Think About It

Hi, my name is Thinkie, welcome to my blog!
I share my life with husband Maarten and bunny Aafje and I'm a scrapbooker, an art journaler, photocrazy, a museum enthusiast, a Europe-traveller and a student in Cultural Studies. You can read more about me on my homepage.

Hoi, mijn naam is Thinkie, welkom op mijn blog!
Ik deel mijn leven met man Maarten en konijn Aafje en ben een scrapper, een art journaler, fotogek, museumfan, een Europa-reiziger en student Algemene Cultuurwetenschappen. Meer over mij vind je op m'n homepage.

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3-kamerflat te koop in Zoetermeer!

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Thinkie Batenburg-Mets

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I enjoy / Ik vind leuk:

Emily Falconbridge
Ali Edwards
The Green Frog Studio
Michelle LaPoint Rydell
Revlie
Kara Haupt
Marit
Elise Blaha
Elle's Studio
Citrientje
Marloes
Annemarie
Les ateliers de Karine
Amy Tangerine
Corinne Delis
Martijn Coenen
Museum Meermanno

I live, I love, I create, I capture, I learn, I enjoy.

Envelopes 2 / Enveloppen 2

Some more of the envelopes for Petra's advent calendar.

Nog wat van de enveloppen voor Petra's adventskalender.

Geplaatst op 10-05-2012.
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A-Z

I'm joining in the A-Z-fun I've seen popping up here and there...

A. Age: 30
B. Bed size: 1 meter 40 wide. Or rather, narrow... there's no escaping my cold feet for poor Maarten ;-) 2 meters long, I wish 2.10 would be standard so my toes wouldn't dangle over the edge when I lay low on my pillow.
C. Chore that you hate: most housekeeping chores 'cause fibromyalgia and housekeeping don't mix. Taking out the trash is my least favorite one though, even though it doens't hurt that much.
D. Dogs: erhm... It's not that I hAte them. I just don't think inside a house, in a city is the right place to keep a dog. Give me cats. Or bunnies. But not a dog relieving itself while I'm standing just a few feet away holding the leash, and having to clean it up afterwards. That's dogs in Dutch cities for ya. Ieuw!
E. Essential start to your day: Something hearthy for breakfast. If it wasn't for the scale, I would have full English breakfast (minus the beans) every day.
F. Favorite color: it's a tie between purple and (petrol)blue. And lime green is pretty nice too. but I'm really more of a black-white-grey girl.
G. Gold or Silver: Silver. We even have silver weddingrings. But I rarely wear jewellery.
H. Height: 1m73
I. Instruments you play: I do a mean tap on my computer keyboard ;-)
J. Job title: student / personal assistant of a bunny / museum volunteer / editor
K. Kids: nope, it's just Maarten, me and the bunny. I do like kids though, hope I'll get some more nieces and nephews to spoil in the future!
L. Live: Zoetermeer, the Netherlands
M. Mother’s name: Wilma (I might add that my stephfather's name is Fred.)
N. Nicknames: some people tend to call me Kathinka ;-) (yes, as a kid I was called Pebbles for a while)
O. Overnight hospital stays: a couple days after my birth I went to hospital for several days untill they managed to do something about my bright orange colour by giving me a blood transfusion (thank you, blooddonors everywhere!) And when I was seven, during what was probably my first esophageal inflammation (many would follow, I probably spent over a year of my life having them when you add it all up, due to my stomach disorder, but I sat the rest of them out at home).
P. Pet peeves: dishounesty and spelling mistakes (please let me know when I make one!) I'm getting better at letting the latter go, but the first one is a matter of principle to me.
Q. Quote from a movie: 'Ich will nicht, ich will nicht weg!' ('I don't want, I don't want to go!') from Lola Rennt. Be careful with this quote, though, I once said it out loud when I didn't want to leave Bergen (Norway) and then we missed our train and had to stay for another night ;-)
R. Right or left handed: pretty much both, when I didn't have a preference they figured it was most practical to teach me how to write with my right hand (I can write with left but my handwriting with left looks kinda childish sometimes since it didn't get as much practise as my right hand, and I write slower with my left hand.) For some things I prefer my right hand, for some things I prefer my left hand.
S. Siblings: older (steph)brother, younger (half)sister.
T. Times you have moved house: 8 times: at 3, 5, 8, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25 y/o. When I was 17 I moved to The Hague for just over a year, the rest of my life I've lived in Zoetermeer. There are several places in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe where I'd like to live for a while.
U. Underwear: yes :-)
V. Vegetable you hate: my stomach hates beans and peas. I actually miss peasoup and grean beans but they make me sick. I'd rather talk about parsnip, my favorite veggie. And I'm a big fan of onions.
W. What makes you run late: I have a very loving relation with my snoozebutton, I hate to say goodbye to it. Fortunately I only need to get up early about twice a week on average. Not a luxury for an ME-patient who needs 12 hours of sleep each night on average.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: pretty much every part of my body has been exposed to those over the years.
Y. Yummy food that you make: guests are most enthusiastic about my goat cheese, cheddar, hazelnut and pear pizza. I like making my own Indian dishes (curries and such).
Z. Zoo animal: my late grandmother Ine used to tell that when she took me to the zoo when I was little, my favorite thing to do was feed the ducks...

