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I have a very lovely and talented friend who goes by the name of Lukas / Lukat. He wrote and illustrated a real actual graphic novel and is very famous now because it is real good. I bought it in my favourite bookstore and finished it later that night, in the light of googletranslate, hidden under covers.
I never quite liked comics as a kid. I only read them on holidays when I had already finished all my own librarybooks and had to read the comics my brother had picked out (some sort of compromise of my mum, who tried to get him to read). But recently I have discovered the joys of graphic novels. It is like watching a movie in your hands. I read them often in the library of Amsterdam. If you know of any good ones, you should let me know.
I was a very lucky girl because my copy is signed with a cat. Maybe you are not so lucky, but you could still get the book and then you are also a bit lucky.

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Once I described my head as a big bowl completely filled with millions of fishes. The fishes come in all different sizes and shapes and patterns and they are constantly on the move, swimming swimming swimming. It's a great thing to look at this fishbowl. You will never be bored, because the view is constantly changing. But if you try to grab one of those fishes to hold on to it for a little longer, they just slip right out of your hands again and you are holding another fish all of a sudden.
Having nothing to hold on to can be very scary and makes you stop just right in your tracks. The trick for me is to act like a machine in order to create some kind of structure, or maybe in order to overshout the thoughts. Extreme focus on 1 dumb thing drowns everything else. You can just tell yourself that you have to spot all the red fishes and after a while you will see nothing else. It is a game I play while I am in busy, stressful rooms as well: I think of a colour or a number and then quickly run my eyes across the room and then it's like all the things of that colour just lightup and the rest gets dark and desaturated.
In highschool I used to do mathematical equations to escape from the big bowl of thoughts. These days I like to draw animals with indian ink. Trying to find the right shapes and lines and filling them in with hundreds of tiny dots. It is just like meditation, but with physical results, so even better.
It is not really 'art', but I put her with it to sort of justify the unerased pencillines and the unfinishedness of them all. I might show some more drawings like this some time. 

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 This morning another quick visit to my new favourite museum in Hamburg. I can never get enough of some dead mice. Especially when they look so cute you want to cuddle them or when they are so stiff they look like lollypops. It may be a bit creepy and not very appropriate to say this, but they almost look kind of delicious.
Besides the mice there are many more amazing things, like the mid-jump-cat, the kiwis, the funny sassylooking thing, the fetuses in jars, the colourful butterflies, the orangutan who drowned herself 5 years a go and is now forever flirtatiously looking at the other orangutan, who is blowing kisses at the lazy jaguar, or the gigantic bluewhale jaw-bone.. I could probably go there everyweek and never ever be bored.

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We have a very beautiful classroom. There is a lot of white and a lot of light and a lot of big windows and this all makes me feel very calm, so I like working there. There is also a fox watching over us and a couch to read books and a coffeemachine to stay awake, so what more does one want?

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I try to draw everyday, it's meditative.
A postcard to a friend and a breakfast at the studiodesk.

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Die Liebende [abermals] - Goethe
Warum ich wieder zum Papier mich wende?
Das mußt du, Liebster, so bestimmt nicht fragen:
Denn eigentlich hab' ich dir nichts zu sagen;
doch kommt's zuletzt in deine lieben Hände.

Weil ich nicht kommen kann, soll, was ich sende,
mein ungeteiltes Herz hinübertragen
mit Wonnen, Hoffnungen, Entzücken, Plagen:
Das alles hat nicht Anfang, hat nicht Ende.

Ich mag vom heut'gen Tag dir nichts vertrauen,
wie sich im Sinnen, Wünschen, Wähnen, Wollen
mein treues Herz zu dir hinüberwendet.

So stand ich einst vor dir, dich anzuschauen,
und sagte nichts. Was hätt' ich sagen sollen?
Mein ganzes Wesen war in sich vollendet.

This blog has become an ongoing loveletter to Hamburg.
I feel so at home here, but it still surprises me some times. This morning I got up late and walked outside. I got a coffee to go and walked through one of my favourite streets. There was a group of people getting a guided tour. And this is hard to explain but I suddenly felt so very much a part of this city and not at all like a tourist or a visitor. I've felt at home here ever since I set foot on these Hamburgian grounds, but I also felt a lot like all of this was not really mine and that I am just borrowing it all. I borrow this room, I borrow these streets, I borrow my place in the class, I borrow this language, I borrow the people I call friends here, I borrow the german habits I develop, etc... Or that most things are more of other people than of me. This all sounds very possessive but that's not quite what I mean. And I will not even try anymore to explain it because I've been sitting here for half an hour now, coming up with six million metaphors to try to explain this, but they dont work.

I just like the way things go and how I can feel more comfortable everyday and even though I have to leave again soon, it feels good to know that this city has really become much more than just a visiting place. It's also a scary thing. But commitment in any kind of way is scary.

On the photos are two beautiful, crazy minds and two beautiful views and neither of them ever fail to make me feel happy. 

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The tulips have died by now, but tomorrow it's wednesday which means I can get new flowers again (It's always a surprise what they will have every week. On Wednesday they open and then close when they are sold out and open again on wednesday. I like this.)
Staying home, baking, cooking, writing letters, working, and going for a Spaziergang when there is no wetness coming from the sky and the cold doesn't cut through your skin too much.
This beautiful Eindhovian house always makes me feel at home even though it is not really my home.