Test week

Sorry that I haven't been posting much lately, but I'm in the middle of my test week. Which means I have 2 or 3 tests a day for a week long. Thursday I have my last tests, and after that I will start blogging again (:

Presents I got ^^

So exactly a week ago it was Sinterklaas, and this year I celebrated 4 times in total. I know, that's a lot. We celebrated 1) at my grandparents' house, with the grandchildren, 2) with my family, 3) with my friends and 4) at club, in church. With club, everyone buys a couple of presents, and we play the so called 'Sinterklaas Game'. It's basically where you throw the dice, and when you throw 6 you get to take a present, and there are several tasks you have to do. It's quite complicated to explain, but you could see it as a mini-war where you steal presents from each other. But it's a lot of fun. At my grandparents' house and at home we just buy presents and give them to each other. My little brother and sister still think Zwarte Piet (translated into Black Peter) and Sinterklaas bring the presents (:

And with my friends we buy presents, make a poem and a surprise for the one whose name we drew. And of course I 'celebrated' it with Nathalie, but that's just the two of us so I don't think you could count it as a seperate celebration. But that doesn't make it less fun!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

This past weekend there was REAL snow in The Netherlands! Yay for snow! Well, it depends on it actually. When you have to cycle to school snow is terrible! It's freezing cold, snow blowing in your face, almost falling the entire time and slipping around. Ugh. Don't get me started on it. But last friday the weather man said the weather was going to be terrible so I went to school with the bus. Ghehe. I cheated, but hey, at least I wasn't late for class and freezing cold.

Because it was snowing so hard that day, around twelve o'clock they told us we could go home, because else the buses wouldn't drive anymore. Yeah! Thanks school! But because we were celebrating Sinterklaas that evening we had to get to my friend's house, which is about 20 km from my school away, so the plan was to walk to the train station and just take the train. BUT, there were hardly any driving buses left so we ran to the nearest bus stop and we could take the bus to the train station. And when we came there someone announced that the train we were about to take was the last train. How lucky we were!

After we arrived at the station in her town we had to walk to her home, and there was about a 20 cm thick layer of snow on the ground, and it was just 1.30PM. Luckily I was wearing my snowboots so I didn't mind haha. When we arrived at her place we did nothing special. We just lip synched to stupid and silly songs and recorded ourselves on the iMac, it was a LOT of fun haha.

We ate some delicious soup and after that we went to the library, where my friend works. So the four of us went to the library where us three waited for her until she finished her work. And when we got home again it was of course time for SINTERKLAAS! It was so much fun and we had a great time! My surprise was the statue of Lady Liberty, made out of a coca cola bottle. How awesome!! I absolutely loved it! A picture of it I will post later on this week. (:

We stayed there for the night and had a nice sleep over. The next day my grandparents picked me up and we went to the local fabric store, where I got fabric for a new pair of pants I'm going to make in the Christmas vacation, which starts in two weeks. Ah, so excited to make it and wear it! It's a warm green color, and it's going to be a baggy and cozy pair of lounge pants.

When we got home the sun was already setting and the sight was absolutely beautiful! Here is a picture. Note: this snow was about 48 hours old and it was already a bit melting.

And Saturday night I went babysitting with my lovely friend Nathalie, and we give each other traditionally a Sinterklaas present. This year she gave me the book The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. AAAAAAAHHH Thank you SO SO SO much Nathalie! I absolutely love it!
I had an amazing weekend, and it was a lot of fun. I am very grateful for the presents I got.

Days left til Christmas: 15




First snow this year

Remember when I told you about the turntable I would get for Sinterklaas, last week? Well, that isn't going to happen, unfortunately. You see, me and my dad tested the turntable, but turned out I didn't have the right radio to connect to the turntable, so there would be barely any sound coming from the turntable. And in order to hear anything from the LP that was on the turntable, I would have to buy way too expensive speakers. I decided that wasn't worth my money, so my dad brought back the turntable, last Monday. Sad times... I've wanted to have a turntable for SO long and now that I finally had it, turns out it doesn't work. You can imagine I wasn't too happy last weekend. But now I am kind of over it.... Maybe later on in my life, when I live on my own I can afford decent speakers and a nice turntable. In the mean time I can already start collecting LPs (:

So it has snowed in the Netherlands this week! I believe it was last tuesday, december 4th when there was an tiny bit of snow but, it melted immediately. But yesterdy night, on Sinterklaas evening it snowed! And really hard! It was so warm and cozy to sit inside, unwrapping presents and when you look out of the window snow flakes are falling down.
Tomorrow they say it's gonna be really bad weather, so maybe I can stay home tomorrow when there has fallen enough snow haha. Let's hope so.

