For example – the studying during the middle of the night. Honestly, I just don’t get that. I mean, sure, at the end of the semester, I might get so busy that I go to bed at one or something. But seriously, just not sleeping the entire night because of your homework in the first week? And the strange thing to me is that it’s so normal! It looks as if everybody is doing their homework during the night.. I am busy as well, really, there’s a lot of stuff you have to do and I find it really complicated and hard. But then again, you also have so much time! There’s just not that much classes and the rest of the day you can spend doing your homework. At least, that’s what I think. Yet apparently, I’m the only person at this entire school who goes to bed before eleven.. Maybe this will change, because that is what everyone has been telling me, but I hope not, since I still believe that sleep (your health!) is more important than schoolwork. If I have a lot of work, I just go to bed in time and wake up a little earlier to finish it..

And then there’s the dishes. Seriously, how hard is it to just do your dishes when you are done eating? My house is really nice and here, most of the time, everybody actually does their dishes but I’ve seen some houses.. my goodness! I’m glad to be living in this house, where, most of the time, stuff is just clean. I mean, I’m no cleaning monster myself and my room can get a little messy at times, but I think that it is just common decency to do your dishes and keep the bacteria out.. right?

All of this makes me feel that I’m sort of an outsider in the student world. I don’t do my homework at night, I do my dishes, I don’t party and get drunk, I am happy in the mornings and I’m always in time. However, I have also experienced the student life last week. My housemates cooked a lovely dinner and it was really good, but after that I got a strange ache in my stomach. I tried to do some homework but it just got worse and I figured I’d just go to bed, and try to get some sleep.. wrong! The pain got worse and worse and well, I think you can guess what happened: I threw up six times that night and didn’t get a minute of sleep. I emailed my tutor and teachers that I wouldn’t make it to school that day, and after the pain and the puking had finally ended I fell asleep.

I still don’t know what the exact cause was. It might have been the dinner, but I’m the only one in the house who got sick so that would be really strange. But anyway, after this experience I honestly felt like a real student. So even though I do sleep, don’t drink and I’m always happy in the morning, I’m still living a student life.

How have you been, dear readers? Vacation right now, or at school? You know the thing is, with me, it’s neither of those. I’m not really at school (because I’m at home) but I don’t have vacation either, because I’m studying all the time. It feels like I’m in the in-between.

The final exams are in two weeks, and when that’s done my new future starts. I’m going working a lot, then my cool trip to The States and after that an entire new life at Middelburg at The Roosevelt Academy. My old life, though, has passed already. I’m no longer at school for five days, I don’t have classes anymore, I’m just here – at home, studying.

I’m in the in-between.

Anyways – I’ve got four more tests (one of them an English literature test = reading The Catcher in the Rye) and three more oral tests, and then I’m done. NO. MORE. SCHOOLWORK. Everything that has to do with school will be done in two weeks, I will have a gigantic holiday after that in which I will study my ass of for the actual, big, gigantic, enormous exams. I’m not really nervous for them though, because it’s very clear what you have to learn and you’ve got tons of time. You might actually state that I’m looking forward to the exams. But, we’ll see.

For now: studying very hard this weekend, working for two weeks and then, finally, some time to relax (: Oh and by the way – I’m celebrating my seven months anniversary with Josh today. I love you, hun <3

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.

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.

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 (:]

I know how you feel right now,
losing dreams you’ve come to care about.
I know what you need right now,
you need to come on home
so I can hold you tight –
I’ll get you through the night.

This is beautiful song by Krezip. My good friend Wouter told me about it, last year at the end of his highschoolyears. He used the song for his speech back then and I think I understand how he felt, now.

I mean – I’m so happy that highschool is over and I can go to university. I’m so excited about these changes, I’m so excited about these new things and new challenges. I can’t wait for the finals to be done and to go to a new school. I want the new stuff, I do.

Yet a dark cloud is there. I don’t want to say goodbye to all those years of highschool. I had, and have, the time of my life, exactly where I am. I’m in the best place with my friends and Josh and I’m so blessed. I don’t want to leave the laughs and the fun behind, I don’t want to say goodbye to all those years just yet. Those friends have been my friends for five years, they know me better than anyone else does. I can be me with them, without having to change a single thing. I’m so happy now – I’m so blessed.

And sometimes, when I’m at school, it just strikes me. Next year things will be different. And somehow I feel sad about all those times that will never come back again. I love to grow up, but why does it have to go so fast? Time falls down like water floats through a river – too fast. It’s just too fast. I’m not ready for changes, I’m not ready for saying goodbye. I’m not ready just yet.

Yet the song is titled Sweet Goodbyes. And I know that, next summer, I will say sweet goodbyes. Goodbyes full of love and full of memories of times that I will never forget. I will say thankful goodbyes to all of the blessings, friends and love. I will say goodbyes that will always be locked in a little room in my heart which is called highschool. Goodbyes to the friends that will always be friends, even if they live 300 miles away from me.

