Association Meme: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

from scribblemoose-

1. Festivals

Haha, i’m not surprised that this one comes up first. I’m a festival veteran, I’ve been partying at festivals at least once a year since 1999 – which heralds my ten year anniversary of festivalling this year, I now realize. I’ve been at multiple festivals as well: Pinkpop (6 times), Lowlands (3 times), Werchter (3 times), Graspop (once) – and they all rocked my socks very, very hard. It’s the combination of friendship, music, sunlight (or rain) and this really intense experience that’ll stay with you for the rest of your life. I can’t believe how it’s still not getting old or boring, either. It’s also completely different from a real holiday, because it’s so intense. Instead of unwinding, I completely recharge. It’s like going to a great concert… multiple times. And the stories & memories you bring home together, they last forever.
Getting rained upon for three days and being cold at night might suck at the moment, but you’ve *done* it, you’ve been there, and in hindsight everything can be funny. Especially when it’s done in good company. There are just so many stories that’ll stay with me forever. The beer-fight at Pinkpop 2000, the sun breaking through the rain at Lowlands 2006, my plastic flowerchain at Werchter 2007, our honeymoon to Werchter in 2005… it’s all so awesome. Even when it wasn’t so awesome (like Pinkpop 2001 in the rain, or Pinkpop 2007 in the cold) it’s still always worth every penny.

2. Online gaming

This refers to my addiction to my online RP sites that I’ve frequented over the years. In the past there was Dragonmount.com – from 1998 to 2001, and from 2003 to 2006. And after I left that website – finally- after falling out of love with the world we played in… there was Popomundo. Because how awesome is it to play at being a rockstar? Words cannot express the awesomeness, haha! It’s part roleplay, part game, and it also kind of changed the way I look at concerts and music. In part it inspired the boys to start their own band last year (I don’t think you guys would’ve thought of it if you hadn’t dabbled in Popo for a while at that point, at least). I earned some great friends because of my online games over the years.
So I stand at concerts with friends and slap popo-ratings onto my review of the gig. We comment on the show structure, and how the artist interacts with the audience. When Muse blew me away with their light installations at Pinkpop 2007 the first thing I said (to Kat and Tijs, I think) was, “Oh my God, they must have like 6 stars stage equipment!”
Which pretty much says it all

3. Writing

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. Even when I couldn’t write yet – when I could just draw… I’d draw stick figures and tell the stories out loud to the paper (my mom thought that was hilarious). I don’t really see it as storytelling, though… for me it’s always been a way to channel shit out of my head. I’ve just always been a vocal person, easy to share what I am thinking. (Which is probably also why I have a blog )
One other thing that I associate with being a writer is that I often think: “What if…?” when I am bored. What if this train would derail right now, what if a meteor would crash into the earth, what if he says he doesn’t love me anymore, what if he says he does, what if I get fired, what if I get offered another job, what if I suddenly start shitting rainbows… etcetc. This is what creates stories for me.

4. Nanowrimo

Also a yearly recurring event – I’ve done Nanowrimo seven times by now, and I’ve won the challenge seven times as well. It’s been a huge motor to get my creative juices flowing. It forces me to create, to write. I’ve tried to keep writing during the year in the past year, but unless there’s this *really* compelling story to tell, I usually slack until it’s time to do Nano again. The past year was different though – because I’d already just finished a major story, this was the first time that Nano didn’t really hold any charm for me. I just wasn’t as enthused about the story, the characters. I’m still not sure whether that’s just the story or me being burnt out on storywriting for a bit. I have Olli on the case to tear this sucky first draft to shreds… let’s see if that’ll help.

5. Music

So yeah, I’m a music nut. Always have been, really. From growing up on classic rock (my parents were into pop-rock and classic rock), my fierce love for electronica in my early teens, and then the switch to rock in my late teens, deepening out into metal in my twenties. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like electronica anymore, though – I can party on dance music just as easily, and I would love to go to Sensation or Innercity again. It’s just that I rock out more easily these days. And it’s funny, how my music taste has broadened and evolved. My discovery of Disarmonia Mundi the other day was a very good example of it, actually. I was wondering why the hell I didn’t know about this earlier, but a couple of years ago I just didn’t appreciate this kind of music. I thought grunts and screaming were annoying, and I couldn’t find the melody in it. These days when it’s all grunts I still get annoyed – I like my melody – then it’d better be REAL damn good… but if you would have let my 2001 me listen to Soilwork I wouldn’t have liked it. Same with Slipknot for example – that self-titled album is really good, you know. But back then I only liked “Wait and Bleed”, and that was already in the outer fringes of my taste. However, this still doesn’t mean that I don’t adore Snow Patrol’s latest album, or that I sing along happily with the Killers, or that I don’t still adore my indie-rock. Air Traffic’s “Shooting Star” came really close to my song of the year… that just says enough I think. It’s just that when I have to choose between Werchter and Graspop, I’d be more inclined to choose Graspop. But maybe that’s also because I’ve mostly *seen* all the good stuff that’s there already. That’s what you get after 13 festivals.

Pfew, that’s lengthy!
(but I have to admit I was surprised not to see ‘rainbows’ with the associations, haha)

Filed under: Journal, Reflection