Whiter than White.

To be a person in this crazy world is actually kind of hard. For some reason everybody is always fighting.  At least this is how I am seeing it for now. Fighting with each other, for each other or, even worse, with or for themselves. Fighting is not really something I do for fun. I know it’s necessary because otherwise I wouldn’t get to know anybody nor myself, for who they really are. Sometimes I think that it might be a good thing to not really know anybody, it’s just that everything would be even more difficult without anyone around. But I don’t specifically enjoy fighting. Neither should any other person. Worst thing of fighting is that it never stops. When the heat of the fire is over, you get “the” choice: Or you will be fighting with each other, either with each other near or a part, or you will be fighting for each other. But it never stops once you started.

 It’s hard to make the right choices when the wrong ones are presented aside of the right choices. I am totally aware of that. But it would make things a lot easier if we would set that as a goal. We could make this our surprise effect. The thing that will astonish people and confuse them. Act out of just integrity, people won’t understand what they are dealing with. To make the right choices when they are wrong enough to only present the wrong ones. To be able to leave your pride aside and just ask each other what happened, instead of just acting. I choose to become Whiter than White. I might be joined, or might not. But it won’t make a difference in my decision. 

Silence to make the sound worthy

The best sound I have ever heard in my life was silence. You can wake me in the middle of the night, and I won’t mind, to listen to the silence right before a storm. When I hear nature calming down, preparing for what will come, that’s what makes me calm. I can feel the blood in my veins stop rushing, my heartbeat slows down and my head becomes empty till all worries have disappeared into the earth. I know it sounds strange, but you are my silence. You make my world stop rushing around me and you can make me calm on every certain moment you want me to be. I can lay down in the grass, or on stones for that matter, studying the pace of your heartbeat, and feel every care I ever had dissolve into pure nothingness. I can hear you talking, and suddenly everything makes sense again. I don’t even necessarily have to agree with you, and even that is fine with you, but it just makes sense.  I can listen to music with you and feel every tremble trough my body. And when we are just chilling on the couch, I can’t imagine a place where I feel safer. Please wake up, you are not the bad things they or you say you are. I don’t understand why you let them stop you from moving. You should be the one that knows you best and be able to put on foot right in front of the other. So, proposition:  I am going to be marching on. I would like to do it with you on my side. I’ll take care of the rest, those are my problems to fix. That way we can enjoy the journey. I have been told  that the journey makes it all worth something, not the goals. But perhaps that is something to think about for the next blog.

To be or not to be:

Happy. I’ve been living on my own for a month now. And the questions are rising. First there was are you eating enough vegetables. Then came do you go to bed on time. After that there was a period of aren’t you feeling lonely. And then came the bad ones like, don’t you get tired of yourself? Or even better: how do you live with yourself? GUYS!! Did it ever occur to you that this is a ridiculous question?  Cause for me it’s so easy to live with me.  I wake up, go to class, eat my vegetables and go to bed every evening when I am tired enough. I have a cola light party with myself every evening and when there is no cola light I imagine that water tastes like cola light, which actually is true. You see, everybody has a manual, a how to treat myself book. I am one of those lucky persons who found the one that describes how to treat me.  Which is very useful since I am with myself all the time.  I have learnt to not let myself be hurt by you without my permission. So whatever you say, your argument will be invalid anyways.  Which changes the question from me to you, not in what do you want from me, but what do you want from you? Besides a good book of course :) 

Some people... Enlighten my day

April isn’t cool. April is usually pretty messed up for me. Every year I am trying to avoid April. Cause after all these years I know what April can do. Call me superstitious or anything close to that. Black cats bringing bad luck or Friday 13^th  is nonsense, but April… April brings a challenge for me every year. 
Most times in shapes of people. I have different kinds of people in my life, all having a different place in it. One in the past, or one in the future. Or in both. Well of those I have only a couple actually. 


They’ve all taught me different things. Each and every one of them. They taught me how to take care of myself, and how to appreciate myself. They taught me to say yes and no. They taught me patience and how to act fast. They taught me how to be strong and hold on. And I am grateful for that. But even more grateful that these people are gone. 


Out of my life.

The people who stay behind enlighten my life every day with a different light. They make me survive April ones more. Please do note that this is an even bigger accomplishment.

To these people: I miss you. I love you. Most of all, I hope I gave you some sunshine, just as you did.

