Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!!!

It's time for the spookiest day of the year, besides exam days and dentist appointments. Today is the day we are actually allowed to dress up, without getting weird looks, go trick or treating, have a ghostly rave party, or whatever people do on Halloween. As a Dutch person I'm only just getting the hang of Halloween. It's not a very big happening here yet, although it's going to be in the future, mark my words! Just look at the generation of my youngest sister for example, she's 14 now and for years she's been interesting in the concept of Halloween, together with her friends she even introduced trick or treat in our neighbourhood and they also throw this fun Halloween party every year. Besides my sisters interest in Halloween there's also the commercial interest in Halloween, for example by theme parks. Throughout Holland theme parks have special Halloween nights where they have longer opening hours, have spooks roaming their grounds creeping out whomever walks past.  

Last year I got the ultimate Halloween experience, at home I carved some pumpkins, but on the 31st of October, the real Halloween night, I was in Brighton. There Halloween is a much bigger thing than over here so it was an amazing experience, although I was slightly afraid of being outside with all the people with their fake blood and axes. And..... that day I also went to see The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire, also known as TATINOF, in Halloween style. I'll never forget Dan as Shrek and Phil as Thor, it truly was an unique TATINOF experience and I loved every bit about it , oh and I cried. Yes that also happened. 

TATINOF

This year however, there was no Brighton, nor a TATINOF show to attend (besides the one now available for purchase on Youtube) (totally not sponsored by the way, just fangirling). No, this year I had to stick to the pumpkin carving and attending a Halloween night at a local theme park. The pumpkin carving was the fun part, well the theme park was not a complete waist either but it was worse than the dressed up people in Brighton as the spooks in the theme park just loved going after me......

Let me explain this a bit more. My friend and I were already in the theme park in the afternoon to, you know, just enjoy the rides and the peacefulness of wandering around the park without constantly being chased by clowns, Romans or horror brides. But then.... dun dun dun, darkness fell upon the park and suddenly it was swarming with spooks. Now I thought I was being smart and prepared here. My strategy was to look the spooks straight in the eye to show them how confident I was and so they hopefully wouldn't start chasing me. But I was wrong, oh so wrong. It didn't work at all, my strategy just backfired right at me. All the spooks were chasing me, not even one of them wanted to chase my friend. Maybe it's a compliment?! Not too confident about that though. Anyway this resulted in a horror bride screaming in my ear, zombie Romans entering my personal space and pointing their spears at mY FLIPPING FACE, clowns beeping their horns in my face and just the general being chased by men with chainsaws. How lovely. I definitely prefer Rory the Roman, when it comes to the Romans that is. (Doctor who reference intended).

Now I did like that day but man the spooks were against me there and for next year I really have to up my confidence and anti spook strategy. So just so you know making eye-contact does NOT WORK.....

So yeah, basically that was my Halloween experience for this year. Yeah 2016 what a blast. For tonight I'm going to meet up with the friend I went to see TATINOF with last year and we're going to watch TATINOF the movie! A much better way of spending Halloween in my opinion, and yes I'm taking tissues!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!! Just five more hours until Christmas though......

ThatDutchGirl96

With the bae, my only friend that day. 

Seasonal drinks.

Hey people!

(Cheeky picture of my own neighbourhood,
taken with a canon EOS1000)

IT'S AUTUMN AGAIN!!!! Temperatures are dropping, nature is becoming a beautifully warm colour pallet, and sweaters are legal again. Slowly humanity is climbing out of their autumn depression and starts appreciating the seasonal changes. Even though I'm very much a summer child, I absolutely adore autumn. I love the colours, sweaters, long walks through a beautiful forest and of course the hot drinks.

It's been almost 6 months since these drinks left my everyday life. Well beside coffee, coffee is my every-season-hot-drink. It just never leaves my side, and I very much appreciate that. However it is time to break apart with coffee for a bit, not completely, hell no. With morning shifts that start at 7 I wouldn't survive without my trusted friend coffee. No, during the next months I will invite more hot-drink-friends over again. Tea is welcome again, not the iced tea, just the hot tea that caused a 
2nd grade burn on my chin last year, kind of tea. Hot chocolate is making an incredible entrance again, and yes I did purchase some mini marshmallows already. 

