September update

Travel

Strasbourg, France - it was my third visit to the city. I have spend a month last Autumn on the suburban Illkrish-Grafenstranded. Strasbourg is a great city - a charming combination of German and French culture with very international vibe.

Grenoble, France - it was one day trip. I could have lived there because my husband got a job offer there and we had to be very responsible to not take it just because the place is breathtakingly beautiful.

Books

'Neither here nor there. Travels in Europe' by Bill Bryson

Perfect book for summer holidays. I laughed out loud many times. American author visiting Europe. Hilarious especially if you have been in some of the places.

June wrap-up

Books

Circle by Dave Eggers - very boring book with annoying character. But I think it had to be like that to slowly see and understand how one can loose oneself to addictive constant feedback portals (Instagram, Facebook, Tweeter).

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard - I think this is better than first book and the novellas but still I dont like the character very much and I don't care about her much. I probably wouldn't even blink if she dies. Also romance part of the book is really weak. I guess characters that I would choose as most likeable is Cal and Farley. Mare is irritatingly stupid and shallow. I guess my favorite part was when other characters where screaming that in her face, because that was exactly what I wanted to tell her. That she is a horrible person. Bu hey maybe it is not a hero we would like but a hero that we deserve type of idea. There is some development of the character and at moments it seems like Mare will live up to her opinion about herself but she doesn't. And I love Cal for precisely pointing it out to Mare. Anyway, ending is kinda silly and not dramatic at all. It is really not believable ending! I was disappointed especially that it was very predictable. I really hope this series ends on book 3. Otherwise, I will be pretty angry that I started it and since it is not as horrible I probably will continue with it. But I have to say that with every year of my life I will probably become less and less forgiving...

Missed Her by Ivan E. Coyote - gender issues discussion. very heartwarming and interesting read. Definitely recommend it to any teenager out there. It will hopefully spark your interest in investigating and learning that gender it is a complex thing not just female/male coin. We are not a stereotype we are unique species. 

Travel/Places

Rijswijk, South Holland, Netherlands 

Leiden, Netherlands 

May Wrap-Up

Life Events

Defended my thesis and got a top grade! Now I am officially a cosmologist!

Together with my husband and my family we celebrated one year of my marriage by eating a piece of wedding cake that we preserved in the freezer for that occasion specifically (Danish tradition).

Books

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas - I enjoyed it.

Man in the Dark by Paul Auster - really good read.

The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg - a classic popular science book in cosmology. Since it is from 19.. It is a bit outdated but it is still a delightful book to read.

Cruel Crown by Victoria Aveyard - two novellas Queen Song and Steel Scars as s prequel to Red Queen series. Both stories had potential that in my opinion hasn't been explored. I like the concept and ideas Victoria is presenting in those stories but I lack in depth description and dimensionality of characters. We are being informed that the heroines are interesting and unique personalities but we get to know way too little about them to really believe that it is true. 

Movies

I watched obscenely many movies on youtube. Here is a few that I saw first time:

Not Another Teen Movie - horrible but might squeeze from you few cheap joke provoked laughs.

What's your number? - funny enough if you really have nothing else to watch or if you want to watch Chris Evans playing a charmer.

The Switch - bearable.

The Accidental Husband - sweet and funny enough.

Hot Pursuit - funny enough. 

The Prince and Me - I thought it was funny and sweet but I am biased because I like one particular Danish man a lot ;)

Bad Teacher - horrible movie but it has a moment when the teacher played by Cameron Diaz checks tests of her pupils and probably most people who ever were checking tests/homeworks/exams will find it funny!

I also saw:

Money Monster - pretty good.

The Dressmaker - I liked it a lot. If you liked movie Chocolate then this one has a bit similar vibe, maybe a bit more dark.

The Intern - nice movie to watch with family excluding kids (they might not find it very interesting)

Deadpool - it was totally different form what I expected. At first I really didn't like it and couldn't understand why people loved it so much but in the end I got used to the format it was made and my final conclusion is that if I see it again I probably like it a bit more.

Travel

Keukenhof flower garden - spring garden. I was very lucky to have spectacular spring weather! It was a very nice bike trip :)

The first weekend of May I have biked to Scheveningen beach and Katwijk beach because it was truly "summerish" weekend. Together with the trip to Keukenhof I have made 90 km on bike in four days!

