Overeducated & Unemployable

From long_roadtoruin:

Buffy -- This television show is very much entwined with my on line presence. Hadn't I started looking for info on it, I had never encountered the many friends that populate my friends list. I still watch the occasional rerun and follow most of what Joss Whedon does, but not as religiously as when still involved in the community.

Photography -- I like taking pictures, but I'm not a photographer. The pictures on my LJ are there for the same reason I type numerous words: I like to share. That was also the reason I finally bought a digital camera. It costs me lots of money to get my films developed and scanned onto a disk, for me to only use them on line. So I invested, and am very happy with the result.

Ethics -- I studied ethical philosophy at uni, and because of lack of work or ambition or courage I ended up teaching that subject, first in secondary school and then in primary school. I've never envisioned myself a teacher. More so, I've always proclaimed I'd never ever be one. But here I am, so many years later, teaching the little kiddos what's wrong and right and urging them to think for themselves.

Hips -- This word baffles me, for I do not have hips. Even after giving birth, I have the line of a wooden plank: no hips, no butt, no breasts. I can still wear those low-cut tight jeans, though.

Singing -- If there is something that might make me doubt my atheist beliefs, it's my singing. So many beautiful music is composed and sung. Being able to reach the high notes, feels like reaching god in heaven. If you don't believe it, listen.

Anyone replying "Words!" to this meme, will receive five words that make me think of you.

Questions appear courtesy of sister_luck:

1. How are you spending/celebrating Christmas?
Christmas isn't such a big celebration over here. There is no Father Christmas or Santa Claus for the children, and on my side of the family there are no presents whatsoever. When we were younger we'd go to mass and have a little lunch on Christmas day and that was that, with the big celebrations reserved for New Year's day. Nowadays we celebrate Christmas day with P.'s family. One year they'll visit us, and the next year we'll go over to their place. This year it'll be our turn to do the cooking. There will be presents, because they've got another tradition than my family has.

2. How is LB?
Little Bit will turn one next week. How the time flies! She's 74cm long and weighs a bit less than 10kg, I believe. She's a happy little kid, eats everything (literally, she eats newspapers, my hair... everything that fits into her mouth) and loves playing. I'm touching wood, but so far she's never been more seriously ill than a common cold. She crawls, stands up when holding on to something, and can walk around the house with her walker thingy. She laughs her ass off when she's tickled and with her Papa she form the cutest duo you've ever seen.

3. Who did you look up to when you were growing up?
Jan Decleir

4. What did you think about Dollhouse?
Fun entertainment. We still have some episodes to go before we've seen the first season. So far I'm intrigued. (And I will make a longer post about it!)

5. If you had the power, what would you change about school?
Small groups, new desks, computers that work in every classroom, and most of all I would wipe out the negative spiral a lot of my colleagues have stumbled into (which also deserves it's own entry).

frenchani gave me five words. It is my task to think up stories behind them.

Blogging: I've been writing the living web since 2004, later declared the year of the blog because of the exponential growth of the medium that year. I was immediately sucked into it: My writing, always there but only for myself, suddenly found an audience. And the audience started communicating back, living my life together with me. That's what blogging is: letting others live your life together with you. But instead of those others being friends and acquaintances you see, you make friends and acquaintances you might never see, but who are as deeply missed when they disappear from the virtual realms.
Viewed like this blogging demands interaction. I've got a nice reading list of blogs I follow, not every one of them as religiously. Like in ordinary life I like some friends better than others.
Unfortunately with the birth of Little Bit the whole writing thing has been driven to the background. I still read a lot, but not always find the time for writing. My paper journal has been empty as well. Consider this post as me trying to change my life and kick myself back in gear.

