Nothing to-do

It's official; for the first time since last September, my to-do list is empty. I have nothing to-do!
And it feels good. It feels like some weight has been lifted, like I'm free, can do what I want.
It also feels tiring; I think I need a looooong sleep.
It also makes me kinda twitchy; I'm bad at doing nothing. I think I might even be a bit of a workaholic. Luckily for me, there are 2 huuuge essays waiting at the end of this semester, and at 5,000 words they're of equal length to my BA dissertation, and that took me a whole semester, so writing two of those in about 3 weeks will be interesting. And then, of course, there is the dreaded MA thesis. Which I'm already preparing for now, even though I don't start until September, because that's the way I am.
I do have some good news on that front; I will be writing my thesis on Jane Austen. I won't tell you the specific topic, because I'm not 100% sure myself, and also because I don't want to jinx the thing, but I am very very happy about it. So I can work on my thesis proposal as well, if I really need something to do.
See? I'm completely crazy, I have the first free weekend in months, and already I'm trying to find things to keep my mind occupied.
It's a good thing I will be going to Paris for a week, because there I can't do anything, even if I wanted to (although I am bringing my modern theatre book, but reading plays hardly counts as "studying", right?). So there's packing, and arranging the last few things, and then tomorrow we take a train and do noooothing for a week. Except walk around in one of the best cities of Europe, and visit museums, and eat in great restaurants, and, and, and... Okay, maybe we will do stuff. But that's different, of course.
And when I get back, I will have another huuuge work assignment waiting for me, which will freak me out and throw me in a haze of business, and then I will wish I had nothing to do! Ah, the irony.

The Hunger Games

For all of you who think I am dead or have been eaten by my work; I'm still here! I am extremely busy, but it's all rounding-off and tying-up kind of things, because coming Friday 3 of the big projects I've been working on for months are done, followed by (great timing) the May holidays. Which I will spend in Paris. Which will be fantastic.
But I have been somewhat swallowed by something other than work; The Hunger Games. Now it's been a long time since I read a whole book in 24 hours, but part 2 of the series, Catching Fire, worked just like that (this all happened about a week ago, now that I think of it, during another thing-that-hasn't happened in a long time; me being really, genuinely ill. But no more about that). Funnily enough, I think it's the worst book of the series, but that's they way books work.
Now I won't spoil any more for you, except to say that I think it is a great series, that I would never let my (hypothetical) children read it until they are about 16 because of all the blood and gore (definitely not because of all the adolescent sex, because there is none to speak of), but I do hope they read it one day because it teaches Important Life Lessons (such as; "the world does not revolve around you", and; "yes, war sucks, losing your home and family and everything sucks, but fighting for what you believe in is sometimes more important"). It also teaches some important literary lessons, such as "don't overdo it with all the Latin name references", and it draws a bit too heavily on some of the trauma theory things, but that's nothing a normal (non-literary theory induced) person should worry about.
For all of you who loved this series (there must be maaaany, because it's everywhere now (I hate being part of a hype, but all of this started when I got a card from a Ukrainian girl say "Hey, I'm reading The Hunger Games and I think they're great books", not with people shoving the things down my throat, so I kinda feel like I'm not part of the hype (even though I am shoving the books down other people's throats))) and want more more more, I can only recommend the Tomorrow-series by John Marsden, starting with Tomorrow When the War Began (1993). I read these when I was about 10 (much, much too young!), and there are 7 books in all, so that should keep you going for a while.
And to conclude; I'm on Team Peeta, if we're going for that kind of thing again (don't think so, as this series is finished already, but I just want to spread the word). Also, watch the film, it's great.

Save yourself!

It's Titanic time, or 100-years-after-Titanic time, and of course the 1997 film was on tv yesterday, and of course I watched it (not all of it, mind you. I mean, I've seen it before, I've seen it before in the way I can still mouth most of the dialogue with them, and the ending is really, really cheesy).