Sweeet!

I was called ‘almost human’ in the first class of Anton on Interactive Visualization.  How do you like that? Simply because from time to time I feel the urge to blog something about nothing in specific. Just to be clear:

Human:

Humans, known taxonomically as Homo sapiens (Latin for "wise man" or "knowing man"), are the only living species in the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.

War is a state of widespread conflict between states or other large groups of humans, which is characterized by the use of lethal violence between combatants and/or upon civilians. (Humans also engage in lesser conflicts, such as brawls, riots, revolts, and melees. A revolution may or may not involve warfare.) It is estimated that during the 20th century between 167 and 188 million humans died as a result of war.  A common perception of war is a series of military campaigns between at least two opposing sides involving a dispute over sovereignty, territory, resources, religion, or other issues. A war between internal elements of a state is a civil war.

Humans are generally diurnal. The average sleep requirement is between seven and nine continuous hours a day for an adult and nine to ten hours for a child; elderly people usually sleep for six to seven hours. Experiencing less sleep than this is common in modern societies; this sleep deprivation can have negative effects. A sustained restriction of adult sleep to four hours per day has been shown to correlate with changes in physiology and mental state, including fatigue, aggression, and bodily discomfort.

So that’s what I am.. Almost. Proud of it to. It might not be a very high title, but some people can’t make it to this title. Besides that, the word almost gives room for challenges and opportunities. Room to explore some more.

Everybody knows this guy. -Now this is my little revenge piece of this blog J- The guy that I am going to tell you about. He’s known for his wrong sentences at totally wrong moments, his flirty behavior to everything with long legs and his irritating tagging behavior on Facebook. He’s the guy that tags about everyone on their worst pictures and then reply’s so often to your reactions that almost the whole freeking wide world sees this picture… twice. We call him Douwe. And I know I can’t tag people in fotos on blogspot. Nevertheless, I can point in a certain direction, right?  

At least some of us are close to human J

Now after this small, little, tiny revenge, I would have to add that he can be very nice when he tries… He would have to work for it, but still. Ooh, and Anton, you’ll get your price Monday. You might have won this bet, there will be more.

A heart will never be practical...

In life there are certain moments that you will probably remember at the end of it. The day you heard you graduated from high school. The day you bought your first fridge. The day you said I do to the person you love more than anything else in the world. The day you got your lovely children.

I am at the stage of buying a fridge. It’s really cool. I actually bought it last Saturday. It was about 14 degrees outside. That’s warm in Holland, believe me. He’s so perfect, my fridge. He cools some food, if I’d switch it on, and he’s white!! A real white fridge which I can call my own J

Besides this terrefightinly beautiful fridge I also got myself a Magic Mushroom. It’s a mushroom like every other mushroom until you switch it on. Then it becomes a vacuum cleaner, vacuuming all your crumbles fast and easy. We call him Tha Mushroom

Next to Tha Mushroom I got carpet! Very soft fluffy carpet. Thanks to my mom, Herjan, Raoul and Walter its cut very nice. My dad and I aren’t that good with carpet so we cleaned -again- and put some beds in the right positions.

Of course you will  get some pictures. I just forgot to make them yesterday evening. Sorry, but I was just too tired. I’ve been smoothing, painting, waiting for everybody and cleaning at the same time for almost two weeks straight now. My hands don’t only smell like chemical thingies and some Nivea, they are so soft right now you could smooth a whole door with it. No paper needed. Very practical.  

It's a secret

I am a big fan of the program lie to me. I think it is a beautiful program showing how people speak without speaking. I always thought I knew how to read people. Not as good as they do in the program of course. But at least knowing from their posture how people were feeling. I thought I knew. Until today. 

For the first time in my life I saw someone scared. Perhaps scared is the wrong word. Unsure, terrified, somewhat in pain, not like this person normally is. Eyebrows pulled together, pupils smaller then the moment before, and muscles in the cheeks all showing some sort of pain or worry.  And it’s ok. Changes are tough. But I have to tell you a secret that I never told you before: You are going to wake up in the morning and then today is yesterday. That’s a very cool thing and even better: a thing that I am absolutely sure about. Yes, tomorrow it will hurt as well. And you will be perhaps even a little nervous. And then the day after that tomorrow will be yesterday as well. In, about, two weeks there will be a day that you wake up, and everything will be different. The moves some people tended to make, the discussions, the problems and the solutions. All will be gone by then. You might even have forgotten some of their faces, or even names. And then the hurting part is over. It might not feel like it now but in two weeks everything will be so yesterday. Just don’t tell this secret to everybody, would you? 

