Africodagga's Xanga

Friday, December 29, 2006

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:06:47 GMT

Aloha people,

I know that I am very lousy with updating my Xanga, and tonight I have a night off so I decided to give Xanga a few minutes of my time and refresh/update my Xanga.

(yeaa finally I know, Soazul!!)

My life since my last blog has been busy and thrilling with many things happening. I ll update you on some things I did...

In november I went to London with 3 M's (Marijn, Martine and Marte) for a friend's 30th B-day bash, had a champ time with those gals you can say that we defintely had a fabulous time ;)

It was really a mini reunion of Gally students at the birthday party (which was an India themed party), so champ to see those people again, in the pictures you can have a peek who I met there ;)

moi, Marte, Andreas, Himel (the b-day guy), Martine and Gilles

moi, Marijn, Martine, Marte, Kathleen, Nadia, Hilde and Andreas

Not included on the pictures are some more people.

One week later on November 25th there was this HUGE party in the Netherlands, called Sencity, it s becoming more bigger every year and we can call that it is actually an European Deaf event where people from other countries will flock to the Netherlands for that party.

I just wanted to show one pic I think that it is great, the light, the background, and even better as it s a natural shot. Martine and me were promoting some events for the Netherlands National Deaf Youth Association. See below for that pic!

And on november 30th I jetted off to South America once again!! I think I am just addicted to South America ha! no, not really, I had a reason to go down to South America again as there was this conference in Florianopolis in Brazil I wanted to attend. It s called Theoretical Issues in Researching Sign Language (TISLR) as I am interested into this field of sign language researching. Before this conference started I flew down to Buenos Aires in Argentina where I spent a long weekend from Friday to Monday. Buenos Aires is defintely one of my favorite cities in world, it s a megapolis (some 13 millions ppl live there) but the quality of life there is GRAND, the steaks, the wine, the shopping, people, clothing, even taxi's (lol) and more. After having a fabulous time in Buenos Aires it was time to jet off to Florianopolis in Brazil, I was basically stuck in airports ALL DAY LONG!!! One BIG lesson learned, NEVER NEVER buy two seperate tickets on the same day, as my three flights got a schedule change which made me to miss the final flight to Florianopolis. I actually spent like 10 hours in airports and the total flying time was just 1 hour and 50 minutes, ppfftt I flew Buenos Aires to Montevideo then to Porto Alegre then finally Florianopolis.

TISLR... What can I say about this conference? It was DEFINTELY an interesting experience for me. The actual reason for coming to Brazil to attend the TISLR congress was to find out if studying lingustics was something for me or not as I am pondering now about which studies to study when I am starting my graduate school this fall. I was doubting between majoring in cultural anthropology or lingustics of sign language. The TISLR conference provided me different lectures on different subjects and learning about different areas of the sign language lingustics and a great opportunity to meet people in this field. But it was really tiringsome as the conference started at 8:30 am every day for 4 days and the lectures did not finish until 7 pm with JUST 2 breaks between! And we always thoughts that the latinos were relaxed????? :p

After 4 days and countless debates with people who attended, it came out that I like the lingustics anthropology the best. That is so perfect as it combines both the cultural aspects and language aspects, so I am starting to look around for schools which offer that graduate program.

Before and after TISLR I got a chance to spend one day on one of many beaches of Santa Catarina, the island where Florianopolis is located at, sometimes I thought I was in Maui, Hawaii, that s how beautiful it is over there. Then it was time for me to fly back to the cold and damp Amsterdam! On way back to Amsterdam I had a layover of 10 hours in DC, so I of course hurried to Gally and met up some old friends there and had a dinner with Dan Veit, Jason Lamberton, Jon Lamberton and Brian Morrison, it s always good to hang out with them, before I knew it was time to fly the last transatlantic leg to Amsterdam.

Jerry Pua, Erin Wilkinson and moi

Brazilians are very vain, why? they take pictures pictures and again pictures, it was like this flash flash flash all the time, it almost caused blindness!

Guys, I only planned to spend a few minutes for this post and it alreday took me 20 minutes ha, time to finish this!!

o yea, one more thing, this is for you, Dawnieo!

Yeaaa, that is the sloth from an earlier post of mine and I still think he actually looks like ET! How he moves his head and neck and how he looks thru his glassy eyes and how he winks!!! :)

For all my readers, Happy New year!!

Signing off n making a sandwich

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 20:48:51 GMT

JKF RESIGN!!! JKF RESIGN!!!

Like almost everyone I am glued to my computer screen and checking the different blogs about the protests VERY often, whenever I get a chance I will run to a nearest available computer and check the lastest updates. Saturday morning I woke up at 7 am, it was then 1 am over there in the USA and I was quitte SHOCKED when I saw the news about the arrests, just could not believe my eyes, this defintely fueled mine and ours anger towards the cowards of gally adminstration.

I SO wished I was rich enough so I could hop on an airplane to DC right now and join the protests,

Even though there is a 4000 miles distance between us in the Netherlands and Gallaudet University, we are SUPPORTING ya all who are protesting and the CAUSE to protest. It is REALLY important to CONTINUE our FIGHT and PROTESTS. To enrichen the spirit over there I have 2 pictures to show ya all.