Because what better way to keep your body and soul warm when the temperature drops and your fingertips feel like little ice buckets after a bicycle ride, than with a lovely hot beverage. Autumn and winter bring it on! I am ready for you. 

Now I already mentioned how coffee is my hot drink best friend throughout the year.  And with coffee, I don't just mean the black gold that charges my mental energy bar every morning. NO I mean a lot of types of coffee like, (flavoured) latte macchiatos,and  cappuccinos (a new hot drink friend). Then there are all the different kinds of tea. Star-mint, green tea, chamomile, caramelised pear, apple cinnamon, autumn storm, winter glow, earl grey. Let's just say I'm not very picky when it comes to tea flavours, but don't you dare approach me with a fruity flavoured tea. I will destroy those. Worst teas ever! (In my opinion though, I don't want to offend and get chased by all you fruity tea lovers out there!) 

(Source: www.russianfoods.com,
this one looks so good!!!)

Then, last but not least, the hot chocolate. A hot drink my physical state, well more like my diabetes, doesn't really like. You know with the big amount of carbs in there and all. God forbid me putting any mini marshmallows in, thankfully I'm not religious because I love my mini marshmallows. Oh and don't forget the whipped creme. (I'm starting to drool all over my keyboard). Yes hot chocolate, together with just normal, not drinkable chocolate one of my favourite sweet things in the entire universe. Well, earth. But then again, diabetes, and struggles so I have to restrain myself to one cup of hot chocolate per time. I can't go all crazy, drinking 4 hot chocolates in a row, well actually I could but I don't want to spent that much insulin just on hot chocolates. So yeah, diabetes struggles. 

However that does leave me with my teas and coffees, so I'm still a happy person. Autumn bring it on! I am ready! Also I'm kind of convincing my mum to buy me and my sister some nice pumpkins to carve :). Perks of still living at home...... 
Oh almost forgot, I'm also going to the Halloween nights at a local amusement park for which I'm pretty excited! Lot's of amazing days out coming up the next months! Be ready for them!

Lots of love,
ThatDutchGirl96

Donders Open Door Day 2016.

Hey guys!

So a couple of weeks back, I visited the Donders Institute on their open door day. The Donders Institute is an institute that focuses on the cognitive neurosciences and investigates a 
lot around the cognitive neurosciences and new neurological developments. On the open door day they invited Victor Mids a medical specialist and illusionist, which I found a rather peculiar combination, to host the day.There was so much to see and do and we didn't really get to do everything we wanted to due to lack of time and it just was a bit too crowded sometimes. But overall, it was an amazingly interesting day. The science nerd inside of me was very pleased at the end.

Before that day I had never even heard of the Donders Institute. Two friends asked if I wanted to come and as soon as I heard the word neuroscience I was hooked. Just a fun fact about me: my favourite bit of the human body is the brain due to its complexity and the endless amount of options and functions it has. We have so much left to discover about it and we can do so many things with neuro-rehabilitation which we've only just scratched the surface. So yeah, I really like the brain. 

During the open door day there were a lot of demos, but also some live MRI-scan experiments and some really interesting lectures. The demos varied from getting an up-close look of the brain (which was one of my personal favourites), to the connections between food and the brain, to the NOA-robot (a robot that helps kids with autism develop social skills), and just a close-up look at the MRI-scan machine. They even had a special children's corner, and free poffertjes which was a big plus!

The lectures, were in my opinion, the best bits of the day. The first lecture we attended was about reading minds and if it's possible to read minds off an MRI-scan. This experiment failed a bit due to lack of time and the early stages of reading minds via an MRI we are still in. So in this experiment the illusionist, Victor Mids, turned out to be better at reading minds. But in the future, I honestly we believe could read minds via an MRI in the future, just you wait! 

