Intl Doc Film Fest A'dam

I think that is what IDFA stands for. Stand for something or you aill fall for anything, eh?
I saw six films in four visits. Gosh I heart film. I have a few dvds but its no fun on the laptop.

The first doc listed is relevant to my coursework. The Scandinavian countries come up a lot in discussions of well-functioing social benefits systems. So imagine my intrigue when I read the film's premise. Went with a classmate who it turns out is doing her term paper on Sweden's welfare system.

If you get a chance to see a film, anywhere about anything, do it for me.

As We're Told  Any story told through gigantic cardboard heads is good enough for me.

The Poetess  Boy this was something. I could not locate a banana (what a weird way to start a film description) during the walk from one cine to this one so halfway through this film I started seeing voices. There may have been a q & a afterward (as with many of the IDFA screenings, which was an unexpected treat!) but I lit out as soon as the credits rolled.

Rezo  This was paired with the big fat Swedes up top. Another unexpected gem. The filmmaker came out afterward and talked about the challenges of making a film about a family member. Rezo is his father, an illustrator, who did all the drawings for the film, I believe.

When You Look Away  Things were heating up in my class assignments book. I needed, desperately so, a metaphysical getaway. Research is so linear. Bring me back home to chaos, filmmonster. Dooooo it.

See You Tomorrow, God Willing!  This was adorable. Watch the trailer.

Roosenberg  Quiet and beautiful. An 18-minute short about the last of the aged nuns at a closing abbey in Belgium. I think my cousin was a nun for a while. She was also the president of the Beatles fan club in the late 60s. It's an honest segue.



UPDATE

And one I really want to see, though I'd like meet the players myself in Istanbul-

Kedi

4540

From 06:30 yesterday to 15:00 today I wrote 4,540 words among three separate assignments.

I left the apartment last night for an hour walk.

I left today at noon to go up and down the stairs three times, then to the bike shop and mailbox below.

I have one more assignment due tomorrow by midnight. It's the rough final copy of our term paper. I hear it is supposed to be 6,000 words. I told one classmate that I have a title.

Then they asked how many words I have on it. I repeated, I have a title.

Let's see if I get another four thousand five hundred and forty words submitted by tomorrow midnight.

I am not terribly stressed about it. The rough is 15% of our grade but to me that still leaves me 85%. It will most likely be a substantial number of words, not 6000 and probably a day late. That is OK too. I will live.

It doesn't make much sense to me, really. The finished version is due on January 5th. That is a month away. More than a month. The prof says it is to have something substantial to offer during peer review which is most of December. That is when, you guessed it, we review each other's rough drafts. That is also of little value to me, really. In my experience people end up saying the stupidest shit just becuase they think if they dont offer criticism then they wont appear intelligent. I usually just go for syntax. Who am I to judge.

I'm hard to intimidate. I have nothing to lose. I do my best and I work to the whip of my anxiety. If the whip aint cracking then aint a human on the planet going to make me work any harder than I feel like. I woke up rigid with anxiety yesterday. Actually it was more like surrender. I didnt even go for a morning walk. Just coffee, stretches and turning on the machine.

I'll nap for a bit (it is nearing 5pm here now), get up around 19:00. Go for a short walk or maybe even bike ride, start writing around 21:00 probably til 01:00. Class tomorrow from 15:00-17:00, home by 6pm and write til I feel like I am done.

That is the plan anyway. Not even sure if I'll get the nap in. Though it is much easier as I have no tv or facebook or friends or drugs or food or shopping or car or job or cat (oh, btw it occurred to me today that cats are so good at looking innocent), or lovers or movie passes or discretionary income or political views or weather or anything to distract me from living the monastic life that I do.

Excluding the sentence you are reading right now, that was another 400 words.

Seeing how tall these people are I dont think ''big'' is being used in a complimentary way.

 I cant read Dutch but judging by the suspension rope, the tighty-whiteys and the business heels it must be saying this way to a damn good party.

So only gays and straights get fucked and the rest get loved? 

      

 I havent seen these amber-eyed ducks before.

Sometimes you are quite pretty Amsterdam.

Then, three metro stops down the line. Cranes follow me everywhere.

26 November

It has been an age since I posted. A few people have contacted me saying they checked my blog, so I guess people are reading it?

On October 20th I saw a chiropractor. For about the third morning I woke up and when my foot hit the floor it felt broken. I do not recall having broke it. I googled "foot feels broken". I have no other symptoms of diabetes so that was out. Somewhere down the rabbit hole a guy on a forum told another poster that their foot-feels-broken problem may be helped by a chiropractor. Huh. Never thought of that. I knew I was in need of an adjustment but I kept allowing the cost to put me off. That and just finding one. How do you find a new healer?

