so it's been a while

which means i've probably lost all the 6 people who actually sometimes look at my blog, but i thought i should start writing again cause ya "creative outlet."

it's almost christmas which i'm VERY excited about because I LOVE christmas. i think i am one of the biggest fans  of christmas that i know. For someone who is so mad about christmas i have made VERY POOR CHOICES OF BOYFRIENDS because they have all treated christmas with a seriously raised eyebrow. So when I told Joris all the things that would have to happen in order for christmas to be the festive occasion I have grow accustomed to he went ya ok, but i seriously think he is lacking in enthusiasm. He thought Christmas was on the 24th of December. This is how Joris would be about Christmas if he were a cat:

You see the Withers christmas is a series of LONG ADHERED TO TRADITIONS. so firstly there have to be sweets in bowls everywhere leading up to christmas. The christmas cake has to be baked all together with everyone taking a turn to stir the mixture and make a wish. Obviously my mom has to bake a million mince pies and other "holiday biscuits" Then there's the decorating of the tree. Then there's Christmas eve where my dad reads the christmas story (no one else is allowed to read it, except for the one occasion i got the chance to because of withers related christmas eve drama) Obviously the soundtrack for all this is kings college christmas carols. One year john tried to put on Fabios christmas hits which was met with VERY LITTLE LAUGHTER FROM MY FATHER. Then my dad hangs a very special decoration on the tree.  Then we all say something nice about each other ( a tradition created out of necessity given all the christmas eve drama) then we all go to bed and await our christmas stockings and then in the morning it's down to the christmas tree for presents (i get to read the labels and the youngest child hands them out) Basically it's a long process that no one else could really get into unless they were a withers. So I thought ok obviously all this will be done in amsterdam cause ya keeping the withers christmas going. So far i have :
- no christmas cake
- no mince pies
- no christmas tree
- no stockings
- no presents for anyone who will be there for christmas day

I do have an advent calendar though and every morning I say with great enthusiasm Joris lets see what's in the advent calendar and he takes out some sort of sweet and goes oh great and then forgets to eat it. 

So I have no idea what Christmas day will bring. I feel like I could turn into a massive sulky brat if things aren't done properly, but really it doesn't matter. Maybe Joris and I will start our own traditions. Like eating steak for Christmas because we have no oven. And giving each other useful gifts like ice trays. And having a christmas tree with no decorations. In a way it's kind of exciting.

i am reading an article about the sex life of the deep sea squid

and here is a quote from the article which is find HILARIOUS


In a report published in the journal Biology Letters, the authors claim the behaviour "exemplifies the 'live fast and die young' life strategy of many cephalopods"

it's really great to imagine all these squids just you know being a bit like gangsters or something with weird hats and cigars all just swimming around going "yeah i don't care about nothin, live fast, die young. "

LOOK HERE IS A MOUSE THAT WAS TRAPPED IN A POT.

it's really, really gross. joris threw it in the river. i hope it's dead now.

i can ride my bike with no hands

this just happened so ya you heard it here first. hot off the press.

the next thing i want to learn to do is sort of lift the bike up while i ride. joris says i won't be able to. he's probably right.

joris killed a mouse with his foot. (in socks)

that's all. what more can i say about that really.

it's worth remembering that

once john and i were watching american idols and some guy sang some schmaltzy song and when steven tyler was sort of raving about it afterwards he went

"i especially liked the way you really brought out all the crescendos and innuendos"

what he meant to say was crescendos and diminuendos. it kind of made me like steven tyler more. like he was trying to speak in music, but he just couldn't. it would be great if he's been doing this his whole life and just no one has ever, ever corrected him because it's SERIOUSLY funny and i feel like you'd never get tired of hearing him do it wrong. 

i'm going to write about my vacation soon and put pictures up

but right now it seems like a momentous task because there are about 800 photos and a lot of them are just the same. It's that thing where you go ok well I haven't taken a photo for a while so you go beserk taking loads of photos and they are all basically the same except you look slightly more weird in some cause you finally get around to smiling after the 10th photo and you end up looking a bit insane.

I was just outside and there was this couple taking photos of themselves next to the canals and the girl went and posed and looked VERY awkward and then the guy went and posed and looked slightly less awkward, but still not like a real human. Having photos taken of yourself is the worst thing because

a) if there are people around you you know they are just going ooh look at her posing for her photo thinking she looks so great.
b) the person taking the photo is obviously going jees can't she just be normal or i can't believe she thinks that's a nice face to make etc etc

Everyone has a photo face that they think makes them look the most dreamy. Mine is probably to put my face a bit to the side and not totally smile cause my teeth look odd in photos. I only realised this when I looked through a bunch of my profile pictures on facebook and went OH GOD I HAVE A WEIRD "I THINK I'M SO MYSTERIOUS" PHOTO FACE. So to remedy this I just stopped looking at the camera properly when I was in photos and then there would just be whole albums where i was looking down a lot AND IT STILL LOOKED LIKE I THOUGHT I WAS BEING MYSTERIOUS. So now I don't even know what to do in a photo which means that I often just talk a lot and hope for the best. The thing is that this all means I'm really vain cause I can't really bear the thought of a photo capturing this moment where I just look the worst. The other worst thing is that when I finally see all the photos I just go oh man why didn't I just look at the camera in this one or why did I decide to really go for it with the smile in this one.

There are some people who just have tons of dreamy photos of themselves where they've moved their heads in just the right way or they sort of lifted their arms a bit and it made them look "interesting" or their skirt is all blowing a bit in the wind and they look from a nice movie and you just know that when they are a thousand years old their kids will show their friends photos of their mom when she was younger (cause EVERYONE does that) and will be all proud that their mom was such a windswept dreamboat.

Basically the way I am dealing with this whole problem is to just decide that you can't trust people who ALWAYS look good in photos because it means they are just spending most of their time practicing for photos and that makes them creepy.