Outdoorsy

A couple of days ago I talked to my mother about how I always stayed inside alone while all my friends were outside playing together, when I was little. Apparently she was a little worried about me back then, because I was so different.

I'm not like that anymore. Just maybe a little bit. But in order to prove that I have improved and like to be OUTdoors, I got myself two friends and made them go on a bike tour around the Lake of Constance with me.

The Lake of Constance is one of the biggest lakes in Europe, its 273 km long shore is shared by Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

So we basically rode 273 kilometers in 5 days and crossed three countries. We slept in a tent, washed ourselves in the lake and had campfires to grill our food. Pretty outdoorsy, right?

Here's my friends. They are named M. & M., we used to live together in Ireland, where they used to jog around a way smaller lake almost every day (Lough Atalia in Galway *wipetear*) and they have no idea that I post a picture of them on the internet, hope they won't sue me:

They are on a ferry. I don't lie, if I say that we made the whole way around the lake with our bikes. But we still had to get on a ferry at some point. That's an annoying and long story and I don't feel like telling it. It's not very interesting anyway. Just annoying and long.

I'll rather tell you about the monkeys.

At the edge of Germany, there's a hill inhabited by monkeys. They sit on a fence and eat popcorn.

Salty or sweet??? Neither nor. They eat popcorn without salt and sugar. Can you imagine?

Anyway.

They are cute, but you better not pet them, they might bite.

I like the monkey hill a lot. It's great for children and even more awsome for twenty-somethings, too. I mean... you get to feed monkeys with popcorn...!!!!!

M. loved the monkeys, too. I think monkeys are his favourite animals. He's hard to satisfy, but I think he liked feeding mokeys with popcorn.

Apart from that he likes having campfires a lot. He would have loved to have one every night. In the end, we had only, two, but those were pretty good.

When we had to pee, we stopped just somewhere and found something to eat, like these tasty raspberries in M.'s hand, which she generously shared with me. Sweet! Thanks, M.! :)
When we got thirsty, we mostly stopped at typically German beer gardens. Here's a picture of a NIO with an Almdudler, that I didn't drink.

Well, in the end I had a good time. And I want to say "Thank you" to M & M for coming with me. Or for making me come with you. I will miss you guys a lot and I'm looking forward to the "Vortexian Harry Potter Butterbeer Competition" in December. Time's gonna fly. At least for me.

Over and Out. Nio <3

This Just Out

Tonight I laughed my butt off and now am so sad.

I've been waiting for months for the newest episode of This Just Out by Liz Feldman and now yesterdy I learned that it would be the final episode, not only of this season, but forever. And how sad is that?

I loved the reasons for you leaving us, though... ("I’m actually straight and my husband just figured out how to use the internet and he’s pissed.")

There have been so many great episodes, I don't even know where to begin. Obviously, each and every of Sh... ehm Kate's visits was a highlight (including today's). I loved Tegan and Sara. (Hey! What about the promised episode from their recording studio???)

I loved Raimy. I loved Liz, obviously. Get out of the way, Natalia Tena... marry me, Liz Feldman! I'm ready for your finger babys!

Haaach... then there was the Rose Rollins episode. Loved it.

And the Erin Daniels episode. Loved that, anyway.
And the Clementine Ford episode... good times...

I loved today's episode, too, even though it was not my favourite.

The opening sentence was probably the best in the history of TJO, though:

"Welcome to This Just Out, the most inappropriate childrens’ show on the web!"

A-B-C-L-G-B-T-... *lol* Liz, you*re killing me...

I'll have that song stuck in my head for ages. So thanks for that.

Okay, my highlight of today's episode was, as I mentioned before, Kate Moennig coming to Liz' kitchen. I think it's great, because it makes it complete in a way, considering that it all started with Kate, too. *sigh*

Liz' Mom's reaction to Kate entering was hillarious. Julie, you should watch this. I'm telling you, EVERYONE loves Shane. ;-)

Well... then we had to say goodbye to Raimy... I never was her biggest fan. She's cool and I discovered a lot of great music throughout the last year with her help, but for me it's still all about Liz.