Now I remember the first time I watched, and I couldn't get over how stupid these people are. First we have Rose, who goes back onto the doomed ship not once but twice to save Jack, the second of which (her jumping from the lifeboat) I especially couldn't get over, to still have him die and her live. She could have just gone with her mother the first time, and the outcome would be no different, really. But then I thought, with my 12-year-old romantic head, this must be real love. And after reading up on some things, it turns out that some women did refuse to go into the lifeboats, deciding to stay with their husbands and die together. In my 26-year-old pragmatic head this still feels somewhat unbelievable, because I think the survival instinct is one of the strongest we (and all animals) have, but I can see how it would happen.
No, the people who amaze me even more are the crew. The guy manning the elevator Rose takes to go find Jack (the first time), that guy is still at his post. The ship is sinking, but he's still doing his job. The guys walking around with the life jackets, or the guys keeping the gates for the third-class passengers closed, those people all know they're going to die, they're going down with that ship. And they accept it, and not only that, they just keep on doing their work.
Amazing.
I can't imagine that happening now, that the guy would still be at the elevator telling people that it is out of service and they should take the stairs. Today, it's more of a "save yourself!"situation, as we could all clearly see when the Italian captain left his sinking ship way before most of his passengers.

And even more clearly, you can see this in the new hit-film, The Hunger Games. Now I'm gonna spoil everything there is to spoil about this film, or more precisely, about the novel (which is different in several key aspects from the film), so if you don't want to have things spoiled, stop reading now.
In The Hunger Games (for those very few who don't know anything about it), in some post-apocalyptic dystopian America, twelve districts have to send "tributes" (a boy and a girl teenager), who will fight the other 23 in a large arena until one of them survives. It is a critique on modern society, modern politics, modern game-shows, and modern consumerism, combined into one neat Young Adult package. It is a great book to read, even though I detest first-person narratives written in the present, and even quite believable given the unbelievable plot.
Now the main character is Katniss (also named after a plant, like Rose), and her fellow male tribute is called Peeta (I still cannot decide whether his name is a critique on the hideous names people give their children nowadays, with them trying to be original and making it "Sem" in stead of "Sam", or (as in this case) "Peeta" instead of "Peter"). Anyway, mid-way through the Games, the rules change and now two tributes can win if they're from the same district. Katniss and Peeta pretend to be in love (Peeta actually started this strategy way before they went into the arena) with lots of kissing and sweet words and desperation, so the audience will like them and send them gifts. In the end, obviously, they do win (this is why I don't like first-person narratives written in the present. If it were written in the past, we could at least know that she'd survived and was re-telling what happened. But now, it may well be that she did get killed, and the story would abruptly stop. Only that doesn't ever happen, because you know she will survive, which frustrates me. Anyway...). For Katniss, it was all a big game of pretend, and as she says multiple times "we acted to be in love to save each other's life". For Peeta, not so much, for him it was the real thing.

Now there are only 15 years (seriously!) between Titanic and The Hunger Games, but see how far we have come. Nowadays, you can pretend to be in love, you just lie to the guy, to the organisers of the program, and incidentally to the whole country, to save your life. And it's not just a simple lie, no, it's being in love, which is still one of those things that people consider to be very special. After the Games, Katniss basically doesn't want to have anything to do with Peeta, because the game's up and they can now go home and ignore each other, right? Not only is she so self-absorbed and egoistic to not see that he is really in love with her (and has been for the past 10 years or so), when she does realise it, she doesn't make it any easier for him. He was a tool to survive, and now that she has, he can be discarded.
Now all of this sounds very harsh and it is true that at some point Katniss does cry at the thought of Peeta being killed, but that's just because she would be alone again. When she does get the chance to kill him in the end she doesn't because she dislikes the whole idea of killing, not because she's incapable of doing it. The whole Rose/Jack situation, going back to die together, is not much of an issue. It seems like it is, when the two of them attempt to commit suicide at the end, but that's just a ploy to have both of them win. She is solely focussed on her own survival, and it's nice that he survives with her, but she would've been okay with being the only one.