Tears in my eyes – sweet goodbyes. But just not yet.

Have you ever experienced that wonderful feeling of freedom? That feeling that you get when it’s Friday and you’re finally done with checking that last test, just opened the door to a warm and cozy house or that feeling when you’re sitting down at the couch watching a movie. That feeling – you wouldn’t want to miss for the world – right? Of course, we understand that this feeling can’t be permanent, but that feeling – it’s wonderful.

The holidays, used to give me this feeling as well. When I was younger and when I was still in primary school, I used to love it when the holidays arrived. This meant running around with my friends, spending entire days behind the computer and watching tons and tons of movies. At the age of 10, holidays were the personification of freedom.

But then things started to change. Highschool. Holidays were no longer a time to relax, have fun and do absolutely nothing at all.. No, vacation was the ultimate opportunity to catch up on all your homework, to finally finish that gigantic paper and to catch up on all the sleep you’ve missed out on. You didn’t go relaxing or watching movies, you spent hours on that history paper or learning for that math test. Where did these days of glory go? Melancholic you look back at these wonderful days – wishing you were 10 again.

But no – those days will never return. As long as you’re a student, your holidays will always be the ultimate way to catch up. And that’s not the fault of those students, dear teachers, no, that’s YOUR fault. Dear rectors, con rectors and directors – it’s your fault. You tell us that we need to learn to plan our work, that we need hand things in on time. But you are the ones that decide WHEN we have to hand in all that stuff. You are the ones that put every test, every paper and every presentation in the two weeks after the holidays.

You are the cause that I spend my free time working on math, in stead of having fun with my friends. You are the cause that I get up early to finish my history paper, whilst I actually should catch up on all the sleep that I missed when I was studying for that geography test. You are the cause that tons of students end up overworked and stressed – you are the cause of those burnouts that tend to occur more and more amongst teenagers.

Yes – feel bad. Please do! While you spend your holidays having fun with your wife or husband, watching sweet movies and having a great day in the forest. Just think of us for a bit. And then – next time you ‘plan’ a test, or a date to hand in a report – please think of us. We used to have a life, too.

But I’m not letting that get me down. I’ll just work my ass of for a couple of days, but I will have my vacation. I’m not letting it ruin by all these mountains of homework – I’m not. So I’m sorry if I fail my math test or don’t hand in my geography paper in time – but I have rights too. And today, I’m claiming the right on peace, rest, fun and free time. I’m claiming the right on a vacation, the way it should be.

Well first, of course, Joshua. I’ve spent another lovely Joshua&Inge afternoon together with him, enjoying the sunshine on a bench outside whilst eating lovely sandwiches. Our recent addiction is the song ‘Hallelujah’ by.. well, Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen and tons of other artists. We heard somebody sing it a while back and we loved it straight away! So ‘I heard there was a secret chord..’ has been heard quite a lot around us, this past week.

Next to that I’ve been really busy studying maths. You all know that I’m seriously considering going to The Roosevelt Academy next year, but they require a level of maths that I don’t have. So basically I have to catch up on two years of math in ONE year, and next to that keep up with my normal maths homework! That is, of course, crazy, but also surprisingly fun! I’ve discovered that maths is actually quite calming, once you understand what it’s all about it is just like solving puzzles. My biggest mainstay are the cool maths and sciences students that help me with the work.

Last week was also surprisingly cold and autumn-ish! The cold part was fine with me: with a little layer of extra clothes and some mittens and scarfs that shouldn’t be a problem – it’s the autumn part that I didn’t like. We had days which were very cold but also had gorgeous blue skies that lit up the leaves in the most incredible hues which made my mouth drop open. But these days were in strong contrast with the other days that consisted of horrible rain, hard winds that blow leaves into your face and dark, grey skies. I love the first autumn, but the second – ew.

I spent the rest of the time studying Chinese history, writing songs for my music class, finding stuff about authors for my literature list and tons of other school stuff like that. Seriously dude, senior year is tough! I also spent a lovely evening at the band, rehearsing for our next enormous show that will be somewhere in .. February, I think? I tried to make some cool photos (I failed), reorganized my music collection (goodbye Switchfoot, hellooo 10 versions of Hallelujah!) and watched the new episodes of Bones (hilarious!) and Gossip Girl (oohh, I’m so addicted!).

Yet all this business is good business. It’s all the result of amazing blessings that I received and I’m still more than grateful for that. But there’s a time for being busy and there’s a time for resting – I’m glad that the last time arrived. Until next week I’ll be enjoying the fall-holidays, jeej! The kick of was great today: I spent it with my mum at the read&listen festival in Ede, watching tons of cool artists (including the incredible Sons of Korah!) and buying cool books. Tonight will be on the couch, watching a movie with my family and I’ll spend tomorrow at Joshua.

Hello holidays!