Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

With the 2011 Rugby World Cup final approaching, every self-respecting Kiwi is finding excuses to wear black... Lots of black. While I'm not usually a girly-girl who cares too much about appearances, even my nails got a make-over and now look amazing... Tried to get a close-up shot of them using my phone, and to have it look vaguely artsy at the same time. Not sure how well that worked out though ;-) Now go back to your lives, remember to dress up in black on Sunday (the winners-to-be are after all called the All Blacks!!!!), and enjoy the big game! And just in case you can't get enough of fancy nails and nail art, check out this link to  Emily's Nail Files - totally awesome blog !!!!!

It's been a long time since I went on a holiday. Well, that's one way of looking at it... One could also say that I'm still on holiday, a holiday that's lasted for almost two years now. Life here in The Netherlands has been good. I really enjoy my job, have some pretty awesome friends, and feel at peace with myself. It's not a glamorous life or a very exciting one just right now, however all things can change! At the moment, my life is simple. Easy. Uncomplicated. Boring even, quite a lot of the time. I will most definitely go stir-crazy if I have to live this life for another two years, however for these past two years, it's been what I needed. Living a simple and easy life has allowed me to get settled in, it's allowed me to save up, it's allowed me to get a job and make friends and figure out what I want without a whole lot of stress. And now I'm going on holiday. I'm going back to New Zealand. I'm excited and looking forward...

Being grateful. Sometimes it sounds very easy, at other times it sounds quite hard. When life seems to be going well, being grateful feels easy. We love our job, enjoy spending time with friends, attend interesting courses, we're fit and healthy - whatever makes us feel happy, satisfied and content, those are all things to feel grateful for. When life throws you curve balls and making ends meet or staying sane feels impossible, being grateful can seem pointless or futile. Life sucks - why should I be grateful for that? Yet even in the face of disappointment, curve balls, stress, grief, loss or hardship, we are alive and able to think about whatever may be happening in our lives. We are able to examine our lives, to look at what is happening and to find ways to get through whatever it is we're going through. One of the many perks of the way our minds work! Focusing only (or mostly) on negative thoughts, feelings and emotions like Life sucks / I'm a failure / Nobody love...

I've been busy. Both in real-life and in the online world. How busy I've been online over the years shows itself in the amazing amount of emails I receive about Friend Requests, New Posts, Great Offers, New Games and more. The thing is - these aren't spam emails, they're newsletters / updates from websites and social networking sites I've subscribed to over the years. So, I've started a huge clean-up action. I plan to keep lots of online community subscriptions - Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Goodreads, Youtube and Google are the keepers, off the top of my head. Thing is, these are websites / communities I actually use. Some of the ones I no longer use are Hyves, Yahoo, Bebo, MySpace, and several others I can't even remember the names of, just that I un-subscribed from them yesterday. One inspiration for doing this was Googling my name and coming up with a whole list of hits that weren't about me but someone with my exact same name. Not that strange...

Following on from the last post, I did some Google research. Normally, I´d research before writing - something left over from my days as a university student no doubt, however today, I wanted to write first and research later. Something about not spoiling the sense of wonder I felt when first reading the article with lots of statistics! Check out this post from the website of the Smithsonian on Gobekli Tepe for some more information. And yes - it´s an awesome website too, and one I´ll hopefully be visiting lots more in the future!

So I haven't written a blog post in a couple of days. Mostly as I've been spending all my spare time watching Battlestar Galactica online. I finished the series on Friday. Started on Caprica yesterday and am liking and enjoying it just as much as I liked and enjoyed BSG. The Taurons are portrayed like Italian mobsters from the 30s with their hats, suits, crime syndicate and especially "Little Tauron". Interesting to see that, coupled with futuristic-ish equipment and environments, yet the combination somehow still feels right.  Hilarious to see dogs, cats, cars and refrigerators on Caprica that look *exactly* the same as they do in our world. Sure, humans having pets and keeping their food in a place where it won't spoil - logical for sure, however I'd expect things to look just a bit different, really. Star Trek's pet sehlats and targs seem more realistic, somehow. But then, the BSG-verse story is that the remnants of the human race settled on our...