In a way, it makes me sad to think that this is the way we are now. We've become so egoistic and self-absorbed that we will do anything to survive. On the other hand, I do think The Hunger Games is probably a more realistic representation of human spirit than Titanic. Those guys staying at their posts, the orchestra that kept playing, all of them were lower class men, so maybe they knew there wasn't a chance for them anyway. Maybe if we were in that situation (but when are we, ever, living in a world where everything is possible), we would act the same way. If they had had the slightest idea that they could save themselves, they would probably have done so. So we haven't become egoistic and self-absorbed, we've always been; as I said in the beginning, the spirit to survive is something you find in every living being.
Which means that Jack and Rose and those women staying behind are the odd ones out. They are the romantic, altruistic idealists, and because Titanic focuses on them you may be led to think that this is what people are like. But underneath it all, most people are survivors, are egoistic, will save themselves when the time comes. I'm not sure whether this makes The Hunger Games the better story, but I do think it may be good to realise once in a while that this is what life is like. This is what we are like. And we'll just have to accept it.

Grown-up

So my latest Facebook status update reads; "Sent out my first ever "factuur" (invoice) today. I feel so grown-up, it's disgusting."
Emphasis on feel, not am.
(Incidentally, I prefer the Dutch word for "grown-up", which is "volwassen" and literally means "fully waxed" ("waxed" as in "grown", like "the moon waxes and wanes", not as in "hairless"). If you're "grown-up", it just means that you've grown up from where you began, but it doesn't mean the process is finished yet!)

I remember the first time I felt grown-up. I must have been about 15, and I had just bought the new Bon Jovi album, Crush (yes, I used to be a Bon Jovi fan in high school. Better than having to admit you were into The Backstreet Boys). Now I had always been a shy and quiet child, chatting away at people I knew, but insecure when it came to people or stuff I didn't know. So when we got back to the car, and I wanted to play the CD, and it turned out that the wrong CD (Eminem, juch) was inside the case, my heart dropped. I had to go back to the store (there used to be a time when we bought CDs in stores, and it's less than 10 years ago, can you believe it?) and tell them they'd made a mistake. I remember my mother looking at me and saying; "Do you want me to come with you?" And at that moment I decided I should now be old enough to handle such things on my own. So I shook my head, got out of the car, went back to the store, walked over to the way-too-hip guy behind the counter, and casually said; "Hey, you gave me the wrong CD just now." He looked surprised but not offended, took back the Eminem CD, gave me the right Bon Jovi CD, said "Hey, do you like Santana?", and gave me a free copy of the new Santana album, because I had to come all the way back because of his mistake.
Wow. I can still remember the feeling, walking out of the store, that I was now fully grown-up, knew how to handle things, and could take care of myself.

That was the image I had of grown-ups when I was a child; they knew and could do everything, and knew exactly what to do or how to behave in any given situation. They could say; "Don't tilt your plate like that, your food will fall on the floor" and just know it to be true. Or, even more magically, they could say; "Don't cut off your Barbie's (or your own, in my case) hair, you'll regret it later!" and then when you didn't listen and were crying about your (Barbie's) mutilated hair, they wouldn't go "I told you so", but you still knew they had. You could make stupid comments about all sorts of things and they would just go "but in Australia it's summer when we have winter" or "red cabbages always stain purple" or "don't climb unto the thinner branches, they can't hold your weight", and it was true. They just knew everything.

My goal in life became, when I was grown-up, to know everything.

I pretty quickly discovered that that ambition may have worked somewhere in the Middle Ages, but not anymore. There was just too much to know. But still, most grown-ups knew a lot about a lot of things, right? So I could still get pretty far.
But then I brought back homework that my parents didn't understand and couldn't explain. I had to explain things to them before we could figure out the question together. On family gatherings or birthday parties, sometimes someone made a comment I knew was wrong. I didn't say so, of course, but I just knew it wasn't true. So maybe grown-ups didn't know everything, and maybe some of the stuff they knew was wrong?
And then I began to notice that a lot of grown-ups didn't know how to do everything. My uncle would ask my father about the new shed he was building, my father would as my mother about ironing a shirt, and my mother would as my grandmother if we could plant the potatoes already or still had to wait a few more days. They didn't mind asking, they were okay about not knowing stuff.
But still, when there's little children near, grown-ups tend to act as if they know everything. Just last week I was at the zoo and this guy's kid asked what kind of animal they were looking at, and he goes "must be some kind of rat", and the child read the sign and went "it says here that it's a prairie dog" and the guy went "well, clearly it isn't a dog, so they got that wrong! Haha! Let's go look at the bears now!" Seriously? You're gonna credit your authority over the zoo people's?

