Suspense

Suspense; a feeling, an emotion or a state of mind which we experience while watching a movie, watching television or reading a book. But what is it exactly?

" The activity of anticipating; it provides the material from which viewers can extrapolate future developments." - H.J. Wulff

" An experience between fear and pleasure." - L. Mikos

" A strategy by which the mirroring identification of the viewer and the textual subject is broken, and the subject's mastery of events seems to be problematic." - G. Leonard

" Viewers participate in films by viewing empathic with positive protagonists." - D. Zilmann

Coffee Shop

"Hey Marloes, let's go to the Coffee Shop!"











" What?"













Sometimes I just forget I'm in America..

Longhorns vs. Queensday

Orange, Orange and Orange.
Was it Queensday in Holland?
No.
It was burnt Orange.
It was American Football: one of the things you have to experience being a foreign student in the United States.

While I was trying to understand the rules of American Football I joined the whole stadium singing, shouting and yelling to encourage the players. With a drink in the one hand and a banner in the other I tried the best I could to look like a real supporter.
By screeming when everybody screemed and by clapping whenever it seemed appropriate I did a pretty good job. At the end of the day I obviously lost my voice, I probably left it somewhere at the stadium. Actually it was kinda like queensday: dress in orange, scream 'till you die, and especially: don't take your voice home.

First Presidential Debate: Political Dichotomy

You are expected to be either left or right, either liberal or conservative, you either agree or disagree; it made me wonder if real democracy is about choosing between opposites.

Château de Versailles part II

Puissance, Plaisir, Lumiere.
Power, Pleasure, Light.

Le Roi Dance is a movie about the life of King Louis XIV. Louis XIV is represented as a young king that wanted to entertain its citizens.
Louis XIV had a lot of influence on the development of ballet. Although ballet emerged during the Renaissence in the 15th century, Louis XIV developed it futher, which is why ballet vocabulary is in French.
He was not only the creater of these - for that time - new kinds of choreographies; he was the main character too. Amaze yourself about the skills of this king by watching a little piece of this movie.

Le Roi Danse: The King that entertains its citizens personally.

Technology trends catched up by different generations

Turning on the computer to check your mail, sending textmessages all day and using skype to call your parents; daily activities for people from my generation.

Around the 1990's modern technology started to expand and all we could do was trying to catch up with it. Adapting to these trends was a piece of cake. I played my first computer game when I was ten, I had my first cellphone when I was twelve and I read my first e-mail when I started to go to secundary school. It was just part of growing up; part of the deal.

But imagine how this rapid growth of required technological knowledge was for older generations. Catching up with these trends was a pretty hard job for people that were around 60 years old.

Today, my grandma is turning 74. I really appreciate the fact that she sends e-mails regularly. She even sends me textmessages with abbreviations and smilies. Above all, she knows how to use internet and how to read my blog. Namely, she understands English too.

On the one hand I am proud of my grandparent's ability to catch up with modern technology trends, on the other, I am even more contented when I receive their old fashioned, wholeheartedly written postcards in my mailbox, written in their 74 years old handwriting.

Chateau de Versailles part I

Le Roi Soleil (The Sun King), King Louis XIV, had a house. A castle. An enormous amount of space. A garden. A place where I , even if I would have lived there, would lose my way easily every day.

The royal family of France lived in the Castle of Versailles from 1682 until the end of the eighteenth century. Until today, the castle as well as the village are famous not only because of the buildings, but also because of the fact that they stand for the absolute monarchy of King Louis XIV.

After having a lot of art history classes in highschool I experienced the stories myself. I saw the hall in which ‘ Le Roi qui Danse’ (Dancing King) Louis XIV put on his red heels to illustrate how the sun comes up every day by dancing his own choreography. I heard the music composed by Lully overwhelming the building.

Visiting Versailles opens a world of imagination and fascination. After 220 years, Chateau de Versailles still illustrates the way in which the royal family of France lived perfectly. Even without entering the building you can get a romanticized and historical view of the lifestyle of the upper part of the French monarchy. The outside of the castle indicates the amount of golden decorations on the inside. The green garden full of statues, flowers and fountains shows the personality of King Louis XIV in every little detail; proud, smart, creative and above all: graceful.

Morning Coffee

Steamy and creamy, brown and white, bitter and sweet, hot and refreshing; a perfect start.

My first cup of coffee in the morning.

Fogo de Chão

Brazilian, Beautiful, Balsamic, Background, Barbecue, Brown, and I kept Begging for more.

Fogo de Chao is a Brazilian restaurant chain with lots of locations in Brazil and the United States. The location in Austin, Tx, is quite new; it opened its doors just a year ago. In case you haven't been there already, I will give just a short preview because it is time to go by 309 3rd street yourself to get a plate full of Brazilian inspiration.

The word unlimited sounds a little ordinary but that is certainly not the case in this restaurant.
The interior looks chic due to the combination of wood and marble. The white clothed tables and the perfectly decorated salad bar make this restaurant look like anything but ordinairy.

