Motivational issues...

It's been a long time since I wrote something on my blog so I thought I'd put something on my blog again. Later this day or week I will write something more about how I am right now, but at this moment I would like to share with you my motivational issues when it comes to my studies... Next Monday evening I have an important exam. It's a difficult course (it's about science philosophy) since the book we use for this course is written in such a vague manner that it's hard to understand the content. The classes we had were really helpful, without them it would be even harder. I always have so much distraction in my room... I really want to get a good grade, but there are also a lot of interesting other things to do that are much more fun than learning for an exam. The stupid thing is that in the end I have to do the exam and it's really important that I pass it, otherwise I have to retake the exam and that would be terrible... :-( So I think I'm going to stop writing on this blog and gonna learn for my exam...

Sunday reflections

I read some blogs and came across this amazing music video of the song "How He Loves Us". Check it out!



I love it, because it reminds me that God loves us very much! I'm not quite aware of this always and watching this video is a good reminder of that. Hope you enjoy it and know that you are loved by God!

Love's the only road to travel

I would like to share a new hobby in which I'm engaged in since two weeks, and it's called Postcrossing. In one sentence: "send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world". It means that I can have 5 cards traveling at one particular moment. The more cards you send, the more you will be able to send more cards. It's really fun! I love sending, but of course also receiving postcards. Postcrossing enables me to travel the world without actually going there. Don't get me wrong, I would love to travel to a lot of countries but it's just impossible. As with a lot of hobbies I have this is something I'm really intensely involved with. It's a sport to find cheap, but nice cards and to find a card that fits the person I'm sending it to. Luckily, most people like the same kind of cards. Otherwise, it would be a day job just to find the right cards for each person. Maybe I also want to buy a lot of different stamps, because there are people who like a lot of stamps. But for now, I don't want to rush into it too much, because I just started and it can be a lot of work just writing the postcards.

This is my 'status' in Postcrossing:
- Sent a total of 8 cards to: Belgium (1), Finland (3), U.S. (1), China (1), Hungary (1) and Germany (1). 3 out of 8 arrived so I'm anxiously waiting for the other cards to arrive.
- Received a total of 1 card from: Italy

This is the card I received. It's a beautiful card.



What I think is really striking is the fact that there are a lot of people who don't have the opportunity to engage in this kind of activities and obviously don't think it's that important. This is resembled in the top 10 of the countries who sent most postcards:

1. Finland
2. U.S.
3. Germany
4. Netherlands
5. China
6. U.K.
7. Portugal
8. Japan
9. Taiwan
10. Canada

The bottom five of the list:
177. Svalbard and Jan Mayen
178. San Marino
179. Senegal
180. Samoa
181. Smaller Territories of Chile

And of course, there are also a couple of countries who do not participate in Postcrossing.
Despite these depressing statistics I hope I can send my love to a lot of people all over the world. After all, "Love's the only road to travel".

Back to 'normal' life

So it's been a while since I wrote something on my blog... Actually, I don't know what to do with the blog. I don't feel like a bloggy kind of person, but everytime I read blogs by others I get inspired to write again. So the next period I'll try to be more active at my blog.
The holiday's over and I'm really glad to have my 'normal' life back. In the holiday I always feel a bit lonely, because I don't know who's gone for a holiday and who's not. I spent a lot of time by myself and I was really glad when I could follow classes again and do the things I normally do. I've always been a very busy person. I have a lot of interests and because of that I also do a lot of things. After the break-up with my ex-boyfriend I started to realize that it's maybe a good idea to take it easier. So now I have more time for myself and others than a year ago. I try to spend as much time as possible with friends, but also with myself. It's wonderful to have a night by myself, but also to spend a lot of time with friends. For example, yesterday was the reunion of my holiday to Cuba. Seeing all these people again was great! We went to a restaurant for a dinner, subsequently drank cocktails at a cafe and after that we went clubbing.. It was awesome! :-D
So next period I will evaluate whether to quit with the blog or not... But I feel like writing, so maybe I'll continue blogging.

Communism in Cuba: a bad thing?

