At last (on request of the class Y-chromosone), Saan and the rainbow poi. Photographer: sis. Instructor: same sis. Hence the funky eyes and the funky expression. Sadly enough, no real move being done. Saan needs more practice.
Saan's sister's fish are dying, one by one. It started once they added more fish to the three surviving. It usually does. You should, apparently, place the critters in some sort of quarantine before adding them to the others, or you get neurotic orange blobs burying themselves under volcanic-rock-like chunks and getting stuck until they starve to death, diseased fish that foam over, fish that manage to destroy the plants in the aquarium and then roll over and die. Fish that contaminate the water until you've got an empty aquarium.
You should also start off with a few fish, then, slowly, one by one, add more. Eleven-year olds do not have that kind of patience. No, no, they want lots of fish, and quickly, too. They name them, based on their gender and species. We had three guppies called 'Blub', one called 'Blob' and a striped little thing called 'Bloib'. Apparently, the next time Saan's sis gets fish, the plan is to get them from a specialist and inform beforehand.
Saan still thinks that one or two simple goldfish would have worked just as well, but she's alone in that.
Regional elections are coming up over here, and Saan hates it. It means that suddenly everyone working near the city hall in the past four years suddenly has this obsessive need to spread their pictures and slogans no one understands, without permit to do so. TV makes it into something even more hysterical: there apparently is a problem with someone not white trying for mayor, even if he's second on the list and no one but the interviewer and the man's own, discriminated side of the population seems to have any problem at all with, every slight misstep or displeasure of the past four years gets digged up, polished and presented nationwide, every politician is corrupt but apparently, whatever they did to get corrupted improved their city.
Yes, Belgium discriminates; if you are not white or do not look very much like a Japanese tourist, you tend to get discrimated. That a muslim woman may not wear her headscarf while working with, say, machinery, something where that innocent piece of cloth is a very real safety hazard, that's sort of understandable. Why a teacher can't wear it, while a teacher can wear a cross or even jewish symbols of faith seems to be ridiculous. People with darker skin color rarely get shown in the media unless they are A) artists of some kind, celebrities B) criminals, C) presenting children's programs and talking on level with someone who is suffering from severe brain damage, D) eye candy, decoration, something easy to get into bed with, E) representatives of a part of the population with roughly the same cultural back ground during a political conflict, F) people who are no official inhabitants of Belgium, born and raised in Belgium or tourists, G) servants, waiters, janitors, people who do other people's dirty work, H) actors playing to be any of the above. Having an accent even gets you looked at funnily. Wearing uncommon clothing, having a daring hair style is the same as killing (some of) your opportunities in life. Saan has never been asked to show her passport to the nice policemen patrolling in the morning. Some kids from, say, African parentage sometimes get asked a dozen times a day. Belgium is told to have a problem between the south and northern part of it. No one except for politicians (who get bothered by having to print the tax forms in two languages, make every official web site in double) have. If you speak French, German or Dutch, people don't care. Just be Belgian. The fact that there's more trouble with Belgian kids beating foreign-looking kids up than the other way around is no problem.
All politcians are corrupt, no matter where you go. It's always picking either pest or cholera. They also are a different kind of corrupt than most non-politicians who are corrupt. The more they do for society, the more corrupt they are. You lessen the morning traffic jam, you manage to make half the schoolkids eat fruit and ban candy from the schools, you install more watering fountains, everything gets improved, and you'll get re-elected... But you'll be Satan incarnate when the papers get hold of you before the actual election.
So, that's in short, the insanity of Belgian regional elections. Saan is so very happy she's not eighteen yet right now.
September's passed its halfway mark. Saan's gotten past the initial September-Back-To-School-Madness. Her study work is starting to even out, she's getting used to it and starting to come back into the half-coma that is school during the day. The positive part about having all main functions tuned in to studying is that Saan no longer panicking like a maniac when she has more than two subjects to study for. The negative part about it is that it's Sunday, Saan's inspiration is nearing the zero-mark once more and Saan spent her day studying and playing mind-numbing computer games. The kind that makes pong seem like something active and fun. Her MP3-players batteries are dead. The alternate butterfly doesn't work on her left side and she wants to go Nordic walking. Check back tomorrow and you'll probably get something more lively.
