Fire drill

You’re actually trying to stay focused during class, are stressing out because of an upcoming deadline or are brainstorming with your teacher when suddenly, the fire alarm sets off. Everyone out of the building!!

In primary school, we had a fire drill at least twice a year. The first time, the school told us the date and time about a week before the actual drill, and the second time it was beyond our knowledge. We had to leave everything in class but got an extra long break. In secondary school, I had it once, in five years. And it was hopeless… Our teachers didn’t take us to the actual point where we had to gather because it would be ‘a waste of time’. Besides, the fire alarm was set off so many times we just ignored it, when it would actually go off because of a fire, we would have probably died…

But today, no one knew. Not even our teacher, who got a little stressed because she wasn’t sure if it was a drill our a real emergency. When we got outside we had to wait for over twenty minutes, and people in weird orange vests were keeping us away from the doors. When we walked back in, something did smell a little bit fried, but it could have been my imagination.

I think fire drills are really important, but could we do it next time while the weather is nice and sunny outside??

Boys vs. Girls

Men from Mars, women from Venus. The battle of the sexes. Boys against girls. It’s as old as time and even at school we actually have to learn about it. Blech...

I think it started with the Greek mythology. The famous Amazon kingdom. A nation build by women, and women only! The Amazons had strict rules against men in their community. In this empire, women were the hunters, the warriors, the rulers. Men on the other hand did the housekeeping, the cleaning, the nursing and they took care of the children. If they even lived in the same society. The other story about the Amazons is that only once a year, the Amazon warriors and the men, the Gargareans, came together. When the women gave birth to the new generation, the boys were send to their fathers and the girls stayed with their mothers. The girls were raised to be amazing warriors on the island where the Amazons lived, the boys lived on the mainland, on the domain of the Gargareans, where they lived as farmers and craftsmen.
Did you knew that one of the great warriors in the Trojan War was a woman? Her name was Penthesilea and she was a daughter of the god of war, Ares. Unfortunately she was killed by Achilles. I think that when a guy says that boys are better in sports and other stuff then girls, he doesn’t know much of the Greek myths. Penthesilea killed hundreds of men and her death was one of the bigger losses towards Troy’s army. Another amazing person was Atalanta. A Greek woman who was furious that men thought they were better than her, even when she hunted way bigger animals. She decided she would marry the one men that could beat her in running. Many men thought they could outrun a girl easily, and many men died because of this.

But that isn’t what we have to learn for Anthropology. If we had to learn this, I actually would be interested. No, we have to learn how in some cultures men are superior to women, as if I didn’t knew that already. And it raised the old fashioned ‘battle of the sexes’ inside the lecture hall, since some boys couldn’t resist saying that boys are better in a lot of things then girls. I think that if one of those guys was sitting in front of me, I would have slapped him at the back of his head with a book. And if you think that is unfair, I would do it again in front of him!

Alarm

There is one thing that I really hate. And the worst part is, it is with me every morning, and on Thursday morning it is even earlier than normal… The alarm clock.

On Thursday I have to be at school at 8:30, which means I have to get out of bed at 6:30 and getting up early isn’t my strongest point. So, since I’m cranky because of the time, you get a picture today that you can print and throw arrows at it, or something like that. Have fun with it.

Bored

Verveeld, langweile, aburro, ennuie, secaro, надоесть, bored.

Yes, I just translated bored in Dutch, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Russian. Although the Russian version says ‘bore’. I couldn’t find a translator that could help me with verbs (in case a translation isn’t right: don’t blame me, blame the online translators!!).

But this maybe explains how bored I am because truly nothing is happening today!! I don’t have any grades back yet so I can’t start celebrating (or cry, you never know).

So I went searching for a list of stuff you can do when you’re bored. This are the best/funniest 10 things I found:

1.
Give a Rorschach test to your gerbil
The Rorschach test is that weird test with ink spots.
NOTE: Hamsters, rabbits, dogs, cats, fish, etc. work too. Birds are more difficult.

2.
Rate passers by
Rate between 1 and 10 and give them expert criticism over their clothing, hairstyle and footwear. It’s even more fun when you do it with more people.
NOTE: You do this inside your mind, don’t say anything to people or you’ll probably end beaten up!

