Exciting Times

As I have fought off most of my post-concert depression I thought it was about time to blog about some pretty epic experiences I had the past few days. Or actually experiences might not be the right word to use because I have not actually experienced half of the things that made these days amazing BUT WHATEVER. Let's not deflect.

To begin with the subject at hand, I went to a concert wednesday and it was freaking amazing. I think I might've mentioned it before but we went to see Bastille, who happen to put together a fucking awesome show. It was just a perfect day. Some of my friends from back home came to crash at my place, and together with some of my uni friends we ventured to Amsterdam. I think I speak for all of them when I say that we absolutely love the band, and thus were very very excited to see them. One of my friends had not been to a concert since forever and I think we converted her to the dark side (money-wise that is), as she said she is now going to try to go to concerts more often. I honestly do not blame her because concerts might just be the best things in life. As for Bastille, they were amazing. They are great live performers, and they played some new stuff which was nice. The interaction with the crowd was really down to earth, no Alex Turner vibes going on there whatsoever, and the lead singer's awkward dancing was just an invitation to bust out some moves. I realise I am really shit at explaining why it was so awesome but it really was and you guys are just going to have to take my word for it. Also, If you have not heard of Bastille -which I think is unlikely, especially if you are Dutch and listen to 3FM a lot because they as good as adopted them- go check them out. Now.

As expected, I went through a post-concert dip the day after, which actually was a pretty good reason to skip some classes too. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's called Pinkpop. My friends and I have been going to this festival for years now, and it has become some what of a tradition - which pretty much means we go regardless of the line-up. The last two years the line-up was a bit so so but this year's has blown away my expections. I'm getting my ticket tomorrow, so that's something to look forward to. (I may seem calm but I'm SO EXCITED).

On top of all that I will probably hear where I am going on exchange in about two weeks. So yeah, another thing to freak out about. It's hard putting together a good blog post when you're high on life.

Motivation Letter

Dear Sir/Madam,

As I contemplated writing this letter, I had not foreseen the difficulties I would run into. The purpose of this letter is to tell you why I want to study abroad, and in some way or another I have to convince you to let me go to the university of my choice. Now I think you've read all the clichés before, which makes writing this extra difficult for me. As I sit here, staring at a blank plage, I cannot contrive a single sentence that isn't anything you haven't read before. Or well I can, but I hardly think that would land me a spot on the next train to Britain. So now let me change it up a bit. Let me be brutally honest with you. You guys should send me to the University of Kent. I could tell you now how much I want to go there, how it would look good on my resume, how it would improve my English accent, and how terrific the experience would be for me. These reasons are of course inherently good reasons, and I believe these things with all my heart. However, I hardly believe these reasons are any different from the next person's. So why would you send me to England? Well, because I want to go. I want to go to England because I've been in love with the country since forever (cliché). I love their weird habits and values, the way they eat sunday roast and weird pudding thingies that are actually some kind of bready-substance (cliché). I love the language, and all it's imperfections and the way that it does not make any sense at all (cliché). I love how the British treasure the remnants of their past, how they do not knock down 5 billion year old cottages but keep them alive and charge you 25 pounds to come anywhere near it (cliché). I want to spend my money on that. I want to spend all my money on having a good time, meeting people from all over the world, and spending even more money with them. I will stop summing up reasons for me to go - as it's all becoming a bit too much like 10 Things I Hate about You - to again come to the conclusion that all these reasons also add up to one big cliché. It seems I cannot escape it. I want to go to the United Kingdom. You are the people deciding who can go. Maybe you don't even look at the reasons people have to go, maybe you just look at their grammar, their spelling, how they sell themselves. I would lose in that last section, as selling myself was never one of my strongest points. I guess by writing this letter, and sending it in, I am putting all my money on you guys appreciating my honesty. Because when it really comes to why I want to go to the University of Kent, there are certainly some boring reasons I can write down here, but there's also that tiny voice in my head that's asking me 'yeah, why do you want to go?' But as you guys are academics, you don't rely on hunches, on feelings. So I won't tell you that the city of Canterbury just speaks to me. Instead I'll tell you about it's wonderful courses, it's proximity to London, and the cultural attraction it has to me. Now doesn't that make me sound like I know what I'm babbling about? Yeah, I thought so. So here it is judges, my motivation letter. It's a whole lot of nonsense with the hidden message of 'pick me, pick me'!

