Yuch, I'm struck by a cold. Apparently last weekend hasn't been very good for my health. It started with ache in my throat one night, and the next morning it wasn't much better. Then the sore throat passed but my nose started to run. And now I have a full blown cold. :-(
But as always: I'll live.

Today I think I will make one or two summerdresses out of old tops my mum gave me, by adding leftovers from other sewingprojects to the bottom of the top. I already selected some fabrics, but I have to wait for my nails to dry (just painted them) before I can start cutting and sewing.
So, back to 'work'. ;-)

Since last weekend has been spoiled by my cold limbs I decided to make something warm. And I did.
I took a spare piece of black fluffy fabric, about 1.50 m by 90 cm and cut out a similar piece from some 'normal' black fabric. I stitched the two rectangles together (wrong sides out), left a hole and turned the thing right side out. I also attached two pieces of string on one of the long sides (32 cm from each side) and voilá; something warm! Because the thing doesn't have a neckhole the 'collar' stands up, which is nice and warm. The thing itself reaches to my waist.
No more coldness for Halda!

Now, since Raya is (somehow) going to be older next BBB I'll need a new costume for her. I already made a small dress, which looks sexy, but I'm afraid it will be cold. Perhaps the 'warm something' that I made will look good on her as well and keep me warm, even with that cleavage. :-p
On the other hand.. since Raya's skin gets redder and redder while she ages it might be wise to do the cleavage-and-bare-arms-thing while I don't yet have to paint myself entirely red.

As for school things...
I handed in my preproposal and next Wednesday is the deadline for the proposal but I'm a bit lost. I didn't get any feedback yet so I'm not sure if what I preproposed is good enough. Still, I made a small plan and set-up in my head of what it is going to be.
I'm planning on making a Content Management System for websites. Not just one website, but the CMS has to be generic so that it can be used for multiple future projects. And I want to do it object oriented, which is quite a challenge for me since I'm a noob at this. But EMMA is all about challenges.
Then, my thesis... it has to be interconnected with the project. So I was thinking about researching all kinds of programming styles, why object oriented would be good, what programminglanguage to use, etc. Still, I'm not completely sure about if I can work on such 'dry' material for half a year.
Ah well. We'll see.

You scored as Faerie. Faerie: Aren't you a cute little flying person? Faeries are earth spirits. They live among each element completely hidden. They have cousins called Pixies. Pixies however, are very mischevious. They enjoy tormenting other creatures for fun. Little pranksters.. I hope you never meet one. Pixies have a bad reputation for finding a creature and clinging to them until death. Faeries can be somewhat close to a Pixie, but mostly they are loving, playful, and carry with them a child-like enthusiasm for life. Hide among the pedals of a Daisy, you are a Faerie. Faerie 75% Angel 50% Dragon 42% WereWolf 34% Mermaid 34% Demon 17% What Mythological Creature are you? (Cool Pics!) created with QuizFarm.com

Back home again. I just finished unpacking and I already have my costume and underclothes in the washing machine. The sponges of the schmink are drying in my washbasin.
The LARP was a bit disappointing for me, but that was mainly my fault. I didn't really feel like going Saturdayevening, Matthijs forgot his bow and thus we missed the train and had to wait for half an hour. That did nothing to improve my mood. And I had a headache, so I wasn't in the best of moods when we arrived at the location.

It took me quite some time to get in character and I spent most of the time writing spells in Serran's (Hans) spellbook. Nothing much happend until late at night when three Nightkin came from the future to warn us that we had to go to the future to save Pakuna. They gave us just enough information to go on a quest the next day.
So the next day we went on a quest. We met some gascreatures and vanquished them. I used a few magic arrows to defend myself and the pack. All of us got wounded, but none majorly. Then we made it to the clearing where we did a chant and got into the future. We ended up in the middle of a village with a huge problem; they were surrounded by a vast wall without a door and the wall was closing them in. Soon they would all die by lack of air and supplies.
And that is where I lost it. There were so many problems to be solved that I couldn't grasp it all and, controlfreak that I am, I got frustrated. It was cold outside, lots of things were happening and nobody could tell me what we were doing or what we should be doing. All I knew was that there was some kind of medicine to be brought to Runewall of that time to save Pakuna, who was dying. And there was something about a blue stone and some red potion (which in the end both turned out to be of no importance for our quest) and a lot of chasing and a kidnapping of some of our packmembers.
I was cold, frustrated and went inside to go pack my bed and things. A bit later I went in character again, but the situation hadn't improved and when Serran handed me the staff of Taima (our packleader) so he could get his hands free I really had had it. After a few moments of concideration I gave him back the staff and stormed inside again, where at least it was warm and quiet. Not long after that Matthijs (Rallin) came to get me because apparently something had been solved and everybody was to get out of the hole that Elana would open in the wall. I had a tantrum while Matthijs tried to calm me down. The sweetheart, he didn't deserve to be yelled at.
After a short while I got outside into the cold again. (I am SO going to make me a warmer coat for this character!) We went through the hole in the wall, spent some time in retreiving the blue stone from a villager Nightkin and then brought the medicine (that had somehow appeared somewhere) to the Runewall of that time. After that we went back to our own time and that's where the special ended.

