Distracted

Having strong doubts about what I'm going to about in my near future. Not really sure studying philosophy is the thing for me right now, and with finals around the corner it's starting to become time to decide what to do.

Have a gig with the band tonight, it's a battle of the bands and I'm really looking forward to it. Our last rehearsal went pretty well but I almost lost my voice from how long it took. Let's hope my voice holds up tonight.

Back from my trip to Cairo, got kinda [bleep]ed on the way back by a delay on my first plane making me have to run all the way to my transit, and my bag is still stuck in Frankfurt but whatever. Had a blast though, was a really crazy week. First of all, I've discovered pretty much everyone there who has the money for it smokes hash. I'm not even talking about only the alternative types or something, I've smoked with an accountant (literally nicknamed Drunk), a doctor who lives in Saudi now, and even a law professor at the most prestigious university of Cairo (the American University of Cairo). That basically colored the whole week. Heard some crazy stories all around, like one of the craziest emergency room tales you could pretty much imagine, or how one guy who's been smoking his joints the same exact way for about 15 years learned how to roll like he did. Basically, the guy who taught him how to roll like he does now played a game with him when he started rolling. They would sit in his room, on the bed in front of the tv, and every time they rolled up, they had to throw (well, he described it as smashing) their joint into the opposite wall. If it broke, you owed the other guy 5 pounds (for comparison, you'll pay 10 for a lighter, 20-30 for a drink), and of course the joint would be broken. That's how he learned to roll joints that were built to last, he said. My sister received me very well, and she seemed really happy living there. She's of course the one that introduced me to all the cool people I met, which made for a very eventful week. We also left the city to go to a festival in Sinai at one point, sadly the weather was pretty crappy so we left before we actually even saw anyone perform. Kinda bummed we didn't stay there longer. It was on a beach, with a small campsite a bit inland in a stretch of desert. Pretty idyllic stuff to be honest, but the people I went with really didn't want to deal with the weather and we ended up leaving the same day we came. Last night we went to a club to kinda have a party on my last evening. We went there, and one of the guys we were with immediately ordered a bottle of Johnnie Walker's Double Black Label. Great [bleep]ing whisky, tasted so nice even on its own, and mixed with coke it was still very enjoyable. Got smashed, saw a belly dancer, had some laughs, then woke up this morning with a big hangover and had to get on my way to leave. All in all, really great trip. Free Coachella ticket, by the way? Damn, sounds awesome. Enjoy it. And on the topic of Star Wars, I'm one of those people who's never seen it (yeah, I know right) and my friends and I were planning to hold a marathon some time soon, like we did with LOTR a few weeks back (also my first time). We're planning on watching 4 5 6 first and then the prequels, to see it in the order it was made pretty much. I'm pretty curious how the movies are, like I always hear how bad the prequels are and all, but the series is still really loved, and had a huge impact on people.

Leaving for Egypt tonight. Gonna go visit my sister who's been living in Cairo for almost 2 years now. Actually really looking forward to it, finally gonna see my home country without my boring family boring it all up.

congrats, you bribed them I could be mistaken but I think that's how they try to deal with foreign speeding tickets in Europe. I hear a lot about people from here getting caught by speed cameras in France and then never paying them because of faulty European police communications or whatever that makes it hard to actually get the money from tickets. So if they catch you on the act they'll try to ask for it in cash to make sure you actually pay. But I could be completely wrong, making most of Frances police corrupt money grabbing bastards. In other news, I discovered there's such a thing as a moon rainbow last night. We were out for a smoke during a band rehearsal, and there was rain in the distance a full moon. The combination actually brought about a whitish rainbow in the nightsky, which if you looked really closely (or could've been my imagination) vaguely has the colours of a rainbow. Later when the moon got covered by clouds the rainbow was gone. It was actually really beautiful in a way.

Had a LotR marathon yesterday, with all the extended versions as well. It was the first time I'd actually seen the movies (sue me), and I really enjoyed it. Think we started round noon and finished around midnight.

It costs that much to get a locksmith to let you into your house? Wow, I always underestimated that by far considering it costs nearly nothing to get new keys made. In other news, I found myself on Streetview. I'm the guy in the blue t-shirt in front of the crappy red shop. I just happened to remember to look myself up after someone else found someone they knew on Streetview. I remembered where it was because I was really hungover that day, and had to make a long walk to get my bike back in the morning when I saw the car. It was 2 summers ago now haha. Otherwise not much to update here. Had a good rehearsal with the band last Friday where we started practicing 2 new original songs.