But then I do it too, of course.

Being a grown-up is nothing like what I thought it would be. Being able to decide on your own what you're gonna do or eat or become doesn't make things easier. Just because you have to send out your first invoice, doesn't mean that you know how to do that. What do you put on there? How do you start the e-mail to the company? What happens if you've done something wrong, will you not get any money? "Filing your taxes" sounds very mature, but I know people who are 60 years old and still aren't sure whether they're filing them correctly. (And now we can just check Wikipedia if we're unsure, but think about people 30 years ago!)
So yeah, I may have been feeling very grown-up, but that doesn't mean that I know what I'm doing, or even that I am very grown-up. And in hindsight, I think reality beats the vision I had as a child. How scary would it be if you really knew everything? No, I'll just wallow in my unknowing insecurity when I get the chance. Makes me feel young.

Home-made cards

There seems to be a lot of aversion against free, ad, and homemade cards on Postcrossing. Every second profile you read has a line saying they'd rather not receive such cards, or more plainly; "NO AD, FREE, or HOMEMADE". When talking about this on the forum, people rant against the "thin, ugly pieces of paper with random things glued on to them" which they have received as "homemade" cards. I, on the other hand, have a line that says; "I don't mind hand-made, free, or ad cards". In my experience, I'd rather have a homemade card from Japan that represents the sender's culture and environment than a shop-bought card from a brand I could have bought in the store around the corner. However, there are some drawbacks to having this line on your profile, because for some people, photoshopped collages of their pets also mean "home made".

US-1460130, received 3 Jan 2012

NL-1051854, received 22 Feb 2012

Yes, the above are two such cards I've received. The first one is from an American woman who defines herself as "a grandmother", the second from a 30-year-old Dutch woman. Now I know there must be people out there who think these are brilliant works of art, but personally, they freak me out. Especially the "cat with diamonds in her eyes", although I get the idea, and I like the concept, the pixelled image, the "curtain", the background... It's just too much. From the way these pictures look, I think we're dealing with avid scrapbookers, who've transferred their artistic inspiration to postcards. Not really my cup of tea.
But that doesn't mean I don't want to receive homemade cards ever again. It also doesn't mean I feel obliged to keep these. I only keep cards if they have either a great picture on the front, or a great (personal) message on the back. I seem to remember that the second card had no message whatsoever (some people just print out 500 stickers with the same message, put them on cards, and send them out), so that may have gone into the bin, but the first card had a nice message about cats and books and other things relating to me on the back, so I kept that, even though I will never put it on my wall or whatever.
But you do get some great cards, too.

FI-1220986, received 12 Oct 2011

The above is not technically "hand made" because it concerns a printed-out image, but as it was the first ever postcard send by that person, a 17-year-old Finnish girl, and because it so completely fits everything I've written in my profile, I still cherish it as one of the better ones.

LT-142713, received 20 July 2011

This one is just brilliant. The sender, a 16-year-old Lithuanian girl,  sends out mainly hand-made cards, and she shapes them around the receivers wishes, in my case, she picked up on a comment about baking, and sent me a Lithuanian recipe. I love the handwriting and the drawing, it's very unique.

US-1552683, received 29 Feb 2012

RU-864423, received 3 April 2012

FI-1384936, received 4 April 2012

And here are some more "truly" hand-made cards I've received over the past weeks. The first one is from an Asian woman living in the US, and although I am not a big fan of it, one of my friends really liked it, so it's probably a taste thing. the second one is from a 20-year-old Finnish girl called Lotta (user name Lote) who sends out collages to people. I think in my case she made a very good collection, apart from the chair-and-parasol, although that may stand for travel. The third one is from a Russian woman who has two little daughters who help her make these cards. She prefers receiving homemade cards herself, and this was the first ever card she send out (I get those a lot, don't I?). I think it's one of the more artistic cards I've received, as the eagle is cut out of fabric, and I love the lettering "falling off" at the top.