Geplaatst op 09-05-2012.
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On The Street: Stickers

Utrecht

Star troopers guarding the station @ West Hampstead, London.

Rotterdam

The Hague

Eindhoven, always lots of stickers to be found there in public spaces. Even the tourist information has joined in (last photo):

Please note that I'm not the artist here, as usual in my 'on the street' blogseries these are just things Maarten and I have spotted, liked and photographed.

Geplaatst op 08-05-2012.
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Albums Wilma's 50th Birthday / 50e Verjaardag

In 2010, Wilma turned 50. If you were a reader of my blog back then, you might remember the advent calendar consisting out of 50 envelopes filled with flat presents (and an accompanying basket with not-flat presents?) we gave her to count down to her birthday. Lots of photo's were taken of the contents of the envelopes, her birthday and the birthdayparty we trew her afterwards. I had promised her a photo-album and at the end of April I finally finished it, just in time for it so serve as a present for her 52nd birthday. It has only a limited amount of (simple) scrapped pages. Other than that I used photo-album pages with pre-punched holes, baseball card pocket pageprotectors, several other kinds of page protectors, and many of the envelopes from the advent calendar that she had saved that my trusted holepunch turned into pages. I also included all the cards, childrens drawings and such she received, and all the little cards telling her she could grab a present from the basket. Two 4-ring binders serve as albums.

In 2010 werd Wilma 50. Als je toen m'n blog volgde herinner je je misschien de adventskalender bestaande uit 50 enveloppen gevuld met platte cadeautjes (en een bijbehorende mand met niet-platte cadeautjes) die we haar gaven om af te tellen naar haar verjaardag. Er werden veel foto's genomen van de inhoud van de enveloppen, haar verjaardag en het feest dat we daarna voor haar gaven. Ik had haar een foto-album beloofd en eind april kreeg ik het eindelijk af, net op tijd om het als cadeautje voor haar 52e verjaardag te geven. Het bevat maar een klein aantal (simpel) gescrapte pagina's. Verder gebruikte ik foto-albumpagina's (kant&klaar met gaten), doorzichtige mapjes met vakjes voor verzamelkaartjes, verschillende andere soorten doorzichtige mapjes en een flink aantal van de enveloppen van de adventskalender die ze had bewaard en waarvan mijn perforator pagina's maakte. Ik deed er ook alle kaarten en kindertekeningen e.d. in die ze had ontvangen en de grabbelkaartjes (waarop staat dat ze een cadeautje uit de grabbelmand mag pakken). Twee vierringsmappen dienen als ambums.

Geplaatst op 07-05-2012.
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Philosophy

I have been attending lectures on philosophy and reading a bit in my studybook for the introductioncourse to philosophy over the past couple of months, and since early April, pilosophy has been my main studyfocus. Things I'm reading/hearing are starting to make sense to me now that I'm getting a bit familiar with the subject (which was quite new to me) and I'm starting to really enjoy it. So much of what I'm learning about Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotel (we're talking +- 2400 years ago here!) still shows trough in todays society and thinking, has helped shape our history. And where I was expecting to find an interesting theoretical subject, I've found much more than that: I've found relevance. My name Thinkie (derived from my official name Kathinka but I don't really use that any more, even in formal situations I prefer Thinkie) started out as a nickname when I was a tiny Think, before it was really clear how I would be like, but it's very fitting to my personality I think (or I Think ;-) .) I spend a lot of time thinking about all sorts of things, and being chronically ill has given me a lot of time alone in my bed over the years to do just that. I'm thrilled to find out that philosophy deals with a lot of things that are relevant to me, things I have been thinking about or even experiencing. Philosphy is really coming to life for me. It's is part of my studies but doesn't seem as relevant for the direction I'm headed in as other aspects of my studies (cultural history and art history seem more relevant for a museum career, at least in a practical sense), but I'm fully embracing it from a personal point of view.