Don't worry

The people in Holland are the most happy people in the world. At least that’s what some articles said today. Not Dutch people are the happiest people in the world, no. The people who live in Holland. 

Holland:

It rains approximately 364 days in the year and on the other days it snows.
About 16 million bicycles around without wanting to be healthy
We have fresh fruit that tastes like water
Apparently Holland is the land of compromise
We eat at 18.00 o clock here
Cow’s in the north south west and even in the east
Cow’s everywhere
A windmill on every corner of the street to keep us from drowning
Wooden shoes

AND we are found very happy with our lives.

Now without any disrespect to this country: We have bikes. More than one. But it’s not cool to be very healthy here. We compromise on everything. Therefore we eat at 18.00 every evening. We have cows everywhere and even worse we have water in the sky and on the ground. We have a terrible taste in shoes. And we are still very happy. I do not know how we do this… But it’s interesting to think about. Perhaps everybody who came to Holland got a little happy implanted. Creepy,  but cool! I think we will find out someday. Till then: Respect to the people in this country!! Keep on the good work!!
               
               

                

Just a dream

All traps are set. There is no way back, just forward left or right. We are not afraid although we know there is much to fear. We were moving Mountains long before we knew we could. So many things we could have done. We would have done. If this was not here at this moment in this place. But it is, and we deal with it. Is that all right with you? I can’t help it, neither can you. We had a fairytale. And we still do, but it’s time for choices. Left, right, left, right, left. I am on the other side, waiting for you. Like I usually do. Missing you, but I am there. And I am there for you. So what are you waiting for? I have warned you about this. But you said you were just busy. Time would catch up. It always does. Like water flows it’s natural way and trees are made out of wood, time catches up with everybody. Before you know it, it is gone. Just like I could have been. But I am not. I am here. And now, we wait. 

The PERFECT mathematical explanation for....

So I promised my mom to write a blog for/about her. So here it is. It  is going to be about a formula that I recently discovered. My brother studies Physics and Mathematics. Which is really cool of course. But he speaks in formulas all the time. So in order to understand him I need to speak a little bit  Formula as well. This is why it was so easy to  make a formula for the problem that I found today. It’s the following genius and well proofed formula:

SQ = SA

Which basically stands for:

SR = SA

In which the S stands for a certain amount of Stupidity, the Q for a Question, the R for a Remark and guess what?? The A for an Answer. S depending on the person and Q,R and A depending on the circumstances.  I proofed this genius formula by a number of researches. For instance: if you would ask people about the weather they would reply about the weather. In this situation S would be a number of let’s say 50. If you would ask any person about the meaning of life you could get a very useful answer back. In this case S would be 1. (I would have to warn you, this all depends on the person you are talking to and the circumstances) If you would ask a person why banana’s aren’t standing up right instead of curved, you possibly get a pretty messed up answer. Let’s say this represents a 100 S. Okaj, so now you have an idea of how it works. Let this be a warning to you all. If I answer a very not significant answer to your question, it could just be that the question was all wrong. So: Please do never ask where the chocolate is (lepracons… need I say more?). Don’t try to ask me why I fall over my own feet all the time (It’s the freeking floor that’s trying to get me down, I am telling you men). And please, PLEASE. Do not ever ask me how I became so young (totally my parents fault, I had nothing to do with it). Right mom?

My green eyes aren't greenish

They say that the iris is the place where you can see on the outside of someone, who he is. Everything you can see in the heart of the eyes. You can see whether or not a person is reliable, how he/she reacts in certain situations and how you should react on them. Wouldn’t that be nice. To know a person in the blink of an eye, literally.  Devastating, and so not true. Cause then I would understand myself much better as well, just by looking at myself. I can tell you, looking at myself actually makes it worse. I tend to avoid my eyes, and those of others for that matter. Cause I am afraid. What if it’s true? What if you could see in the blink of an eye how a person is? Life would get so much easier, so much more convenient. Everybody would have their true love for ever and ever. All fairytales would come true. Everybody would have friends for life and nobody would ever get hurt because all criminals would be locked up behind bars. Blue butterflies flying around rainbows singing birds everywhere and kids playing around… You get the picture. Well, the birds and butterflies are all sleeping for the winter, the rainbow will be a snowbow from now on and kids playing??  If they’re smart they will play indoors right now. No, the real answer lies somewhere else. It’s not in the heart of the eyes, it’s in the heart of the heart. The eyes might say where you are looking at but when the heart speaks like a piano plays, it can’t be somebody else then you. 