City: I live in Brussels, which is one of the biggest cities of the country. Of course it isn't Paris or London, but it has got its own immigrants, crime, and poverty because people with money have fled towards the country. Flanders doesn't really have a countryside. Everything looks like the suburb of one city or another, because it's so densely populated. Maybe that's also a reason for me to live in the city: all the rest is so damn ugly and filled with narrow-minded people. I even want to raise my child(ren) here, even though I sometimes see pollution drifting above the houses. Luckily my parents still live in Hometown: a Flemish countryside suburb.
Sometimes I wish Brussels was more like cities in other countries, where you can effectively drive out of the city into the countryside. If you try that here you end up in the Ardennes. Maybe I should move abroad. To France or something.

France: Is the #1 country to travel to for Belgians. Nice place, and if I'm very prejudiced I'd say those French are too chauvinistic for my taste. President Sarkozy is a total twat, etc. etc.
But right now France is in the first place the country where two of my best friends live: frenchani just a couple of hours away in Paris, and A. who moved there in September of last year (and who I dearly miss). So underneath all the stereotypes, France gives me some great friendships.

Television: That must be the reason why I dared poking around on the internet. I didn't have a television with cable, but still wanted to know what was going on in my favourite television shows. Right now it's my number one passtime. While nursing Little Bit I sometimes try to read a book one-handed, but usually I end up in a crampy position, or the book closes and I've lost my page, or Little Bit ends up with a book on her head. Television is great in that respect: the remote lets you change channels without getting up, you can sit quite snugly on the couch, and can keep lounging there when the baby's well fed. Not so fun are diaper changes in the middle of your favourite program.

Gadget: Since I'm talking about breast-feeding. The funnest thing to do to pass nursing time, is reading blogs. I have the coolest gadget to do so: an iPod touch. I got it from P. and love it. I am a gadget lover, but hardly ever buy them because I never really need those things, do I? But once you have them, it's great.
I do need some fun applications on my iPod. Anyone have any suggestions?

Since it's the Summer holidays and everyone is doing these "All the Films I Watched of This List" or "All the Books I Read of This Other List" type of memes, maybe it's fun for you all to start the meme that makes all the other memes irrelevant, because it'll feature the ultimate reading list: The List of Every Book Art Garfunkel Has Read Since the Sixties (short: The Art Garfunkel Library). Typ them all in one LJ-entry, bold the ones you read, underline the ones you loved, strike through the ones you disliked. You can add extra layers for your own benefit: italicise the ones you started, but never finished, put the ones you wish to read between brackets. The goal of all this is, of course, finding the person who has read all these books. Which would be art_garfunkel.

Of course you can start with Mr. Garfunkel's Favorites. Most LJers can handle a list of 135 books, can't they? I think frenchani will love finding out what made the number one spot.

Via Boing Boing

You are the moment when the last bell rings and school lets out for the day. You are resistant to schedules and obligations, so you love feeling like you're in control of your life again. You are the very moment when the second hand hits the 12, and the halls fill with noise and motion. Even if your after-school time is packed with activities, lessons, or a job, somehow, you just feel freer in the late afternoon than you do earlier in the day. Maybe it's all that blue sky and afternoon sunshine? Nah -- even on rainy days, 3:15 is always a beautiful time.

(It's a pity that the bell rings at 3:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays for me.)

Stolen from kashmanik, thus speaks my great heart:

The Pay It Forward Meme: I will send a handmade gift* to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet, but you will receive it within 365 days. The only thing you have to do in return is "pay it forward" by making a similar agreement on your blog.

*The "gift" you receive won't be necessarily handmade. It can be fic, icons, whatever, but will be made by "moi".

I guess I'll only ever make it to "tv-movie of the week". Truly, I'm too good for this world.

Via Profgrrrrl.

Behind the cut you can find some pictures of the mundane life here in my apartment in Brussels. I didn't have much requests for pictures, so there isn't much to look at, but you can still ask if you want to see more.

( pictures )

1) Tell you why I friended you
2) Associate you with a song/movie
3) Tell a random fact about you
4) Tell a first memory about you
5) Associate you with an animal/fruit
6) Ask something I've always wanted to know about you
7) In retort, you MUST spread this disease in your LJ (unless your journal has been infected already, because boy, this thing is spreading like the Spanish flue, albeit less deadly)