Inge Thinks...

I got in! I am admitted to The Roosevelt Academy and soon I will receive a letter that invites me to come study down there at Middelburg. I’m so excited!

Thanks, everyone, for your support! (:

Some of you may remember, but today is the day of my interview at The Roosevelt Academy. I will have to talk for half an hour with two people and then I will now, within two weeks, whether or not I am admitted. So it’s pretty exciting and I’m very anxious. I’ll let you know how it went!

‘We had such potential. Such promise. But we squandered our gifts. And so, 9, I am creating you. Our world is ending. Life must go on.‘

I just saw the coolest movie, Nine. It’s a wonderful animation movie which has an incredibly cool message in it. The world has been taken over by the biggest creation of mankind, The Machine. This super-robot has killed all the people and all that’s left are a few dolls. One says:

‘When we awoke in this world, it was chaos. Man and machine attacked each other with fire and metal. I lead us here to sanctuary and here we waited out the war. Slowly, the world grew still until all that remained, was The Beast. Now we wait for it too to sleep.’

This doll, One, hides away in a church with his fellows. Yet there is another doll, Nine, who wants to do something about it. He is told by Six that he must go back to where he came from (‘The Source, The Source, go back to The Source!) and when Nine arrives there, he finds a message. The message is from The Scientist who created The Machine. He created The Machine out of his own brain to do good, but others corrupted it and it became an evil machine because it had no soul. The Scientist tells Nine that the dolls, Nine and the others, are his soul. They have to save the world.

In the end, One sacrifices himself while saying (about the human race): ‘They’ve left us nothing. Nothing. Why do we have to right their wrongs? Sometimes one must be sacrificed.’ By doing that Nine is capable of turning The Machine off and saving the world. The movie ends with a conversation between Seven and Nine:

‘What happens next?
I’m not sure. But this world is ours now. It’s what we make of it.’

I guess I’m not the only one seeing these amazing parallels here. Wasn’t it God who created the world, hoping it to be purely good? And wasn’t it the devil who corrupted this, turning to evil? Didn’t God put His hope on One person, Jesus, in whom His soul was? Why did Jesus have to right our wrongs? Sometimes one must be sacrificed..

I have had enough of it, for now. I used to LOVE it when it snowed, because that’s something that really doesn’t happen a lot down here. It’s always once a winter and like.. a centimetre, or something? Yet now it has been snowing and freezing since December, and it won’t stop.

I mean, it’s fun when everything is white and pretty, and when the flakes fall down in the dark of the night. But when the temperature rises the snow will melt. And that is the thing that I don’t like – melting snow. Everything is sleeky and slippery and you have to walk very carefully. The beautiful white snow turns into brown filth and it’s all just yukkie.

So if someone could invent snow that would be as pretty as normal snow, but that would just *plop* disappear in the end, without turning to yuk.. that would be really nice.

After days of hard work, terrible drama and sleepless nights it’s finally done. The concept of final thesis is here and the biggest part of the work is done. I’m so relieved that it’s over, I have been feeling horrible about it for quite some time. If you’re interested (which you’re not) you can read the whole thing, but for now the introduction will suffice. And I’m sorry, dear Kjersti, it’s in Dutch:

Introduction
Chinese sprookjes en het confucianisme. Het eerste wat er door uw hoofd schiet is misschien wel de vraag waarom een studente uit klas zes van het VWO kiest om haar profielwerkstuk over een dusdanig onderwerp te doen. Want wat is het dat een meisje van zeventien interessant zou vinden aan de eeuwenlange geschiedenis van een land dat hier ver vandaan ligt, en welk verborgen geheim schuilt er achter de interesse in zoiets alledaags als een sprookje?

Gelukkig zijn er inleidingen die zulke meisjes de kans geven om dit uit te leggen. Allereerst China. Hoewel het voor velen niets meer is dan ‘een land ver weg’, is het voor mij een land met geheimen. Want wie waren de Chinezen? Op school horen wij slechts over de glorieuze jaren van de Gouden Eeuw en het machtige regime van Karel V, terwijl dat enorme land aan de andere kant van het continent zelden ter sprake komt. Het is misschien om die reden dat het mijn interesse heeft gewekt. Het mysterieuze van dat onbekende land, de nog onontgonnen paden waarover ik mijn verbeelding kan laten gaan. Het nieuwe, het frisse.

Mijn interesse werd echter pas echt gewekt toen we de mogelijkheid kregen om die cultuur te ontdekken. Een speciaal onderwerp voor de cultuurstudenten was de reden dat elk van ons een mapje kreeg met daarin een stapel aan nieuwe kennis. Enthousiast begon ik te lezen in een geschiedenis van een land ver weg en ik werd niet teleurgesteld. Het spoorde mij juist aan om nog meer te weten te komen over dat verre land. Dat land van dynastieën, draken en keizers. Want hoe was het leven daar in China, zo’n duizend jaar geleden? Wat waren hun filosofieën, welke gedachten hadden zij over het leven?

