The Greenest Grass

I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks since I left the Netherlands for Singapore! It's so strange (and wonderful) to be in a country where the weather is always warm even when it rains! In my second week here I spent four days on a private island in Indonesia together with my mother as an early 21st birthday present. I'm turning 21 in November (so a very early birthday present) but I'll be back in the Netherlands without my family so we decided on an early celebration now and a late celebration during the winter break. I'll post an update on my time in Singapore soon but this post is dedicated to some of the pictures of the beautiful island Telunas! So grateful to have been able to spend some time here with my mama! The island is amazingly beautiful, so peaceful and relaxing. No internet just quality time with my mom, reading, eating and sleeping!

 

Love You More

Together with ten other lovely ladies, I spent five days in Lisbon! We had a really busy but wonderful time there, I had never been to Portugal before and it was great to try some authentic Portugese cuisine and go sightseeing in this beautiful country! We had thirty degree cloudless weather for all of the five days that we were there so it was finally time to wear shorts and start tanning.

Tuesday we explored an area called Alfama which was about half an hour from the appartment we stayed in. We walked around in the area and visited a market that was really nice! After this we went to St. George Castle to do some final sightseeing for the day.

On Wednesday we took the bus and the train to Cascais to spend some time in this very nice town and lie on the beach!

 Our last day was spent in Sintra, an amazing day of sightseeing in this beautiful town! In the evening we went to a skybar near our appartment to celebrate one of the girls' 20th birthday!

And then before we knew it, it was time to leave! Friday was a very long day filled with a lot of waiting but the whole holiday was a lot of fun so it was pretty nice to sit and chat at Starbucks during the waiting. Lisbon was really great and it was great to see so much of the surrounding area as well! 

Technicolour Beat

Last Saturday it was finally time for the Nike Women's 10K run in Amsterdam! I signed up for this run in January and now, four months later, it was finally here! Initially planning to go with three of my friends I unfortunately ended up being the only one running as the rest was ill or injured. But Ambrosa joined me on the trip to Amsterdam and she was the best supporter and motivator! Getting slightly more nervous each hour before the race, it was great to have such an amazing friend there with me.

The entire event was really great, the DJ's played great music, 7000 other excited ladies ready to run and the Nike crew making everyone excited to start! There was a hair stand where you could get your hair done with some type of aerodynamic hairspray, tattoo's and face paint were applied as everyone got ready to run. Most ladies came back from the hair stand with some awesome big hair but I asked if they could just get my hair out of my face which ended up making it look as though it was braided!

My goal was to run the 10 kilometers in a time under 1:20:00. One month ago I ran my first 10 kilometers with Ambrosa and so this time I wanted to be faster! Before the start I spoke with one of the Nike pacers who told me she was running the track in 80 minutes so in order to achieve my goal I just had to make sure not to run behind her. This was greatly motivating and to my own surprise my pace was quite a bit faster for the duration of the entire run and I ended up finishing in 1:12:52!!! The finish line was in the Olympic stadium and so the last few 100 meters were extra motivating as the stadium was even more full of supporters than the streets of Amsterdam had been. Seeing Ambrosa there made me realize I was almost done and that I could still run slightly faster! The last 100 meters a pacer joined me to the finish line while motivating me with wonderful words and because of her I was able to sprint faster than I thought I would ever be able to!

This whole event was such an amazing experience that I really enjoyed and cherish. It was my first time at a running event in which I ran myself rather than just seeing my father run and I can't wait to sign up for my next running event! This summer I will be in Singapore for eight weeks, so my dad and I are signing up for a 10K there! I will definitely be back in Amsterdam for this event next year as well to improve my time even further! 

Photo from before the race with my end results!

Our Own House

Spring break is here!! Midterms are over for now, after the break I have one more exam and a paper that I have to hand in but that is for later concern! For now I am taking a few days off from studying to get back my energy and motivation to keep going the next two months.

My dad is back from Singapore for the week so we are having a chill week together! Going to visit some family and friends but also falling asleep during movies, going running together and cleaning up the house. Before the weekend the weather was amazing and it was getting warm again but now it is pretty cold again.. so I didn't pack any sweaters of course but I am hoping that it'll get warm again soon haha.

Also I've been listening to this song pretty much non stop for the past 24 hours and it just makes me super happy so I thought I would post it here as well!

So I don't have a lot to tell yet because the break only just started and for most of it so far I have been sleeping.. but I am going to go workout now and then visit my granddad today and just chill again so I will be able to tell much more when my brain is functioning again and not constantly wishing to be napping and watching bad movies on netflix... So for now have a good Sunday and take as many naps as you wish to! Doei!

For now it's a break from study

Reflection

Working out has become my favorite part of the day. That may sound incredibly unbelievable but in a schedule filled with sitting down and having to use my brain, getting my body stronger is liberating. I have two midterm exams tomorrow and should definitely spend all day studying.. or should I? I don't understand the concept of all nighters, my brain does not even come close to functioning properly on too little sleep. Better to sleep a few extra hours and be able to think logically instead of "knowing" a few more facts that I'll be too tired to recall on the exam. I've been studying all these materials for weeks and still am stressed out of my mind for tomorrow. But I am not going to let this stop me from doing today's workout, working out is good for your body and your brain and it feels empowering to feel my muscles working hard. So a short post for today, I had wanted to post something this past weekend but I didn't because I was studying then also... I just got back from my driving lesson and am extremely nauseous from being driven back home (I get carsick if I am not the one behind the wheel) so am taking a break from studying.
It's strange how you know that exams do not dictate life and death, and still freak out completely over the idea of not doing well. Preparing the best you can is all you can do and I think I need to believe that I am doing my best and that that is enough. So on that note I am going to get back to studying now. One more day and then I have a week off from classes (plenty of homework but that's of later concern) and my dad will be in Holland for that week!