Saan can do needlepoint. Honestly. She's got the ring, the needle and the access to lots and lots of patterns. Real handwork shops are few and far inbetween. Most people these days remember their last sewing or embroidery or knitting from school and then don't pass it on. Saan's mom teaches it to thirteen-year olds during their lunch breaks. Around this time of year, that means Saan's mom's busy staring at what her students need and make thirty packets of thread, needle and a patch of fabric with a pattern to go with it. Most of it's bunnies with lady bugs and simple patterns. By the end of the year, she'll loose two-thirds of her class. If she has two boys in her class, she's lucky.
She taught Saan how to do needlepoint at the age of five. Saan didn't actually get interested until she was about thirteen. Then it was on and off. Now, she sleeps with a ring, pattern, and needle in her nighstand. The only down side is that it's not very portable. And Saan's position changes as soon as she gets into it. Half of the time, it ends with people asking why she's lying on her back on her bed with her feet stretched up against the wall and her toes starting to feel oddly numb.
So tonight, the post's gonna stay at this due to Saan getting stuck cutting strips of cardboard, splitting threads and finding needles that tend to travel all over the house somehow.
Saan's post's gonna be real short today 'cause she went to another fair, this time without fireworks or prior planning. She won a pink hippo (yaaay, pink hippo!) and spend the entire night playing puppeteer with it. Her brother's back, so the camera's back, too. More fishes for the fish-bulb tomorrow. To answer the question in last night's comment: Saan's not going anywhere. Deal with it, you territorial dimwit. Also: twenty-fifth birthday (sort of, twenty-five days old) of the blog! *pops kiddy-champagne*
Try this sometime: -SMILE. The creepy, 'I am deliriously happy and you won't understand' smile, bright with threatening enthusiasm. Act as though you mean it. -Should people ask, you're brimming with happiness. Sun is shining, birds are singing, life is insanely good and right and beautiful. Be creative with your reasons. 'It's raining! The plants are getting some water!', 'It's freezing cold! Global heating can't be all that bad!', 'We've got more homework than time! A good reason to stay up late!', or, if it's a particulary dull and everyday day, fall back on things that didn't happen: the house didn't collapse, no earthquakes took place, no weapons of mass destruction to be found. -Be enthusiastic, even if you get the lousiest things to do. As a matter of fact, volunteer for them. Try skipping your way toward them. Keep on smiling. -Be polite. Greet everyone on your way. Shake hands with teachers and classmates. Apologise profusely for the slightest mistakes. Hold open doors, walk on the right side of the stairs and be the last one to leave the lift. -Be positive. You've got a truckload of homework--but it's Friday tomorrow! You're dead tired--but you can go back to sleep in only seven hours of school! The entire world hates you and everything is against you and it isn't fair--but it can always get worse, so cheer up! -Make wide, energetic gestures while doing all of this. Watch people duck. -Motivate people who seem down. Move them into a happier position yourself if need be. -Dance. Shake that booty. Wave your arms around. Make sure you've got no audible music around, or that people can't hear it. It looks freaky. -Hug people. Alternate between sneaking up on people and pouncing with a cry of utter delight. It shocks the bejeesus out of most folks. -Be social. Act interested. Ask embarrasing, intimate or personal questions, but make sure it won't hurt people's feelings.
If it works, you'll find suspiciously little people blocking your way to the places that are often blocked, people walking around you in a wide berth. You'll notice how your peers and elders and even younger people react seemingly unlogically to your giving off positive vibes. Your attempts at making life seem a little less depressive will confuse people and you will not be thanked. You'll probably be asked to quit it and act normal. You'll be given suspicious looks. If you feel like having a day to yourself and not having anyone bother you, try these abovementioned actions. It should work. Really.
Saan was going to post a picture of her with the rainbow poi, but:
1) her brother nicked the good camera 2) the not-good camera didnt have any batteries in it 3) The camera needed 4, and only 2 were fully loaded 4) she has to study for her first test of the year which is tomorrow: Early Poetry in the Roman Empire. Fingers crossed!
How does she know people are reading this? The counter keeps mysteriously gaining numbers even though no one comments on the posts.