Ik was vooral gefascineerd door de invloed van één man: Confucius. Want hoe was het mogelijk dat slechts één man zo’n grote invloed uit heeft geoefend op China? Hoe kan het dat een meester die meer dan tweeduizend jaar geleden leefde vandaag nog steeds genoemd wordt? Hoe kan het dat men spreekt over de confucianistische mentaliteit? Wat was zijn geheim? De lang verloren periode van de Strijdende Staten en de Honderd Scholen wekte mijn nieuwsgierigheid.

Echter, dit was niet het enige waarom ik zo’n interesse toonde in China. Verhalen over draken en mythen over verloren meisjes boeiden mij ook mateloos en ik verlangde naar meer. Echter, na enig onderzoek bleek de Chinese mythologie zo groot dat het haast onmogelijk was om daar ‘slechts’ een profielwerkstuk over te schrijven. Een scriptie zou toepasselijker zijn geweest. Daarom moest ik keuzes maken. Ging ik voor de sagen en volksverhalen, voor de mythen en legenden, of toch voor de lichthartige sprookjes?

Het was rond die tijd dat ik een boek las over films. De auteur had een schema opgesteld waarin hij elke film in kon passen en het fascineerde mij mateloos hoe dit mogelijk was. Blijkbaar was hij in staat geweest om die film tot in de kleinste stukjes te beperken en vervolgens een soort van universele lijst op te stellen die je op elke film kon toepassen. Toen ik dit zelfde principe ontdekte in het boek over toversprookjes van Vladimir Propp, was ik verkocht. Terwijl ik het las werd ik steeds enthousiaster omdat mijn liefde voor literatuur, cultuur en geschiedenis eindelijk besloten hadden samen te komen in één object. Ik was verliefd. Ik wist zeker dat mijn profielwerkstuk zou gaan over sprookjes.

Toen was er echter nog de vraag hoe die twee liefdes van mij, het confucianisme en de sprookjes, zich zouden kunnen bundelen in één werk. Pas aan het einde van het voorbereidende werk is dit duidelijk geworden, maar ik ben er zeker van dat de vraag over invloed van het confucianisme op de Chinese sprookjes enorm interessant is om te onderzoeken.

Dear readers, (I’ll just pretend that I have readers apart from my mum and dear boyfriend)

I’m sorry I have been neglecting this blog lately. Senior year is busy! I spend most of my time on school and the parts that I have left are filled with work and the boyfriend. But it feels as if school is taking up more and more of my time. So, a little update:

I’m working on my final thesis these days which is about Chinese fairytales. I’m in charge of the fairytale part and for that reason I’m reading the work of a Russian professor called Vladimir Propp. I have found that this is perfect! The book is about defining and classifying fairytales and it digs deep into literature, history and culture. And these are the three things that I absolutely adore! I love working on the thesis but it also takes up quite some time. It’s due next month so I’m really busy with that.

Next to that I’m also catching up maths. Things are going quite well. I’ve had one test today and another tomorrow and after that I’ll only have to do one chapter and then I’ll be a full Wiskunde A-person!

Also, I’m doing a lot of fun stuff. I had a shoot with a band, Birds Eye, recently and I’ll post the pictures on my blog. Personally, I think they turned out quite well and the band was so much fun to work with! Music is filling my life too, these days. I’m preparing for a school performance next month as well as a concert from Next Generation in March.

So business all over the place! And I didn’t even mention the cool part just yet. I’ve sent my letter of application and all the other stuff that goes with it to The Roosevelt Academy and I have been selected for an interview! So, the 16h of February, I’ll be off to Middelburg, speaking for half an hour with a board, explaining why I should be admitted to that school. Pretty exciting, right?

Well, I’ve got to get going and study some maths! I’ll try not to ignore this blog as much as I did recently..

Love,

Inge

School is about to start and the restlessness has found its way back into my head. The worries are back, worries about schoolwork and my future. It will almost start again. But there’s one day, one day of rest. Sunday. Fill me with Your peace.

I guess I could write on and on about how you should think of Jesus at Christmas, but this YouTube video will say more than I could say using a thousand words. So please, just watch.

‘There shines an everlasting light
for the King has left His throne
and is sleeping in a manger tonight.’

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone! It’s been quite a while since I’ve been on here due to serious studying because of the test week. That’s all over and done now, and in a week the holidays will be here – yay! So since test week is over the weekends don’t exist of doing homework, but creativity and music get some time too. As for creativity: check my Flickr page. I’ve been spending an entire afternoon building this gigantic heart/christmas/thing-ish and I took some cool shots, you’ll see more of them. And for music: this blog is the result.

You all must have heard of OneRepublic (if you’ve never heard the song Apologize before you must live in a cage or something) but did you also know that they are a Christian band? I believe this to be very cool, because they also write awesome songs about it. In my opinion, one of the most beautiful songs they wrote is Prodigal.