Man. I'm gonna miss her so much. :-(

Oh then there was Holly Miranda, finally. They've been talking about her for a whole year and in this final episode they got her on the show. About time.
Check her out! She's awsome! Solo as well as with the Jealous Girlfriends...

So... I'm gonna cry myself to sleep now and dream about Liz selling her blazer on ebay. I will purchase it and pay her the seven dollars back she spent on it in the first place... Maybe I'll get one of the gay swords for free. As a bonus or something. I mean, it's a dream, right... nice things like that happen in dreams. *wipetears*

Why, thank you, Liz, for a wonderful, awsomely gay year full of finger babies, v-holes, laughs and lezzie blazers... I'll have your voice in my ears for a little while longer, and you know what it's gonna say...

"I AM LIZ FELDMAN. AND YOU ARE SOOO GAY."

Over and Out... Nio...

Out in cinemas this July...

Obviously, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. (Sorry, Mel.)

I just came back from the movies, where I enjoyed 153 magic minutes together with my friends Julie and Marilyn.

What can I say? I loved it. Unsurprisingly, as I loved all the HP movies, except for the first two, so far. David Yates has done a great job once again, and he's not the only one.
There's Alan Rickman, my beloved Severus, who can kill whoever he wants, I'll still love him. Just look at his face, when himself, Dumbledore and Slughorn gather in the hospital after Ron was poisened and Lavender Brown pulls a goofy lovestruck maniac in front of him... priceless.

Then there's Luna. Freak. But you've got to love her.

I'm also happy they didn't cut out Tonks completely (because wasn't it her in the books, who found Harry in the train after he was paralized by Draco?). Marry me, Natalia Tena!
Oh and Michael Gambon. Good job. I'm looking forward to seeing you at world's end in some deserted space talking to crabs. Oh no, wait that was Johnny Depp in PotC, right? What was Dumbledore talking to? A screaming baby, something?

Anyway... I wonder why gay websites (such as AE, eg) review on Harry Potter movies. Is it really just because JKR admitted that Dumbledore is gay? It doesn't come up in the movies at all at all. Neither does it in the books. So?

Does the fact that the inventor of a fictional character confirms the character's gayness automatically turn the books and movies the character's in into gay books and gay movies? Even if he doesn't act gay once in seven years? I don't think so. So what's all the fuzz about?

I think gay people just like wearing "Dumbledore's Army" T shirts and because they don't want to seem childish, they welcome the hidden meaning that the DA-phrase got when Rowling first commented on Albus' sexuality.

No offence. I'm Dumbledore's Woman, through and through and I think it's great. *lol* I just don't think Harry Potter has anything at all to do with being gay.

I kind of got lost in my film review, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, what I liked about the movie.

I liked that they chose the Cliffs of Moher as THE cliffs. Made me feel at home.

I liked the waitress Harry was hitting on in the beginning.

I liked Snape.

I liked that they showed a quidditch match.

I liked the scene with Slughorn in the Three Boomsticks, when he pours his butterbeer all over Hermione.

I liked Snape.

I liked the look on Harry's felix feliciis face, when Hagrid falls asleep drunk against the wall.

I liked Slughorn's speech for Aragog, RIP.

I liked Snape.

There's also things I didn't like.

I didn't like Hermione's dress for Slughorn's party.

I didn't like the pigmypuff on Ginny's shoulder. WTF? It's supposed to be cute and plushy and twee and dinky. Not to look like a pink, sick, bitten-by-a-gremlin furby.

I didn't like that Harry just stood up on that cute waitress in the beginning of the movie. Wouldn't it have been really cool, if he'd just told Dumbledore to f*** off, because he's on holidays and went out with the waitress? He could have taken her to some nice Irish Pub and who knows, maybe everything would have went different and some nice, funny, witty, about 150 year old gay person with long gray hair and beard would still be alive for the next movie. Just saying...

