I got Liebstered again, this time by the amazing Catalina Blue :) You know the rules by now: eleven facts, eleven questions. The number eleven in these posts is still really bugging me by the way... Why eleven?!
The scariest nightmare you've ever had?

Every now and then, my body decides that unrestrained cell devision is a good thing. I'm one of the lucky persons on this planet who don't get cancer when cells go crazy like that (at least not until now). I get cystes. Cystes aren't awesome either, but I won't die of them. They're kinda like cancer's nice cousin. However, you shouldn't try to get them out yourself. Which was exactly what I did...

Around the same time as I started this blog, I noticed a thingy in my shoulder. It was a little black spot, so I thought it was a blackhead. For over a year I just left it there; it wasn't bothering me and it didn't make me look like a hideous monster, so why try to get it out?
But then, a few months ago, the thing suddenly got bigger. A part of my shoulder got slightly swollen. The skin was turning red and got irritated. I still thought it was a blackhead and finally tried to get it out. By then, it was March 2014. At the end of May, there was still stuff coming out of the blackhead that didn't behave like a blackhead. I went to the doctor right after I came back from the Geography Olympiad. A few days later, the doctor stuck a knife in my shoulder and got the cyste-that-looked-like-a-blackhead out. It's currently in some lab to be examined, just to make sure that I really don't have cancer.

I've had cystes before, so I'm not worried. I'm just terribly annoyed. After the Geography Olympiad, everything went wrong. My laptop almost died, friends were pissed at me because I had to show emotions when they wanted me to, but be a potplant on any other occasion and when I thought someone was coming to my house for the very first time, he didn't show up.
Boohoo, I had some bad luck, who cares? I was totally going to handle this as an adult, until my shoulder started to swell again. This was last Thursday, a week after I had the 'surgery' to get the cyste out. I woke up that morning with an itchy, red shoulder. The stitches I got had almost disappeared into my flesh, as if my shoulder was trying to eat them. I had to get them out immediately.

I'm fine now, just a bit annoyed because of all my bad luck over the past two weeks. I'll get the results on the lab tests on the cyste next week. My shoulder is doing great, the wound will be a purple scar for at least another few weeks, but everything is better than the crater I was creating by trying to get it out myself.
So I'm back, I've left my bad mood behind and I'll start blogging about my usual nonsense again as soon as I've got the results of the lab tests, just to be sure everything is 110% okay again.

It's been a long day for me. Between 1 and 4 pm, my mentor would call me with the results of my Central Examination. The big question: were my results good enough to graduate?
The answer: YES!
So, after the age-old Dutch tradition, it was time to raise the flag! We don't have a flagpole, so I just duct-taped the flag and my backpack to an old broom and taped that to the windowsill.

 After nine months of hard work, I did it: I graduated high school :)

Mankind has achieved so much. We've conquered diseases and indigenous people (sometimes with a little help from diseases). We've climbed the highest mountains, explored the deepest seas, even went all the way up to the moon. But mankind always seeks new challenges. Equality is one of them.
While we try to achieve equality, we forget about the inequality between men and women in most Western countries (don't even get me started on some other countries), because this is apparently no biggie. It's way more important that we call short people 'vertically challenged' and people with Down's syndrome 'mentally limited', instead of just saying what these people are. Now that's what matters, because what the world really needs is equality for every race and type on earth. But in achieving that, we may have gone a bit too far...
Mankind is curious; our curiosity is what makes us different from animals. So I naturally ask questions about race. Even though every person on earth is equal to me, they're also individuals with there own ideas and quirks. There are differences between us, but if you say so you're racist. And you cannot, ever, ask the following questions, because they're racist. You're probably even a racist for reading this! Shame on you!

You're from Africa, how come you're white?
When I was five, I had a friend from South Africa. She was white, paler than me. I was so confused. I did what every five-year-old would do: ask Mom.
'Mom, why is Liesel white?' I asked her out of the blue.
My Mom smiled and then explained to me that South Africa had a large white population because of the many Dutch and English settlers who'd come to the country in the time of pirates and the VOC. Problem solved, confusion gone.
Still, when I see a Kenyan flag on the start list for a swimming contest, I expect to see a black dude, not a skinny white guy. That makes me wonder: why is the white guy white? Is it some weird genetics thing? Is he a descendant of white settlers? Did he move there and become a Kenyan citizen? Or was he born there out of British parents, like cyclist Chris Froome?
I get naturally curious when I see something unexpected. So many possible answers to a single question...
But I can't ask these questions, for that would make me a racist.