With Kind Regards,
Bonnie van den Bergh

Bout That Life

It's been soooooooooooo long.
SO long since I've written. Two months. IT WAS FREAKING LAST YEAR I wrote last.
I am ashamed of myself for this now.

But I have some good reasons :D

I've been exceptionally busy for the last.. two months? First of all there were these exam weeks, and then I had a one week actual vacation (which was awesome), and then classes started again. So first I was busy, then I was lazy, and I went right back to busy again. The fact that I haven't had time to write also means that there have been cool things I did which I now can't talk about because that would make this post even messier than my previous ones. I really want to ramble about some really nice films I watched - 12 Years a Slave, August: Osage County, The Wolf of Wallstreet - but I guess I'll make another post about those because I also still want to do a watchlist thingy and a blog about must-see films (according to me of course), and I guess those will be on that. So yeah I'm just gonna let that slide for now.

What I do really want to mention is that I watched Coriolanus, which was absolutely lovely (yeah I know so pretentious). For those of you who are not acquainted with this tongue-twisting phenomenon, it's a Shakespeare play. Of course I first heard of it on Tumblr, as everyone's big friend Tom Hiddleston is in it. Now I am not going to act like that was not a reason to see it. However, I saw the Hollow Crown - or rather parts of it - a year and a half ago or something, and Hiddleston is in this also. I absolutely loved it, the acting was brilliant - I should not forget to mention Ben Whishaw's acting brilliance too - so I rather wanted to see more of Tom doing Shakespeare. Then there's the fact that I know nothing about Shakespeare whatsoever, except for what I've seen which is really little, and I want to become acquainted with his work. You'd think that as an English Language and Culture student I'd come across his work by now, but unfortunately the only Shakespeare course is set for year three. So yeah, I feel really ignorant and want to educate myself. So I watched Coriolanus. And it was brilliant. It has such an enormous amount of sass - as you'd expect - and after getting used to the archaic language use the play really sucks you in. So yeah go see it! (if you can get your hands on it one way or another, if you know what I mean).

In other news, I have to write my motivation letter for studying abroad this weekend. I know I've talked about this before, and back then I was really set on going to Leeds to study. However, as I've found out that I can only attened Leeds Metropolitan and not Leeds University, the tables have turned. I am completely set on going to the University of Kent, and fingers crossed I can actually go there. They have some of the most amazing classes - or at least they sound awesome. I got the green light basically to do whatever I want to, so I'm definitely choosing some film study courses. We have only 2 weeks left to make our final decisions so the pressure is on. And the competition. So yeah I'm writing that damned letter this weekend and I'm a bit anxious about how to go about it, although it's probably less of a big deal than it sounds like (but you can never be too sure).

Well, this was fun.
Also, I'm a bit obsessed with this atm, IT'S SO GOOD:

Looking back: 2013

Okay, don't worry. This won't be a cheesy blog in which I hash up every-fucking-thing that happened this year, because honestly my life isn't even that interesting. However, I happened to stumble upon this questionnaire on tumblr that seemed entertaining enough for me to answer, and hopefully my answers will be entertaining enough to read (I'm sorry in advance).

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting my "propedeuse", in other words succesfully completing my first year at university.

What was the best thing you bought?
My phone. Definitely.

Where did most of your money go?
Clothes, cinema, festivals, books, going out, and tickets for concerts. I'd say money well spent.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going on vacation to Edinburgh, festivals and concerts, and movies. Probably. It takes some effort to get me truly excited/happy.

What song will always remind you of 2013?
Blurred Lines, unfortunately. And probably any track on AM, or anything by Bastille.

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Stressing out about uni and subsequently being an asshole.

What was the best book you read?
Okay so this was probably the first year I actually had to read a lot of books, and I couldn't possibly choose. But some books I definitely enjoyed reading are:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
England, England by Julian Barnes

What was your greatest musical discovery?
Probably Vampire Weekend, Bastille, The 1975, Noah and the Whale, and The Arctic Monkeys (but that was more like a rediscovery). 

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
Whatever I like. Definitely oversized sweaters, Converse, skinny jeans and boots, but also button-ups and skirts so it really depends on the mood I'm in. I think I finally decided to dress for me and not give a shit about what other people think about it.

