Birthday
Today I turned 26 and am getting old...
Status:
- no job
- not married
- no own house
- no car
- no kids
- countries to visit Peru, Madagascar, Kazachstan, North Korea
- wishes: too many
See what will change in a year! :)
Monday, 18 April 2005
Sunday, 10 April 2005
Dalfsen
Today we played against Dalfsen and after driving terribly wrong and coming late to the field, we eventually won with 7-4 or 7-5, I can't remember! :) Go HCW go! :)
ELSA Politics
Just talked to Christina on MSN. She is in Lithuania for the ELSA ICM and ran for the position of President of the International Board of ELSA. She had 3 opponents and after the speeches she was told to had been the best. Unfortunately being the best in speeching doesn't automatically mean that you get elected. She lost...
ELSA is a strange kind of organisation in which politics, especially on the international level, play a very big role. It turns out that before the ICM the Nordic countries made a deal with the Mediterranean to vote for one specific candidate, which wasn't Christina. She simply didn't have the right contacts or came from the right country (the winner came from Finland). Even more astonishing is the fact that there was only 1 candidate for the position of Secretary General (from Russia) and that she wasn't elected as well, as they simply didn't want her. Now the board is without a very important position, which has to do a big part of the work in Brussels.
I have to say that this kind of manipulation within ELSA (as it simply is a manupulation of the outcome) is a disgrace for the organisation as a whole and doesn't do right to the principles ELSA stands for. I am glad I am out of it already and didn't have to face this kind of injustice during my term, but it still annoys me terribly.
In the past few years ELSA got less influence at certain organisations (like the UN and EU), as this kind of politics also influenced the delegations ELSA sends out to represent the organisation. Contatcs and friends were more important than quality and interest. It might be too harsh to say that ELSA is corrupt, but it should really think about the position it wants to play and have and the people in it should start to act the way what they study; which is, after all, still law...
Thursday, 7 April 2005
Tuesday, 5 April 2005
My birthday
My birthday is on the 18th, so in 2 weeks, but I have classes that day and also have to give hockey trainings in Eemsmond, so I will celebrate it Saturday the 16th. Anyone who wishes to come, you are hereby invited starting from 20.00hours at my place. Do bring a present! :)
Joao
Also worth mentioning is that my youngest brother Joao turned 19 last Sunday!!!!! He got a whole bunch of presents and cooked dinner for all of us. For those of you who don't know the whole story: he's from Angola and my parents adopted him, while I was away in Germany... (they love me, don't they? :) They don't eat potatoes there (which we Dutch very much do), so we had the largest bowl of rice I have ever seen, plates with chickens and steaks and lot's of beans. My god, it was much. Too bad I have an eating aversion to all that has wings or bones... But the beans and rice were superb (as was the rest according to my family).
Game
On Sunday we won from a team that we thought would be a lot stronger than they eventually were, namely Dash. Beat 'm with 5-1 and stand steady 3rd. The sun was shining, it was hot and it was simply a perfect day.
Friday, 1 April 2005
My Name....
FROM THE PUBLISHER
It has long been rumored in academic circles that a sixteenth-century monk named Eisenreich took Machiavelli several steps further, writing a masterplan for world domination so dangerous the Pope had him killed to suppress it. But Eisenreich's text, 'On Supremacy', survived. But when the bullet-riddled body of a young girl is found in Montana and "Eisenreich" is her dying word, it becomes terrifyingly clear that not only is the document real - someone is planning to use this explosive piece of history in the late twentieth century. Beautiful, troubled government agent Sarah Trent is given just enough information by her covert office to begin digging into the murder of the young girl. Her search takes her to Columbia University and a brilliant young political theorist named Xander Jaspers, who agrees to help her. 'On Supremacy' has fallen into the hands of a cabal intent on using it as a blueprint for ripping apart society as we know it and creating a new world order out of the ashes of the old. The cabal, led by a coldly intelligent mastermind called the Overseer, begins its campaign of terror.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
A U.S. agent and a Columbia University professor race to find a 16th-century manuscript in this intriguing debut thriller. Rabb imagines a Swiss monk called Eisenreich, a contemporary of Machiavelli's, who wrote a long-suppressed book called 'On Supremacy', an outline for world conquest that goes far beyond the ruminations of The Prince. When a group of conservative ideologues decides to put a modern version of the plan into action, the task of stopping them falls to undercover agent Sarah Trent (who worked for several members of the right-wing committee's inner sanctum during an earlier phase of her espionage career) and Xander Jaspers, a brilliant young academic who eventually unravels the intricacies of the plan. The cabal is led by the mysterious "overseer" of the title; his minions include a Limbaugh-like demagogue, a brainwashing "educator" in charge of producing footsoldiers to carry out the plan and a prominent conservative financier. Trent and Jaspers are a quirky, entertaining couple, and their hunt for the historical prize incorporates many tightly written scenes (although the scenes in which Trent and Jaspers are captured and recaptured tend to blur together). The satisfying climax reveals the surprising identity of the overseer; meanwhile, there's plenty of intellectual meat in Rabb's description of the origins of the manuscript and the implications of the plan. Using an innovative conceit that combines imaginative brainwork and stirring action scenes, Rabb has given us a thriller worth remembering.
It has long been rumored in academic circles that a sixteenth-century monk named Eisenreich took Machiavelli several steps further, writing a masterplan for world domination so dangerous the Pope had him killed to suppress it. But Eisenreich's text, 'On Supremacy', survived. But when the bullet-riddled body of a young girl is found in Montana and "Eisenreich" is her dying word, it becomes terrifyingly clear that not only is the document real - someone is planning to use this explosive piece of history in the late twentieth century. Beautiful, troubled government agent Sarah Trent is given just enough information by her covert office to begin digging into the murder of the young girl. Her search takes her to Columbia University and a brilliant young political theorist named Xander Jaspers, who agrees to help her. 'On Supremacy' has fallen into the hands of a cabal intent on using it as a blueprint for ripping apart society as we know it and creating a new world order out of the ashes of the old. The cabal, led by a coldly intelligent mastermind called the Overseer, begins its campaign of terror.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
A U.S. agent and a Columbia University professor race to find a 16th-century manuscript in this intriguing debut thriller. Rabb imagines a Swiss monk called Eisenreich, a contemporary of Machiavelli's, who wrote a long-suppressed book called 'On Supremacy', an outline for world conquest that goes far beyond the ruminations of The Prince. When a group of conservative ideologues decides to put a modern version of the plan into action, the task of stopping them falls to undercover agent Sarah Trent (who worked for several members of the right-wing committee's inner sanctum during an earlier phase of her espionage career) and Xander Jaspers, a brilliant young academic who eventually unravels the intricacies of the plan. The cabal is led by the mysterious "overseer" of the title; his minions include a Limbaugh-like demagogue, a brainwashing "educator" in charge of producing footsoldiers to carry out the plan and a prominent conservative financier. Trent and Jaspers are a quirky, entertaining couple, and their hunt for the historical prize incorporates many tightly written scenes (although the scenes in which Trent and Jaspers are captured and recaptured tend to blur together). The satisfying climax reveals the surprising identity of the overseer; meanwhile, there's plenty of intellectual meat in Rabb's description of the origins of the manuscript and the implications of the plan. Using an innovative conceit that combines imaginative brainwork and stirring action scenes, Rabb has given us a thriller worth remembering.
The Overseer - Jonathan Rabb
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