Oh and what was that running around in fields in the middle of the night, chasing Bella all about? That was not in the books. It was a long, major scene, that was not in the books and ended in burning down the Burrow completely. Hullo? You can't just burn down the burrow without an explanation, especially if it's not even in the books. It didn't even have any consequences.
Okay, I see why the house can't be destroyed throughout book seven, when there's no wedding between Bill and Fleur, because Bill doesn't even exist in the movies and so you have to find another way of destroying the house... bla... but THIS was random. You could just have married Remus and Tonks. Or Ron and Hermione. Or Harry and Hermione. Or Fred and George!

Anything could have led to a destruction of the Burrow (especially the latter).

And I'm not even sure whether the Burrow was destroyed during a wedding.

I also would have liked to see more memories of Dumbledore concerning Tom Riddle's life. Like the one with Tom's daddy and his sister and all that.

But anyway. I enjoyed the movie a lot. I liked Snape.

Over and out, Nio.

Just found Out

I just found out that "Nio" is actually a male first name. It's the male form of the Welsh name "Nia", which means "brightness".

Very well. I feel very bright these days. And I'm a dyke, so why not carry a boy's name. :-p


Apparently "NIO" is also the official abbreviation for:

• the National Institute of Ophthalmology
• the Neurotechnology Industry Organization
• the Nicaraguan córdoba (currency) and the
• Northern Ireland Office

Don't confuse me with any of them. I know little about eyes (I like ears better.), I know even less about the neurotechnology industries, I have nothing at all to do with Nicaragua and I have been to Northern Ireland only once for a weekend.

For anyone who reads this and is disappointed, now, because you were actually looking for information on one of these institutions... check out these links:

NIO's eyes
NIO's neurotech
NIO's money
NIO's office

Hope I could help.
Over and Out. Nio.

Filling Out Forms

Well, what I did not consider when I dropped out of college is how awful and annoying it is to fight your way through the jungle of bureaucracy.

I ended up applying at four different universities for four slightly different combinations of subjects over the weekend. And I literally spent hours on filling out forms.

Filling out forms. Uch. I mean, there's different kinds of forms. Some are fun to fill out, because they are like little quizzes and it makes you happy that you actually know all the answers.

But then there's those really long, long forms that take hours to fill out and ask the same questions over and over again in different ways. They are annoying, because you have to write so much and concentrate hard so you won't forget anything or check the wrong little boxes. But they are still easy to deal with.

And then there's the kind of forms that are incredibly long, but also incredibly confusing, because some morone created them and didn't think.
Those are bad. They contain all kinds of questions that you just don't know how to answer. So you end up surfing the internet for hours, trying to find instructions, which is usually unsuccessful and in the end you start calling people, who tell you to call other people. So you call them and they tell you:

a) ... to call someone else.

b) ... that they have no idea what you're talking about.

c) ... please leave a message after the signal... peeep.

d) ... that it really doesn't matter what you put down there, because some morone made up the form and they don't even know what he wanted to hear.

I personally hate making those calls. But sometimes these phone calls pay of, let me tell you. While filling out one of those confusing forms in order to apply for one of the universities I ended up calling someone, who told me that I didn't have to fill out the form at all! Cany ou believe it? It kind of made me like that university a lot.

Over and Out, Nio

Take Out the Colours!

So, being a college drop-out leaves you with a bit of extra time that you can spend on useful things like washing dishes or reading the newspaper or on not so useful things like watching YouTube videos.

Guess what I chose to do with my time...

Damn right. The latter.

While I was exploring YouTube-Outerspace I stumbled over a little stand-up comedy video by my beloved Miss you're-so-gay Liz Feldman. And she made a joke about me. And then I made a comic book about her joke. Check this out:

(the red line says: freely based on a joke by Liz Feldman)

copyright:

Obviously, this is not the end of my book, but I guess only my parents will find out how the story ends. If you want to see Liz telling the joke, check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Iz-GDFeq_I

Obviously, it's not the exact same joke as I have in my comic book. I never went to Hebrew school, so I couldn't get kicked out of it.