So I think the main conclusion has to be that young girls from the Baltic area are the most creative among the Postcrossing bunch? Or maybe that I've been lucky with what I've received so far? As I've said before, the most crappy cards I've received were shop-bought ones from the Netherlands, so I think I will have to receive several veeeery bad things before I even consider putting a "NO HOMEMADE" shout on my profile.

Why wait?

So I've been reading Watership Down for a while now, and one thing I noticed was that those rabbits seem to do everything as soon as they decide on it, or at least pretty quickly afterwards. This includes large, difficult plans, such as Bigwig's infiltration operation in Efrafa and extracting the does from the farm. Why, I thought, do they not wait and talk things over for a bit longer? Why is always "we've got a plan, now let's act on it".
Then I started thinking about a theory we were told by Simon Verhulst when he introduced the book we're translating for a course. He argued (pretty convincingly), that when you know (and this includes non-conscious "knowing", obviously) that your life isn't going to be that long, you'll invest in the moment. You'll go the extra mile, make the extra baby, fight the extra enemy, because tomorrow you may be dead. This is what we called the "mouse-strategy" when I was studying biology; live fast, make lots of babies, die young. Now when you're like us humans, and you can expect to live for around 80 years, you don't have to start making babies as soon as you're able to (although some 14-year-olds still do), you can first get a degree and a job and a nice house and a partner that isn't going to run away any time soon before you make your big investment. And of course related to this, that investment is that much bigger, because rabbit kittens (to stick to that example) can leave their mother when they're about 4 to 5 weeks old, and we tend to stick around until we're 18 years.
So there is a point to this "act in the moment" behaviour. Somehow it puts me in mind of "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow", which is one of those songs you've heard a thousand times but never realised what it is actually about. But I think both rabbits and Fleetwood Mac have a point. Tomorrow is going to be here soon enough, what's the point in sitting around weighing your options, just go for it, and see how far you get (or as they say in Dutch: see where the ship beaches). We're still on the "elephant-strategy", to be sure, so I wouldn't advise this for long-term things like having children or sailing around the world, but a little more spring-of-the-moment acting may not be such a bad thing. Worked out pretty well for the rabbits.

Spring cleaning

As you've probably noticed, I've changed the lay-out of the blog. It's springtime, which means bright colours, green grass, and crawly bugs. As with the black-and-white winter version, the background is a picture I've taken myself. I've also changed the template around, and I hope this will improve the readability of the sidebars.
Comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Scone do-over

So the last time I made scones, I kind of messed up the whole thing but they still came out okay. Nevertheless, it was time for a do-over, as we were having a little high tea gathering at my house.
This time, I did use the recipe Lorraine (Baking made Easy) offered, but took out the mascarpone and added more milk, and changed some other things (there was woefully little sugar in the recipe). I ended up with a recipe somewhat like this:

340 g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
80 g butter
25 g brown sugar
About 120 ml milk
1 egg, beaten

Scones, the do-over

Mix the dry ingredients (you can add baking powder, but in my experience it works fine without it) and butter until they resembled breadcrumbs. (Lorraine says to use your food processor for this. Lorraine must have a dish washing machine, because just making breadcrumb-like dough does not justify the amount of mess it makes when you use a machine to do it. Do it by hand, it will take about 2 minutes.) Make a hole in the middle and pour in the milk. I added half of the egg here, because I like egg in the dough, but you can leave it out if you want. Make a soft, smooth dough. (Lorraine says to stir with a knife. No idea what the knife has to do with it. Just make a dough.) Knead the dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface, about 3 cm thick (depending on how high you want your scones to be, they will double in height in the oven). Cut out rounds (Lorraine says not to twist the cutter (I just use a drinking glass, but maybe you do have a fancy cookie cutter) while you do this, otherwise the scones won't rise), put them on a baking tray, and brush the tops with (the rest of) the beaten egg. Bake for about 10 minutes at 210 degrees or until golden brown.

High tea time! Sweet!

 Eat them quickly (with butter (no clotted cream to be found in the Netherlands) and jam, of course!), because they will still be nice and warm, and because they turn solid if you leave them for too long. Best combined with tea, brownies, muffins, and good friends!