Then there was the lecture on neuro-myths which was very educational and hilarious. This lecture was easier to follow for non-anatomically educated people as it didn't contain too many anatomical terms which were thrown around in the other lectures. 
There was also a lecture on gaming with your brain but we decided not to go there. Last but not least there were the lectures on optical illusions, which showed some really cool virtual and augmented reality 
developments in the treatments of Parkinson's disease, and another MRI experiment to watch the effects of fear on the brain which did work out and was sooooo interesting. 


The demo's were really interesting as well, although it was so busy at certain demo's that we didn't have a chance to ask questions or even enter the room which was a bit of a bummer. Although that didn't keep me from having an amazing day. Like I actually held a brain, nothing can beat that right?! So if you're from Holland or happen to be in or around Nijmegen next year at the next Donders Institute open door day, I truly recommend you go there! It's free and really worth going! I'll leave a link to the website of the Donders Institute here! Oh wait, the Donders Institute also has a blog called Donders Wonders blog, you should check it out! Here's also a link to Victor Mids' TV-show MindF*ck, it's pretty cool! 

Lots of love! (also brain related)
ThatDutchGirl96

Internship #3.

Hey Guys!

For two weeks now I've started my third internship, and it's in the place I've been waiting to have an internship in for two years now! My current internship is, you might have guessed it already, in the HOSPITAL! Yes, I am enthusiastic about hospitals, well at least about having my internship there. Ever since I was a little girl the hospital has been one of the most intriguing and fascinating places I've ever been to. Yes, this does sound a bit weird, I know. Anyway, I won't bore you with the story why I'm so fascinated by the hospital, if you want to know more about that click here for a jump back in time to the blogpost I explain it all.

Let's get this party started. In my opinion internships are a fantastic way to learn more about your profession and learn new skills, especially in a practical profession like nursing. However, there are some cons as well, like not giving yourself any time to get used to your internship, or being tired all the time, and of course the crazy (amount of) assignments school thinks you can manage beside your 32 hour internship. But besides the con I think there are a lot more pros to having an internship so, go internships! 

As I mentioned before my internship is in a hospital, an internship I've been waiting for ever since I started my nursing course. Now I secretly wished for an internship on the child-department, however the lung-department, the department I'm on now, is pretty interesting as well. And who knows, maybe in the future I will end up on the child-department after all. But back to the lung-department. It's a rather interesting department to work on with a dismissal / death rate of about 70 / 30% which I personally think is pretty high.  This also kind of crushes my original idea of the hospital and what I liked about it so much, the idea of people entering being ill and leaving when they're better. The death part, is something I never really gave much thought to, especially as a child. But that so many people would die, I never would have thought. 

Now it's kind of logical once you start looking into it. A lot of people that are in the hospital are very,  very ill and most of them are pretty old as well. On the lung-department, I see a lot of cases of pneumonia, which some call: "the stairway to heaven for old people", and I guess this is kind of true. But on the lung-department I work on we also have our own cancer centre, so a lot of the patients we have on our ward are cancer patients as well. But still, the pretty high death rate hit me pretty hard, and I'm going to work very hard on my skills to deal with deaths as well this internship.

However, we also have a lot of patients that do meet my original hospital standard of coming in ill and leaving when they're better. And this makes me really happy and proud of my job. When people leave and are ready to go back home again, then I know why I wanted to become a nurse in the first place. Healing people, making people better and maybe even leave a lasting impression on the people with your positive spirit and good nursing skills. Yes the profession of a nurse is very diverse but it's, in my opinion, one of the most interesting, honourable and appreciated jobs in the world. From both a nurse and a patients perspective.

So yeah, this internship will give me a lot of opportunities to develop a lot of new skills in different areas of the nursing profession. Tomorrow is another day of my internship and even though I don't really like the waking up early (like 5.45 am) I do really like my internship, the department I'm on and the people I get to work with. The lung-department has a great team and I have a great deal of respect for my fellow nurses. So to every nurse in the world: Keep up the good work, you are doing great!

Lots of love,
ThatDutchGirl96

(source: pinterest)