Gallaudet alumni; Joep van Vlodrop 99-00, Annemieke van Kampen '98, Richard "Rico" Cokart '02 and Wendy van Mansvelt '01.

UNITY FOR GALLAUDET!!!

WE SUPPORT GALLAUDET!!!

P.S: Do not mind our clothes! We were at a party in a Deaf club and the theme of the party was "Whores and Pimps" so some of us of course dressed up as a pimp or whore ;)

On Saturday I had a movie shoot, all the day my thoughts were in DC. However I guess I did a good job during the shoot, you can see some pics of the movie shoot at http://www.xanga.com/deafmoviedirector

Signing off THINKING of you guys over there

The return of Africodagga...

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 15:27:32 GMT

Guys n gals,

After a 2 month blog-hiatus, it s time to post some pics from the past summer.

It is freaking september already, and the winter-depression is coming... (I actually used a winter-jacket last Tuesday! I came back from Spain, where it was 30 C (90 F) in the night time and it was like 10 C (50 F) here n raining, dios mio, I wanted to fly back to spain right away..)

Summer 2006 rocked, hmm it included all ingredients for a champ summer; travels, parties, beach, sport, friends, visitors, food, drinks, family, being outside, staying light outside until 11 pm, hot weather, etc etc Traveled in South America for 4 weeks, was in North California for Jeff&Matilda Bibbs wedding for 1 week, NAD convention in Palm Springs, partying in West Hollywood, bike vacation with Yassine to Maastricht, 6 days in Sitges in Spain with 4 boys.

Sneaking up with a piranha in the Amazon ;)

And yes, we did swim in the Amazon along with the piranhas, alligators, snakes and whatever else swims in there and no, I did not lose anything!

Camping out in the rainforst.

May I introduce this living thing to you, his name is ET. (yeaaa, that animal looked so much like the ET :P)

The daily life in Amazon, a native woman with her kid washing their clothes in the river, touching how simple their lives is compared to ours.

Olinda, full of beautiful houses n tourists like us :P

Mingling with capoeira artists in Salvador.

La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Me masaging Bibb a few minutes before his wedding starts

The groommen, had defintely a blast with them n Bibb during the week before the wedding

Having fun at Bibb s wedding

there re zillion more pics, will try to post some of them in another blog ;)

That was it for today

Signing off n reading the saturday newspaper

Friday, June 30, 2006

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 07:41:27 GMT

USA....

Hej all,

here I am in the USA now. My trip in south america was sooo WONDERFUL and when I flew back to the US I was so not ready to leave south america, untill I landed on the US soil and met my friends, at that point I was so ready to be in the US again and to mingle with american friends (excuse my poor english ha, talked too much spanish in the past month grins)

a little update on what was happening the past days, Lake Tahoe retreat with the wedding party, tanning, sunning, long nights in hot tub, beers n beers n beers, mexican night, swedish night, margaritas, swedish meatballs, partying, swimming, jetskiing, kayaking (I have a dramatic story abt kayaking!), playing football (yikkes, soccer is better ha), speedboating, playing poker (I won $ 70, ha and it was only my 2nd time playing poker), bachelor party at Santa Cruz beach and etc etc etc

i better get some sleep before wedding rehearsal

*waving from San Jose*

off to get well earned rest

Guess where I am now????

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 12:48:17 GMT

yesyesyesyes

in RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL!!!!!!

After Rio, there will be Amazonas, Recife, Salvador, Rio BRanco, Uruguay and Buenos Aires, Argentina

*waving from south america*

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Sat, 06 May 2006 04:17:41 GMT

Respect...

It is 6:56 am now, I m soon done with my overnight shift (2 more to go, yuck)

Yes yes miss-nyn, I ll come up with a longer and better blog with pics etc etc soon, but I just wanted to share something with you. Something that made me disgusted. Maybe not everyone knows about this but May 4th is our Memorial day, a day in which we remember and pay our respect to thousands of Dutch citizens deceased in WW II and other wars.

We have this tradition that at exact 8:00 pm the whole, I mean, WHOLE country and society is being halted/stopped for 2 minutes. Everyone is quiet, just 2 minutes. Buses, trains, trams, metro etc will stop at 8 pm and respect that 2 minutes of being quiet, it is the time to remember those who deceased. Stores will close between 7:55 pm to 8:05 pm. Growing up I always respected this tradition (except when I lived in the US ha, I blame the time difference ), I always was glued to the television watching the Queen laying a circle of flowers at the National Monument the Dam and when it was time to be quiet for 2 minutes I always looked up in the sky and thought of those people. Heck, it is ONLY 2 minutes per year.

2 days ago it was May 4th, and it was the FIRST day of the year that the temperature soared to 75's so of course I zoomed to the beach with 2 friends. After a marvelous afternoon at the beach we ate dinner at a beachfront restaurant on the terrace overlooking the beach, sea and a setting sun. When it was nearing 8 pm I reminded ourselves to be quiet for 2 minutes, but I noticed people around us were just chatting away, oh well, maybe they did not keep up with the time, did not check it was actually 8 pm soon. So I told the owner of that restaurant that it was soon 8 pm, he actually laughed in my face... And continued to chat with people.

