I meant to finish my previous entry, but first I was busy, and then my computer crashed, and then I was busy again ... you get the picture. So happy happy joy joy, here's a whole new entry. In case anyone reads this.

I have 2 interviews lined up for travel guide jobs. The one I allready mentioned, for Koning Aap/Shoestring, and a new one for Baobab, another Dutch company. The latter have a trip to Poland and Slovakia and a trans-Siberian tour that I could lead, the former also have a trans-Siberian tour, and a walking tour in Slovakia, and other Russian trips, including one that mainly focuses on Siberia. Of course I have absolutely no experience in this line of work, but I'm convinced I could be good at it, so hopefully I'll be able to convince them to give me a shot at it, too. It's not hopeless, otherwise they wouldn't be inviting me for interviews in the first place, would they?

I remember now why being unemployed is no fun. Writing applications and going to interviews really is a full time job, but 99% of the work you put into it is useless, since in the end you only need one job anyway. And it's impossible to plan ahead, I keep thinking I should go on a short trip but there's always the prospect of a job looming in the future, so I can't go away really.

I hate christmas. Why do people find it appropriate to celebrate the birth of Jesus with such nauseating materialism? It's really over-the-top in my family. Tomorrow there will be 15,5 people at my grandma's house, and everyone has to buy a present for everyone (I give presents together with my sisters for most people, but I'm the responsible oldest child so that I means I have to take care of the actual buying, and I hate shopping), and then all the presents get numbers and we draw numbers until there are no presents left, inbetween stuffing ourselves on a 4-course meal. Every suggestion I've made towards less presents (no presents at all, drawing names so there will only be one present per person, no presents for me, people giving their money to good causes selected by me instead of giving me presents) were impossible according to my mother because they are "no fun". Is it that hard to understand I don't want more stuff? In fact when I returned from my trip, I was shocked at how much stuff I owned allready, being used to only having whatever fits into a backpack. But yay! It will all be over again the day after tomorrow, for another 11 months. Each year, I tell myself that next year they won't suck me in, I'll just go to Egypt or somewhere they don't have christmas. But then I think, maybe it won't be so bad this year, and my family would really hold it against me if I did that, and I get sucked in and stressed out anyway. Oh, and another thing: why do people find it appropriate to put trees inside a house?

On a brighter not (though bright may not be the right word here), I went to see Laibach a week ago and they rocked! When I'd seen them before they were always good, but not great because they played too many songs from Jesus Christ Superstar and most of them are just too pathetic. I mean Laibach are great when they take light-hearted pop songs and add all the pathos, but Jesus Christ Superstar is allready teeming with pathos so they can't really add anything to it. But this time they played mostly songs from WAT, which is one of their best albums imho, and some classics : they started of with In the army now, and played Sympathy for the devil, Life is life and Geburt einer Nation as encores. No Final Countdown though. They had sexy girls with braided hair and black uniforms (I bought the same T-shirt after the show :) ), singing backing vocals and playing percussion, and the guitarists and drummer were barely visible behind them because it was so dark, which added some mystery. It was just so stylish, really cool.