Tomorrow we'll celebrate Sinterklaas with the four of us at my friend's house. I'm really looking forward to it! Right now I'm working on my poem for Jessica. I hope she likes it, because I'm putting a lot of effort into it. My surprise is already done and ready to go, and my poem is almost finished!

And as always, 1 day after Sinterklaas radio stations start playing christmas songs already. I mean, I love christmas songs, but Sinterklaas isn't even out of the country yet >.<  Me and my mom already got all of the christmas decorations from the attic, and we'll probably start decorating the house this weekend, hooray for christmas decorations and snow!

That's todays blog post already. Not very long, but I'm very busy with my poem and lots of other stuff. And today I went home sick so I wanna go to bed early today. See you guys saturday! Tomorrow, after celebrating Sinterklaas we'll have a sleepover and watch some good movies and such. Saturday I'll blog about the presents I got.

Days til Christmas: 19

SINTERKLAAS!

The title must be impossible to pronounce for those of you who aren't from The Netherlands. We COULD call it Saint Nicolas but that just sounds lame in my opinion haha.
So today it's finally Sinterklaas! Yessss! This morning when I woke up the first thing I thought of was the long and boring day at school dat was ahead of me. At school we also "celebrate" Sinterklaas, but every year it's the same. The school band performs a couple of songs, a teacher dresses up as Sinterklaas, and one class at the time is called to the first floor, where we celebrate it. Other people at school have the opportunity to write your name down on a paper and hand it in anonymously to the 'helpers' of Sinterklaas. And when you're in the middle of singing a song for Sinterklaas and sitting awkwardly in the canteen at the first floor, they will call your name and you have to stap forward and sit on Sinterklaas' lap. How embarrassing! And than he will talk to you for a moment and everyone will laugh at you, and when it's finally over you'll get some candy and thats it! That's how we celebrate Sinterklaas at our school.
But unexpectedly I had two extra free periods, since my teacher was dressing up as Sinterklaas, so I talked to my other teacher if I could PLEAAASE do Greek (the last subject I had) another time. And she said yes! So first of all I was at home 2 hours earlier and second I didn't have to go to Sinterklaas (AKA my teacher). Party hard!

This afternoon and evening we celebrated at my granparents' house and it was amazing. Just very cozy and we had a great time, and I got some lovely presents. I'll post pictures of my gifts later this week, in a seperate blog post. We also ate there and as dessert we had an ice cream, yum (:
After that I had to hurry to be at my piano lessons on time, and when I came home the living room was covered in wrapping paper. What happened? Well, my family had celebrated Sinterklaas without me! But I get my parent's point, my brother and sister had to go to bed, so when I came back I unwrapped my presents, together with my other sister. I got some very nice presents from my parents. So today I am very grateful for my family, my parents, my grandparents, and for the presents I got. I don't think it's about the presents, it's actually about having a good time with your relatives, and I certainly had a great time today.

Now that Sinterklaas is (unfortunately) over, and the delish candy that is in stores around Sinterklaas time is gone, it's time to focus on my exam week and after that CHRISTMAS! I'm really looking forward to it, but first I'm gonna enjoy my presents and enjoy the Sinterklaas atmoshpere that is still around. After that I will start decorating my christmas tree. I bought some nice ornaments and I have a great idea for the tree, so hopefully that works out well.

Days left til Christmas: 20

Wrapping gifts

Since it's holiday season practically all I'm doing right now is wrapping gifts. Well maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit haha. But tomorrow it's Sinterklaas! I didn't think too much about it since I have to much (school)work to do. So of course I am wrapping all of my presents at the very last moment. Typical me. I should really start doing stuff on time. But my surprise is already done, so that's at least one thing.