The way it works in this restaurant is different from other restaurants. Every guest has a little disk. This disk is green on the one side and red on the other side. Showing the green side means alerting the chefs to bring out their fire-roasted meats. The staff comes to your table with all different kinds of meat roasted in a Brazilian way - varying from sirloin with garlic to chicken breast with bacon - and they offer you a piece of it. They cut the piece with their virulent knives and the red, soft meat finds its way to your plate.
The red side of the disk indicates a stopping point. You can either take a pause or stop eating meat whenever you want by showing the red side of the disk.

Fogo de Chao: unlimited service, unlimited meat, unlimited freedom.

Paradiso Amsterdam: going out in a church

Seeing the building from the outside makes you wonder what the inside looks like. Being inside the building makes you wonder what it looked like a hundred years ago. The answer is simple: it looked exactly the same.

Paradiso, Amsterdam. Going out until five in the morning, lights, music, concerts and: a church.

In 1968 an old church in Amsterdam was transformed into a music venue. Although the outside looks a bit dark and banal, the interior looks exactly like a church. Stained glass windows, balconies and pillars.

Paradiso is located in the middle of the nightlife centre of Amsterdam. Concerts in Paradiso are known for their intimate style and contact with fans. Around 12 a.m. the concert lights go down and the club lights are turned on. People that went to a concert find their way home and the students find their way to ‘the church’.

Paradiso combines modern music with the atmosphere of historical moments and stories. While dancing with your friends, you start to realize how thankful we have to be that we can enjoy this moment together. The question is, of course, if this awareness comes from spirits that still exist in the church or from that last drop of beer in your glass.

Paradiso: going out in a reverent way.

Sarah Palin and dinosaurs: a really bad disney movie

Matt Damon doesn't understand why more people aren't talking about it; The hockey mom becoming president. "This is like a really bad disney movie".

"I think the pig was made for political purposes. But in terms of governance it is a distaster."

"I really need to know if she thinks dinosaurs were here before."

Austin Breakfast City: Hotel San Jose, Jo’s Coffee

Friday morning, 9 A.M. I just finished a Spanish exam.

The only thing I really wanted was to get out of campus for a couple of hours and to have a proper breakfast. After having classes and homework the whole week I just couldn’t stand walking up and down the St. Edward’s hill and walking in and out classrooms anymore.

My weekend began, the sun was shining and people were waking up. Guess what I found: Hotel San Jose, Jo’s Coffee; a little green coffee bar on South Congress. It opens at 7 P.M. which makes it the perfect place to go and have breakfast early in the morning.

I ordered my ice-coffee, grabbed a newspaper and started my relaxed “ I don’t think about anything” Friday morning. Luckily I found a table on the terrace because it seemed like half-Austin was having breakfast at Jo’s Coffee, the coffee bar of Hotel San Jose.

While taking the first sip of my coffee I felt the sun coming up and the moon going down. More and more people ordered their breakfast at this friendly “make my morning” coffee bar. They noticed me, I noticed them, but that was alright. No conversations needed to share this perfect Friday morning.

Entertainment Journalism at St. Edward's University

Entertainment Journalism at St. Edward's University: open minded, critical, analytical, new and three hours on a monday night.
Ever had such an interesting class?

My classmates do, check out their blogs:

Danielle Bauman
Christian Cabazos
Claire Cella
Tommy Collins
Celeste Diaz
Victoria Estrada
Ian Gillespie
Mackenzie Jenkins
Jennifer Obenhaus
Mandy Odgers
Bethbiria Sanchez
Marc Sherman
Caroline Wallace
Geoffry West
Allison Willis

Thuesday morning ballet

No, I don't like tuesdays.

But that is considered as history after beginning my ballet classes on St. Edward’s every tuesday morning.

No, I don’t like waking up early. No, I don’t like taking a shower when I know everybody else is still asleep. No, I don’t like skipping breakfast because I just don’t take the time to eat.

But there is nothing better than stretching every muscle you didn’t even know you had, feeling your blood flowing through every little piece of your body, to sweat, breath and dance; to stay awake for the rest of the day.

Inspiring poem

"I want to travel as far as I can go,

I want to reach the joy that is in my soul,

And change the limitations that I know,

And feel my mind and spirit grow,

I want to live, exist, 'to be',

And hear the truths inside of me."

Doris Warshay

Can't buy me love

Reality programs on television: They pound it into you. Personal lives are dramatized, their characteristics are over-emphasized and habits are exaggerated. A couple of years ago, it was new, refreshing and interesting - a European phenomenon before it arrived in America - but now I can’t handle watching a minute of it anymore.

In the Netherlands, the television channel RTL5 started a new reality show which is called ‘Can’t buy me love’. It is about a bunch of rich guys, living in an enormous apartment with a couple of girls. The girls have to show that money isn’t the most important thing but that, above all, they like the boys because of their characters.

Uh-huh.

The worse part of this story is that a girl from my home-town is part of the show, trying to impersonate a stereotypical girl from the one place on Earth I love the most.

