern Ireland in the Flemish and Dutch press, but I also included a long historic background of Ireland). Therefor, I know a whole lot about the Irish history, and I found it very interesting, although sad at some point, Ireland has been through a lot.

As you can see in the title, the Irish have a second language, the old Irish language, gaelic. It's not spoken much, but they try to keep it alive by teaching children the language in school, and all the traffic signs etc. are both in English and Irish. I find it a very cool language, unfortunately you can only learn it in Ireland, as it's pretty pointless outside of it.

So hope I got you all a bit excited about Ireland, you should really go visit it! (good for the Irish economy :p.. hey I work for Ireland :P I need to promote :D)

Have a great St Paddy's day if you intend on celebrating!

Sláinte (cheers!)

How do you see yourself?

This is my second post about body image. It's an important subject to me because as a teenager I felt very self-conscious and did not feel very confident about myself. Some bad experiences led to my self image being totally destroyed so I reacted by wanting to change how I looked. I felt I was fat. This was really stupid I realise now, because I weighed about 51 kilos at the time, and I'm just under 5ft4 (1.63 and a half cm) and that's pretty thin. But I felt like it wasn't enough. Luckily thanks to my very worried mom who watched me like a hawk,I managed to get over that irrational fat idea.

It's still stuck in my head a bit though. I love to nibble and lately with the long commute and having to wait so long to get home and have dinner, I nibble a lot more and then late night dinner, made me gain a kilo or two. So 52 kg now, and it's driving me a bit mad. I've weighed 49 kg for ages, so these two extra are making me conscious of every cookie I eat now. I know it's stupid! Slap some sense in me people.

I read the paper online the other day, and I read an article about a Belgian pagant girl, my age, who wants to be a model in America, but according to the agencies there she's not thin enough. She's 1m75, model tall, and weighs currently 55 kilos. That's three kilos more than me and she is 11cm taller! On her picture she looks perfectly thin, but they want her to weigh 50-52 kilos or she won't get booked. This just pisses me off. She looks perfect, not emaciated but still flat belly as an ironboard. Why does she need to weigh even less? Models are treated like clothes hangers, and it's things like that that influence young girls and get it into their heads that to be beautiful you need to be underweight and preferably be busty too. Or no man will find you attractive or sexy.

Even some men nowadays are starting to feel the pressure of needing to be muscular and fit, and are developing the same 'I'm faaaat' issues as us women.
The idea of beauty is so warped nowadays, if you don't fit perfectly in that box, you need to do something about it, diets, botox, plastic surgery and whatnot. Just look at the celebrities for extreme examples, I just read Amanda Seyfried, who's 25, is being pushed by Hollywood people to start using botox so she looks perfect on the screen. 25!! If she starts using that stuff now, she'll look like an expressionless wax doll in ten years. How stupid! What ever happened to aging gracefull? Now it's preferable to show no signs of aging at all. But it's probably hard for them, paparazzi everywhere, magazines judging everything you wear and how you look..

I just hope people will start realising that unless you're unhealthy (meaning really thin or obese) stop freaking out, you will not be unloved or undesired, and that extra pound will not make you look like the Loch Ness monster.

I love the commercials for Dove soap, just like the picture above and below, all different body shapes and all beautiful.

Tsunami Alert to Japan's Nearby Country, Rounded Up!

The 8.9 magnitude earthquake that struck the offshore of Japan which has been followed by a few more aftershocks that hit Tokyo and the nearby island. According to the latest updates straight from the affected area of the devastating wave that struck the north-eastern part of the country, the disaster already killed 32 people. Fire and Disaster Management Agency of the country confirmed this recently and the total number of casualties will probably increase after of a detailed investigation.

Other nation located in the northern and southern part of Japan has been advised to prepare for the possible disastrous tsunami that will struck any hours after of what happened to Japan recently. The alert level issued with preemptive evacuation especially to the shoreline community includes the Philippines, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Hawaii. Other countries also gave their warning like Russia and some other part of the pacific nations.

Check your local television now and know the other related news and updates straight from your government agency responsible in giving the official warnings.

For more, here's a few lines from Associated Press based in Japan. Hope this can give you a little idea about the currently alert given to your country.

A tsunami warning was issued for the entire Pacific, including areas as far away as South America, the entire U.S. West Coast, Canada and Alaska.

Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said at least 32 people were killed. A utility company in northeastern Japan reported a fire in a turbine building of nuclear power plant.

Try to visit Google for their very own alert to the searchers and be a part of their mission by informing your loved ones in the possible tsunami endangered area of the world. Check some more soon as we continue to bring you the latest news and updates straight from the affected area of Japan.