Either you win or you lose

You know how I hate to fight. It always ends with: “Cause that’s how girls die’’ in my head. I fight a lot lately. Strange cause I would never think of myself as a violent person. I fight with my parents my brothers my colleges, people who do deserve a fight and people who don’t.  I fight with stuff that isn’t working the way it’s supposed to work and with teachers (only former teachers of course), I fight against sleep and against numbness. Cause I don’t feel that much when I am numb and I am in desperate need to feel at least something. Most of all I fight with myself. It is not cool to fight with yourself. Can you imagine who will win? It’s either the part that wants to not feel anything anymore and embrace the numbness, or the part that wants to live life like my life wants to be lived before I die. One says 'You in for sitting behind your laptop all day with a big cup of tea?' while the other one is saying 'Let's do something. Let's go out and dance in the rain or something like that'. One says ‘Hey, lets do some homework and get straight A’s’ while the other one says ‘You can also get a B and go to town now and walk a bit’.  One says 'I am so tired' and the other one screams 'Being tired is for complete wecko’s. Of course are you tired. When was the last true vacation you can remember, honey? Where is your drive to be a somebody? Like you used to want'… Like I used to want. Tomorrow, when I wake up there are two scenarios that could have happened

•        I have embraced the numbness and have become the person that everybody wants me to be.
•        I have become an actor, acting a version of an embraced- numbness- me.

Either way, I will win and lose. 

Portfolio

I can proudly present to you: My portfolio. Not finished jet. But then again a portfolio never is. I will upgrade it this week some more and hope you will like the improvements I will make.

What I talk about when I talk about:

Communication is not easy. It´s so hard that we don´t even try any more with most people. It´s just about birds in the sky, how the sun is standing in the sky today, how sweet bunny´s are when they are walking through the fields, and stuff I don’t want to talk about when I talk about talking. I want to talk about the philosophical things in life, about trees being so beautiful in autumn, about why we are here. I am in desperate need of talking about not only Live Life and Love but also beyond that. I believe that everybody has a story. Something that made you the person you are now. I see everything around me changing and sometimes don’t understand why. Most off all I see myself changing. I don’t understand that either. Cause all I want to do is talk. And whenever talking becomes speaking, you are going to lose me from now on. So… What´s your story/talk about?

Yesterday is gone

Since I have started this study, most people ask me to ‘invent’ something. Most women want a robot that cleans the house. My mom has been asking for that, for about 17 years now. The leaves are falling from the trees. Now that it’s autumn again,  people want a weather machine against the cold. My musical friends want a new instrument, and my sailing friends would really like a faster boat. I need to invent a disposable chair, a screen you can bring everywhere so you can always see pink elephants dancing around (don’t even ask from who I got that), a thing that would stop people from forgetting their appointments (do you people ever look in your diary?) and fast…. if you please. I haven’t even started about how many people asked me about travelling through time. But apparently it’s a topic that lots of people think about a lot. They have a clear time in mind they want to go to in the past or they just want to go to ‘what used to be’. Or even worse: people want to be away from now but also from the past which leaves just the future… I have to tell something to those of you who are thinking these things:

Yesterday is past, tomorrow jet to come. Today is a gift that’s why it’s called the present.

A new world

There are many stories about his life. Even his son didn’t know for sure who Cristopher Columbus was. He could have been Italian, or Spanish. It’s possible that he had a high status in society, or not. He could have been a pirate like Jack Sparrow, or he was really civilized. Endless possibilities about the life of just one man. Why all these questions? Well, I can tell you they celebrate the day today in America. Today it’s the twelfth of October. It is a special day today. Besides that the twelfth of October won’t be on a Tuesday any time soon and certainly not with this weather this is the day that Columbus found America. Columbus is someone I see as one of the first CreaTers. He might not have created something, but he was brave enough to start to discover. I think we all need our first Columbus-moment. The first journey to the unknown. The first answers to ourselves and then the first quest and the first thing we can discover all by our self. The only answers we have are: he was born someday, he has found America and then someday after that he died. But I bet he knows the rest of the story.