No grandma’s at Hot Yoga

Yoga, that sounds like exercising for grandma’s. No sweating, no running and no sore muscles the next day. I can tell you that the opposite is true. After being convinced that hot yoga isn’t an old lady thing I found my way to the Hot Yoga class, also called Bikram Yoga.

Entering the space, it smelled like entering a sauna; a hot but friendly sauna with mirrors on every wall. After a warming up, which meant standing still in this Yoga sauna, I began to sweat already. Every pore of my body opened to its full extent and I felt every little bit of toxin leaving my body. And that was just the warming up. After learning all kinds of yoga poses I felt really relaxed, sore, sweaty and above all I felt really down to earth; as if I was born five minutes ago.

Different isn't wrong; Dove Pro-Age

Just before I left my home-country lots of people gave me tips for how to survive in another country. One of those tips was: “keep realizing this; different isn’t wrong”. That sentence sticks in my head all the time and so did it last week during my Public Relations classes. We were watching a promotion video for Dove Pro-Age beauty products; old ladies trying to breakthrough the beauty ideal that is indicated by the media. Because of the fact that these ladies were naked, although, naked in a in my opinion responsible way, the American television didn’t want to broadcast the promotion video. On the contrary, this promotion video for Dove was very successful in Europe because it made clear that real beauty is not related to age. My objective: convincing America that different isn’t wrong.

Graceful Gaudi: Parc Guëll

Barcelona; Inspiration and Imagination to their full extend.
Parc Guëll, designed by Antoni Gaudi, is situated on the hill of El Carmel in Barcelona, Spain.Visiting Parc Guëll made me lose my orientation, my awareness of everything around me. This piece of art on the top of the hill is very colorful and overwhelming. Especially when you sit on the mosaic couch, which is enormous, and you get an incredible view of the city. The little pieces of mosaic opposed to the view of the city made me forget the difference between small and big. I knew I was ready to explore every little piece of art Gaudi realized in Barcelona.

Amy's Ice Cream

Probably this is one of your daily activities and one of the most boring and common topics to talk about, at least; for you.
I almost forgot it still exists: being creative in selling food. After living in a country where all icecream bars look exactly the same and sell exactly the same flavours, I was quite surprised by finding Amy's Ice cream in the middle of South Congress. It was not only the appearance of Amy's Ice cream that made me wonder what the ice cream tasted like, the list of flavours made me very curious as well.
Because I wasn't able to taste all their different flavours, toppings and shakes, I will definitely return to this little, shiny, blue box during my stay in Austin. Not only to try their whole assortment but also to create some amazing brainfreezes in all kinds of flavours and colours in order to become just as creative as Amy.

Ready or not, Obama? Take a chance on me, McCain.

Are we really that interested in the music taste of our presidential candidates? According to Blender: yes. Both top ten lists of our candidates appeared in this magazine last month. By taking a closer look at the lists I don’t think these songs are just putted together in a couple of minutes. Probably, both candidates have been thinking, doubting and questioning whether the one song or the other would get more appreciation from their target groups.
After getting so many questions about if he is able to fulfil the role of the president of the United States, Obama made his answer clear by saying ‘Fugees – Ready or not’ is his favourite song, and by saying that ‘William – Yes we can’ is the song that closes his list. This message should be clear to you all. McCain, on the contrary, comes up with a little less meaningful list just by placing ‘ABBA – Take a chance on me’ on a third place.

Weegee: New York in black and white

Arthur Felling (1899-1968), known as Weegee, was a photographer and a photojournalist in New York. Around 1930 he was the only photojournalist with permit to listen to the police shortwave radio, which - together with his creativeness and talent - was the key to his success.

Last summer I accidentally passed by the exhibition called ‘Weegee’ when I was making my way down at ‘Esplanade de Charles de Gaulle’ in Montpellier, France. The AUER Foundation collected a lot of pictures from Weegee which were exhibited in the ‘Pavillon Populaire de la Photographie’. It took me at least half a minute per picture to realize how many elements of a story Weegee was able to capture in pictures from a distance as well as in detailed pictures. Weegee expressed colourful moments in black and white scenery and produced pictures that are telling a half an hour story in one moment. He showed the poverty on the streets as well as the richness in the hearts of the individuals.
Although New York is known as a polychrome and colourful city, Weegee was able to capture the souls of the inhabitants, the souls of the different districts, and the soul of the city in just two colours.

Labor day weekend: Port Aransas

Labor day weekend; finally I found an opportunity to set my mind free on an empty beach. The smell of a salty see, the sound of incredibly high waves, the tickling sand underneath my feet and the feeling of unlimited freedom. After living at the Dutch seaside for 18 years I was craving to find this piece of mind in Texas.

Every time I stand on the edge of sand and sea I start visualizing the world map in my head. Realizing the fact that I stand on the exact boundary of brown coloured ground and blue coloured ocean makes me feel like I am part of the map that is coloured in two colours, part of a structured system, part of society that is coloured in an unlimited amount of colours.