What political issue stirred you the most?
This was the year I learned some really valuable lessons on social/political problems, and I'm glad of it. Things that annoyed me were most of American politics, 'de zwarte Pieten discussie', and generally people that act like fools. (So yeah I didn't really answer the question)

I guess that this was neither thrilling nor enlightening, but there you have it.

·        

My thoughts on: The Desolation of Smaug

So I've always been a Lord of the Rings fangirl. It is my weakness and it is the one thing that brings out my inner nerd within five seconds of it being mentioned. My brother introduced me to LOTR. I was reluctant at first, acting as if I was too cool for fantasy films, but in fact I was just trying to hide my inner fangirl, which was of course desperate to show itself.

My brother had mentioned the Hobbit to me several times, back then, in 2003. Frankly, I didn't give a shit about that second best children's book, and if it were turned into a film it could never beat the Lord of the Rings trilogy. However, two summers ago I decided to start reading the Hobbit, as I wanted to be acquainted with the story before the film came out. I read about fifty pages, uni happened, and I never picked up the book again (my brother's e-reader, that is).

I remember how I wasn't really impressed with the first film. I left the cinema with that kind of subdued feeling you get when you just saw a film and aren't quite sure what to make of it yet. The film was okay, it was alright, certainly no Lord of the Rings, but that didn't matter. I watched it again and decided it was slightly better than good: Visually stunning, engaging, and amusing.

Then the second film happened. First impressions after the first half of the film: "wow", "this is fun isn't it?", "spiders...". The second half was slightly disappointing in the sense that I found some elements I did not quite agree with. Now this doesn't mean I don't love the film, because I really really do. However, I don't understand some of Jackson's choices. First of all, I love Tauriel. She kicks ass, literally, and it is refreshing to see a women be a badass in this trilogy that is dominated by men. The thing that bugs me isn't so much the (slightly) weird love triangle Jackson created between her, Kili, and Legolas, but the fact that their 'romance' is literally duct taped to them. What was Kili's ramble about love all about? Too much Peter, too much.

Now I've read the complaints on the addition of Tauriel to the film, and the several subplots Jackson put in there. As I've not read the book I can't really say anything about it, but in general I think it is safe to say that an addition is only a bad one if it doesn't contribute anything to the film, or if it's just generally shit. In my view, the subplots are thrilling, and they certainly add some life to the film. Personally, I'm not sure if the original plot of the Hobbit (I am acquainted with it) could stand for an interesting film, and certainly not three of them.

Which brings me to another complaint that I've read over and over again. The film is 'too long', it is 'boring', 'useless'. Whenever I read comments like that I ask myself if those critics were watching the same film. Yes, the film is very long, and yes it could have been shorter. But does it need to be? Sure, some scenes are a bit dragged out, but I would not want to have missed any of the swag and sass Lee Pace put into his character Thranduil, and those long action scenes did not make me weary: I could watch Orlando Bloom shoot arrows all day every day.

Ofcourse everyone has different preferences when watching a movie, but I think some critics get stuck on one little thing they dislike in a film and whine about it untill it has ruined the entire film for them. As I said I was not particularly happy with the cliché Hollywood romance between Tauriel and Kili, and seriously Peter what was the flashy Sauron thing about? In all seriousness though, the film was, like the first installment, a treat to look at. It has a nice balance between humour and seriousness, action that is neatly tied to the right amount of dialogue, and some sublime acting from the likes of Richard Armitage, Martin Freeman, and definitely Lee Pace. In other words: the big picture is a splendid one. It doesn't reach the level of the Lord of the Rings and it never will. There is no comparison between the two, because the books that lay at the cores of these movies are so very different.

In conclusion, yes there are some things that I wish were different, but it doesn't take of the shine for me, at least not in a major way. My expectations were extra high for this film because I always seem to expect more from Jackson, and I was a bit disappointed he'd reverted to some clichés. However, all is forgiven, certainly when I compare this film to others I've seen in 2013.

If anything, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a great film to end the year with.

Post-exam week update

Exam week was absolute carnage. I don't think I've ever studied this hard for anything, only to do a mediocre job? Ugh.