The End?

What happened here? We don’t have any We create identity courses any more. That’s kind of strange. We’re getting along with our interactive movie. That’s going to be quite nice. And I almost think we have an identity now as a group. We made one ourselves. That feels like an accomplishment. And for myself… I know a new part of my identity now. One that I wasn’t familiar with. I found that it calms me when I write my thoughts about something down. I am not a person who just gives her thoughts to everybody. Especially when you don’t ask for it. This makes it harder for me to explain what I am thinking.  Simply because there is so much to tell. But for myself it’s really nice to have these things written down. I understand myself better and I can read it again and say hey I missed a point right there, or that was really stupid to think of me. And my family likes my blog as well. I was surprised by this. They don’t really mind reading my blog, right??  So I am so sorry, but I am not going to stop blogging. In fact I already know what my next blog is going to be about :D Perhaps on Friday. After assignment 13.  To be continued. 

Ps Have a look at the logo’s guys. They’re really nice. You’re a CreaTer or you’re not. And these are ;-)  https://sites.google.com/site/create10ca1site/organisation-exhibit

You gotta love Technology!

So a new blog more in the direction of technology. I think technology is important in this society. First of all cause EVERY single thing is made by, powered by, or still running because of technology. I can’t think of anything anymore that is not somehow connected to technology. There for technology must be important.. Right? Technology is important for me because besides the fact that I use it like every other consumer, I love to find out how things work. The thing is: I am curious. And wherever  people don’t really like at least a thousand questions about live life and love, technology doesn’t really mind. It answers all questions you can think of:

Why is the sky blue? A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light.  When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colors because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight.

What’s the answer to the ultimate question? 42

What’s the ultimate question? Go find out yourself

Technology is like written in stone. It’s there and it can be changed but how ever you would want to change it, it always comes down to the same thing: Technology listens to you if you listen to technology, and technology answers every question as long you ask the questions.  You gotta love Technology!

Multitasking, crying and coffee

Today I decided to start early. Oke confess, I didn't really decided, just happened. But this means I have some more time than I expected. I just did my first sessions of sketching and crying for graphic design. It was mostly crying though. We have to make a postcard about CreaTe and the advice of the teacher was to sketch cry and doubt. I am sure the doubting will come just 5 minutes before I have to present it. Because right now I am just in a sketching/crying stage. Which is ok. I just don’t really like the crying part. I guess it’s just part of the deal. And right now I am mentally preparing for another class of Introduction to computer science, while writing a blog, and listening to bad music. Gotta keep practicing some multitasking skills, right? Some people might think that multitasking is a word invented for our parents so they won’t have a clue what we’re talking about but it’s actually quite easy. And yes listening is hard to combine with something else but if you don’t do communicating stuff multitasking is a piece of cake. Just got to practice. I think we’re going to have a really nice lecture today cause I have no idea what it is about. That makes it easier to stay focused if you don’t have a clue what the teacher is going to talk about. But perhaps some more coffee would help as well.

Peppernoten

Today we introduced peppernoten to some of our foreign fellow students. For those of you who don’t understand, peppernoten is an English word that didn’t exist until 5 seconds ago. It’s a dutch thing we would say but don’t worry I’ll explain. Sinterklaas is something like Santa Claus only Sinterklaas was there first. He lives now for a more than a hundred years in Spain with Black Piet, cause he's having trouble with his rheumatism. Actually my aunt lived for a while next to him but he always seemed to be on holiday when we were there. More importantly he celebrates his B-day (on the 5^th of December) by giving presents to ALL the children in the country.  Of course this is a time of candy and sweets for the good children and it’s not so nice for the other children. I can’t remember the last time a child has been punished around this festival but it happened in the old days I guess. For the older more adult children and adults to it’s nice because we send each other poems to discuss the year and of course eat sweets. And peppernoten are the sweets that belong to this festival. Most foreign people think it’s dog food. But my foreign friends actually liked it. The point of this blog?? Differences are there until you ask and there for make them disappear. So make them disappear. It's not so hard.