Teenagers feel like they know everything. It's genetical or something. Each and every kid above twelve and still not in that phase of life where they realise they know nothing, believes they are omniscient and own the world. Strangely enough, all teenagers disagree on how that world looks like and what are the veritable facts about it. Really quite amusing if you think about it.
When adults get involved, however, adolescent boys and girls seem to form an uninted front: us against the big bad world that doesn't understand us at all. The fact that grownups tend to either come half a decade late with teenage slang, new hypes and what music should be in right now don't exactly inspire confidence when you're trying to convince all these angry teens that they're wrong and the people paying taxes are right. Yes, parents, your children either are, have been or will be laughing behind your back, flushing from acute embarrasment or looking at you in utter disgust. Ninety percent of the time, your actions will have been completely unintentional.
It's apparenlty always been this way, and probably always will. Today's teenagers will grow up and lose sight of new words, hypes and music somewhere inbetween kids, a job, paying off mortages and credit cards and trying to keep some money left to take previously mentioned kids on a holiday during the summer. Said kids prove their thanks by mocking their parents. A popular teenage phrase that has reached the adult front goes pretty much like this: 'Life Sucks, and Then You Die'. Some countries have the phrase that children speak the truest, speak the utter truth, completely ignoring the fact that children learn how to lie almost right after they learn how to form a cohorent sentence and learn that not everyone knows everything. Though, with this one, the kids got it right, or so it would seem.
Parents do notice that their puberty-stricken children disagree with their peers. Differences in interest, hobbies, style and behavior baffle the heebie-jeebies out of everyone old enough to have fathered (or birthed) a thirtheen year old. For example, someone is in love with true, pure contact juggling, someone else takes on something that's closely akin to it, like poi or diabolo or devilsticks or even just staff or double staff. When children express their desire to light up their toys after dousing them in kerosene, the difference between circus tricks becomes more apparent than before. Rugby and soccer, tennis and golf, ice skating and nordic blading, all could do for examples. The concept is roughly the same, but small differences make them either more or less dangerous and thus appealing to both children and parents. Parents of children who are asking for fire-diabolos for Christmas wonder why they didn't get the nice girl next door, who merely wants a set of balls made out of acrylic, or perhaps pvc with LEDs in it.
Children love to astound their parents with their complexity. Psychologists call this 'developing an own personality'. Saan would refer to it as 'that bit of closet sadism that we all cherish and nurture deep inside us'. Basically, a teenager believes that the world runs like they think it does because they know the square root of twenty-five and that their parents, who know how to handle income tax, are ignorant barbarians. They believe this because they are starting to develop a need for an own life (which is legally possible, but hard and would severely limit their chances further in life) and their parents 'won't let them'. The fact that most of these kids don't have a driver's license that is applicable to a motorised vehincle on four or more wheels (A.K.A an automobile) seems a minor detail. The fact that these kids have been living their enitre life on the money that their parents have earned and saved and invested also seems to be unimportant.
But, parents who are reading this, if it's any consolation: as soon as your kid hits eighteen and it's that time of the year where Mr. Government demands payment for its own crimes, you'll have your own chance to be horribly and incohorently complex and confusing towards your children, and receive some graditude for it.
There's an electric grill standing there, I better go do some homework.
Saan is tired. Partly because today was a school day and Saan doesn't like school days because they require more energy than they're worth, partly because Saan's done a lot of homework she shouldn't have done and partly because Saan spent half an hour playing with her rainbow colored poi (there was a picture of Saan finally getting the butterfly2 on Doddles' cell phone but she erased it before Saan could ask her to mail to Saan) trying to get the butterfly1 (-><-) to work after the butterfly2 (<-->) worked). She didn't start sooner because her dad was cleaning up the grill and she needed help dragging the table to the side. One of the downsides of outside eating is that you have to clean up before you can do anything else. Then she remembered she'd screw up on her translation for Latin if she let it lie until tomorrow night. By the time Saan had finished that, the temperatures had dropped and Saan's mom had nicked Saan's thumb hole jacket. When Saan found out about it, it was too dark to go spin her poi. ('Dear St. Nicholas. This year, I'd like the nifty rainbow LED sock poi I saw on HOP, please. Yes, I've been a good girl. No, I do not need sleep.') So now Saan is tired and feeling very abused after having a chunk of ingrown toenail yanked out and being hit by her poi. Strangely enough, poi seems to be a kind of self-abuse that relieves stress and brings you into a very zen-like state. Really. You spend thirty to ninety minutes fighting a set of balls that try to yank your arms from the socket once they go to fast and getting hit in about every part of your body. Mainly those that hurt most. Saan nearly broke her glasses and nearly hit her kneecap wrongly today. But you come out of it feeling refreshed and relaxed. Bruised and sweaty, but relaxed. If you spend another ten minutes staring at the 3 fish in the thirty litre tank, you're practically brain dead. Go on, try it!