One of the topics I've been immersing myself in lately has been 'The philosophy of love', thanks to a series of four lectures by and an e-mail exchange and a conversation with professor Ronald de Sousa. He has a controversial view on love and relationships and is of the opinion that the ideology we have on them is based on several false notions and causes harm in the way we act out of that ideology. He pleads for polyamory or at least more tolerance towards people making other choises than monogamy. The lectures he gave at the University of Leiden culminated in that, but he had a lot more to say on the subjects of love and relationships during the lectures.
I took away a lot to think about and have had several interesting conversations with people on topics that Ron spoke about.

I've also been attending lots of lectures on THE SOUL. I don't know about international trends in philosophy, but in The Netherlands, there's a hot debate going on between neuroscientists and philosophers on the existence of it. That, off course, makes the definition of what the soul is (a philosophical problem on it's own) a very current subject. I'll write more about this in a seperate blogpost.

I believe it's always a good thing to look at things from different perspectives. Thinking like that might help you gain new insights, can, wheter the other perspectives agree with you or not, make you look critically at your believes and life and realise why you think or do certain things.
Don't be afraid to take your believes and thoughts (on whatever subject!) out of your head once in a while, look at them from different angles, analyse them, weigh their value from your current point of view, your current state in life. It might mean letting go of some of them, which can take courage, but the ones you still find worthwhile after that proces can be put back where they came from, with added value because you know more about why you hold them or what they do for you. Make consious choises what to think, what to believe, over and over again. You change, circumstances change, sometimes it just doesn't make sense to hold on to ideas that don't work for you anymore, that are no longer relevant. They might feel comfortable because you are used to them, but really sticking with them would just be lazy. And just as well you might find that ideas are still very relevant and useful for you, or might just need a little bit of adjusting. Go out and challenge yourself, your believes, widen your horizon, be open to new ideas and experiences without letting go of your ability to be critical. Allow youself the chance to grow!

Geplaatst op 06-05-2012.
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Photoshoot Maarten - 2

Geplaatst op 05-05-2012.
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Photoshoot Maarten

On February 13 2011 I took Maarten out for a photoshoot. I had a good excuse because I needed to practise photographing people because of my wedding photography-gig at D&P's wedding that May. Fortunately Maarten humoured me, put on the clothes I told him to, and went along with it. I am in love with ~~his new coat~~ him and like that at almost 30, he was trying to learn how to work a skateboard. His glasses make him hard to photograph, I'm sure you can see what I mean in the close-ups.
At the Entre Artistes event in Montpellier in October 2010 I had attended a workshop by the übertalented and very nice Corinne Delis about taking self-portraits and, relevant in this case: photo-editing. This week I finally got around to edit these photo's and playing around a bit in corel paint shop pro X (thank you Ed, my former father-not-quite-in-law with whom I share my love for photography, who gave me the program.) It won't become my hobby but I have to admit that editing them did give my photo's just that little something extra. I'll spread them over two posts (colour and black&white, some of them might pop up in both categories.)

Geplaatst op 04-05-2012.
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In April...

I took the examn for Ancien Régime, which went well (I'm still awaiting my official mark but it seems like I'll be getting a 10 out of 10.) I also dove head first to immerse myself in philosophy for a couple of weeks, trough my books and by attending lectures in Leiden and the 'day of philosophy' in Tilburg.

Deed ik tentamen Ancien Régime, dat ging goed (officiële uitslag nog niet binnen maar het lijkt een 10 te zijn geworden.) Verder stortte ik me een paar weken lang met nog meer overgave op de filosofie, zowel in de vorm van m'n studieboeken als door het bijwonen van lezingen in Leiden en de 'Dag van de Filosofie' in Tilburg.

We attended a Within Temptation concert in the 'The Unforgiving' tour at the Nieuwe Luxortheater in Rotterdam. Cool!

Woonden we een concert bij van Within Temptation, van de 'The Unforgiving' tour, in het Nieuwe Luxortheater in Rotterdam. Gaaf!

We held an easterbrunch, which we enjoyed with Wilma, Francien, T. and R. Cupcake and his friends dressed for the occasion:

Gaven we een paas-brunch, die erg gezellig was met Wilma, Francien, T. en R.. Cupcake en zijn vriendjes kleedden zich in stijl:

I travelled up and down to Leiden by bus quite a lot, as long as my stomach behaves itself it's a nice ride trough the polder.

Maakte ik heel wat ritjes naar Leiden met de bus, zolang m'n maag zich koest houdt een prettige rit door de polder.

