Day 8058: Mon, 24. January 2011

Hey - I will be going to Japan in a few weeks. I found this really cheap offer for 8 days in Tokyo and I called Conny, she was spontaneous enough to say yes immediately, so we'll leave on March 12 and come back on March 20.

Now, is that cool or not? It's my reward for learning over 2000 characters.

What I'll do is take a ton of photos and update my blog when I come back. So you'll get a few new shots from me, even if I don't photograph or blog anymore. This time I'll take my M3 with the 50mm and 90mm lenses, going for the classic b&w look.

Maybe I'll get some of the fun back into my photography...

Day 8049: Sat, 15. January 2011

Yuki's first two years....

Today was Yuki's second birthday. You can watch him grow on YouTube in HD with up to 1080p resolution by klicking the small movie you see here while it plays.

He got a children kitchen for a present. We had a few kids over and spent a lovely time. How my life has changed through him!

Day 8033: Thu, 30. December 2010

Yuki...

Yuki...

Strange, I re-opened the blog because of one of my readers, Yulia, who wrote an email to me.

Strange to not have written for such a long time. Much has happened, too much to tell it here. I don't take photographs anymore, I completely stopped. I went to several countries and even took my camera with me, but I didn't use it. My talent seemed inadequate, so I stopped. Like many other things in my life. I come to a point where I feel I'm not talented enough and I stop doing it. I know how to take "good" or "OK" pictures but I don't have the talent to take great pictures. This is frustrating...

Instead I have been focussing on Japanese. In fact, I learned 2200 Kanji (Sino-Japanese Characters) during the time I was away from my blog, which required a lot of effort. I studied between 3 and 7 hours a day, almost with no exception. Not much time left for photography. Japanese is slowly coming back, but it is really hard.

I was very sick with pneumonia after I returned from Georgia (Caucasus). That took a lot of strength and it took almost 2 months for me to fully recover. Glad this is over.

I feel melancholic today. The year is almost over, it feels kind of good to write. I think of my friends, the ones I still have and the ones that have passed away.

Yesterday Pinti wrote to me, strangely, she's only 30 minutes away from where I live and we'll meet up tomorrow or some other day. She's in Europe filming and wants to do some songs with me. Her mail was a surprise.

Right now I listen to some music and I feel sad. Don't know why. Maybe it's the music, Tchaikovsky.

Maybe I'll write some more later. Today's picture is Yuki, of course. I have been shooting his daily picture for the timelapse film, I didn't stop that. He's adorable and now speaks French and German, not much, but a bit. He speaks French with me and German with Sabina, he makes a clear distinction, which I find amazing. I think he's pretty smart and his humor is second to none. We share many laughs together.

Day 7905: Tue, 24. August 2010

Rock bar...

As every Tuesday, I spent the day with Yuki. Fun. At 8 PM I went to town with Conny and we shared a couple of drinks. I decided not to drink alcohol for a while so I binged on cocktails with no booze.

I've been drinking too much lately. Every day.

No good.

Well, I didn't drink for 4 days now, and it feels just right.

Good.

This layout looks like crap. If I don't write enough, the text just hangs next to the picture without framing it. This really sucks.

Day 7904: Mon, 23. August 2010

I was able to get some work done because Sabina was so kind to look after Yuki in the afternoon. Of course he can't o to his daycare until he's fully recovered, so we both have to jump in, which is really difficult for me. Can't get anything done...

After he fell asleep we went to town and enjoyed each other's company.

They're messing with my design at blogger. They introduced a new editor and now everything looks different and screws my layout up. I hate it. I tried a million versions and lost a lot of time in the process. I don't want by posts to look like this but I don't know how to change it. Yet.

Day 7903: Sun, 22. August 2010

Feeling better...

Yuki is slowly feeling better - but now I got sick. I had 39,2 degrees this evening. I was destroyed all day, feeling like 108 years old.

I wonder when I will be able to go back to work.

I did some work for Cathy this afternoon, I had to do it because she needs it for tomorrow's rehearsal, but it was really difficult to work in the state I was in.

I've decided to try to make some money with my blog instead of closing it. After all, I spend a lot of time working on this and the content is free. Why shouldn't I get something from it?

On this blog I won't include ads because it's the VIP blog. On my other blog, the general public blog, I include ads. They're not pretty, but if I continue to blog, I need some revenue from it.

Also, if you like my blog, enjoy it, read it, need it, keep coming back to it - now's the time to give something back with a donation. There's a button on the right, feel free to donate any amount you find appropriate.

Thank you for your support and encouragement!

Day 7902: Sat, 21. August 2010

Yuki is still sick. He came back from the hospital today. Went to sleep in the afternoon, while I was skyping with miho, and when he woke up he had 40,5 degrees fever. He was trembling and crying, it was very hard to calm him down, but he eventually did and thank God drank a lot of water. I gave him his medicine and within an hour he was OK. Of course he's still sick, but we can't let him have a high fever because of the risk of getting spasms again.

I am absolutely destroyed with fatigue. It was emotionally very distressful. At one point two days ago I was worried he might die.

You don't just get back to business as usual after that...