This is the Chibi Trick or Treating Fribbin-Dude that Saan drew a few months back. Around last Halloween. Anyone noticed Saan's posts get less and less inspired as the week progresses?
Anyway, Saan'll probably make a new Halloween Chibi around Halloween. Maybe there'll be another doodle like this in here next week. Maybe Saan'll come up with another lame excuse. Maybe it'll rain popsicles tomorrow. Just keep an eye out for it.
Saan's room has very little wall decoration. The main reason is that she's not allowed. Another is that she doesn't want to spend another two weeks chipping off wall paper, only to sleep in the fumes of green paint for another few weeks after. So, Saan's room's undecorated when it comes to walls. Saan's attempts at personalisation are mainly placed in book cases, on the shelves and books, on her nightstand and on her desk. Small jars and cups and miniature buckets, old candles, self-sewn miniature pillow, small toys, keychains, snow globes and long toothpicks with sparkles on the ends. Things she can't put down, she hangs up. Mainly on her desk lamp. A pink dream catcher with a golden ribbon swirled around, a plush Tigger her brother found in a McDonalds, a keychain with a fake jewel heart on it.
She copied these techniques from her mom, sort of. Saan's mom only uses room-oriented stuff. The wall in the hallway has an overwoven frame hanging on it, in which Saan's mother puts christmas lights, flowers, dried or not, easter eggs, balls, etc. Ceramic pots in strange holders (or being a strange holder), dried flowers, white candles, strange plants and, at the moment, a small jack-o-latern candle jar in the living room, and an oil-and-vinegar-holder that never gets used, a chrome soap dispenser that spews black oil into your hand together with the soap, a blue-cow-print kleenex box in the kitchen. The kitchen's newest addition is an empty fish... bulb. It's large, spherical and the only thing missing is some kind of miniature something at the bottom and, perhaps, fish. Those should be arriving tomorrow. After the filter's been spewing bubbles for an entire night and both added products will have dissolved properly into the water.
Today's post is short because Saan's been hit repeatedly in the head, shin, knee and arms by her poi.
After five days (Should've been seven, but Saan's is not complaining) Saan's package arrived home. With a small purple bag, filled to the brim with poi-y goodness that makes strange purring noises when you spin it with the tails attatched and that still smells like new(*SNIIIIIFFFF*). Saan is in love with the two rainbow colored snakes on string. Her sister is in love with her five-minute-made nylon sock poi. For those that want to try it themselves: find your two softest, thickest socks, stuff them into nylon tigh-highs (or, for the smaller people; knee-highs) and tie a knot at the end. You can smack people on the butt without feeling a thing. Saan's poi are more colorful, noisier, bigger and have nifty nylon double loop handles, but they hurt more. That, and Saan's aim is impressive: she practically only hits herself in the head, when she's not standing on the tails. The DVD got watched up to 'intermediate level' and then both Saan and Eve were off to spin. After about an hour of trying, she had worked the backwards and forwards spin into her fingers, both at the same time and irrelgular spin, the stretched-arm irregular spin and the large butterfly. And a lot of safe shapes that have little to do with actual, named poi moves. The small butterfly tends to cause either tangled tails or bangs to the head. Saan still likes the sound too much to spin without the tails. The fact that the bugs (and cats) flee from the noise is another sadistic but convincing factor to keep the tails on. And they make pretty round shapes in the air. And Saan loves them. And she doesn't have to, so there!