Simply HAD to share this link. Love the "Chakotay", the "Dax" and the "McCoy". Find the Star Trek Dictionary at aaaugh.com  and see what your favourite new definitions are!

OK, I really didn't think it was going to happen. I figured I'd watch a few episodes, recognise a storyline here and there, probably enjoy the show to some degree, watch another episode at some point in the future if I got bored... Take it easy, basically - cruise along. Yet it's happened. I've fallen for another TV series. As of two days ago I am officially a Battlestar Galactica nut. Few years late to the party, but hey... at least now I don't have to wait for a new episode every week; I get to gorge myself on them every chance I get! Halfway through Season 1 as of now, and am totally and absolutely hooked already.

Having just watched Season 4 of Primeval and Season 2 of The Vampire Diaries , I'm now wondering what show to watch next. Doctor Who 's adventures with Amy Pond and Rory are up to date. So is Torchwood . Star Trek Enterprise and Stargate: Atlantis I watch on TV. The X-Files was awesome, but not something I'm keen to watch again right now. I watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles about two months ago, can pretty much dream every episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and Voyager , am up to date on True Blood ... Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are shows I still quote from and know near off by heart. Charmed finished so long ago that I've seen basically every episode at least three times by now. Really, I'm looking to get stuck into a show with plot-lines that develop over an entire season or series - complex and intricate stories that take time to understand. Stand-alone episodes are great, however I'm more of a Big Picture girl. Think ...

I tend to jump from website to website in search of news on my favourite TV shows, without really remembering how I got to a given site. Found this quite awesome guide to seasons 1, 2 and 3 of Doctor Who online and decided I'd share. It's the Doctor Who Guide by Matthew at the Daemons TV website. In short single-paragraph episode descriptions, there's an explanation of where an episode fits in the overall Doctor Who / Torchwood saga and what major things are explained / revealed in it. Not a hugely comprehensive guide by any means, yet still an interesting and valuable one!

Original Plan for today : Do some shopping, head down to the water with my camera, then relax in my backyard enjoying my book and the sunshine. New plan for today : Play games on my computer, spend some time cleaning the house, then chill on the couch with my book and a bag of chips. Conclusion : Dear Wind, while bike-riding, sun-bathing and relaxing outside are always a joy with you around, I would like to remind you that I ordered a "Gentle Wind" for today, not "Near Gale-Force Wind". I want a refund !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week was a lot of things all in one. Hectic, fun, relaxing, enjoyable, busy, quiet, and best of all, it ended really, really well! Watched the second part of two-part TV series Alice last night. I love the story of Alice in Wonderland , found the books to be some of the most amazing I've ever read, and enjoyed this version of the story immensely. Andrew-Lee Potts plays the Hatter in Alice, and seeing this brilliant actor play a lovable clown like the Hatter reminded me of another lovable clown slash geek role of his - that of Connor Temple in Primeval . Realising I hadn't yet seen any Season 4 episodes of Primeval, I browsed the Net and found some very helpful websites :-) Just finished watching Episode 4 of Season 4 and while Primeval's changed again as it does every season, I'm still loving it a lot.The new characters seem interesting, the new sets are amazing, and seeing " Doctor Bashir " (the role Alexander Siddig played on Star Trek: Dee...

There's always lots going on in the world, and thus also lots of things being reported about in the media. The President of the US, Barack Obama, announcing that Osama bin Laden had been killed, well, that was definitely a biggie. I'm still not sure I believe it, to be honest.

To say that I love the beauty of the world we live in would be an understatement. To say I adore it would be taking it too far. To say I am continually awed and amazed by our world, by the beauty of creation, that might be just right. "God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone,  but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars."   ~ Author unknown, commonly attributed to Martin Luther I am awed daily by the majesty and splendour of God's creation. I am moved to give thanks for what I see and hear and smell and feel. I am grateful that I am alive to experience the beauty all around me. And I am very happy to share some of that gratitude through this blog post. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...  God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."  ~ Genesis 1:1, 31 "It is We Who have built the universe with (Our creative) power,  and, verily, it is We Who are steadily expanding it."  ~ Adh-Dhariyat (...