Did I just miss my own blogoversary?
Yes. Yes I did. On November 28th in the not-so-distant past of 2012, I wrote my first very sad, very depressing post here at Picking up the Pieces. On November 28th of this amazing year, I was in Germany. Apparently the Germans aren't a big fan of free wifi...
I decided to celebrate today, keeping things short and sweet with a cupcake and this Thank You post.

At some point in our life, we all have to stop being egoistic and demanding jerks and be grateful for what we already have. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, but we don't celebrate that in the Netherlands. But what if we all have a turkey sandwich and read a post about what I'm grateful for? I've already got the Grateful Blogger Tag, thanks to Catalina Blue from the emo wolverine writes, I'm fixing myself a turkey sandwich and... let's go!

• Thank the person who nominated you, they will surely appreciate it! Also, leave a link back to the person who nominated you. 
• Write about ten things you are grateful for. Here is the tricky part though; you can't just say you are grateful for gum or video games or whatever "little" thing it is you want to discuss. Think deeply about what is really important to you, such as family, or life itself. Explain why you are thankful for those things. 
• Tag ten bloggers; our goal is to tag everyone!! Comment on the blogs you nominate so they will know that they were tagged! 
• Add the pic above to your sidebard or award page, thanking the person (or people) who tagged you. 

The first thing I'm grateful for is the way I've grown over the past few months. When old high school friends see me now, they see a totally different Envy than they used to see. I'm a long way from being the strong and confident girl I want to be, but I know how to act confident. There are days, seldom though they are, when I am not insecure at all. I just go with the flow and see where I end up. It's working out fine so far and I've really overcome some personal fears and phobias. I'm a better person now than I was a year ago.

I'm also grateful for the friends I've made over the past years. We're drifting more and more apart now, but they are still there for me when I need them, just one phone call away. I've also made a lot of new friends since I started college and one old friend... Let's just say G. and I have become a lot closer since we're going to the same college, both studying to become teachers. It's crazy how much fun we can have with bad puns based on our most important study book, the Manual for Teachers.

Speaking of college, I'm super grateful for more or less landing an internship! Internships are a huge part of my curriculum. A friend of mine had place for an extra intern at her intern-school, so now we're both doing an internship teaching German at a high school in Rotterdam!

What else? Well, I'm grateful to be here at Picking up the Pieces, sharing too much information with all you guys. Blogging has become an important part of my life. I'm glad I am able to do this. I can't really explain how much blogging means to me. Just take my word that it is very very very important!

When it comes to blogging, I'm also grateful for all my 45 GFC followers! You are amazing! Every time I see someone new following me I do this utterly ridiculous victory dance. Lately my Dad joins me in these dances and he likes this so much that he wants me to reach 50 GFC followers as soon as possible. He even made a bet on how long it would take me XD
Reaching 50 would be amazing, but I'm grateful for reaching 45. It's not a whole lot, but if you'd told me two months ago that I'd have 45 followers before the end of the year, I would have laughed at you.

Another thing I'm grateful for is being part of the Teenage Blogger Central team. I'm a greeter there and I come up with ideas for guest posts every now and then. It makes me feel useful and I like to see the community grow. If you're a teenage blogger, head over to Teenage Blogger Central and join our community! We're so freaking awesome, you don't want to miss our amazingness!

I've never made an FAQ page on my blog, for the simple reason that very few people ask me questions. But if someone does ask me a question, it's always this one: 'Are you really Dutch?'
Yes, of course I am! Why would I lie about that? And what else do you expect me to be? I'm a full blood Dutchy and proud of it too!
Sometimes though, I wonder why people keep asking me this. Is it because they're jealous? Probably, because, let's face it, guys, the thing about being Dutch is... it's pretty freaking amazing!

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Being Dutch is all about cycling everywhere - without a helmet of course. Through wind, rain and snow the Dutch cycle to their homes, schools and work - without giving a single F-bomb about such a thing as traffic signs, cars, cats and other cyclists. Survival of the fittest! We cyclists are the kings of the roads!

And ice-skating, is that part of being Dutch? Let me tell you: it definitely is! Whether it's just watching a 10k race between Sven Kramer and Jorrit Bergsma or going ice-skating yourself, it's all part of being Dutch. -2 degrees outside? Get those skates ready, it's going to be a great winter!

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Being Dutch means eating hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles) on your bread. Who says sprinkles are only for birthday cakes?! Whoever said that, they were defenitely not Dutch!

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Being Dutch is also about not being Danish. And not being German either.
'I'm Dutch.'
'So, you're from Germany?'
'No man, I'm Dutch, not German!'
'Oh, from Denmark.'
Dear people of the rest of the world, buy a map and learn English!

Being Dutch means learning a ton of languages, so we can annoy at least half of the population of planet Earth our nonsense. French, German, English, you name it. And who learns Dutch? That's right, no one! Our language is way too exclusive for others to learn (and most of you can't make the spitting and gurgling noise we call a 'G')!

Only the Swedes can beat us at this game!

Big part of being Dutch is making fun of the Belgians. You don't want to know how many jokes we have about those 'dumb Belgians'. But at the end of the day, we all love the Belgians to bits (the Dutch speaking Belgians of course) and root for them in sports competitions (but only if the Dutch aren't competing)!