(Two people that are not me are on this blog at the moment. o.O;;;; People read this stuff. Creepy.)
Puppies. Okay, everyone but Yif likes them. They're cute, fuzzy and have the sweetest faces. Yif likes cats. Elly prefers cats, or so Saan thinks. Saan likes dogs. How they ended up best friends is still a mystery after nine full years. But, as was written before, Saan likes dogs. Has since she got taller than most medium-sized dogs. Wanted a puppy since then. By now, she realises she can't have one due to severe lack of time and attention to give to the little furball. But that does not stop her from asking for one or wanting one. She asks, she gets told no. It's how things have always been, always will be. She freaks people out by being able to name the less known species of dog, such as the weimaraner or being able to say 'nova scotia duck tolling retriever' three times fast. She's able to explain what duck tolling is. She can tell you that the NSDT retriever is the smallest of all retrievers, meant for hunting in and around water. For ducks, even. She can tell you Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are parts of (eastern?) Canada, near the ocean or at least big lakes.
She's had goldfish. They died. Her sister had guppies and neon-fish. Her sister had rabbits. All of the previously mentioned pets died. Her sister has two wild cats who got sterlised too early and are half the size they should be. One of them terrorises the neighborhood's feline population, not to mention the neighbours. 'Tiger' she's called, for her stripes. At first, anyway. Now she has acquired the nickname 'A Venomous Ball of Nails'. Most people don't know the poor thing's scared of loud noises or quick movement. The other cat is an affectionate, sweet-faced ball of luvins. Saan's new neighbours have little children. They call her 'here, kitty, kitty'. Saan should probably mention pieces of leftover chicken or ham work best for luring her in, if the objective is petting. Sadly enough, Tiger's grey sister has the unsightly habit of acquiring ticks as soon as the season hits. And watching people eat. Watching barbecues. She has developed her sense of smell to the point that she knows even upwind that Saan's sister Eve is having unmarinated, greasy chicken fingers that night. The cat also knows that Eve has the tendency to overestimate her stomach capacity. The cat has developed a sense of time. After ten pm, you can't open a door without risking the near-trademarked 'Piteous Mew' that is Mary's demand for feeding. Kitten training has learned Tiger that cutting up the vet earns her instant freedom as soon as we're back home and that coming inside means getting yelled at and chased until she's half-mad with confusion. The same training learned Mary that the vet means she'll be stuck dominating the basement with a litter box and less food (since she hasn't got Tiger's share to steal from) and no mice or birds to kill for two days and that, being the outside cat she is, coming inside further than one meter will earn her a 'Noooooooo' in the same fashion she gets before trying to pounce on the raw barbecue meat. Nearly slamming face-first into the black metal contraption learned her this word means 'danger, do not proceed, food does not outweigh the danger'. However, she does know that sitting at the terrace window, looking piteous, means warm cuddles while Saan sits in the doorway freezing her butt off after a relatively long wait. Eve mainly ignores her cats, really. And Saan wants a puppy.
Saan knows about puppy mills and lisenced breeders and good references and how a (Belgian) St. Hubertus pedigree is a must, even if it costs about 50 euros more and you're not planning on breeding or showing the dog or doing anything else but having a pet. She knows about bloodlines, and species-specific diseases and handicaps such as deafness, hip and knee problems, epilepsia with death as a consequence. She knows dogs can track drugs, explosives, fake money, some believe even cancer. That dogs can help the blind, deaf, handicapped, epileptic patients, victims of a natural disaster such as avalanches or victims hidden beneath the rubble. She knows there are dogs that are too unique for words, that greyhounds can run at its highest speed for one minute before becoming overheated, that English bulldogs don't just look like lazy, fat hunks of meat, but that they actually are what they appear, albeit with some serious muscle to defend its reputation with, if excercised properly. She knows that hunting dogs are very different, though most need a lot of moving to keep happy, knows that there's a difference between hunting on sight or on scent. She knows she can't have a dog to leave in a kennel day and night, alone for at least seven hours most days. She knows a dog needs the responsibility and long-term attention she has never proven herself to have. She knows she won't have a dog for at least another five years, if ever. She knows her choices of beagle, english and american cocker spaniel, English springer spaniel, cavalier king Charles spaniel, sheltie, mini-aussie, labrador, NSDT retriever and Newfoundland dog are probably the worst ones out there for her. And she knows she loves dogs, and that things like yorkshire terrier puppies were made for melting one's heart.