During the analysis the chiro put his hands near my lower abdomen and asked if everything was ok. I said, uh, as a matter of fact...haha. Who knew.

Do you recall that problem I had been having with my left ovary? The doctor visit, the exam, the insurance hassle, the ultrasound, the tears? That chiro had that shit and everything else fixed inside of ten minutes. Turns out my sacrum was so fucked up -- it gets that way from the bike wreck twenty years ago plus a generally shitty lifestyle -- that my pelvic bone was tilted (he told me to feel it, I did, it was half-up) and it was pulling one side of the muscles and scrunching the ones...on...the...left...side. Boom. That was my ovary pain. Gone. In an instant.

He also found something on my -- I'm going to mess up this pronunciation ala Dutch-English -- shirtrrib (trill it). Before I could figure out what he was saying he did this kind of pulling thing on my upper right chest/clavicle area and a flood of emotion came pouring out of my face. It was all the tears that were stored up since the beginning of the move, the packing, the last days at work, finding a home for the cat, the arrangements, moving here, delivering stuff, trying to find IKEA, dealing with financial aid, trying to get a bank account...loneliness. Anger. Terror. But it wasn't tears that came out. It was laughter. Like everyone better stand back because this is going to knock a bitch out kind of laughter. I havent felt such emotion. It was like he cracked open the lock on Pandoras box of emotion.

Then I got what he was calling thee area -- short rib -- and I howled some more cos all I could see were some fellas in the South holding up BBQ and yelling "SHORT RIBS!".

I had no idea that I was in such pain. I had no idea that physical pain, left unattended for long enough could lead to such emotional turmoil. I had not been down so far in a very long time. Then I remembered what I read in a Bio class a few years back:

Feelings are merely bodily sensations.

All those yoga assholes got it right.

Since then -- and the follow up six days later which found me bounding out of bed the next morning like a six-year-old -- I have been immersed in school work. I had my thinking brain back as soon as I left that chiro's office. All that frustration and self-doubt and bafflement over why I could not read a simple article and the panic that I could not do this program was simply a result of so much locked-down pain. I have been pretty damn thrilled with being able to "do" school again. Not that it is 100% glorious, I still fucking hate going to campus (but I love the lectures by my key instructor), but at least if I am not doing work, it is just that familiar and manageable resistance, procrastination and the plain old process of learning.

There is always a shit more to tell, but the above story is why I have been away and what  have been doing.

I raided the local thrift store a couple weeks ago and below is my 2.5 feet tall €17 Christmas tree. I fucking love Christmas, I never get tired of saying it.

There are black Friday signs in the centrum shop windows. But here they do not celebrate Thanksgiving. So I wonder how black Friday is justified?  I havent asked. I have no TV and left fuckbook a month ago so I dont know shit. I'll ask someone later, maybe.

     --------LaLaLa!------->




















Misc stuff:

These crows hanging out in front of my window in the morning :-)

Misc walking around the centrum A'dam center. There is no downtown per se, old cities are more like a big village, as more than one local has called it. Though it seems to me a series of squished together villages. Like the lifeboats that were tied together in that movie Titanic.

In between classes I take the staircase to get around. On ten minute breaks I go up the ten flights of stairs to shake the sitting loose. I like the view. I like the lack of people in the empty stairwells

I am not allowed to enter a bead store. But I took a picture of the sign. (No I have never shoplifted from a bead store it's just...well the bead story before I left we'll save for another blog)

More stairwell. Oh, did I not say? This is from the University of Amsterdam's new building at Roterseiland Campus. It is in a really pretty area. 

Mural on campus

Misc riding or walking around shot. I started walking to campus a couple weeks ago, when it is not raining. Takes about 70 minutes. I'm nice and relaxed when I get there. I fucking hate sitting.

Just a dork standing under a tree with a phone.

Over here...nice sky!

Turn the body not even 30 degrees to the right and the ever present storm. It will rain like hell for 5 minutes, or rain a little for an hour, then...sun. Or just gray. It is positively bipolar BUT. I have seen more rainbows here in my first month than in a lifetime, I believe.

Went for a Sunday ride a couple of weeks ago. Froze my tits off. But it was pretty. 

Went for another ride some time before that. This under the bridge that goes to IJburg, a little place I was quite fascinated with for a while. Did I post these already? I've a shit tonne of photos.

I want all these colors, everywhere. In my hair, on a sweater, on my shoes, in my eyeballs. I want to eat and drink and get awkward with all these colors.

The obligatory windmill.

the end!