Of course I was offended, not because he ignored me, but because of LACK of respect towards us, the society and people who deceased. Of course not everyone is required to be quiet, it s everyone s own choice to remember or not but he was the owner of that restaurant, and HIS clients might want to remember, he SHOULD have given us an opportunity to be quiet and be able to remember for JUST 2 minutes PEACEFULLY. That turned me off.

He defintely LOST a potential future client/costumer (sp?)

Me signing off outvented and off to my bed soon!

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:17:25 GMT

Birthday Bash!!!

Pah!!!

I finally have time to settle down behind my computer and upload some pics from the weekend before this weekend (15/16 April)

It was the Easter weekend but it was also the weekend in which I hosted a Birthday Bash with 2 other friends, Marjolein and Sjoerd! I celebrated my b-day on 11th, Marjolein on 14th and Sjoerd on 15th, a PERFECT reason to THROW a party!

Marjolein, Sjoerd and moi!

We found a CUTE little kinda Irish pub called L&B Limited to host our party there, imagine this, this pub was so small, and when all of our friends arrived we occupied 50% of the bar ;) the tab was on us, teehee I am sure friends enjoyed that haha

It was just a GRAND party with beers, laughters, stories and an occasional shot

Yassine of course could not be present in person so she ordered miss_nyn to get us a shot of vodka!

I do like vodka shots (yes I do! and even worse, sometimes my friends call me the vodka-man...) It is just wonderful to be able to take a shot of vodka and actually liking it while everyone here already cringe and shudder of the idea of having to drink a shot of vodka...

us taking those shots!

The reaction of Marjolein after the voda shot

And we also got a very brave visitor from Belgium... So brave that he dared to mingle with tha Dutchies

(aarrgghh I just reached my 10mb upload limit for the month sigh)

Sigh.. So I have to reveal now who came.. Yea the only one GILLES NANIWE!!

You guys gotta wait till the next month for some more pics and pics of the QUEENSDAY!!! Queensday is one of my favorite holidays alongside with Halloween and Thanksgiving hehe

Signing off and making a dessert of shortbread,strawberries and whipped cream mmmm

Saturday Fun in Bar Bep....

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:19:35 GMT

I would have never imagined that i would have such a fun night in a bar that s called BEP! I ALWAYS passed this bar Bep on bike on way to somewhere else and i NEVER noticed it before, it turned out to be a VERY cool bar, the crowd is kinda artsy and young, the interior is cool designed, the bartenders 're cool bunch of guys (EXCEPT that they FORGOT to warn us that it was the last round at 2:45 am, so therefore we missed out an opportunity to taste a cocktail. They had a selection of cocktails, we tried out Moijito (eewwww, it s an Cuban cocktail, nuff said!), Caipiranha (mmm a brazilian one, def very good, brings out the tropics in us) and black n white russian (okok)

And the best part of the night is of course the many laughters we shared and being with friends without any prejudice, rules, pressures!

Marjolein, Marijn, Merel

me and Hendrik

That s how cheap we were, haha! Sharing our cocktails

That s the black n white russian

One of our favo SSS moments

Signing off and hopping on a bike to the fitness center

WHAM BAM!!!! Introducing Rico's new glasses!!

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:26:11 GMT

Yeesshhh, still need to get used to my new glasses! It was about the time, my vintage 20th century glasses have been abused by me for like more than 7 years, eekkk!! I got a damn good deal, 2 glasses for the price of one 1 artsy and 1 sporty

First entry!

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:53:09 GMT

Believe it or not,

this is my verdomme FIRST entry in the xanga world ;)

Well, do not expect me to update this DAILY, I am defintely not good at this, I am even lousy with emails... Waiting weeks before responding to an email is not so unusual for me so I guess that will apply to this Xanga thing too ;)

However it'd be nice to read other people's xanga's and stay updated on these people who lives on the other side of the pond (and in other countries of course also!)

Interesting fact; this damned Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez did yell a threat to the Netherlands... Some of members of the Class of 2002 defintely know Curacao, Curacao is one of the ABC islands located off the coast of Venezuela, Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, those islands are a part of our country. This sicko president once said; IF the Netherlands steps out of the ABC islands with one leg, we WILL step in with two legs!!! How he dares to say that!!! This will mean a WAR between Netherlands and Venezuela! This would be more intersting then this boring Iraqi stuff we 've been dealing ever since haha!! One more news from the ABC islands, it has been reported that the Aruba police got new information about the location of the body of the dissappeared Nathalee Holloway who dissappeared about one year ago. 3 guys got arrested but they were discharged.. Now the police is investigating a car of one of these 3 people who were suspected last year. U know, last year the american media totally vomitted Aruba thru their throats because of the fact that ONE beautiful American rich girl dissappeared there... Aruba got the bill ; less tourists came to Aruba due to the American media vomitting on Aruba.. Well, how many people dissappear in NYC every year?? And there are still bus and plane-loads of tourists coming to NYC everyday, that s so B&*^SH$T !!!!

Well, this is for today :D

Goodnight Folks