3.
Have a philosophical conversation with a tree.
Who knows what comes out of it.

4.
Design a better toilet seat
Most efficient when you’re actually sitting on the toilet.

5.
Try and sound from a different country
Maybe a Scottish accent? Or maybe Russian, or even French! Have fun.
NOTE: After practicing, you’ll need someone else to judge you.

6.
Read Homer in the original Greek.
With a special extra assignment: Learn Greek.

7.
Write your memoires, about the you of a previous life.
Hé, it’s never too early to start.

8.
Carve you and your girl/boyfriend's initials...in a marshmallow.
You know what they say, Love goes through the stomach.
NOTE: I have truly no clue if that is a saying in English but here in the Netherlands (and in Germany) it is.

9.
Learn to type...with your toes
I hope, for the sake of your keyboard, you did wash your feet.

10.
Comment on this (and hopefully more) blog.
I would truly appreciate it.

Have fun with it!!

Article

The power to combine image and sound into a piece of your own mind.


Nina Yuen is a young artist who travelled from New York to Amsterdam witch a exchange program, and she decided to stay. Besides being an artist herself, she was a teacher for a couple of years at an Art Academy in New York. She tried to get another job as an art teacher here in Amsterdam, but until now, she hasn’t had any luck on that point. Luckily for her, her art exhibits have been going on all over the world.



Nina Yuen became an artist because through a camera, she was able to tell things about her personal life that she couldn’t express in writing or in speech. She learned that this was her way to speak her mind by making her first movie, which contained a series of apologies to one of her ex-boyfriends. It is what started her interest in art, even though her parents are still having trouble with accepting her choice of life. ’They have a hard time with me being an artist since their both really into helping society.’

Childhood
Nina grew up in Hawaii, and her mother taught her and her sister every Saturday about different kinds of art by showing them books full of paintings and pictures. Although Nina didn’t understand all the paintings her mother showed her, she did develop some kind of taste in them, she knew what she did and didn’t like.
But her parents aren’t that happy with Nina’s choice to be an artist. Both of them are activist for society and the environment, and her sister is buying land to make it into forest. ‘My movies, like I’m dancing around in a funny costume, I’ll show it to my father and he’ll just be like: What, what is the point? Why are you doing this?’ She knows it wouldn’t be that hard for them if she had decided to become a political artist, but that just isn’t how she is.

Her own way
Although her parents don’t understand her choice, they do play a big role in Nina’s personal and artistic life. And a lot of movies are filmed in her parents’ house. ‘My sister made a rule that I’m not allowed to videotape her anymore.’ It turns out that her sister was annoyed by Nina directing her while making the movie. Luckily, she can laugh about it.
Nina chose film a long time ago as her way of art because she could combine the images and the sounds in every way she like. No one would or could control her during the progress when she creates something. It was her way to create order in the chaos of her own thoughts and mind.

Her movies don’t only show a piece of her mind and thoughts, she also makes movies about how she makes her art. At the end, that movie will be the final piece in the puzzle of her exhibit. In that way, she wants to get people involved in her art. It is a very important thing to her and it was the reason that she became an art teacher.


Till this day on Nina travelled from New York to Amsterdam, to Spain and Denmark, to Brazil and Romania and all for her own exhibits, in a week she will have a solo exhibit opening in New York and in April starts another in Utrecht. And as for her future she hopes she can stay here in Amsterdam and she wants to make a feature link film and show it on international movie festivals or movie contests as well as in art contests.

A new start

Lately, I’ve been having trouble keeping up with school, life and two blogs at once. My biggest problem with my English 365-blog became the blogs itself, I kept translating my Dutch versions.

But that wasn’t original and it started to bug me. So today I made a decision! For a few weeks I’ve been thinking about simply eliminating this blog but now I decided I’m not going to do that, it’s just the ‘easy way out’. But I’m not going to translate every Dutch blog I wrote in the past three days to get back at my arrears either. No, I decided to start my English blog over again. But since I'm (aparently) unable to keep up with two 365-blogs, my English 365-blog will start after my Dutch one. This doesn't mean I'm going to forget it, it will just take a little longer for new things to arive. I'm thinking about starting a 52-blog (every week one blog, instead of every day). You'll hear about it later!

But for the rest, the new blogs will be purely originals written for my English blog only.
I promise!!