Now that all the exam fun is over, I can just focus on all the other stuff we need to do for uni, ah well.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I have a Halloween party scheduled next week, and after much debating and zero effort I decided to go as a 1920s flapper, who, unfortunately, is dead. It may seem like a far-fetched idea at first, but considering that I went as a flapper for Carnaval (Thingy we do in the South of the Netherlands which involes dressing up and consuming unnatural amounts of beer) it is probably the most unoriginal idea ever. I have the dress, I have the headband, just need to add some spooky make-up and decide how I've lost my life. It has to be dramatic, yet glamourous, like getting shot while taking a dip in your mansion's swimming pool (ha ha no.). My inspiration for the flapper outfit was Daisy Buchanan though so this could be some kind of payback? Idk if anyone is following. Anyway, I'm very excited to celebrate Halloween as I've never actually properly done that before. I am totally ignoring the fact that Halloween was yesterday so the party is actually just a post-Halloween fancy dress party. I guess Halloween just still isn't such a popular holiday in the Netherlands and it's a shame really, you should never pass an opportunity to have a fancy-dress party and decorate your house with all kinds of cute Autumn-inspired-yet-creepy ornaments.

I also bought tickets to see Bastille in March next year! I'm going with a group of friends and I'm really excited. I saw them at Pinkpop Festival this year, where they replaced a group that cancelled, and they were absolutely amazing live. I love their album Bad Blood and basically every other thing they did so getting tickets wasn't something I had to think twice about. Their songs are just filled with references to history and  literature (or at least that's my interpretation) that as a English Culture student, I can hardly miss. I love when music has an actual meaning and transcends the level of just being catchy or a good tune, the latter probably describing 99.9% of mainstream pop (I used the m-word). Add to that the fact that I am a sucker for Indie bands, or as my brother calls it "that Indie hipster shit you listen to", and the picture is complete. I am not actually sure if it is Indie btw, but I can't be bothered to define it differently. So yes, more concerts, wooo.

Also I'd like to add that there's nothing wrong with listening to mainstream pop and I do it too sometimes, but songs like "Work Bitch" are, to me, the worst things ever and I literally can't stand overproduced, meaningless stuff like that.

I basically just had to work that in just to vent about how much I hate that fucking song.

Exam week Update

So this is probably going to be the most random blog post in which I discuss 5000 different topics and rant about stupid stuff nobody even cares about anyway. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The first half of the first semester is over, and I'm currently in the middle of the first exam period of my second year. I've been quite disappointed in this year's classes, as most of them are linguistic classes and take a wild guess at what I don't like. Yeah.. The literature classes are also quite shit, as I'm doing 17th Century British Literature, which is a bitch, and an American Novel class, which could've worked out, but sadly didn't. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed reading the required novels, although most of them were really depressing or misogynistic, but the way the course is run is just annoying. We have to have discussions, and the teacher just doesn´t sound like she knows what she´s talking about.

Then there´s exams, which are killing me as usual. Every exam week I get into this rythm of studying all day, looking like a slob and generally being a bitch to everyone I encounter whilst studying (sorryyyyy). The exam I have to take tomorrow is probably going to be the hardest, and I had flashbacks of the management and organisation exams I had to do in secondary school. To illustrate: I was worst in my class, was generally incompetent and always felt like a rabbit trying to open a door.

OKAY so that was the depressing part of this post. The good part of this exam week is that I listened to lots of 90s playlists, and as a result the 'last listened to' section on my Spotify now states: Ginuwine, N Sync, and Eminem, which is pretty embarrassing to say the least. I also watched a shitload of Twin Peaks so I now know who killed Laura Palmer (ohyeaaaah). Let me just say that this series is epically brilliant and disturbing, and everyone should watch it! I might do a Watchlist blog soon, I've been planning on it for such a long time but I just never got to it.

Other good news, and this made me so happy, is that I found out that I can go to both Leeds and Canterbury to study abroad. People that are around me a lot will probably know that I've been talking about studying abroad for years, and this confirmation really means a lot to me. I really can't wait to get it all sorted! I haven't decided yet if I want to study in the North or the South of the UK (although I am kinda inclined to say I favour Leeds), and my choice is probably going to depend on the courses that both universities offer. I'd really like to take a film studies class, and obviously journalism classes are still on my list. I did not get a proper chance to do a journalism minor at my university due to their idiotic conflicting schedules, so it's definitely something to consider.

Other random stuff I forgot to mention:

I saw Gravity and it is really good. It's a film that just swallows you whole with the right amount of action and visual perfection. The oneliners were a bit much though, best leave that out the next time.

Only a few weeks till Vampire Weekend concert and I am really excited!

I'm shit at writing conclusions and introductions...

I still haven't figured out what the lyrics of most VW songs are.