Today as i headed to the train station i was reminded of something very interesting (don't know if that's the right word) about this place. Here being sane cost more than wanting to be insane. My friend and I met up at this place to catch up of some stuff (or rather an excuse to meet). Well, being the Dutch that he is, he ordered beer and i for no good reason (or a very good) ordered a hot cup of water.
I don't know what i thought but coming from a place where water is abundantly flowing everywhere, I didn’t think it would cost four euros. Not that it matter cause I like this place anyway. And tomorrow I head to Delft to meet with a friend working with the ADB. She plans to drag me along with her to the places she’ll go.
Walking the street today I realized I was wrong about one thing. There are more people now than there was before the holidays. And even if friends you care about are with families in Switzerland, skiing in winter show, heading to Cameron or da da… you just make the best of what’s ‘now’, call up friends who’re still here, eat tomato soup, buy some stuff, go home and make the worst noodles, watch a political documentary that only ends up depressing you, and ultimately have a good time with them.

Today i was invited by a Nigerian friend for dinner. She turns 50 today. It was good to get out of my solitude and the prospect of eating something other than my own cooking seemed great. But turns out all the food in the table were non-veg (apparently they eat only meat). So here i am, back home, rather hungry, eating noodles again. Even my ears hurt from all the loud conversations the men were having about how a typical African guy controls his woman and how her place is in the kitchen, which of course I do not agree at all. But I don’t think I said anything because my voice was drowned in those really loud conversations. Sometimes the more I know about the rest of the world, the more I am glad to be from where I am from.

There are points in your life when you realize that the people you give so much thought, attention and concern is not worth your time and energy. I've felt this about so many people I’ve met and called friends but at some point of your life you just comprehend with the fact that they are not your friends or anything for that matter. It’s not even the question of being used but i think i am smart enough to understand and read people's thoughts on their face and gesture. I think I’ve never felt bad when that sort of thing happened to me, probably because the person never meant much to me in the first place. I don't know if saying such a thing should deem me bad but i think there shouldn't be anything in life that should make you feel bad for long time. 'Move on', that's my motto in life. To think about it, i think the thought of getting to really know a person is kindda uncomfortable and scary. There is no such thing as beauty (in sense of everything that's good in life) that 'skin deep' that i know of except for one person whom i ended up marrying.

My brother introduced me to Spitz, a Japanese band formed in the late 1980s. They are very pleasant to listen to and some of their songs makes you wanna learn Japanese. Though i don't know or understand the language, i know two of their songs very well. I came across this video today and it makes me feel happy in midst of doing nothing. The song is titled 'Hadaka no mamade' which basically means 'naked as we are'

Today I said goodbye to my flat mates and wish them a wonderful holiday ahead. They leave for holiday and so here I am home alone. Not that I didn’t have plans to go somewhere but somehow I cannot due to some technical stuff which I rather not talk about. It would be nice to take the risk and just go somewhere but then again I don’t want to be thrown in some European penitentiary. It’s a long holiday ahead of me and by the end of it I plan to have some major work done on my masters’ thesis. For now I feel pretty happy to have to whole house for myself and I want to see how I handle two week of solitude. I think if a person can handle being alone, he can pretty much handle anything. Not that this is a new experience for me. I think sometimes I just get too sick of being surrounded by people that I rather enjoy being alone. You feel like you have so much time in hand. But then again what is beautiful about this life is human interaction. It is the cause for happiness, love, pain, suffering, jealousy, compassion and every other thing, unless one wants to refrain from feeling all these emotions.
This is a really small town and each day you see people draining out to some other places. I guess during the holidays, the whole town will be empty.

‘Be mindful’ that’s what Buddha said. If only I had been mindful I would not have lost my purse for the second time. I have my passport, my student card and everything there. It would have been a big headache if I did not get it back. The first time it was my phone and the bank card. It was a reckless night of total mindlessness. Today obviously something else has been bugging my mind so I didn’t even think of putting my purse back after paying for the lunch. Lucky for me I get it back for the second time.
I imagined the worse things when I was heading to the art cafeteria to see if they had it. Someone was nice enough to drop it at the secretariat. Here is my big heartfelt thanks to the person who left if there (OOO). People like you make this world worthwhile and as for me, this is the last time i lose any of my belonging (seriously!).

I can’t believe how difficult it is to get hold of Brandon’s book. I basically went to all (well probably not all but quite a lot) bookstores in Maastricht to order for the two book, ‘white fluffy clouds’ and his latest ‘from the murks of the sultry abyss’. Actually to think about it, I couldn’t really understand three words from the title of the second book. Getting hold of the two books would probably make me more happy than taking a trip to Paris and seeing the eiffel tower.

Well there is this old saying ‘don’t repeat the same mistake twice’ or something like that, I can’t exactly remember. For now, I can’t really understand what’s making a mistake anyway. And how do you know for sure if something you’ve done, despite the fact that it makes you happy should be labeled as a ‘mistake’. Someone once told me that the smartest person is the least happy and the happiest ones are not necessarily the smartest. To really think about it, I think it’s true. When you are smart, you always have your head telling you gazillion things like do this and be like that. To think about it, I think the reason why people drink so much is so that they can be stupid and do things that actually make them happy. Not that I recommend anyone to get drunk and be stupid. I think the things that you do when you are saner are the once that makes you the happiest in long run. But what is being happy anyways?

This was probably the longest weekend since i came here. I walked to the 2nd highest point without the slightest effort. It was a beautiful day though.