You make an interesting point, for some reason we all forgot Norway actually has mountains and stuff. We were thinking of taking a bus on the way though and not walking the whole thing, but to be honest the more I think about it the harder it seems to actually pull off. Are there even buses that ride around in that area?

As a person who has lived in Norway for 10 summers and will be there next summer aswell (come visit me!), I think I am pretty qualified to answer that question, but first I'll have quite a bit of questions about your trek myself. First off, how long time do you have? Secondly, how much land do plan to cover in a day? Thirdly, do you have really-REALLY good equipment capable of handling everything? (I got stuck in a blizzard on 1st of August a few years ago) Fourth, which route are you taking? Fifth, how much money do you have? Food is bloody expensive there. Sixth, where the bloody [bleep] did you get the idea that walking 500 kilometres over mountains is a good idea?!?!? We'd have about 2 weeks, 15 days give or take. We were planning on walking around 6-8 hours a day, so you could say at least 30 km a day I think. We still have to look into the equipment we'll be taking, same goes for the exact route. I remember there was a national park a bit south of Trondheim that we wanted to go through, but we haven't really gone so far as to really pinpoint the exact places we'll go. And for the last question: I don't know, I guess we're a bit crazy. We've never really been the kind of tourists that like to just go to a place and have an all-in tour of it, guess this is just an extreme extension of that. We've been wondering about the weather though. We're planning on going in September, you say you've been stuck in a blizzard in August. Does that mean the weather there can really easily just decide to [bleep] you up for no reason? I had the impression the climate there was a bit similar to part of Canada, where it's pretty warm in summer and freezing in the winter.

A late happy birthday to Saq. Seems like the drunk posts are gonna have to wait another week. Also, Tim, sounds like a nice car, what year is it from? In other news, friends and I are planning a trek through Norway near the end of the summer. Planning on arriving at Oslo by plane, then walking north to Trondheim, which is about 500 km away, before flying back from there. Meanwhile we're just gonna be camping outdoors for most of the time. I'm pretty excited personally. Anyone have any experience with stuff like this, willing to give some tips or something?

Good luck with quitting, Noxxx. Last night we smoked and played Guitar Hero here. At the end of the evening 2 of my friends and I played a round of Curve Fever that ended up taking forever. Usually once you get 20 points it's over, but you need a 2 point difference to win. The final score ended up being 75-73-71. In other news, my band didn't get selected for a battle of the bands we signed up for a few weeks back. Apparently we came in 7th out of the 14 applications, while the top 5 get to actually compete. On the one hand, I'm pretty disappointed we ended up so close to that 5, but on the other hand I'm quite happy with our position considering the recordings we sent in are almost a year old now and the quality isn't that good at all.

I don't know why everyone hated The Interview so much, I thought it was pretty entertaining.

Happy birthday to the birthday boys. Hope you had a good time, but it looks like at least you did Rpg. Not much news to report on my front. Band's gonna do one final cover before we start transitioning into practising our own songs for a bit. It's Little Sister by QOTSA and it's a challenge, but it'll be awesome if we could nail it. There's also a bunch of new original songs in the making, so it's looking good for now. Signed up for a battle of the bands in Ghent, where we study - still waiting on whether we made it in or not.

Sounds like my father if you replace the Russian with Arabic. He doesn't even need a phone to talk to someone on another continent.

Meh, shaving's for [kitties]. I enjoy the feeling of having hair on my chin, just as long as I don't get in that zone between trimmed full beard and lumberjack where it gets all unruly, in which case just trimming it back does the trick.

Hi guys. I could write a long detailed post about everything that's happened in my life between now and the last time I posted here, but instead I'll just assure everyone I didn't randomly die.

I study philosophy, setting myself up for a lifetime of riches. At least college doesn't cost insane amounts of money here. In other news, I'm leaving for Verbier, Switzerland in a few minutes for a skiing trip. One of my best friends has been there since February following a ski instructor course with a British company, and so some other friends and I decided to visit him for the Easter holidays. Should be great to finally see him again, and to go snowboarding again.

