House-hunt

A place that you can call "home".
Cannot remember living in a real home.
Was I 17?
Today I went househunting.
My dad came to Rotterdam and we visited houses.
New homes.

Desperate housewives

Heleen van Royen is a Dutch author who is well known for her liberal views on marriage, relationships and men. Her latest book, “the escape” is about a woman who is fed up with her life and leaves her children and husband behind to cope with the ghosts of her past.

A key theme in the book is a woman feeling like a desperate housewife. The setting seems highly familiar: a well educated women, living in modern suburbia together with her husband in a loveless, passionless marriage with their 2.1 kids and a dog. Boredom, anger and frustration drive these women to drugs, alcohol and other mind-suiting substances. They resolve to leaving their families, having affairs or even committing suicide.

How did this become a key theme for an entire generation? Books, television shows and talk shows all deal with this same question: how can these women become happy with their lives again?
During lunch I had a discussion with my boss and collegeaus. We seem to have it all in our society. If you seem the number of people on Prozac, you will be shocked. Debts are rising, because people want what they cannot afford. Overall, we seem to be very frustrated people.
How is this possible that people who barely have enough food to keep themselves alive every day are more happy with their lives than us? Is materialism such a powerful concept? Or do we simply have too much time on our hands, since survival of our children is a given not a question?

When visiting my hometown I sometimes recognize the early stages of these patterns. A girl that I have known since she was 12, lives 4 block away from her parent’s house. She is in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend whom I happen to know well. Over a glass of beer, I asked him where his girlfriend was. With fear in his eyes, he responded: “why did you see her here”? The girlfriend is one of those people whom I have never seen genuinely happy. She has been depressed since puberty; she has anger tantrums and screams at her boyfriend. Her hobby is gossiping about bad things other people do. In her effort judging others, she cannot see how unhappy she herself is.

A passage in the book states:
“life is like a shadow passing over the grass before disappearing in the night.”
Be happy with your life, life sucks and life is great.

My country observed trough foreign eyes

It stays funny, foreigners observing the culture I know so well and take for granted. These images below are inspired by the book "The Undutchables: an observation of the netherlands: its culture and its inhabitants".

Man's best friend (dog), sitting in Dutchman's best friend (beer crate), loaded
on cloggy's best friend (bicycle), in front of the nation's best-loved type of shop (discount).







An urban entrance hall:
The Welcoming Committee.












Smart: The iMac ® of the road!

AIESEC Rotterdam alumni event

Inzaghi wins the Cup for Milan

Love is all u need?

Love for me is about close relationships with other creatures. Will & Grace have it, Rome and Juliet did and a mom and a daughter have it as well. Lately I am wondering, is love all you need? And how do you then define love?

Let's take the easy way out first and make it personal later. I have been debating about this with several friends and I was surprised. A variety of answers as versatile as the different definitions of love. Is an obsession a form of love gone too far? Are friendships between males and females really friendships or a different kind of love? If you do not have relations with your family, are you then deprived of necessary love? And what about ex-boyfriends, how do you define that type of love?

I have not found my answers yet. I need love in my life, that is for sure. Last year I was so busy with AIESEC, the year before with my studies that I almost forgot. I need my parents and I need my friends. I need attention sometimes. I need people who care. I do not need users and I do not need insincerity. Selfnishness is a definite no, but neediness might just be as bad.
At times like this I realize I am such a girl. The song "I am a bitch" is made for me. I do not have everything figured out, but I need others to define my way. In the end, I do need love.

Test: apparently I need to move....

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Dutch festivals

As could be seen in my previous post, The Netherlands has lots of summer festivals, which are absolutely awesome!!! Cool DJs, many people, good atmosphere: they have it all. Last year I had no time to visit any of them (AIESEC is a social life killer), so this year I am defenitely going to make up for it, yoehoeeeeee!!

Dutch festival season opened

Relax and enjoy life

Have you ever made new-year resolutions? I always do. When I was 18, my resolution included quit smoking, grow up, drink less, exercise more but at the same time stop obsessing over appearance and just relax and enjoy life. When I was 22: succeed in a new town, make new friends, drink less, exercise more (and stop obsessing) and relax and enjoy life. Now I am 26 and last week I decided to again try and relax and enjoy life. I mean, how hard can it be??

Adrienne, president of Atma Mumbai, told me a while ago that she never watched television and this got me thinking. I spent a full day a week staring at a box with moving images. Can you imagine how many things I could do in this time?? So I started meeting friends every night for diner or drinks instead. The result?

Hours of sleep: mm too few
Happy friends: many
Good conversations: every day
Fun: every day
Relax (yeah am fairly relaxed but deprived of sleep) and enjoy life (definitely increased).

The Middle-East from a Western perspective

“When I started out as a Middle East correspondent I thought my job would be straightforward. I would figure out the what, where, when, who and how; and then hear all sides on the why, separating fact from opinion. Wasn’t that how quality newspapers set themselves apart? What do those self-congratulatory clips on CNN, Fox News or Al Jazeera promise if not objectivity? “We report, you decide.”
Not quite. “

This is written by Joris Luyendijk, a Dutch author. His first book, freely translated: ‘A good men will sometimes hit his wife’ is about the Egyptian society from a Western point of view. He became a reporter in the Middle-East and based on his experiences wrote his second book: ‘They are just like humans’.

