Dear Vincent,
Last saturday I visited your legacy. A museum, named after and devoted to you, founded by your nephew. It was a four floor building and your work was everywhere. Your work, your life, everything about you hung on those walls, visible for whoever walked past. It was incredible and it only made me love you and that incredibly complex mind of you even more.
I've always admired your work but even more the story of your life. Your life is one of the more inspiring life stories I've heard so far. It holds happines, sadness, madness, magnificent friendships, and more importantly one of the strongest bonds between brothers I know of. Your brother Theo was a magnificent man, just like you were and the bond the two of you shared is one many siblings can look up to. You were, brothers, friends, and business partners, where most siblings have a relationship that goes no further than the brother part. Sad, if I may say so.
Let me compliment your work, Vincent. I've grown up with your work, you are one of Hollands, of the worlds, finest painters. Your artwork changed the future of art but still, you my Vincent, are one of a kind. Ever since I was a little girl I loved your artwork, the circular shapes, the endless little dots, they made your artwork come to live. Your artwork was and still is the most magical artwork I know. To see your work from up close for once, it gave me so much more insight in the way you worked, the colours you used and how you made the artwork come to life. Something that has been a mystery to me for the biggest part of my life. Oh Vincent, I love your work, like so many others in this world. A few of my favourites are Sunflowers and Starry night. Oh how I love those. The contrasts, the use of colour, the different dimensions and emotions you managed to put in the 'simple' 2d canvasses.
Vincent, the day in your museum, it thaught me a lot about you. Not only about your artwork and the way you paint, how you saw the world, and how you used your pain and managed to put it in your artwork. No that day I learned so much more, about you as a person, your relationships with other artists and of course your family and Theo, your brother. It thaught me your life story as I never heard it before. I read letters, saw some photographs of you, found out more about the institute you went to when life got bad. Vincent, you have no idea how much respect I have for you. I wish I had known you in real life, I wish you were still alive. The way you saw the world was a way I wanted to know more about and now I do. Now I know how you saw the world and how it reflects in your paintings. I know about it now and can't wait to start seeing the world the same way. You Vincent, you and your paintings and your intruiging life story, you brought back some of the magic I had lost.
Vincent, if you were still alive, I would probably shake your hand, give you a hug and wish you all the best. But Vincent, you're not alive anymore, all there is left of you is your artwork, the letters you wrote, your drawings and your life story. So now I'm left with thanking you, and being forever grateful for the fact you once were alive and the magic and meaning your life has brought me!
Yours faithfully,
ThatDutchGirl96
Hey there!
The time has come for mental breakdowns, a lot of coffee, and crying, way too much information, and a lack of concentration. Yes ladies and gentleman, it is time for exams.
The months of the year where in a lot of countries, students turn mad, become smarter than they've ever been and take all sorts of exams. Now I know that all throughout the year exams are held but around May the amount of exams being taken in the world reaches a climax. For us Dutchies, May means final exams. Your Dutch high school finals and boy, do they cause a lot of stress.
I've taken my final exams a few years ago, so you might call me 'experienced'. I chose experienced because 'expert' is definitely not what I am when it comes to exams. Up to this day I still choose 'procrastinating and believing in myself' over 'start studying on time and actually remember a lot of information'.
Anyway, lets pretend I'm a good student and amazing at giving study advice. ThatDutchGirl's survival guide: exams, here we go!
- Start studying at least two weeks in advance! This is the advice I give myself and try to stick to with every single exam I take. Sadly I'm not to good with this advice as 90% I ignore it completely and actually wait to the night before or even the morning of the test. Let me tell you something PROCRASTINATING DOESN'T WORK! So if you want to be well prepared and actually know what you need to know for the exam, then start early. Trust me it works!
- Cut all the information into bits! Something I tried and which actually helped was taking everything I need to know and to cut it into small amounts of knowledge. That way you can study one bit today and another bit tomorrow. If you're really feeling adventurous you could start with one bit today and repeat it the other day before adding a new bit of information to your brainbox. This is something that has actually helped me so much over the years. Thanks to this method studying for an exam doesn't become this infinite black hole of doom but the amount of information you have to study becomes reasonable.
- Quiz yourself or let somebody else quiz you! Another brilliant tip that has helped me survive many exams and normal tests. After I studied a certain piece I let somebody else write down some questions or just ask me some questions on what I had just studied. If I answered them correctly I could move on to the next bit, or the next level if you want to sound cool. This way you are encouraged to study and it gives you a lot of confidence every time you pass one of the quizzes.
- Stay grounded! Now this one might sound a bit weird and maybe unbelievable but I'll let you decide for yourself. A couple of years ago I went to see a hypnotherapist, this was a person who put me under hypnosis and via the hypnosis she helped me deal with troubles from my past. As I visited her in the year of my final exams she also gave me some tips and tricks to survive them without stressing out too much. One of the many useful tips she gave me was keeping your feet on the ground. Put your feet steadily on the ground. That way the stress and anxiety can leave your body through the floor, via your feet. Now I know this sounds weird but trust me it works! And hey exams just are very stressful happenings so why not give it a try?
I think that's enough for today. Hopefully I've given some good and useful advice for all the people who have (final) exams soon. If you have any useful tips and / or tricks yourself, don't be afraid to share them with the rest of the world! You can do so by leaving your tips / tricks in the comment section below! Let's beat examseason together!
Good luck, and lots of love!
ThatDutchGirl96