I really want to share some of the experiences I had in Cuba. Today I want to tell about the general things: culture, food, religion, etc.. I bet most people connect Cuba to communism, rum, cigars, coffee, sugar and music. As I experienced Cuba is all of these things, but it's also a lot more than that. I'm still reading about Cuba even after I'm back. I bought a Lonely Planet and took it with me on my holiday. However, I found the history part hard to read so when I arrived in Holland I bought a National Geograpic guide in Dutch. Much easier to read for me and it also contains a lot of pictures. Today I want to tell about the present communism in Cuba and how it affects people there. I want to make clear that I also saw positive things about communism.



Maybe you can't read it, but on the above picture you can read the slogan "Todo por la revolucion" which means "Everything for the revolution". It's absolutely true that you can see communism everywhere. Everywhere we went we could read slogans on buildings and walls about for example freedom. The heads of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are also on a lot of buildings we saw. What's important to mention is that Castro took over the country exactly 50 years ago so slogans with "50 anos" (50 years) in it weren't that exceptional.
The current situation with communism is that it's still very important. The government loosened throughout the years, especially now that Fidel's brother Raul is leading the country. For example, Cubans weren't allowed on the internet. They did have access to intranet, which is a kind of internet but with only Cuban websites. Only people working at the government had the opportunity of accessing the internet. Since a couple of years, Raul loosened the rules about this and more and more Cubans are also allowed to surf on the internet.
I saw positive as well as negative things of communism in Cuba. Positive is that some important facilities are free: housing, education (for example: education at universities is also free) and health care. Furthermore, there's a ration card for food (a basic 30-product monthly food basket). Nice to know is that education and health care are of excellent quality. For instance, my friend was burned very badly due to the sun, and she was taken care in a good way.

Negative is that housing is quite bad. When we were in Havana we saw all these beautiful buildings, but as we walked through the part of Havana where people actually lived we were shocked to see that housing was very bad. The thought behind is that nothing belongs to one person but to the people. The consequence of this is that there's hardly any maintenance on houses. And people themselves don't have the money. Which is another thing. Everybody earns the same (approximately 13 euros a month). On the one hand it's a good thought, because that means everybody's equal but on the other hand this means that a lot of people don't feel like they have to do anything at work (I can't blame them). Example: my Cuban tour guide is an educated doctor, but she earns more by working as a tour guide, because of the tips. I do wonder how Cuba would be if it wasn't a communist country. Even though living circumstances aren't what I'm used to, people seem to be happy. Everyone has a place to live and there aren't any slums like in Africa.

Last, I would like to talk to you about another thing that I'm not used to. Namely, the right to criticize the government. In Cuba there's a list with people who said negative things about the government. Doing this can have the consequence that somebody loses his/her job or position and eventually becoming an outcast in Cuban society.



As you may have read, communism in my opinion has positive as well as negative features. It's hard to judge about a system I haven't experienced myself.

Starting up the system... ;-)

I've been back from Cuba since a couple of days and I start to get used to my daily life again. Cuba was an amazing experience! It's a beautiful country where communism obviously still speaks (slogans like "Everything for the revolution" on all kinds of buildings is not uncommon in Cuba) and where music is an important part of daily life. Almost every meal we had was combined with some Cuban son music. 'Guantanamera' and 'Chan Chan' were songs we heard almost everywhere in Cuba. I did buy some good traditional Cuban music (5 cd's of 5 Cuban artists), but on none of the cd's 'Guantanamera'. It's funny, because right now I'm looking on iTunes for 'Gunantanamera', but there are so much versions I really don't know what to choose. ;-)
In the next weeks I would like to tell you much about Cuba. General stuff, but also about the places I've been...

You can already check some pictures and video's I made in Cuba (click on the titles of the albums).

Photo's:
- Cuba album 1
- Cuba album 2
- Snorkling in Varadero, Cuba

Video's:
- My YouTube channel (all uploaded video's are from my holiday)

Going to Cuba!

Tomorrow's the day I will get on a plane to Cuba. I'm really excited and also a little bit nervous, because it's really bizarre that I will be on the other side of the world in less than a day. I'm all packed and I think it's possible to check in with a suitcase that's less than 23 kg (I weighed my suitcase). I also read that Cubans can use everything and especially school materials and clothes, so I packed some pens, medicine (paracetamol), make-up and some clothes I don't wear a lot.
If I get the chance I will go to an internet cafe so I can write something on this blog. They have internet cafes in the big cities, but it's said that it's not fast so I will see. I hope you'll enjoy your holidays also! I will be back on the 24th!