Once in a while you read a book that makes a huge impact on you. Both of his books has this effect on me. He writes with a good sense of humor and is endlessly critical of the world around him. I gained a lot of insight into the Middle-East, Egypt, Islam, religion and my own society. Hopefully, these books will be translated into English soon.

Do-Volunteer-Work day

In need of:
- Expert opinion on PR and Communications policies for NGO's
- Volunteers who would like to work with children in India
- Inspiration for press release on Mumbai marathon
- Input for comparative website research
- Structure in my head

Done:
- 45 minutes waiting at the municipality office for declaration of good citizenship and appropriate behavior (required for working with children)
- 3 drafts of OGSM for Atma Mumbai
- countless idea that I cannot seem to put on paper
- 1 cancelled meeting to tutor children due to operational mistake
- 30 minutes reading other inputs Atma Mumbai board

Mmm, still to do: work on THESIS ( maybe less volunteer work....)!!!!

A tune representing excitement

Not that world’s most popular sport was ever really dull, but it seems football (soccer for Americans) has risen to a new level again.
In the Dutch league, there were never more exciting times. Three clubs claimed the trone; in a scenario that could have been written by a Hollywood director, PSV won the championship. They had scored one goal more than the number 2 Ajax at the end of the season, just one goal, can you imagine this??

The Champions league is every year good for some highlights. I love the sound of the intro because my brain associates it with pure and utter excitement. This week a new battle was fought. AC Milan showed its superiority against a weak Man U, and wow did they play well. The English League has its share of supermatches: Arsenal-Chelsea, Chelsea-Man U etc. World’s most popular league attracts investors and is as Time Magazine stated: “How the English took football”.
The German competition is still undecided, the Dutch cup final was a new high in football history, what’s next?

For sure I am going to watch the champions league final: Liverpool- AC Milan. Cannot wait to hear the tune…

Star-crossed lovers and other great stories

My old and almost forgotten passions have been surfacing again. As a 5 year-old you always get the question: ”what do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer was always a writer or a journalist. I published a series of books about a little princess and I created an innovative newspaper titled: “ The Floorgraaf ”.
During puberty I discovered literature and poetry. I begged my mom to buy me a copy of Romeo and Juliet and I started writing poems to cope with the problems of becoming a grown-up. As I grew older, I discovered pubs, bars and clubs, but also cigarettes, alcohol and ofcourse boys. This led to the decay of my writer aspirations.

With the birth of my blog and my current job in PR, I realized how much I had missed writing and reading. I started reading books written by journalists again and found myself inspired. Now I am reading in my old-time favourite story again: Romeo and Juliet. I am surprised how timeless this story is. Classical themes like love, hate, misunderstandings, violence, faith, friendship and family are all dealt with and could be set in these modern times as well.

I am happy that I re-discovered the things I love to do again. My mother’s passion is art, mine is language. I hope I will not forget that anymore.

Madrid and Porto

A week of holidays: I would go to Madrid first and see Sophia and then spend the weekend in Porto together with Heather and Christina. I am in my room now and have no idea what to write first. So much has happened, I will just start and see how it goes.

Madrid equals relaxation
Madrid for me is the ultimate city to unwind and relax. A typical spanish manana-attitude, excellent food, majestic buildings and the numerous terraces. As can be seen in my previous post, I am also particularly interested in the museums. If you ever get the chance to see Picasso's Guernica, you will see what I mean. This masterpiece just draws your attention to it. In Thyssen-Bornemiza, where I went, you can also see extra-ordinary art.

Catching up with old friends
I had some time to catch up with Sophia, talked about her traineeship at PwC and all other things going on in our lives. In AIESEC you meet many interesting people, but seldom do you have the chance to take time to actually talk to each other. While sitting in a Portugese hotel room, two british girls and one Dutch girl realized that they had only met a couple of times before booking this trip. Yet we had the feeling that knew eachother well. My friends are amazed still and I cannot seem to explain it to them.




Food, food and eh more food
Central element in this trip: FOOD!!! Starting with a decent breakfast, lunch at 2 until appx 3.30, then a light snack (chocolate) at 5 and then diner at 10. Tapas in Madrid, dodgy looking squids in Porto (squips for insiders) and lovely cholocate pie. Going out for long diners relieves so much tension and brings about some good conversation. In Porto we tried a local speciality which looks like a toast with much meat and sauce. It was indeed good but I doubt it is very healthy.



Horrendous flight: Ryanair at its best
My flight back was an adventure (understatement). I was sitting in our plane at 6 in the morning, ready to leave, when the captain announced our plane was damage and we needed to go back to the airport lounge. A spokesperson from Ryanair announced they would try and get a new plane and we needed to wait. That waiting lasted until 16.00 hours!!!!!Then Ryanair decided to cancel the flight and offered an alternative: a seat on the next flight out. Since wednesday was already full that meant leaving Madrid on thursday, 2 days later. In the meanwhile I made some new friends and luckily they all had the dutch inventive spirit. We managed to book a ticket with Lufthansa and I finally arrived at the Dutch/German border at 23.30.
Weird to see how people board a plane anonimously, planning to catch up sleep. Then at the end of the day everyone knows eachother and is chatting like we are old friends.








These are just some snapshots from the trip. I have so much more to tell, probably more posts will follow.