h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Jacqueline,
I'm American, not Brittish, but I hope you won't hold that against me. I've been looking for someone to chat with too, and you look interesting.

If you're interested, just tell me a little about yourself: where you work, what's your family like, stuff like that.

Thanks,
Jen

Hi Jen,

Me? Interesting? Are we talking about the same person here?
I actually think of myself as quite boring, although I might not live such a traditional life as some...

Like you can read on my site, I am 27 and live together with my gf in our house in Holland. We have lived together for a bit over 4 years now and have a relationship for 4.5 years now. There are not really a lot of people in our family. But let me tell you what our family is: My gf (Angela) and me (Jacqueline), our 2 cars (a Rover and a Carlington, although sadly this car has been in a pretty bad car crash ), 1 owl (living in the UK, in the Hawk Conservancy Andover) and 1 Godchild who is Ukrainian and living in Ukrain at the moment, but they will try to move to the Czech Republic. Well, that's about our 'family', as I already told you, not traditional really...

Well, enough about me for the moment. I will forgive you for being American And I would like to know more about you...

Bye, Jacqueline

Hi Angela,
You have an owl? That's really cool! What kind is it?

My family's pretty big when you start including all my cousins, but I don't see any of them very often because I'm living where I go to college, 2 hours away from home. I do see my parents, grandparents, 18 year old brother, and the 3 cats a couple of times a year. I've been with my bf (Eric) for 3 months now, so everything still seems new.

I'm 21, and between my 3rd and 4th years of college. I'm going for an art degree, focusing mainly on drawing and painting. Its a small campus, so the proffessors actually learn everyone's names. For the summer I'm working full time at the campus library.

You write very good English, by the way.

Jen

Hi Jen,

Well, the owl is not really ours... I will explain it though. We lived in the UK for 14 months in Newbury, West Berkshire. There is a Hawk Conservancy and Country park in the neighbourhood and they do an exceptional job. Breeding programs, bird hospital, things like that. But they don't get money from the government. That's why they started with the sponsorship scheme. Every bird/animal can be sponsored by one group/person. This way they can pay for food, the bird hospital, the breeding programs... That's why we sponsored an owl. The owl is still from the Hawk Conservancy but we pay for its needs (kinda like having a Foster Parents kid). Your name is put on the cage and only 1 group or person can sponsor an animal. So every animal is sponsored just once. Our bird is beautiful!

Wow, an art degree! Interesting! What will be your last year on college? I am sorry, but I don't really know the school system in USA.

I hope you will be happy with your boyfriend for much longer... Like you have read, I have been together with my gf for 4.5 years and still love her! So, does your bf also live on the campus?

Interesting to get to know new people! I like that

Bye, Jacqueline

Hi Jacqueline,
That sounds like a very cool program!

I'll have one more year until I graduate here, (unless anything unexpected comes up.) From there I don't know exactly what I'm going to do with that art degree. They aren't the most practical things in the world to find work with.

Eric's actually been graduated for quite a few years now. He's 11 years older than me, (32) and that's one of the few differences between us that I could see possibly causing problems in the future. He lives about 20 minutes away and I see him once during the week and most of the weekend.

So how did you and Angela meet?

Thanks for responding
Jen

Hi Jen,

Just a short one before going to work...don't start with me about age differences!

Angela has turned 46 yesterday and I am 27...

Will write more later, but at least you know then I can understand the problems you might get.

Bye, Jacqueline

(Of course I reply, I am nice and wouldn't not reply for the world)

Hi Jacquline and Jen! JEllen here. I think fostering the owl is a really cool thing to do! They are such beautiful birds, aren't they?

(Did you notice our names all start with J?)

Hi JEllen & Jen,

Yeah, sponsoring the owl is really cool! The bird is really, really beautiful and they do good work, so why not... It is better (I think) then like giving money to Greenpeace. At least you know where the money is spent on.

yeah, all our names start with a J... shall we start the J-club?

Nice talking to you all!

A J-Club? Sounds like a swell idea.
So how did everyone's weekend go? Mine was wonderfully relaxing. I watched movies and read over at my bf's apartment most of the time.

Jen

Yah! The J-club!

I had a good weekend too. Sunday my family made homemade ice cream - handcranked it out on the porch. I have a big family - five siblings, plus their spouses and kids - so our parties are always lots of fun. I was goodnaturedly arguing with my nephew about the movie Bruce Almighty. He thought it was funny, but I thought it was soooo dumb.

JEllen

PS What movies did you watch, Jen?

Hiya both,

My weekend was fine, didn't do much though. Wait, I suddenly realize, we did do something. We went to my parents for father's day! I have had some problems with my parents in the past, but everything is now ok again. We have been there from about 8 pm till midnight, so we enjoyed ourselves! But in contract to you JEllen our family has kinda fallen apart. My sister and I can't seem to act normally to each other, especially she can't talk to me without freezing the air between us. So my gf and I are glad she finally lives on her own now and that when we are at my parents house it is just adults! I almost never see my 2 brothers anymore. One of them just can't act like a grown up, but acts like a 12 year old and the other just has a busy life. So you are lucky with your big family and the fact that you can have nice long parties!