After talking to Matthijs on our way back home I came to the conclusion that I am just a lowsly roleplayer. Well, that might be too strong a word. But still. As soon as there is something to be done with plot, I'm lost. As soon as I can't get all pieces of information to make a well thought out decision (something that is very rare on a larp) I get frustrated. I think that that's the main reason that I play 'stupid' or childish characters best. They can enjoy themselves, don't have to follow rules, don't have to make any important decisions and best of all: they don't really have to follow plot.
Another bad thing about Halda is that she has an impossible goal: trying to protect her pack, which is kind off hard when you have three children running around and messing things up. And she wants the pack to get out of Runewall, since Runewall has proved to be dangerous. But getting out of Runewall is writing yourself out of the game.
So here I am again, stuck with another character that can't be played right. At least, not by me.
I like Halda best when nothing important or livethreatening is happening and she can just sit in the camp making necklaces and stuff out of wool.

Next Symbols I will hopefully study magic with Hans' character Serran (my cousin) and learn and teach a few new spells.
I also have to decide if I'll attend Lands in Exile again with my character Ellen. Because there I'm quite lost as well. But at least I got the promise of Martijn this weekend that I can make Raya (for BoneBreakers Bar) a bit older. So I'm looking forward at playing an adolescent helldemon.

Monday I went to school to get the graduationbooks of the last years, back to 1999. I hoped to get some inspiration out of them, but unfortunately all I got was a sour back because the books were very heavy. Not much inspiration. It did give me a little bit of understanding about the demands of the project, but that was all.

Tuesday (yesterday) was Valentine's day and I decided to surprise my love. I had to go to him anyway to bring him his part of the bed for coming specialweekend. But I decided to go a bit early. Matthijs expected me to arrive around four or five o'clock, when he came back from college. But I stood up at 06.15 and took the 06.37 train to Enschede, where I arrived at 08.45. I silently (but not quietly enough) entered Matthijs' room and woke him with a kiss.
I spent that day looking through the graduationbooks and reading a bit. And I sent one Valentine's card to Suusje. And she sent me a really lovely one back. :)

Today I went from Enschede to school in Hilversum and my group spent some time on a bit of chatting, cutting the poster in shape, hanging the poster, some more chatting and writing a short presentation for tomorrow.
Tomorrow 12 groups have to give a 5 minute presentation in English about their supportive study.

Fridayevening I'm going to Enschede again, with my own LARPstuff and on Saturdayevening we will depart to Eefde.
But now I'm going to take a shower because I just returned from Jazz.

Thanks to the help of Matthijs and the piece of software called Blosxom I now have my own customized weblog! To be completely honest: I don't understand half of what Blosxom and all its plugins can do. But I learned some more things about working on a Linux computer and using Vim.
On this monitor, at Matthijs' place in Harderwijk, I noticed that the backgroundcolor of the backgroundimage isn't quite black. And the same problem exists with my 'portalpage'. I'll have to fix that when I get home.

So, today I made a weblog. Yesterday I made a long coat-like thingy out of my mothers old bedsheets. I'm practising because I want to make my own wintercoat sometime soon. I altered a difficulty-3 pattern for a dress to become a coat.
The bedsheets had a flowerpattern on the one side and stripes on the other. And now I have a coat with the left-side (including the left sleeve and the left part of the hood) in flowerpattern and the other side in stripes. It's nearly finished, it only needs buttons to close it.
I also had enough fabric to make a pair of pants, but that will have to wait till next week. I'm hoping to make pants out of some green fabric I got on the market a few weeks ago. But I'm not sure if I have enough fabric. So I'll make a mock-up first, to prevent any mistakes.

Last Friday my group of the supportive studies started on, and finished, the A0 poster that we had to make about what we learned during the study. It reads "Kunst is de expressie van een medium" (art is the expression of a medium) and in the letters of the word 'kunst' we tell how one may come to that defenition. Cyrille, our teacher, liked the poster, so that's a good sign. Next Wednesday we have to hold a 10 minute presentation about our poster. And the 12 best groups have to do another presentation the Thursday after, for all EMMA students. The rest of the week is free. Though on Monday (tomorrow) I plan on going to Ina, to talk about my individual project, for which I still don't have any ideas.

This weekend is specialweekend of Symbols. Tavernnight on Saturday and special on Sunday. At this moment I can't get in the mood to smear paint all over my face, but it will be good to see my friends again.