Watership Down

I've finally managed to get through the book that I just couldn't finish (I won't tell you which it is, because I did really like it, and now it may look like it is a horrible and boring book while it isn't). As I am waiting for my Amazon order to get in, I started to re-read Watership Down, which is one of my favourite books ever. I love the themes of friendship and loyalty and freedom of choice, the rabbit's stories and "religion", and the beautiful descriptions of the English countryside. I love that it has many short chapters so that you can read a whole chapter before going to sleep, instead of just a few pages in other books (even though it comes down to the same amount of reading, you still feel more accomplished when you finish a whole chapter).
Now I first read this book when I was somewhere between 10 and 12, because that was around the time that I had read all the children's books in the library with any literary value twice, and all my own books at least 5 times. I was raiding my mother's books, which led me to some great books I may have read a little bit too early on, including The Lord of the Rings, The Clan of the Cave Bear, and Wild Swans. All in Dutch, of course. I couldn't read a full sentence in English until I was 13, due to a lack of playing computer games, but I think I made up for that quite nicely.
Anyway, having read that book so early on, and at least 5 times afterwards, I thought I knew what it was about. I thought I knew what I would find. But when I started to read it again (I have this great second-hand Penguin paperback from 1976 that used to be orange on the side, but has turned completely white after years of standing in the sun (in someone else's bookcase, I never put books in direct sunlight), which has travelled to several countries with me and even has my address and e-mailaddress in the back from that time that I lent it to a German girl I had only known for 3 days and wouldn't see again in my life, ever. But the book came back, somehow), I did discover new things.
Firstly, there is really a strong focus on the military, isn't there? I mean, really. I knew that Efrafa is bad, and that Sandleford isn't the best place to be, but besides that there are many many references to military practises and morale. Why did I never notice this before? Because I love to know why authors did certain things in their books (this is an ongoing discussion between me and a classmate; he doesn't want to know the first thing about the author, the author is dead, whereas I want to know everything), I looked it up, and it turns out that Richard Adams was actually fighting in the Netherlands in 1944. It's all his own WW II experience put in there. So when he says that Hazel isn't going to leave Fiver and Pipkin to the dog, but stand and fight with them, I immediately get this image of one of his superiors not leaving soldiers behind. Or when Hazel takes care of Pipkin's hurt paw before going to sleep, thinking that he is responsible for the well-being of all, it must have a similar basis. To me, this just gives the story that much extra meaning, I know it's about universal themes and not just about rabbits, but when the author has experienced a certain situation for himself it makes it that more believable, I think.
Secondly, there are some really brilliant jokes in there. Really funny situations. I never noticed them before. Maybe I was too busy being swept away with the story before, or maybe my English wasn't good enough or maybe I was just too young (you know, like when you watch a Disney film again, and go "I never knew that was in there! That's a brilliant joke! Why did I never see that before?"?) to see them, but there are some humorous things. Like how Hazel and Blackberry keep saying to Bigwig how he is a strong and useful guy, especially when he is annoying the hell out of them, and then ask him to go do something on the other side of a hill ("exploring") so that they can have a little peace of mind. Great.
Thirdly, Bigwig used to be one of my favourite rabbits, together with Blackberry because he's smart. Blackberry is still a favourite, but Bigwig has gone down the ladder a bit, because it turns out that he really is quite annoying and bullying, even though he is quite smart (he is one of the few to understand Blackberry's raft idea). But I now prefer Dandelion, because he is the story-teller, and Hazel, because, well, he is Hazel. You can't not like Hazel, I think. Funny how these things change. Fiver used to annoy me, always whimpering and whining and never standing up for himself, but now I see that he actually handles things in quite a clever way, and in the end they always do what he wants, even if he has to have a hard time to get there.

So there. New insights. I know it is one of the qualifications of great literature that you can read it again and again and still discover new things, but I also know not many children's books are considered great literature these days, so perhaps Watership Down doesn't qualify for everybody. It does for me. I think it is one of those books you can read at ten and still read when you're ninety (if you get that far), and still discover new things, messages, stories, and morals in. What more could you want from a book?