Olli managed to be home today after all and surprised me last night with pink champagne and strawberry pie at midnight (have I said lately how much I love him?), and even though it was raining last night, the sun is shining brilliantly at the moment.
And tonight we’ll go & have dinner at wherever they’ll have us. Good times

Olli has to be in the office for most of the day (figures) and it’s going to rain like a mofo (noooooo! ) so all in all it’s going to be a bit lonely.

I’m thinking of eating pie and doing a laundry binge while watching the rest of the first season of Eureka. Although it’s not very glamorous for a 30th birthday, it should pass the time. Also: pie!

btw: thanks Lietje & Brenda for the birthday donations!

Instead of regular birthday presents, Olli and I decided that we already got a big present this year in the form of our puppy Bodhi. Bodhi was rescued off the streets of Bulgaria by the Rudozem Street Dog Rescue team when he was a puppy of roughly six weeks old. They took care of him, raised him, cuddled him, fed him (and a lot of his friends) and put him up for adoption to a loving home here in the Netherlands. They have done so for Bodhi, but also dozens of other puppies and dogs that are abused and left to die every single day.

The thought that Bodhi might have brothers or sisters out there on the streets breaks my heart, and I hope that the awesome people in RSDR will keep up their great work.

They need money and donations much more than we need our presents, so we hope that you’ll help us support them in their cause.

If you would like to give us a present, you can go HERE!

Thank you so much!!

It just leaves so preciously little time for myself, which is a bit of a pity. I don’t mind getting up in the mornings, but I just don’t want to go to sleep at night because I just want to chill out a little more. And then there’s the subject of redecorating the house (we’re actually putting up curtains at the moment people, can you believe it? I’ve been checking the skies to see if there are pigs flying, but none so far) before our birthdays and the Euromeet… let’s just say it keeps us off the streets.

This weekend on Fridaynight I went to Tijs & Kat’s place to play poker with the boys + Brenda. I didn’t know they played for money though, and I only had about 12 euro’s with me, but the initial money we had to lay in was 10 money anyway and in the end I’d earned 13 euro’s, so I had a profit of E3,80 (despite playing somewhat recklessly. I’m better in the confidence game part than the strategic chance calculations & statistics, it seems) in the end. We had shitloads of fun

Brenda tagged along to Nuttyville at night so we could do some RP worldbuilding in the morning for the Euromeet. Seriously, this RP session is going to be soooo much fun. I’m already madly in love with my character And the setting is going to be a lot of tun too. We shamelessly ripped off the Firefly universe, but who cares? Our story is going to be a lot of fun.

In the evening Ol and I tested out our newly bought BBQ (which worked admirably well. this one has potential to last more than one summer!) and had bacardi limon & ice tea & lime cocktails. And today I’ve roadtripped to Hoorn to congrat my sister on her birthday.

Thus ends the weekend! Damn. Time for another weekend
In half-related news, I have my birthday off. Wednesday is all mine! Muhahaha

Surely, I’ve had Fridays that started off worse

And I still had to get home from Delft. Now; I’m in the vicinity of the University of Delft, so that means a trip to the station of Delft first, and either a tramride or a busride home from the station. It’s all in all about 35-45 minutes, if I’m lucky. Around 4pm the weather started dropping significantly and the sky was completely overcast, so my colleague and I grinned at eachother and shut down our computers at 4.55pm, so we could still get home in time before the rain started.

At 5pm I left the building, and it was starting to rain. My bus was supposed to go at 5.05, but of course it was late. Damn bus. By this time I was slightly damp, and I twittered “Come on, bus…. Don’t be late, not now ”
It finally showed up at 5.11 (simply because EVERYBODY went by bus all of a sudden, they didn’t want to bike through the rain I suppose), which meant that no way in hell I was going to make it for my 5.17 tram at Delft station, and that I was better off hopping over on the other bus. Point in favour was that I wouldn’t have to climb onto the walkbridge over the station, which is like 10 meter high or something. With the lightning that was starting to fork the sky, that didn’t seem like a good idea to me. Also; the layover station of the bus was pretty well sheltered, so I could wait five minutes and not get any wetter.

My layover bus was right on time (yay!) and I was one of two (!) people in the bus, so it went on its way to Nuttyville swiftly. The rain kept on falling harder and harder. I got a little giddy with the excitement (over rain, yeah, i know, I’m a sad person) of the adventure, but I also started to wonder how the hell I would get home relatively dry. It’s only a 300m walk from the busstop to my house, but with the rate it was coming down now, I didn’t think I could make it.

In the end… I did make it home. I ran the whole way, but fat lot of good it did me, hahaha! You see the dry spots on my t-shirt? That’s where the strap of my bag was. For the rest I was completely soaked. But at least I made it home, and now it’s still merrily raining and I’ve towelled my hair dry & I had a change of clothes (even my underwear).

And thus we conclude Lannie’s adventures in nutty weather & public transport. I hope you had a great time. Surprisingly enough, I certainly did!

I woke up briefly around 10pm only to have Olli diagnose me with a fever. I tried to deny that (because I’m stubborn like that) but soon had to give in and went to bed, where I proceeded to sleep until the next morning without a hitch. That should be a dead giveaway then, right? Waking up in the morning, I still felt rather horrible, so I had to call in sick at work. During my first month trial period, too – sucks so bad. But thankfully I was supposed to have my bi-weekly day off today, so I kind of just switched those days around.

Yesterday I slept till 1pm or something, and then I laid blearily on the couch all day and watched daytime TV. Thankfully there was no fever, and while I still don’t feel 100% today, it’s back to work with me. Here’s to hoping that by now the fever has burnt away that lingering cold that I had since Graspop. It would be nice to be in full posession of the possibilities of my brain again.

I absolutely refuse to get sick. My work is insanely busy and my to-do-lists are growing daily. I don’t have time for this. Why now?!

oh, and suckage about the game last night. Pity that the last game of the world cup was the most annoying & boring. I wasn’t impressed by either Spain or the Dutch team. As far as I’m concerned, Germany or Uruguay should have won.

It’s a good thing that I really really like what I’m doing and that I know for a fact that even with my poor knowledge of the software I’m still a better trainer compared to what my manager has been doing so far (she doesn’t have much patience, or empathy, for the students) – but this is really running me in the ground this week. Having to give a training of software that you essentially know for three days is quite daunting. Hi lions! I’m about to train you today. Even though my manager says I work here for weeks now, it’s really only been days.
Good thing that I got balls of steel, I suppose.

In the current heat it was definitely a challenge today. By the time I got home (of course the bus was too late, so I wasn’t home till 6.30 pm while I had left home at 7.45 am) I was about ready to cry with fatigue. After dinner I went for a nap and I was still training people in my sleep. Go figure. Thankfully it’ll get easier sooner, once I’ll have all the documentation a bit more structure. (Ha! Structure! Me! Never thought I’d say that! :’)) Oh, and soon enough I’ll know the subject material better, and then I’m going to kick even more ass.

Meanwhile, all of the Netherlands is orange in anticipation of the world cup final against Spain (who would have thought this would happen? Surely you’d be either clairvoyant or insane to predict this!) and I’m still madly in love with Soilwork.
Good times, good times.

It leaves preciously little energy to deal with other things, though. So sorry if I can’t be there for you the way I normally can and if I seem distracted and/or impatient. I’m training people in my sleep at the moment and I’m having a tough time adjusting… I still love you all. <3