Geek in the Low Lands

I'm an immigrant. I moved from the United States at the age of 19 to the Netherlands. I'm a Dutch citizen now, I've given up my US citizenship. I'm in university. I'm white. For many, they forget that I'm an immigrant. After all, aren't immigrants those people from poor countries? Aren't they people of color? Aren't they all people who simply leech off the government, never wanting to get jobs? It bothers me every time a conversation about immigration comes up. I hate that first, people will say horrible things about immigrants - no qualifiers, just immigrants - and then they get all flustered when I remind them, hey,  I'm  an immigrant. "Oh, well, I didn't mean you, of course!" No, they meant anyone who doesn't look like them. It doesn't matter where you go, the US or the Netherlands, people of color have it hard. There are many people about my age who are actually Dutch. They were born here, raised here, speak bett...

No one here reading this would know that when I was younger, I wanted to write. I wrote a lot, almost everything that came in to my mind. I was alone a lot as a child, and writing was my way of dealing with all that was going on in my life. I wrote fiction, grand adventures involving fantastical creatures and horror stories filled with revenge, and non-fiction about how I saw what was going on. I wrote poetry and even attempted a song lyric or two. Now? Now I have trouble writing comments. I stumble over expressing myself, filled with fear and self-doubt. Somewhere along the way, my dream of being a writer, of sharing what I was feeling so eloquently that others felt it too, it was crushed. My confidence in so many things was shattered. I can hear the voices in my head, telling me how no one will read it, or it has been done by other people who are a thousand times more eloquent than I am. My opinions on controversial things also get swallowed. I want to discuss current events, pol...

I find the ever-changing relationship people have with food to be fascinating. Never mind the clear shifts in tastes within various cultures. Only too true! I'm currently watching through the BBC program 'Turn Back Time: the High Street'. Having just watched the first episode, I was surprised when the baker and the grocer both thought of the 'purity' of Victorian food. Perhaps it is my own bias as a history buff coming through, but I thought everyone knew that the Victorians were notorious for adding any number of (really awful) ingredients to stretch their food. Lead, chalk, sulfuric acid, mercury were common additives. This is what crosses my mind whenever people express nostalgia for the 'Good Old Days'. Well, that and these people are suffering from some delusion, as the good old days never existed! It is the sort of propaganda that gets pushed around a lot, in my opinion. A mixture, of course, of nostalgia, a touch sometimes of the ' Noble S...

For those among us inclined to Medieval things (such as myself) here is the British Library's Calendar page . Otherwise, what movie have I finally watched this last weekend? I finally saw Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance . Now, I am a great fan of horrible movies. I love movies that are so bad that they become good again. I had heard that GR:SoV was horrible, and I had high hopes that it was one of those movies that can be wonderfully horrible. I was mistaken. It was not a good movie. The animated sequences were pretty well done, and the effects weren't terrible, but the plot, and the acting. Let's just say, usually I love watching Nicolas Cage in all his craziness on screen, but this was a movie full of moments where all I could do was wince. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, there's a road! Really, when a movie starts off with this descriptor of where things are happening. Yeah, Eastern Europe, because everyone knows that is just one big homogeneous area, cult...

Introduction In Irish literature, there are many aspects of the supernatural. Indeed, there are entire genres based on specifi c supernatural occurrences, such as supernatural lovers in tochmarca . However, what is possibly the most known and enjoyed genre within traditional Irish literature is that of echtra . All genres have their own tropes, and those of echtra are many. You could probably spend several books discussing each one individually; the history of it, it's use within various stories; exceptions that prove the rule. In this post, we will only handle the story of Echtra Chonnlai and the traditional themes of the Otherworld therein. This story can be found in many manuscripts; including Lebor na hUidre, The Yellow Book of Lecan, Rawlinson B 512, Egerton 1782, Egerton 88, R.I.A. 23 N 10, Harley 5280, TCD H. 1. 13.2 I will be using a translation that seems to be based off of Lebor na hUidre, edited by Tom P. Cross and Clark Harris Slover, as is it  includes ...