Why do black people suffer from a lack of vitamin D more often than others?
I used to think that a dark skin was the best type of skin you could possibly have. I wanted to have a darker skin so I could become a Black Pete. I also liked the thought of not getting sunburnt anymore. And even if I did get sunburnt with a darker skin, it wouldn't be such an emberrasing eyecatcher. I thought a dark skin was awesome.
Later on in life, I learned that people with a darker skin suffer from a lack of vitamin D during long cold winters. I don't fully understand why. Black skin blocks more UV radiation than pale skin. Doe sit also block a lot of radiation that 'makes' vitamin D? And how come that black skin blocks all this? Is it something special the pigment does? Or is it just a color spectrum thing, physics?
But I can't ask these questions, for that would make me a racist.

How do Asians recognize their friends among a group of others?
I once read an article that said that Asians pay less attention to facial features and hair when distinguishing one from another. To me, that seemed a plausible theory, because the Asian fenotype shows less 'big' differences than the European fenotype. There's not much variation in hair and eye color, at least not as much as in Europe.
So if that theory's true, what do they pay attention to? I know that when I forget my glasses, I find my friends by looking at people's body language, or a bright accesoire like a backpack. But how do Asians do that? Do they look at height, weight, body language? Size of feet, way of walking? shape of the head? Do the listen to voices? Telepathy?
But I can't ask these questions, for that would make me a racist.

Every person on this planet is equal. I totally agree to that. But we can't act as if there are no differences. It would be ignorant to do so.
I think these differences between us shouldn't be reason for odd treatments, but we shouldn't deny them either. Differences make life more beautiful, make life an adventure. If I'm racist for being interested in racial differences, then so be it.

On June 4th, fifteen of the Netherlands' brightest geography geeks gathered in the far north of the country to compete for one of the four tickets to the international Geography Olympiad in Krakau, Poland. Three days long they worked hard in heavy rain, tropical temperatures, knee-deep mud and waist-high vegetation. An epic battle was fought out on the heathlands of Drenthe and in the university halls of Groningen.
Why am I telling you this? Because this blogger here was one of those fifteen competitors.

At the beginning of this year I made the qualifying test that could get me into the national finals. I didn't expect to go to those finals, because I was unsure of most of my answers.
Months later, near the end of May, I received an invitation for the national finals, when I didn't expect it to happen anymore. I was stunned, shocked, overwhelmed and quite frankly scared to death. Spending three days with a group of total strangers? Terrifying.
I doubted, doubted, doubted and quickly accepted, before I could change my mind again and spend the rest of my life regretting that I didn't go. So I packed my bags and left at 5am on the morning of June 4th to travel from the far west of the country to the far north. It was my first time travelling alone and by train and it was even more terrifying than the prospect of having to convince fourteen strangers of my awkward awesomeness, but that's a story for another time. Right now it's time for the story of fifteen teenagers on the northern heathlands.

A lot of people make a bucket list. I made one on a whim, a little over a year ago. Hid it in a drawer, never did anything with it. I'm not a bucket list kind of person, I guess. Check lists are more up my ally.
I made a new list, with realistic goals and silly things I always forget to do, but also with the idea in mind that I can make a difference in this world.
This list won't be hidden in a drawer. This list won't be forgotten. This time I'll make it happen.

My Make It Happen List
#1: Give money to a really good street performer.
#2: Go camping without a tent, underneath the stars.
#3: Dance with someone without feeling ashamed of my spastic moves.
#4: Write and publish a novel.
#5: Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
#6: See Machu Picchu.
#7: Raise money for a wildlife preserve charity thingy.
#8: Run a 5k race in under 25 minutes.
#9: Learn Spanish.
#10: Go snowboarding.
#11: Buy a Marvel comic book at the local comic book store and be proud of it.
#12: Lend a total stranger a helping hand whenever you can.
#13: Go sub 70 seconds on a 400m race.
#14: Bake cookies for my grandparents.
#15: Touch the Eiffel Tower.
#16: Go to a tourist trap in my own country (like the mills at Kinderdijk).

It's not a long list (yet) and it doesn't have many noble or extreme goals on it. The things I've listed are mostly meant as a personal reminder. Some are meant as a tribute to the past, others as a goal for the future. Some things could make the world a better place, or simply make someone's day. The latter means the most to me.
I reckon that if I can light up my grandparents' day or help a stranger out, life gets better for all of us. A random act of kindness can turn into a lifelong memory.

There's only one person who can make these things happen, and that person is me. Wish me luck, guys, I'm going to need it :)