The reason the previous post hasn't a topic name or any text is because it all belongs in this post! Today, Saan got wrestled down by her classmates and photographed. These pictures are the result. The JPEG-specks aren't Saan's fault. It's JPEG's and msn-spaces' fault. Saan's the one getting near gangbanged in the middle.
Saan does not like sports, same like the majority of kids in most western countries, or so the media would project it. For Saan, this is logical.
When you're below six, you don't have all that much options for sports: dancing, soccer, tennis, martial arts and the odd initiation in things like rola bola, juggling, diabolo or ball-walking. That's about it. Not all girls like dancing, but soccer is 'for boys'. Not all boys like soccer, but you get laughed at for dancing. Tennis is a stiff-backed sport without laughter or literally running into your friends. Circus initiations take place during the holidays and mothers do not appreciate their children throwing things. Martial arts are cool up until the point where your mom takes you off for A) getting a bruise B) your overly violent behavior lately. Which leaves you stranded in a playground, with buttocks-burning hot slides, swings and similar contraptions that require very little of you, since mom, dad or older sibling will push for you. Things to hang on and climb are either too low or too high. The whole world is just screaming at you to just 'sit still, be quiet and behave'. Preschool PE usually is, basically, running around like mad or picking on the class' underdog. Swimming lessons get repeated over and over and over until you get it or give up on ever getting it. Then you never want to swim another length again. You want to take the nearest inflatable animal and hit someone over the head. Preferably someone smaller than you, which are in short supply when you're two feet tall. Last but not least: sport and movement are 'healthy'. Just the same way that, say vegetables or vaccines are. Or that TV, chips, candy, soda pop and unmade beds aren't. Motivation is everything, and this is where our society fails firstly.
Then you're six and come into the age of more sports. Oh, and the option to join the scouts. However, this is also the age of your first veritable PE lesson. Either your teacher acts like though you have the IQ of a gnat or you have a military butch female something with a bad back (so she can't show anything to the class) and dyed blond hair. Either way, you are convinced that sport is synonymous to slave labor or is in fact something for the intelectually lacking. All sports from the flyers you get everywhere are either, suddenly: A) for kids younger than you, B) for kids older than you, C) full, D) too hard, E) unknown, F) stupid. Options E and D do not deter your average six-year old. No, it deters the mothers. "Honey, that's much to hard for you." "Sweetie, how do you want to do it if you don't know what it is?" Or, for the emancipated males, there are the familiar lines of: "You can't." (why not?) "Because I said so!" "You can start when you can tell me what it says on that paper." "Whatever you're about to ask, the answer's 'no'." "You'll quit after two lessons, so you're not going." That, and your school organises swimming classes during PE. Everyone hates those. Government makes them obligatory, kids hate them, take them, finish them, never swim again until they have kids themselves. Scouts is fun, up until the point where your sleepingbag is filled with bugs during camp, your tent collapses, you fall face-first into mud, you get made fun, you discover your leader is Mr./Miss Jerk-Of-The-Year. Woohoo! Sport is fun!
Next: Junior High through High School: A yearly day of sports. At first, you get choices. Then, you don't. If you get choices, it's like 'Pick The LEsser Evil' for advanced students. If you don't, your day sucks, and someone you hate gets off with a note among the lines of 'My son can't participate in this event due to asthma' 'My daughter has an infection of the cartilage around the knee joint and shan't be taking part in any of the PE-like events for the next fifty lessons' or they show up with their arm or leg in a brace, plaster or bandage. Either way, someone gets off, and it's not you. Your PE teachers mostly are okay, but six years of the exact same program get boring. Two-mile run/Coopertest-Badminton-Basketball-Gymnastics-Athletics-Baseball-Tennis/choice of activities previously seen in the school year. Occasionally, they like to dangle the hope for improvement before your eyes by relaxation and yoga excercises or fun and games with sponges, balloons and water. Those hopes get crushed the next lesson. Some teachers like to import gymnastics for astronauts, meant for zero gravity. Nine point eighty-one gravity makes them unbearable. Others put in old PE lessons, à la five decades back. You don't feel anything, until the next morning, when every unknown muscle screams out its protest through your nerve-endings. Also, all physically and minorly impaired teachers get put on PE and graduate as PE teachers, somehow. They have bad ankles, backs, knees, necks or stress fractures, you name it they have it and can't show any excercise properly. Their students have to get by on words. Sports are good for you! Move!