But mostly, being Dutch is about secretly loving our stereotype. Because we all eat loads of cheese. Even I have walked on wooden shoes when I was a kid. Mills are scattered around the countryside. And those beautiful tulips? I plant them in my garden every spring.

Yes, I am Dutch. I am lifethreatening as soon as I start cycling. I obsess over the weather forecast every winter. I watch every ice-skating match. I eat sprinkles at breakfast. I'm not from Germany or Denmark, I'm Dutch! I speak your language or will try to learn it, even though you'll never learn mine. I make bad jokes about Belgians and I secretly do the most stereotypical things. But you know what, I'm freaking proud of that. We're a crazy country with crazy habits - but that's what makes being Dutch so awesome. I am proud to be Dutch and the whole world may know that!

Stay Awesome!

Ever since the Black and White Photo and Writing Contest I've been writing and taking pictures and editing stuff. I love writing poetry just as much as I love writing a novel. The thing is: with a novel I know when my writing is bad. With poetry I don't. But I decided to take a leap of faith and start publishing some poetry here every month. I hope you can relate to some of the things I'll be posting over the next couple of months.

Thank God it's November! Even when you get used to it, life with as least technology and electricity a possible is tough. When I woke up on the first of November, I was still in Low Battery mood. I didn't turn my phone on all weekend. On Monday I had the wifi turned off most of the day, because it saves energy. Realization hit that night when I tried to figure out Twitter (I now have an account right here!). I didn't have to hurry because I was running out of internet minutes and it just felt soooo good.
Still I think this was a good thing to do. Ive achieved a lot. Time for a short round up!

• charged my phone six times, instead of the average 30
• listened to the radio for only five minutes a day on average (don't know how I did that, but theradio was the easiest thing of all to ignore)
• watched tv for about 40 minutes per day
• spent an hour a day blogging and doing other fun stuff on the internet
• barely looked at my Facebook account at all!

What I did with all my extra free minutes? Well, I can cook four different dishes, I can do some embroidery (more or less, but it looks a lot better than it did a month ago) and I wrote the plot line and a few chapters of a novel. The novel isn't as good as I hoped it'd be, but it was a good way to practise finishing stuff :) It's in Dutch and I don't think it's worth translating to English. I'm proud of it anyway. It's called '21 switchbacks' and tells the story of Noelle, who cycles to the top of Alpe d'Huez in remembrance of her father. I'm glad I'm close to finishing it now. I think it'll be completed on Wattpad before the end of this month. And then I'll be able to focus on another story, which will be published on this blog, starting January 2015!

Yup, got some of these in my class again

Two months have gone bysince I first set foot in my college building. It looked like a gigantic maze, a muggle Hogwarts with all its corridors and classrooms in the cellar. By now, I know my way around, which stairs to take and which revolving doors to avoid.
It's been two months since I first met my classmates. I've reached the point where I know which people I like a lot and which people I like a little less. I know which teachers I like, I know which teachers like me and I know which teachers I'll be seeing in my nightmares for years.
But maybe more important: I know which classes I love.

In the next four years I'll learn two things: fluent German and how to be a good teacher.
Learning German is relatively easy. We speak German all day long and over the past four weeks we've done written vocabulary tests. Those aren't very awesome, but I aced them all which is totally awesome. So I'm pretty confident that I'll be fine when it comes to the actual speaking part of my college education.
And then there's the part in which we learn teaching skills. It consists of three classes: practical didactics, theoretical didactics and drama. Drama? Yes, drama!
In drama class, my favorite class of this semester, we learn to stand up straight to indicate a high status, we learn to use our emotions to get a message through, we learn to control our motions. It's really helpful and super funny. I had my last lesson on Friday and I'm going to miss these classes.

That's what I looked like all day. Muderous lunatic enough for you?

The test for drama was on Friday. I had to perform a solo to get my credits. I could do anything I want, as long as I didn't bring any fake weapons to school. I planned to act like a murderous lunatic, so instead of something real-looking I brought a bright green water gun!
I was super nervous for my solo, but my teacher was really excited about mine. She had read the piece I'd written and loved it. So on Friday I performed my solo, even though I was scared.
I threw the door shut, pretended to kill a teacher with a water gun and then held a monologue on why I'd killed him. Then, after realizing my life was over too (I would get caught after all) I pretended to commit suicide with the water gun.
My class was in shock. They hadn't expected anything like that, since I'm usually quiet and calm. Suddenly there I was, with make up all over my face, yelling and screaming and threatening to use the water gun again, this time on my classmates.
I passed the test with flying colors and impressed my classmates by showing them a different side of me. Which they immediately accepted.

So after two months of college, can I tell you what the College Experience is? No, I still can't. But it's something like this.
The College Experience is:

• Running through the halls with a water gun
• Pretending to be a lunatic
• Making bad jokes about Germans
• Wearing a Batman sweater to school and being called awesome for doing that
• Having the freedom to be who you've always wanted to be.

And that's not all. The college experience is so much more than that. How much more? I'll have to find out, but you'll hear from me soon!