Anyway, nice to hear from you again Jen, I already thought you would have been at your bf's place

Films? We just booked Bruce Almighty, it will only premiere in Holland on the 26th of June. And we booked it quite some time ago, finally seemed like a nice movie for just having a good laugh. Also the 25th we are going to the same cinema to watch a Dutch (children's) movie based on children's books both my gf and I read a long time ago. So that should be fun.

Just one more question? Might be stupid, but anyway. Any of you reading Harry Potter? My gf and I are, so we are thrilled we hopefully only have to wait till Saturday for the 5th book. Hopefully, because we ordered at Amazon but they have got about the biggest pre-order in history so we might have to wait a few days more before actually receiving it...

Enough for now, hope to hear from you soon!

Oh, and Jen, is it ok if I put you on my friends list too?

Bye, Jacqueline

We watched a couple of old Buffy:Vampire Slayer episodes he has on DVD. Finished watching the first season. We also watched one of my favorite movies, a Mel Brooks flick called The Producers.

In response to Jacqueline, I almost brought up Harry Potter myself because of the whole owl conversation. I never read any of the books until this summer, but I finished the 4th one about a month ago. Good kids' books, but I'm not as obsessive as a lot of people I know.

Please do add me to your friends list
Jen

Hi Jen,

Well, I am not that crazy about Harry Potter, I just think the books are great. We did pre-order the fifth book though. I have read the 4 earlier Potter books out loud to my gf, while driving in the car from A to B. Sometimes from the UK to Holland, sometimes from Holland to the Czech Republic. It is good for my English pronunciation and I can learn a lot from it. And yes, that's also why I wanted to sponsor an owl...instead of any other bird of prey.

So I will have a couple of days reading out loud and having a sore throat afterwards...

I have done the same with the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy written by Philip Pullman. Ever read those books?

Bye, Jacqueline

I don't think I've ever read anything by Pullman. What kind of stuff does he write?

Jen

Hi Jen,

Pullman writes children's fantasy stories. The 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. The book is based upon the idea that our world exist among many others at the same spot in the univers. There are two children, Lyra and Wil who travel in between those different worlds. They have to do that to fulfill their destiny. And to try to safe the world. Because there is a big fight between the Authority (God) and the rest of the worlds...

It is a really, really, really, interesting story. In the end they even travel to the world of the death.

I can tell you it is a desperately good book!
Even better than Harry Potter!

Bye, Jacqueline

Jen, I love that film, The Producers! It's so ridiculous! I love the bit where one character becomes hysterical, and the other throws a glass of water at him. The Wilder character yells, "I'm wet! I'm hysterical, and I'm wet!" And who can forget the musical number "Springtime for Hitler"!

You guys, I've never read any of the Harry Potter books. Just saw the first movie. My brother told me that one of the trucks carrying the new Harry Potter book from the publisher was hijacked!! They stole a whole truckload of books!

Jacquline, I will make a note of that author you mentioned - see if the library has any.

JEllen

Hi JEllen,

Yep, they indeed stole a whole truckload of books. And the books haven't been found yet, I guess you never will either! Also: the New York Times has already printed excerpts of the book and someone in Canada has already bought the book from a Wallmart store after the store put the books on the shelves! Well, let's just say it doesn't go flawless...

Like I said: His Dark Materials trilogy is really, really good. You can read it on many levels and I actually can't understand it is a children's trilogy! It is so complex and wonderfully written. Like I said: it is about travelling between different worlds that are co-existing at the same place. The 2 children, Will and Lyra both live in Oxford, but a different Oxford. Lyra lives in a Oxford where every person has got a daemon. They are shown as animals and kinda depict a persons soul. The daemon can change shape when you are a child but will set on one shape when you reach adolescence.
Other characters that surface in the book: Armored (talking) bears, ghosts, Gyptians, daemons, Angels, witches...

You can probably read between the lines that I LOVE these books!

BBC has got a webpage about this book... I'll try to check the site and put the link here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/hisdarkmaterials/index.shtml

there ya go!

Jacqueline

The library I work at on campus has Pullman's trilogy on the shelves for education students. Looking back, I remember eying them up as a possible read last summer when we were relabling all the "children's" books, but passed because I'd never heard of them and didn't know if they'd be any good. (I didn't want to judge a book by its cover, after all.)

Its sub day at work today! There's one day every summer when the workers get free food courtesy of the money we make selling books people abandon here. Mmmm....Food! And last year someone brought the juiciest strawberries! I almost needed a towel to clean up after myself

Mmmmm, those look good!