Dress code is another interesting topic. Children who wear glasses have to remove them oftenly for PE. When your eyesight is a Belgian -4, expecting top performance is the same as expecting a mouse to tap dance out of own volition. Apparently, teachers/insurance companies do not understand this. You have to put your glasses off in case of being hit in the face by a ball, but you don't see the ball coming at your face. A vicious circle at its best.You have PE uniforms. White T-shirt and black pants, usually in Belgium. Long pants, short pants, it doesn't matter. Preferably scratchy spandex, right up until above the ankle, where the sweat glues everything to your skin. Often, your T-shirt has to have a school's logo on it. Or the school provides. Murphy's law has dictated that these, apparently, must be a one-size-fits-all-but-YOU model, divided in suffocate-the-student-small, doesn't-fit-anyone-nyah-nyah-medium or I-am-a-lovely-white-sack-of-potatoes-large. Shoewear, let's talk about that. You either have ballet-slipper-like contraptions or UNK! running shoes. Why? Because your others are too expensive to waste on PE. What's left are muddy/overly large/uncomfortable/cheap/embarrasing/second-hand/painful (please strike out what does not fit, though usually all apply) runners. You cannot wear any jewelry. Fine, Saan sees the point in that one. You cannot wear a watch, either. Not even one specifically designed for sports. ...Uh? Another fun bit is that all jewelry, watches and glasses are collected at the start of class. After, you can go and untangle your possessions from the pile.
Sport is healthy, sure. Sport is good for you, probably. But when the government plots against the youthful citizens of its own country in this fashion, it's hard to sympathise when it's surprised about the fact that kids hate sports. ... Yes, Saan has her first PE lesson of the year tomorrow. That's the reason for this rant on sport (took one hour to type) that doesn't fit with the post nordic walking a few days ago. Oh, well, changing your mind every other minute is part of teenagehood.
Saan is baffled about international mailing services for web sites. See, if you live in New Zealand, you can apparenlty send a pound's worth of mail, containing semi-fragiles (which are not even vaguely box-shaped) to a city, which will arrive within seven to nine working days, for less than 5 euros, which will be shipped and underway within 24 hours.
If you do the same in Britain for half the weight, a book-shaped package, for the same price, you apparently have to wait two months before the web site can even start considering sending it, and even then it's unlikely. Strangely enough, the first five or so ordered books will arive on time and within five working days after becoming available, if you don't mind that they get sent to you in pairs or ones. So, yeah, Saan's a bit miffy that her book hasn't been shipped yet, but her poi have. What's got her even more irritated is that she knows the book is available, published and ordered, but that the book store is too lazy to just order and send it.
So miffed in fact (Okay, so the real reason is that she spent the last twenty minutes she should've spent typing watching an amazing preview of someone spinning firepoi. Yes, Saan gets distracted by bright lights sparkling on the screen, even though she's too scared to ever try things like that herself), that she didn't make this post any longer.
At last (on request of the class Y-chromosone), Saan and the rainbow poi. Photographer: sis. Instructor: same sis. Hence the funky eyes and the funky expression. Sadly enough, no real move being done. Saan needs more practice.
This is the Chibi Trick or Treating Fribbin-Dude that Saan drew a few months back. Around last Halloween. Anyone noticed Saan's posts get less and less inspired as the week progresses?
The reason the previous post hasn't a topic name or any text is because it all belongs in this post! Today, Saan got wrestled down by her classmates and photographed. These pictures are the result. The JPEG-specks aren't Saan's fault. It's JPEG's and msn-spaces' fault. Saan's the one getting near gangbanged in the middle.