Nope. Hi guys, been ages since I've posted but I've just been lurking for a while. Last night we finally had another concert with the band, it's been since early last summer that we performed in front of a crowd and it felt great to be back on stage. We also recorded a kind of demo. One of my best friends studies stage techniques (or whatever you would call it in English) and had an assignment where he had to record a live band. He asked us, and now we've got some songs recorded, which also feels nice. It's not the best quality around, but I'm still quite happy with them.

Missed the first lesson of my second semester today. Kinda pissed off about it, since I wanted to attend all of them, but it's the first lesson so things could've been worse.

The only thing we really know about the letter is that whoever sent it must have somehow had access to one of our Facebook accounts, since some of the things mentioned in the letter are only mentioned in secret Facebook groups and they use the Facebook name of one of my friends in the letter (he has a joke middle name on Facebook). Other than that, we have no idea where it came from and why it was sent. As to why they don't go to the police, they have basically no evidence. Sure, they could go and tell the cops that there are some kids smoking, but it's not like the police doesn't know people smoke, and it would be a waste of time and resources to go after us based on such a dumb accusation. Seems the only motivation whoever wrote the letter had was to destroy our friendships or something, which didn't really work out. My parents weren't as angry as I thought they would be when they found out, but they still weren't exactly happy about it. Sure made for an awkward conversation though.

Today my parents found out I smoke weed. Some of my friends' parents and mine received an anonymous letter describing how we smoke weed, and how one of my friends and I are the supposed dealers and masterminds of some kind of drug tourism company. Of course these allegations are exaggerated, but it still sucks to get a letter like that. We have no idea who it came from, making it all have this kind of mysterious vibe to it.

Leaving for a trip in the Belgian hillside in a bit. 8 friends and I rented a chalet over there. About 3 days of worryfree relaxing in the middle of nowhere. Looking forward to it.

I just officially turned 19. Have an exam in 8 and a half hours that I'm not really looking forward to. Oh well. 2 hours later. I've actually decided against going to that exam. Doing the online exercises just showed me that I couldn't prepare myself for it nearly well enough and it's not worth it for me to take the trip to Ghent and back for me to go there and fail. My friends are coming over later today (well tomorrow, it's 2AM, but I'm not sleeping because I need to reset my sleeping schedule drastically) to celebrate my birthday. I'm just planning on relaxing then, just enjoying myself on what is still my birthday. Afterwards I'm gonna actually try and study for an exam, the last one, because I'm interested in the subject and I feel like I can prepare myself well for it. I can honestly say I've completely failed my first semester of university and that makes me feel bad. I guess part of me kind of knew it before I even started, but I mostly ignored that feeling and opted to just let loose and live the student life. I regret that. I don't regret the good times I've had, but I regret subconsciously deciding to ignore my studies for them. I regret messing up in that way. I'll do my best to actually fix that next semester. I'll try and salvage as many subjects as I can this year so I don't have to take them all with me to next year. I had been warned about it before, not only explicitly but also in seeing it happen with others. But I guess in the end the best way to learn is to make the mistake yourself. Experience is a [bleep] sometimes. I hope I can actually make that turn-around though, it won't be easy. About that sleeping schedule, by the way. I went to bed 7 AM last night, and ended up waking up at 6 PM. I'm basically living in a completely different timezone from the one I'm actually in. I need to fix that, which is why I'm staying up all night. I always get in such a philosophical mood on the night of my birthdays... Feels good to have it written out though, was a good way to make my thoughts a bit more manageable in my head.

Next level OT. I hate my brain. My plan was to fix my sleeping schedule after New Year's Eve, so I stayed up all night, and took a short nap around noon on 1 Jan because I'd gotten too tired to go on. After that I stayed up for the rest of the day till I felt really tired again around 8:30 PM. I went to bed, and immediately fell asleep, thinking I'd wake up the next morning fresh and with a nicely reset sleeping schedule. I ended up waking up by myself before midnight and not being able to sleep for the rest of the night, till 7 AM. Now I'm back to sleeping into the afternoon and not being able to go to bed before 5 am and it frustrates me to no end since I have exams in less than a week.

It's been a long night, we started around 8 pm and finished in a snack shop at 8 am, after which my friend and I stayed together for till early afternoon to catch a train together. I took a two hour nap but I'm so damn tired. Happy new year's.