Notice !

I have already wrote 2500 words over 6 blog subjects. Therefore, I didn't have to write a 7th blog. I skipped a free blog subject.
My blog about the Jean Paul Gaultier exposition in Rotterdam is my 'describe a work of art' subject.
My blog about my future plans is my free blog subject.
The rest is pretty obvious I hope.

Enjoy !

A Cultural Event

Every year, a colorful festival is been hold in India. It is called the Holi Festival (of Colors).
It is an anciend festival, originally namen 'Holika'. Historians say that Holi excisted long before Christ but that the meaning of the festival changed several times over years. They said that earlier Holi was a rite performed by married woman who worshiped the full moon (Raka).
Holi was originally celibrated by all people in the Eastern part of India and all of the Aryans

Nowadays it is hard to predict and calculate a lunar month (amanta and purnimanta).
Every celebrating of the Holi Festival had it's fixed rituals and are followed every year very exactly.

Preparations:
Half a week before the festival, people start gathering wood of the lighting of a big bonfire called 'Holika' at the major road of the city. This bonfire has a holy meaning and is one of the highlights of the Holi Festival.

Holika Dahan Celebrations:
Then on the eve of Holi Festival, Holika Dahan takes place. Effigy of Holika, the devil minded sister of demon King Hiranyakashyap is placed in the wood that formes the bonfire and burnt. For, Holika tried to kill Hiranyakashyap's son Prahlad, an ardent devotee of Lord Naarayana. The ritual symbolises the victory of good over evil and also the triumph of a true worshiper.

Play of Colors:
The next day is the main event of the Holi Festival. It is called the Play of Colors and is famous all over the world. The day is called Dhuleti and it is. There is no tradition of holding puja and is meant for pure enjoyment.
Even tourists form other believes come to India to participate in this event.

I would love to participate in the Holi Event and therefore I really want to visit India during this lovely festival.

My Future Plans

From the moment I was a little girl, I’ve always wanted to become an archaeologist in Egypt. When I got my first history lessons in the 5th grade at primary school, the Egyptian time and culture drew my attention and I immediately loved it. I was sure: I would become an  archaeologist in Egypt to explore the ancient Pharaoh graves and learn more about the culture people lived in.

 

But my dream faded away slowly when a good friend of my father told me I was a natural speaker.
He said that he was convinced that I should get a job as a politician or a lawyer. First, I thought this was not a good option for me because I already had plans with my life and they involved old pyramids, great desserts and golden Pharaoh masks.

But when I started to delve into the job as a lawyer, I quite liked it. That was in my 6th year at primary school. My brother was in the first year of the Johan de Witt gymnasium and I knew I also had to do the highest educational level possible to be able to study laws. I made a promise with myself: I would work as hard as I could to get a good Cito mark so I could go to the Johan de Witt gymnasium.

When I accomplice at this point, my further plans were to do and finish the six-year school without any troubles.

So now I am in the 4th grade and I’m doing fine. I have to work hard to get good marks and can’t afford lazy midday’s. But I am okay with that. I know I have to work hard but I will because my future law study is the only thing I concentrate on.

I would love to go the university in Leiden and I can’t wait for the moment I walk into the Augustijnenkerk to receive my Johan de Witt diploma. My brother passed his exam last year and is now studying biomedical science in Leiden.
  
My love for history hasn’t fade away completely. I am still fascinated by the old Egyptian culture, but not as a future job anymore. I have made my decision; I am going to be a law student and I am willing to work hard for that goal. Even for my Cambridge English blogs !

Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition @ Kunsthal Rotterdam

On the 26th of February, I went with my mother to the Kunsthal in Rotterdam to see the famous Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition called “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk”. I am a huge fan of Jean Paul Gaultier’s work, and my mom decided we should go there and see his work in real life. So on a rainy day in the spring holiday, we did.
The exhibition is a celebrating of Gaultier’s 35th fashion anniversary. Therefore, the biggest international Jean Paul Gaultier fashion exhibition is set up in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam to show people some fashionable highlights from his extraordinary works.                         

The exhibition was divided in six parts, each part representing a different style with its own type of fashion. The parts were called ‘the Odyssey’, ‘The boudoir’, ‘Skin deep’, ‘Punk cancan’, ‘Urban Jungle’ and ‘Metropolis’.

The Odyssey was an introduction to Gaultier’s life and interests as a fashion designer. Here you could see his famous striped sailor shirts. It was beautifully done: All of the mannequins had a projected face on their heads with real facial features. They blinked with their eyes, their lips were moving when they spoke and some of them winked at you in a funny, sexy way. It was so realistic that it was like real humans were showing his striped creations.

The Boudoir was a very special part. In this section you could see some world famous corsets and for example the pointy bra of Madonna.

The boudoir told the story of Gaultier’s fascination for the woman body. He especially highlighted his love for corsets. There were some photo shoot pictures with men and women wearing a corset with pointy breasts. Also his teddy bear Nana was exposed to show his passion to become a fashion designer at young age because he made (when he was a young boy) a pointy bra from paper Mache on the stuffed animal!

Skin Deep was a little dirty in a sexual way. The room was made drank and was lighted with red spotlights. The mannequins were wearing cloths made of black patent leather. In this part of the exhibition, Gaultier wanted to show his ideas to mix the gender of clothing. He was convinced that men wanted chic and handmade fashion as well as women did. There were some fine and detailed man pants and shirts and sexy leathers dresses of women.

The next room was called Punk Cancan. Here, Gaultier exposed some tough and sturdy creations. In the middle of the room, there was a large white catwalk were dressed mannequins automatically moved up and down the runway. The other mannequins all had a black Mohawk. They were wearing army-like robes or denim jumpsuits. Gaultier wanted to show the world that teenage clothing was haute couture as well.