We all know the story of the Prodigal Son. In short: the son receives a big amount of money from his father, spends it all on everything that’s wrong and then returns, on his knees, to his father, who takes him back again. The story has been told so many times, so many songs have been written and so many plays have been seen. But yes this song struck me more than any other song that I have heard about it. The lyrics:

Run away, run away
Like a prodigal
Don’t You wait for me
So ashamed, so ashamed
But I need You so
And You wait for me

These words outline perfectly how I feel at times. I do so many things wrong, over and over and over and over again, and each time I’m so ashamed. Each time I run away so hard from God, I spend all my money on things that are so wrong, and each time I don’t dare to return. I’m so ashamed. God, my Father, let Jesus come down to earth for my horribleness, for everything I do wrong. Jesus was crucified because of the fact that I can’t control myself. And yet, each time, I run away, I run away.

But each time I have to come back. Each time I have to walk the way back home to my Father, fall on my knees, so ashamed, and ask for forgiveness. And no matter how many times, no matter how much money I’ve spent, no matter how much I’ve sinned – I can come back. And each time the Father is there, waiting for me. At the end of that dark road, He stands, looking for me. He calls my name, hoping I’ll return. Each and every time He waits for me.

It is not about the son, it’s not about me. Yes, I am prodigal – I am lost. But no matter how lost I am, how deep I sank this time, how black the night is – there is Someone who is waiting for my return. My Father. No matter how many times I ran away or will run away, He will be there – waiting for me. Always. Forever. He’ll wait for me.

I’m frustrated, quite frustrated to be specific. I’ve just had it with this world and I’ll tell you exactly why. When you know me, you know that I’m all about arts, music, culture and people. Those things matter to me, those things define me. I, of course, understand that there are people in this world who don’t work that way. Yes, I see clearly that there are people who care more about economics and politics. I don’t mind, I understand – there should be a difference in these things. In my opinion, economics and politics are just as important as cultural aspects like art or music.

But here’s the problem: apparently the amount of people who are interested in economics and politics is far bigger than the amount of cultural people like me. This shouldn’t be a problem, if each of these two groups would keep their interests to themselves. But this world isn’t a fairytale and the economics and politics-group, to generalize, doesn’t like to keep their visions to themselves. Even worse: these people are the people who rule the world. The people who rule the school systems and the exams, the people in the government, the minister of education.

They have the power to make everyone do what they want them to do. The economics and politics-group believes that economics and politics are all that matter in this world and that cultural aspects are just details that can be fun but are absolutely not necessary for survival. Therefore these mighty people with their love for economics and politics try to ban out cultural aspects as much as possible and make the only thing that matters economics and politics. ‘Because these subjects are really useful! That’s what you need in life, right? You can’t use Van Gogh’s Starry Night to solve big money problems, so why study it? Knownledge should be useful!’ But what happened to know something, just because that makes you a better person? What happened to knowing something without knowing for sure that you’ll ever use that knowledge. What happened to knowing just because of the knowing?

According the economics and politics people there is no such thing as ‘knowing just because of the knowing’, and knowledge should, at all times, be useful. And that’s where we get to the centre of this blogpost. I’ve had more than enough of useful knowledge. And I’ll tell you exactly why.

I’m the cultural person so I picked cultural subjects like history, geography, music and arts. I was hoping to limit the amount of economics and politics by picking these subjects, and, until now, I succeeded. History was about the Romans and Greek, about philosophers and religions, it was about the Middle Ages and Chinese dynasties. Geography was about volcanoes and earthquakes, about deserts and rain. I talked about Chopin and Van Gogh, enjoyed conversations on the early Baroque artists and dreamt about visiting Greece once. These were the lovely two years before senior year.

But then senior year arrived. It showed us what we had to learn for the central exam, the exam that every student in Holland should take. Every history student in Holland has to take the same history exam and the same geography exam. I had my hopes up: China, maybe, or the Romans! Could it be about volcanoes or waterfalls? I looked forward to having the time to study these subjects deeper than I ever did and pass the exams gloriously. But my dreams ended when I saw the actual subjects:

For history: Vietnamese history. Short for: communism, modern history, war, politics and economics. Oh and the Republic and it’s Golden Age. But not about Rembrandt or music of that time, no, ‘t was all about why the Republic got só successful. Short for? More politics, economics and modern capitalism.
And then geography: No volcanoes or waterfalls but East-Asia. And not about the whole geological wonderfulness of that piece of land, no, all they could talk about was import allowances, Newly Industrializing Countries, Asian Tigers and industries.

Seriously, world? Can you sink any deeper than this? I’m disappointed, I’ve lost my faith in you. Where did the ages go when man was successful when he knew a lot, and not when he had a lot of money? Where is the uomo universalis that knew all about arts and physics? I guess the financial crisis-creating-man has driven it away.

But I’m not giving up. I’m going to be the new Leonardo DaVinci. I won’t give in to make-a-lot-of-money-FAST but I’ll study my ass of on subjects like Chinese history or Greek arts. I want to have a lot of knowledge just because of the knowledge and I refuse to believe that ‘knowledge should be useful’-thing. I will know all there is to know and I won’t care about the latest financial news, the war in Afghanistan or why Balkenende didn’t become EU president. I will ignore these economics and politics people with their useful world and live my own, absolutely not-useful, but yet the best, life there is.

[I'm sorry for all the people who feel offended or see themselves as an economics and politics person. I'm a Christian, I don't hate you (:]