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?! Eleven silly little facts #1: During the first round of the football World Championships in Brazil, I supported Australia. #2: I'm afraid of the universe, because my kindergarten teacher once told me that I'd die if I went into...

Continue Reading

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...

Continue Reading

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...

Continue Reading

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),...

Continue Reading

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...

Continue Reading

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...

Continue Reading