Here are two youtube video's for workout motivation that I really like (watch them if you need a study break ;) 1 and 2). And if you are reading this; have a good day (regardless of pressures, exams or other stressful things)! You got this!

Groetjes!

View from my Tuesday morning 5km run. Spring is here!

Something in The Water

It's strange how a place can make you realize just how free you are while at the same time making you feel more trapped then ever.

I realized this as I was watching a youtube video of the beaches near my university. It's a beautiful video in which you can see what the beaches look like from a birds eye perspective. The water reminds me of that there is far more out there then just our little university bubble while at the same time I have no means to cross it and get out of here. (To be fair I also wouldn't do that as I don't want to waste my education or fail any classes but still it can give a strange sense of being powerless despite knowing that if worst came to worst and I really wanted to change something of course I could technically stop and get out. So seeing how I haven't had that urge I know that I am still in the right place and doing what I want to be doing.

Then why do I sometimes feel like I really don't want to go back to Middelburg. I spent this past weekend in Apeldoorn and having to leave again on Sunday evening is for some reason always difficult. Despite having spent most of the weekend studying, by being in a different city I feel more relaxed. So having to go back makes me worry (vicious cycle huh) about the new stress that'll come. But every time the stress is okay and doable, sometimes not totally okay but I get through it, when I just get going and keep going with my work I am fine as long as I just keep breathing. The amount of times I have told myself to just keep breathing ever since I started going to school is uncountable. My mom and dad used to tell me that when I had anxiety as a kid and also as an adolescent (let's be real they told me that yesterday over skype) and it always helps. Silly how a simple thing like breathing is something I sometimes have to remind myself of. I write it on the bottom of my to do lists when I get stressed out by all the things I have to do that day or week, the last item is breathe.

Don't get me wrong my education is great and I am really enjoying my courses this semester. We get super long holidays but to compensate for those we have a high workload throughout the semesters and sometimes I let the stress get to me. I think I want to blame it on the city or the university just so I can portray frustration onto something other than myself. At the same time I wouldn't want to study anything else, and I actually really like Middelburg most of the time.

Of course I know things could be far worse and I chose to go to university and to this one in particular. Of course I know how lucky I am to even be able to get an education such as the one I am getting. Of course I realize that I might sound incredibly ungrateful and whiny. But sometimes one's own situation can feel trapped despite knowing it could be worse. As I am writing this I am also aware that I enjoy studying (usually) and that the stress and workload is just preparation for the future. But sometimes I ask myself why I keep stressing myself out, when I know that so far things have always turned out completely fine or better than fine.

I've been back for almost twenty-four hours now and I can easily say it as always wasn't even close to as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was super tired after a bad night's sleep but it was a good day of interesting classes and to make things even better, on my bike ride home (at 18:00) it was still light outside!! Winter is leaving!On that note it is now almost 22:00 and I am super tired so I am calling it an early night. Slaap lekker!

I'm Not The Only One

Yesterday Leonie and I presented on the new genre in autobiography known as blogging. Do we share everything online? Are we obliged to have an agreement of full disclosure with our readers, in an online diary such as my own blog? Do we have to write in a literary style such as the author wishes from all online journals or blogs? Is everything we write truthful and if it isn't is that ok? Do we need rules in blogging? Or is this the place for our freedom?

All these questions and more were discussed with our classmates. I showed this blog to them as well, at first hesitant at the idea until I realized that was a bit ridiculous. I've decided to write these things AND post them online for anyone to find. So I showed my blog to the class and accepted the fact that everything I decided to post is already out here and it could be a matter of time before anyone found it anyway. But the biggest influence from our presentation for myself is that I'm back here blogging again!! It's been way too long (again) but as my friend Ibby said to me the other day: "You don't break promises to your friends right? So why would you break them to yourself?"

So here I am again, trying to unbreak (that's not a word and I apologize to Ms McNeill...) that promise I make to myself a few times a year that this time I will keep up with blogging. What the content of this blog will be? Who knows, but it'll be about things I experience as a student but mostly as myself. Dreams, aspirations and hopes will come by. I'm now over halfway done with my undergraduate degree and it makes me think about what I want to do with the rest of my life, where I want to go and how I want to get there.

For now I am going back to my homework despite wishing I wouldn't have to and could just get started on that "rest of my life" bit that I dream about daily. But for the foreseeable future I really am enjoying my university life and am happy with where I am. This weekend I am back in Apeldoorn for three days. In an empty house but it has an amazing sofa, bed and bathtub which I missed insanely. Although I do enjoy living in my lovely apartment in Middelburg, I am glad to be somewhere else for a few days after having been there for over 5 weeks without leaving. Sometimes it's nice to rest somewhere else and put all the stress and worries into perspective.

If anyone reads this, I hope you are well and have a great weekend!

Unrelated image but throwback to the past winterbreak and my trip to Singapore! Post about this will follow soon!