The Evergreen State

Hello!

First full day in Issaquah with Grandpa and Sophie. I love this state and I am seriously thinking of coming up here and living at some time. A friend suggested grad school... maybe.

The plane ride up was fairly uneventful and for air travel I guess that's a good thing. I just had my headphones on and stared out the window. I think the only time I said anything was when I asked for a coffee and a cup of water. I really wasn't in the mood for small talk especially because it seems like I've been telling my plans over and over again for the last three weeks. It would have taken a very cute guy to encourage me to start a conversation and though the plane had several adorable and well behaved babies it was lacking in the cute guy department. I did make friends with the ice crystals that formed on the window though. I was tempted to try and name the really unique ones but I gave up.

There were absolutely no clouds until we got to SeaTac so I got to watch the land below the whole flight. It was really fun to try and figure out where we were. I followed the 5 for a while but then got lost. Lake Tahoe is really blue from the air. haha.

So far Issaquah has been lovely. It was unreasonably hot today for no apparent reason, perhaps the weather followed me. Tomorrow is suppose to be much cooler and we have a hike planned.

After much deliberation I have decided on a final suitcase arrangement. Grandpa is letting me borrow one of the fairly large Tumi roller suitcases. I swear the one I am using could fit a small child in it. Along with that I'm checking in my rugby duffel bag. I was having a real issue with the weight and fitting everything but just settled on stuffing my small library of books into a Doors shoulder canvas bag I have and carrying them onto the plane. Less weight and more room WOOT!

That's it for now. I will post again once I'm in Edinburgh. Love you all.

Peace and Love
Liesbeth 'LB'

Happy Birthday America

Happy Fourth of July everyone!! I am spending this Independence day with my mom and my little brother and sister. It's been a fun couple of days and not too hot but nice and warm. My little brother has taken to playing FIFA 08 for Wii and always plays as ManU. The kid is well on his way to following in my foot steps as an avid red devils fan. He even knows all the players names and tell me the details of the plays during the games he plays. It's old so Ronaldo's move hasn't happened and apparently his character in the game is offside the most. Pretty accurate if I don't say.

School has been done with for a couple of weeks and I've come to the pinnacle of total boredom so I've spent the last couple of days coming up with some goals to fill my time.

1- get into better shape. essentially if I'm bored going out and working out. Yoga, cardio and some goalie agility work outs.

2- finally learn how to drive after putting it off for four years. It's about time I can drive myself.

3- get involved in a community volunteer group

4- obsessively plan for Scotland so that I am knowledgeable and extremely self reliant when I get there.

Initially I wanted to get a job but that proved to be harder than I thought. I have some ideas on making some money still but not sure if those will pan out.

Other than that things have been fairly quiet for me. Just a lot of time with my sister's rabbit Elway and my dad... I really can't complain about that.

Today I taught myself part of Fur Elise on piano which was fairly entertaining and fun.

Hope you all are enjoying the fourth and I love you all.

Peace and Love-

Liesbeth

End of the year

My last final is tomorrow. I'm so excited for summer and all the great things that could potentially come out of it. I'm a little sad that I'm leaving Isla Vista and Santa Barbara for more than a year but I will have plenty of friends up here this summer to come and visit. That's another thing I'm excited about couch surfing this summer!

Scotland is approaching fast and I'm really getting excited. I applied for student housing in self-catered apartments. Hopefully I have some really fun flatmates. I plan on joining plenty of societies and clubs while I'm in Edinburgh. I was reading and they have a Football Appreciation Association... basically they meet in the pub and watch soccer. Sounds like my kind of club!

Over the memorial day weekend I went and visited Jessica in San Diego and it was a very fun couple of days!! We went on an adventure down to La Jolla and all that fun stuff. I don't know if I saw anyone's eyes cause they were all walking around with their noses so high in the air to us two girls in shirts and soccer shorts... The guy that served us gelato was really cute though.

Apparently I'm pretty excited because I'm abusing the heck out of exclamation points.

ok back to studying for my epistemology final... boo

Update

Today I bought my ticket to Scotland and it was very anti-climatic... but that's ok I'm still very excited. I am slowly setting every thing into motion. It's as if I've started a giant jigsaw puzzle and I've been working on it for a while and I finally am starting to see small parts of the total picture but it still needs a lot of work. Yeah that's exactly how I feel.

Last weekend was a very exciting weekend. On Friday, I consider Friday the weekend, I got to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I attended a lecture he gave at my school about ethics in modern times. He's a very funny man and it was hard not to smile when you are in the same room. It was a wonderful lecture where he stressed the importances of compassion in our lives and that really compassion can solve so many conflicts that are in the world. The lecture raised over $64,000 which has been left to His Holiness to distribute to charities. I only wish I had been in a better mood going into the lecture and I may have enjoyed it even more.

Saturday night I went to a Zach Gill concert. He is an UCSB alumnus and has played with Jack Johnson, another UCSB alumnus, and other fairly famous artists. I had so much fun at this concert. This wonderful man is so talented and so full of energy it was amazing to watch him play. He even busted out the accordian for a couple of songs that was very fun to watch and listen to.

But even with all these fun activities I really wish I could have been in New York with the rest of my family for my Mommer's funeral. I hope that I will get to spend some time with the family soon... I've unfortunately missed the last two opprotunities, and feel like a twit for it.