Delft - engineering town of Netherlands ;)

March/April summary

Books

Cosmology: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Coles - it is already a bit outdated book because cosmology evolves very fast but still nice popular science book to read.

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard - it is ok young adult novel (first book in a series) but for me it doesn't live up to the hype. Nevertheless, I will read the next books in the series.

Calamity by Brandon Sanderson - final book in Reckoners series and it was as cool as the previous ones in the trilogy + novellas.

The Winner's Kiss by Marie Rutkowski - final book in the Winner's trilogy. I haven't been disappointed and I enjoyed the read.

Movies

I saw only two movies in theater those two months Spotlight and Room. Both were good.

Travel

Leiden





On a way from Leiden to The Hague





The Hague

Beach in The Hague (Scheveningen)



Rotterdam

Life Events

I handed in my thesis in cosmology on the beginning of March and right after I have moved to Netherlands to start an internship in a patent office. In the end of April I went to Denmark to prepare for defense of my thesis.

February Note

There is not much shareable stuff that happened in February.
What I mean is that I saw no movie or read no novel. But as for career/live this month was crazy!

I would like to share some small thing that I have discovered while doing my thesis project. I wish I had known about it before I started.

Breathing

Yep...
I always found meditation a bit hard and somehow I couldn't see myself becoming good in it. Now I do it every day just before sleeping. Why before sleeping? Well, because there is so much going on in my life and there is so much information and stuff in this world that sometimes one can feel overwhelmed by everything. I find myself very often laying in bed and thinking obsessively about an infinite amount of things that could easily wait until morning. It used to steal the night away from me. But apparently I am not the sharpest fish in the sea, and I cannot think and breathe according to a given pattern at the same time!!?? And I am so glad for that because a very simple app with breathing exercise helps me to calm down and get some quality sleep no matter how exciting/stressful/painful the day before was or the day to come seemed to be. Also doing this exercise on a daily basis builds inner calmness which fills one's body with positive energy... or, at least, it feels like that.

January wrap up

Books

"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read"
- Internet claims it was Mark Twain who said it but who knows...

Last year I have read 26 books! So I actually managed to fulfill my aim of reading two books per month ;) I probably should aim for three books per month this year... Although I have read an article about some crazy challenge of reading 100 books in a year?! I am obviously intrigued... but let's see what improvement I will make this year and maybe 2017 will be my 100 books challenge year ;)

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas - for those that like fairy tales it might be exactly what they need for relaxing read. On the other hand, for those that don't it might be too cheesy. I liked it. It was my book companion during Christmas/NewYearsEve break.

Movies

The Five-Year Engagement - it turned out to be a second-rate piece of work even I do like both of the leading actors Jason Segel and Emily Blunt. There was nothing exciting about this movie, it was sad to watch that is how bad it was. It also wasn't my type of movie. People that love each other but ruin each other lives that is not for me, way too stressful. My mum also didn't like it but we managed to watch it to the end so that we never ever have to see it again.

Love, Rosie - a bit better than The Five-Year Engagement but still really irritating to watch. The same topic, so again not really my type of story, but even more messed up plot. I wasn't alone my husband and my parents also thought that it was tiring to watch. Please people if you love each other then just be together stop being afraid - love is the best this short life has to offer, don't miss it and definitely don't waist time on hurting someone you cannot live without! I wish I could scream it at the leading characters on the very beginning of the movie then I could have watched beautiful love story instead of watching two people pretending that they don't love each other!?

Event

I greeted this year with my husband and friends by playing board games, drinking Pina Colada, and smoking Cohiba cigar. Both cigars and rum were recently brought by my friends from Cuba so the evening were under Cuban theme.

Dear world,
I wish you more peace, more love and more wisdom,
Cheers.

December summary

Movies

Les Miserables - this movie is phenomenal in my opinion but might be unbearable for those that do not like musicals.

Moulin Rouge! - weird tear squeezer. It is an old movie that I have never seen but I enjoyed it.

Ted - very funny.

Ted 2 - not as funny as Ted.

Star Wars - I am not the biggest fan of Star Wars but it actually was a quite nice movie.

Bridge of spies - a great movie based on a gripping true story of a lawyer James B. Donovan who took a case of a Russian spy Rudolf Abel in 1957 and afterwards in 1962 negotiated exchange of captured American pilot for Abel. I highly recommend.

Travel

I traveled  to Poland for this Christmas break so I had a lot of family time this December.

-
Goodbye year 2015 
You were grant!