SURPRISE! That's it for today.

Sooorryyyy... sorry mom... ;-)

trying to figure Out...

So... I recently dropped out of college.
The college doesn't know yet. But my parents do.
I was really scared to tell them, afterall they spent a shitload of money on my education during the past couple of years. I felt like a loser and complete disappointment to my mom and dad, when I sobbed my drop-out plans into the telephone receiver.
My mom was cool, though. She said she still loved me and if I wanted to, she would take all the boxes with gift wrap out of my old room and I could come back home to live in it and she'd make me breakfast and a hot water bottle.
Then she said I needed to find something else to do.
So I started looking around for possibilities. Here's what I found:

1. Finish my English studies at my current college and start studying German here, too.

2. Continue my English studies at the university in my hometown and start doing Gender Studies there, too.

3. Forget about my English studies, too and start looking for an internship that keeps me busy and my parents satisfied while I figure out what I actually want to do.

4. Apply for random subjects at universities all over the country.

5. Do nothing and live on the public's euro.

Seriously? All these possibilities suck. Some more than others. Here's what I like about each and every one of them:

Number 1 would be easy. I wouldn't have to move. I wouldn't have to do much at all. But it would take years for me to finish these German studies and I really never wanted to study German in the first place.

Number 2 would be cool, because it would be a quick way to finish my studies and I could live with my parents and have my mom make me breakfast and hot water bottles all the time. Then again, moving back in with my parents would feel like a step backwards. I would actually go back into things. And this is supposed to be a story about my way out of things.

Number three would probably make the most sense. It would be nice to have some time to figure out what I want to do. I'd probably end up wanting to become a doctor or a comedian or a professional dancer, though. And I would have wasted another year.

Number four would be fun. I might do that in any case. Just for the fun of being accepted and rejected for things like "applied creative writing" and "farming" and "IT security".

Number 5 would b a comfortable solution, of course. But in the end I imagine it to be really boring and boring is bad. Also, I think my parents would freak out. And they would be in the right...

So I think I'll chose a combination of 1,2 and 4 and see where I'll end up.
This whole thing feels insane. And exciting.

My dad, by the way, was a bit grumpy when he heard about my plans. He told me I'd better be finished with my studies before my brother starts university, because he can't afford to pay for two of us.
That's the same thing he said 4 years ago, when I first started college. Back then thought "well, I got 7 years, so that won't be a problem."
Now I got three years left and am starting all over again. Way to go.

Out of what?

So... this is my third blog.

I can't even remember what the first one was called, but I know it was boring to read, even for myself. So nobody did and I deleted it.
The second one was more fun for a little while. But not much was going on at the time, neither in my life nor in my mind, so I ran out of topics to talk about quickly and forgot about that blog, too. It was called penny-royal tea (sit and drink pennyroyal tea, distill the life that's inside of me...). I liked the title. Too bad there wasn't a lot of life to distill inside of me. That was about four years ago. Back then, when I had just finished school, I was completely inside things.
I was happy about my graduation, happy about my very supportive family, happy with my little job at a gift store. I was in a theatre group and also in a committed relationship with a really nice guy. I was into writing poetry, going to the movies, I was into Ireland and Harry Potter.
I was in love. I was living in peace and the only thing I was not in was probably pain.
I've come a long way since.
It all started with moving out of my parents'. But who would have thought that this would only be the first thing in a long line of things I was about to walk out of.
Now, I am out of money, most of the time. I am also out of the closet. I just this morning ran out of potatos. I am out of my mind a lot. And since I dropped out of college yesterday, my life feels a little out of controle.

I'm not out of hope and ideas, yet. But as I am out of other thing to do, I will tell you little (coming) out stories here...