Urban Jungle was one my favourite rooms. All of the creations were inspired by animal skins and nature colours. One mannequin was wearing high fur boots and a dress made of goose feathers. The way Gaultier turned feathers, part of animal skin and brown leather into haute couture was just fantastic!

The last part was Metropolis. In this room you could behold futuristic creations with bright colours. Gaultier used special things in his clothes. One dress was partly made of old film roles for example. Another piece of clothing was inspired by the World Wars and some bullet belts were draped around the mannequin.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibition! It was just so amazing to see that many different styles of fashion only made by one designer. Jean Paul Gaultier is a genius man, and all people who visited the Kunsthal to see his exhibition will truly agree with me.

 

 

Review a performance

My review is about Greg Shapiro’s performance at our school. He was this evening at our school, Johan de Witt-Gymnasium in Dordrecht, for the FCE/CAE Diploma Ceremony.
He is a stand up comedian from America, but he lives in Holland for over a long time now.

In his show, named "How To Be Orange", he compared Dutch habits, names and even the Dutch Anthem! I never thought that there was anything funny about our Anthem, but Shapiro’s show proved the opposite.
It was really comic to hear a foreigner’s opinion about some ordinary Dutch things.

He presented in a easy an comfortable way; no difficult words or expressions and his jokes weren’t rude. He had an infectious way of laughing and in a few moment the audience was wrapped around his finger. Brilliant!

So when his show was over, you noticed that everyone enjoyed his performance.
Me and my friend repeated his jokes over and over again, we couldn’t get enough of it!
It was a great evening, I really enjoyed the performance of Greg Shapiro!

Biography of a Famous Person

‘Norma Jean Mortenson’. You probably don’t know who this is. But if you hear or read the name ‘Marilyn Monroe’, you know exactly who she is. She is one of the most famous women ever and a model for women all over the world.

Marilyn Monroe was born on the first of August in 1926. She hadn’t an easy childhood.
Her mother, Gladys Baker (originally named as Gladys Pearl Monroe), had relationships with several men. She was also a drug addict and left the nurture of her daughter to her friends Ida and Albert Bolender.
When, after a couple of years, Gladys took Marilyn back and settled in a old hovel, she got a mental breakdown. Because of the mental conditions of her drug using mother, Marilyn was placed in the family of Grace McKee.
She would never had a good band with her mother. Later, in an interview, she said: “To me, she was just that red-haired woman.”

But when the McKee family had to move to the West Coast of America, Marilyn had two choices. The first one was to go to an orphanage, the second was to get married.
She choose the second. So when she was sixteen years old, she married in 1942 her neighbour of twenty-one, called James Dougherty. But after complications, they divorced four years later.

Meanwhile, Marilyn Monroe was asked by a photographer to pose for a couple of photo shoots.  She said yes because she was looking for a job in Hollywood.
Under the name ‘Marilyn Monroe’, she got a contract by a movie company but, apart from one small supporting role which didn’t make the movie, she wasn’t succesfull.
The only thing she was allowed to do was to dine with business partners of the film bosses.

At the end the fifties, Marilyn set up her own movie company and moved to New York. She took professional actor and singing lessons. She also dyed her hair blond.
In New York, she and had some big successes.
Her first big role was in the movie “How to Marry a Millionair”. Her biggest successes were “Gentleman Prefer Blondes” with Jane Russell and “The Seven Year Itch”. This is the movie with the famous white, blowing dress.

While she gained more successes, her mental conditions changed. She used a lot medicines and alcohol. During the filming of her last movie, called “Something’s Got to Give”, she was almost never on the set.
Her mental problems, which she presumably inherited from her mother, got worse.

An finally, on the fifth of August in 1962, she was found dead by her housekeeper. She’d taken an overdose and probably committed suicide.
Marilyn Monroe is buried on the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

My Dream Holiday

If I would arrange a holiday, with no conditions and if money wouldn't matter, the trip would go to The United States of America. My dream is to make a road trip across the country.
I've been in the United States before; me and my family visited the State of Florida.
I was eight years old and we had en fantastic summer holiday. We stayed for three weeks in several cities.

We started in Orlando and after eight day's we went on to Miami. After two days in Miami we visited Key Largo for a few days.  
Our trip continued and the next stop was Fort Myers. Unfortunately we had only one day in Fort Myers, because it was a stopover for the long way to Saint Petersburg. We spent the last ten days in St. Pete Beach. At the end of our holiday, we went back to Orlando to catch our flight back to Europe.
 
So I've seen Florida now, but there is still al lot of the United States I would love to see.
I want to make this trip with a group of friend when I’m a young adult, around the age of nineteen. This is when you’ve finished high school and, maybe, you’re going to college.
I think if you want to make a road trip like this, you have to do it then. Because when you’re done with college or your study, you’re quickly going to apply for a job. Then you have no time or you’re too old.

I would first buy a plane ticket of a flight to the JFK Airport at New York City. From there, I rent a car (I would prefer a convertible!) and head west. The main side of this journey is that there are no obligations. If we like a place or city, we stay as long as we want to.

There are a few cities I really like to visit.
For example Chicago in the Lake District, located in the State of Illinois, Phoenix in the State of Arizona, the fabulous Las Vegas in the State Nevada and of course San Francisco and Los Angeles in the State of California.  
All the other destinations won’t be planed, the will decided at the moment we want.

During this trip, I would make an awful lot of pictures!

When we’re back in Holland, I would make a scrapbook for everyone with the amazing moments we had in America , so when we’re  old and grey, we would open this scrapbook once again and think back to the road trip across United States.