I visited the Ridderzaal (knights hall) and the Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives) with K. L. and E.

Bezocht ik de Ridderzaal en Tweede Kamer met K. L. en E.

I kept myself busy at Meermanno's with entering data about bookcovers into the collection database, a secretarial chore, posing as a monk for the newspaper and catering for an opening.

Hield ik me bij Meermanno bezig met het invoeren van gegevens over boekbanden in de collectiedatabase, een secretariëel klusje, poseren als monnik voor in de krant en het helpen verzorgen van een borrel bij een opening.

Us grandkids gave a lunch for our grandparents at our place, we had promised this during the party they gave for their 60th wedding anniversary last year. Better late than never ;-) It was great fun, I hope we'll do this again!

Gaven we met de kleinkinderen een etentje voor opa en oma bij ons thuis, dit hadden we ze beloofd tijdens het feest dat ze gaven toen ze vorig jaar 60 jaar getrouwd waren. Beter laat dan nooit ;-) Het was supergezellig, hopelijk krijgt dit een vervolg!

We had a pizzadate with L., R. and A. in Amersfoort, fun! :-)

Hadden we een pizzadate met L., R. en A. in Amersfoort, leuk! :-)

We visited Francien's new place.

Bezochten we Francien's nieuwe woning.

We attended the Elf Fantasy Fair with Wilma, and saw Danja, R., L. and some relatives of L. there.

Bezochten we de Elf Fantasy Fair met Wilma, waar we ook Danja, R. L. en wat familieleden van die laatste zagen.

We celebrated Wilma's birthday.

Vierden we Wilma's verjaardag.

Marit sent me a present:

Kreeg ik een cadeautje van Marit:

I visited the Calder exhiition The great discovery at the Gemeentemuseum.

Bezocht ik de Calder-tentoonstelling De grote ontdekking' in het Gemeentemuseum.

We had a little post-birthday dinner with granny-in-law.

Hielden we een klein post-verjaardagsetentje met schoonoma.

R. and I attended a short version of Euripides' play Hippolytus at the National Museum of Antiquities, played by the student theatergroup of the University of Leiden. Nice. It was followed by quite an interesting lecture on the choir in Greek Tragedy.

Woonde ik met R. een korte toneelvoorstelling bij in het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden; Euripides' Hippolytus, gespeeld door de toneelgroep van de Universiteit Leiden. Wel aardig. Op 8 en 9 juni in zijn compleetheid te zien in het LAKtheater. Erna volgde een vrij interessante lezing door dr. Hugo Koning over het koor in de Griekse tragedie.

E. and I attended a one day course on how to become a good editor in chief at PGO-support. A fun&interesting day that ended with a cool view from the 17th floor on a rainbow.

Volgde ik met E. een eendaagse cursus 'hoe word ik een goede eindredacteur' bij PGO-support. Een leuke&leerzame dag die eindigde met een gaaf uitzicht vanaf de 17e verdieping op een regenboog.

Michiel and I spent a cosy hour at vegetarian restaurant De Werfkring in Utrecht.

Bracht ik met Michiel een genoeglijk uurtje door in Vegetairsch Restaurant de Werfkring in Utrecht.

Thanks to co-worker R. who had bought a tickey but had changed his plans I got to attend my very first opera at the Dutch Opera in Amsterdam: 'Il Turco in Italia'.

Bezocht ik (dankzij collega R. die een kaartje had maar bij nader inzien toch niet kon) voor het eerst in m'n leven een opera, en wel 'Il Turco in Italia' in de Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam.

Mini-cupcake found a chocolate-raspberriefriend to play with during the break.
Mini-cupcake vond in de pauze een chocolade-frambozenvriendje om mee te spelen.

Poor Maarten had to endure a cliché experience 'being tagged along while your wife shops for clothes' because I had two coupons that almost expired and couldn't be used at the same time, so he had to wait so he could pay for some of it. I didn't buy that dress, by the way: if someone knows a strapless bra-solution for a D-cup I'd be happy to hear about is... And shopping for clothes on a Saturday...oh boy!

Deed ik arme Maarten een cliché 'kledingwinkelen met je vrouw'-ervaring aan omdat ik twee kortingsbonnen van H&M had die bijna verlopen waren en niet tegelijk ingeleverd mochten worden. Hij moest dus wachten zodat hij ook een deel kon afrekenen. Dat jurkje is het niet geworden trouwens; als iemand een strapless bh-oplossing weet die werkt voor een D-cup hoor ik het graag... En kledingwinkelen op een zaterdag... oef!

Geplaatst op 02-05-2012.
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