Tommorow is my last day of school. After that I free time to study for my final exams.

So with that come some manditory school things like the final year ball and the end of school “protest” by the final year students (stunt, geen idee wat dat in het engels is, suggesties?)

And there were camera’s:

My Ball

Our “hot” ride

Stunt

We planned several activities through out the school. I was part of the techno party in the cantine:

Naturally I’m the one dressed up as a fairy

I work in a bookstore, but most of what we sell are dvd’s. They just fly out of the racks (sometimes litterally when it’s windy). We get a new load every thursday but by the time it’s Saturday evening they’ve all gone! It’s just absurd, we watch tv all day and when there’s nothing good on we watch Dvd’s.

I can recommend everyone: throw you’re tv out of the window and read a book!

Or Play cards!

Right now the sun is shining, both in outside and in my mind. I’m not extremely happy or anything, but my life is just stable at the moment.

School is going quite well ( except for the 40 maths exercises I’m behind on) and I’m not in any fights/ conflicts/ wars  with family or friends. My photography is going quite well, I won an award on ephotzine.com and one of my photo’s will most likely be in a dutch photography magazine.

But somehow I feel guilty about feeling sunny, when I know some people around me are not. So for everyone who’s feeling down at the moment, a big hug!

Modest and shy
Meticulous and reliable
Practical and diligent
Intelligent and analytical

On the dark side….

Fussy and a worrier
Overcritical and harsh
Perfectionist and conservative
Well that doesn’t exactly put me into a summersaulting mood.

I know it’s stupid to believe in those things, but the scary thing is that I recognise myself into a lot of those things ( well besides the practical thing, I buy shoes that I can’t walk in, just because they look good, and buy bags smaller than a 5 euro note). But they’re not good qualities in my eyes. Being shy just stops you from make contact with people, being reliable is a good thing but I’m not most of the time, though I try, but that just makes me feel guily etc…

The thing I hate most about being a Virgo, is the perfectionist part. It makes me so frustrated. It’s making me hate my own art. When I take a photo, I either hate it immidiatly or love it and start hating it a week later. I keep on deleting more and more of my gallery just because I can’t believe I could have ever considered those pieces art.

The problem is that I’ve come to love art. I can spend hours studying artists and learning about different art styles. This has lead me to want to be succesful and wanting people to “adore my” pieces (just a little more feedback would be enough ). Not just my friends who like my art because they like me. I want to get into a good art college and make a living out of my photography in the long run. I want to live and breath art and creativity…

I know it sounds pretty desperate but when I’m taking photo’s it makes my heart pound and the corners of my mouth curl up.

So it brings tears in my eyes when I feel so proud of a photo but no one else seems to share that opinion. It makes me feel so insecure and makes me want to smash my camera to bits. But instead I’ll just write down my frustrations here. Maybe I’m being egocentric wishing myself succes. But it just frustrates me so much that apprently I lack the talent to live the life I want to lead.

Now I’ll probably end up studying bussiness administration and working in a 2 by 2 office till I die.
(Or according to Bianca, i’ll become a poor struggeling artist who doesn’t get recognizion till I’m dead, but I don’t think killing myself now will do any wonders)

EDIT!
The day after writing this, I got a note from someone on DeviantArt telling me that he featured me in his Deviantart Arcade and thought my gallery was wow.
So I should just stop being an insecure teenager, and start being professional!

I love how unconditionally animals can “love” you. They don’t care if you gain weight, are grumpy or forget to call.

You just feed them and they love you, it’s perfect!!!

Sometimes I wish it would work that way with men too, not that I have anything to complain about, but it would make relationships a whole lot less complicated!

Love is in the Air

Hmm maybe I should explain this, since it’s been here for quite some while. Well I paid some attention to the behaviour around me and it’s rather astonishing how much time people are busy with themselfs. I even noticed the behaviour in myself. I guess it’s a natural thing but try to think about it sometimes and just smile to the person sitting next to you…

What do you think controls your life? What standards do you have?

I think joy dominates my life. I want to have fun, I want to live.
Most of my friends care about their social status, they wear the clothes the media dictats on us, they are all subscribed to the same magazine and will even fail a subject just because it’s nog cool to attend gym class (imagine having to get sweaty for school *gasp*) .

I don’t envy them, they miss all the fun things in life, that make you forget the world for a while. Lying in the grass in the park watching a ladybug walk over your hand, skipping down the street, wearing a top hat in public.

But then i start thinking, isn’t it a bit selfish to want to enjoy life? when so many other people in the world are suffering. I try to help, i donate 2 hourse of work every month to greenpeace, volunteer at dierproefvrij, write for amnesty and last years christmas money went to pakistan. I know this won’t help much but it’s something. But at the same time we have the luxury to be able to forget the world at moments, to be carefree for a little while. Wouldn’t it be conflicting to waste those moments? So i think we shouldn’t let the guilt controle our lifes. We should enjoy life and forget the world every ones in a while. Only so we can appreciate what we have and try to help others achieve their care free moments.
Now lets all enjoy life and skip to the mailbox to donate all the money we can spare.

The last couple of day’s i spend in Gent, Belguim. Each year they have a 10 day street festival. During the day there are street artist and performances, and in the evening concerts, dancing and a lot of drinks.

We go almost every year, it’s a lot of fun most of the time. I love just roaming the streets, absorbing the atmostphere and nog worry about anything. But at the same time i get dissapointed each year. No matter how much i wonder and absorb, theres always my family walking ahead of me. Another thing is that in all those years i’ve never really made contact with the people who wonder along the streets with me. I’ve never come futher than an akward chat with a balding, old, drunk man at the bar.

I’m fascinated with people there, they all look so creative and carefree. In there hippy style clothes, the long hair and beads everywhere. They sit with there friends in the park at 2 am and have fun. It makes me long to be one of them. To just pull away from everything and to sit in the park, with some people i truely care about and not worry about anything.
A complete silence in my head…

But those dreams will probably remain dreams… atleast for now.

I read a book these past few days. The romantic by Barbara Gowdy. It’s about a girl, Louise, who’s in love with a boy, Abel. She’s been in love with him ever since they were little children. He moves to another part of the country and cheats on her a couple of times, but in the end they still end up loving each other, he dies, but they still love each other.

Well it’s a book so the semi happy end is manditory. But it made me think, not so much about love (love should happen, not be thought about, you’ll need ibuprofen), but about how she copts with being hurt. Every time she gets hurt, by her boyfriend, boss, parents, she moves to a different appartment. That sounds wonderful.

When i came home this afternoon it wasn’t a happy homecoming. It was comfortable, i could lie down on my bed with my flipflops and not care about stains. But it didn’t make me feel happy. My anxiety came back after a few hours and i think that just sitting here in my room makes me nervous.

So i wish i could go life in a different space, a different house would be best, another country would be perfect. This space has just so much memories captured in it. Each time i look at an object or wall it reminds me of something. It’s had it’s time, it’s overflowing with memories and feelings.

There isn’t any space left for me…

Photo’s From Gent

Old Thoughts

The Green Dragon Lady

Body Language

A Face in the Crowd