Tomorrow I'll be celebrate Sinterklaas twice. I'll be celebrating with my grandparents and all of my nieces and nephews and my brothers and sisters. No parents allowed haha. We'll eat dinner together, and open the presents together and it's always so much fun. Normally on December 5th there is school until 1PM and after that we're free to go. But this year I'll be stuck at school until 4PM. Great. Thanks, school. But I won't let that ruin my day. I bought some presents for my grandparents also. For grandma I bought choclates, since she loves those but never buys them for herself, and for my grandpa I bought nougat. He loves that so much, but same story as with grandma, he never buys it for himself. So I did it for them (:

In the evening, we'll celebrate with my family. Just me, my parents and my brothers and sisters. Since we don't have too much time and my youngest brother and sister have to go to bed early, we won't celebrate very extensive. My parents told me they didn't want to get any presents this year, but I think it's kinda lame to actually not give them anything. So for my father I bought aftershave and for my mom I got a cooking book with all kinds of Italian recipes. I think she an my dad will really like that cooking book, since we went to Rome, Italy last summer they like Italian food even more than they did before!
Also I have piano lessens, tomorrow evening. Great timing isn't it? But I really love my piano lessons so I don't mind. I have been taking lessons for probably about 3 monts now and I really really love it. Playing the piano (or in my case keyboard) is something I've wanted to do since I was 10 years old, but for some reason it never came to it. (Is that proper English? Please correct me if I'm wrong!) And last year, for my 15th birthday my parents paid a part of my keyboard, as a birthday present. I was so happy with it and I was determined to teach myself a lot before I would take lessons. But chaotic as I am, it didn't work out very well. I tought myself some of the basics but not enough to play actual songs. So since the start of this school year I am taking lessons. I have the most amazing teacher. He's very funny and a real good teacher, perfect!

So tomorrow I'm wearing my new red sweater! I posted a picture of it last week. I decided that that would be my cozy holiday sweater (: I'm paring it with some dark washed jeans and my beloved Timberlands.

Alright, gotta go now. Wrapping up the last gifts for tomorrow.

Days left til Sinterklaas: 1 (YEAAAAAAAH)
Days left til Christmas: 21

Surprise!

Yesterday I went shopping for presents, and it took me all day to find something that Jessica (my friend, I'm supposed to buy her presents and make a surprise for her) might like. But I finally found a book that I think is really nice and funny, so hopefully she likes it too. And you can never go wrong with chocolate, eh? (:

Yesterday right after I came back from present shopping I started on my surprise for her. I bought the book 'Taal is zeg maar echt mijn ding' (translated it should be something like 'Language is like really my thing'). I hope she likes it. For surprise I didn't know what to make for her, but decided to make a kind of old fashioned camera. A bit 80's camera, you could say. I know it's more my style than hers but yeah... I'll show you how I made it! You could see this as a mini-DIY. All you need is a rectangular box, black and white paint/black and grey paper, a round tray for the lense, a bit of orange paper (optional) and a black marker.

So let's get started! To make a camera, I would need a good rectangular box, and fortunately I can take as many boxes as I want with me from my work, since they would throw them away anyway. So I found the perfect box, now I could start sketching on it to make it look as similar to the original camera as possible. Under in the picture, you can see the camera I used as an example. It's an Optima 200. I also had bought white and black paint since painting look better than covering the box in black and grey paper.

So yesterday night I spent my entire evening painting the box, letting it dry, and painting over it again. I used the black paint and a mixture of the white and black paint to make the perfect grey color. Finally I was satisfied with it, now I only had to make the lense, and after the paint had dried, draw the sensor e.d. on it. So for the lense I used a round plastic tray. I painted the inside of it grey, so that it would look like a real lense, and the outside black.

 Here you can see how I made the lense, and I simply attached it to the camera with some superglue. Now for the finishing touch cutting circles out of orange paper, and glueing it on the top and the frond of the camera to make it complete, and TADA! Here is my finished surprise for Jessica! It looks quite like the original camera, doesn't it?
This whole thing took me about 4/5 hours I think. So that's acceptable, don't you think? Please excuse the picture, the lightning was horrible so this was the best I could make of it.

I had a lot of fun making this and the only thing left for me to do is make a poem for Jessica. I am afraid that will cost some time, but hey, it's fun to do! Luckily I have until friday to make it, so I'll manage. I hope you liked this post! Maybe I'll do another DIY thingy in the future. Now this is done, the only thing left to do for Sinterklaas is wrapping ALL of my other presents I bought for my grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters and my best friend Nathalie. We give eachother each year some presents for Sinterklaas/Christmas. Just for fun. Even though she picked out her presents herself, it's still fun to do (:

Days left til Sinterklaas: 3

Days left til Christmas: 23

New post tomorrow!

Today I've been VERY very busy so I didn't have time to write a blog post, but tomorrow I'll have a brand new and quite long blogpost for you guys. I promise it'll be a fun one (:
So please stay tuned and visit my blog tomorrow. <3