I have so much going on right now I absolutely can't wait until the summer so that I can settle a little before I have to leave. I'm actually heading down to Ventura this weekend in the hope that I can secure a job for the summer. Times are hard but I'm hoping my age and well intelligence and hard work will get me a job over the high schoolers in my town.

The spring quarter is nearly half way over and I don't know where the days have gone. It seems to be moving so fast I can't keep up. Finals are a little more that a month a way and that thought is daunting. Sorry it's been so long. Love you all and keep in touch. By September this blog will be full of Scotish pictures and stories.

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Now playing: The Weepies - Not Your Year
via FoxyTunes

Everyone's at It

The new quarter has started and I'm slowly getting back into a schedule that allows me to get little to no sleep and still function. I decided this quarter to take a little break from my required science classes. I am taking a philosophy class on the theory of knowledge which is proving more frustrating than interesting. My professor constantly attacks scientific logic... just doesn't jive with me. For all I know I could just be a brain in a vat being fed signals to trick me into thinking the external world exists. ha ha philosophy is a trip. I'm also taking a writing class which is teaching me how to put together a resume and how to write research proposals, so that no doubt will be helpful when I apply for grad school and jobs.

The last three months have been an emotional roller coaster. Yesterday my Mommer, our Mommer, my great grandmother passed away and forcing myself to go to class has been tough. I really just want to spend time with my family, especially my dad and my sister. Just really want to sit around and bake and play rummy 2000. Losing two family members this year has really put a lot into perspective for me, but I don't know quiet how to act on this new out look yet. I know in time I will know exactly what to do and when to do it.

Edinburgh is absolutely official now. I turned in all the paper work and looking to buy my plane ticket soon. Emotionally though, next year is sitting on the back burner. I have little spurts of excitement but generally speaking there is so much more on my mind right now. I'm sure as September approaches more and more excitement will build. I have made the decision to try out for the club soccer team while I'm there.

Life has been pretty mellow and drab for me lately. Nothing too exciting to report.

Love you all very much,
Liesbeth

Long Weekend

Happy Presidents' Day everyone. The long weekend has been a nice break!

Good news! Friday I learned that I got into my study abroad program at Edinburgh and next year will be studying there for nine months. I'm terribly excited and can't wait for all the amazing adventures I am going to experience. But first things first I need to finish up this year on a good note. Unfortunately on the same day I heard the exciting news of getting to go to Scotland I heard the news that my Opa, my grandfather in Belgium, had passed. I am very sad that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye and have spent a lot of the weekend remembering the good memories. I think that Jessica and I may try and make a trip out to Vegas, one of his favorite places, some time next year. I am just grateful that Jessica and I will both have a chance to visit with family sometime in the next year. I just really want to be with my mom and sister right now but I can't so that hurts a little.

I spent the larger part of last week studying for my organic chemistry midterm that was also on Friday. I think I did really well but I wont get the test back until Wed. so I guess I will find out then. My goal this quarter is to really improve my grades and enjoy my classes again. Electromagetics are kinda hindering both of those right now in physics, but I know that I will do fine if I really work at it.

I am about to start the seventh week of the ten week quarter and I am definitely looking forward to the end of this quarter. This quarter will be my last ever of college physics! YES! Not that I don't enjoy learning but it's really hard and I have enough on my plate with chemistry.

Recently I've discovered that I have over 2000 songs in my iTunes library that I haven't listened to. This made me chuckle a little. I made a playlist of all these songs and I'm trying to listen to some of them each day. It's like a little present everytime I put my music on.

The picture was at my friends birthday party. The girl with me is her roommate Kim and her boyfriend Jason. She always bakes cupcakes and gives me one! They are always delicious!

Hope all is well. Love you all so much.

peace-
Liesbeth

New year, new quarter

It's now three weeks into winter quarter. This last week mother nature forgot what month it was and it was getting up around 78 degrees everyday which was more annoying than nice. January is the month I'm allowed to wear a sweatshirt every day and it's ok. When it's 75 degrees that can be pretty uncomfortable. I got to go to the beach on Friday and saw a fair number of people sun bathing... in the middle of January. But alas it rained to day so all is well again.

Jessica came up to Santa Barbara for my birthday last weekend and I had a nice pot luck dinner with my friends. The small size of my apartment, which I was a little worried about, actually made the get together very homey and fun. I baked a chicken and pineapple upside-down cake and Jessica made yummy lasagna. I have turned twenty and I have found myself thinking a lot of what I do to be a little immature and then realizing I don't really care.

Tuesday night I went over to my friends house for a BBQ and we watched the rerun of the Inauguration of Barack Obama from that morning. I'm very interested in what will happen over the next four years. One of my close friends from high school joined the Navy last year and was in front of the Capital Building but I didn't see him on the TV. I was just happy that someone was cooking for a change and those burgers were GOOD!

Other than just getting into the swing of the new quarter my life has been pretty quiet the last couple of weeks with nothing overly important happening. What I am most looking forward to in the next couple of months is seeing if I got placed in the Scotland program for next year and seeing His Holiness the Dalai Lama in April which will be truly extraordinary.

I being registration for spring classes in two weeks, this year seems to be flying by. Recently I have gotten really into doing yoga and have been try to do it evey day. It's something I have never tried before and I really enjoy it. I have started up with soccer again but I really need to get a new pair of cleats especially if I go to Scotland. The ones I have right now are being held together by electrical tape and I get a little embarrassed everytime I pull them on.

Love you all and I hope all is well!

Peace
Liesbeth